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


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18 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Are you serious!? Holy shit!

Anything in particular people want me to use this to check out?

For my part, I disagreed with the "hack to remove paralogue requirements" on the basis of "not how the game was designed". In this case, though, the game was very much designed with the intent that you could connect to the Internet and access the online shop. The removal of that option was never intended, nor accounted for. So I would be all-for you doing something with this.

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

And it's also one of the absolute shittiest chapters in the entire Fire Emblem series. Even acknowledging some of them use Stonehoist, which at 50 hit, is not accurate and thus I can somewhat reasonably expect not to connect, it's still a massive pain in the ass when I pretty much have to assume everything else will. Especially when you eventually have to go into the range of several others to get a shot at one.

The thing is, I felt like absolute shit having to kill units on purpose to get those characters, and never even saw anyone besides Athena (who I still stand by not being that amazing, as being a myrmidon is suffering; being a better Navarre is not saying much when Navarre sucks). It's one of the many, MANY reasons why I cast a grim eye on Shadow Dragon. Most of the other paralogue units are not much easier to justify using.

The thing is, though, most units in the game are pretty mediocre. Like, you've got Cain, Abel, Caeda, Ogma, Barst, Lena, Merric, Wendell, Hardin, Wolf, Sedgar, Palla, Catria, and Tiki. Most other units are "starts out okay, but falls off" (like Jagen, Bantu, or Minerva), "situationally useful but flawed" (like Bord, Linde, or Jeorge), or "starts shitty and, barring great fortune or investment, stays shitty" (like Roshea, Radd, Roger... the "League of R's", you might say! plus the substitute units). I would generally put the paralogue units in the "situationally useful but flawed" category. They join with stats and weapon levels that make them able to contribute... well, something, which is more than I can say about like 40% of the cast.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Are you serious!? Holy shit!

Anything in particular people want me to use this to check out?

Yep. Keep in mind that you need to set up a WEP hotspot for Shadow Dragon, or an unprotected wifi. New Mystery accepts WPA2 connection though. Get an Elysian Whip asap.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Oh wow. That's really cool. How the hell have I not heard about that before?

I dunno. There's even a thread here. I first heard of it when I saw a post on Reddit about the mystery gifts working again in Pokemon DS games.

Edited by Maof06
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Shadow Dragon Day 9: Chapter 8

Oh right. It's this chapter. Chapter 8. “Port Warren”. Or as I remember it: “Caesar Goes Shopping While Bantu Builds a Wall”.

'Course this time it'll be Sedgar.

Honestly, I'm not even sure I'm gonna try to recruit Roger this time. If I get a safe opening? Sure. But I'm not going out of my way and endangering Caeda, the wing nuke herself, the sole condition for the happy ending, just to get a character I'm never going to use.

I'm kind of amazed they didn't do anything to spice this chapter up. It's basically identical, and the concept is just so boring and easy to cheese.

Anyway, I just restocked everyone's weapons and made sure that Sedgar was towards the top and thus could make the two-turn trip to the chokepoint. The horsemen might be able to cross the mountains, not sure, but if they do, I have the means to deal with them, at least on player phase, and definitely if they're slowed down going over mountains.

This chapter is playing out roughly like it has before, and it's still up in the air whether or not I'll have the opening to save Roger. That said, while I still think this is a dumb chapter, there's a bizarre sort of satisfaction out of walling off an area and working out how to take the enemies out at range from behind cover.

Thankfully, the game has the decency to warn you about the ambush spawns if you visit the villages. That's something the early ambush-spawn games did that a lot of later ambush-spawn games... did not.

Yeah, Sedgar got a crit on Roger. Roger's almost certainly going to die before the archers do. Unless he runs away to heal.

That would be nice. Alas, he does not.

Merric finally gains a point of magic, and he still gets speed, meaning he's finally fast enough to resist being doubled by those horsemen up there after taking away the 1 weight of a fire tome. And by an amazing miracle, he also got the point of HP he needed to be able to tank both of the archers that are still alive in a worst-case scenario when Sedgar missed his attempt to kill the wounded one!

Man, I am... almost terrified of the eye of the RNG storm I appear to be in. Nothing has gone wrong for me yet.

Ooh! It's Roger's lucky day! I just barely managed to kill both archers in time, so now Caeda can move in safely and have someone move in to Roger's spot to shield her from the enemy phase!

Also, I forgot the mountain defense boost so Merric was never in any danger.

Anyway...

...Yeah, Roger's recruitment is funny, but like... is it bad that Caeda barely has any characterization, and I can still tell that it's out of character for her? She usually makes genuine, heartfelt pleas to get the enemies to join her. She doesn't resort to flirting and outright manipulation elsewhere. At least I'm pretty sure.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Roger actually explicitly tells Marth that it was Caeda who came over to talk to him! I could've sworn that he talked to Marth about “the girls in [Marth's] army” being cute or something, not Caeda specifically! Oh wow, that's hilarious. I wonder what Marth's reaction was after the visible silence we see at the end of the talk? The ending of the game depicts him as being pretty romantically dense, so maybe he's just weirded out and not jealous.

So, my main priority is getting some nice tomes at the shop, as well as the rapier and Wing Spear that they're selling. Just one of each, to be clear. I wound up selling two master keys just to keep my cash reserves from going too low, which I hope doesn't bite me in the ass with some thief deaths. I can't wait to be able to forge the rapier. That'll probably make it way easier to train Marth. I seem to remember this game being a bit ridiculous with cash, and honestly, forging feels like a surprisingly natural fit to fix that.

Merric's taking out these horsemen from atop the right house. He's got just enough speed that he can't be doubled, enough bulk (due to their terrible offense) that he takes three hits to kill, and sufficiently low attack power that he can't instantly kill one from full HP with a crit unless he uses Excalibur. Which means the worst case scenario is that he crits a wounded one, then crits the healthy one who takes his place, and then that's it for the turn, and he's still alive.

Merric finally failed to get a speed level up, having gotten to 12 speed. Level was still nice though.

After getting a bit too cocky with Wolf and putting him in... not a deadly situation, but one where I'd have to expend a physic charge and my last vulnerary to keep him alive... I discovered that Roger actually has enough defense to completely negate the horsemen's attacks, so I can have him cover the chokepoint for a turn while I have Sedgar bail Wolf out.

I very nearly got someone killed by forgetting about the fact that I didn't highlight the range of some horsemen. But no matter, nobody exceedingly fragile was in range, and I managed to player-phase everyone next chance I got.

...And now I have Roger plug up the northwestern pass in case more horsemen show up like in the original and FE3, and... brace myself for whatever's going to pop out of the other one I can't quite as easily block. Sedgar and Wolf are doing the job, but not knowing what's coming out means I can't fully guarantee Wolf's safety, which pisses me off.

Oh shit!

I just realized!

There was a reason I'd want to get Roger!

I can make Sedgar and Wolf generals at the same time now!

...Except I could've done that all along if I wanted to if I had just class-changed Draug... ...fuck.

Well generals are pretty powerful at this point, so I guess it's nice to have more access to making them, even if I don't have a good third candidate yet.

Alright, so, turns out that the reinforcements from the northwest have exactly enough attack power between them to kill Roger, and he has some of the tomes I bought still so I can't just let him die without consequence. So I wound up switching things around and having Sedgar, who could just barely make it, plug up that gap instead while I had my cavalry take Sedgar's place. They're about as bulky as Wolf, so they should be fine for a turn unless things go horribly, catastrophically wrong.

Navarre is just barely bulky enough to take a hit from the boss, so he's softening the guy up with the armorslayer. The plan is to kill him next turn, then seize so we don't have to stay here a second longer. Sadly Caeda can't one-shot this guy, and she dies in a single hit from him in melee, so looks like if this keeps up, Caeda can't nuke bosses anymore until she promotes.

Alright, success. I had Jagen fly over to the town a turn or two back with some iron swords I'm not gonna use, so that I could buy some more vulneraries. Because holy shit have I been finding myself wishing I had more. I'm also using the last player phase to do some good ol' consequence-free recklessness to get some more experience for my more fragile units.

Wolf got a level and got everything but speed. That's fine, speed is still his best stat and he's doubling basically everything already.

Lena also got to A rank in staves, which is awesome, obviously.

Wendell got magic, luck and resistance, and I guess he needed more luck, so yeah, good level up.

Ah yes. Okay. So here's where they mention the infamous Pyrathi.

Man, if this were a Tellius game... no, hell, in almost any other Fire Emblem game, we'd actually get a chance to hear the reasons why he have to flee to Pyrathi. Malledus just says we have to, like we've got no other choice despite not explaining why their other options are nonexistent.

Then again, at least this game does do a good job at making the end of this chapter make you feel, through gameplay itself, that you're cornered and out of time. I probably could've kept this up, but the pressure was definitely real. So I guess it has that going for it.

Also, yet again, Marth doesn't say a word about the prospect of sailing to Pyrathi.

Alright, let's check out this next chapter...

...Okay, so the narration basically says that Pyrathi is some kind of hermit nation, and that the king declared war on Marth the second he heard that he was there, without asking why.

But I'll have to check that out in more detail tomorrow. This chapter looks like it could be tricky, and I'd like a full day to deal with it just in case.

Stay safe, everyone!

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31 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

I'm kind of amazed they didn't do anything to spice this chapter up. It's basically identical, and the concept is just so boring and easy to cheese.

 

And given that the plot of this chapter is that Marth is losing and has to flee, they definitely could have done what they did in the prologue when Jiol showed up and have Camus or some other late game boss show up at the south of the map to limit shopping time and push you towards the end. Medeus himself would be nice, but unfortunately canon forbids him from taking dragon form.

Also while we're at this point I guess I should bring this up now. Where is Port Warren? Playing Shadow Dragon would lead you to believe it's here

y5pmdt8.png

That's a screen shot taking from the next chapter heading towards Pyrathi. Port Warren is the blue dot Marth's coming from. According to Shadow Dragon, Port Warren is on the same peninsula as Marth first lands, close to chapter 2. Lefcandith Guantlet is similarily on the same peninsula, right beside the teeth. However in the SNES version

vo2e4Bh.png

and even in the NES maps, (which looks really janky now but has accurate relative position of things)

430c53b6ac57d23bd133d73044113e2765ea05c2.jpg

Port Warren is on the peninsula to the south of that one, where Archanea proper is. So the makers of Shadow Dragon colossally fucked up and moved the location of these two chapters to somewhere completely different on the world map. Either that or they wanted to retcon them. It is a bit weird that Marth goes around the entire Archanian peninsula to go on a shopping holiday before looping back to take the capital. So having it there makes a bit more sense on one hand. However, this completely destroys the Pyrathi invasion plot has now instead of walking there Marth sails into the dragon kingdom when TALYS IS RIGHT THERE. It destroys any credibility he might have on a controversial issue of involving neutral countries. As instead of being forced to go there by literally being herded into it, they choose to sail there rather than retreating to their allies, or hell sailing anywhere else like Galder. One can argue Marth has some justification for invading Pyrathi in the other versions (I don't personally think he does but an argument can be made, it's a controversial issue the game side steps entirely), but in Shadow Dragon, even though the dialogue says otherwise, he's actively going out of his way to attack them.

Edited by Jotari
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4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

And given that the plot of this chapter is that Marth is losing and has to flee, they definitely could have done what they did in the prologue when Jiol showed up and have Camus or some other late game boss show up at the south of the map to limit shopping time and push you towards the end. Medeus himself would be nice, but unfortunately canon forbids him from taking dragon form.

Also while we're at this point I guess I should bring this up now. Where is Port Warren? Playing Shadow Dragon would lead you to believe it's here

y5pmdt8.png

That's a screen shot taking from the next chapter heading towards Pyrathi. Port Warren is the blue dot Marth's coming from. According to Shadow Dragon, Port Warren is on the same peninsula as Marth first lands, close to chapter 2. Lefcandith Guantlet is similarily on the same peninsula, right beside the teeth. However in the SNES version

vo2e4Bh.png

and even in the NES maps, (which looks really janky now but has accurate relative position of things)

430c53b6ac57d23bd133d73044113e2765ea05c2.jpg

Port Warren is on the peninsula to the south of that one, where Archanea proper is. So the makers of Shadow Dragon colossally fucked up and moved the location of these two chapters to somewhere completely different on the world map. Either that or they wanted to retcon them. It is a bit weird that Marth goes around the entire Archanian peninsula to go on a shopping holiday before looping back to take the capital. So having it there makes a bit more sense on one hand. However, this completely destroys the Pyrathi invasion plot has now instead of walking there Marth sails into the dragon kingdom when TALYS IS RIGHT THERE. It destroys any credibility he might have on a controversial issue of involving neutral countries. As instead of being forced to go there by literally being herded into it, they choose to sail there rather than retreating to their allies, or hell sailing anywhere else like Galder. One can argue Marth has some justification for invading Pyrathi in the other versions (I don't personally think he does but an argument can be made, it's a controversial issue the game side steps entirely), but in Shadow Dragon, even though the dialogue says otherwise, he's actively going out of his way to attack them.

Wow. I didn't even notice the location change. In fairness it's not a huge priority to remember and there was no prompting to look at the map, but yeah, wow, not sure what's going on there.

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2 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Wow. I didn't even notice the location change. In fairness it's not a huge priority to remember and there was no prompting to look at the map, but yeah, wow, not sure what's going on there.

I seem to be the first one that has ever noticed this as I've never encountered anyone else acknowledging that Shadow Dragon completely changed the location of two chapters. I can only hope it was an intentional retcon to make the shopping trip more sensical, because if it were a mistake, then wow, I hope someone was fired for it.

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1 hour ago, Jotari said:

And given that the plot of this chapter is that Marth is losing and has to flee, they definitely could have done what they did in the prologue when Jiol showed up and have Camus or some other late game boss show up at the south of the map to limit shopping time and push you towards the end. Medeus himself would be nice, but unfortunately canon forbids him from taking dragon form.

Camus wouldn't have worked too well, Medeus wants him on a short leash. I'd suggest Lorenz instead, maybe dropping a hint of his friendship with the King of Talys, because is there any clue already given I'm missing about his eventual recruitment?

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3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Alright, so, turns out that the reinforcements from the northwest have exactly enough attack power between them to kill Roger, and he has some of the tomes I bought still so I can't just let him die without consequence.

From what I remember the equipment of units that die go back to the convoy after the chapter is over, so not a big loss. In fact there is a funky exploit where you kill off Tiki with the real Falchion in her inventory to unlock the last gaiden, but still be able to have both Tiki and the real Falchion available with a Aum staff use.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Then again, at least this game does do a good job at making the end of this chapter make you feel, through gameplay itself, that you're cornered and out of time. I probably could've kept this up, but the pressure was definitely real. So I guess it has that going for it.

I appreciate what they are going for, but its still fairly easy to end the chapter with everything dead, and no more enemies coming, so an ending cutscene showing a bigger threat arriving just in case would have helped (or doing something like in FE3/12 or FE9 etc. where an impossible to beat lategame boss is on the map to ensure you can't fully rout the map, and are still threatened)

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3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Then again, at least this game does do a good job at making the end of this chapter make you feel, through gameplay itself, that you're cornered and out of time. I probably could've kept this up, but the pressure was definitely real. So I guess it has that going for it.

I dunno - I think that falls flat when the enemies aren't that threatening.

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3 hours ago, Jotari said:

I seem to be the first one that has ever noticed this as I've never encountered anyone else acknowledging that Shadow Dragon completely changed the location of two chapters. I can only hope it was an intentional retcon to make the shopping trip more sensical, because if it were a mistake, then wow, I hope someone was fired for it.

We've talked about it before, actually. Unless you do are counting the thread.

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21 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

It's 3B2/12 stuff. I think you could read it as:

  • Trolling his big bro/chief because he's more interested in spending time with a saint than thieving.
  • Or, Rickard seriously means it.

Not sure which is true, but I'd default to the former. 

The FE12 Julian-Rickard support doesn't touch on this, Rickard doesn't use words and phrases like "our relationship" and "love" there. And the Kris-Rickard is incredibly generic and short, which is a little surprising given some Kris supports did receive some effort.

It's still completely ridiculous how they gave so much effort to Kris and their specific supports. If the Archanea cast received 25% of Kris' writing opportunities they would've had a lot more to them for sure.

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12 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

The thing is, though, most units in the game are pretty mediocre. Like, you've got Cain, Abel, Caeda, Ogma, Barst, Lena, Merric, Wendell, Hardin, Wolf, Sedgar, Palla, Catria, and Tiki. Most other units are "starts out okay, but falls off" (like Jagen, Bantu, or Minerva), "situationally useful but flawed" (like Bord, Linde, or Jeorge), or "starts shitty and, barring great fortune or investment, stays shitty" (like Roshea, Radd, Roger... the "League of R's", you might say! plus the substitute units). I would generally put the paralogue units in the "situationally useful but flawed" category. They join with stats and weapon levels that make them able to contribute... well, something, which is more than I can say about like 40% of the cast.

My two cents on the matter is that asking the player to constantly sacrifice units is a LOT to ask, especially when that's something that any self-respecting Fire Emblem player does NOT do. And when you ask that much just to see the new characters, I'd expect them to actually be worth it. Instead, they're all bashed because they require constant sacrifices to even get thanks to requiring 15 or less units, and for all that, they probably are no better than the units I had raised, which begs the question, why bother?

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5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

My two cents on the matter is that asking the player to constantly sacrifice units is a LOT to ask, especially when that's something that any self-respecting Fire Emblem player does NOT do. And when you ask that much just to see the new characters, I'd expect them to actually be worth it. Instead, they're all bashed because they require constant sacrifices to even get thanks to requiring 15 or less units, and for all that, they probably are no better than the units I had raised, which begs the question, why bother?

They weren't designed to be something you consciously sacrifice your units to go for though. They're designed as band aids.

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7 hours ago, Jotari said:

They weren't designed to be something you consciously sacrifice your units to go for though. They're designed as band aids.

Yeah, this. The paralogues already (unintentionally, I think) present a "perverse incentive", so to speak. You're motivated to kill off some of your own units, in order to enhance a small handful of them. Making the recruitables better just perverts the incentive further, and would arguably be even worse design (especially if it sends the message "we intend you to kill your units off").

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Shadow Dragon Day 10: Chapter 9

Yep, so, just in case anyone's only reading the actual entries and not the rest of the thread, I'd recommend checking out what Jotari posted about this chapter. Anything I could say describing the issues with the premise would just be redundant. Not that it matters much. The writing of this game is only going to beat the original (by sheer technicality) and Gaiden, so it's not like I've gotta think much about where this shit belongs.

Quick note about this game. I've heard a ton that this is a massive lance-spam game, and... yeah, so far I'm inclined to believe that. We've seen virtually nothing but lances and bows and the occasional sword and tome since, like, Chapter 3. I can't remember a single axe user (besides Minerva) between then and now, where they finally show up again because it's a water map and thus it needs pirates.

So yeah, uh... maybe it was a mistake to use enemy formations that predated the weapon triangle... and then add in the weapon triangle and still expect it to be balanced?

On an unrelated note, rather infuriatingly...

...At first I thought that Firefox's command F feature was just being janky again when searching the growth rates page for Caeda gave no results. But actually, the reason it gave no results was because the word Caeda wasn't on the page. The Serenes Forest “all growth rates” page for Shadow Dragon writes Caeda's name as “Shiida” despite every other character using their western name. Maybe it's a one-time mistake...

...No! It's fucking everywhere! I checked multiple places, and the same thing happens on every page! Everyone else gets the names they're actually given in Shadow Dragon, but for some fucking reason, whoever wrote down this information consistently referred to Caeda as Shiida! What the fuck? Why?

...Okay, Navarre is also called Nabarl. Was Caeda called Shiida in the European version? Is that what these names are being copied from? Is Caeda still called Shiida in the European version of Fire Emblem Heroes, incidentally? If not, you'd think Serenes would start using the NA version's names since they were deemed canon.

Also, I just checked out my reclassing options, and why do warriors and berserkers have the same strength base, and why is it lower than a general's!?

Also, hilariously, Wendell actually has some pretty great reclassing options, namely dracoknight. Promoted base variation really does a lot at this stage of the game. His ridiculous base speed definitely helps.

Also, I thought everyone's models for each class were the same, but turns out that they did make sure that characters at least have their hair color right. Or, in the case of characters like Wrys and Wendell, lack of any hair at all. Still, it's pretty pathetic how they don't even have different-colored armor.

...And I wish they'd have extended that hair color to their map sprites, which all have the same, usually inaccurate, hair color no matter who's in the class. Caeda's got green hair as a pegasus knight, for example.

Also, is it just me, or is the mage literally the only map sprite that faces right?

...No, that and dark mage.

...So the two tome-using classes face in the opposite direction as everyone else. That feels too specific to be a coincidence and yet too weird to be intentional. I wonder what's going on here.

I'm pretty sure the forts down south will start spawning pirates, and not fliers, so as long as we keep a bit of distance, we should be fine.

I have an extra deployment slot I don't really know what to do with. I'll bring Ogma since I might as well, given he's fast enough to double some of the enemies here still. I would've preferred to bring Wrys, but alas, I'm absurdly cash-strapped after that shopping spree and don't have the money to buy more heal staves. Lena and Wendell's heal staves still have most of their uses, so I should be fine, but it's still annoying not being able to bring three.

So... Mannu is depicted as something of a batshit insane religious fanatic. Wonder what his deal is.

Also, none of the enemies seem to be very aggressive. They're mostly moving when provoked, with a couple of exceptions.

Also, remember the devil axe pirate who killed Caeda back in Dark Dragon? He's still here, though... it feels like he's in a different place. At any rate, he's still freakishly strong, but thanks to the improved interface (and, y'know, remembering my failures), I'm not taken by surprise this time.

I just recruited Jeorge, and I call bullshit on his explanation for why he's here.

Jeorge: I heard you were on your way to Pyrathi and that Princess Nyna was with you, so I came here to offer my help.

Okay, so, he apparently got wind of this desperate, spur-of-the-moment decision, and then somehow got here before us.

Yeah, bullshit.

Speaking of, though... I thought of a perfect way to explain this whole Pyrathi sequence. Imagine if this had been the scene at the end of last chapter:

Malledus: Prince Marth, I'm afraid things are getting rather dire. The scouts have just reported back, and we're completely surrounded. There's no end to the reinforcements from the west, we cannot hold them off for long, and we'll be beset from the east within a day. We must flee by sea.

Marth: ...Understood.

Malledus: I'll prepare the ships immediately. Marth, I know it's hard... but I'm afraid we must return to Talys for just a little longer.

Marth: What!? Talys!?

Malledus: Yes, they're just nearby and-

Marth: Have you lost your mind!? This isn't like three years ago, Malledus! We won't be fleeing in secret, we'll be fleeing in full view of the enemy! Grust will follow us! Talys protected us for three long years, at risk of losing everything if anyone learned we were there! And you expect me to repay their kindness by bringing the war to their doorstep!? Talys doesn't even have an army! They'll be destroyed!

Malledus: Marth, I'm sorry, but we have no other option. Grust will be following us wherever we go, and their ships are much faster. We can only make it so far with the head start we have, and Talys is the only place close enough.

Marth: I see another island on the map.

Malledus: Where- Gah! Well you best forget you did, Sire, because that island you're pointing to is Pyrathi. Surely you've heard of the place? An ancient hermit nation, infamously hostile to outsiders of any kind! Their king is said to be a Manakete! No outsider has ever gone to that island and lived to tell the tale!

Marth: Then that sounds like a perfect place to go and not be followed.

Malledus: Aye, Sire, and a perfect place to die! You must not have heard me, I said-

Marth: I heard what you said, Malledus. You've shown me my two options, and I've chosen the lesser of two evils. We will go to Pyrathi, and if they do not believe that we come in peace, well... we'll simply have to defend ourselves.

Malledus: ...I'll make the preparations at once, Sire.

Marth: Thank you, Malledus.

Yeah, something like that.

...Fuck, Merric got a total dud level up. What fucking luck is that. Oh well.

Speaking of luck, I got a goddess icon, which bizarrely I actually have some semblance of a use for given some of the terrible luck stats in this game.

The other chest had a medium Bullion, so my money troubles are over for now. I'm not gonna send Julian down for the third chest, since it'd take too long. I'll just use the door key in my convoy and have Marth use the Fire Emblem to open it.

Man, this map really makes you take the dangerous route to get the nice stuff. But thankfully I can use Jagen on a fort to at least reduce the damage.

Yep, the ambush spawns have arrived, thankfully a bit early to do any real surprise damage, but they're in numbers high enough that I'm concerned about how I'll deal with them. Now I'm starting to wish I sent Wolf east with Marth, Lena and my cavalry instead of south with everyone else.

Okay, the reinforcements didn't continue on the next turn. It might be a fakeout, but given the number of forts it could be reasonable to think it won't happen again. I won't assume that though.

...Nope, it's every other turn by the looks of it. The reinforcements are back.

...I was kinda counting on a 94% hit rate to strike true... and Jeorge failed me. If the enemy prioritizes Marth instead of Jeorge, who can't attack, and if Marth can't dodge a mid 30s attack and a mid 50s ish attack... then pirate water-walking will be the death of this ironman, with the first casualty being Marth himself.

...Thankfully the AI decided to be pants-on-head retarded, and ganged up on Hardin, who both couldn't die, and could counter-attack from range.

...And now I've managed to get everyone out safely, just when all hope seemed lost and like someone was going to die. Christ, I wish I had screenshots so you could see what I was actually doing, but basically, to summarize, I was fleeing along a narrow pathway with pirates coming across the water from the south, and one of them cut Marth, Jeorge and Lena off from escaping with the cavalry. Thankfully, with some clutch javelin hits from Jagen and Cain, I managed to kill the pirate blocking our path, and send in Jeorge to silver-bow the hand axe pirate from the bridge, leaving only two pirates left, none with 1-2 range. And now Wolf is arriving from the southwest to save the day with his hand axe to take out any reinforcements that arrive from now on. Wolf is backing him up in case he starts taking too much damage, but Wolf should be fine.

Blizzard apparently isn't effective against fire dragons in this game unfortunately. This may take a while, but fuck it, I've got time.

SHIT NONONONONONONO THERE ARE TWO HAMMER GUYS!? I THOUGHT THERE WAS ONLY ONE! NO! DON'T KILL SEDGAR DON'T KILL SEDGAR DON'T KILL SEDGAR!

...They killed Sedgar.

...Sedgar is dead.

The first death of this ironman...

...Was fucking Sedgar.

Killed by me forgetting that he was technically mortal.

This... is gonna be painful.

...And Wolf gets a perfect level up in his honor. Everything he could possibly get as a hero.

...And the reinforcements seem to have stopped, as if satisfied by Sedgar's death.

...Let's move on.

...Christ, even Wolf can't double this boss.

Merric proceeds to make up for the previous level up by getting everything but speed and defense.

Aaaand we got the wyrmslayer from the chest. The thing that put us in that messy situation to begin with that forced Sedgar and Wolf to rush into danger rather than playing it safe, because they needed to take pressure off of Marth and co.

Hope it turns out to be worth it.

...Alright, seizing now.

...Catria arrives with a message from Minerva. So it looks like the enemy does know we fled to Pyrathi, or at least Macedon does. Meaning that Marth's logic for why Pyrathi was the better idea in my little skit is likely why they haven't been pursued: Grust didn't want to follow them to Pyrathi.

Anyway... that's it for today.

My hubris having cost me Sedgar, you'll forgive me if I don't feel like doing a double feature today. This is going to have major consequences for my army, and I'm gonna need all the time I can get tomorrow just in case.

...Also, to just... y'know... mentally recover.

Stay safe, everyone.

...Stay safer than Sedgar.

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5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Okay, Navarre is also called Nabarl. Was Caeda called Shiida in the European version? Is that what these names are being copied from? Is Caeda still called Shiida in the European version of Fire Emblem Heroes, incidentally? If not, you'd think Serenes would start using the NA version's names since they were deemed canon.

Yup, they're the European names. Europe in an odd twist of fate got the game before North America. The other European name differences in SD are Doluna, Medon, Akaneia, Freelancer instead of Chameleon, Reynard instead of Hyman, and Aimee instead of Larabel.

As for why they haven't been changed, basically the majority of subsections on the SF main site can only be edited by the site's owner and like one or two others, they aren't in a wiki form anyone can change.

 

13 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...They killed Sedgar.

...Sedgar is dead.

The first death of this ironman...

...Was fucking Sedgar.

Killed by me forgetting that he was technically mortal.

This... is gonna be painful.

⚰️💐

The uh, silver lining, is that you'll have to use more of your brain now to figure out how to eliminate the threats? Or forged effectives maybe- if you have the money.

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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

SHIT NONONONONONONO THERE ARE TWO HAMMER GUYS!? I THOUGHT THERE WAS ONLY ONE! NO! DON'T KILL SEDGAR DON'T KILL SEDGAR DON'T KILL SEDGAR!

...They killed Sedgar.

...Sedgar is dead.

The first death of this ironman...

...Was fucking Sedgar.

Killed by me forgetting that he was technically mortal.

Big oof. Sedgar is my sole survivor of the Wolfguard on H5, as of chapter 15. He's doing great as a Hero, with weirdly high physical bulk for the class. I killed Roshea and Vyland intentionally, but I really wanted Hardin and Wolf to do work. Your next feasible General will be Astram, on chapter 13, but that'd mean he loses his weapon ranks.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Speaking of, though... I thought of a perfect way to explain this whole Pyrathi sequence. Imagine if this had been the scene at the end of last chapter:

Malledus: Prince Marth, I'm afraid things are getting rather dire. The scouts have just reported back, and we're completely surrounded. There's no end to the reinforcements from the west, we cannot hold them off for long, and we'll be beset from the east within a day. We must flee by sea.

Marth: ...Understood.

Malledus: I'll prepare the ships immediately. Marth, I know it's hard... but I'm afraid we must return to Talys for just a little longer.

Marth: What!? Talys!?

Malledus: Yes, they're just nearby and-

Marth: Have you lost your mind!? This isn't like three years ago, Malledus! We won't be fleeing in secret, we'll be fleeing in full view of the enemy! Grust will follow us! Talys protected us for three long years, at risk of losing everything if anyone learned we were there! And you expect me to repay their kindness by bringing the war to their doorstep!? Talys doesn't even have an army! They'll be destroyed!

Malledus: Marth, I'm sorry, but we have no other option. Grust will be following us wherever we go, and their ships are much faster. We can only make it so far with the head start we have, and Talys is the only place close enough.

Marth: I see another island on the map.

Malledus: Where- Gah! Well you best forget you did, Sire, because that island you're pointing to is Pyrathi. Surely you've heard of the place? An ancient hermit nation, infamously hostile to outsiders of any kind! Their king is said to be a Manakete! No outsider has ever gone to that island and lived to tell the tale!

Marth: Then that sounds like a perfect place to go and not be followed.

Malledus: Aye, Sire, and a perfect place to die! You must not have heard me, I said-

Marth: I heard what you said, Malledus. You've shown me my two options, and I've chosen the lesser of two evils. We will go to Pyrathi, and if they do not believe that we come in peace, well... we'll simply have to defend ourselves.

Malledus: ...I'll make the preparations at once, Sire.

Marth: Thank you, Malledus.

This rewrite would work pretty well. The game doesn't make the transition to Pyrathi very well. Nor back to the mainland.

Also, Jeorge already being there makes no sense, as you said. If he's rushing there, shouldn't he show up by the coast? It'd make more sense if he joined at the start of the chapter.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So... Mannu is depicted as something of a batshit insane religious fanatic. Wonder what his deal is.

Mannu's relationship to Medeus, and Dolhr, is also never really explained. Is he in league with Medeus, or did he set up his kingdom in rebellion against Dolhr? Still, lines like his make me want a re-re-remake with full voice acting.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also, I thought everyone's models for each class were the same, but turns out that they did make sure that characters at least have their hair color right. Or, in the case of characters like Wrys and Wendell, lack of any hair at all. Still, it's pretty pathetic how they don't even have different-colored armor.

Some of the hair colors are... a bit off. Lena's and Matthis's are red (when it looks way closer to pink), while Athena's is brown (rather than blue). The lack of unique armor colors seems an inevitable result of wide reclassing options (see also - Fates). I don't mind it especially, but I can understand the complaint.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Aaaand we got the wyrmslayer from the chest. The thing that put us in that messy situation to begin with that forced Sedgar and Wolf to rush into danger rather than playing it safe, because they needed to take pressure off of Marth and co.

Friendly note - these aren't effective against Dracoknights, only against Manaketes. So it'll mostly be taking up convoy space until, say, chapter 17.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Quick note about this game. I've heard a ton that this is a massive lance-spam game, and... yeah, so far I'm inclined to believe that. We've seen virtually nothing but lances and bows and the occasional sword and tome since, like, Chapter 3. I can't remember a single axe user (besides Minerva) between then and now, where they finally show up again because it's a water map and thus it needs pirates.

So yeah, uh... maybe it was a mistake to use enemy formations that predated the weapon triangle... and then add in the weapon triangle and still expect it to be balanced?

Hm... maybe that's why Warrior and Berserker have such bad stats? They figured that Axe-specialists would have the advantage so often, that their stats should be reduced to compensate for that. The result being, of course, that Axe-users just go Hero instead. Still, it would have been nice to see more Berserkers and Warriors in the enemy lineup. Swordmasters too.

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

Big oof. Sedgar is my sole survivor of the Wolfguard on H5, as of chapter 15. He's doing great as a Hero, with weirdly high physical bulk for the class. I killed Roshea and Vyland intentionally, but I really wanted Hardin and Wolf to do work. Your next feasible General will be Astram, on chapter 13, but that'd mean he loses his weapon ranks.

Weapon ranks wouldn't be a problem. All a general needs to start off is the base rank of D that gets you javelins. Still though, nobody but Wolf will be able to do what Sedgar did. He will be sorely missed.

...But in a way I look forward to how this will mix things up.

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On 10/13/2020 at 2:08 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

For my part, I disagreed with the "hack to remove paralogue requirements" on the basis of "not how the game was designed". In this case, though, the game was very much designed with the intent that you could connect to the Internet and access the online shop. The removal of that option was never intended, nor accounted for. So I would be all-for you doing something with this.

I'd disagree with that. Any online feature of that nature is obviously going to have an end-of-life. If the intent was "by the time this goes offline, hardly anyone will still be playing this so hardly anyone will care" then I wouldn't say they're wrong, but it was an intentional design compromise and should be judged accordingly. On the other hand, if they genuinely thought the online would stay up indefinitely, then that's somewhere on the border between hubris and incompetence.

 

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Okay, Navarre is also called Nabarl. Was Caeda called Shiida in the European version? Is that what these names are being copied from? Is Caeda still called Shiida in the European version of Fire Emblem Heroes, incidentally? If not, you'd think Serenes would start using the NA version's names since they were deemed canon.

I can't speak for Heroes since I have never played it and have no intention of ever doing so, but I know that the European version of TMS#FE spells the names as Caeda, Navarre, etc.

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7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

SHIT NONONONONONONO THERE ARE TWO HAMMER GUYS!? I THOUGHT THERE WAS ONLY ONE! NO! DON'T KILL SEDGAR DON'T KILL SEDGAR DON'T KILL SEDGAR!

...They killed Sedgar.

...Sedgar is dead.

The first death of this ironman...

...Was fucking Sedgar.

Killed by me forgetting that he was technically mortal.

This... is gonna be painful.

My reaction in a nutshell.

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Quick note about this game. I've heard a ton that this is a massive lance-spam game, and... yeah, so far I'm inclined to believe that. We've seen virtually nothing but lances and bows and the occasional sword and tome since, like, Chapter 3. I can't remember a single axe user (besides Minerva) between then and now, where they finally show up again because it's a water map and thus it needs pirates.

So yeah, uh... maybe it was a mistake to use enemy formations that predated the weapon triangle... and then add in the weapon triangle and still expect it to be balanced?

I agree with that. As a result I think it's ironic that while the original game favored swords, SD pretty much does a 180 and makes swords the worst weapon type.

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8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...No! It's fucking everywhere! I checked multiple places, and the same thing happens on every page! Everyone else gets the names they're actually given in Shadow Dragon, but for some fucking reason, whoever wrote down this information consistently referred to Caeda as Shiida! What the fuck? Why?

...Okay, Navarre is also called Nabarl. Was Caeda called Shiida in the European version? Is that what these names are being copied from? Is Caeda still called Shiida in the European version of Fire Emblem Heroes, incidentally? If not, you'd think Serenes would start using the NA version's names since they were deemed canon.

 

You missed the conversation when we were talking about exactly that then. huh. And yeah, to answer the other questions, subsequent games like Heroes and Warriors used the crappy American spelling for Shiida.

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Malledus: Prince Marth, I'm afraid things are getting rather dire. The scouts have just reported back, and we're completely surrounded. There's no end to the reinforcements from the west, we cannot hold them off for long, and we'll be beset from the east within a day. We must flee by sea.

Marth: ...Understood.

Malledus: I'll prepare the ships immediately. Marth, I know it's hard... but I'm afraid we must return to Talys for just a little longer.

Marth: What!? Talys!?

Malledus: Yes, they're just nearby and-

Marth: Have you lost your mind!? This isn't like three years ago, Malledus! We won't be fleeing in secret, we'll be fleeing in full view of the enemy! Grust will follow us! Talys protected us for three long years, at risk of losing everything if anyone learned we were there! And you expect me to repay their kindness by bringing the war to their doorstep!? Talys doesn't even have an army! They'll be destroyed!

Malledus: Marth, I'm sorry, but we have no other option. Grust will be following us wherever we go, and their ships are much faster. We can only make it so far with the head start we have, and Talys is the only place close enough.

Marth: I see another island on the map.

Malledus: Where- Gah! Well you best forget you did, Sire, because that island you're pointing to is Pyrathi. Surely you've heard of the place? An ancient hermit nation, infamously hostile to outsiders of any kind! Their king is said to be a Manakete! No outsider has ever gone to that island and lived to tell the tale!

Marth: Then that sounds like a perfect place to go and not be followed.

Malledus: Aye, Sire, and a perfect place to die! You must not have heard me, I said-

Marth: I heard what you said, Malledus. You've shown me my two options, and I've chosen the lesser of two evils. We will go to Pyrathi, and if they do not believe that we come in peace, well... we'll simply have to defend ourselves.

Malledus: ...I'll make the preparations at once, Sire.

Marth: Thank you, Malledus.

Yeah, something like that.

 

Good job Marth. Instead of bringing the war to the door stop of one group of people who have some culpability, you bring it to an entirely different group who have no culpability. Though something like this would have been in character for Marth at least and would have served a better explanation. Though I'd rather the boats weren't an issue at all and it was land based travel like in the original. Maybe with some reference to a coastal path that gets them to Warren instead of marching right by the capital and ignoring it in the transition.

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10 minutes ago, Jotari said:

You missed the conversation when we were talking about exactly that then. huh. And yeah, to answer the other questions, subsequent games like Heroes and Warriors used the crappy American spelling for Shiida.

Nope, actually seeing that is what made "Nabarl" click in my head and made me start to realize what might have been going on. But I didn't see anyone explicitly say Caeda was Shiida, so I wasn't sure.

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On 10/2/2020 at 5:20 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Balance: In theory this should get a lot of points for finally making purchasable 1-2 range swords a thing, but unfortunately closer inspection makes it clear that even that was fucked up. Swords are arbitrarily and objectively made the worst melee weapon type in the game for no discernible reason, with all-around terrible sats and an inability to forge 1-2 range for reasons I cannot fathom. And that's to say nothing of the terrible, terrible balance of the cast of characters, with huge swaths of the cast being borderline unusable due to a combination of wonky availability and poor joining stats. And the fucking laguz. Honestly? Fuck it, I'm going with my gut: it's worse than Genealogy.

Honestly, I can't quite agree with Genealogy having better balance than RD - for what it's worth, RD does manage to avoid mount domination, while most of the infantry units are all but invalidated in Genealogy because the bloated maps pretty much ensure the foot units can consider themselves lucky to contribute in a remotely meaningful fashion. And that's not even getting into the laughable weapon balance, or Pursuit, or even Holy Blood.

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To Shadow Dragon's credit its at least an interesting scenario for the lord's campaign to actually end in failure and forces them to retreat. I think only really Radiant Dawn and maybe Azure Moon try to pull that off too. Of course Shadow Dragon being Shadow Dragon makes it less impactfull then it should be. In Radiant Dawn Ike's army gets defeated by Zelgius who both shows the intellect to see Skrimir as the weak link and the martial power to defeat him in combat. But no one really defeats Marth. Neither Camus nor Michalis came to defeat Marth who is instead defeated by random Grust soldiers without much more said on the matter then ''Sir its too dangerous to stay here! Lets invade that neutral kingdom over there!'' 

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