Shadow Mir Posted June 12, 2020 Share Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) 1 hour 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. Problem is, you can't really ignore the fact that that stunt was pulled on her before (by which I mean the previous chapter), and she still bought it hook, line and sinker. You know what they say; Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. It's hard for me to believe she developed as a character considering how easily she fell for it. . . Edited June 12, 2020 by Shadow Mir Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted June 12, 2020 Author Share Posted June 12, 2020 11 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. Yes, both of these things bothered me too. Honestly, it would've been pretty nice if Eirika did figure out she was being lied to, and this moment became, as you said, a point of growth for her, to show how she's developed as a character. Especially if she maybe had something profound and comforting to say to help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icelerate Posted June 12, 2020 Share Posted June 12, 2020 2 hours 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. But I wasn't talking about the stone unless you are quoting someone else. I already argued that it made perfect sense why Eirika gave the stone to Lyon. Eirika comes to realize that Lyon has been possessed and asks L'Arachel for advice on how to bring him back. L'Arachel argues there isn't a way to save him but even after the conversation Eirika is still in denial. A lot of people think it is dumb that Eirika gave Lyon the Sacred Stone. However, this conversation explains it. L'Arachel is not an infallable source of knowledge and even she says "to the best of my knowledge, no" so it is logical for Eirika to conclude that there may still be a way to save him even if it is grasping at straws, especially since L'Arachel herself admits that someone has thrown off the Demon King. Furthermore, while Eirika has acknowledged that he is indeed possessed, she has seen the real Lyon, so L'Arachel's argument that Lyon can no longer be saved because his soul has been completely devoured isn't proven to be true. In fact, Lyon's nice appearances can allow her to deduce that there is still a bit of Lyon's soul remaining and due to his kind heart, it may allow him to overpower the Demon King much like Saint Latona. After this exchange L'Arachel tells Eirika to retreat due to her stress, but Eirika refuses so as not to abandon her group or her friend, explaining why he deserves to be saved. Spoiler Eirika: “L’Arachel? May I ask for your advice?” L’Arachel: “What is it, Eirika? There’s no need to be so formal.” Eirika: “It’s about Lyon. My brother was right. Lyon’s been possessed by the Demon King. He-He’s no longer the Lyon I once knew. But I can’t help feeling there must be some way to bring him back.” L’Arachel: “...” (Eirika jumps persuading) Eirika: “Please help me, L’Arachel. I want to save him. Rausten is the spiritual heart of Magvel. They keep the ancient lore. You’re their princess. You must know something about the demons of legend. Is there anything that can save Lyon? L’Arachel: “I’m so sorry, Eirika. To the best of my knowledge, there is no way to aid him.” Eirika: “That can’t be! There must be something! Any clue, no matter how slight!” L’Arachel: “Our oldest legends tell us just this: Only one person has ever been able to shake off the Demon King’s domination. Rausten’s founder, Saint Latona the sure-hearted, shattered his fetters. If one possesses a strength of will beyond that of normal men? Only then can one throw off the shackles of the Demon King. But you saw it yourself, Eirika, with your own two eyes. Your friend Lyon’s body has already been claimed by the Demon King. Once it’s gone that far, there’s nothing that can be done. When the Demon King takes over someone, he devours his spirit, his very soul. Even if his hold on Lyon’s body could be released, that body would have no soul. There is no power in Rausten?not even the Sacred Stone?that can perform so great a miracle as to restore a shattered soul.” Eirika: “But? Lyon?” L’Arachel: “Eirika, I understand how you feel, but the prince is gone. The Lyon you knew no longer exists. It’s more important now that you care for yourself. If we pursue the Demon King, we’re likely to suffer for it. I want you to return to Rausten Palace and rest yourself.” Eirika: “Thank you, L’Arachel. However, I must stay with the company. I have to believe there’s something I can do to help him. Lyon was always so kind. He wanted nothing more than to help people. It’s too terrible to picture him imprisoned by the Demon King. Imprisoned with no hope of salvation.” At the end of the battle, Eirika confronts Lyon. What's important here is that Lyon appears to be his real self at the moment, just as he was in Chapter 14, and is fighting against Formortiss as he talks to her as he did in the previous chapter. He acts as if he's about to die and Eirika has lost so much already that it stands to reason that she wouldn't allow anyone to pass if there's even the slightest chance of saving them. Lyon claims the Sacred Stone can save him and rid them of the Demon King which she accepts. Eirika knows he's spent months if not years studying the Sacred Stones - and that they have the power to do just that - so it follows that Lyon can be cured with one. Spoiler Eirika: “Lyon! Lyoooon!” Lyon (off-screen): “Ei…Eirika…” Eirika: “Lyon? Where are you?” Lyon (off-screen): “I’m…here.” (Lyon teleports in) Eirika: “Lyon… Hold on. I’ll save you!” Lyon: “Forgive me…Eirika… It’s over…for me… The Demon King has devoured my soul… I’m mad…and I’m going… to die…” Eirika: “Lyon… What should I do? How can I help you? Tell me! I’ll do anything, but you have to tell me!” Lyon: “…The Sacred Stone… Give me…the stone…” Eirika: “What?” Lyon: “My body…is being ravaged by the Demon King. If it continues unchecked, nothing can save me. But if I had the power of a Sacred Stone… I could save…my soul…” Eirika: “Lyon…” Lyon: “Please…Eirika… I don’t want to die yet… I want to live…with you… If I had the Sacred Stone… I could…heal myself… Please…” Eirika: “Could the Sacred Stone really do that? Could it heal you?” Lyon: “Yes… Please…Eirika…” Eirika: “I…trust you, Lyon. I have a stone right here.” Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted June 12, 2020 Author Share Posted June 12, 2020 3 minutes ago, Icelerate said: But I wasn't talking about the stone unless you are quoting someone else. I already argued that it made perfect sense why Eirika gave the stone to Lyon. Eirika comes to realize that Lyon has been possessed and asks L'Arachel for advice on how to bring him back. L'Arachel argues there isn't a way to save him but even after the conversation Eirika is still in denial. A lot of people think it is dumb that Eirika gave Lyon the Sacred Stone. However, this conversation explains it. L'Arachel is not an infallable source of knowledge and even she says "to the best of my knowledge, no" so it is logical for Eirika to conclude that there may still be a way to save him even if it is grasping at straws, especially since L'Arachel herself admits that someone has thrown off the Demon King. Furthermore, while Eirika has acknowledged that he is indeed possessed, she has seen the real Lyon, so L'Arachel's argument that Lyon can no longer be saved because his soul has been completely devoured isn't proven to be true. In fact, Lyon's nice appearances can allow her to deduce that there is still a bit of Lyon's soul remaining and due to his kind heart, it may allow him to overpower the Demon King much like Saint Latona. After this exchange L'Arachel tells Eirika to retreat due to her stress, but Eirika refuses so as not to abandon her group or her friend, explaining why he deserves to be saved. Hide contents Eirika: “L’Arachel? May I ask for your advice?” L’Arachel: “What is it, Eirika? There’s no need to be so formal.” Eirika: “It’s about Lyon. My brother was right. Lyon’s been possessed by the Demon King. He-He’s no longer the Lyon I once knew. But I can’t help feeling there must be some way to bring him back.” L’Arachel: “...” (Eirika jumps persuading) Eirika: “Please help me, L’Arachel. I want to save him. Rausten is the spiritual heart of Magvel. They keep the ancient lore. You’re their princess. You must know something about the demons of legend. Is there anything that can save Lyon? L’Arachel: “I’m so sorry, Eirika. To the best of my knowledge, there is no way to aid him.” Eirika: “That can’t be! There must be something! Any clue, no matter how slight!” L’Arachel: “Our oldest legends tell us just this: Only one person has ever been able to shake off the Demon King’s domination. Rausten’s founder, Saint Latona the sure-hearted, shattered his fetters. If one possesses a strength of will beyond that of normal men? Only then can one throw off the shackles of the Demon King. But you saw it yourself, Eirika, with your own two eyes. Your friend Lyon’s body has already been claimed by the Demon King. Once it’s gone that far, there’s nothing that can be done. When the Demon King takes over someone, he devours his spirit, his very soul. Even if his hold on Lyon’s body could be released, that body would have no soul. There is no power in Rausten?not even the Sacred Stone?that can perform so great a miracle as to restore a shattered soul.” Eirika: “But? Lyon?” L’Arachel: “Eirika, I understand how you feel, but the prince is gone. The Lyon you knew no longer exists. It’s more important now that you care for yourself. If we pursue the Demon King, we’re likely to suffer for it. I want you to return to Rausten Palace and rest yourself.” Eirika: “Thank you, L’Arachel. However, I must stay with the company. I have to believe there’s something I can do to help him. Lyon was always so kind. He wanted nothing more than to help people. It’s too terrible to picture him imprisoned by the Demon King. Imprisoned with no hope of salvation.” At the end of the battle, Eirika confronts Lyon. What's important here is that Lyon appears to be his real self at the moment, just as he was in Chapter 14, and is fighting against Formortiss as he talks to her as he did in the previous chapter. He acts as if he's about to die and Eirika has lost so much already that it stands to reason that she wouldn't allow anyone to pass if there's even the slightest chance of saving them. Lyon claims the Sacred Stone can save him and rid them of the Demon King which she accepts. Eirika knows he's spent months if not years studying the Sacred Stones - and that they have the power to do just that - so it follows that Lyon can be cured with one. Hide contents Eirika: “Lyon! Lyoooon!” Lyon (off-screen): “Ei…Eirika…” Eirika: “Lyon? Where are you?” Lyon (off-screen): “I’m…here.” (Lyon teleports in) Eirika: “Lyon… Hold on. I’ll save you!” Lyon: “Forgive me…Eirika… It’s over…for me… The Demon King has devoured my soul… I’m mad…and I’m going… to die…” Eirika: “Lyon… What should I do? How can I help you? Tell me! I’ll do anything, but you have to tell me!” Lyon: “…The Sacred Stone… Give me…the stone…” Eirika: “What?” Lyon: “My body…is being ravaged by the Demon King. If it continues unchecked, nothing can save me. But if I had the power of a Sacred Stone… I could save…my soul…” Eirika: “Lyon…” Lyon: “Please…Eirika… I don’t want to die yet… I want to live…with you… If I had the Sacred Stone… I could…heal myself… Please…” Eirika: “Could the Sacred Stone really do that? Could it heal you?” Lyon: “Yes… Please…Eirika…” Eirika: “I…trust you, Lyon. I have a stone right here.” I get that she's supposed to not be in the best state emotionally, but my grievance with this scene, as said before, is that the game has failed to either depict Eirika as the type of person to get so completely overwhelmed by emotion, or to make us really feel her pain the way we were made to feel the pain of Lyn, Eliwood or Hector. I won't repeat everything I said there, but that's the gist: they tried to write a character acting illogically due to emotional reasons, but again, Eirika is a character driven by emotions we are not allowed to see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benice Posted June 12, 2020 Share Posted June 12, 2020 9 hours ago, Koops said: I think maybe the FoW effect applies randomly to skirmishes? Totally random, yeah. I think some maps are exempt from this, but I can confirm that most of the time Melkaen coast doesn't have FoW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted June 12, 2020 Author Share Posted June 12, 2020 1 minute ago, Benice said: Totally random, yeah. I think some maps are exempt from this, but I can confirm that most of the time Melkaen coast doesn't have FoW. Thanks for pointing this out, everyone. That's important for me to know about it. That probably explains the absurd willingness to put seige tome arch mogalls at the back of the map. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icelerate Posted June 12, 2020 Share Posted June 12, 2020 47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: I get that she's supposed to not be in the best state emotionally, but my grievance with this scene, as said before, is that the game has failed to either depict Eirika as the type of person to get so completely overwhelmed by emotion, or to make us really feel her pain the way we were made to feel the pain of Lyn, Eliwood or Hector. I won't repeat everything I said there, but that's the gist: they tried to write a character acting illogically due to emotional reasons, but again, Eirika is a character driven by emotions we are not allowed to see. Well we discussed this earlier and I did agree that it is a presentation issue. However, Eirika seems very desperate and emotional with the way she called out Lyon's name and how she ran to Lyon without paying Ephraim any heed. Spoiler Eirika: “Lyon! Lyoooon!” Spoiler Eirika: “Wait!” Ephraim: “Hold, Eirika! Don’t go anywhere alone!” Eirika: “Lyon’s back there! I won’t abandon him!” Is Ephraim being a hypocrite though? He tells Eirika to not confront him alone but does so in his route. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted June 12, 2020 Author Share Posted June 12, 2020 6 minutes ago, Icelerate said: Is Ephraim being a hypocrite though? He tells Eirika to not confront him alone but does so in his route. I don't know if "hypocrite" is the right word, since he never warns Eirika it's dangerous and rushes ahead himself in the same timeline, but yes, as I said in the original post, I did feel that was weird that only she got warned, and they don't lean too far narratively into Ephraim's own foolishness in that scene. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted June 12, 2020 Author Share Posted June 12, 2020 Sacred Stones Day 35: Creature Campaign Day 2 Alright! Let's keep moving! Tower of Valni, Floor 6 Alright, Amelia gets this round's shop purchase, because her iron lance is nearly gone, and... wow, she only has one javelin left. Meanwhile Ross has two of his hand axes remaining, gotta keep that in mind. Anyway, thought I'd give a quick update on how everyone's stats look: Ross: Level 14 pirate, 33 HP, 19 Str, 10 Skl, 13 Spd, 17 Lck, 13 Def, 6 Res. He seems to be right on the money with most of his growths, with the exception of a 2 point lead in speed and a 3 point lead in defense. Amelia: Level 17 knight, 34 HP, 15 Str, 10 Skl, 17 Spd, 22 Lck, 13 Def, 4 Res. She's still mildly-to-moderately blessed in basically everything except skill, where she's 4 points below, and res, where she's 2 points below. Easily the MVP so far. Ewan: Level 14 mage, 31 HP, 13 Mag, 11 Skill, 15 Speed, 14 Luck, 5 Def, 12 Res. He's mostly on the money, a bit blessed in HP, but slightly screwed in magic and several points behind in luck and res, which I was not expecting, given all of the times I was annoyed that he didn't get anything but those things. At any rate, despite my complaints about his growths, he's still been consistently extremely useful for player-phase combat, even if the others are basically just as good at that and now can also fight back. Ah. But soon Ewan will more than justify his existence... when he gains the ability to heal. Anyway, this map... the multiple breakable walls you have to fight through are gonna be a pain, especially given this is a rout map, so I'm gonna play defensively and hope these guys are gonna break through some of them on their own, saving me time and weapon uses. Also, given that these three have become such good friends, I feel guilty about turning anyone into a third wheel in a blossoming bit of puppy love. So I'm not going to ship either of the boys with Amelia. Instead, Ewan and Ross will A rank each other so that they're just all super best buds. And gameplaywise, this allows me to max out the offensive support bonuses Ross gets. The difference is incredibly slight, yes, but that's how it works with all of these. Ross is gonna be a berserker, so obviously he needs to be part of the one A rank to get all +25 crit, but he also gets +1 atk with an A with Ewan compared to an A with Amelia. If I ever need a raw DPS unit who can do ridiculous, reliable crit damage with a killer axe, Ross is gonna be my unit of choice. ...Yep, these guys are breaking down the walls on their own. Awesome. I'd hate to have to waste tons of precious weapon uses breaking these things down over dozens of turns total. Especially since I'd have to use either a hand axe or a javelin to have all three of them attack these 50 HP walls. Strangely, only the melee units near the walls are trying to break them. This level has more skeleton archers than fucking Minecraft, and none of them are doing a damned thing to break these walls. ...Yeah, it seems only a specific set of units were programmed to attack the walls. Kill them, and nobody else will do it instead. Rennac got a silence staff from one of the chests, and I sent the recover back. No way Ewan's gonna learn how to use that before we get out of here. Honestly, I could have sent back the silence for the same reason, but I just felt like keeping the silence staff for reasons I can't understand. At any rate, it's cool that you can find rare staves like that in here. I got a heavy spear for Amelia, which is nice. Not the armor-slaying property of it; I'm pretty damned sure that none of the monsters count as armored, though I will check the cyclopes just in case. It's just nice to have 16 more attacks with her. So, I got Ross and Ewan's support, which is another reason why I did this: I don't actually remember what their A support is, and I'd like to see it again. I remember the gist of Ewan and Ross's A supports with Amelia, but not with each other. I was always big on shipping one of them with Amelia when I was in middle school. Though I was also partial to pairing her with Franz. I always found it cute that they hugged at the end of their support. Hahahahaha! Ewan is such a brat. I never really noticed it as a kid, but now I do, and holy shit do I love it. He's got, like, this tiiiiiny piece of Azama in him, and it's just so amusing. These two are great. ...But one thing that kind of annoys me in the earlier, C-A, five-supports-only games is when friendship A supports involve asking each other about their love lives, which have basically been rendered impossible in-game. That always pissed me off as a kid. I remember Rebecca and Nino gossiping about who they had a crush on, and Rebecca knowing Nino liked Jaffar, and, like... yeah, but that's not gonna happen now! A big benefit of getting a group +20-25% crit rate with these guys is that it's basically a 25% chance to halve your weapon usage, which... is gonna add up after a while. Not that I'm exactly starving for inventory spaces. Speaking of, once Amelia promotes, I'm gonna start training her to use all of these swords Rennac is carrying, because she'll make much better use of them, and they're a major untapped source of supplies here. It'd be nice to just not have to replenish Amelia's weapon supplies for several maps. ...Though honestly, we're close to the end now, and then we'll be able to buy whatever. I'm feeding all the promoted enemy kills to Ewan so that he can promote next chapter. He'll probably be almost entirely out of tomes, but thankfully, he'll still have plenty to do with the heal staff I'll buy for him. Scratch that, Rennac just got us an elfire from the second chest! Awesome! Perfect timing! The second one is... a brave lance, which Amelia can actually use. Well, that puts us in the clear weaponwise for a while. Alright, Ewan's level 20. He'll be promoting next chapter. Awesome. So now I'm just gonna hold back with him and get the others as close to level 20 as possible. Fourth and final chest has 5000 gold. Jesus. It's crazy how much I'm getting out of this single run of this tower. It seems those initial melee skeleton enemies breaking down the walls were programmed to just... obsess over doing that. Which is weird, because nearly every wall other than the first few at the start has an enemy programmed to stand right next to it and wait for you, so they just... crowd around the walls doing nothing until you bait in those lying-in-wait enemies and he goes “FINALLY!” and starts hacking away at the newly-available wall. ...Honestly, while I'm still fully engaged here, getting around this massive, winding labyrinth of breakable and unbreakable walls is a pain. Aaaand the last enemy had a steel lance, which Amelia will very happily use. Tower of Valni, Floor 7 Just unlocked Orson, and... basically, he's got 2-4 points on everything... compared to base Seth. Despite being level thirteen. Not too impressed here. But with that heal staff purchased, my units' inventories are completely full. There's some sort-of-broken stuff that I'm gonna have to get rid of quickly. Alright, so, what are we dealing oh god this is where I lost last time. Not that I was overwhelmed or anything. I just made a stupid and costly mistake. Not this time though. I've come way too far, and people are watching. Also, this map... has a very striking resemblance to the final map of Binding Blade. What with all of the interconnected platforms towering over a black abyss. ...How is there enough room in this tower for an abyss like that? We did just go up one floor, right? Amelia's really close to promoting, so I decided to ditch Rennac's lancereaver (only 15 uses, never gonna need it for either him or Amelia) so I could make room for Amelia's Knight Crest. She'll be a general really, really soon. I can't wait. Ross still has 3 and a half more levels, so I'm waiting to make more space before getting his crest. But I'll make sure to get him those levels this chapter if I can. ...There's this weird thing on this floor where every blue unit takes like a third of a second after selecting “wait” to actually stop moving and turn grey. That didn't happen before now. Is there some kind of map gimmick that's causing that? Anyway, while supply-wise it might not be the best idea, I'm having Ewan use heal at every opportunity, even for mild chip damage, because he really needs to get his staff rank up. He's the party's only healer, and that's likely gonna be a hefty job in the Lagdou Ruins. Looks like flying enemies can't fly over this abyss, so I'll have to see what triggers the platforms or whatever that let me proceed. Yeah, looks like bridges form the moment you kill the last enemy on the platform you're on. Is the game checking for that every move? Is that why there's that delay? That seems... amazingly inefficient. I got a wyrmslayer, and threw away a 6 use iron lance to get it. That may be an important weapon to keep around and maybe bring into Lagdou Ruins. Not sure how powerful those necrodragons are gonna be. Alright. Amelia just promoted to general. Awesome. I was briefly tempted to make her a great knight just so she'd have the same move as everyone else, but fuck it, General looks so much more badass, and I'm having too much fun. Honestly though, this map is pretty uninspired as far as difficulty goes. It's really a “you come to us” map. We get some reinforcements from behind, but this is like... pre-split Eirika Route levels of mindless map design. Hope the last level tries to be a challenge. This would be a pretty lame note to end this run on. Ooooooh yeah. We finally get to see that sword animation. I may just barely have enough juice left in Rennac's iron sword to train Amelia up to D rank swords. That would be great, because then she could just use his steel sword, and work from there, without having to waste a convoy buy on an iron sword. Alright. I can't quite remember what my fuck-up was last time I tried this, but I am noticing that one of the gargoyle reinforcements that came from behind has a heavy spear, so... ...Unfortunately, Amelia failed to reach D rank with what remained of that iron sword. Which means she'll have to wait until Lagdou to start training her sword rank, unless I buy a sword for her on the next and last level. Alright, Ross made it to berserker, and the map is over. Seriously. I'm kind of amazed at how ridiculously this snowballed in the second half. I didn't really even need to promote Ewan to make this ridiculous. Tower of Valni, Floor 8 I just unlocked Riev, who's the best of the bonus characters by virtue of being a bishop at a point in the game where there are absolutely no enemies left that he doesn't have slayer effectiveness on. And his stats are actually pretty good, too. Not for his level, probably, but more than enough to slaughter... well... everything at this point. Alright. Last map. Given that Ross still has 42 uses of weapons left, and Ewan has almost as many, I'm gonna take this opportunity to give Amelia an iron sword, despite needing new weapons the least, just so I can start training up her sword rank. She's my only sword user besides Rennac, so it'll be important to have options with every weapon type we find. For similar reasons, I'm going to stuff Ewan's inventory with light magic for the Lagdou Ruins, both because of monster magic WTA, but also just to get a head start training it in case we find any good light magic there. With this setup, I'll be able to use everything we find except dark magic and bows. Also, there was no fog of war map in the Tower of Valni, so lugging that torch around was a waste, but... shit, I'd have hated to be caught without the thing, and keeping it didn't really have any major consequences. Biggest danger I see here is the shadowshot gorgon. I'll be sure to drain that before doing anything major. Nice. Looks like these enemies are coming to me again! Awesome. I'll have to fight off some of these from behind, but Ewan and Ross can easily take care of that while Amelia works her way through this ridiculously tanky cyclops she can only do 7 damage to per hit. Also, just checked, no, cyclopes are not classified as armored, regardless of their stepping sound effects and massive bulk. And with just a few hits, Amelia reached D swords. Hopefully she'll get even more by the end of this. Oh shit. One of these guys has a brave sword. I'm gonna wanna make sure he doesn't switch over to the wyrmslayer. Not that I can't buy brave swords at the secret shop, but still. Looks like this chapter has arrows-of-light map hazards on the stairs. Gotta keep that in mind. I could probably abuse the shit out of that to rank up Ewan's staff rank, but... nah. That would take too long, and he's already halfway to C anyway. He should be fine. Unfortunately, I failed to get the brave sword. The wight was too well-guarded, and I had to let him come to me, causing him to switch weapons. The “arrows of light” only seem to come down the two staircases to the distant left and right. I will have to pass through those places to get to the top, though. Alright, Amelia's gotten to C rank swords... using a single... iron... sword...? ...Ah, that makes sense. The lower levels don't take as much weapon exp. ...Okay, looks like the gorgon, who still has stone, isn't gonna move. Makes sense, she originally had a siege tome. Anyway, the last chest of the tower had a blue gem, which I think is fixed. I remember a gold gem or something is fixed for the end of Lagdou Ruins. I find it a little annoying that they don't use any boss themes for fighting the boss monsters, honestly. I've noticed this for a while, but the fact that it doesn't even happen for the final boss of the tower drove it over the top into “let's mention this shit” territory. Yeah, seriously, I don't get the logic behind this. And now I get a nice combat record! Let's see... Times Cleared: 1 (obviously) Monsters Killed: 243 Exp: 10052 Units Used: 32 (I have to assume that's cumulative, for every floor) Turns: 286 Time: 4:57:34 Well then, let's keep moving! Time to take on the Lagdou Ruins! ...That's... weird. I just noticed, as I was preparing for my shopping spree, that the shine tome has a listed... 8 crit. Eight. I have never seen a weapon with a crit rate that wasn't in an increment of 5, except I think for forges. But... okay. Moving on. Lagdou Ruins, Area 1 Just by entering this area, I get the swordmaster Ismaire. She's got a ludicrously rare wind sword, but other than that, not much going for her besides the usual things swordmasters are good at. Anyway, here's my starting loadout: Ross the Level 3 Berserker: 44 HP, 22 Str, 13 Skl, 18 Spd, 18 Lck, 17 Def, 9 Res Axes A Inventory: Hand axe Hand axe Tomahawk Killer axe Brave axe Amelia the Level 9 General: 44 HP, 20 Str, 16 Skl, 23 Spd, 25 Lck, 19 Def, 8 Res Swords C, Axes E, Lances A Inventory: Javelin Javelin Javelin Spear Brave lance Ewan the Level 5 Sage: 41 HP, 19 Mag, 15 Skl, 20 Spd, 22 Lck, 9 Def, 18 Res Anima A, Light D, Staves D Inventory: Shine Shine Shine Heal Elixir Rennac the Level 4 Rogue: 29 HP, 10 Str, 17 Skl, 20 Spd, 6 Lck, 11 Def, 12 Res Swords A Inventory: Wyrmslayer Brave sword Steel sword Elixir Elixir The enemies here are all promoted and much higher level than even the end of the Tower of Valni. Higher level even than my party, but since my party's stats still outstrip these guys, all that means is that they're going to get another spike in their exp gain. My real concern here is making my weapons last. I brought fewer elixirs this time, given I now have a healer, but I still brought a few for emergencies when Ewan has to do something else, and also for when Ewan has to heal himself. I elected against bringing the hoplon guard, due to the extremely high luck of the trainee units across the board. I need the space for good weapons I can't buy in the convoy shop. Rennac's inventory isn't really for him. It's mostly for Amelia, as well as bringing some extra elixirs. His combat days are pretty well behind him now. I brought the wyrmslayer for use against the necrodragons, and the brave weapons are in case some really dangerous enemies show up here. I was tempted to bring a physic staff, but it'll be a while before Ewan can use it, compared to the stuff I'm bringing. Also, we're not going to be splitting up, because there's no reason and it would be suicidal, so the uses for Physic have become significantly more limited than they are in normal play. Alright, let's go. Yep, just as I suspected, my army's getting tons of exp from these guys. Honestly, it's kind of crazy to think how far these guys have come in... eight maps. I picked the weakest possible starting point, and they've been keeping pace. But let's see how they fare against the game's big scary endgame challenge. ...SHIT. I KNEW I FORGOT SOMETHING. I FORGOT A FUCKING RESTORE STAFF. … … ...I was never planning on this one being an ironman run. The margin of error at the beginning was so high I was always prepared to reset. So fuck it. Restarting. I'm trading one of Ewan's shine tomes for a restore staff. Just in case. The enemy loadout seems to be the same. I guess the RNG didn't have a chance to change yet. Amelia just proc'd great shield for the first time. It didn't have any real impact aside from maybe depriving Ewan of a chance to train his staff rank, but it's still a noteworthy milestone. Alright, Ewan's at C rank staves, and can now use that restore staff I restarted to get him. Let's hope it helps. Really, since there are no humans, all this is protecting against is poison and stone, but... it's stone. I'm gonna want a counter to that in case things go horribly wrong. One of the annoying things here is that I stuffed Ross and Amelia's inventory full of so many precious items that I struggle to bring myself to use any of them. At least for Amelia she can use Rennac's steel sword, but for Ross, I have to settle for just using his killer axe and hoping he doesn't fail that 70% chance to crit. Score! Ross got poisoned, so now I get a few turns of staff exp healing him. Healing staves last long enough that I'm not shy about abusing them for staff rank. If we get any good staves in here, I want to be able to use them. Amelia took a nasty hit from a heavy spear, but those are basically the only physical weapons that can hurt her, truth be told, so I'm not remotely concerned. That just means I can heal her. Man, there's another armor-slaying enemy here. This one missed though, because it didn't have WTA. The promoted wolf enemies are really fast, and can double my 19-speed Ross. Thankfully he insta-killed the bastard with a killer axe crit. I'm starting to think the killer axe might actually be more valuable and precious than the 1-2 range axes. A lot of these guys can just barely survive being one-rounded. Hopefully this rush of easy exp will make them strong enough to start one-rounding again, because taking 3 hits to kill eats at your inventory over the long term much more than taking 2 hits to kill does. Ewan gets unlucky and takes a cyclops battle axe hit. He survives, obviously – I wouldn't have put him in range if he wouldn't have – but he can't fight anymore unless I use an elixir. But both Amelia and Ross no longer have any of the “disposable weapons”, so it's down to Ewan and his shine if I want to avoid using the good stuff. So I have to choose between a weapon or an elixir. Fuck it. I brought nine uses of the bastards. Let's use an elixir. I like the map design here a lot better. A lot of enemies seem to be triggered in groups. Get far enough, and more of them will advance. That allows the pressure to be constant, which I like. Yeah, I think A ranking Ewan and Ross was the better idea. The DPS and the glass cannon need crit more than the tank. Ewan's gotten so many durability-saving crits here. Ewan's made it to B rank in light magic just by burning through a single tome. I'm frankly amazed I didn't manage to get Saleh to S rank light. ...Then again, Saleh wasn't soloing anything. ...Okay. So. I don't think this is gonna work. Not with the same rules as last time. The sheer number of enemies I have to fight through means that one purchase per chapter just will not cut it. I burned through a shine tome, most of a second, nearly all of a javelin and a full 30 use steel sword before I made it through this. I think I may need to bump up the number of purchases per map to 2, maybe even 3. I'll do 2, and see where that gets me. Lagdou Ruins, Area 2 I decide Ewan's going to keep focusing on light magic, and S rank that. Lightning has an innate crit bonus, and weapon triangle advantage (instead of disadvantage) against the really nasty arch mogalls and gorgons that I probably don't want Ross or Amelia to have to fight. It feels weird, but for the purposes of this run, light magic is definitely more useful to stick with and focus on. Besides, Ewan can already use every anima tome in the game except Excalibur. As such, Ewan gets a lightning tome, and Ross gets an iron axe, since he's way underleveled compared to the two of them. They gained like 8-10 levels each last map due to all the fighting they did. I'm swarmed right off the bat, and... Jesus, it's like endgame FE6 up in here. I can't one-round any of these guys without crits, and I'm just being swarmed. Fortunately, it's also like FE6 endgame in that enemy hit rates are shit. Ewan gets the pillar due to needing the evasion bonus the most, and I just kinda hold them off from the starting area, keeping Rennac safe until I can clear them all out. I manage to do that, get some progress... and then it happens again. Jesus, this chapter just does not let up the pressure. Hey, map, since there aren't any treasure chests here, can you do me a favor and just have that be what every enemy does eventually? Including the boss? That would make this so much more fun than having to end with a slow-ish trek to the end of the map. If it weren't for Ewan's really good dodge rate on that pillar, a lot of the enemies here would utterly eat Ewan alive. Good thing there is one, then! The others are mostly safe, especially since having five doses of thunder affinity means Amelia gets more evasion bonuses than any other member of the trio. One of the enemy wights felt the need to break a wall for some reason. ...Yeah, these guys are gonna cap out at 20/20 way before the end of Lagdou ruins. Ewan and Amelia have already nearly done it. A cyclops got a lucky crit on Ross... and the fact that it only did 15 damage... really indicates to me that these guys do not have enough attack power for cyclopes. They're way more about bulk than strength. 17 strength on a level 13 giant, second tier monster just feels wroooong. Anyway, same as usual, the initial rush dies down, and it's just down to taking out the last few monsters slowly. Aaaand done. And Ross's iron axe almost lasted long enough. Lagdou Ruins, Area 3 Alright, we've got three treasure chests and a killing edge. So I repeat last time's purchase: A lightning tome and an iron axe. Amelia, when needed, will make do with the killing edge for now. Looks like I made the right call making Ewan specialize in light magic. With WTA, he has just barely enough avoid to 100% dodgetank stone without a terrain bonus. Yet again I'm rushed from the very start, and this time there's no pillar for Ewan, so it's a little less safe to enemy-phase with the whole group. I'll have to exploit my surroundings to protect Ewan and, to a greater extent, Rennac. The killing edge enemy swapped to a short spear, which is even better, honestly. So now Amelia has that. I retreated into the southwest corner of the ruins to keep Rennac safe. I'm switching to javelins and hand axes, despite their rarity, just to clear out these guys as soon as possible. If Lagdou Ruins suddenly decides to start sending reinforcements at me, Rennac is gonna be fucked if they show up in this little area he's hiding in. ...A wight just opened a chest. I really hope the game isn't expecting me to already be there or else a wight will run off with the treasure. I mean, in a sense that would be cool, but I was only allowed to field four more units than I'm already fielding, and I'm pretty much stuck here right now. I don't think I could have even walked there in the amount of time I've had, on an empty map. Looks like the wights are just opening those doors so that the monsters can come out to swarm you. I see. The gorgons start rushing me, but thankfully the group's evasion is so high that even Ross and Amelia can handle them with decent reliability. In fact, the hit rate is so low that the gorgons go “fuck it” and try the more accurate demon surge. Which would have been nasty if both attacks hit. Thankfully, neither did. Also... the entire group has hit level 20/20. In Area 3 of 10. Anyway, reinforcements are coming in. From the north, thankfully. One of them has a longbow, which we can't use. Well, we've still got the three treasure rooms to raid. And speaking of rooms, I raid one of them by the southwest corner in order to get a better location to defend Rennac from. We've been burning through our 1-2 range weapons a little faster than I'd like. Okay, the active enemies have been dealt with, so now it's just time for cleanup. I really think that this is the worst state a Fire Emblem map can be in: when there aren't any enemies left (or there never were any) who will charge you without getting into their range. In fairness, I should have four more units than I do right now, so it usually wouldn't be this tedious, but this kind of thing still isn't very engaging even if it happens quickly. It causes a lot of maps to end on a sour, boring note. First treasure was a steel bow, which I can't use. Second treasure was gold, which I can't use. Third treasure was a nosferatu... which I can't use. Oh goodie. So we got a net gain of fucking nothing. Alright, well, that's about as far as I'll go for now. I may post more later today, but I've gotta wrap this up and proofread in time to play Terraria with a friend, so I'll just post this and see how much time I have left in the day afterward and see how I'm feeling. Stay safe, everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted June 13, 2020 Share Posted June 13, 2020 7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: ...Yeah, these guys are gonna cap out at 20/20 way before the end of Lagdou ruins. Ewan and Amelia have already nearly done it. Ahem. 10/20/20. This seems like a really fun challenge. I think I could easily make a hack that let's people play it without having to bother to play through the game first. I could even make it so you get 500 gold at the end of every chapter and then make every item cost 500 to simulate the buy one item per chapter rule (and put the promotion items in there too for extra resource management). Plus or minus the fun adventure framing device that force Rennac into this situation. I think for a simulated roguelike like this the branched promotion really makes things interesting. I for example probably would have went warrior with Ross so he can have bow access for the zombie dragons and I would also definitely go summoner for Ewan because Phantoms rock! Having to use black magic for a tier doesn't seem like a bad trade off for how useful they'd be in later levels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted June 13, 2020 Author Share Posted June 13, 2020 (edited) 8 hours ago, Jotari said: Ahem. 10/20/20. This seems like a really fun challenge. I think I could easily make a hack that let's people play it without having to bother to play through the game first. I could even make it so you get 500 gold at the end of every chapter and then make every item cost 500 to simulate the buy one item per chapter rule (and put the promotion items in there too for extra resource management). Plus or minus the fun adventure framing device that force Rennac into this situation. I think for a simulated roguelike like this the branched promotion really makes things interesting. I for example probably would have went warrior with Ross so he can have bow access for the zombie dragons and I would also definitely go summoner for Ewan because Phantoms rock! Having to use black magic for a tier doesn't seem like a bad trade off for how useful they'd be in later levels. Yeah, there's definitely potential here, and I'd definitely play that hack. It'd probably need a bit of tweaking though. The exp gain gets absolutely out of hand in my experience, causing the "survival horror" element to disappear by the end of floor 3 or so. If they were slower to level, not by much but by a bit, that might help. Another thing I'd do if this were a hack instead of house rules is ditch the convoy purchases, so we ignore the whole "shopkeepers who won't help three children defend themselves without taking their gold" thing. Instead, it'd be cool if the enemy item drop rate were increased, so you've got more gear but you're forced to improvise more, and that "every new weapon type you unlock is a drop that isn't a dud anymore" thing we both mentioned becomes more relevant. Anyway, I tried to start the ranking writeup and I'm increasingly annoyed by how hard it is to remember fine details about these games the longer it's been since I marathoned them. The main thing is I think I ranked Blazing Blade too low in difficulty, and that putting it below Genealogy was unfair. But I'm having trouble properly gauging which had better difficulty because all I clearly remember of Genealogy is the mindless aura dodgetanking and, like, the handful of encounters that needed a more complicated plan. Edited June 13, 2020 by Alastor15243 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted June 13, 2020 Author Share Posted June 13, 2020 (edited) Sacred Stones Day 36: Creature Campaign Day 3 Before we begin... I think I made a fundamental mistake in only taking these major, long-form notes. I feel like from now on, whenever something particularly noteworthy happens, good or bad, in one of the ten categories, I'm gonna write it down in a little text file I can consult later. Something that in total would take me like five minutes to read for each game. But as for the ones I've already done... given the amount of time it would take me to re-read the entire playlog so far while still writing more of it... I'm kind of at a loss for how to quickly patch up the gaps in my memory of my experience playing the games. If anyone has any advice, please let me know! But at any rate, I've gotta finish this first. Thank goodness I'm still having fun. Lagdou Ruins, Area 4 Curiously, the deployment cap has gone up, for the first time in the entire grinding dungeon challenge. For every map before this one, the limit has been 8. Given that my three main units have capped... this is a sign that things could get more dangerous. Bring it on. Looks like none of the enemies are dropping useful weapons. So I've gotta make do with what I have. I decided to mix things up and buy Ewan a fire tome, because it has slightly more might and durability, which really matter here. I'll miss the slight crit boost, but I think this will, on average, last me longer. I also wound up buying Ewan a heal staff, because his current one is at 10, and I don't want him to be caught without one. This will cause me to burn into the others' good weapons a bit, but Ross still has half of his iron axe left, and Rennac still has two swords Amelia can use. I don't think I'll be needing the whole wyrmslayer for dragons, but I'm gonna try to keep as much of that safe for them anyway. I don't know how strong they are. Anyway, before we begin... might as well update you guys on how my team's looking, now that everyone's capped out and with the possible exception of Rennac, these are gonna be their stats for the rest of the run: Ross: 57 HP, 30 Str, 20 Skl, 27 Spd, 26 Lck, 21 Def, 10 Res, S Axes. Iron axe: 23/45 Tomahawk: 15/15 Brave axe: 30/30 Killer axe: 12/20 Hand axe: 20/20 Amelia: 50 HP, 23 Str, 21 Skl, 25 Spd, 30 Lck, 21 Def, 12 Res, B Swords, E Axes, S Lances. Brave lance: 14/30 Spear: 15/15 Elixir: 3/3 Javelin: 20/20 Ewan: 50 HP, 23 Mag, 23 Skl, 24 Spd, 29 Lck, 11 Def, 22 Res, A Anima, S Light, C Staves. Lightning: 14/25 Heal: 10/30 Restore: 10/10 Fire: 40/40 Heal: 30/30 Rennac (Level 6): 31 HP, 10 Str, 18 Skl, 22 Spd, 7 Lck, 11 Def, 12 Res, A Swords. Wyrmslayer: 28/30 Brave sword: 30/30 Elixir: 3/3 Elixir: 1/3 Alright, let's go. First concern I see is that one of the gorgons has shadowshot. Gotta get rid of that before moving forward, and then get into these tunnels pronto in case reinforcements show up from behind. This map will probably be a pain by the end due to all the walls though. Each one of them is another 2 weapon uses I have to waste, and I also have to be the one to come to most of the enemies on the map. Yeah, none of the enemies here are being proactive. Christ this is gonna be a pain to do with only 4 units. The gorgon can move to use her siege tome apparently, but for some reason she's only attacking Ewan, despite both my physical units being in range. I wonder what the logic is there? ...There are thieves. Looks like I'll have to take advantage of Rennac just barely being able to survive shadowshot and press ahead. Damn, the fuck did these thieves do to get all the monsters to ignore them? ...That 5% crit rate is terrifying, but I have to muscle through if I want that treasure. At any rate, she only had the two shots left. Hopefully I can take out this thief. SHIT, IT'S A KILLER LANCE! I NEED THAT THING! I NEED IT! ...And he just ran out the staircase right next to him. DAMN IT. It's incredibly frustrating how consistently my units are just shy of being able to one-round these guys without criticals. Entirely luck of the draw, I realize, due to their growth rates, but it's just happening all the fucking time. ...Why are two thieves being sent after that chest? There's only one chest that isn't hidden by walls! Okay, the second one was just an armorslayer, which isn't nearly as big of a loss. But that was both of the chests, and they both had shit I could use! ...I was never going to be able to get both of them, at any rate, looking at the map. I needed to have more units to be able to split up. I didn't. Getting that fire tome was a mistaaaaake. The weapon triangle disadvantage hurts so much fighting these Gorgons. Sometimes he can't even kill them without two crits thanks to that very slight loss of might. Anyway, there's not really much to say. Worst map of the Lagdou Ruins by far. So far, I guess, but I can't imagine... or perhaps I don't dare imagine, any of them being more tedious than this. Honestly, a lot of these should be “kill boss” maps, not “rout”. Oh, so the boss decides it actually wants to move when approached this time? Glad I checked. ...Alright, it's done. Christ, what a slog. I can't believe I'm still pumped for the next level. Lagdou Ruins, Area 5 Yeah, crazily, Amelia, despite carrying me throughout much of the early Tower of Valni, has become more of a liability in the Lagdou Ruins. It's her crit rate. She has the worst one. Ewan has 11% crit on her thanks to that A rank with Ross, slightly better skill, and easy access to lightning tomes. And Ross has a higher crit rate still, thanks to the berserker crit bonus. That, combined with her having lower atk than Ross and not targeting resistance, means that Ross and Ewan just don't waste weapon charges as much as she does, meaning she's a poor investment when supplying weapons. I don't think I've bought her anything so far, I've just had her using her original stuff and Rennac's swords. It's always been an iron axe for Ross, and a lightning tome for Ewan. ...Anyway, I have a chance to get some more gear here, but if I want both of them before the thieves arrive, I have to take a risk and split up. There's a fork in the road, with each of two treasures a little bit away. Obviously I only have one thief, but I can at least secure both chests early on. The only concern is what'll happen if the enemies start getting crazy. But I am really in need of more supplies than the convoy shop rules can provide, so I'll have to take some risks. I'll be sending Amelia one way (with some elixirs) and Ross, Ewan and Rennac the other. Thankfully, Rennac has a slight edge here in that most of the enemies use axes if they use weapons at all, so he might be able to exploit WTA in absolute emergencies to dodgetank, but given that there are gwyllgis and elder baels around, I do not want it to get to that point. I also noticed there's a third chest to the southeast, but it's way too far out of the way to get a second one after that in any timely manner. I'm gonna have to rush the other two and hope for the best. Yyyyyyyep. I figured. I noticed notches on the walls and weird jeweled decorations and... yep. Map hazars. Poison gas. Gotta keep that in mind. Not a huge deal, I've got more than 30 heal charges, but... still. Amelia, even with a brave sword, just does not have the DPS to one-round some of these enemies. I have to have Ross back her up. The other treasure is barely guarded at all, so I'm having Ewan break down the northwestern wall and wait for the thief to show up. Thankfully, I seemed to have made the right call ignoring the southeastern chest. The first thief to show up went for that one, meaning I have more time to get the other treasures. ...Or I could just get all three. The enemy placement actually thwarted the thieves twice. First, a giant spider moved onto the treasure chest space, not only keeping the thief from getting the treasure, but forcing them to end their turn in Amelia's javelin range. Second, another giant spider forced a thief to end his turn on the one space where the wall was thin enough that Amelia could javelin him. I've got the physic staff the thief stole, and both remaining chests are now secure. Now I just need to unlock that chest by Ross and Amelia and get Ewan back to the safety of the group quickly. Their combat ability goes down drastically when they lose their support bonuses with each other. Okay, second treasure was a silver lance, which is awesome. Amelia will be able to use that. That's 20 more attacks we can do, and probably some enemies can be one-rounded with that compared to an iron weapon. Alright, I took out the last thief. All the chests are secure. Fuck yeah. Ewan still can't use the physic staff, but he's really close. And due to all the poison... yeah, he'll be able to use it before the map is done. And if we ever have to do that crazy dangerous splitting up again... that'll be super handy. Now to get the last treasure and hope it isn't a bow, a dark tome, or money. I get my wish! It's a light magic tome! Aura! It reduces Ewan's attack speed to 16, but there's still probably gonna be plenty of enemies that'll be useful against. Especially with the 10 more crit and the 8 more might than lightning. Man, this is a massive turnaround of my luck compared to the last two maps! Things are looking up! Alright. I just cleaned up. Time for the next one. Lagdou Ruins, Area 6 I just got Glen and Hayden back to back. I'm not even gonna bother checking them out at this point. There's a runesword and a brave bow among droppable enemy weapons. Now, having access to bows would be nice, but 1, there's no way that I'd be able to get a B rank in bows by this point in the run, 2, the game is so player-phase heavy that really all I'd be able to do with bows is cleanup and wall-breaking, and 3, the berserker crit bonus has been way more useful to me in conserving weapon uses. Anyway, Ross and Ewan have plenty of weapon uses left over after last map, so I decide to buy my two weapons for Amelia and Rennac (meaning mostly Amelia). I get an iron lance and an iron sword. Now Amelia can avoid burning through what little she has left of her non-replenishable supplies. The brave sword was completely destroyed last chapter in the rush to get to the treasure chests, and while ultimately that wound up being worth it, and she still has about half of a brave lance for absolute emergencies... I'd rather she had a cheaper option when fighting, and Ross and Ewan don't even have any space for more weapons now. So they're good for the next map. I can choose from three different starting locations, but only one of them actually has four deployment spaces, so if I don't want to leave Rennac fending for himself, I've gotta start in the big ol' arena full of Thanagarian snare beasts. And given there are no treasures here, there's no point in splitting up. Let's go. I accidentally advanced too far and incurred the wrath of a mobile shadowshot arch mogall, who can't quite one-shot Rennac, but who can crit him with a 6% chance. Damn it. Maybe I should have brought the Hoplon Guard. Well I guess I'll just have to have Amelia rescue Rennac until he runs out of juice, and keep her out of battle at all costs... while still buffing the boys. Thankfully, the mogall only has two shots left now, and there are no enemies in range yet. Some spiders are coming, though. I had to advance a bit just so that I could start fighting them early and maybe not have to retreat away from the valuable pillars if it took too long to kill them. Yep, it all worked out. I'll check for more siege tome users and then drop Rennac if it's safe. Jesus Christ. Aura makes Ewan so slow he can't even double giant spiders! ...He can double some enemies though. It's gonna be a matter of working out which enemies it'll be most useful against. Man, Amelia's damage output is just terrible compared to Ewan and Ross. It's not just that she can't kill without critting; that's often the case for everyone. It's that sometimes she can't even kill without critting twice. But she's got all the shiny new weapons, so I need to do most of the killing with her. This may have been a mistake. But, well, Ewan and Ross will have room for new gear after this, so... Anyway, I'm splitting up the group, because I just realized I have to rout both sides of this splitting tunnel surrounding the arena. That's gonna be a pain, so I'm having Amelia on one side and the others on the other. The runesword skeleton switched to that weapon, so I got an iron lance instead. Way more useful, but still, I probably would have appreciated an iron axe more. Or a tome. ...Fuck it, no, I'll have them move as a group, just in case. ...Alright, map clear. Let's go. Lagdou Ruins, Area 7 There's only one treasure chest here, and its in close proximity to one of our two general starting ranges. The lower one, to be exact, which I take. I buy an iron axe and lightning tome, and we're off. Would you look at that! Water-walking has actually come in handy! It let Ross kill an arch mogall one turn early, without having to wait around at a bottleneck to protect Rennac! ...Sadly, the treasure chest had nothing but a red gem. Poo. Anyway, most of the reinforcements are arch mogalls, floating across the water to intercept us wherever we go. Pretty cool concept. I'm mostly fighting them off with Ewan's light magic. They're really weighed down by those crimson eyes, so his Aura is a good way to make sure they get one-rounded. This is probably going to be a mildly annoying level to clean up, yet again, due to how long and winding it is. But I think I can make it less annoying by getting started on it now, while the reinforcements are still coming and chasing me. At least it's all in one general straight line with no backtracking. I got a black gem that I sent to the convoy. Cool, I totally forgot that those existed in this game. They really wanted to make sure you could do this indefinitely if you wanted, didn't they? ...Yeah, really not much to say. If the reinforcements had kept up longer, like, much longer, this might have been a more engaging level, but for the most part, it was just hunting down stationary enemies hidden behind walls. Really, I'd have a lot more fun with these maps if like, everyone but the boss was eventually aggressive towards you. Pity that isn't the case. Lagdou Ruins, Area 8 Alright, last one for the day. I'm gonna leave the last two for tomorrow and then try to do my final writeup then, so I can start on Path of Radiance on Monday. Oh shit. Buckle the fuck up. It's time for a water map. I have to assume there are going to be bridges like the water temple and Forblaze gaiden map, but I am quite fearful for Rennac's life here. Ross's water-walking may turn out to be a massive life saver after all. But it depends entirely on what paths open up for everyone else. Alright, I got the iron axe and lightning tome as usual, and the map starts. The water pathways are... not ideal. I want to get everyone over to the southeast, where there's a big, easily-defended chamber I can use to keep Rennac safe. Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to do some rescue-dropping across the water if I wanna do that in any timely fashion, because the path over there isn't up yet. Christ, this would be where a summoner would earn their keep. That “phantoms can't rescue but they can take and drop” trick I just learned from Mekkah's summoner video would come in really handy right now to speed things up ferrying people across the water. Though there have still been plenty of times I've been glad I picked sage for light magic access. Thank goodness. The bridge over to that little shrine-like room opened up on turn 2. I managed to come up with a rescue-dropping strategy that would have gotten me over there anyway, but it would have taken way too long for comfort. Yeah, I just barely made it there without having to carry Rennac when the enemies arrived. I'll use Ross's tomahawk to clear out the Arch mogalls in the chamber, and then rush the fuck in. It's the only place big enough that there are spaces inside safe from tomes. … ...Fuck. FUCK. The two-long bridge standing between me and my destination collapsed, with Ewan and Rennac still on it. Rennac and Ross are stuck on the opposite side of the water as Ewan and Amelia, and the fliers coming for me are still coming. And reinforcements are coming from the room I wanted to use to protect me. I had to do some careful risk assessment. Rennac may very well die this turn, but I think I picked the option where he's most likely to live. ...Aaaaaaaand he's down. Rennac is down, and with him, most of my elixirs, my wyrmslayer, and I think what remained of Amelia's brave lance. ...Fuck it. I'm gonna keep going. I've still got the main team. But... this just got a hell of a lot scarier. ...And I just realized that I could have saved Rennac, but fucked up. Those weren't reinforcements I was scared of. Those were just arch mogalls already in the room who just refused to move when Ross baited them, meaning Rennac and Ross could have advanced into that room with impunity. Or I could have kept Rennac safe by carrying him with Ross, who wouldn't have been in danger of death. But alas, he got hit by two 50% attacks, and now he's dead. ...We have exactly one, single, solitary elixir dose left. The rest I guess fell into the water when Rennac died. ...Better practice that dodging of yours, Ewan. You're gonna need it. Also, I'm never gonna know what's in that chest on this map. ...And literally the moment Rennac died, all the danger disappeared, because those were the very last aggressive enemies. Jesus Christ. Okay. I think I'm gonna take a break for today. Take a break, get over this loss so that my enthusiasm doesn't completely die. In hindsight, yes, while berserker Ross was definitely the right call, summoner Ewan would have been the way to go. I can think of so many things I could have used phantoms for here. Especially once they all capped out their exp and using a phantom no longer even cost you anything but maybe the item rewards if you kill the wrong enemy. In the meantime, like I said before, I'd really appreciate any advice anyone has for quickly re-acquainting myself with the gist of my experience with the first few games. I'm going to need a good method if I'm going to keep getting these out in a timely manner. But for now, I'm off. Stay safe, everyone. Edited October 22, 2020 by Alastor15243 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted June 13, 2020 Share Posted June 13, 2020 6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Yeah, there's definitely potential here, and I'd definitely play that hack. It'd probably need a bit of tweaking though. The exp gain gets absolutely out of hand in my experience, causing the "survival horror" element to disappear by the end of floor 3 or so. If they were slower to level, not by much but by a bit, that might help. Another thing I'd do if this were a hack instead of house rules is ditch the convoy purchases, so we ignore the whole "shopkeepers who won't help three children defend themselves without taking their gold" thing. Instead, it'd be cool if the enemy item drop rate were increased, so you've got more gear but you're forced to improvise more, and that "every new weapon type you unlock is a drop that isn't a dud anymore" thing we both mentioned becomes more relevant. Anyway, I tried to start the ranking writeup and I'm increasingly annoyed by how hard it is to remember fine details about these games the longer it's been since I marathoned them. The main thing is I think I ranked Blazing Blade too low in difficulty, and that putting it below Genealogy was unfair. But I'm having trouble properly gauging which had better difficulty because all I clearly remember of Genealogy is the mindless aura dodgetanking and, like, the handful of encounters that needed a more complicated plan. I kind of like the idea of the weighted choice that comes with buying every floor though. Matching drops to available weapon types would also be really hard. I don't even know where I'd begin to figure out how to do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted June 13, 2020 Author Share Posted June 13, 2020 (edited) 5 minutes ago, Jotari said: I kind of like the idea of the weighted choice that comes with buying every floor though. Matching drops to available weapon types would also be really hard. I don't even know where I'd begin to figure out how to do that. Fair enough. Though honestly, it wouldn't even need to be weighted to make the weapon types you have more likely. that would be one of the major advantages of increasing your weapon use spread. At any rate, I'd love to play this as an actual hack of any capacity, though trying it myself has... made it clear that there would be a few ways it could easily be improved. My number one choice would be boss kill, not rout. Edited June 13, 2020 by Alastor15243 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eltosian Kadath Posted June 13, 2020 Share Posted June 13, 2020 4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: In the meantime, like I said before, I'd really appreciate any advice anyone has for quickly re-acquainting myself with the gist of my experience with the first few games. I'm going to need a good method if I'm going to keep getting these out in a timely manner. But for now, I'm off. You could go to the last entry you made on each game, as you had some summaries and justifications for the rankings you decided on. The links to the first entry of each game are close to the end of the previous, which should make those entries easier to find. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted June 13, 2020 Author Share Posted June 13, 2020 2 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said: You could go to the last entry you made on each game, as you had some summaries and justifications for the rankings you decided on. The links to the first entry of each game are close to the end of the previous, which should make those entries easier to find. Yeah, those help, but I've found that I've managed to leave stuff out or take it for granted when describing those, frustratingly. They'll have to do for now though, if I want to start Path of Radiance on time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted June 14, 2020 Author Share Posted June 14, 2020 Sacred Stones Day 37: Creature Campaign Day 4 Alright. Let's finish this. And then make that ranking. Lagdou Ruins, Area 8 (continued) Okay, the water platforms are making this agony to traverse. Especially since this is, yet again, a fucking rout map. I'm pretty sure the water temple in FE7 eventually made all the platforms appear, but that isn't happening here. They just seem to be alternating which ones are up and which are down every couple of turns. ...Wow, that's cool. They made a generic enemy's HP so high that it uses the “???” flashing purple bar usually reserved for final bosses. I got a massive stroke of good fortune when for some reason, an enemy with a brave axe attacked Ross using his steel axe, allowing me to get the brave axe for myself. Well, now that the only person it was a struggle to keep safe is dead, things are ironically looking up. My trio is kicking ass as usual, though Amelia decidedly not as much. But the point is that now there are way fewer restrictions on where my team can go. ...Okay, it looks like the game eventually decided to leave all the platforms up at once, finally. Good. Otherwise this was gonna be even more of a slog. Seriously, given that the “grinding” aspect of this becomes pointless long before this point, I don't think these maps have any right to be rout. They really should be boss kill maps. I'm not even talking about the challenge run anymore. There's just no point in making the player kill every enemy on these huge and winding maps, when there's nothing to be gained from doing it, and most of them just stay the fuck where they are. Also, the music is getting kind of annoying now. Hearing the first few bars over and over when moving your units mindlessly... is not fun. I don't know how I didn't notice this as a kid. ...Alright, I'm done. Next floor. Lagdou Ruins, Area 9 Curious change of scenery, going from some kind of underground waterway to a volcanic fire pit. How the fuck big are these ruins? I did the reflexive “un-deploy everything after the first two rows” thing before remembering Rennac is dead and that I need to de-deploy Ephraim. One of the enemies has a killer lance and wyrmslayer, and whichever one winds up getting dropped will be a big help for the next and final area. Honestly, my inventory is pretty well stocked right now. I just don't have any more spaces for extra shit anymore. Maybe two items a map was pushing it? Well one wasn't the right answer, I know that for sure. But I'm pretty well-stocked as it is, I only really need to replace Ewan's nearly-broken tome. But I wound up selling Amelia's mostly-broken, mostly-useless iron sword to make room for a new... you guessed it... lightning tome and iron axe. There are multiple shadowshot mogalls now, but we've got high enough evade that I'm not too scared, and they'll each run out in 5 turns. Oh dear. Ewan's taken a hit on turn one. His bulk isn't as terrible as it used to be, so it's not the end of the world, but... we've got one dose of elixir for these last two maps. Gotta make it count. ...Especially with these fiery map hazards. Honestly, this map doesn't look too interesting, but at least it's not gonna be too time-consuming to clear. I am astonished at the terrible luck I'm getting with Amelia's crits. Even with a killer lance giving her 60% crit rate, she's still failing to crit more than two thirds of the time. Since I have to play it safe with Ewan, I've just been having the enemies come to me for now, letting Ross and Amelia take the brunt of the enemy's attacks while Ewan hides behind them, giving his support bonuses. That way I can afford to be a little more daring with him next map. Probably not much though. Ross with his brave axe and possibly Amelia with the wyrmslayer will be doing most of the damage-dealing. Ewan's gonna need to be on standby to heal. Aaaaand I just realized some of these wights are just suiciding on the fire pits. If this is a deliberate tactic to make you move forward to claim the item rewards before they're lost forever... I mean mechanically that's interesting, but thematically that's stupid as all hell. I decided to get the wyrmslayer because I already have a killer axe, and I lost my wyrmslayer when Rennac died. That weapon might be crucial to making Amelia useful next map, and we need everyone to be useful. So, it turns out that I was wrong before. After all the level ups were finalized, it looks like Ross has the best evade of the party, unless it's against dark magic, in which case Ewan has the best evade. Amelia is second place, but worst against dark magic. ...And the map's done. That was really tedious, but mostly due to my own fuck-ups and caution regarding the challenge run. I don't hold much of that against this. Lagdou Ruins, Area 10 Alright. Here it is. Let's see what this is gonna be like. ...Oh dear. This is... ...This is barely even a map. This is just... a room with ten necrodragons in it. I thought this a bit when thinking back on this during the playthrough, but like... seriously... this map feels like the developers completely gave up here. They just approached the concept of an ultimate challenge with no finesse or subtlety at all. ...I'm gonna get myself a stiff drink... ...(of orange soda)... ...and then I'll be right back. ...Okay. Depending on enemy AI here... I am very likely going to die. It's going to depend entirely on how well my team dodges. These guys have about a 40-50% hit rate on the trio when they're all grouped together. At any rate, I'm going to try to fight as few of them as possible at once. Unless the enemy AI doesn't move at all until approached, I have serious doubts I can get everyone out of here alive. But I might be able to get someone out of here alive, circumstances willing. I'm gonna aim for the necrodragon the furthest to the east on the northern half of the map. I can get both Amelia and Ross in melee range of the thing thanks to the valid stating positions, and Ewan can come in to heal one of them. Then they'll only be in range of another necrodragon on enemy phase, and even then not all of them will be valid targets. They should have enough attack power to then kill him on player phase. Hopefully. ...Alright. Ross actually has a really good chance of one-rounding these guys with a brave axe, as long as he has his full support bonus. I am so glad I got another of these brave axes. After giving me a fucking heart attack by failing to crit the first three times, he finally manages on the last, after dodging the necrodragon. Incidentally, Ewan can't fully heal someone from a necrodragon attack. Oh fucking goodie. But thankfully, they don't all seem to be approaching right now. ...And I have NEVER BEEN SO GLAD THAT AMELIA HAS GREAT SHIELD. That saved me precious time healing, and I don't know how much time I even have. Okay, so, I fucked up and accidentally put Ewan in range of the boss, and he just took his only allowed hit. I'm gonna elixir him. But so far, none of these enemies have acted before being approached. I'm gonna hurry just in case, but I think I might be able to manage this. ...I have never gone from terrified to disappointed so quickly in my life. These necrodragons are all just waiting for me to approach them like idiots. NONE OF THEM HAVE ANY INITIATIVE WHATSOEVER. I don't why I'm fucking surprised, given how much this game loves that AI mindset. Apparently the gold gem is just a drop item, not a chest item. Which makes me wonder what the hell is in that chest. Guess I'll never know! ...Now I know why I was able to solo this with Ewan as a kid. It wasn't just playing on easy or normal mode. This is just... that mindlessly easy if you can grasp the enemy AI. ...And I'm done. It was literally as mindless as baiting them in with what remained of Amelia and Ross's spear and tomahawk, and then brave axing and wyrmslaying them to death, healing up, and moving on to the next one. This is the ultimate endgame challenge of the entire game. I HAD THREE COMBAT UNITS. ...To go back to the positives though, I did like the whole “you have to do this all without saving” aspect. I'd like to see that... in a more difficult game. But here, it really just amounts to radically increasing the amount of time you have to spend recovering lost progress if you lose, because there's not that much challenge to it. ...Well... I managed. And... honestly... part of me wants to try it again. ...As much as some parts of it suck, there's just soooooo much fun to be had with this system, and it's a couple of minor tweaks away from being a major good time. If I were to do this again though, I'd definitely make Ewan a summoner. That slight evasion bonus against dark magic users and the +5 crit doesn't feel like nearly as much of a boon as having basic access to not just a tome with 4 more might and 10 more durability, but also phantoms, which would be crazy useful, especially in Lagdou. I'd just bring one fire Tome to the tower, make sure Ewan gets enough kill exp to promote before using it up, and then he'll switch to the flux I'd have him bring. Jotari, if you ever decide to make that simple hack you mentioned, please, let me know. I'd be happy to try it out for you. As for my final record: Times Cleared: 1 (obviously) Monsters Killed: 437 Exp: 2492 Units used: 37 (and since Rennac died on the third to last map, that demonstrates that apparently this counts what you have at the end of a level, not the beginning, so... interesting) Turns: 376 Time: 06:12:18 ...While I'm glad I did this, I don't think it's changed my opinion of the game much. Without that challenge run to make things more interesting, these maps didn't really have much to offer that the rest of the game didn't already do. I mean, it's cool that a postgame challenge exists, but it really doesn't demand anything that the main game doesn't already. So then... no sense putting it off... ...Time to see how the game did. I'll post the final ranking in a bit. I've still got to proofread it, and I want it to be a separate post so it isn't too long to go back and edit later if I missed something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted June 14, 2020 Author Share Posted June 14, 2020 The Verdict on Sacred Stones: Difficulty: Okay, after re-reading what I said in my rankings for Book 2, Genealogy and Thracia, I've realized I made a major mistake in my ranking of Blazing Blade's difficulty, and I have in fact done it a disservice as I feared I had. I just remembered what FE3 Book 2 was like in terms of difficulty, and how outrageously mindless so much of it was... and yet I considered it to have a “better peak” than Genealogy. If that stuff I considered to be the peak of Book 2 was really better than anything FE4 had to offer when both of these games were fresh in my mind, then... yes, Blazing Blade definitely deserves to be above Genealogy. As a matter of fact, it deserves to be above Book 2. Blazing Blade may have its outrageously mindless enemy-phase spam, and it may be hand axe and javelin city, but it also had much more aggressive enemies and far more terrifying moments when comparing my ironmans of both games. I was challenged by the beginning and even the rest of Hector Hard Mode way more than I was challenged by anything in Book 2. So, that's the revision there. But as for Sacred Stones... well obviously it's going below Blazing Blade. It's clearly the inferior game when it comes to engaging, difficult gameplay. The question is how far below. Obviously pretty far. The first nine chapters or so of this twenty-three chapter game, with the exception of one fog of war chapter, were just an extended, utterly brainless prologue. A common problem on this list is having most of the difficulty be at the beginning before your units spiral out of control. Sacred Stones' problem is that it honestly feels like most of the difficulty in the game is by accident. Aside from the fog of war maps that each had significantly buffed enemies, precious little difficulty was to be found. The early-game uses the “wait until approached” AI model to a degree rivaled only by Book 2 and Revelation. The vast majority of the enemies in the first nine chapters followed this tedious, ridiculously easy-to-cheese tactic. That ceased to be the case after that, but by that point, my army had grown to the point that enemy phase tactics carried the day 95% of the time, and with way fewer instances of me having to think carefully about unit placement or who I chose to take out first on player phase in the meantime. The game wasn't entirely mindless, but then, no game on this list has ever achieved that feat. That said, what little difficulty there was, with one notable exception at the “why didn't you know in advance you'd have to abandon ship” moment of Phantom Ship, none of the difficulty that did exist was fake. So that puts it at least above FE1, which had nothing but fake difficulty. ...But bear in mind, this ranking here is generously assuming you aren't grinding. If you go into any of the grinding towers even once, then I have serious doubts you'll be challenged at all for the rest of the game. 1: Binding Blade 2: Thracia 3: Blazing Blade 4: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 5: Genealogy of the Holy War 6: Gaiden 7: Sacred Stones 8: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 9: Dark Dragon Ironmannability: Okay, now we get to something much more positive. While it still has its issues (every game on the list has had issues with ironmannability, except sort of Genealogy), this game manages to reap the rewards of the improvement Blazing Blade made to how reinforcements work... by not also shitting the bed by adding in a gratuitous amount of extra fail states, several of them completely beyond your control. The incident on the Phantom Ship where non-ambush reinforcements still spawned in such a spread that it was impossible to escape them without already being on the enemy ship was ridiculous, but it was the only such incident in the game, and a least it gave me more of a fighting chance than the “Enemy-phase-opening throne room” incident in the previous runner-up, Mystery of the Emblem Book 2. A game which, may I remind you, I had to begrudgingly put in second place despite having ambush spawns, simply because said ambush spawns were the least horrible of the lot, and I was realllllly grasping for nice things to say about ironmannability before Genealogy came along. Genealogy still wins out for first place though, due to not having fog of war, and, despite having ambush spawns technically, only spawning them under conditions with extremely consistent and predictable rules. One could argue that the opacity of the child system is arguably more blind-unfriendly than fog of war, but I will not. Random and opaque though it may be to a first-timer, whatever cards you're dealt, you're given plenty of time to work out what to do with them. And there are plenty of units who are guaranteed to be good basically no matter what. So, Genealogy still wins. 1: Genealogy of the Holy War 2: Sacred Stones 3: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 4: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 5: Binding Blade 6: Blazing Blade 7: Dark Dragon 8: Gaiden 9: Thracia 776 Usability: Pretty straightforward, with one exception. Obviously it's basically in the same bracket as Blazing Blade. It's got the issues of the GBA version (namely the frustrating 3 page menu system that has calculated stats and raw stats on separate pages), but also the marked improvements Blazing Blade made compared to Binding Blade (ability to use items in battle prep, among other things). It's just a question of whether Sacred Stones is slightly better or slightly worse. ...I'm going to make the argument that since it didn't really add any new QOL features, it's worse due to a handful of small issues I take with the implementation of new systems, and a couple other nitpicky things. First off, giving a monster weapon no listed stats, but then making it have weight when the player has no means to check it, is just... amazingly bad form, in principle, even if in practice it affects basically nothing. Secondly, while others might argue that having access to any shop in the game between chapters is a convenience that qualifies as quality of life, I'd argue that if you're going to let me buy from every single shop in the whole game between missions... you really should give me some means of quickly determining where I can buy things. I basically had to memorize where certain weapons were sold, and just randomly shop around on the occasions where my memory failed me. Awakening has a similar issue, but at least there it justifies the whole “location-dependent purchases” thing by making it impossible to get rid of skirmishes without beating them or waiting, you can get around the map much faster in Awakening, and also you can just look at the touch screen to see what's being sold rather than having to open menus. Also, I'm not ranking Awakening yet, so it's a moot point. Also also, it's a very slight issue, so this is just a hair-splitting tie breaker, honestly. Oh, also, buying to the convoy is slower in Sacred Stones than in Blazing Blade and I think Binding Blade too. Yeah, I'm glad I remembered that at the last second. 1: Genealogy of the Holy War 2: Blazing Blade 3: Sacred Stones 4: Binding Blade 5: Mystery of the Emblem 6: Thracia 776 7: Gaiden 8: Dark Dragon Depth: This is pretty straightforward. It goes at the top of the heap of the “basic bitch pile” at the bottom of this list, due to being as bare-bones as the other GBA games in terms of extra fluff, with the exception that it actually adds classes with special abilities, along with branching promotions and other small things. Gaiden still wins out due to all of its weirdness having way more actual gameplay impact than any of these skills (summoning is pretty basic white magic, remember), but it's certainly got more to offer than Binding Blade in that department, as little of a difference as it makes in practice. 1: Genealogy of the Holy War 2: Thracia 776 3: Gaiden 4: Sacred Stones 5: Binding Blade 6: Blazing Blade 7: Mystery of the Emblem 8: Dark Dragon Balance: This was a hard decision in a few ways, but I think I'm gonna have to put this below Book 2. Both of these games provide methods for drastically stripping their gameplay of what little difficulty they have (grinding for Sacred Stones, star shard abuse for Book 2), but in Book 2's case, the endgame at least still has obstacles capable of challenging even a team that's abused the shit out of star shards, and the same cannot be said for anyone who uses uses the grinding towers. As for the underpowered side of things, this game added in tier 0 units, the latter two of which are almost literally unusable if you don't make use of said blatantly overpowered grinding systems. Also, while I found speed slightly more important in this game than in Blazing Blade, this was still a massively enemy-phase-focused game, similar to Blazing Blade but less hard, so that doesn't really mean it makes myrmidons useful or anything. Plus, Seth is absolutely bonkers, and I can't even comprehend how anyone on the development team could think anyone needed a prepromote that busted for the early game of Sacred Stones. 1: Binding Blade 2: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 3: Gaiden 4: Blazing Blade 5: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 6: Sacred Stones 7: Thracia 776 8: Genealogy of the Holy War 9: Dark Dragon Pacing: Remember when I was ranking Blazing Blade, and I said I was worried that past the level of Blazing Blade's pacing, I'd have to really nitpick in order to work out how the hell to rank games better or worse than each other once we reach the benchmark of “doesn't waste my time with tedious empty actions between actually engaging gameplay”? Yeah. This is me, doing that nitpicking. Sacred Stones goes below Blazing Blade and Binding Blade because of the postgame. Jesus Christ, I cannot stress how frustrating it is to have to have gone through so many fucking maps that had no business whatsoever being rout missions. Especially with the breakable walls, the winding hallways, the disappearing platforms, the fog of war... yeah. It's only the postgame, but fuck it, the pain I felt was real. 1: Blazing Blade 2: Binding Blade 3: Sacred Stones 4: Thracia 776 5: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 6: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 7: Gaiden 8: Dark Dragon 9: Genealogy of the Holy War Writing: ...Now... ...in fairness... ...this isn't the worst game in this category. So let me start with the positives that keep it off of the garbage pile. Its story... existed, for one. I know it's sad I have to bring this up, but this is a very important point. The gripes I have with the writing here have nothing on the gripes I have with the first two... fuck it, the first three games, which are heavily stifled by hardware and, well... apparently just not thinking the story in a video game had to be all that important at the time or something? I don't know how else to explain the drastic jump in narrative quality between 3 and 4. But the why of it doesn't matter. Sacred Stones enjoys enough of the benefits of coming after Blazing Blade that it definitely, hands down, scores higher than the bottom four places on this list. ...It just doesn't score even a single notch higher. For now. Maybe later another game will come along on the list that it beats. Maybe. But like... take Blazing Blade, get rid of everything that game had going for it that made me forgive its grievous flaws... and then make said grievous flaws worse. I have taken issue with elements of this game's writing, characters, worldbuilding and plot in basically every chapter. The twins are terrible successors to the character dynamics of the Blazing Trio with way fewer chances to interact and grow as characters than they by all rights should have had, Eirika in particular set a new standard for lethal combinations of incompetence and underdevelopment in a main character that was not trumped until the year 2019, Grado is a comically one-dimensional evil empire with no logic or complexity to the actions of its soldiers whatsoever, Selena is the single worst Camus the franchise has ever known, the main villain is either a hammy generic lord of inhuman cruelty or an intriguing concept left underdeveloped by a needlessly late twist and a refusal to make his reveal change any event of consequence, and the game's sense of space and time would make an eldritch god shit himself, look down in horror at his soiled shame, and then scream “Since when the fuck was I wearing pants!?”. There are some interesting things done here. On paper, this is one of the darkest Fire Emblem stories to date, with notable examples being a man driven to madness by grief and convinced a mindless magical automaton is the woman he fell in love with, a very heavily implied sexual predator among the main enemy generals, a woman held hostage by a deranged stalker she once thought she could trust with her life, and a little girl forced to fight the reanimated remains of her own father. The problem is that they don't let much of this horror sink in. It just happens and we move on. You hardly even notice how fucked up a lot of it is because you're given no time to think about it, and the characters are given precious little room to breathe or react. The worst instance of this, of course, is Eirika. The game steadfastly refuses to treat Eirika like a human being until it's narratively convenient to justify her doing something stupid, and the few glimmers of humanity we get immediately before and after her most infamous character moment are way too little, way too late. For that matter, Lemme just re-iterate something I still stand by: suppose Eirika were written out of the story entirely, and the main character of the beginning of the game was Seth, entrusted with the Lunar Brace by King Fado, and instructed to flee with it to Frelia. How much of the pre-split story and Ephraim Mode would happen almost exactly the same way? The answer is “enough to be absolutely alarming”, especially when you consider the fact that, of the moments where replacing Eirika with the Lunar Brace worn by someone else would have significantly impacted the plot... an uncomfortable percentage of these moments are because the Lunar Brace wouldn't have been capable of fucking up the way she did. Crucially, the story would have to find someone else to emotionally manipulate into handing over crucial plot macguffins. I am forced to, by default, place this game in a way, way higher percentile of the list than I feel is proper or morally defensible. But I have absolutely no doubt that the distance between Sacred Stones and the top spot is going to get much, much further away in time. 1: Genealogy of the Holy War 2: Blazing Blade 3: Thracia 776 4: Binding Blade 5: Sacred Stones 6: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 7: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 8: Dark Dragon 9: Gaiden Music: Here's the thing about Sacred Stones' soundtrack... it's... okay? Like, it's got the various problems of the GBA soundfont, but like, it's better than Binding Blade. It's roughly on the level with Blazing Blade, but... I'm gonna put it slightly under it. Because while the high points of the soundtrack are easily among my favorites in the series in terms of melody... ...most of it is... well... ...I think I said it before, but it bears repeating: It feels like what would play during a Blazing Blade sketch on Robot Chicken. Where they take songs from the property, but change up the notes so it's still recognizable but legally distinct and also not as good. So much of the soundtrack just feels like... a slightly less inspired knockoff of its counterparts in Blazing Blade. You can just kinda feel it with so many songs, but most glaringly when comparing “Comrades” to “Together we Ride”, “The Shadows are Approaching” to “Shadow Approaches” (Jesus, were they even trying with the new title there?), and “Land of Promise” to “Dragon's Gate II”. And in basically every instance of this, I like the Blazing Blade one better. But I think that's as low as it goes, because it still has some seriously good songs in it, particularly “Truth, Despair and Hope”. 1: Genealogy of the Holy War 2: Thracia 776 3: Blazing Blade 4: Sacred Stones 5: Gaiden 6: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 7: Binding Blade 8: Dark Dragon 9: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 Presentation: While it manages to beat Binding Blade due to simply having a nicer color scheme and better sound design, it can't hold a candle to Blazing Blade. Mostly because it lacks the crucial CGs that put Blazing Blade's storytelling over the top. Also, the distinctly reduced budget allocated for facial expressions, while not significantly to blame for how I felt about he characters, was at least felt repeatedly. 1: Blazing Blade 2: Sacred Stones 3: Binding Blade 4: Thracia 776 5: Genealogy of the Holy War 6: Mystery of the Emblem 7: Gaiden 8: Dark Dragon Replayability: I'd just like to point out that, in the process of comparing Hector Mode to the branching route system of Sacred Stones, I discovered that if you play Hector Mode after Eliwood Mode, you will get exactly as many brand-new maps and chapters as you would have if you played the other Sacred Stones route. Six. However, assuming that you enjoy the experience of playing every game for the first time equally (and this is a key thing that I always have to assume when gauging replayability, even when it seems frankly impossible), you will get a bit more out of playing Sacred Stones again than you would out of playing Blazing Blade again. Every tier 1 character has two final classes, the tier 0 characters have four to five, more of substance changes between each route you take than can be found between Eliwood and Hector mode, there's an extra bonus for beating the game on both routes, and the game doesn't make you replay any of the pre-branch game before picking a different path if you don't want to. If it weren't for the fact that the second half of Genealogy gets absolutely crazy in how differently your units can play with different parents, I'd say this game has easily the best replayability so far. Alas, Genealogy does exist, so I feel obliged to put it in a respectable second place instead. 1: Genealogy of the Holy War 2: Sacred Stones 3: Blazing Blade 4: Binding Blade 5: Thracia 776 6: Gaiden 7: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 8: Dark Dragon 9: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 You know the deal by now. Time to add up everyone's total scores. Dark Dragon: 81 Gaiden: 61 Mystery of the Emblem Book 1: 60 Mystery of the Emblem Book 2: 57 Genealogy of the Holy War: 33 Thracia 776: 44 Binding Blade: 36 Blazing Blade: 31 Sacred Stones: 38 ...Did... ...Did what I think just happened... just happen? ...I had to re-count the two just to check, but... ...Yes. It would appear that a mix of the revised points in difficulty for Blazing Blade... ...combined with Sacred Stones I suppose adding some spaces between Blazing Blade and Genealogy in a few places where Blazing Blade was better... ...Has actually caused Blazing Blade to... unseat Genealogy as the all-around best Fire Emblem game so far. ...I am... surprised... but strangely okay with this. There's a lot in Blazing Blade I take issue with, but... there's a lot in Genealogy I take issue with, too. There's a lot in every game on this list that I take issue with. And I guess this is just one of the surprises in store for me on this run. Yes, as it turns out, if you take my individual opinions and then make me add them all up as objective raw numbers, apparently I think Fire Emblem 7 is a better game than Fire Emblem 4. Fascinating! ...but not the topic. Where does Sacred Stones go? Well... here's the new list: 1: Blazing Blade 2: Genealogy of the Holy War 3: Binding Blade 4: Sacred Stones 5: Thracia 776 6: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 7: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 8: Gaiden 9: Dark Dragon Yeah, if you'll notice, I think I'm finally okay going by the raw numbers and putting Gaiden below Book 1, something that was a very contentious point for me for a while. If I'm going to use these combined category scores instead of going by the increasingly-difficult-to-use gut feelings, yeah, I'll have to accept that I've scored Gaiden a hair below Book 1. ...Whew. ...It always feels good to be done with these lists. It didn't take up nearly as much of the day to do this as I thought it would! Anyway, that means that tomorrow... … … … Stay safe, everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benice Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 Honestly, I think that FE7's writing is absolutely godawful, but that does appear to be just me. I do kind of find it funny that the top 2 FEs are my least favorite ones by a massive margin, though. Interested to see what you'll think of KagaSaga if you play them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted June 14, 2020 Author Share Posted June 14, 2020 10 minutes ago, Benice said: Interested to see what you'll think of KagaSaga if you play them! I will, at some point. Current plan seems to be right before Awakening, to mark the hiatus between 12 and 13. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boomhauer007 Posted June 15, 2020 Share Posted June 15, 2020 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: ...It just doesn't score even a single notch higher. For now. Maybe later another game will come along on the list that it beats. Maybe. Don't you worry, Revelation is still on the list. Random question: How small do the maps of SS feel in comparison to the other games. Off a gut feeling they always feel tiny, with physically bigger ones like 19 and 20 not really doing anything with it or being easily skipped, but I'm not sure if they're any less big or small than previous entries. Feels like the anti genealogy in terms of being able to cross every map in just a few turns. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted June 15, 2020 Author Share Posted June 15, 2020 (edited) 6 minutes ago, Boomhauer007 said: Don't you worry, Revelation is still on the list. Random question: How small do the maps of SS feel in comparison to the other games. Off a gut feeling they always feel tiny, with physically bigger ones like 19 and 20 not really doing anything with it or being easily skipped, but I'm not sure if they're any less big or small than previous entries. Feels like the anti genealogy in terms of being able to cross every map in just a few turns. Funny, I don't really notice map size unless it's both big and empty, in which case that causes pacing problems. I don't think I've ever run into a Fire Emblem map I've considered to be small enough to take issue with. I mean, outside of Lyn Mode. Edited June 15, 2020 by Alastor15243 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted June 15, 2020 Share Posted June 15, 2020 3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: There are some interesting things done here. On paper, this is one of the darkest Fire Emblem stories to date, with notable examples being a man driven to madness by grief and convinced a mindless magical automaton is the woman he fell in love with, a very heavily implied sexual predator among the main enemy generals, a woman held hostage by a deranged stalker she once thought she could trust with her life, and a little girl forced to fight the reanimated remains of her own father. This is...actually a recurring trope by this point in the series. Think about it. Starting with Genealogy of the Holy War there's Bramsel, who comes the closest to explicitly raping someone in the entire series, Julius himself goes all sorts of psycho boyfriend in Thracia, Narcian definitely tries his hand at Clarine and Sonia, while probably being more consensual than the other examples (debatably, Brandon does not really seem to be in his right mind with prolonged exposure to her), would get the reward for Blazing Blade. I think the series dials back on those potentialities from here on out, though the Black Knight does make a veiled threat to rape Mist in front of Greil in the next game (a line I have some major issues with that aren't PC related, but I'll wait until later to talk about that). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted June 15, 2020 Author Share Posted June 15, 2020 2 minutes ago, Jotari said: This is...actually a recurring trope by this point in the series. Think about it. Starting with Genealogy of the Holy War there's Bramsel, who comes the closest to explicitly raping someone in the entire series, Julius himself goes all sorts of psycho boyfriend in Thracia, Narcian definitely tries his hand at Clarine and Sonia, while probably being more consensual than the other examples (debatably, Brandon does not really seem to be in his right mind with prolonged exposure to her), would get the reward for Blazing Blade. I think the series dials back on those potentialities from here on out, though the Black Knight does make a veiled threat to rape Mist in front of Greil in the next game (a line I have some major issues with that aren't PC related, but I'll wait until later to talk about that). Fair point. But really? The black knight? I never caught anything like that. I'll have to be on the lookout and see if I agree. Anyway... I always find myself surprised by the end result of the overall rankings. All of the individual ones feel right to me... but when I put them together, I always tend to be surprised at where some games land. For example... well... one issue I had with Genealogy being on top for so long was that I have very, very little desire to play through it again any time soon due to its severe pacing issues. Honestly, of the ones done so far, the top two I'd like to play again for fun are Thracia (with mods) and Binding Blade. Maybe I just don't value some categories as much as others? Or maybe merely ranking them doesn't give a proper sense of the difference between them, so if, say, one does 5 points on a 10 point scale better than another game in one category, but 1 point worse in 2 categories, that would result on the first game being ranked worse despite overall quality being better? I dunno what to think sometimes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted June 15, 2020 Share Posted June 15, 2020 (edited) 11 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: Fair point. But really? The black knight? I never caught anything like that. I'll have to be on the lookout and see if I agree. Yeah, that's a lot of people's reaction. It's something people point to when they complain about his redemption arc in Radiant Dawn being undeserved. Though even in Path of Radiance it seems a bit out of character for the battle obsessed stoic knight. Here's the line in question, just so you're not needlessly looking out for it later. “So there’s no way for me to get my answers, is that it? The dead keep their secrets, or so it is said. But you, however…You are not dead yet. I wonder…Will watching your son’s face grow pale, his eyes grow dim as his life bleeds away…And then your daughter… Oh, the horrors I will visit upon her. Will that loosen your tongue, perhaps? I suppose we will simply have to see.”Nothing is specifically said about rape, but it's rare you will see anything explicit in that manner. At the very least he's suggesting very brutal torture. Edited June 15, 2020 by Jotari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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