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

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

50 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

What the hell, dude. These don't even compare. Caeda outranges archers, while Gareth can't hope to escape from spirits and their 20 move, and has to deal with long-range magic that can easily single him out on top of that. And this isn't even getting into the part where Caeda pretty much trivializes the game, whereas Gareth's niche is one that Ena can fulfill without the hoops needed to ensure he doesn't die like an armor would in a room of mages.

That's why I said the final map, where there are far fewer spirits. I'm not advocating fielding Gareth on the Sephiran map. And you can field both Gareth and Ena. That just means more spaces for Blood Tide to activate.

For the record, I don't think Gareth is anything above a one-star unit - but that's due to his availability. He offers you a strong benefit on the final map - probably more than, say, Sothe is giving you at that point.

56 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

At the same time, I think a good leader shouldn't go Leeroy Jenkins the moment enemies show up.

Well, that's what makes him a leader - he takes the lead, and his troops follow. A shame he never got the memo that it was a "kill boss" map.

[Alastor15243]

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

That's why I said the final map, where there are far fewer spirits. I'm not advocating fielding Gareth on the Sephiran map. And you can field both Gareth and Ena. That just means more spaces for Blood Tide to activate.

For the record, I don't think Gareth is anything above a one-star unit - but that's due to his availability. He offers you a strong benefit on the final map - probably more than, say, Sothe is giving you at that point.

Yeah, that's the weird thing about Gareth. He's only got one map where he's useful, and he's not at the level of the usual end-of-game final map units, but at the same time, due to how the tower deployment works, it's almost impossible to justify not using him for your final battle team.

[Eltosian Kadath]

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Honestly, I think I've come to a conclusion that... I don't like marathoning the Tellius games. Not that I don't like the games, more that... the dialogue-heavy nature of them, while perfectly acceptable when I'm just playing them, makes them more exhausting to do playlogs for. I feel like I don't actually spend that much time actually playing these games, and I find myself commenting much less on the gameplay than I normally would because I just know I'm already going to have pages of shit to proofread from the story alone and I want to make the gameplay commentary more concise than it should be, and that... worries me.

You did skip over the gameplay fairly heavily in this entry, but then again this isn't a very interesting map.

 

As for this Brave Sword vs Alondite debate, I will posit the best answer is actually Wyrm Slayer, as Dheginsea himself is more difficult to deal with than anything that comes after him.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

As for this Brave Sword vs Alondite debate, I will posit the best answer is actually Wyrm Slayer, as Dheginsea himself is more difficult to deal with than anything that comes after him.

I am outrageously embarrassed to admit that the idea of using a wyrmslayer on him never even occurred to me.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

33 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

You did skip over the gameplay fairly heavily in this entry, but then again this isn't a very interesting map.

 

As for this Brave Sword vs Alondite debate, I will posit the best answer is actually Wyrm Slayer, as Dheginsea himself is more difficult to deal with than anything that comes after him.

Not just Dheginsea - a large chunk of the enemies you're fighting after the Blessing are dragon laguz. A Wyrmslayer is a good tool for your sword-user of choice to go around and clean house.

Similarly, it's hard to beat a Blessed Bolting on Sanaki. I can't just attack indefinitely from 10 spaces away? Haha dragons go bzzzt.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Shanty Pete's 1st Mate
Typo.

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Which is kinda reflected in gameplay; he moves before anyone else on the enemy side. His dialogue even implies he's a glory hog.

Also of note, this chapter is one of three opportunities to steal a Bolting. Of course, odds are Heather is too weak to steal it at this point. . .

 

What are the other two points? This is the main opportunity I can think of and even here it's really difficult. I'm sure there are other boltings in the game but for some reason this has always been in my mind as the singular opportunity.

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

 

Unfortunately, braves aren't that good for blessing compared to a lot of the other weapons at that point.

On this subject the Fire Emblem Wikia says Mist starts with C swords. So either that's mistaken, or maybe Alastor has her at B because of transfer bonuses.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

On this subject the Fire Emblem Wikia says Mist starts with C swords. So either that's mistaken, or maybe Alastor has her at B because of transfer bonuses.

Weird, I know I didn't cap swords for her. I gave her some arms scrolls, but only enough for the sonic sword.

[Jotari]

4 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Weird, I know I didn't cap swords for her. I gave her some arms scrolls, but only enough for the sonic sword.

You don't have to cap weapon rank. Bonuses start applying from C rank.

https://serenesforest.net/radiant-dawn/miscellaneous/data-transfer/

If you got her from D to B in Path of Radiance then she's getting 80 extra wexp in Radiant Dawn which should be enough to bump her from her C rank to her B rank.

49 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

You did skip over the gameplay fairly heavily in this entry, but then again this isn't a very interesting map.

 

As for this Brave Sword vs Alondite debate, I will posit the best answer is actually Wyrm Slayer, as Dheginsea himself is more difficult to deal with than anything that comes after him.

I second this.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Jotari

[Shadow Mir]

40 minutes ago, Jotari said:

What are the other two points? This is the main opportunity I can think of and even here it's really difficult. I'm sure there are other boltings in the game but for some reason this has always been in my mind as the singular opportunity.

3-Endgame, and 4-E-1. However, the latter has the Bolting sage with nothing else.

[Jotari]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

3-Endgame, and 4-E-1. However, the latter has the Bolting sage with nothing else.

You mean the Bolting Sage doesn't have any other weapon? Because it's not an opportunity to steal then. And 3-Endgame, I can't recall where the bolting sage is but I can imagine they're very hard to reach in time. That's a pretty big map with a timer.

[Shadow Mir]

4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

You mean the Bolting Sage doesn't have any other weapon? Because it's not an opportunity to steal then. And 3-Endgame, I can't recall where the bolting sage is but I can imagine they're very hard to reach in time. That's a pretty big map with a timer.

Yes, which means you would have to disarm him without killing him.

[Jotari]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

Yes, which means you would have to disarm him without killing him.

Ah yes, disarm is a thing. So possible, just quite difficult. This really is the best opportunity for a bolting provided you can bexp spam Heather's strength high enough.

[Alastor15243]

Radiant Dawn Day 21: Chapter 3-3

So I tried out the Sacred Stones self-randomizer last night, and it was pretty fun. My only two complaints are that they added in this class skill system but didn't give any class skills to the monster classes your units can easily be randomized to be, and that they don't do that thing where the names of the stats are colored to give you an impression of how good the growth rate is. When there's no official guide, not having in-game growth rate indicators is just so much more painful.

Anyway though, let's get started.

So, hearing the description of the conflict between Sanaki and the senate makes me feel that the laguz honestly... made a mistake in how they started this war. They should have tried to get into contact with the apostle directly before waging war, and upon that plan's failure, should have framed this as not just a war against the senate, but a war to rescue the apostle and put her back in power. That would have dealt a major blow to the Begnion army's morale and given them at least some support among the Begnion people.

Okay, I know I've complained about this before, not sure when, I think it was either in this game or Sacred Stones, but the narrator outright lies in his summary of the last chapter's events, apparently because the truth would take too long to explain. Which annoys the shit out of me because it seems like such a lazy solution. Basically, the Narrator completely omits the conflict between Skrimir and Ranulf and acts like the laguz army turned to Ranulf for guidance instead of Skrimir and then obeyed Ranulf's orders to retreat. If the details are too complicated to explain, then be even more general! Just say “the laguz army retreats”! Don't lie to me through your teeth when I just experienced the truth at the end of last chapter! It's just so dumb.

And now Ranulf's saying that the merged Northern and Central Armies are too powerful for them, and I'm like... are the laguz kings actually out of their minds? The entire Gallian army is with us, and it's apparently not enough to defeat this army, in blindingly obvious fashion. If Gallia, the largest nation, knew that it was this outclassed by Begnion's total army, that implies that the laguz kings had to have known that this war was doomed to failure without military tactics superior to those of the people who do not culturally hold strategy in contempt. What would they have done if the Greil Mercenaries hadn't said yes to helping them? They declared war before acquiring the resources they needed to stand a chance of winning it.

Anyway, the bird tribe shows up, along with Reyson, and Tibarn's wings are covered in blood. Not his own though.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

OH MY GOD!

I FORGOT ABOUT THIS LINE AND WASN'T PREPARED FOR IT!

Ranulf: Naesala and the ravens of Kilvas betrayed us? Again?

I love that line so much. It's at this border where you can't tell whether it's supposed to be intentionally comical or not, and that gives it this “so bad it's good” quality without actually necessarily being bad.

So...

Apparently Naesala ratted them out (because he was forced to by the blood pact), and then while Zelgius distracted Tibarn's army... the ravens carried out a genocide of the entire adult male population of Phoenicis. They don't phrase it like that, of course. They just say he spared “the elderly, women, and children”.

Yeah, suddenly it doesn't sound so noble when you change “we don't hurt women and children” to “we only hurt men”.

But anyway, I have to assume this is the adult male population that wasn't in the military, and I'm wondering how big a percentage that is, given that they're going to war. Oh, and also, speaking of armies being mostly men...

...I wish they did, like, a lick of research about animal sexual dimorphism and changed the cultures of these tribes accordingly. To a tee, all of the laguz armies conform to the standard fantasy convention of “overwhelmingly male-dominated but women are still allowed to enlist as long as it isn't among the disposable cannon fodder grunts” that the human societies of this world have (save for female-only classes), and it just occurred to me that unless they're leaning really hard into the “women are the limiting factor on reproduction” thing and not the “women are weaker than men” thing, that just flat-out doesn't make sense. The animal kingdom is large and vast, and its gender differences manifold. Not every animal species has stronger males than females, and even when it does, those differences aren't always big enough that only the men would be considered viable soldiers.

Yes, male lions are bigger and stronger than the female ones, but not male hawks. Near as I can tell, if they were going by real life, Tibarn would be a woman, because female hawks are significantly larger than the male ones. This doesn't strictly mean that Phoenicis should have a majority-female army, since the female hawks usually use this superior strength to guard the nest and the male hawks still hunt (maybe the women are treated as an elite royal guard kept at home to repel invaders while the men do all of the venturing out or something?). But the ruler of the hawk tribe? The mightiest hawk in all the land? Totally should have been a woman.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/4/4b/Tibarn.png/revision/latest?cb=20090811032739

And having put that thought in my own head... I dunno... something about this outfit... makes me wonder why there isn't even a bit of Rule 63 Tibarn fanart...

Also, Tibarn looks so awkward walking around on foot in this map cutscene.

At any rate, Ranulf says the hawk tribe's army is enough to make a difference and give them a fighting chance. Which I have to assume is due to their unique abilities and not due to their numbers, because Phoenicis is tiny compared to Gallia, so unless I'm missing something here, Gallia should have a much larger army, especially with Kilvas not helping.

Hold on... where is the army of Kilvas? I don't recall them ever fighting on Begnion's side later in this game. Are they just back at home in Kilvas, and is Tibarn just assuming that they won't come back to rob Phoenicis blind while it's weak and defenseless with its full army away? It seems inconceivable that Tibarn would put anything past Naesala right now. But hey, maybe I'm mis-remembering, and maybe we do fight ravens later.

Anyway, Soren comes up with a really cool plan to hawk-paradrop the Greil Mercenaries behind enemy lines to directly threaten the senators, so that they'll selfishly force Zelgius to come back to defend them and leave the main army in tatters.

Skrimir is starting to at least see the need for tactics, if not the value of it. I'm thinking maybe getting attacked by Ranulf and getting injured might have been a slight wake-up call. While I still feel it was comically irresponsible to put Skrimir in charge of something this important when there would have been safer ways to teach this guy some humility that wouldn't endanger other people's lives, his character development is... interesting so far.

Ah yes, and so begins the awkward, one-sided friendship between Skrimir and Soren. I'm reading the base conversation where everyone's talking about Soren, and yeah, Skrimir's actually starting to develop some kind of affection for Soren. And I know they show this later, but I wish they showed it a bit more during that actual strategy briefing we just saw, because in that scene they both seemed kind of snappy at each other, not just Soren at Skrimir. But yeah, there's an upcoming scene with these two that I find amusing and am looking forward to talking about.

Anyway, we've not got a bunch of units who are ripe for bonus experience. Ike, Oscar, Soren and Haar. Soren actually has four stats capped, and he's only level 9. Meaning that his defense, HP and luck are going to get ridiculously high if I'm good about using bonus exp on him. Pity that he's already capped speed at 23 though. But magic chip damage is still useful, and there are plenty of other soldiers in my army who can help set him up for a kill, given what good company he's in with his meh speed. Anyway, I top off all four of them to give them those juicy bonus experience levels, and then move on.

I'm at the bargain shop, and... fuck, they have a dracoshield. Damn it. Well, stat boosters are always a pain to buy without a silver card anyway, so I guess it was hopeless.

I do wish they weren't so outrageously lazy about skill scroll descriptions though. The flourish scroll “allows you to acquire the skill 'flourish' at base”. Yeah. Okay. Is flourish a skill I want? What does it do!?

Apparently it lets you attack at half strength to weaken enemies for others to kill, and... yeah, I have way too many units capable of doing basically that already. No need.

Something just occurred to me about the forging menu. It asks if you “want to craft a special weapon” at the start, and... fucking why? You've already clicked on forge on the menu, so why does it ask a second time if you want to do it? Does Muston ask if I want to buy weapons? Does Aimee ask if I want to buy items? Does Jorge ask if I want to sell him shit? No, they just get straight to business, and if I made a mistake, I just back out. Why is Daniel different?

Anyway, nothing really to buy after that shopping spree last chapter, so I'm gonna just head out.

Yeah, we get the big cutscene with all of the infamous voice lines, but visually it's pretty damned cool. Though I wish the music were more memorable.

Now we cut to the senator's camp, and meet Veyona the dark mage. And someone pointed out something on TV Tropes that I never noticed: Veyona is the only one-shot Begnion boss in this game who does not call laguz sub-humans. And he seems to have nothing but contempt for the senators, working to protect them only out of loyalty to Zelgius. I'm gonna be interested to see his boss quotes.

Aaaanyway, we've got some objectives: Burn the supplies, optionally set the horses loose, and ideally don't kill the senators themselves, for political reasons. Something tells me the laguz aren't going to be happy if the senators wind up surviving this war though. From what we've been told and what I remember about laguz attitudes on war... yeah. They want senator blood.

But back to the actual map, this is an interesting one. We have to get to a bunch of supply crate tiles and then set them on fire with a command, which means that Haar obviously can pretty easily cheese this map. Also, the senators have cool shit on them, so we'll want to move quickly and secure areas so Heather can steal from them.

This doesn't look very hard though. Oscar, Ike and Haar can handle just about anything. The only real concern is making them waste levels that could have been BEXP levels.

Ah yes, and yet again a once-normal phrase has been forever meme-tainted, as Veyona orders the soldiers to “kill every last one of them”.

Ambush spawns show up immediately on the first enemy phase, but it's thankfully out of range of where I think it's even physically possible for our units to be. It was probably for cinematic reasons of the previous enemy setup being what they had before their troops were mobilized. They wanted guys to show up the second Veyona spotted them and ordered the attack. Still against it on principle though.

I wish they had the horses hold still until they were set free, since they're kind of just wasting time randomly wandering around their stables during their turns.

Anyway, I cornered the first senator in time, and I'll be stealing his Ashera Icon shortly.

Oh by the way, Ike's speed cap as a hero is 30, so he's even faster than he was last game. At least with bonus experience abuse.

Anyway, I've managed to nab both an Ashera Icon and a white gem with Heather. Kind of a pain that there's only the one thief, but...

...Apparently you don't get any extra bonus experience from sparing more than two senators.

...Which means I can just kill any remaining senators I see with absolutely no consequences whatsoever.

Score!

Right, so, I baited the boss over to the edge of the fence so somebody other than my main guys can get the boss exp. And yes, Veyona does in fact say “laguz”, not “sub-human”, when referring to the army. Though he does assume this strategy couldn't have been planned by a laguz (when guessing that this was planned by beorc), which... while not baseless, is at least a bit presumptuous.

Unfortunately, Oscar and Soren had to level up in order to get to the last supplies. Miraculously, Soren still managed to get 3 stats up, HP, strength and defense, so no harm done there at least. Oscar got lucksauce though.

Also it would appear that there are only two senators here. I had kind of assumed there was one in every tent, but yeah, I guess these are literal senators, so... yeah, I remember people talking about the two unnamed senators from this map when we were talking about the two senators mentioned in PoR but never named by the end of the duology.

...Anyway, I managed to burn the last two supplies right on turn 10, causing us to cut right to a fight scene with Ranulf and Zelgius... in which Zelgius uses the same attack animations as the Black Knight.

I can't believe I didn't notice that as a kid until it was pointed out to me online.

Anyway, Tibarn shows up for an incredibly brief CGI scene of Tibarn rushing in and getting his talon attack blocked by Zelgius's sword, and then Tibarn lets Zelgius go to defend the senators' camp, saying he's returning the favor for when Zelgius did the same thing for him. Honestly, I wish they had this moment happen a little after Zelgius's similar moment was told to us. It seems a bit cheap to have payoff for this in the exact same chapter.

Anyway, then Ranulf collapses due to his injuries and Tibarn says “Fine, I'll carry you. You better hang on tight!”, and like... he's injured. He just went head to head with one of the mightiest warriors on the continent! Why are you making him hang on!?

I don't get why the game says I got bonus exp for the horses “surviving”. The enemies don't fight the horses, and since they're green, I can't either even if I wanted to get them out of the way. I thought I got a reward for letting them out of their pens, but this implies them merely not dying was all that was necessary, meaning it was basically just free BEXP. Is that a mistranslation?

...But yeah, that's it for today. The story's starting to get interesting again now that the war is heating up, and... it doesn't feel quite as rushed as part 1 did, at least for now.

And I liked this map! I'd probably have more fun with it if it weren't for my hang-ups with bonus experience leveling, but whatever. I'll have some of these guys capped soon.

Stay safe, everyone!

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I do wish they weren't so outrageously lazy about skill scroll descriptions though. The flourish scroll “allows you to acquire the skill 'flourish' at base”. Yeah. Okay. Is flourish a skill I want? What does it do!?

Apparently it lets you attack at half strength to weaken enemies for others to kill, and... yeah, I have way too many units capable of doing basically that already. No need.

Let's just say it sucks - there's a difference between actually weakening enemies and doing piddle damage. Even using a bronze weapon would be more effective in terms of weakening enemies.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

Ranulf told you Zelgius and the Black Knight fight the same online?

[Alastor15243]

On 8/21/2020 at 9:11 PM, Jotari said:

Ranulf told you Zelgius and the Black Knight fight the same online?

Haha.

Radiant Dawn Day 22: Chapter 3-4

Quick note before we begin: Turns out the Sacred Stones self-randomizer I mentioned does not deprive monsters of class skills. The levels for getting them are just different or something, they've been getting skills as they level. Figured I had a duty to correct that misinformation since I mentioned it here.

Alright, let's get going.

Yep, I think I remember what this chapter is. Let's see if I'm right.

So apparently Castle Gaddos is where the Central Army is currently taking refuge. As in, Lekain's castle.

It's kind of frustrating that they don't even name these senators. It's two characters! You bothered to give the other ones names, why not these last two?

Anyway, Zelgius is being chewed out for retreating, because the senators want this to be a genocide where the laguz are entirely wiped out, so he forbids Zelgius from retreating anymore. Zelgius complies because he's a soldier, and Levail expresses disappointment that Zelgius wasn't the one who would “steer the military in the right direction”, and then...

...Ah, yes. As I thought. This is the scene where Skrimir invites Soren to sit next to him, and Soren's all “not if you begged me”. I'm kind of, ironically, reminded of someone trying to get the attention and affection of an antisocial cat, going “Heere, kitty kitty! Come here! Come sit over here with me!”

But basically, Soren says that they need to make a peace treaty now, while they still have an advantage, because they're not going to keep it for long. They've made a fool of the central army, but they haven't harmed it. They haven't even slightly dented it.

But then not just Skrimir, but also Ranulf and Tibarn, all reject this, saying that laguz are almost incapable of stopping fighting once a war starts, because they get less and less rational and more and more instinctual the longer a war goes on. Tibarn says that if they were to stop fighting now, he'd have to physically knock out his entire army in order to bring them in line.

I'll be honest, that's... really disturbing, like it says horrifying things about what the laguz do when they win wars, and they just... kinda gloss over it. Like, this is information disturbing enough that it should give Ike and company pause as to whether or not helping the laguz win the war would even be a good idea, and yet it's just... a thing, and they move on. Almost like it's an excuse to keep fighting while keeping Soren smart. Like, now it's not Soren's plan A that fails, it's his plan Z that fails, because he had to make it under absolutely ridiculous limitations.

...Yeah, actually, weirdly, the laguz here in this entire situation kinda feel like they're being used as a millstone around the Greil Mercenaries' necks, so that they can lose and be put on the defensive without actually making it their fault they lost. The laguz refuse to do things the smart way, meaning Soren now has to come up with a plan to do a really stupid thing slightly less stupidly, and even when he manages to come up with a good plan anyway, he's then undermined again by Skrimir accepting a challenge to single combat like a dumbass. It's like the Laguz Alliance is narratively bending over backwards to make it their fault that they lose this battle, so the writers can protect the Greil Mercenaries' fan reputation as badasses.

But we get back to base, and I bring both Ike and Oscar to level 20 so they don't have to worry about limited fighting anymore. That takes most of the bonus experience though, but thankfully they were the only ones who could make use of topping-off since Haar and Soren are at pretty low exp values.

I also got Ike and Oscar to B Earth, so...

Let's see this one base conversation.

Hahaha. Okay, so, Shinon made a bow for Aimee to sell at the shop, but the way they talk about it vaguely almost makes it sound like Aimee paid Shinon to fuck her or something, and Ike is visibly unnerved by her vagueness, so she just comes out and admits he made a bow for her. Anyway, we get a blue gem for it. Obviously the bow itself is gonna cost more, but... I'm probably not gonna buy it, so we'll still make a profit from this. I wonder who she was planning to sell that bow to though, besides us. Is the shop in selling range of anyone who uses bows besides Shinon and Rolf? If it was always the plan for Ike's party to buy it, that seems... comically roundabout.

Wait, Ike still doesn't know that Shinon was the one who taught Rolf how to do archery? Four fucking years after Rolf joined? He's just learning this now? I... okay, that seems kind of impossible for anyone with eyes and a brain. Yeah, again, it feels like the writers haven't given much thought at all to how much should have changed for these characters in the three years we haven't seen them. Ike hasn't recruited any new members, none of the character dynamics have changed or evolved in any way, nothing. They're just... exactly how we left them, except older and buffer.

Disappointing.

Though it does result in this line:

Ike: How should I know? Shinon wouldn't tell me that he smelled smoke if I was on fire.

Which is hilarious, but... also confirms... that Shinon still doesn't like Ike.

So lemme get this straight.

He's following the orders of a guy he doesn't like, to fight in a massive race war on the side of people that he is racist towards, and he's doing this... why?

Ike: Shinon likes our little group. I know that much.

Well, okay. I guess that is true. He's joining because all of his friends are joining. Alright. Maybe? But I wish they'd have made a base conversation that delved more into how incredibly awkward it must be to be such close friends with a massive racist while surrounded by the people he's racist towards. They kind of had an opportunity with the Shinon and Gatrie talk, but Gatrie had no reaction to Shinon's racist antics whatsoever, he was too distracted by Lyre's beauty.

Anyway, not much to do besides proceed.

...Right, so Lyre shows up and says that Tibarn's decoy attack worked and got the Begnion forces to move out. The plan is to then lure them into a pincer attack from three directions, but...

...Now Kyza reveals that Skrimir's forces have charged, because of course they did, because Ranulf left Skrimir unattended. But yeah, Zelgius challenged him to an honorable duel, and Skrimir couldn't back down.

This actually makes me really sad that Zelgius as a character is a lie. This is a really interesting idea from his perspective. If you think about it, both his army and the Greil Mercenaries are in pretty similar positions. They're both tasked with achieving victory under ridiculous restrictions given to them by the people they answer to thanks to the core, fundamental shortcomings of each society. That's a fascinating parallel. And Zelgius had to find a way to win without the orders to never retreat getting his men killed. So his plan is to get into single combat with their leader and win, non-violently demoralizing the entire laguz forces so that the senators won't get their race war, while still following all of their letter-of-the-law orders and saving his own men in the process. That is fascinating. Almost makes me wish we got to play Zelgius's side of things.

And yet it's all an elaborate act. A part he's playing out of loyalty to the puppetmaster of the continent, a man he would unthinkingly cast aside any moral principles whatsoever to serve. Long story short, the Black Knight made a lie out of a character I really wish were real.

Well, the game says I need to deploy a limited strike force, but thankfully, once I drop Kyza out of my deployment lineup to make room for Haar, I basically get to use everyone I was already using anyway. We also get the rest of the laguz units finally, but yeah, no way in hell I'm using them. Ranulf's the only one I'm deploying, and even then, mostly because I have to. This is a map where Ranulf and Ike have to arrive at the top of the map together, and we have to climb up a bunch of cliffs to do it.

But anyway, this is the first map where “Ike's theme”, Eternal Bond, plays. From what I understand, this was never intended to be Ike's theme, it was just kind of turned into it, I think because Brawl needed to give him a theme. It's an okay song and all, but for me, Ike's theme will always be His Father's Son.

This map is interesting, but kind of annoying, since it completely bars cavalry passage to the top of the map, which means that Oscar and Ike can't use their brand new +30 evasion bonuses at the end. Shame. I don't regret supporting Oscar and Ike though, despite their incompatible movement types. That eventual +45 to evasion is just crucial for physical fighters to survive against mages in the endgame from what I remember.

...I've been trying to keep these laguz alive for the hell of it, but I've suddenly remembered how much of a fucking lost cause this is, because they're all going to un-transform in a few turns and then they'll probably be taken down in a single turn no matter how much I try to heal them. Still though, might as well keep them alive while I can, since they're good staff exp for Mist.

Ranulf's pretty strong, but not so strong that he should be gaining only one exp per kill. Really, that's the thing about laguz. Just about the only times when they're genuinely worth the downsides of the transformation system are when they're grossly overleveled compared to the rest of your army.

Shinon seems to be really useful for drawing ballista fire thanks to his provoke skill. I put Mist in range and they just ignored her, which is handy since she's the healer (though I guess she could use the staff regen).

This map... is going quicker than I expected. I managed to breach the western ballista ledge with two lucky 50% javelin attacks from Oscar, and now I'm gonna rush in with Haar, Ranulf and Ike to take these guys out. Ike's level 20 and has all the important stats capped, and has 13 res and 21 luck, so he'll be fine without Oscar. It's really more Oscar who needs him.

Honestly, it's weird. One complaint I remembered having about these games when I initially did them after getting a new wii two years ago was that I felt like it was never optimal to use Ike because I constantly had to train other people to optimize them whenever Ike was at his most fun to use. But having Ike capped out and letting him be a sink for experience is actually making it easier and more fun to train my other guys, since I don't have to make them get any levels through combat in order to beat the map. I'm really not finding myself caring that much about the exp I could be getting from the guys I don't kill, because it's almost entirely worthless. There's more than enough bonus exp to level up the important units who get much more use out of it, and thanks to how the endgame is designed, I don't even need to have a full team of competent units in any one army in order to be well-equipped to tackle the endgame! Add on the fact that everyone else is already pretty well equipped to supply chip damage and take a hit or two, and yeah, there's really not that much need to fuss over training people here, which is bizarrely refreshing!

Man, Shinon's provoke is such a lifesaver. I accidentally left Soren in range of two enemy wyvern riders, but it's fine, because he can survive one hit, and the other is gonna go straight for Shinon!

...I hope.

Yep! Poor AI can't resist a provoke unit who can't fight back!

Soren yet again gets a bit too much experience, and yet again gains three levels anyway, despite his magic, resistance, skill and speed all being capped.

...I just realized that there's a graphical glitch where AI laguz units who end their turn transforming... don't turn grey.

But anyway, we reached the end of the map, and we cleared it on exactly turn 10, which is the cutoff point for max bonus exp. Also, we kept exactly enough of the laguz green units alive to get max bonus exp for that, too!

...But fighting the boss reminded me of how much of a downgrade the one-shot bosses of this game are compared to the ones of last game. It's really a shame.

Anyway, map over, time for the ending cutscene where Zelgius serves up some tenderized lion with a side of humble pie.

Weird... okay, so, yet again we have an example of an obvious racist using the word laguz, whereas in last game, I got the impression no racist would be caught dead using the word laguz. This guy says he was hoping the war could continue because he wanted to get his kid a “stuffed laguz”.

...Incidentally, while that's an extremely morbid concept, it did bring me to mind of the far more wholesome concept of laguz plushies.

But anyway, the laguz are on the verge of charging headlong into battle to avenge their fallen leader, suggesting that Zelgius's plan to stop the fighting very nearly failed due to him misjudging laguz attitudes about war. Interesting.

Zelgius then says that the apostle wishes to resolve the conflict peacefully, as opposed to the senate, which... makes it yet again frustrating that there was no comment made about any attempt to contact Sanaki before this war started.

And then Zelgius kind of indirectly rubs in the heroes' faces that they had just given up their best opportunity to negotiate peace with Begnion, and now they have to do it as the losers of the conflict rather than as equals.

Ranulf acts like Skrimir's incapacitation means the Gallian army can't fight anymore, and, like... what? The Gallian grunts were willing to keep fighting even without him, and he contributed almost nothing to the war effort aside being an active intellectual burden. How is his loss such a massive blow? He's strong, yes, but he's just one soldier.

...Oh, so now they talk about their failed efforts to contact Apostle Sanaki. Why did Ike not ask this before going to war with her country? This seems like important information to ask for someone who's friends with her.

And wait... Reyson's here. Yeah, he showed up last chapter I think, and I don't think he ever explained what he's doing here and not guarding the medallion with his siblings. I hope that eventually gets addressed.

But... that's it. We're done for the day. We've got some pretty interesting maps coming up, I'm pretty sure, and also... the time when we're going to have to play as the Dawn Brigade is coming near, and I'm hoping it's not as terrifying as I remember.

Stay safe, everyone.

[Icelerate]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

This actually makes me really sad that Zelgius as a character is a lie. This is a really interesting idea from his perspective. If you think about it, both his army and the Greil Mercenaries are in pretty similar positions. They're both tasked with achieving victory under ridiculous restrictions given to them by the people they answer to thanks to the core, fundamental shortcomings of each society. That's a fascinating parallel. And Zelgius had to find a way to win without the orders to never retreat getting his men killed. So his plan is to get into single combat with their leader and win, non-violently demoralizing the entire laguz forces so that the senators won't get their race war, while still following all of their letter-of-the-law orders and saving his own men in the process. That is fascinating. Almost makes me wish we got to play Zelgius's side of things.

I didn't really see Zelgius as a foil for Soren in this manner but you're right. They both have to put up with morons and strategize with the bad cards they are given. I do find Zelgius to be a very interesting character in part 3 even more so than his BK persona. 

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Almost makes me wish we got to play Zelgius's side of things.

 

Hey, maybe that's what the theorized Begnion arc would have been about. Tormod and Muriam would be out, but do you think it'd be in character for Marcia, Makalov and Astrid to fight for Begnion in a defensive war against the laguz? We could have had Devdan show up in the game too, instead of being conspicuously absent.

Edited August 24, 2020 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Hey, maybe that's what the theorized Begnion arc would have been about. Tormod and Muriam would be out, but do you think it'd be in character for Marcia, Makalov and Astrid to fight for Begnion in a defensive war against the laguz? We could have had Devdan show up in the game too, instead of being conspicuously absent.

I could buy Makalov fighting for basically any cause whatsoever with the right chain of gambling debt shenanigans behind it. And as long as it's contextualized as fighting alongside Zelgius, I could maybe believe Marcia and Astrid too.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I could buy Makalov fighting for basically any cause whatsoever with the right chain of gambling debt shenanigans behind it. And as long as it's contextualized as fighting alongside Zelgius, I could maybe believe Marcia and Astrid too.

I can understand them wanting to bulk up the cast for part 2, but they really could have had at least one Begnion character be an enemy recruit in this part. Part 3 recruitment is basically just them being with the army until they randomly let you use them in gameplay. There's no actual recruitment at all insofar as I can remember.

[Eltosian Kadath]

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Wait, Ike still doesn't know that Shinon was the one who taught Rolf how to do archery? Four fucking years after Rolf joined? He's just learning this now? I... okay, that seems kind of impossible for anyone with eyes and a brain. Yeah, again, it feels like the writers haven't given much thought at all to how much should have changed for these characters in the three years we haven't seen them. Ike hasn't recruited any new members, none of the character dynamics have changed or evolved in any way, nothing. They're just... exactly how we left them, except older and buffer.

I feel like this sums up the thing that annoys me most about how the Greil Mercenaries were portrayed in this game. It feel like the Dawn brigade develops more in the brief time between parts 1 and 3 than the Greil Mercenaries do in the three years between Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. In fact it feels like the Dawn Brigade see more character development than the Greil Mercenaries overall...

 

[Alastor15243]

9 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I feel like this sums up the thing that annoys me most about how the Greil Mercenaries were portrayed in this game. It feel like the Dawn brigade develops more in the brief time between parts 1 and 3 than the Greil Mercenaries do in the three years between Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. In fact it feels like the Dawn Brigade see more character development than the Greil Mercenaries overall...

 

I'm going to have to be on the lookout for this, honestly. You have me intrigued, and the Dawn Brigade chapters are right around the corner.

Radiant Dawn Day 23: Chapter 3-5

Okay, before we start, I just wanna throw something out there:

Soren is a branded, in an army full of laguz soldiers who are confirmed to be representative of all of the worst of laguz cultural attitudes, and not once has any discrimination against him been brought up. If Stefan does indeed confirm that laguz are better at identifying branded than beorc are, I am going to be veritably volcanic with rage.

Okay, so, the narration seems to be keeping up the thing Ranulf said about how Zelgius's duel with Skrimir did demoralize the Gallians after all, and, like, I wish they actually showed that with the one scene we got with the grunts, maybe?

I like this scene where one of the two unnamed senators is furious that Zelgius ended the war with so few laguz casualties, and then he and his general discuss how infuriating it is that he can't even punish Zelgius because it was such a spectacular victory that punishing him would look beyond absurd. But then Lombroso, his general or whatever, suggests he just send his own forces out to fight the Laguz Alliance as they retreat, since they don't have to follow Zelgius's orders.

Apparently Lombroso is a lord, which... makes sense from what we know about Begnion culture.

So, Ike and company are in a fortress, and I missed the establishment shot if there was one, so I'm starting over to make sure.

...We're in Seliora Castle apparently. Alright. At first the dialogue made me think this was supposed to be in Serenes Forest, which would have begged the question of what the fuck siege weapons were doing in a pacifist, laguz castle.

...And also which laguz tribe helped the herons build it.

But no matter, that's not what's going on. Anyway, Reyson refuses to return to Gallia without Tibarn, so Ike says Reyson can stay with them instead of retreating with the Gallian army, since the Greil Mercenaries are no longer obligated to be anywhere. But, like, they are gonna have to evacuate Seliora Castle eventually, so it's not like they can stay beyond the three day limit everyone else has. I don't see how they're on any less of a timetable.

Anyway, on to award some more bonus experience. Haar didn't get as much speed from bonus experience as I would have liked, since he only has 22 now, but he's at level 20 now, and his next level will promote him and hopefully give him a nice speed boost. And anyway, he's been plenty useful even without doubling.

I just gave Soren 3 bonus experience levels, and he didn't proc defense once, getting strength all three times, which is of course utterly useless for him given tome weights.

Ike talks with Haar, and we get an utterly useless corrosion scroll that I will be selling immediately. I don't know how anyone thought corrosion was a good idea in a game where you're constantly fighting units you'll have to use later.

...I just looked at the wo dao's stats, and realized it has less crit than a killing edge in this game, not more. Weird.

I still haven't forged anything yet with the Greil Mercenaries. We're significantly more cash-strapped in this game, and I wanna save up my coins for when we start being able to forge thrown weapons. I wanna have a bunch of those ready for the endgame.

Funny... apparently Rolf's Bow isn't personal anymore. It's C rank, and it just says it's made by Rolf.

Alright, well, I bought some more javelins and hand axes since I ran out of those, so... let's get going.

Looks like we've got a ten turn base defense chapter, with a bunch of ledges I've gonna have to block. Thankfully we seem to have just enough units to manage it, though not all of them are equally good so we'll be relying a lot on ledge bonuses to handle these enemies. Ike and Oscar obviously will be taking the fight to the enemy, and I'm gonna see if I can steal that energy drop before the battle is over. There don't seem to be any ways to get more than the standard bonus experience, so that's an important thing to keep in mind.

We've got Reyson now, which is handy, especially due to Ike's unfortunate starting location. But I can't help but notice how few of these damned enemies actually have ranged weapons. It looks like if we want to get any ledge training, we're gonna have to find ways to let some of these guys up. I'll have to keep that in mind.

Anyway, Oscar seems to have reached a point where he's nearly un-hittable with his support with Ike, which is simultaneously satisfying and disappointing. I will admit I get this stupid giddy satisfaction out of creating ridiculous badasses, but it also means the difficulty takes a nosedive and thus another part of me becomes significantly less invested.

Okay, so, I've started training Soren in fire magic, because he's already maxed out his thunder and wind ranks at A and S respectively thanks to transfer bonuses and my efforts to let him use both blizzard and bolting last game.

Woo! Oscar just promoted! Let's see what he gets, aside from bows he'll never use!

...Some pretty decent promo bonuses, 2s in everything but mag, res and HP, which are all +4. Oh, and no luck boost, as usual.

Haar doesn't seem to be too far behind, so I'm looking forward to that.

Really, this has been a pretty uneventful battle. The left and middle sides have been cakewalks thanks to all of the ledges to the left and Ike and Oscar to the middle. The real fight has been keeping Gatrie, Titania, Rhys, Rolf and Reyson alive against the right flank. That's been... a mild challenge, but nothing particularly interesting.

Haar just promoted, giving us two tier three units in the army. His promotion gains are literally identical to Oscar's, which has me concerned that these promotion bonuses are all going to be uniform. But at any rate, Haar seems to be doubling a good deal more now.

Okay, the prospect of stealing that energy drop is looking kind of ridiculous now. I'll see if I can give it a shot, but it's not looking pretty unless I can lure the boss out.

...Lombroso doesn't seem to move, so yeah, I don't think that's happening unfortunately.

Ah yes, and so, I wound up killing Lombroso with Haar, Ike and Oscar for the hell of it, and this guy reveals himself to be... outrageously dumb in an almost unbelievable way. And I know, saying that any degree of stupidity is unrealistic is kind of a lost cause guaranteed to be undermined by reality, but... it's the style of stupidity that I take issue with. He's just kinda saying ridiculous things so that he can be proven wrong.

Lombroso: The outcome of a battle depends solely on the number of troops in the field! Tactics and skill are nothing in the face of sheer numbers! Wait, are you laughing at me? Gah! Die, you insolent cur!

(Defeated)

Lombroso: Im-impossible! But how? We outnumbered them...

Like, they could have made his stupidity more amusing than having him simply say wrong things. Like, take Awakening for example. When Cervantes said that he's never shaved his mustache once since his very first battle, and he's never lost, and then concluding that his mustache makes him invincible, that's funny, because we actually get a tiny glimpse inside of his ridiculous head and thought process, and see for ourselves how ridiculous his brain is. Here, Lombroso just has wrong ideas in his head.

And I know that I just used Awakening writing to shame the writing of a Tellius game, and uh... that's going to be a problem once we get to Awakening. Because it's the funniest game in the series by far, and... I'm not sure how to balance that out against its numerous writing shortcomings in other areas.

But anyway, the ending has Tibarn and the others come back, revealing they had a chat with Sigrun, who looked really sad and told them to escape at once. And now it cuts to a scene with Sigrun and Zelgius, where Sigrun announces the ceasefire has been repealed by the senate, and...

...it's confirmed that the apostle and Sephiran have been captured, and that the senate is covering it up by saying the apostle is merely ill and Sephiran has been stripped of his title for treason, which... isn't something I realized the senate had the authority to do to their leader without the apostle's explicit order. Not that it would stop them from capturing him, I'm just saying I didn't realize this was an excuse the people were likely to believe.

But yeah, now Zelgius is forced to fight until they can find a way to rescue them, or else Sephiran and Sanaki will be killed.

...I really wish I knew how much of this was an act and how much of it was genuine. Is this something that legitimately didn't go according to plan, and is this fear from Zelgius real? Or is this entirely an act, and was Sephiran getting captured all according to plan? And if it is all according to plan, what's the contingency for when they try to execute Sephiran and discover his neck is made out of solid adamantium?

...I can't answer that right now, unfortunately, so time to move on to a scene with Micaiah and Pelleas, confirming that next chapter is back with the Dawn Brigade. And yeah, it's got some... really creepy lines from Almedha, and then... okay, so Pelleas is pretending he doesn't know why Izuka is gone, right? He's under the blood pact right now and is aware of it, and the flashback scene where he finds out shows him discovering that Izuka betrayed him. But anyway, yeah, he tells Micaiah to mobilize to side with Begnion against the Laguz Alliance, leaving us on a massive and kind of impressive cliffhanger. Though I can't really judge the effectiveness properly now that I know how it all ends and what's going on. I wish I had a fresh slate to experience this game with. I wish I could do a lot of things to better assess these games, honestly, but alas, I am only one man with only so much time to devote to this Brobdingnagian project.

But yeah, with that, map's over. Next time we'll be playing as the Dawn Brigade, and... well, we'll see how that turns out.

Stay safe, everyone.

[Jotari]

Corrosion isn't actually that terrible in this game, particularly on tier 3 units. It can reach high enough levels where, when it procs, it can wipe out an enemy's weapon completely leaving them defenceless. Still unreliable and you'd usually prefer killing a unit (though it does turn an enemy into the perfect prey for weaker units you might be training) but not utterly useless. The issue of destroying your own weapons can simply be remedied by not equipping it on the chapters where you fight your own army.

[lenticular]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway, Oscar seems to have reached a point where he's nearly un-hittable with his support with Ike, which is simultaneously satisfying and disappointing. I will admit I get this stupid giddy satisfaction out of creating ridiculous badasses, but it also means the difficulty takes a nosedive and thus another part of me becomes significantly less invested.

Such is the paradox of Fire Emblem. Planning for long-term growth is fun, but given time we inevitably end up optimising the fun out of the game. The ideal would be to be able to take a random unit and turn them into a ridiculous badass, but have it only really come into fruitition for the last level or two where you get a brief moment to revel in your glory and then the game is over before staleness sets in, except it pretty much never turns out like that. Which isn't really a fault with design. Trying to pace things that way is hard, and trying to pace it so it works out that way for a diverse playerbase with many different playstyles and ability levels is pretty much impossible.

This is actually one of the reasons why I rarely play FE games on their hardest difficulty settings. Set the difficulty level too high and I feel like I have to optimise too much of the fun away. On lower difficulties, I can treat the game more as a sandbox, play around with the systems, and create my own difficulty by self-imposed challenges.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

And I know that I just used Awakening writing to shame the writing of a Tellius game, and uh... that's going to be a problem once we get to Awakening. Because it's the funniest game in the series by far, and... I'm not sure how to balance that out against its numerous writing shortcomings in other areas.

Personally, I find Sacred Stones hilarious. Sadly, it isn't actually trying to be funny. (At least, not the parts I find hilarious.)

[Icelerate]

What do you guys think about Demon King's manipulation of Eirika?