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

[Alastor15243]

Radiant Dawn Day 15: Chapter 2-3

So, we get a “last time on” narration, and then... straight to base. Curiously, something I forgot to mention last map: I think that was the only chapter in the franchise where we've gotten the “base”, whatever form that may take, but not the preparation screen.

Actually... do we ever get the preparation screen in Part 2? It just occurred to me I don't vividly remember, and with how weird our deployment options are, the answer might just be “no”.

But we've got three info conversations, all three stars. First one's at Calill's shop.

Aw, and here's Calill and her adorable adopted daughter Amy! I wonder if we'll see Largo.

But anyway, Geoffrey's here to pick up Makalov, the useless drunk idiot.

Aaaaand Makalov is hitting on Geoffrey. Apparently Makalov gets a little gay when he's drunk. Either that or... he was always attracted to men, and just lets it slip more readily when his inhibitions are down?

And here comes Astrid, who in this game has apparently been reduced to fawning over Makalov and making excuses for every last one of his innumerable shortcomings. Yeah, I can totally see why this change pissed people off. Making basically her only chance at characterization in this game boil down to having a delusional crush on one of the most hated playable characters in Fire Emblem history is... yeah.

But turns out yes, we do see Largo! And he's missing an arm and thus can't fight anymore because the devs cut his class out of the game, because that's what fucking happens when you bloat the class list with multiple tiers of promotions for sheer spectacle.

Ugh. It's getting so hard to keep track of what I have and haven't talked about in this marathon, but I'm pretty sure I haven't discussed this in the context of this playthrough, so here goes.

I don't like having more than two tiers of units.

It's a complete waste of resources that serves no purpose but to cripple class variety.

Assume you have one game that has 11 base classes, and you have the budget to make the graphics, animations, et cetera for 33 classes total.

You could either add in 22 promoted classes in a branching promotion system... or you could add in 11 promoted classes and then 11 more double-promoted classes.

One gives you an endgame with 22 different classes available, the other gives you an endgame with 11.

That's literally the entire difference. I loved his as a kid due to the sheer novelty of “going... even further... BEYOND!”, but...

...Think about it: are third tier promotion designs inherently more awesome-looking than the designs of second tier promotions in two-tier promotion games? No, there's nothing stopping devs from making 2^nd tier classes look just as cool. It's not the ultimate tier that's being added here, it's the middle tier.

Give me a branching single-promotion system over a linear double-promotion system any day.

In defense of the idea though, just to play devil's advocate for a second, in two out of the three universes that expand the class tiers beyond two (ignoring trainee units in Sacred Stones), it does contribute something to the story atmosphere. In this game, it lets the Greil Mercenaries and other returning characters keep their existing prestige while still having room to grow, and in Three Houses, it lets your students have a continuous gradual sense of progress through their education.

But gameplaywise, it does nothing but turn the game into something that's worse than what it could have been on that budget.

Anyway, yeah, back to the game.

Anyway, “Danved” shows up, and claims to not be a citizen of Crimea (and therefore he can help the Crimean army without violating Elincia's wishes to not have Crimean civilians fighting against their own countrymen). But thankfully, since Danved is not Devdan, there's still nothing retcon-y about Danved being in Crimea. Which cannot be said for Marcia, Makalov and Astrid. But yeah, I've already said my piece about this. I'm pretty confident this is a retcon due to a scrapped story element.

Anyway, he says the big meme line, the one everyone remembers him for despite him having I think exactly three lines in his whole game (not sentences, but instances of people taking turns talking). He's... funny and all, but... I dunno, turning this guy into a one-scene meme feels... wrong, for reasons I can't quite describe.

And we get two more info conversations where Geoffrey gets his brave lance and Kieran gets a silver axe.

...Man, I wonder what it would've been like for me if I skipped info conversations in this game. I mean, they are technically optional, and I did miss a few of them (including Sothe's one) on my first playthrough of PoR...

Anyway, yeah, as you may have gathered, this is yet another almost complete party swap. The only returning unit is Marcia from 2-P. Everyone else is completely new when it comes to this game. We've got six units, and... wait... what exactly did that conversation net us? Was it just Danved, or was it also...?

...Yep, it was just Danved. I checked the unit list after restarting the chapter, and Makalov and Astrid are with us no matter what. It's weird, because the conversation really wasn't clear on that point, so part of me always assumed all three of them were obtained from that info conversation.

Honestly, the idea of these things being optional but so outrageously mindless to obtain seems... kind of odd to me. It's an interesting change of pace to be sure, but... I'm not sure if I actually like it.

Alright, I'm looking at the bargain section of the... I guess royal armory...? And I have to ask, who the fuck came up with these prices for weapons? A killing edge is 3600, that sounds normal enough, but then the killer lance is 4320, and the killer axe is 2880? Those are so outrageously specific that I have to assume there's some kind of algorithmic rule going on here, but there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it whatsoever. Seriously, one of my fondest wishes is to figure out what the fuck the devs were thinking when they came up with the weapon stats in this and Genealogy, because it seems to operate on some kind of moon logic I would pay very good money to finally have spelled out for me.

Also, I can't help but notice that one is 720 more expensive than the killing edge, and the other is 720 less, which yet again seems incredibly deliberate, but the choices of which is more and less expensive, and why, are still completely beyond my comprehension.

Anyway... after buying some 1-2 range weapons... it's time to head out.

And upon heading out, it's revealed that 2/3 of our forces have been sent to Felirae, and that Ludveck has given the people at Felirae false instructions, because they're simply a diversion to distract the royal army.

...Looks like I was wrong, and yes, there is a preparation menu here. Alright. Let's check out what we're dealing with then.

Yeah, these enemies are way more pathetic than I remember them being, but it makes sense, since they're not supposed to be top soldiers. I remember being way more intimidated by this map when I ironmanned it last time (keep in mind, I had three “lives” for getting game-overs, and I lost two of them to 1-9). But now that it's not an ironman... I'm gonna do something I've never tried before. I'm just gonna rush in with my two really good units, Geoffrey and Kieran, and make straight for the gate. Because very few of these units are remotely going to factor into my endgame party, and you get some pretty nice bonus experience for killing as few of these guys as possible. Honestly though, that's... really easier said than done no matter the case, as I've said repeatedly when it comes to trying to spare violent weaklings. Such is how it goes when you're playing a game with automatic countering.

It's an absolute, ridiculous slaughter. Kieran and Geoffrey just wipe the floor with these idiotic fuckers, barely needing a vulnerary once that first eternity-long player phase ends.

Man, I remember loving Geoffrey so much on my first playthrough. I got him to tier 3 from just this chapter alone, and when he rode in to the rescue in the next map, holy shit was I pumped. I was so upset that I couldn't use him again until endgame, but it was still worth it since he was already tier 3 and easily able to catch up.

...As you can probably imagine, I was playing on easy mode.

Yeah, really, these guys are ridiculous pushovers compared to the enemies I've fought basically since forever. I did, however, cause Kieran to cut his HP a little close, so I had the yellow units stop holding back in the hopes that one of the priests will physic him just in case. Most of the enemies near the yellow units are dead anyway.

...No such luck, the yellow priests aren't in range to heal Kieran, but he should be fine anyway.

I like how ridiculously swift the cavalry attack animations are compared to how they were in the previous game. Especially when doing two attacks in a row like doubling on counterattack. Yeah, cavalry in general look a lot cooler in this game compared to the last, which is a shame because cavalry are significantly weaker in this one.

Man, I really appreciate the fact that you can issue orders to yellow units even after your leader has moved in this game.

Anyway, so, something to think about: the narration said that 4,000 soldiers were sent to invade Felirae. Given that I clearly don't have 4,000 soldiers under my control, and given that there's clearly no more pressing job the other 3,980-odd soldiers could be doing offscreen, I have to assume that this battle is being drastically scaled down for gameplay purposes. Which is... kind of annoying. I can't really put my finger on why, but I prefer it when what I'm looking at is as close to what's actually going on as possible, when it comes to the scale of the conflict in terms of unit number and map size. That also might be my desire to see some smaller-scale conflicts in future games, maybe some more personal stories like Lyn Mode.

Oh yeah, I think I forgot to talk about the other four units in my group. Devdan is okay, and Marcia's handy to have on maps that need flight I guess, but Makalov and Astrid... hoo boy. Makalov is self-explanatory. Even getting access to 1-2 range isn't helping much given how outclassed he is. But then we have Astrid. Astrid is nothing compared to what she once was. She was great in the last game because of her ability to catch up, use axes, and get ridiculous speed using the knight ward. She can do none of these things in this game due to her poor availability, the new cavalry class system, and the knight ward's nonexistence respectively. Not only that, but her stats are terrible. Makalov vastly outstrips her in most stats, and he's only five levels above her. And all of my Dawn Brigade units had better stats than hers by the time they promoted too.

...Oh shit. I may have fucked up. I didn't realize the boss moves off of the “seize” tile, because bosses almost never do. Yet again I am suffering the consequences of the fact that the game constantly expects you to trust it despite it constantly betraying that trust. At least I didn't waste a shitton of time getting here carefully due to this being an ironman, I guess. I've mostly just been rushing forward and relying on Geoffrey and Kieran's superior stats to keep them alive without looking at what enemies are around them. And it's kind of hilarious how well that's worked out for this map due to how terrible the units are.

...Thankfully, Geoffrey dodges and then one-rounds with the brave lance before the boss has another shot at a crit with that wo dao, so... no harm done...? As long as no other ranged attacker can hit Geoffrey after the boss moves...?

...Yep, we're done here.

Anyway, they figure out it's a trap, but Geoffrey keeps them from panicking (as that could possibly be another trap waiting for them). No, they light the signal flares to warn the capital.

And I have to wonder if those flares are magical, or if there actually were “flares” that could signal people from a distance in medieval times. It doesn't sound like they're talking about a smoke signal, but an actual flare, as in a bright light being shot into the sky.

Yeah, I like Geoffrey's dialogue here. He's clearly being responsible and giving out relevant and realistic orders, which the writers can get away with without wasting the viewer's time because that makes him cool, for being intelligent and prepared in a tense situation. I love it.

Curious. So, Haar talks about the flare he just saw “from Felirae”, which makes me wonder how they made sure that Felirae couldn't have just sent a false signal. I guess they wouldn't know what the signals meant, but that would've been a cool trick to pull if they had spy intelligence.

Anyway, apparently Elincia isn't at the capital, but at Fort Alpea. Does that mean that the capital is insufficiently guarded, and Ludveck could have taken over Melior at any time?

...Anyway, Lucia goes to meet one of her informants after being sure to tell Haar to warn Elincia if she doesn't return... but Ludveck pulled a Jaffar on her, propping up her informant's corpse to make her think he's alive and freak her out.

I like how Ludveck guesses at Alpea but Lucia shows absolutely no signs of giving anything away, so she doesn't fall for the “how did you know” “because you just told me” routine. But he's still confident Elincia's there anyway because of his own intel.

What I wonder is if Ludveck was there alone, or if there were multiple unseen guards there, explaining her easy capture. If they were alone, I wonder how their stats compare to each other and how a fight between them would go.

Also, apparently I got just under half of the bonus experience I could have gotten from saving more red units, but I got all of the turn bonus, and got a whopping 9170 bonus experience total from this map. Yeah, that's gonna come in real handy somewhere down the line.

Anyway, I'm done here.

Tomorrow, we face the finale of Part 2.

Stay safe, everyone!

Edited August 13, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

22 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

HOLY SHIT, TWO ENEMIES WERE HIDING IN THE DARK RIGHT ABOVE ME, AND LEANNE GOT SLAUGHTERED ON ENEMY PHASE TURN ONE.

AND THAT WAS A FAILURE CONDITION.

THE IRONMAN RUN IS OVER ALREADY.

HOLY SHIT.

I DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE ENEMIES WERE THERE BECAUSE OF THE “TOTAL BLACKOUT” FOG OF WAR STYLE COMBINED WITH NON-SPRITE GRAPHICS!

I. Fucking. Hate. Ironmanning. Fog of war.

Well, ironman's over. Time to join the ranks of the restarting peasants I guess. In fairness I was expecting it to happen on the last fog of war map where I had to defend a fragile heron girl. But at least Micaiah was fast enough to not be doubled.

Welp. I knew this was doomed to phail. Though it at least lasted longer than I expected.

[Icelerate]

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well I take it from this that the only reason a pair of commoners like Brom and Nephenee managed to get an audience with the queen wasn't because they had valuable intel, but because they were already friends with the Queen. Heather isn't and for all they know could be an assassin.

She's also a thief which makes her very suspicious, don't you think? 

[Shadow Mir]

8 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

And here comes Astrid, who in this game has apparently been reduced to fawning over Makalov and making excuses for every last one of his innumerable shortcomings. Yeah, I can totally see why this change pissed people off. Making basically her only chance at characterization in this game boil down to having a delusional crush on one of the most hated playable characters in Fire Emblem history is... yeah.

If you can believe it, the person she was arranged to be married to is even worse.

[lenticular]

55 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't like having more than two tiers of units.

It's a complete waste of resources that serves no purpose but to cripple class variety.

Assume you have one game that has 11 base classes, and you have the budget to make the graphics, animations, et cetera for 33 classes total.

You could either add in 22 promoted classes in a branching promotion system... or you could add in 11 promoted classes and then 11 more double-promoted classes.

One gives you an endgame with 22 different classes available, the other gives you an endgame with 11.

On the one hand: Having more endgame classes doesn't just need graphics, animations and the like; it also needs more ideas for distinct classes, more ideas for different mastery skills, more balance work to make sure that no single class is too strong or too weak, etc. If the different classes aren't distinc in gameplay as well as appearance, then they don't really ahve much benefit over the three-tier system.

On the other hand: This could also have been a cool way to make the Dawn Brigade more interesting. If most/all of the returning characters from PoR were pre-promotes, but the characters originating in RD weren't, then the extra flexibility could have been a really strong incentive to stick with more of the Dawn Brigade for the long term. Doubly so if there were some classes that they could reach that none of your returning units could.

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

In defense of the idea though, just to play devil's advocate for a second, in two out of the three universes that expand the class tiers beyond two (ignoring trainee units in Sacred Stones), it does contribute something to the story atmosphere. In this game, it lets the Greil Mercenaries and other returning characters keep their existing prestige while still having room to grow, and in Three Houses, it lets your students have a continuous gradual sense of progress through their education.

 

 

Of course this also means the game assumes Jill is the single character that never fought any battles in Path of Radiance as she's, I believe, the only recurring character that starts at tier 1.

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

 

Anyway, “Danved” shows up, and claims to not be a citizen of Crimea (and therefore he can help the Crimean army without violating Elincia's wishes to not have Crimean civilians fighting against their own countrymen). But thankfully, since Danved is not Devdan, there's still nothing retcon-y about Danved being in Crimea. Which cannot be said for Marcia, Makalov and Astrid. But yeah, I've already said my piece about this. I'm pretty confident this is a retcon due to a scrapped story element.

 

That whole "Don't want Crimeians fighting thing" as silly as it might sound could have been a good was of manipulating the plot to get the Begnion character in here. Though I don't think it would be a good look for her to use a foreign milita to subdue her uprising. Still, a little less than zero thought could be put into it then what we got.

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

What I wonder is if Ludveck was there alone, or if there were multiple unseen guards there, explaining her easy capture. If they were alone, I wonder how their stats compare to each other and how a fight between them would go.

 

I think we can assume there's backup, but let's puzzle it out.

We'll give Lucia the Wind Edge so she can counter Ludceck's Tomahawk. Her attack against him would be 28, plus 1 for WTA. Ludveck's defense is 26. She she's going to deal 3 damage per attack, obviously double for a total of 12 per round (silver sword gives her 2 more might but with no counter attack would leave her dealing 10 damage per round).

Ludveck is rocking 40 attack against her, -1 for WTD. Lucia's defense is 14 so he's dealing a tidy 27 points of damage against her per attack. More than enough to kill her in one round. The only problem is his accuracy as the Tomahawk is damn inaccurate at 65 hit and he's further nerfed by 10 accuracy for WTD. Still Lucia has to successfully hit him every time for four rounds of combat before he can hit her twice (and the Wind Sword isn't the most accurate weapon either). I'm not going to look into what their actual hit rates are as that would involve finding the hit and avoid formulas and adding skill and luck and stuff, but I think it's safe to say the battle would be very RNG dependent and could go either way.

Edited August 13, 2020 by Jotari

[Icelerate]

27 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Of course this also means the game assumes Jill is the single character that never fought any battles in Path of Radiance as she's, I believe, the only recurring character that starts at tier 1.

 

Ilyana also starts at tier 1 despite being a veteran. 

 

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Icelerate said:

Ilyana also starts at tier 1 despite being a veteran. 

 

Ah. You are correct. Another weird case there is that Mist is a prepromote in this game with her promoted class being...cleric. The same as her tier 1 class in Path of Radiance. With Valkyrie now being tier 3.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Ah. You are correct. Another weird case there is that Mist is a prepromote in this game with her promoted class being...cleric. The same as her tier 1 class in Path of Radiance. With Valkyrie now being tier 3.

RD Cleric is between PoR Cleric and PoR Valkyrie. She now gets 7 move, and can wield Swords. Closer to Princess from Genealogy than anything else.

10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But turns out yes, we do see Largo! And he's missing an arm and thus can't fight anymore because the devs cut his class out of the game, because that's what fucking happens when you bloat the class list with multiple tiers of promotions for sheer spectacle.

They could have just made him a Warrior, it's close enough to the Berserker class. Especially in RD, where they can't wield traditional bows. Still, I kind of like Largo losing his arm, from a world-building perspective. Accidents and crises happen, so it makes sense that someone playable in the last game wouldn't be able to fight anymore.

Agreed on the class system, though. I love branching promotions, and RD's linear system means one less aspect of player choice. Still love this game, though.

10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway, apparently Elincia isn't at the capital, but at Fort Alpea. Does that mean that the capital is insufficiently guarded, and Ludveck could have taken over Melior at any time?

Presumably, Elincia wants Ludveck to think she's in Melior, so she's probably keeping a sizable number of troops there. But not all of them - of course, there's Geoffrey's company, and those following her to Alpea. Ludveck probably could have siezed the capital  but his prime target, for the time being, is the queen.

[Eltosian Kadath]

Was going to get this out earlier, but my internet seems to have melted into molasses in the middle of the week, and I tired of fighting with it.

 

On 8/11/2020 at 8:08 AM, Alastor15243 said:

 

2: “We do not rule Crimea”. What the fuck does he mean by that? I can read that so many different ways, and none of them are fully satisfying.

Does he mean “Our country is still in ruins to the point that we can barely be considered to have a country to be ruled”? If so, why does he say “we”? Would “We rule Crimea” be a statement that could be said to be true in that context even if the country weren't in tatters?

Does he mean “Begnion is asserting its authority here and treating us like children in our own country”? Is that what the Begnion border guard “trespassing” was supposed to demonstrate last chapter? Was it supposed to hint at a much wider problem that was affecting even the civilians? If so, that probably would have warranted a second sentence.

Or did they literally mean “We do not rule Crimea”? As in “The people whose hard work won the war are not the people shaping its destiny”? Is this meant to be some kind of anti-monarchy uprising? Highly doubtful, since they're fighting to appoint a new king.

My best guess is its referencing Begnion's Suzerainty over Crimea, which becomes relevant in part 3, if I remember correctly. I guess its relevant here in that the Crimean would need to go through Begnion to officially intervene in the Daein affair.

 

On 8/11/2020 at 9:17 AM, lenticular said:

I remember liking Heather a whole lot when I played Radiant Dawn originally. I strongly suspect that was entirely because of how terrible lesbian representation in video games was at the time, rather than anything to do with good writing or characterisation. It may have been the bare minimum of representation and inclusivity, but that was still a step above other games, and I latched onto it.

I know what you mean. Heather being a Lesbian was not something you saw in mainstream videogames at the time, which was such a novelty. Looking at it now, its obvious to see that its really shallow representation, but for the time seeing any representation made her interesting, despite how little development they she gets. Side note I remember always shipping her with Nephenee, and I always have to remind myself that she isn't also canonically Lesbian.

 

On 8/12/2020 at 10:16 AM, Alastor15243 said:

 

Well, ironman's over. Time to join the ranks of the restarting peasants I guess. In fairness I was expecting it to happen on the last fog of war map where I had to defend a fragile heron girl. But at least Micaiah was fast enough to not be doubled.

That sucks. I thought you would be able to pull it off after getting past the part 1 bottleneck with its any death game over conditions, the frailty of Miciaah, and the frustration of the Micaiah and Black Night chapter.

 

On 8/12/2020 at 10:16 AM, Alastor15243 said:

I. Fucking. Hate. Ironmanning. Fog of war.

I feel like the fix for Fog of War is obvious, give the enemy the same vision restraints as us, and seeing as that is how Fog of War works in IS's other big strategy games, the Advanced Wars series, they should have known how to implement that AI behavior, but they never did.

 

On 8/13/2020 at 8:42 AM, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Man, I wonder what it would've been like for me if I skipped info conversations in this game. I mean, they are technically optional, and I did miss a few of them (including Sothe's one) on my first playthrough of PoR...

[...]

Honestly, the idea of these things being optional but so outrageously mindless to obtain seems... kind of odd to me. It's an interesting change of pace to be sure, but... I'm not sure if I actually like it.

I never really thought about it before, but it is really odd that these are optional. You have me kinda curious now, I wonder how different these games would feel if you skip all the info conversations...

 

[Alastor15243]

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

My best guess is its referencing Begnion's Suzerainty over Crimea, which becomes relevant in part 3, if I remember correctly. I guess its relevant here in that the Crimean would need to go through Begnion to officially intervene in the Daein affair.

Yeah, makes sense, I just wish the impact it had on the people had been better established by the time that line was said.

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

That sucks. I thought you would be able to pull it off after getting past the part 1 bottleneck with its any death game over conditions, the frailty of Miciaah, and the frustration of the Micaiah and Black Night chapter.

I was hopeful, but alas, there are far more traps than just those.

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I feel like the fix for Fog of War is obvious, give the enemy the same vision restraints as us, and seeing as that is how Fog of War works in IS's other big strategy games, the Advanced Wars series, they should have known how to implement that AI behavior, but they never did.

Actually, funny enough, Advance Wars had the exact same problem until after Radiant Dawn, when Days of Ruin came out. Of course, then the series got rid of Fog of War for just about a decade, and then when it was brought back, the people tasked with bringing it back were... Koei Tecmo.

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I never really thought about it before, but it is really odd that these are optional. You have me kinda curious now, I wonder how different these games would feel if you skip all the info conversations...

It honestly almost feels like a challenge run, given all the free shit you get from it. Imagine doing 1-5 without Volug.

Anyway... looks like SF won't let me edit this if I post the part with it, so...

Edited August 14, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Alastor15243]

Radiant Dawn Day 16: Chapter 2-E

Christ, I hate it when the day counter is thrown off by weekend updates. It's so much easier when the day number is some multiple of five plus the weekday number.

But that's a petty complaint. Let's get moving.

So, Haar's story involvement is making me think that his recruitment probably isn't optional, and that even if you didn't get him in 2-P, he still shows up here.

Anyway, Ludveck chose to do the classic trope of sending one of his hostage's body parts to make an impression. Fortunately for everyone involved, he chose her hair. Yep, this actually results in her rocking a shorter, messy haircut for the rest of the game, and as cool as it is that they actually made an entirely separate portrait for her just to do this one thing, I can't help but shudder at the thought:

...Does Ludveck have a thing for short-haired girls? Did he get off on doing this to her?

I wonder where Heroes got the idea of Leanne calling Elincia “Elincia Queen” instead of “Queen Elincia”. She seems to be doing the latter here.

Anyway, we get an info conversation with Calill where she offers to help, and then rather amusingly offers to hold the post-victory celebration at her place, despite Elincia's “place” obviously being way nicer.

Also, Haar has a nice talk about what leadership means and how Elincia should take pride in the fact that her royal knights are loyal to her, because it obviously means she's doing something right. And then we get a physic staff. Score!

Anyway, something I forgot to mention: Daniel is apparently the only forger on the planet, as the goddamned Crimean royal armory can't supply you with fancy custom weapons like he can. Frankly I think that's pretty stupid. It feels like someone trying to be “realistic” without having much perspective on what “realism” even is. “Well obviously these armies can't forge weapons. How much sense would it make for the player to be able to forge when their forger isn't in the army?”

Like, I just don't fucking get the thought process here.

Anyway, Elincia has Amiti now, bringing her attack power up to an impressive 34 with brave effect. Niiiice.

Also, one thing I noticed about the healing item prices: they become better bargains at the higher qualities, not worse. It's 100 HP for 600, 160 HP for 800, or 240 HP for 1200. That's 6 gold per hit point, then 5 gold per hit point for the upper two. You aren't paying a premium for getting your HP faster, making vulneraries and concoctions the objectively superior deals. Contrast that to Fates, where your choices are 30 HP for 300 (10 gold per hit point), 40 HP for 600 (15 gold per hit point), or 40 HP for 900 (22.5 gold per hit point). The more the item lets you heal at once, the more you have to pay a premium. But no, in Radiant Dawn, the slowest one is also the most expensive.

However, at least with elixirs the game goes back to them being more expensive in exchange, if the bargain prices aren't simply jacked up from what they'd cost if they were available in the armory (which doesn't appear to be the case). Speaking of which, this is absolutely adorable: they're selling a slim sword in the bargain section. Like anyone would ever buy that! There aren't even any sword users in my current army except the one who has a personal, infinite use, fifteen might brave sword with plus three to defense and resistance.

Alright, let's get moving.

Ah yes, and unfortunately there's a traitor among Elincia's guard who opens up the rear gate. Really? Just one guy? Surely such a huge gate that can withstand enemy attack would have taken more than one guy to open, and surely there would have been people who would have been able to notice and stop him in time. Was the rear really completely unguarded, so much that not even a soldier, but a servant could open the rear gates with no issue?

But yeah, apparently the traitor was a servant whose entire family was murdered by Daein soldiers, thus he's furious that Elincia is making peace with them. Interesting motivation, almost makes me wish the guy had more screen time to flesh him out.

Ooh, looks like Heather did get a chance to meet the queen! ...And she doesn't seem to be making a huge deal out of it. At all. Come on, lady, that's one of your three character traits!

Right, I went back to base real quick to shop for some extra supplies I just realized I should buy. Honestly, I think I've changed my mind about the shopping system. I'm finding I preferred the PoR version where inventory and the shop were one menu, meaning you got to look at what everyone's inventory was immediately before shopping for them, so you know what they actually need.

Anyway, this is probably one of my favorite defense chapters, which are in turn one of my favorite objectives. Though Conquest Chapter 10 is the best, of course. In fact, if I were to rewrite Fates, one of the first things I'd do would be to turn Hoshido into the (sympathetic) aggressors. Why? Because we only got one defense chapter in Conquest, and that clearly had to be shoehorned in storywise. If Hoshido were the aggressors in the conflict instead of Nohr, they would be the invading force, and there would be so many more opportunities for defense chapters. Why would they make the country that's the invading force be the only one allowed to have any objectives other than route or kill boss!? The idea I had was that instead of invading other countries, Nohr combatted its famine by essentially going the Doom route of opening a portal to a hellscape of an alternate dimension and colonizing it for resources, but should anything go horribly wrong and the inhabitants of the plane make it back through the portal, it could cause the apocalypse. Hence Hoshido invades to shut down their operations, and Nohr fights back because without the portals they will literally starve, and Hoshido has no truly viable solution for them.

Anyway, we have to either defend for fifteen turns, or kill the boss. Thankfully, killing the boss is pretty dang realistic due to Elincia nearly being able to one-round the bastard, especially if she procs stun. But before we do that, we definitely want to have Haar kill the enemy general who has the nullify scroll on him. That skill lets you make someone immune to all effective weapons, and since effective weapons are a bastard in this game... you want that scroll.

Kind of interesting to realize that the “rear” gate seems to kind of loop around the castle or something. I mean, Geoffrey's forces are going to come in through the same way Ludveck's forces entered, right? But that gate is to the north of the map. And then behind that gate it seems to turn west and go... somewhere...

...And wait, literally all of Ludveck's men are already inside? Because all of Ludveck's reinforcements certainly aren't coming in through that northern gate. They come from the south. So... that means...?

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

Anyway, Marcia shows up at the start of turn one to tell us that Geoffrey's forces are on their way. But due to her abysmal speed for an allegedly fast class, she can't do much at all.

...Honestly, all of these enemies are pretty fast. Anyone with 20 speed can barely double the generals, who only have two less speed than the halberdiers! I mean, that does make speed more important, but in a situation like this, where most of my army is fixed and fairly slow... it does kind of make “Balanced” units almost entirely worthless compared to bulky units or really fast ones.

Calill has meteor on her, and that's gonna be insanely useful to help take out the nullify general, Ludveck, or both.

Yep, one shot turn one, two shots turn two with the help of Leanne, and the nullify scroll is mine.

...Okay, so, being able to give the guards instructions is nice in theory, but as far as I can tell, only one of these options actually involves them doing jack shit. And since there's apparently no bonus exp reward for keeping them alive, I'm basically forced to make most of my yellow units rush off to their deaths in order to get any use out of any of them.

Before I forget, I have Calill pass the nullify scroll to Marcia, who gives it to Haar, who already moved so he couldn't grab it himself. There, now he'll have it with him to bring to Ike's army and probably use on himself.

Anyway, I like just how ridiculous the number of reinforcements can get. Right now they're definitely sending in more than I can kill every turn, which definitely adds to the atmosphere.

...That said, given how long enemy phases are, and hell, how long player phases are... I'm really, really terrified of losing here.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Alastor15243]

Chapter 2-E Continued

 Elincia is getting a surprising amount of exp from staff utility. Seems like while it scales poorly for underleveled characters, it's a really good way to level up overleveled characters.

The physic bishop unfortunately decided he had to go into enemy range in order to heal one of our generals, so he's probably going to die this turn. I'm probably going to order a temporary retreat just get these guys to move the fuck back if they survive.

...He survived, thankfully, and I had him take a healthy step back with some rescue shenanigans.

Also, I notice that my allied units and the enemy units are wearing what looks like identical armor. Nice for the themes of “civil war” and all, but how are they telling each other apart?

I didn't notice a hammer-wielding enemy until it was too late, but thankfully Brom survived due to some lucky dodging. Now to kill that hammer fucker before he can obliterate Brom and ruin my defensive strategy. I don't have anyone else on this side of the map who can reliably take damage except the unstable Mordecai.

These small crit rates due to the crit bonuses given to so many classes are... extremely worrying, especially in a game with no way to buff your crit resistance except fortune and luck. ...I think I'm starting to realize why fortune was considered so valuable. Honestly though, I prefer it when games give you more methods to deal with crit rates.

But anyway, the Crimean Royal Knights have arrived... all seven of them. And really, it's their position that's more valuable than anything. They're in a perfect position to charge Ludveck.

…Apparently physic staves can't reach down to the ground level where the Crimean Royal Knights are. For some reason.

Of course she can just fly down, which I planned on having her do anyway so she can help with Ludveck, but still...

Astrid died. Not restarting for her. I know she has another info conversation with Marcia and Makalov later, but, like... no. I'm not restarting this chapter now, I've been playing it for hours and it's only 2/3 done. And she's a terrible unit. But yes, her death was my fault. I foolishly forgot the turn order and relied on the position of a yellow unit to protect her and Elincia, and the enemies went for her when the yellow cav inevitably moved way to suicide on the enemy. Honestly, no big loss, Astrid could contribute almost literally nothing. Honestly, characters like her make me think that the game was balanced on easy mode and then the higher difficulties were never even looked at. Which would be crazy, but... I just can't imagine how anyone could play normal or hard mode, look at Astrid, and not conclude that she needed a serious buff.

Oh shit, forgot to mention: this game also lets you give yellow-unit-esque orders to every unit left unmoved when you manually end the turn, which I suppose you could call a precursor to autobattle, a “Feature” that I cannot even imagine finding useful. I can't even comment on this shit, because I've never used it before, and I sure as hell am not gonna start now.

Anyway, I decided to wait until 15 turns passed rather than trying to assassinate Ludveck. I lost my opening around the time Astrid died for unrelated reasons, and the reward's nothing but a tomahawk anyway. I already got the real reward for this map on turn 2.

Incidentally, I'm really glad this map got remade for Fates DLC. Now that I'm reminded of how little customization there was for your party in the original game due to how tiny Part 2 is, I'm really grateful for the opportunity I got to try this out with a fully fleshed-out team in Fates.

Yep, we're done here.

...Ugh, and apparently Ludveck just gets captured offscreen even if you didn't defeat him. That's 0 for 2 in terms of explaining how the fuck you win defense maps in this game.

Anyway, moving on...

Yeah, this is the moment where Lucia is held captive by the rebels and they basically say “Release Ludveck and hand the kingdom to him, or Lucia dies”. Lucia tells Elincia not to listen to them, though obviously it isn't that easy for Elincia.

Anyway, Ludveck suddenly starts claiming that this was all a test to see if Elincia had what it took to make the cold and hard decisions necessary of a ruler (such as, say, stopping a civil war), a test that Elincia failed. He tries to appeal to her love of her country to get her to simply “give up the position that she's unworthy of”, when...

Elincia: ...Lord Ludveck, all your dissatisfaction and misgivings about me are well founded. However, do you realize how many lives you've simply thrown away!? Strength without compassion does not a ruler make. You care nothing for the people, sir. You cloak your desire to rule with pretty speeches, but it is petty avarice nonetheless!

Ludveck: ...So this is how it shall be? Very well... But Lady Lucia cannot be spared without my order.

Elincia: Allowing you to plant the seeds of rebellion and play havoc with the lives of my people is a failure for which I must answer. But I will see Crimea through this trial. I will give my people the future they deserve, no matter the cost.

(Leaves)

Ludveck: ...Ha... Ha ha ha ha! Well played, Your Majesty! Indeed, I have failed. Yet I wonder... are you capable of watching Lucia die? Or will you crawl back to me, your face awash with tears, begging for mercy? How I pray to see that face, Your Majesty!

Honestly, this is probably my favorite Elincia moment in the entire Duology. It's just so amazing. And Lucia actually bursts out laughing at the rebel army's shock when Elincia says he refuses to release Ludveck even to save Lucia's life. She's so fucking proud of her best friend, it's almost adorable despite how morbid it is.

Crimea Rebel: Tch... Kick, scream, beg... Give us a show, wench! Your Highness! Your trusted friend will now die. Let this burn forever in your memory!

Lucia: People of Crimea... Behold a true queen! YOUR queen! Long live Queen Elincia!

Man, this entire scene is just... amazing. Easily the best story moment of the game so far. Which makes this the all-around best chapter of the game so far. And it's topped off...

...by the cutscene everyone knows.

 

Yep.

The Greil Mercenaries' grand return to the story.

Honestly, the memetically corny voice acting can barely dent the awesomeness of this scene. This is probably my favorite cutscene in Fire Emblem history, unless I'm missing a really huge exception.

The gang's all here! All of the OG Greil Mercenaries, everyone Greil personally recruited, returns to the series to kick some serious ass and save Lucia's life.

Though I question why she needed healing that badly when she was standing and talking just fine before. Did she hit her head when she fell from the gallows? I mean, it's not like that's even remotely a stretch, it's just kind of funny that she's being healed from injuries we never get to see her incur.

...No, wait, the fuck am I on? Ike caught her! She shouldn't be any worse for wear than she was when she was standing upright, eyes open, on the gallows!

...Right, moving on...

...Yep. Here he is. We get a talk between Elincia and Ike, and... honestly, I am not a fan of his new design. It's never quite as bad as I remember it being, though. Whenever it's been a while since I last played, I always remember it looking worse, with shorter hair and more ridiculous muscles. But I still vastly prefer his younger design. That said, I do like the clear design cues being taken from Greil in this new design, specifically with his outfit.

Anyway...

Yeah, they came to the rescue because they were hired by Bastian to jump in if things ever went horribly, horribly wrong, because Bastian knew that Ludveck wasn't going to try and take over the country until Bastian got out of the way.

...And now I just realized we're not going to ever learn what actually happened with Bastian's diplomatic visit to Daein, because he's not going to be a character at all until Part 4.

But yeah, anyway...

“The rebel army will be eradicated. We cannot allow them to sow the seeds of discontent among the people of Crimea.”

Ah yes, because, after all, “Rebellions are like seeds. One must salt the earth before they sprout.”

Honestly, I'm hoping “eradicated” still allows the possibility of imprisonment, because that's... risking being pretty bad optics, if the fact that I just quoted fucking Garon wasn't enough of an indication.

But she insists on having the royal army do it, and won't let the Greil Mercenaries help, because it's her responsibility to do the job, even with the bad PR that results.

Anyway...

Ooh... this is pretty cool. Elincia says that before he left, Bastian told her about all of the thematic parallels between the stories of Crimea's liberation and Daein's, and at first I was rolling my eyes... but then she drops this line: “It's almost unnatural. He suspected that someone might be scheming, trying to manipulate Daein. Bastian seemed quite suspicious of it all.”

Wooooow. That's... okay, that's actually kind of interesting, the implication that the parallels were intentional in-universe due to Sephiran's machinations. Though I wish they did more with this, because Micaiah was barely manipulated, and hardly seemed like she was initially part of the plan. Depends on who that voice in the desert was, I guess. If there were clues that even Micaiah's role in the tale was orchestrated by Sephiran somehow, that would be super interesting.

Also, she drops the bombshell on Ike that the Black Knight is still alive.

“The one warrior who the late King Ashnard trusted.”

I... I don't get the sense of that, Elincia. He seemed very suspicious of almost everything about the enigmatic knight, he just didn't care because of how useful he was.

Ooh, nice, the game uses the old CG of Nados Castle crashing down!

...And apparently Bastian searched the rubble almost immediately after that, and found no trace of BK's remains.

And never told Ike.

Right.

...But apparently all of this is to indicate that, even if for the wrong reasons, the rebels were actually correct that Elincia should have been suspicious of Daein and should have been hesitant to make peace with them.

Right, now for the “next time on” segment.

...Honestly, these narrated cutscenes kinda feel like trailers or commercials.

Almost makes me imagine the game being remade as multiple installments of episodic DLC, with these “next time on” segments intact to advertise them.

I mean... as long as the content I get is worth the money I paid for it, I generally don't have many complaints as to how many pieces something gets released in. Hell, I'm still an ardent defender of Fates' business model, if that's any indication of where I stand. So who knows? Maybe that could be fun, if, as I'm pretty sure was mentioned previously, it meant the game got expanded to have more maps and better pacing.

Only time will tell though. And nobody knows how much time, either. Everyone acts like the next remake is right around the corner, but like... not counting FE3, we've had three remakes so far, separated by nine years. We really don't have any kind of a sample size to work out a pattern yet.

But with that... we're done!

Which means next time...

It's Ike time, baby.

Stay safe, everyone!

...Stay safer than Astrid.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

18 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Astrid died. Not restarting for her. I know she has another info conversation with Marcia and Makalov later, but, like... no. I'm not restarting this chapter now, I've been playing it for hours and it's only 2/3 done. And she's a terrible unit. But yes, her death was my fault. I foolishly forgot the turn order and relied on the position of a yellow unit to protect her and Elincia, and the enemies went for her when the yellow cav inevitably moved way to suicide on the enemy. Honestly, no big loss, Astrid could contribute almost literally nothing. Honestly, characters like her make me think that the game was balanced on easy mode and then the higher difficulties were never even looked at. Which would be crazy, but... I just can't imagine how anyone could play normal or hard mode, look at Astrid, and not conclude that she needed a serious buff.

Not even for the Paragon she had on her?

Incidentally, I tend to leave the Crimean knights to fight as little as possible on this map, because they don't have leadership while the enemies do.

18 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also, I notice that my allied units and the enemy units are wearing what looks like identical armor. Nice for the themes of “civil war” and all, but how are they telling each other apart?

That's a good question. I'd hate to end up doing what Peppy does in one level in Star Fox 64 - inadvertently taking out someone who's on my side because I can't tell who ISN'T.

[Icelerate]

23 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

“The one warrior who the late King Ashnard trusted.”

I... I don't get the sense of that, Elincia. He seemed very suspicious of almost everything about the enigmatic knight, he just didn't care because of how useful he was.

 

Elincia is not privy to the scenes you witnessed in PoR between Ashnard and Black Knight. 

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Not even for the Paragon she had on her?

A tragic loss to be sure, but if I restarted, who knows when I'd have gotten this posted?

  

3 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Incidentally, I tend to leave the Crimean knights to fight as little as possible on this map, because they don't have leadership while the enemies do.

Ouch. That explains Kieran's hilariously garbage hit rates I suppose.

  

2 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Elincia is not privy to the scenes you witnessed in PoR between Ashnard and Black Knight. 

True, but that also makes it even more odd that she'd even claim something like that in the first place.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Icelerate]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

A tragic loss to be sure, but if I restarted, who knows when I'd have gotten this posted?

  

True, but that also makes it even more odd that she'd even claim something like that in the first place.

Considering how active BK was in support of Ashnard, her saying that makes sense as she's judging from what is apparent. 

[Shadow Mir]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

A tragic loss to be sure, but if I restarted, who knows when I'd have gotten this posted?

How about just redoing it over the weekend? Because I'd consider that a huge loss.

Incidentally, I see you didn't ask about who Astrid's arranged marriage was to.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway, Marcia shows up at the start of turn one to tell us that Geoffrey's forces are on their way. But due to her abysmal speed for an allegedly fast class, she can't do much at all.

...Honestly, all of these enemies are pretty fast. Anyone with 20 speed can barely double the generals, who only have two less speed than the halberdiers! I mean, that does make speed more important, but in a situation like this, where most of my army is fixed and fairly slow... it does kind of make “Balanced” units almost entirely worthless compared to bulky units or really fast ones.

The other two are worse off, especially Tanith.

35 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Before I forget, I have Calill pass the nullify scroll to Marcia, who gives it to Haar, who already moved so he couldn't grab it himself. There, now he'll have it with him to bring to Ike's army and probably use on himself.

Personally, I don't think Nullify helps Haar that much. Sure, it gets rid of his thunder weakness, but it does jack to change the fact he's screwed if they crit him.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

How about just redoing it over the weekend? Because I'd consider that a huge loss.

Unfortunately, I already saved.

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Incidentally, I see you didn't ask about who Astrid's arranged marriage was to.

Why, is it someone I'd know from the story?

[Icelerate]

8 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Why, is it someone I'd know from the story?

Yes.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Icelerate said:

Yes.

...Oh shit, I think I remember this. It's Lekain, isn't it?

[Shadow Mir]

9 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Unfortunately, I already saved.

Why, is it someone I'd know from the story?

Welp, that sucks. This is also why I tend to use multiple files.

Yes. Let's just say even compared to Makalov, he's a nasty piece of work.

EDIT: Bingo. It's Lekain.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Icelerate]

53 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Man, this entire scene is just... amazing. Easily the best story moment of the game so far. Which makes this the all-around best chapter of the game so far. And it's topped off...

...by the cutscene everyone knows.

Too bad knowledge about best story moments is impossible to ascertain. 

What do you think of the argument against the cut scene where people say it is just Greil Mercenaries fan service and that Lucia not dying defeats the purpose of the scene? I don't agree with these arguments but I'm bringing them here to see your opinion. 

Edited August 14, 2020 by Icelerate

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Icelerate said:

What do you think of the argument against the cut scene where people say it is just Greil Mercenaries fan service and that Lucia not dying defeats the purpose of the scene? I don't agree with these arguments but I'm bringing them here to see your opinion. 

I don't think there's really anything wrong with it being "Greil Mercenaries fanservice", given that they were a huge part of the last game and also, y'know, they're the stars of the story starting next chapter. And I wouldn't say it defeats the purpose of the scene. She already demonstrated enough strength of character in even making the choice in the first place, and the explanation for how they could save the day made perfect sense. Honestly, I think having Lucia die would make the story worse, not better, assuming that this was still the end of Elincia's tale. If Lucia died, there would need to be more to the story to show the aftermath. You couldn't just cut away from her and have her be a minor part after making that much of an earth-shattering alteration to her world.

[Fabulously Olivier]

I actually wasn't expecting such a high rating for PoR given Alastor's preferences. But he does seem to acknowledge quality when he sees it. Bravo.