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


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9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Killing Yumina and costing me one of my healers, the watch staff, and the last use of the rescue staff. Given the psychotically low attack power of this type of ballista, it’s like it was tailor-made to only be dangerous to tier-one healers. And it succeeded.

Not Yumina... the little prince and princess of Grust are some of my favorite characters of Mystery/New Mystery.😢

 

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Though I suppose there was that secret physic staff I missed, but they were way more plentiful in general in Book 1.

One drops as early as Book 2 chapter 5, but you have to get it by killing a Bishop in the midst of George's Sniper squad (and it seems kinda suicidal to go for it unless you seize the turn you go for it)

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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Or just trade the staff to another staff user.

Well sure if you have three mages with weapon level 20 beside each other that you don't want to use for combat for some reason.

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Just now, Jotari said:

Well sure if you have three mages with weapon level 20 beside each other that you don't want to use for combat for some reason.

Why would it be three? Doesn't the again staff refresh everyone not using it? It would just need to be two. And the reason you might want to do this is that it would mean that in addition to getting your whole party to move four times, your dancer would be free to make one specific unit move EIGHT times.

Awesome of the game to actually put things in it that use weapon level 20 though!

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7 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Why would it be three? Doesn't the again staff refresh everyone not using it? It would just need to be two. And the reason you might want to do this is that it would mean that in addition to getting your whole party to move four times, your dancer would be free to make one specific unit move EIGHT times.

Awesome of the game to actually put things in it that use weapon level 20 though!

Yeah, I suppose you'd only need two. But it kind of results in the same number of potential attacks whether it's localized between a mage attacking four more times or a dancer dancing someone an additional four times.

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3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Yeah, I suppose you'd only need two. But it kind of results in the same number of potential attacks whether it's localized between a mage attacking four more times or a dancer dancing someone an additional four times.

True. But it is an option in the event that you need a job done 8 times and only have one unit that can do it, rare as that might be. Plus, arms scrolls are a thing. I could easily get my Malliesia to 20 weapon level, so I wouldn't even need to waste a fighter to trade it between again users.

Edited by Alastor15243
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Mystery of the Emblem Day 23: Book 2, Chapter 16

Funny. Why change how the locked door works on this map in Book 2? In Book 1 you could clearly see into the throne room. Here the throne room is hidden. But why wait until Book 2 to introduce this new mechanic? This sounds like something that could easily have been put in Book 1.

Anyway, it looks like the only enemies on this map are thieves, and Astram’s army of silver sword heroes. And by this point? They’re a pushover.

So, this map has a ton of thieves, but something suddenly occurs to me: where are they going to escape to? There are no staircase tiles, and the entire map is surrounded by water! I’m standing by the only bridge, and the only other conceivable exit is beyond the throne room, which I’m right next to as well! If I’m right, the thieves are going to come straight to me, and I don’t have to rush this at all! And if I’m wrong? …Well I guess I’ll just warp Merric in.

But right now I’m going to assume I’m right and take this opportunity to feed melee kills into Cecil, the last unit left I want to let that growy star magic shine its sexy rays on. Time to get this lady a long-overdue promotion.

After the death of Yumina, I’ve decided to give all the important staves that aren’t exclusive to Malliesia to people who aren’t Malliesia. Too much danger that she’ll be killed. Speaking of, if I have anything I’m gonna want repaired eventually, no sense not doing it now. Such as, say, Linde’s aura tome with only 2 uses left.

…Okay game. So the pre-battle dialogue insists that the thieves can escape to the north. I an only assume they’re going to go down that stairway straight into the water and either swim away or escape on some unseen boat. Right then. Looks like I’ll be using a warp staff to send Merric over there, and then cutting off any thieves that try to escape that way. Hopefully (for my plans, not for the quality of the game) the sword heroes will only move when approached, so we can feed this whole map to Cecil without letting any of the thieves get away.

Also, I send Marth chasing after the Earthsphere thief. If the heroes do only move when approached, that’ll mean I won’t have to warp Merric in, I can just send in Speedy Gonzales, fastest Marth in all of Mexico, to guard the exit.

NEGATIVE ON THE KILL FEEDING, HOUSTON! THEY ALL CHARGE. LET’S DO THIS.

I’ll be having Merric deal with the bulk of them since he’s easily my best fighter. But I’ll be sure to leave exactly one of them in range of Cecil whenever possible to feed at least a few kills into her. And then once Marth’s safely blocked off the exit after the heroes have disposed of themselves, I’ll have Cecil personally kill all of the thieves.

Incidentally, I equipped Aura just to be sure, but this game actually lets you pick which weapon Hammerne restores. Good on you, game!

…I TAKE IT BACK, GAME.

FUCK YOU.

HOW DARE YOU.

OPENING A DOOR FOR ME ON ENEMY PHASE AND THEN HAVING THE MASSIVE NUMBER OF UNITS INSIDE THAT ROOM ATTACK MY REAR LINE!?

I LOST JULIAN AND CAEDA IN ONE FUCKING TURN.

FUCK YOU GAME.

FUCK YOU.

FUCK YOU.

THIS ISN’T FUCKING FAIR.

WHEN IN THE ENTIRE GAME HAVE YOU EVEN ESTABLISHED THAT DOORS CAN OPEN THEMSELVES ON ENEMY PHASE!?

YOU WERE DOING SO WELL, GAME!

WHY!?

WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME!?

…Well fuck you.

I’m not restarting.

You’re not going to make me restart again, no matter how unfair you get.

I’m doing this the right way.

I know I need Ceada to get a truly happy ending, but I know how it felt last time I restarted after something ending-changing happened. I’m not gonna feel defeated like that again.

But mark my words, game.

I WILL REMEMBER YOUR BETRAYAL.

Thankfully now that the door OPENED ITSELF, I don’t need Julian anymore, between the thieves looting the chests for me and Marth’s Fire Emblem. My main priority is getting the surviving units to safety. And thankfully I did have one tough unit in those rear lines: Linde. And with some other careful multitasking, I also manage to take care of the hero Cecil failed to kill and heal her up to prepare for fighting the next one.

FUCK. I accidentally placed Castor on the wrong space, and now he’s gone too because of a lucky crit from the killer bow sniper. And his death line is so tragic too… “Mother… I’m sorry I can’t send any more gold…”

Damn it… rest in peace, Castor.

YOU WILL BE AVENGED.

Alright. I am being swarmed, with no realistic way to block the forces off. I have to kill a ton at once.

…Looks like it’s time to break out the Again staff.

That managed to do it, and I managed to feed a few more kills to Cecil at the same time without endangering anyone. I “only” had to use it once, so I still have two uses left.

Something tells me they’re gonna get used.

Strangely enough, the thieves stopped at only grabbing one item each.

Anyway, I killed off the thieves, and I’ve decided to use a barrier staff to help Cecil kill off the sages in the throne room too. The Lightsphere protects her from the killer bow sniper’s critical hits, so there’s nothing in that room that poses a mortal threat to her. And I really want her promoted by the end of this map. Sadly her defense isn’t going to be that fantastic unless I give her the Starsphere for a good amount of her time as a paladin too, because she got an extremely bad run of levels, only gaining 1 defense in 6 levels with a 40% rate. But she should be serviceable.

We also got a third knight crest, so we’ll be able to promote Draug after all! And he should do alright, especially once we defeat Hardin and get Gradivus.

I can’t believe how much my luck went sour this chapter. Almost nothing went right until the very end. And we lost three units who have been with us since basically the beginning.

…Well. I beat the level.

So let’s move right along to the next one.

Day 23 Bonus: Book 2, Chapter 17

Okay. So I know that Sheena is recruitable here. As, I assume, is Samson. The trouble is I have no idea who could possibly recruit them. And I have a sneaking suspicion it would have been Caeda. Of course, she’s dead until and unless we get the Aum staff, so I may just have to give up on recruiting them.

That would be a shame, but mostly for story reasons, not gameplay reasons. Aside from her fantastic defense of 17, Sheena’s stats are all abysmal. Draug is going to be a way better general once he promotes in a few levels.

I hope I brought someone who can recruit her. Hell, maybe they’ll do the same stupid logic again and Draug can recruit Sheena.

Anyway, I’m replacing Julian, Caeda and Castor with Tiki, Rickard and Abel.

Let’s do this.

Okay, I’ll level with you, readers. After reading the pre-battle dialogue, I peeked at how to recruit Sheena, because I had a hunch that seemed kind of out there and which I didn’t want to waste my time doing because it seemed too specific to guess at. But turns out my hunch based on the dialogue was correct. I noticed how outrageously suspiciously underleveled the Gra soldiers here are, so I figured maybe you have to talk to her without killing any of them. Yes. That is exactly what you have to do. And now I'm wishing I had more confidence in my guess.

Thankfully Marth is tough enough that the low-damage enemies aren’t going to fight him, so it’s just a matter of only attacking the well-armed Archanean soldiers and getting in there quickly.

I wound up having to use a warp charge to stop a thief from getting away with a Nosferatu tome. Initially I thought he’d make a run for the treasure so it was too late for Marth to catch up to him.

Okay, so suddenly the Gra soldiers are marching. I hope they’re not going to be suicidal. I really really hope not.

Okay that’s weird. I recruited Sheena, no issues there, but I just noticed it used the Book 1 recruitment theme for her, and the Book 2 recruitment theme for Samson.

But anyway, time to grab the village, raid the chests, and move on! Now that all of the Gra soldiers are retreating, things should be fine.

Honestly, I don’t like this map that much. It was an interesting gimmick, but not really that hard. It was just tedious to go to all the places Marth needed to be on this map while walking on eggshells regarding what enemies you attack.

This kickass map theme really helps though. I love it. It’s got this “triumphant and hopeful in the face of danger” theme to it that “Beneath a New Light” had.

Incidentally, I’m curious what would happen if you kill Gra soldiers after recruiting Sheena and Samson. In a later game, recruiting Sheena would have turned all the Gra soldiers neutral. Still not gonna kill them, partly because that would be mean, and partly because I don’t want to risk the game making her hostile again somehow.

Okay, I went to the village, got an angelic robe, and they did the “heart three” thing again! What’s going on with that?

Anyway, the context of that was this girl going from “Please don’t steal our shit” to “Here’s my most treasured possession, you incredibly hunky boy” in the span of one fucking sentence. Weeeeird.

One of the treasure chests was already open. Weird. I guess that was the Nosferatu tome the thief had?

“You want the troops to cross that dangerous mountain path? It’s too dangerous…”

Jagen, you said “dangerous” twice.

Anyway, looks like we’re making a perilous mountain detour! Let’s go!

Day 23 Bonus Bonus: Book 2, Chapter 18

This is a pretty small map. Well no, it’s pretty much as large as every other, but most of it is impassable by everything but fliers. To the point where there’s only one viable spawn point I can see, right next to a village, and uncomfortably close to a massive army of paladins and bow knights. Knights strong enough to murder my squishy units but not strong enough to suicide into my tanks.

In short, this is gonna be tricky. I may need to form a human wall to protect my weaker soldiers. But we’ll see.

And that’s to say nothing of working out how, if at all, Hardin’s posse can be recruited. I’m guessing no, but unless I’m mistaken that would be the first time I’ve fought someone who was an ally in the previous game and couldn’t recruit them. I wouldn’t be surprised in their case though, given their obvious affiliation with Hardin.

I completely overestimated where I’d be spawning. WHAT THE FUCK!?

LjrPqG2.png

This is… wow. What the fuck am I supposed to do with this? Clearly Roshea at least has misgivings about fighting me and might be recruitable, but HOW THE FUCK- WHAT THE- WHO- WHY-

…Deep breath, Alastor…

…Okay. Game. You can’t do shit like this without the ability to change unit placement. You just can’t. You can’t make such a massive difference in unit spawn location and not give the player the ability to control it.

And you CERTAINLY can’t do that on top of giving weird and vague and unexplained recruitment conditions. Especially when they don’t logically follow.

AND YOU ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, BY ANY CONCEIVABLE MEANS CAN’T THEN LOCK THE TRUE ENDING OF THE GAME BEHIND VISITING A VILLAGE THAT ALL OBSERVATIONAL WISDOM INDICATES IT WOULD BE SUICIDE TO TRY TO VISIT!

Yes. I looked up what was in the village to make sure the Lifesphere wasn’t in it, because I was considering getting the fuck out of there and rushing the castle.  And I’m glad I checked, because that would have ruined the run.

Apparently, and the game gives literally no conceivable indication this could possibly be the case, not only does that village have the Lifesphere, but it also causes the Wolfguard to retreat. I don’t know why. I don’t know how that would logically follow. But obviously I’m about to find out, thanks to Marth’s 11 move and a dance.

Okay. So. King Fucking Orleans is just waiting in the village for me.

And Marth apologizes for killing King Orleans’ men even when he literally hasn’t fought a single one of them. Which suggests to me that the writers didn’t even conceive of me doing what I just did. Which suggests to me I was supposed to… okay, so the game really does assume I would fight them on my first playthrough. Alright, that makes the map design make more sense, though I still consider the deployment layout to be utterly atrocious. If I hadn’t decided to look up that village’s contents, if I had decided I just had to fight my way there to get it no matter the cost, it would have been nearly impossible to keep my fragile units alive without using another use of the Again staff.

And King Orleans just… bought the Lifesphere from a random merchant. That’s the game’s explanation of how it gets into my hands. Wow. That’s… so it’s just sheer dumb luck that Marth ever managed to find the Lifesphere. I assumed Gotoh would have tracked it down and found it. No, King Orleans just bought it for Marth guessing it would be useful. Wooooooooow.

Okay. So. That was all… half-frustrated, half-terrified rambling. Let me explain, calmly and rationally, why I think that entire setup was an absolutely terrible design choice.

My primary issue with this is the exact same issue I’ve had with all the other instances of things like this happening in the game: the trial and error nature of it. The game presents me with a challenge that I can’t conceivably get right on my first try, and then after I fuck it up, tells me everything I need to know to never be challenged by that puzzle ever again. Making the player fumble around in the dark for what to do, and then just flat-out telling them the correct answer after it’s too late for them to do it, is just a terrible system. Challenges like that have no staying power, because they’re only “hard” for one playthrough at best, on ironman, and one ATTEMPT of a single map at worst, when resetting. It serves no purpose but to make blind ironman frustrating and blind reset classic tedious.

Either that army was originally intended to be fought directly, as the dialogue suggests, in which case it’ll never be challenging again, or that army was supposed to be cheesed with the village, in which case there was literally no reason not to tell the player outright that that was their objective. It’s just confusing, frustrating and dumb, to the point that even now I’m struggling to put this into further words.

Fuck it. Let’s just move on. I’m still pissed off.

Curiously, I’ve discovered for some reason that the dragon riders on this map are prioritizing Draug over Cecil, who has way less defense than he does. Not sure why.

The horsemen aren’t just moving to a remote part of the map, they’re actually retreating, though for some reason only one of them retreats per turn, despite all of them being in roughly the same area.

Alright, so. This map is a fucking cakewalk after you get rid of the cavalry. There are a few dragon rider reinforcements that were easily dealt with, they stopped pretty quickly, and then it was nothing but a bunch of thieves and the easily-baitable forces at the castle. I managed to feed a ton of levels to Cecil and now aside from a “merely” good defense of 15, she’s just as much the badass as the rest of my “star-studded” cast.

…Honestly, I’m kind of done with this game. It was doing okay for a while, but now, like all the ones before it, I just want it to be over with so I can get to the next game.

But that’ll have to wait for later. I’m done for today.

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6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Thankfully Marth is tough enough that the low-damage enemies aren’t going to fight him, so it’s just a matter of only attacking the well-armed Archanean soldiers and getting in there quickly.

This is just a mini reply before my full reply.

The low level Gra enemies don't attack on any difficulty, all they do is run away. The difficulty comes from the player compulsion to kill any enemy in sight and the similar classes of the Gra and Archanea soldiers.

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Just now, Emperor Hardin said:

This is just a mini reply before my full reply.

The low level Gra enemies don't attack on any difficulty, all they do is run away. The difficulty comes from the player compulsion to kill any enemy in sight and the similar classes of the Gra and Archanea soldiers.

True. But obviously I wasn't going to risk that until they clearly entered retreat mode.

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1 hour ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Got it. 

Sorry you're losing interest in Mystery of the emblem? If its due to losing Caeda and/or Castor, I won't mind if you go back?

Haha, no, it's more the map design getting worse and broken gameplay elements catching up to me. Besides, it's not my job to reverse the death of every unit that didn't deserve to die. Julian and Caeda stay dead, a perpetual reminder to me of what the game did.

At any rate, I'd rather lose units to bullshit than quit ironman. I just find ironman that engaging in general.

Edited by Alastor15243
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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Incidentally, I’m curious what would happen if you kill Gra soldiers after recruiting Sheena and Samson. In a later game, recruiting Sheena would have turned all the Gra soldiers neutral. Still not gonna kill them, partly because that would be mean, and partly because I don’t want to risk the game making her hostile again somehow.

From what I've read, killing Gra soldiers after Sheena and Samson join causes them to silently turn red again in FE12. You broke your promise, they'll die trying to break you.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I can just send in Speedy Gonzales, fastest Marth in all of Mexico, to guard the exit.

I lol'd. Hard.

Did you get the Geosphere?

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3 hours ago, Kruggov said:

RIP Lena.

Aum has 5 uses in this game. So hope ain't completely lost yet.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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Hey, I'd like to take a second to ask everyone something:

How well are you able to follow along with my commentary? How often are you confused by what I say, and feel like you need more information or pictures to know what I'm talking about? Do you wish I went more in-depth with my strategies or didn't gloss over so much when it's easy? Any requests for how I could change the format to make it better?

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Well, looks like Medeus is going to eat Lena. Rip.

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

From what I've read, killing Gra soldiers after Sheena and Samson join causes them to silently turn red again in FE12. You broke your promise, they'll die trying to break you.

In FE12, in the original game once they're recruited, they're recruited. Sheena Cana even personally kill her own soldiers.

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Aum has 5 uses in this game. So hope ain't completely lost yet.

Yeah, but the final three maps are a no save gauntlet. And you can only use Aum after Medeus is dead. I'm pretty sure the change in Aum uses between book 1 and book 2 was intentionally done so the last three chapters could have a reasonable chance at full recruitment without save states.

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4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Funny. Why change how the locked door works on this map in Book 2? In Book 1 you could clearly see into the throne room. Here the throne room is hidden. But why wait until Book 2 to introduce this new mechanic? This sounds like something that could easily have been put in Book 1.

Anyway, it looks like the only enemies on this map are thieves, and Astram’s army of silver sword heroes. And by this point? They’re a pushover.

That reminds me have you used the Watch Staff, yet?

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…I TAKE IT BACK, GAME.

FUCK YOU.

HOW DARE YOU.

OPENING A DOOR FOR ME ON ENEMY PHASE AND THEN HAVING THE MASSIVE NUMBER OF UNITS INSIDE THAT ROOM ATTACK MY REAR LINE!?

I LOST JULIAN AND CAEDA IN ONE FUCKING TURN.

The remake foreshadows this by having the boss announce that they'll spring open once the chests are opened.

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway, the context of that was this girl going from “Please don’t steal our shit” to “Here’s my most treasured possession, you incredibly hunky boy” in the span of one fucking sentence. Weeeeird.

Possibly a translation thing.

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

And Marth apologizes for killing King Orleans’ men even when he literally hasn’t fought a single one of them. Which suggests to me that the writers didn’t even conceive of me doing what I just did. Which suggests to me I was supposed to… okay, so the game really does assume I would fight them on my first playthrough. Alright, that makes the map design make more sense, though I still consider the deployment layout to be utterly atrocious. If I hadn’t decided to look up that village’s contents, if I had decided I just had to fight my way there to get it no matter the cost, it would have been nearly impossible to keep my fragile units alive without using another use of the Again staff.

The Archanean troops are recruited from all the nations of the empire, so its possible Marth is referring to that as well.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Hey, I'd like to take a second to ask everyone something:

How well are you able to follow along with my commentary? How often are you confused by what I say, and feel like you need more information or pictures to know what I'm talking about? Do you wish I went more in-depth with my strategies or didn't gloss over so much when it's easy? Any requests for how I could change the format to make it better?

I do wonder how you did against some of the more unique bosses such as Toras(Ballistician) or Willow(Meteor Sage), I'm also interested on your story thoughts? On a similar vein, do you have any thoughts on all the info that is out of game? 

I'm also curious as to how much gameplay advice do you want to avoid?

Edited by Emperor Hardin
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3 minutes ago, Kruggov said:

It's also only usable on an altar... which Medeus sits on. So still RIP Lena.

I'm assuming you have to either save or kill Lena in order to fight Medeus then. Seems to defeat the point of the Aum staff if you can't do anything with it in-game. Well at least Marth can bring Caeda back.

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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm assuming you have to either save or kill Lena in order to fight Medeus then. Seems to defeat the point of the Aum staff if you can't do anything with it in-game. Well at least Marth can bring Caeda back.

Well you'll definitely have to make sure you keep Merric alive to bring anyone back. Yubello can us Aum, but I don't think Maria can. So with her gone, Elice is your only option.

19 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

I remember using Aum on the penultimate map, so I'm not sure about that.

Really? Is there a specific tile on the map?

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