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


Alastor15243
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3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...It just occurred to me: Three games, and I still haven't come up with any theories as to why all item-based commands except for “item” are flashing green. Pity.

 

I expect it's to draw attention to the fact that they're there, as there more conditional than other commands. Imagine for example a new player who doesn't know any of the mechanics of Fire Emblem, is it immediately obvious that units can trade with each other? That's an option that only exists when you position two units beside each other. If it weren't flashing then a player might miss that it's there entirely. Kind of like how throughout my first playthrough of Genealogy of the Holy War I completely missed that there was a midmap save function because it just pops up as another option in the menu before you move any of your units. That's actually really hard to spot if you don't know it exists. That's my theory any way.

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2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I expect it's to draw attention to the fact that they're there, as there more conditional than other commands. Imagine for example a new player who doesn't know any of the mechanics of Fire Emblem, is it immediately obvious that units can trade with each other? That's an option that only exists when you position two units beside each other. If it weren't flashing then a player might miss that it's there entirely. Kind of like how throughout my first playthrough of Genealogy of the Holy War I completely missed that there was a midmap save function because it just pops up as another option in the menu before you move any of your units. That's actually really hard to spot if you don't know it exists. That's my theory any way.

Actually that's a good point. That is something they all have in common. But if so, strange that "support" isn't one of them, because you'd think that'd be one they'd really want to highlight given how rare it is.

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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

As I'm watching the credits though... man, I'm really regretting my decision to keep doing each chapter twice after the route split ended. After Chapter 16, I haven't noticed one difference between these modes in terms of gameplay or map design. It's surreal. There they were for the first two, and then... nothing. I think it may have accomplished nothing but increasing my fatigue with this game at the end.

The last chapter is a little different as you will soon see, as the enemy placement is mirrored, which normally wouldn't be a big change, if not for how that effects the area based reinforcements. I am forgetting which version is which, but there are two boxes that trigger reinforcements, and in one version the reinforcements show up within the box that triggered them, and in the other map they spawn in the opposite triggering box.

Shame about the map fatigue that started setting in, but I don't think it was entirely worthless. The story was noticeably different between the two, and as far as I can tell seeing them both in tandem did add some insight to your commentary, and just reading the script isn't quite the same as seeing how the game presents that information.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Speaking of, the credits are, like in FE3, FE6, and... I believe FE5, filled with CGs used exclusively for the credits, which makes no fucking sense to me at all. If you're going to spend the money making the damned things, and if they're going to involve moments that actually happen in the story, why the hell wouldn't you use them to punctuate critical story moments as they happen? Especially since Fire Emblem 7 already came up with that idea for you. Why are you walking back on this!?

Okay, this is curious... there's a CG at the very end showing the moment Lyon and the twins first met, and... two things stick out at me:

Its actually worse than that for FE6, the CGs don't show up in the credits, and are used exclusively in the sound test. Also worth noting the CGs you got in FE5 ending are dependent on your rank, so they acted as a reward for players to replay the game for better rank (kinda like the opening demo scenes of FE4 unlocking based on number of completions and highest rank achieved).

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2 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Shame about the map fatigue that started setting in, but I don't think it was entirely worthless. The story was noticeably different between the two, and as far as I can tell seeing them both in tandem did add some insight to your commentary, and just reading the script isn't quite the same as seeing how the game presents that information.

Yeah, if there's one thing that's made this worth it, it's that: seeing the dialogue in-game and being able to directly compare the cutscenes. I mean, I noticed the music difference that one time, which I wouldn't have been able to do if I was reading the script.

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15 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Actually that's a good point. That is something they all have in common. But if so, strange that "support" isn't one of them, because you'd think that'd be one they'd really want to highlight given how rare it is.

Indeed. I actually went to a game to check if support was green and was surprised to see that it isn't. It is placed at the head of the list though. Still, that's one of the rarest commands to pop up, especially with how gosh dang long it takes to make supports in the GBA games. Speaking of which, Path of Radiance is going to change how supports are built in a way that I really like and think the series should do more of (I think Mystery of the Emblem is the only one that repeated this method). It's a great way of timing supports to happen after certain story events.

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7 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Speaking of which, Path of Radiance is going to change how supports are built in a way that I really like and think the series should do more of (I think Mystery of the Emblem is the only one that repeated this method). It's a great way of timing supports to happen after certain story events.

Yeah, I like how it does it too, though I think my favorite method is the Fates implementation, due to how it not only doesn't encourage waiting around (mostly), but also rewards clever positioning to really milk support points instead.

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1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, I like how it does it too, though I think my favorite method is the Fates implementation, due to how it not only doesn't encourage waiting around (mostly), but also rewards clever positioning to really milk support points instead.

How did Fates differ from Awakening?

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Just now, Jotari said:

How did Fates differ from Awakening?

Mostly in the fact that supports were tied to Fates' much less broken pair up system instead of Awakening's. Awakening's was just "pair these two up and they'll get married eventually", while Fates has some other stuff you can do, and which it encourages you to. Training for buddy seal use while at least one is paired with their spouse-to-be can be interesting from what I remember.

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9 hours ago, Jotari said:

How did Fates differ from Awakening?

 Figured this old comparison I made between the two was worth repeating here.

The support gain for healing, and fighting adjacent is higher in Fates, although the gains for fighting while paired is lower. Awakening also had more variety in the number of support points needed for each level, Fate has 2 rates, Fast and Medium, where as Awakening also has a Slow rate, as well as a same gender rate (which is slower to B and A rank than the Medium rate, and skews it to make its A rank have comparable requirements to S rank supports), and Fate's fast rate hits B and A rank a little faster than Awakening.

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Sacred Stones Day 34: Final Chapter EIR

Alright. Time to actually do this chapter the proper way.

So we get the flashback conversation between Eirika and Lyon, and... okay, it could not be more transparently obvious from this conversation that he's in love with her.

Eirika... I've always...”

And then he backtracks due to self-worth issues, and says:

One day, I will be a prince worthy of you, and I will see you again.”

To be clear, I know that was made clear before by the Demon King. But I'm not talking about it being obvious to us. I'm talking about it being obvious to Eirika. How could Eirika have been present here and not have realized Lyon has a crush on her?

I suppose you could argue the game never explicitly says that she doesn't, but like... this just raises so many questions about how she thinks of him. A problem exacerbated, again, by the precious little information we get about how Eirika thinks about anything.

If she does know, and doesn't feel the same way... given how much she clearly cares about him, the things that would have to be going through her head right now would be fascinating. She basically risks stepping through an emotional minefield with the heart of her best friend if she tries to let him down easy, especially since he just said how much she's an inspiration and constant motivator to him, and how much he wants to be a man worthy of her. But if she says nothing, she's only going to cause him even more pain later down the line, unless she's banking on his success giving him the self-esteem he needs to emotionally survive it and find someone else.

But if she knows and does reciprocate his feelings, like... I've gotta wonder what she's thinking here when she practically gets a flashing neon sign saying he feels the same way... and does nothing with it.

Does she think it wouldn't work out between them, due to being from different countries? This one I doubt; inter-kingdom marriages, especially when the woman is the one who changes homes, were extremely common back then as far as I can tell.

Is she... kinda turned off by his blatant low self-esteem and jealousy of her brother, and doesn't want to... positively reinforce it, I guess, until he gets over himself? Does she actually want to wait until he becomes “a prince worthy of [her]”? Because that... does not remotely sound like her. At all.

Or is it option three: whatever Eirika's feelings about him, she doesn't know about his feelings for her. Which makes this the second chapter in a row that shows Eirika being completely incapable of reading basic social cues.

...PFFFFFFHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I'm sorry, this scene where Eirika and what's left of Lyon are talking is actually pretty okay, but there's just one line from Eirika that made me burst out laughing:

Everyone has weaknesses, Lyon. You're not the only one. I do. I'm sure my brother does... Don't hate yourself for having these feelings. Please.”

She's “sure” Ephraim has weaknesses. She doesn't actually know of any of these weaknesses, despite being his fucking sister, but she's just got this hunch that he has to have some that she doesn't know about.

Jesus Christ, Eirika. Big brother worship, much? I'm starting to get a feeling that there was a reason Lyon got it into his head that he had to be better than Ephraim to impress you.

But yeah, the compassion and supportiveness she shows in the face of Lyon's low self-esteem says we can eliminate the “she loves him and knows he loves her but wants him to get over himself before she'll tell him” possibility. She clearly thinks Lyon's always been great the way he is and was never really bothered by his flaws, so there shouldn't really be anything getting in the way of telling him her feelings if she has them and knows he feels the same way. Leaving only the other three possibilities for what was going on in that cutscene back then:

1: She knows but doesn't reciprocate.

2: She reciprocates but doesn't know.

3: She neither knows nor reciprocates.

Alright, anyway...

I have a question about this whole resurrection ritual thing: why specifically now?

What has Fomortiis been doing over the past year he's had this body to prepare for this ritual that would make now, specifically, the right time?

There hasn't been any talk of him gathering resources for the ritual, or “harvesting quintessence”, or any shit like that. He seems to have had the means to perform this ritual for ages now. The reason he waited appears to just be because he wanted to get rid of all the Sacred Stones first so he couldn't be stopped. But... like... he hasn't done that yet. And he has to know he hasn't done that yet. He's spoken with his second-in-command after his failed mission to destroy the last one.

Honestly, this makes more sense in Ephraim Route, where it could be argued that even if it wasn't the best time, Fomortiis's more limited ability to control Lyon meant that once the time of the disaster drew uncomfortably near (and we know it happens shortly after the events of the game), due to the way Fomortiis influenced Lyon to want to do the ritual in the first place, there was nothing Fomortiis could do to influence Lyon away from doing the ritual early anyway in order to try and save Grado.

But in Eirika Route, like... why now? Why not wait just a little bit longer?

I get that his non-monster manpower is basically completely exhausted, so you can argue he's running out of options, but, like... he doesn't seem desperate here, or forced into hasty action. He's just as pompous as ever, like this was his plan the whole time. And... that makes no sense.

Also...

So, remember when I mentioned that weird black flickering map sprite effect? It happens again, this time to indicate Fomortiis taking over, when it indicated no such thing in Ephraim Route. So I don't know what the fuck it was doing there in Ephraim Route just before he teleported away, unless they just... completely forgot to remove it from Ephraim Route's identical stage directions (aside from Ephraim moving instead of Eirika). In both routes, between all the dialogue, Lyon flickers black, and then he teleports away. It's just in this version there's dialogue between the black flickering and the teleporting away. That honestly makes this feel like a copy-paste error.

I used some stat boosters, specifically a speedwings on Kyle, since he's really, really close to being able to double Fomortiis with Audhulma. I gave Lute a body ring for the same reason, which reduces her rescue ability, but also makes the speed penalty of Excalibur actually match the speed bonus of it. If either she or Kyle gets just one more speed level, they'll be able to double Fomortiis.

Since Cormag is so slow, I have Franz take Vidofnir for the final battle. I'm really hoping I'll be able to one-turn it this time. Which means my priorities for leveling are Ephraim, Kyle and Lute, who all need one more speed to double him.

This map really doesn't look very hard, but I guess we'll just have to see what it has in store.

Let's go.

Lute managed to get that one point of speed she needs almost immediately. She's got 23 AS with Excalibur now, just enough to beat Fomortiis's 19.

Two for two! Ephraim hit the benchmark as well. Only Kyle is left, and hell, we might even have enough enemies here to give him two shots at it!

...Shit, no, Ephraim needs to reach his speed cap of 24 in order to use it, due to the one weight penalty of using Siegmund. So he needs one more level in speed.

Really, I'll have to wait until I see the reinforcements, but the initial enemies here are really pathetic.

Ephraim hasn't recovered quite as much from stat screwage in this timeline (or maybe it's my complete failure to get him even one support with L'arachel), so one-rounding with javelins isn't really in the cards for him. He is kicking ass with the brave lance though, and there hardly seems any reason not to use the hell out of that.

The last treasures are a master seal and angelic robe. Cool, but there's not much use for them now. I guess I'll put the robe on L'arachel, maybe, though at this point there's hardly any need for her to use it even then.

YES! Okay, Ephraim got to 24 speed! Thank you! Now all that's left is to get Kyle to 23 speed.

These necrodragons are incredibly tough, but thankfully Kyle has Audhulma, so he can get the kill.

...Also, they're weak to bows too, since they can fly. Handy.

...Kyle unfortunately did not get the speed level up. I'll have to try again if I can. He's probably getting the boss kill, even though that means I'm definitely not gonna be able to see Eirika's boss quote with Lyon in-game.

Reinforcements have started coming in, and honestly they're nothing impressive.

...Nope, spoke too soon, a ton of ridiculously high-magic-power arch mogalls appear, and I'm so grateful that this is the side I chose to put Lute on, because she's basically the only one who can handle them. Kyle would die if both of the ones in range of him hit, so I'm baiting one of them in with Myrrh, juuuuust in case.

Surprisingly, most of them chose to gang up on Lute, who... came very close to dying due to a crazy string of unlucky hits.

Okay, the gorgons' steadfast refusal to move is making me extremely nervous. I'm going to bring all of my army over to one side, get everyone as close as I can, and then rush him.

Kyle yet again failed to proc speed, an in fact got the exact same, HPsauce level up two levels in a row. Looks like I'll have to settle with having Lute, Franz and Ephraim able to double him.

I'm probably not one-turning Fomortiis. Whatever.

Okay, it's a really, really weird mix of these units moving and refusing to move, and I'm not taking my chances. I'm rushing in to finish off Lyon before I can trigger something nasty.

Ephraim unfortunately doesn't have the magical bulk to take a hit from Lyon, so he's on rescuing duty to free up space for two units to attack him in melee. Juuust enough to kill when combined with Lute's Excalibur. Franz will do the second soften-up, and then Kyle will get the kill and hopefully level speed this time.

...Mission accomplished, except for the last part. Kyle didn't get enough exp to level.

And then we get a scene that's... significantly shorter than the counterpart in Ephraim's route, if memory serves. Really, it just amounts to Lyon using his last moments to finally confess his love for Eirika. Man, this moment really got to me as a kid, but... as an adult, yeah, no, I'm not feeling it at all.

...I like Fomortiis's pre-resurrection line here better though. I'm reminded of Davey Jones' speech as he prepares to summon the kraken in Dead Man's Chest.

Blah blah blah, yada yada yada, clap your hands if you believe in fairies...

...And that's a shame. Innes's line, “Bah... I am in no way inferior to this so-called “Demon King”...”, well, I thought it was in direct response to Ephraim's line immediately prior to all of these lines in Ephraim Route:

Ephraim: Everyone! Listen to me! This is the final battle. If we can defeat this thing, it's over. We face the king of demons, the monster that once ruled all Magvel. He's more powerful than any one of us here. But we have something the beast will never have. We have community, friendship, love... We have all the virtues of humanity. That is our weapon. That is our strength.

But no, he says that exact same line in Eirika's version, and she doesn't say anything about the strength of the Demon King. I mean, the line's still in character for him, but like... having it be a response to Ephraim's comment would have been even better.

Ephraim's a little luck-screwed, so I had to give him the Hoplon Guard to deal with that annoying crit rate Fomortiis had on him.

Holy shit! I could one-turn this thanks to a crit from Seth, but I'd have to bank on a 70% hit rate from Eirika finishing him off, and... yeah, no thanks.

Aaaaaand just like clockwork, turn 2 he loses his last 4 HP. He's down.

Yeah, I was checking the Ephraim Route script to see if dialogue was any different, and one thing I noticed is that it looks like yet again Lute lost dialogue because Artur died. Shame.

I also got some extra dialogue thanks to Moulder being alive, talking to Gilliam. Not much, but hey, it's nice to see him alive.

...Joshua's dialogue after Gerik and company talk about returning to Jehanna is... identical in this version apparently, according to the Ephraim Route script, despite us now knowing he's the prince.

Also, apparently Natasha had a little exchange with Amelia too.

And hey, apparently I lost some dialogue between Cormag, Duessel and Knoll because Knoll died.

...And some dialogue with Ephraim and Forde and Kyle because Kyle died.

It seems like I lost exactly one person from each of these conversations, with no overlap. Weird.

Alright, Epilogue time. And then... I think I'll give you “day one” of my misadventures with the trainee trio. I do not expect the first attempt at this to be a success. It takes a while to get any momentum with these three, but I'm gonna do my best. And once I pick up speed with them, it's going to be a ton of fun.

Hahahahahaha! I'm sorry, but the idea of L'arachel having a “tea club” just seems so silly to me. Especially because... I just can't help imagining Dozla being part of it.

Looks like we do get a scene with Joshua on this route. I wonder if there's any scene we won't get.

Ah, looks like we got Joshua's scene instead of Myrrh's. Alright.

...WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT A MOTHERFUCKING MINUTE.

Eirika talks to Ephraim about needing to seal the Sacred Stone away, since it contains the soul of the Demon King.

Eirika.

Eirika.

Why do you have that stone?

Why are you deciding what needs to be done with it?

THAT STONE ISN'T YOUR SACRED STONE, EIRIKA.

THAT STONE IS RAUSTEN'S SACRED STONE, EIRIKA.

WHY THE FUCK DID THEY LET YOU KEEP IT!?

Aaaaand then there's some talk about Eirika musing about using the new Dark Stone to bring back the dead, before saying she knows it's impossible. And then they resolve to fulfill Lyon's dreams in his stead, and... credits roll.

The post-credits scene with Lyon is the same as last time. So now then...

EIRIKA ROUTE STATS:

Prologue: 6 turns

Chapter 1: 7 turns

Chapter 2: 6 turns

Chapter 3: 15 turns

Chapter 4: 11 turns

Chapter 5: 9 turns

Chapter 5x: 30 turns

Chapter 6: 11 turns

Chapter 7: 26 turns

Chapter 8: 26 turns

Chapter 9: 20 turns

Chapter 10: 17 turns

Chapter 11: 16 turns

Chapter 12: 14 turns

Chapter 13: 9 turns

Chapter 14: 28 turns

Chapter 15: 16 turns

Chapter 16: 17 turns

Chapter 17: 25 turns

Chapter 18: 8 turns

Chapter 19: 6 turns

Chapter 20: 14 turns

Final Chapter: 24 turns

Total: 361. Huh. Curious how even with the warp-skipping I did at the end of Ephraim Route, I still took way more turns on Ephraim Route than Eirika Route. Well, anyway...

Honestly though, these statistics here are going by absurdly fast for a screen you couldn't pause on with original hardware. What were we supposed to do if we actually wanted to write this shit down?

Anyway...

Seth: B210 W138 L0. Curious how Seth's ending still mentions returning “with Ephraim”, even though Seth is really more connected to Eirika unless Ephraim Route happens.

Franz: B259 W166 L0. Nothing to say about him here that I didn't have to say last time, except that he had better stats this time, in strength, speed, and significantly in defense. Though Seth was more defense-blessed in this route too.

Moulder: ...Apparently he's been an advisor to the king this whole time? Bit of a curious person to send to the front lines, eh?

Colm: B44 W20 L0. Apparently Colm was offered a job as a spy of Renais, which he turned down.

Arthur: Still dead. Rest in Peace, Eirika Route's only casualty.

Joshua: B12 W6 L0. Joshua apparently did learn how to be a great king in all of his travels, funny enough, just like he said he originally went on the trip for.

Natasha: B1 W0 L0. She apparently became something of a grief counselor for Grado citizens who lost family in the war. That sounds like her.

Kyle: B237 W134 L0. Lute: B210 W179 L0. Apparently Kyle's friends and family were “disturbed by his choice of bride”. It then says they had a son, and Kyle apparently quit his job to take care of him. It says it vaguely though, with no clear indication of what Lute's doing as the apparent breadwinner now. Anyway, these two were an awesome pair. That +3 defense boost, plus the full boost to evasion and dodge, was a great help. Ice + anima is fantastic.

Innes: B20 W12 L0. Yeah, he wasn't a lot of use, but he was a consistent member of the team for just-in-case player-phase chip damage. Never managed to get him to S rank bows though, at least not on this route.

Syrene: B2 W1 L0. Yeah, I didn't use her much. There wasn't much need for her, on either route, due to me having Cormag. The most she did was take out the three mages over the mountain in the river chapter she joined in on Ephraim Route, and even then she needed major help.

Duessel: B13 W5 L0. Not nearly as useful this time around, as you can see. Still glad I deployed him a few times, but his contributions in this mode were nothing compared to how he saved my ass in Ephraim Route.

Knoll: B4 W1 L0. Honestly, he wasn't nearly as useful as I thought he'd be. In theory his phantoms can be a lifesaver, but only if things get really dangerous. I suppose he might have been useful in that final chapter today, but... there just wasn't room. Also, his ending suggests that, given that none of these endings seem to change between versions, even with the massive catastrophe that's shown to happen in Ephraim Route, the restoration of Grado to its former glory happens within Knoll's lifetime.

Cormag: B153 W81 L0. Not quite as useful this time around as in Ephraim Route, due to a combination of stat screwage and late join time. But he still pulled his weight significantly.

L'arachel: B7 W5 L0. Again, not nearly as useful this time, mostly due to not promoting as quickly and not getting a good support partner in Ephraim. I don't know what happened, but I just never had as many opportunities to support them together, even though I didn't try with either until after the routes rejoined, so the fact that I didn't get Ephraim here until chapter 15 didn't mean much. I know I had that thing where I stood around waiting to waste Vigarde's weapon, but that just got them to C. It can't have been the reason why one side had an A rank and the other side had nothing.

Saleh: B30 W20 L0. A pretty handy prepromote, though never remotely as useful as Pent was with this A rank in staves.

Myrrh: B47 W31 L0. Again, she was fun to use. I wish Fae could have been like her.

Ephraim: B58 W40 L0. Didn't see nearly as much action as he did in his own route, obviously.

Eirika: B54 W29 L0. Useless. She was just a more agile but less immortal Merlinus, honestly. There's pretty much no place for a sword-locked unit in the latter two GBA games.

...Well... that's it.

That's the end of the story.

That's the end of both of the stories.

...We're finally done with the campaign of Sacred Stones.

...Alright then. I'll post this for now, and then later today I'll post the results of day 1 of the adventures of Ross, Ewan and Amelia.

Stay safe, everyone!

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Minus the Sagas and the ignoring Creature Campaign, you're halfway done with the marathon now!

And, what classes would you pick for this Valni-Lagdou run? Don't say all 3rd tier trainees, no Staff user and horrid Con. Ewan looks awesome as a Sage, I'd pick that.

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1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Minus the Sagas and the ignoring Creature Campaign, you're halfway done with the marathon now!

And, what classes would you pick for this Valni-Lagdou run? Don't say all 3rd tier trainees, no Staff user and horrid Con. Ewan looks awesome as a Sage, I'd pick that.

Given that I basically only have three units, one of whom can't get more than six move... I'm thinking General for Amelia just to make absolutely sure I have someone with good bulk, and then Hero for Ross and Sage for Ewan. But I'll have to wait and see. I may wind up going berserker with Ross.

As for being halfway done... it's a nice thought, but remember that I'm playing all three fates games, so... probably a little less than halfway.

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Day 34 Bonus: Creature Campaign Day 1

Well, the Melkaen Coast has a skirmish on it now, so I think I'll check that map out now, in case it's hard to trigger again.

...It's a fog of war map. And I have no fog of war supplies left on this file.

...Hell, I just retreated from another skirmish in order to get some supplies, and apparently fog of war is being applied to the river map too!

First thing I'm noticing here is that the enemies are very high level, honestly comparable to mine.

Glad I bought the torch staves. They're cutting through this fog like crazy, letting me see basically everything before it gets in range of me. And while there isn't too much hiding in the fog, there is a gorgon with stone I'm glad I can see coming.

I wonder what this map would've been like normally. Access to torch staves would probably keep it from being that big of a deal, as would the fact that it'd be on Eirika Route.

The elder baels on the mountains are ridiculously bulky. The legendary weapons are pretty much needed to beat them in one round.

It's kind of weird just having... an infinite amount of extra battles you can fight, with no means to replenish some of the weapons in the game. You'd think there'd be some difficult or expensive means to repair the legendary weapons that would become available in this mode. I dunno, the fact that they're all completely finite and no longer paced for use over a finite game... feels weird to me. It especially makes Myrrh feel... left out of all the fun now.

The fact that this is a rout map though, is kinda... tedious. Especially with the arch mogalls I can only afford to bait in one at a time without Lute or L'arachel.

...Siege tome arch mogalls. In fog of war. That is... that is just not fair, game. Seriously, Franz could've died!

MULTIPLE SIEGE TOME ARCH MOGALLS!?

Yeah, the position of these things makes it basically impossible to approach them without risking death. This is a surprisingly dangerous map.

Thankfully, they're all ganging up on Tethys, who has sufficient evade on a forest that I'm not too scared of her dying. I've just gotta wait out their shots and hope nobody comes from behind to attack the retreating Rennac. I need him, badly.

Alright. Man, that was a slog. A rout map in fog of war is... such a terrible idea, especially when the map is massive and most of the enemies don't move.

I mean, it scared me, but... I wouldn't call it a good map.

Anyway... on to the fun stuff.

Tower of Valni, Floor 1

Alright, here are the rules for this big adventure:

I'm going to be sending Ross, Amelia and Ewan into the Tower of Valni. They have to do the whole thing in one trip without escaping. They can bring with them the weapon they started off with in their inventory (hatchet, slim lance and fire), and then they can stuff the remaining 4 inventory slots they have with anything else they can buy from any store on the continent. After they go in, however, they can only use the basic convoy shop, and only for one item per floor. And while they can put whatever they want into the convoy, they can't take anything out of the convoy except for their promotion items once it's time to promote.

Once the Tower is cleared, they can make another shopping spree before heading in to Lagdou Ruins and then following the same rules again.

Also, I'll be bringing Rennac with them, as their Jagen and their thief. This place has treasure, after all, and it'd be a waste to not get and use it. Plus... they're all really, really fragile at the start, and I wanna make sure I don't have to constantly reset to get the aforementioned foothold here.

Alright. So, in addition to the hatchet, slim lance and fire tome, I gave each of them one elixir and then gave Amelia three javelins and Ross three hand axes. Then I gave Ewan a thunder tome, one javelin and one hand axe. Rennac has an iron sword, a steel sword, and then three elixirs. The elixirs are important, because until I promote Ewan to tier 2, these are my only means of healing unless I want to use my very limited convoy shop purchases to get vulneraries.

Alright. I'm pretty familiar with the first floor here. It's just a bunch of weak zombies that even these guys can kill with some effort, and there are some walls that will let us turtle enough to hopefully, if this plays like my previous run, get one, maybe two of the three trainees to a basic class.

Alright, so far so good. I had Ewan go up in front since he's the only one who can double any of these guys with his 5 speed to their pathetic 1. We need to kill this first zombie quickly so we can form the wall we'll need to safely take these guys out one by one before we deal with all the enemies who won't move until they're approached.

...Apparently monster claws have unlisted weight. That is... terrible form, game. Amelia could have doubled these guys, and there was literally no way to tell until got to the combat window.

Alright, excellent start. Amelia dodged the first incoming attacker, saving an elixir use, and gained her first level, where she leveled HP, strength, defense and res.

Ewan's first level is magic, skill and speed, which is also much appreciated. Ross, however, hasn't had an opening to attack yet, mostly due to the specific arithmetic needed to make sure Amelia lands the finishing blow, since she's our frontliner and we need her to get some bulk fast.

It seems I chose well, having Rennac as the prepromote. He can just barely one-round skeleons with a steel sword. He serves his job now, but there's no way he's keeping up with the trainees once they promote. Hell, it's likely they'll surpass him before then.

Next level for Amelia is strength and speed. Not the best quantity, but great quality.

Amelia has to use a turn healing up with an elixir, and then Ross gets his first kill after Ewan brings a zombie down to 1 HP.

For some reason, a zombie refused to attack after moving right up to Amelia's face. I do chip damage to him, but I make sure he still has enough HP to survive Amelia (assuming she doesn't crit with that slim lance of hers). It is absolutely imperative that none of these enemies die on enemy phase. Amelia cannot take two hits at this stage.

So I have Ross do the chip damage, since he's the only one who can't double. And he gets his first level... getting nothing but luck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ82-2Y__Bk

Okay, now the revenant who could've one-shot Amelia if she hadn't leveled both HP and defense earlier decides to attack, attempting to bring her down to 1 HP... and missing.

Amelia gets speed and luck next player phase. Yeah, from what I can tell, it's possible, if you're really good about exp allocation, to promote two of these guys on this floor, but not three. So I'm gonna be focusing on doing that for Amelia, and hope I can do it for either Ewan or Ross next, depending on how things go.

Ewan gains just magic. At least it's better than luck. But yeah, it's alarming how I have to use an elixir every single time Amelia gets hit. I'm going to go through those things like crazy before they stabilize out how many hits they can take. This is part of why I wanna make Amelia a knight. Similarly, to conserve elixir uses, I'm not even bothering to heal Ewan's wounds for now. There's no point, since he's not getting in range of enemies. There are these little hallways to the immediate left and right of the starting location, and there's this tiny notch in the wall allowing Amelia to cover the bottleneck and have both Ross and Ewan be in 2-range of whatever's attacking her. I'm using that as much as possible to take these guys out and make sure Amelia is never in a position to kill something on enemy phase.

Amelia's getting some really good luck with dodges, which is awesome, because every single time she dodges, that's another elixir I don't have to use.

Ross thankfully gets a much better level up for level 3, getting strength, speed, defense and resistance.

And Amelia gets another point of defense and speed, while dodging a zombie! All of the zombies seem to have moving priority over this skeleton for some reason, too. Well, it doesn't really matter.

Ewan gains magic and skill, but nothing else. He needs to keep his speed up. If he can't do good player-phase combat, he can't do shit until he becomes a sage.

Well, I got my wish. His next one wasn't a great level up, but it did have speed in it.

Alright, we're clear of all the rushing enemies. And Amelia's gotten to the point where it's two hits per heal instead of one. Goodie. Now let's clear out the rest of these enemies and make Amelia a knight.

Ross gets a fantastic level up, gaining HP, strength, speed, defense and resistance.

I decide to focus on Ross as the second person to try to promote. His speed is lower, and without magic, he's gonna have a much harder time than Ewan doing enough damage to get kill exp, promote, and make himself useful as a frontliner.

...Alright, I did it. I didn't manage to get Ross or Ewan promoted, but Amelia I managed. And her speed is high enough that I think she'll be doubling even as a knight.

Tower of Valni, Floor 2

Apparently I've unlocked the ability to promote the trainees to super trainees just by clearing both routes. I didn't need to start a new file afterwards to enjoy the “benefits”. But no, I need someone who can take a hit now.

One thing I think is a shame is that she abandons her blue color scheme for a red one when she leaves the recruit class. If she were blue, oh man. A sword-wielding general who's my favorite color? I would have gone nuts for that as a kid, and I already used her a ton.

Alright, having promoted to knight, her stats are now:

24 HP, 9 strength, 8 skill, 12 speed, 10 luck, 6 defense, 4 resistance, and 10 con.

...This is the closest thing I have to a tank with this trio.

Help.

At any rate, given the drastically reduced amount of exploitable terrain, and much more powerful enemies, this is the part where having Rennac is really gonna come in handy. He's basically just barely strong enough to be a player-phase nuke, and he can handle some enemy-phase combat too. It's kind of alarming that a tier 2 unit is only just barely Jagen material here. I guess that's thieves for you.

...I really wish their utility as lock-picking machines weren't such an overwhelming part of their gameplay though. They basically just go on a downward spiral of increasing vulnerability the longer you have them, because they just can't fight, and thus can't gain exp.

But anyway, one of these starting skeletons has a zanbato, and I definitely want to get my hands on that thing, considering it's effective against the axe-wielding centaurs that are coming barreling towards me even as we speak. It's like that halberd when you're in Chapter 3 of FE6.

My one purchase for the floor is an iron lance, since Amelia basically completely used up her slim lance, and I don't want her forced to burn through her javelins right now. Those are all I have for the rest of the game unless I find more. Thankfuly, that might happen, because I see a hand axe as a droppable item from one of the tarvos...es? Or is the plural also tarvos?

Fuck it, I'll just call them centaurs. Let's go.

...Honestly, in-character, these four would probably be a pretty dang fun set of characters to send on an adventure together. I can see it now: Ross and Ewan on some stupid adventure to prove themselves, Amelia tagging along either eagerly or because she's worried about them, and then Rennac, who planned on robbing the place, winding up stuck being their beleaguered babysitter. That just sounds so much like something that would happen to him.

FUUUUUUUCK.

I accidentally killed the zanbato guy with someone with a full inventory. Now I have to decide between sending back an elixir or one of my slightly-used hand axes.

...Obviously the hand-axe. I'm getting another one this chapter, and he's not gonna be in any condition to use them effectively for enemy-phase for a while. For now, he's gonna have to stick to his much-more-reliable hatchet for ranged chip damage.

Ewan has unfortunately gotten a streak of bad to mediocre level ups lately. He's still fast enough to double, which is good, but hopefully he picks up or he could be in serious trouble.

Ewan finally breaks this streak of bad levels with a +spd, +def level, gaining his very first point of defense. Ever. In his entire life.

Also, as for their supports... my plan here is to bring Ewan to B with both, and then Amelia and Ross to A with each other. Ewan's going to be support basically no matter what, so I think it's important to make sure that the two who can handle enemy phase (and don't need potions to heal due to not being the healer) are the ones who get the best support bonuses.

...Apparently the centaurs aren't charging.

Anyway, one thing I had forgotten about, and which in another set of circumstances I may have had to pay the price for, is that trainees only have 4 move, and are thus slower than most of the enemies here.

Ross reached level 10, so now I'm gonna focus on getting Ewan that last level, and then I'll do the rest with Amelia and Rennac, because they can still gain exp.

Ewan gained yet another mediocre level up, but he's at 10 now, and that's what matters. Now to finish the rest.

Once I got into that long hallway at the east side of the map, some centaur reinforcements came from behind, and some of the enemies up north started charging. Rennac really earned his keep with that Zanbato, dispatching them before they could become overwhelming, especially since one of them had a hammer.

Amelia got some lucky defense level ups, and is now at 9 defense, much more befitting of a knight than the 6 she started the chapter with.

Deciding when to heal can be tricky, especially for Amelia and Rennac. Working out how far you wanna push their HP down before using that precious elixir is a pretty interesting challenge. Also, honestly, when units have 1-2 range capabilities and low defense, letting them stay wounded and just avoid combat until the free heal at the end of the level is an extremely beneficial but dangerous strategy.

Ewan and Amelia got their first support, which is awesome. Every support between the three of them nets +5 crit, so by the end, Ewan will have +20 and the others will have +25 when they're all together.

Aww. This is cute. Ewan's using his little magical knowledge to conjure some prestidigitation-esque tricks to impress Amelia. Then he calls it “magic used to make girls happy”, which I find funny for some reason.

Also, Ewan's light and Amelia's thunder is a full defense support, which is tempting to max out... but I think I'm still gonna have Ewan get to B with both of them.

Shit. I tested the mobility of the boss and got really unlucky. If Rennac gets hit again, he's going to die, but I can't let him heal unless I want to spend three whole elixir charges to heal the other two as well, which would be devastating down the line. I've gotta take a gamble and have Rennac fight the boss with the Zanbato and risk a 33% displayed hit chance to die. If he dies, I'm fucked. He has most of my elixirs. But I have to do this.

...Thankfully, he survives. See, that's one of the dangers of leaving people at low health I mentioned. I would have been fine there if Ross, Amelia and Ewan were at full health, but two of them weren't, and given this centaur boss's range...

I got a lancereaver for Rennac, which is gonna be handy, but... the biggest issue here is that one of these guys has a killer axe.

Shit. I really should have brought the Hoplon Guard.

But I think I can manage this, I'll just have to use an elixir on Rennac. With WTA he should just barely be able to survive a crit.

My Amelia is getting absurdly blessed here. She's a level 7 knight, and she has 2 more strength, 4 more speed, and 3 more defense than she should have. It's ridiculous. I love it.

Amelia got poisoned at 4 HP remaining, and I held my breath to see if I would find out that you can lose 4 hp from poison in a GBA game. She was reduced to 1, so she's fine, but I have to use an elixir and finish this map now.

I got the tarvos's killer axe instead of the hand axe. That's probably gonna be about as useful, honestly, so I'm not complaining. Especially since there was basically no way I could've gotten the hand axe anyway, because you get the weapon he isn't using, and I can't attack him from starting outside of his range.

Alright, let's move on.

Tower of Valni, Floor 3

I've decided to make Ross a pirate, because there might be water tiles in these dungeons I've forgotten, but more importantly, because I need someone who's pure, raw dps, just in case those necrodragon things at the very end of Lagdou Ruins turn out to be as durable as the ones I fought earlier today in Eirika's final battle. Plus, that just seems to be an important niche to have in my army.

It's kind of ridiculous how massively bulky Ross becomes when he promotes. For either Ewan and for cavalier Amelia it's less egregious, but for Ross it's just patently absurd how much he changes.

For Ewan, obviously I'm going mage. Summoner might be nice in the long run, but I need the mage's +2 speed bonus, and I also need access to the anima tomes Ewan brought with him. I can't afford to make two of his items useless right now. Plus, Ewan's color scheme just plain looks way cooler as a mage than as a dark mage.

Alright, since Amelia's gotten way ahead in levels due to promoting first, I'm gonna try and give as much exp as I can to Ewan and Ross. To this end, the item I'll be purchasing today is an iron axe. I wanna save as many hand axes as I can, and while Ewan's kinda running low on his fire tome and may have to start using his thunder one, the difference between fire and thunder isn't nearly as big as the difference between an iron axe and a hand axe, so running out of that thunder isn't going to be nearly as much of a setback.

...Shit.

...The convoy shop doesn't have vulneraries.

These elixirs are all I've got when it comes to healing. I've gotta make 'em last.

I may even need to promote Ewan at level 10, which would be a tragedy in the long term, but may prove necessary. Hell, it might even be in my best interest to focus on training him, to get as much exp on him as I possibly can before I run out of elixirs and have to promote him.

Also, this is the first floor with a treasure chest. My inventory is still just as packed as it was when I came in, thanks to the stuff I've been getting. Honestly, with the random drops I've had to improvise with, this almost feels like a roguelike. And I like that. Props to Mekkah for coming up with the basic premise, though he didn't use quite the same rules as I did.

Jesus. These mauthe doogs are fast. And they're so close to the starting point that I basically have to hold back and let this bael come to me, otherwise they'll slaughter Ewan by one-rounding him, even if just barely.

...Actually, with the Amelia support, he'd just barely survive, but still.

Thankfully, it was the slower one who made its move, the one who can't double Ewan.

I've gotta say, the luck stats on all of the trainees are really high. Like, Ross has 15 luck and he's barely become a pirate. That's certainly convenient, given all the small crit chances they've been avoiding, though it'll become less relevant as their supports grow.

...Ewan got HPsauce. Why, Ewan?

...But thankfully, Ewan got his first support with Ross now, and I've managed to weather the initial rush of enemies, which was quite scary, and now things seem to be calming down.

HAHAHAHA! “The two of us won't make much difference”, Ewan says to Ross when he justifies socializing in the middle of a battle. Given the roster I'm playing with, that's hilariously dumb.

I like this stone-weighing brainteaser Ewan gives Ross. I remember getting it wrong when I first tried to figure it out. I think I guessed similarly to Ross's close-but-still-wrong answer in the B support, if I remember correctly.

Ewan's still getting frustratingly poor levels, but he's still so useful because magic is so useful. Plus, he has the second-best attack speed of the three, and can reliably double pretty much everything but the mauthe doogs.

Aaaand now all three are supporting each other. Awesome. Glad I got on that right away. It's gonna be important.

Honestly, I like how all three of the trainees interact. It was great that they gave them all supports with each other. It's very rare that we get to see a bunch of supports that are just about kids goofing around with each other and being cute.

Due to a centaur refusing to be baited out ahead of his pack, I was just barely forced to give Amelia an elixir when she wasn't even half-wounded in order to ensure her survival. In hindsight, I probably should have checked if Rennac could have taken it. I don't think he would have, though.

The chest didn't have anything useful for us, just 3000 gold. Moving on.

I stuck around a little bit to get Ewan and Amelia's B support. +1 defense for both of them seems like something I want to get done right away.

Meanwhile, Ross is getting insanely good levels, leaving Ewan the odd one out, though still very useful.

Jesus Christ, Ewan. This is like the fifth consecutive level exclusively getting HP, skill, luck, and res, and not even all at once.

...Let's keep going.

Tower of Valni, Floor 4

I just unlocked Caellach from the bonus characters. Most important thing about him is that he comes with a second Hoplon Guard, which I'm really wishing I brought now.

Okay, thankfully, I just checked averages, and Ewan isn't actually screwed, it's just the others are absurdly blessed. So there's probably gonna be hope for him to keep up being useful yet.

We're once again outrageously outnumbered, but we've also gone back to having narrow corridors, so that's handy. The main thing I find weird about this map is that if you aren't low-manning it, you're forced to split up the party in such a way that you have 3 of your 8 units really close to the boss on the other side of a wall from your other units. Obviously I'm not doing that, just to be safe.

...One of the skeletons is holding a torch. Now, in the event that there's a fog of war map in this tower and I've completely forgotten, I want that thing. So I'm going to hold on to it, just in case, even though it's a major strain on my pockets to do so.

For my one purchase, I bought Amelia another iron lance. Given how much I've been using her, naturally she's burned through the first one by now. Ewan's now burning through his thunder tome, and probably won't have much of it left by the end of this map. I'll have to buy him some more fire, or he just flat-out won't be able to do anything. But I chose not to do that this time because, again, Ewan losing his thunder tome won't be as bad as Amelia running out of javelins.

Ewan finally gets speed again, as well as defense. Thank goodness. Let's hope that's a sign of things to come.

Enemies come at us from both sides this time, but thankfully, everyone but Ewan has reached the point where they can take a hit or two.

...Honestly, for a grinding tower, it's kind of crazy how realistic it is to keep pace with, or even outpace, this thing, even when you're starting with units at ground zero. These are the weakest units I could have possibly brought into the tower, and they've already significantly surpassed the enemies. I always remembered this place as being something where you had to do the initial floors multiple times before you were ready for the upper ones. Funny.

But also, this just goes to show how much these grinding dungeons completely snap the game in half. Even going through this once will probably give you units able to wipe the floor with the rest of the game forever.

Alright, Ewan's at level 10, and as soon as our healing situation becomes dire, he's free to become a sage and get right on healing duty.

But actually, somewhere between the end of floor 2 and now, my supply of elixirs has been holding pretty damned steady. I've barely needed to use them. My team's reached the point where their evasion and bulk lets their starting HP last most of the map.

Alright, boss done, let's move on!

Tower of Valni, Floor 5

I realize these maps are all on the smaller side, but... I've still gone through four of the bastards in one day, on a day where I've already done one main story map, the final battle after it, and a fog of war rout skirmish.

You know what that's a sign of for me?

It's a sign I'm having some damned fun!

I can hardly praise the game for the existence of a challenge run you can do in it that the devs didn't come up with themselves, but... like... it's there, and you can do it, and it's fun. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it. Without Rennac the beginning can be an absolute pain, but with Rennac, this is so much fun. Your limited numbers and supplies really spice this gameplay up a lot.

That said, I'm probably gonna stop after this, because this update is getting pretty long and I don't want to get too carried away with what I'll have to proofread.

Anyway, Ewan still has 17 uses of thunder left, due to me mostly focusing on having him finish off enemies in on hit, and I just got him a new fire book. I had to sell a 4 use javelin to make room for it, though.

Oh, this is gonna be an interesting map. It's absolutely crawling with enemies, which means I'll probably be eating through a lot of my supplies (though there are two chests that'll hopefully have something I can use), but more importantly, there are four different rooms near the starting area I can fight my way into to shore up my defense. I think I'll be going for the northeast one, because that one has the fewest enemies to fight through, all of them melee. I should be able to secure myself in there really quickly.

Some of these enemies are surprisingly strong, but Amelia and Ross (who's suddenly become as tanky as her) can handle it.

Also, Amelia's insane stat luck seems to have run out, as she's gotten a consistent string of terrible level ups, just in time for getting any stronger to be mostly unnecessary.

Man, this is just a clusterfuck. So many enemies, so little damage. Honestly, the difficulty might be scaling down from here on out, until we get to Lagdou ruins... at which point it could get intense all over again, possibly permanently, since that's supposed to be an endgame challenge.

Oh I am going to bring so much nicer toys into the Lagdou Ruins. I'm hoping I can get Ewan's staff rank up as much as possible to use the really important shit.

Alright, I've got everyone at B rank with everyone. All that's left to do is finalize who's getting the A rank with who.

I got a killing edge in the first chest, and I forgot to empty Rennac's inventory, so I got rid of the 8-use Zanbato. It's served me well, and is no longer necessary. Centaurs are no longer a terrifying foe I need a nuke for.

The second chest has a recover staff, which... I don't think is gonna be all that useful. I mean, it's C, not A, but still, Ewan's gonna start at E, and he's gonna start pretty dang late. Plus, promoted magic users generally get by with just heal and physic due to their ridiculously high magic.

Ewan's finally gotten some good level ups, including a few defense ones. I think he should be fine from here on out.

But with that, I think that's enough for today. Man, I don't think I've spent this much time on the marathon without feeling fatigued in a while. I'll have to be careful and make sure this doesn't unfairly positively color my perception of the game, because, again, the fact that this particular way of playing is engaging is almost entirely incidental. This is just a really, really fun way to check out these bonus maps, and I cannot wait to play more of it tomorrow.

Stay safe, everyone!

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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Deciding when to heal can be tricky, especially for Amelia and Rennac. Working out how far you wanna push their HP down before using that precious elixir is a pretty interesting challenge. Also, honestly, when units have 1-2 range capabilities and low defense, letting them stay wounded and just avoid combat until the free heal at the end of the level is an extremely beneficial but dangerous strategy.

 

I'm actually working on a hack right now which has this as a gameplay principle. Basically no healing magic at all available throughout the entire game, only elixirs and (some) healing tiles. It also uses Gaiden style magic so your HP will be eroded over time even with your play phase nukes. I think it's pretty interesting, but I need to finish writing a script and get some help with artwork before I can release it.

 

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1 minute ago, Jotari said:

I'm actually working on a hack right now which has this as a gameplay principle. Basically no healing magic at all available throughout the entire game, only elixirs and (some) healing tiles. It also uses Gaiden style magic so your HP will be eroded over time even with your play phase nukes. I think it's pretty interesting, but I need to finish writing a script and get some help with artwork before I can release it.

 

Fascinating! Keep me posted!

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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Apparently monster claws have unlisted weight. That is... terrible form, game. Amelia could have doubled these guys, and there was literally no way to tell until got to the combat window.

 

Oh yeah, meant to comment on this too. Claws having unlisted weight isn't the real crime here, the real crime is that stat screens don't shot effective Attack Speed. I think Three Houses is the first game that actually showed attack speed to the player which is frankly ridiculous. Ever since the GBA games we've had a separate section showing the enemies Atk, Avoid, Accuracy and Crit, why was attack speed left out of this line up? It's a pretty vital thing to know!

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3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Oh yeah, meant to comment on this too. Claws having unlisted weight isn't the real crime here, the real crime is that stat screens don't shot effective Attack Speed. I think Three Houses is the first game that actually showed attack speed to the player which is frankly ridiculous. Ever since the GBA games we've had a separate section showing the enemies Atk, Avoid, Accuracy and Crit, why was attack speed left out of this line up? It's a pretty vital thing to know!

Wait, really? I know that FE3 and FE5 showed it, and I'm pretty sure others did too. Was that added in the translations I played?

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7 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Wait, really? I know that FE3 and FE5 showed it, and I'm pretty sure others did too. Was that added in the translations I played?

Actually I do remember FE3 showing it. Though that game is still forcing me to do maths so it's easy to overlook it in memory. The GBA games definitely didn't show it though, and I don't think Awakening or Tellius did either. Most of the games after Shadow Dragon didn't have weapon weight though which meant Attack Speed and regular speed were basically the same thing.

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On 6/9/2020 at 4:39 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Ah yes, now we get to Myrrh mourning her dead, zombified foster father. One thing I always found... interesting about this part is that Myrrh tries to hide the fact that Morva was her father from the group in both timelines, but... Eirika falls for it, while Ephraim doesn't.

I'll have to check out the details tomorrow, but... yeah, that might have been another contributing factor to Eirika's reputation as oblivious and naive.

 

I didn't notice that. Unlike the other moments where Eirika is portrayed as naive, I think this one is poor writing for two reasons. 

1) Eirika's whole character arc is becoming less naive so her being fooled at the end of the game makes it seem like she didn't develop.

2) Eirika is supposed to be more socially intelligent than Ephraim which I argued in the past but now it seems to me that Ephraim excels in all fields of intelligence compared to Eirika. 

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12 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

I didn't notice that. Unlike the other moments where Eirika is portrayed as naive, I think this one is poor writing for two reasons. 

1) Eirika's whole character arc is becoming less naive so her being fooled at the end of the game makes it seem like she didn't develop.

2) Eirika is supposed to be more socially intelligent than Ephraim which I argued in the past but now it seems to me that Ephraim excels in all fields of intelligence compared to Eirika. 

They might wanted to have shown that Ephraim's closer to Myrrh than Eirika is.

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3 hours ago, Jotari said:

They might wanted to have shown that Ephraim's closer to Myrrh than Eirika is.

Pretty much what I was thinking yeah.

Also, for the Melkaean coast (or however the fuck's it's spelled), I don't think I've ever seen it under FoW. Come to think of it, I think maybe the FoW effect applies randomly to skirmishes? I mean, some maps that usually have for of war suddenly don't, sometimes, and vice versa. I think it makes sense if the game just rolls an rn to see if the skirmish will have fog or not.

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1 hour ago, Koops said:

Pretty much what I was thinking yeah.

Also, for the Melkaean coast (or however the fuck's it's spelled), I don't think I've ever seen it under FoW. Come to think of it, I think maybe the FoW effect applies randomly to skirmishes? I mean, some maps that usually have for of war suddenly don't, sometimes, and vice versa. I think it makes sense if the game just rolls an rn to see if the skirmish will have fog or not.

This is most certainly true. Skirmisrhes differently have fog of war randomly applied. I'm not sure exactly how it's done though. The world map is something I, and I think most others, try to avoid and ignore when it comes to hacking. It might depend on what enemy spawns at that location on the world map though.

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5 hours ago, Jotari said:

They might wanted to have shown that Ephraim's closer to Myrrh than Eirika is.

I mean, you could argue that was the intent, but given that Ephraim Route shows that Myrrh was visibly crying, it does raise the question of how the hell Eirika missed that. Actually, when I described that social-cue-failure moment to a friend, along with my mentions of her incredibly minimal emotional reactions to stuff at the start of the story, he said "that sounds like me. Are you sure she isn't supposed to be autistic?"

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9 hours ago, Icelerate said:

I didn't notice that. Unlike the other moments where Eirika is portrayed as naive, I think this one is poor writing for two reasons. 

1) Eirika's whole character arc is becoming less naive so her being fooled at the end of the game makes it seem like she didn't develop.

2) Eirika is supposed to be more socially intelligent than Ephraim which I argued in the past but now it seems to me that Ephraim excels in all fields of intelligence compared to Eirika. 

I always tend to give Eirika a bit of a pass about giving the stone to Lyon. She's not being naive towards just any poorly disguised bandit such as Corrin would have been or some blue skinned gargoyle like Celica. The one who tricks her is her best friend who she loves very much, and the main flaw that allows her to be tricked isn't that she's a dummy but just desperate for her best friend not to be lost forever. 

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12 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I always tend to give Eirika a bit of a pass about giving the stone to Lyon. She's not being naive towards just any poorly disguised bandit such as Corrin would have been or some blue skinned gargoyle like Celica. The one who tricks her is her best friend who she loves very much, and the main flaw that allows her to be tricked isn't that she's a dummy but just desperate for her best friend not to be lost forever. 

Yeah, except Fomortiis pulled that exact same stunt on her just the other day at River of Regrets, and she still fell for it.

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