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


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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

...That said, I do like the concept of having Hoshido have its own weapons that aren't just a pure re-skin. Really helps the atmosphere and helps make the two main routes really feel different in theme. Though personally, I would've preferred they go further with what they did with e rank. Instead of bronze, the lowest Hoshidan weapons are made out of brass. Maybe the silver weapons could've been made out of something different too? I mean it's not like silver is very practical to begin with, so doing something different for flavor doesn't really have much risk of being dumber.

Silver weapons in most games seem to be a quality term rather then a literal term in most games. The only exception I can think of is in Thracia 776.

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On 1/14/2021 at 6:24 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Revelation Day 4: Chapter 8

Alright, what's on the docket for today?

(Reminder comes up on phone: “Defend Fates' business model”)

...Well, okay, guess we'll start with that.

Honestly, my only real complaint about the whole “Three routes you buy separately” thing is that it kills the actual act of choosing a side and undermines what is otherwise an incontestably superior handling of the concept of a route split to Three Houses'. If you decide you actually want to pick a different route for story reasons after seeing the prologue, you're shit out of luck unless you wanna cough up another 20 bucks.

Actually though, the game does at least let you beat Chapter 6 without buying a new path apparently, and only makes you pay money to continue after that, so it's not shaking you down for money at the literal branch of fate.

Personally, as I said earlier in the thread, I would've released the pre-split part as a free demo on the eshop so that nobody feels shaken down for extra money when it's time to make their decision, because the decision of which game to buy becomes that decision, and you've already got all the story information you need to choose which game.

Beyond that? I mean seriously. I can't agree with the people who think it's a ripoff, or that it all should've been released as one game for one price. Do you have any idea how much content is in these games? Birthright and Conquest are easily worth the $40 3DS game price tag, and that's not even the price they're being sold at! You get two 3DS games for 60 bucks, each one with an entire full 21-chapter Fire Emblem game's worth of content, and that's ignoring the prologue chapters and paralogues. Sure, a couple of maps are recycled. Seven, by my count, between Conquest and Birthright. But each one feels radically different to play on due to different starting locations, different dragon veins, and different enemy formations. And again, you're getting the second game at half price.

 

It's worth noting this is how the Digital version of Fates works? I'm pretty sure.

That said, there's no real "good" way to do this on a physical release I think, either A: You make it so the game "Hard" saves that, kinda like how Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D doesn't let you delete your save data, so that cartridge of fates is perma-bricked to that route until someone buys the DLC (Since otherwise delete all that save data and just pick the other routes for free) or make it so that you have to link Fates to your Nintendo 3DS account in an off-line game so the game can use some sort of online DRM thing to make sure you're only playing the route you payed for.

 

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Clearly, it's mithril.

"Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim."

I mean, haven't you noticed? In FE, Silver weapons tend to be stronger than their steel counterparts but also have less Weight. Someone in IS clearly knew their Tolkein...

Edited by Acacia Sgt
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7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Oh god. Here it is. The big one. The horrible one. The most infamous and hated chapter in this infamous and hated game.

I don't know, the elevator map is pretty bad too.

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

All of the snow is breakable, and every time you break it, it comes apart in 3x3 sets. This map is 23 by 18. Meaning there are roughly 42 patches of ice to destroy. And they expect you to destroy all of it. Not just to get all of the experience from the enemies. If it were just that, maybe it wouldn't be so bad, because there'd be no reason not to rush the boss. No, it expects you to shovel all of the snow out of the city streets in order to get the veritable Monty Haul of treasure hidden beneath it. Because every single fucking enemy hidden in the ice has a droppable item, including an entire fucking set of stat boosters.

I guess whether this map is better or worse than the elevator is down to how you view how this map makes you do it to yourself. It is entirely in your power to charge straight to the goal, but those stat boosters are an effective lure to torture yourself. Plus, like @Interdimensional Observer comments, the tedium is compounded by the need to save a combat units or dancer for what ever is in the snow, and if you find nothing, you are risking just the kinda deaths he described if you try using one, making it feel even more tedious...

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Turn 27. JESUS FUCK I WAS GIVING THIS MAP TOO MUCH CREDIT! THE SNOW ONLY COMES OFF IN 3X2 CHUNKS AT MOST!

You can use range attacks to-

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Turn 49. Turns out you can make the snow-shoveling go a bit faster, the full 3x3 area, if you attack a snow tile at range so that all of the spaces around it are snow. I'm having Mozu do that now, with a Gunter pair-up. Incidentally, I just realized that Gunter says “watch your back, child!” to people other than Corrin. Does he even say that to Fuga? Also, the “nasty surprise” turned out to be three enemies, one a mage with mjölnir. Piece of cake for Mozu and Felicia.

Oh wow...that took a while to stumble upon...oof (should have used that shiny new Hayato brand snowblower 😛 )

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

So while chasing Zola down, we somehow managed to leave Sakura in grabbing range of him, so now he's got a hostage, and this is where Leo shows up to save the day despite the fact that he still hates us.

This could be especially dumb if you reclassed Sakura to a combat class. Plus its kinda odd that he didn't use the Takumi he already kidnapped as his hostage...

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Oh, this isn't what kills him. Still though, once he speaks directly with the gods at the cost of his life, saying the forbidden word and dissolving would've been helpful.

This reminds me that this chapter was one of the big places that revealed just how BS and contrived the curse is. Leo has this whole question about who the one manipulating Garon is, and everyone acts like the curse is what prevents him from saying Anankos...but we see very...very...very clearly at other points in Fate's story, that people can talk about that ceiling dragon without disintegrating to the curse.

 

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6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...but why did Takumi not fall into the Bottomless Canyon this time? He did it in both other routes, which one of my actions caused him to not do it this time?

Good question. The only thing I can think of was that he was caught by Nohrian forces before that could happen.

6 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

If only this snow were perfectly transparent ice, imagine that, being able to see every enemy and examine their stats and inventories before you free them. That'd reduce the tedium slightly, and I won't mention all the instances in gaming where "enemies trapped in transparent ice" has happened.

The only games with enemies in ice I can think of off the top of my head are Majora's Mask and Link to the Past, both of which have one boss trapped in ice. Probably Mario 3 as well.

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Turn 67. I am finally done shoveling the snow. Time to kill Zola and GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS MAP FOREVER. I AM NEVER PLAYING THIS STUPID FUCKING GAME AGAIN AFTER THIS PLAYLOG. I WAS WRONG, OKAY!? FOREIGN LAND AND SKY ISN'T THE WORST MAP IN FIRE EMBLEM HISTORY. THIS IS.

You would say it's even worse than 24x in Thracia (which I consider an easy candidate for worst map in the series)? Because I frankly consider believing that to be a VERY hard sell.

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1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

You would say it's even worse than 24x in Thracia (which I consider an easy candidate for worst map in the series)? Because I frankly consider believing that to be a VERY hard sell.

It is at least physically possible to have fun with 24x. If you know where the warp tiles are, you can do some fun stuff with all your cool toys and get the map done in like a handful of turns.

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8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Revelation Day 6: Chapter 10

Oh god. Here it is. The big one. The horrible one. The most infamous and hated chapter in this infamous and hated game.

Chapter 10: Voice of a God.

Words can't describe what I'm about to experience, but... I'll do my best.

...The whole battlefield is covered in more than ten feet of snow. And... they expect us to clear it.

By hand.

All of the snow is breakable, and every time you break it, it comes apart in 3x3 sets. This map is 23 by 18. Meaning there are roughly 42 patches of ice to destroy. And they expect you to destroy all of it. Not just to get all of the experience from the enemies. If it were just that, maybe it wouldn't be so bad, because there'd be no reason not to rush the boss. No, it expects you to shovel all of the snow out of the city streets in order to get the veritable Monty Haul of treasure hidden beneath it. Because every single fucking enemy hidden in the ice has a droppable item, including an entire fucking set of stat boosters.

This map... is fucking monotonous as hell. Every turn is the same thing. Smash a patch of ice with your first action. If it exposes enemies, destroy them. If not, reposition to destroy the next patch, and end your turn. Repeat until done. And if you don't wanna do it? If you just wanna cut a path straight to the boss you can clearly see at the end? You lose out on sooooooooooooo much shit.

 

Holy shit this is even worse than I remember. They aren't pre-arranged chunks of ice. It's just a 3x3 patch in front of you from the direction you attack from... which means that if you're up against a wall, or a building's in the way... you uncover even fucking less.

I refuse to believe that human beings playtested this. I refuse to believe that these devs got feedback that people actually enjoyed this. Actually, apparently I have to! I've seen this map be praised! By people! By someone with a youtube channel that has subscribers! I won't say who, because he seems like a nice person and I don't want to risk using what little clout I have to brigade him for his opinion on a fucking video game, however impossible I find it to understand... but my point is that I've seen somebody go on record saying he doesn't think Revelation has a single bad map, that he thinks it has the best map design of the three Fates games, and that this is one of his favorites.

 

Turn 67. I am finally done shoveling the snow. Time to kill Zola and GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS MAP FOREVER. I AM NEVER PLAYING THIS STUPID FUCKING GAME AGAIN AFTER THIS PLAYLOG. I WAS WRONG, OKAY!? FOREIGN LAND AND SKY ISN'T THE WORST MAP IN FIRE EMBLEM HISTORY. THIS IS.

 

what..

Like, I knew this chapter was bad but I can't believe this is real.

I guess look on the bright side? we aren't in some dark parellel universe where you clearly only a single block of Snow per attack? then again there's probably a really good universe where there's a gimmick where fire attacks actually clear massive chunks of snow and clearing the map takes less than 67 turns like you get a 10x10 block or something cleared because FIRE MELTS SNOW. 

Me and a friend were joking about FE romhacking, he joked about having "Blizzard maps" where there's a big blizzard that comes and goes and being in the Blizzard's area and not standing next to campfire tiles would hurt you, so essentially a terrible mix of Desert and Swamp maps, this was all done ironically for the most part, as we occasionally joke about an FE romhack could be terrible with terrible ideas to be as anti-player as possible, that'd probably be more fun than this because it wouldn't take 67 turns.

I just....there's not many levels in video games like this, but I seriously wonder, what the heck was going through the devs minds? considering how Dragon Veins are underused in 2/3 routes, I really wish we had a behind-the-scenes look at Fates because it had to have a been a mess.

Edited by Samz707
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4 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

I guess look on the bright side? we aren't in some dark parellel universe where you clearly only a single block of Snow per attack? then again there's probably a really good universe where there's a gimmick where fire attacks actually clear massive chunks of snow and clearing the map takes less than 67 turns like you get a 10x10 block or something cleared because FIRE MELTS SNOW. 

One single fix. One. Single. Fix. One change that would upgrade this map to merely "mediocre" rather than "nightmarish". Make all the enemies aggro rather than just standing still until approached... and then put a dragon vein near the start that melts the whole map.

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2 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

One single fix. One. Single. Fix. One change that would upgrade this map to merely "mediocre" rather than "nightmarish". Make all the enemies aggro rather than just standing still until approached... and then put a dragon vein near the start that melts the whole map.

They do that but then they totally reasonably have a "oh no the dragon vein's melted all the stat boosters!" moment, so you're still forced to shovel the map if you want any of the items. 😛

Edited by Samz707
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2 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Me and a friend were joking about FE romhacking, he joked about having "Blizzard maps" where there's a big blizzard that comes and goes and being in the Blizzard's area and not standing next to campfire tiles would hurt you, so essentially a terrible mix of Desert and Swamp maps, this was all done ironically for the most part, as we occasionally joke about an FE romhack could be terrible with terrible ideas to be as anti-player as possible, that'd probably be more fun than this because it wouldn't take 67 turns.

I'm not entirely sure this would be terrible. 

Although, I'd consider adding mobile bonfires in some capacity. Either as special generic units who you can control and are apart from your standard deployment slots; or a special item your characters can carry around, albeit preventing them from attacking, counterattacking, healing or anything else while they hold the precious fire, which requires an entire action to take up or drop.

Thinking on it, you could do this without the need for a blizzard too. The notion of mobile bonfires makes me think of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles and its infamously bothersome chalice which must be lugged around b/c if you aren't in its zone of protection, the miasma that fills the game's world will start to kill you. And that, reminds me of Metroid Prime 2 and the corrupting atmosphere of Dark Aether. And that reminds me that when Samus in the embrace of a Light Crystal, she is healed over time. Which makes me think that, in your hypothetical "damaging blizzard" scenario, taking one to three consecutive turns 5 points of blizzard damage wouldn't be terrible if upon returning to the protection of the bonfire, you automatically regained 5 points of health.

I'm leaving out a terrain slowing aspect, but a damage-field that encompasses an entire map might not be a terrible idea in itself. Why need there be a movement penalty, if you're taking damage every turn? Isn't that enough incentive to avoid the bad when possible? Furthermore, if you're not slowed down by terrain alone, the enemy need not be either. And assuming there is enough safe zones and or enough capacity to shuffle around the mobile safe zones, this could make for fluid battles.

Pretend we have an escape/seize map, the heroes must proceed through the blizzard to reach their destination. They leapfrog from bonfire site to bonfire site, they torches to stay warm between them when possible. If the enemy sends blizzard-proof foes at the heroes that aim for the torchbearers, then the heroes tactically send out their strongest into the blizzard to intercept and destroy the blizzard-proof squadrons before they reach the holy flame. The strongest afterwards return to the warmth and are healed by it in addition to staffers as they return to moving towards escape/seize point. If immobile enemies are in the way and could kill your torchbearers if they approach, the player would have to decide how to accept a turn or two of blizzard damage on some units to set up and then on the following turn effectively crack into and destroy the roadblock brigade, which could to be nicer be positioned around a bonfire and hence the heroes who pounced would have some or all of their blizzard damage undone if they survived any remaining enemies which the pounce did not delete.

If all of the above worked out, then perhaps one could consider two levels of blizzard. The no-movement penalty, 5 HP per turn one I've been describing, and one that harmed for 10-20 HP a turn and with a movement penalty. However, this "superstorm blizzard" would be limited to critical points on the map, and could be dispelled or weakened if you brought sufficient flames right up to it. The point of the superstorm then would be to prevent sending an ungodly-strong Paladin or flier through the milder blizzard, chugging Vulneraries if need be, laying waste to the enemies en route to the important spot on the map. The superstorm would make it necessary for you to bring your torchbearers forward, as opposed to leaving them safe in the starting area surrounded by all your other units. -Not that it'd in itself prevent a god unit from killing everything in the lite-blizzard area and thus allowing the torchbearers to approach without fear of anything a few turns afterwards.

However, I have neither SRPG Maker nor the creative mind and will to actually try testing this out in practice.😛

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

One single fix. One. Single. Fix. One change that would upgrade this map to merely "mediocre" rather than "nightmarish". Make all the enemies aggro rather than just standing still until approached... and then put a dragon vein near the start that melts the whole map.

All that snow melting at once, that create a lot of steam. Depending on the temperature of the melting and its duration, I hazard it could or could not turn all the enemies into boiled lobsters. You might be able to win the battle instantly that way.

If the melting took a long while however... then close the city gates, shut them tight. This town will for the next few hours be renamed "Onsentis"! The largest and most residential hot spring east of the Bottomless Canyon. Time to drop anchor and have a relaxing battle in the pleasantly warm waters while they last!♨️

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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So now that I've been woke to how useful Gunther's personal skill is for pure pair up boosts, I'm kind of thinking he'd make an excellent Loedstar, given that has a skill that let's you increase your guard rate. So, yeah, officially requesting you do Before Awakening now and make Gunther a Loedstar so I don't have to do an entire new playthrough to experience that. Also better to do it sooner rather later as Gunther still stands some chance of gaining levels.

EDIT: Actually I thought he was asked on Twitter but it turns out he was asked in person. Which means there's even less credibility to give much credence to anything he says as he has to say something when asked a question, so something like "I'll look into it" is the most dismissive thing you could say without stating an unthought opinion on something you might know nothing about.

 

Edited by Jotari
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Just now, Interdimensional Observer said:

@Jotari

You edited the wrong post! This isn't Serious Discussions!

Thanks for the laugh tho'!🤣

Ya I was posting in two tabs at once. Was just amending it when you posted, but what the hell, I'll leave this completely random aside in.

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6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

It is at least physically possible to have fun with 24x. If you know where the warp tiles are, you can do some fun stuff with all your cool toys and get the map done in like a handful of turns.

Still, it seems like a master class in sadism, as the only "reward" you get for all the hassle is getting Eyvel back. Well, that, and not having to kill her in the endgame. And it's an escape map in Thracia, where you lose units that don't escape before Leif does (and as it's after the prison chapter where you can break allies left behind in prior chapters out, it's ⚰️ for them). With fog of war (and not the kind where you can actually see the map, either) and warp tiles that send your units into deathtraps. Long story short, I cannot think of any redeeming features 24x has. At all. The snow map is just tedious, but 24x crosses the line into being outright unplayable. I'd rather have a tedious map than one that encroaches on unplayable territory, makes watching paint dry look more fun AND is as blatantly anti-player as you can get.

On 1/16/2021 at 5:03 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Um... you remove it. After her joining chapter. Until you get her hit up to levels where you can afford it.

Again, Charlotte does not have low skill.

 

On 1/16/2021 at 6:26 PM, Axie said:

5 hit from an iron club puts base charlotte above base peri with an iron lance lol. if charlotte sucks, so does peri, and actually a bunch of other people (keaton joins later with barely 10 hit over base charlotte!). 5 hit is also the difference between base charlotte with an iron club and base camilla with an iron axe (actually, 4 hit), so if it's not much of a difference, certainly she's not "blind as a zubat". unless you're saying camilla has trouble hitting now? at any point of her life?

also she has 50% skl/luck growths as a fighter and averages 17 skl/12 luck as a 20/1 berserker, 19 skl/15 luck as a 20/1 hero. it's perfectly acceptable.

...Okay, so I let myself get carried away. I still think Charlotte sucks, though, because being underleveled is bad, especially in Conquest, where she only has 4 chapters before unpromoted enemies are weeded out entirely (note that one of those chapters is the one where you can only use Corrin, Gunter, and Azura, so I'm not counting it). It doesn't help that Berserker is just a bad class (or rather, it's much better as an enemy class than it is as a player class). Nor does it that her personal skill is pretty much useless (increased damage and crit chance vs. female enemies is not useful when 99.9% of the enemy units in the game are male...).

Edited by Shadow Mir
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2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Still, it seems like a master class in sadism, as the only "reward" you get for all the hassle is getting Eyvel back. Well, that, and not having to kill her in the endgame. And it's an escape map in Thracia, where you lose units that don't escape before Leif does (and as it's after the prison chapter where you can break allies left behind in prior chapters out, it's ⚰️ for them). With fog of war (and not the kind where you can actually see the map, either) and warp tiles that send your units into deathtraps. Long story short, I cannot think of any redeeming features 24x has. At all. The snow map is just tedious, but 24x crosses the line into being outright unplayable. I'd rather have a tedious map than one that encroaches on unplayable territory, makes watching paint dry look more fun AND is as blatantly anti-player as you can get.

Definitely unplayable when you don't play Thracia at all >.>

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8 hours ago, Jotari said:

So now that I've been woke to how useful Gunther's personal skill is for pure pair up boosts, I'm kind of thinking he'd make an excellent Loedstar, given that has a skill that let's you increase your guard rate. So, yeah, officially requesting you do Before Awakening now and make Gunther a Loedstar so I don't have to do an entire new playthrough to experience that. Also better to do it sooner rather later as Gunther still stands some chance of gaining levels.

Unfortunately Dual Guardsman doesn't actually do all that much. If you're doubling and counter-attacking everything that attacks you, even without dual guard + only every other attack will get through. Dual Guardsman doesn't actually change that, it just allows you to not double on one of those attacks and still get the dual guard for every other enemy. Plus, no support bonuses means he's not gonna be all that useful for Dakota in the long run.

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8 hours ago, Jotari said:

So now that I've been woke to how useful Gunther's personal skill is for pure pair up boosts, I'm kind of thinking he'd make an excellent Loedstar, given that has a skill that let's you increase your guard rate. So, yeah, officially requesting you do Before Awakening now and make Gunther a Loedstar so I don't have to do an entire new playthrough to experience that. Also better to do it sooner rather later as Gunther still stands some chance of gaining levels.

 

21 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Unfortunately Dual Guardsman doesn't actually do all that much. If you're doubling and counter-attacking everything that attacks you, even without dual guard + only every other attack will get through. Dual Guardsman doesn't actually change that, it just allows you to not double on one of those attacks and still get the dual guard for every other enemy. Plus, no support bonuses means he's not gonna be all that useful for Dakota in the long run.

Aside from this, I would say for how much of a pain it is to get (because all of the NPCs have to survive to get it, and Chrom suffers from a severe case of Artificial Stupidity that is typical of NPCs), Lodestar is not so good a class as to justify the trouble. Especially since you have to deal with ninjas that have Poison Strike AND Lunge, meaning it's all too likely someone would get defeated in the process (it doesn't help that you only get 5 units of your own).

Edited by Shadow Mir
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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Unfortunately Dual Guardsman doesn't actually do all that much. If you're doubling and counter-attacking everything that attacks you, even without dual guard + only every other attack will get through. Dual Guardsman doesn't actually change that, it just allows you to not double on one of those attacks and still get the dual guard for every other enemy.

It's true it doesn't make a massive difference, in fact I was about to say all it did was reduce the need for five hits to charge down to four since it changes it from a two charge to a three charge per hit out of ten, but then I actually looked up how dual guard once and realized it reduces your charge by 1 at the start of each turn (literally never noticed this it seems so minor). But unlike other skills you could just toss to Gunther who doesn't have any competition for slot skills and still get benefits for Corrin. So it is like a free skill for a Corrin if you're always pairing him with Gunther.

Quote

Plus, no support bonuses means he's not gonna be all that useful for Dakota in the long run.

Oh is this because Revelation and the ickyness of S supporting a vessel of your own father? Still though that +15hit and +3damage is nothing to sneeze at. Though of course also paring up Corrin all the time is something better suited to pretty deffensive Corrin build since constant pairing means no dual attack potential.

51 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

 

Aside from this, I would say for how much of a pain it is to get (because all of the NPCs have to survive to get it, and Chrom suffers from a severe case of Artificial Stupidity that is typical of NPCs), Lodestar is not so good a class as to justify the trouble. Especially since you have to deal with ninjas that have Poison Strike AND Lunge, meaning it's all too likely someone would get defeated in the process (it doesn't help that you only get 5 units of your own).

Before Awakening can challenging, but it's hardly the most difficult chapter in the world. Plus you get the silly good debuffing weapon pebble. IN addition of the DLC it's one of the ones I'd like to see played in particular since well it's pure fanservice that isn't terrible.

Edited by Jotari
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Revelation Day 7: Chapter 11

Ooh! It's too soon to visit the people I visited yesterday yet (I wish it was a 23 hour cycle thing so that doing it a bit late doesn't force you to keep doing it a bit late forever), but I've got two new visitors! Autumn and Cori 2!

Ooh, Cori has quartz!

And somebody gave me a chef's hat!

Three somebodies! Or one somebody three times! I'll have to check back at the castle!

Here, have an Einherjar mask!

Major thinks to Ryuuji, Corrin, and a newcomer also named Corrin for sending me chef's hats! I never feel comfortable using the mess hall until I can put a really good chef in charge!

That's funny... I could've sworn I clicked on “Autumn”, but the avatar is named Alicia. Did you switch files since visiting? Anyway, thanks for the visit!

Right then, with my visiting for the morning out of the way, time to do the rest of town maintenance!

Even though it looks frankly ridiculous on her as a dread fighter, Mozu's the best chef we have, so we'll be giving her the chef's hat. Starting next battle (unless it takes effect immediately) I'll be able to use her amazing bonuses. I'll be swapping her out with Jakob as soon as I can though.

...Nope, the chef's hat isn't instant. Rinkah's on duty today. Pass. I've heard horror stories about her cooking.

Alright, so Dakota's got supports with Subaki (room visits), Sakura and Mozu. Let's check them out.

Oh man I love this song that plays when talking to Subaki. The support music in this game is really good, just like in Awakening.

...It's pretty funny how this game just feels like it can get away with having people make preposterous claims about their abilities that gameplay does not bear out. Like Subaki claiming he's “mastered every class of weapon”, when just like everyone else, including people who canonically used to use other weapons, if it's not in your starting class's kit, you're rank E.

Man, the support with Sakura and Dakota is ridiculously short. I don't remember the supports in this game being so short this often.

The Mozu one's okay, but nothing special.

I've got a ton of new shit to build, but it's just a bunch of golems and puppets, nothing I have much use for at the moment. So let's just move on.

Ah yes, the Mokushu map.

Mediocre intro about Dakota being all brave and dumb and noble, and then we get to the map with Saizo, Reina and Orochi as green units on the field. Still begs the question of how Saizo can afford the time to set up an elaborate smoke signal while facing apparently insurmountable odds he wants people to run away from.

Oooh, looks like our deployment options are finally opening up! Awesome, and we have some new units who are just barely usable. First off, since I've never ever gotten Hisame before and inheriting Aptitude just gets worse and worse the higher level you recruit the child at (it doesn't affect auto-leveling, annoyingly), I'll just get Mozu paired up with Hinata. Should've done it with Subaki, but fuck it. I'll reclass him to Oni savage and promote him into oni chieftain for better pair-up boosts. Ah, the benefits of joining at level 10 in Fates.

Yeah, that's the thing: stats don't matter anymore for pair-up partners in guard stance. It's just class and support rank. Meaning that promoting early is actually a pretty great option for any unit you plan on either eventually or immediately putting on guard stance duty.

This first turn is really the only tricky part. But eventually, after a few minutes, I worked out an opening strategy that allows me to kill all the enemies in attacking range of me or in attacking range of these new green units. After that... this map becomes mindless, because yet again, Revelation AI.

Oh right, Kagero's been kidnapped in every timeline. I forgot. Alright, let's do this.

...It looks like Saizo hasn't even engaged in battle yet. So why the fuck would he set up a smoke signal in enemy territory, telling people it was too dangerous and to stay away... while he had the element of surprise!?

Yeah, so, we have Takumi now, and I have to say, Takumi is such a wasted opportunity. Do you have any idea how much I'd love having Takumi around in Conquest? In a game where player-phase combat is so frequently necessary and enemy ninjas he can do huge WTA single-shot damage to are everywhere? But while Fates in general does a lot to help player-phase combat... I still can't deny that he's not nearly as useful in the game's he's in than he would be in the game he isn't. And Revelation is probably his worst performance of all, given how mindless enemy AI is.

...Oh shit.

OH SHIT.

Gunter just critted. And he said “This ends now!”.

Gunter shares a crit quote with the avatar.

Just like the other retainers do with their masters.

I totally didn't process that they didn't do that with any of the avatar's retainers until I ran into a case where they did.

I'm pairing Felicia up with Hayato because I might as well. This is an ironman with terrible unit balance, might as well get all the kids I can as a backup plan, even though I have no plans to use them if everything goes well.

...Oh man, these stupid spike traps. They're just barely inconvenient enough to annoy me.

Right, so, turn 2, we recruit all three of the green units at once by talking to Saizo with Dakota. Good, because Reina just ran off on her own to attack some random samurai, too far for Saizo to reach.

The spike traps re-activate if you step in the area again after using the dragon vein to de-activate them. Holy shit is this annoying.

...I heard the enemy stats were supposed to get ridiculous on Lunatic, but this is still an absolute cakewalk. Maybe it only happens later?

...Or maybe I only got that impression because the only LP of Lunatic Rev I ever watched was played by somebody who had no idea what he was doing and lost units left and right?

Not sure what prompted this, but it seems something I did made some of the enemies start moving, because I randomly checked in on Felicia and there were enemies in her range. Glad I checked.

Jesus Christ, I'm sorry, I just have almost nothing to say about this chapter. It's not a pain like the last one it's just... barely there.

Yeah, and Kotaro went down to a joint attack from Mozu, Dakota and Felicia. And thus, Felicia finally gets galeforce! It's been nerfed here, and you can only activate it if you kill without being in either attack or guard stance, but thanks to Lightning, Felicia can still use it, if not all the time.

Curiously, looks like in Fates, the game checks for whether or not you won the map before activating after-battle skills like galeforce. Awakening did the opposite. I wonder if there's any reason that was changed.

Funny how Kagero still called Dakota “Lord Dakota” even when she thought he was a traitor.

Hm... I seem to remember that Kagero didn't know where Ryoma was in Birthright. Am I mistaken?

Anyway, Time to get back home and visit everyone else!

Also, I have some more supports.

...Yeah, I can't help but feel that corners were cut in the support conversation department compared to Awakening. So many of these are completely insubstantial.

Hayato and Felicia's support is cute... but... not in a “I want to ship these two” kind of way, more of a literally cute way, like an interaction between a woman and a child.

...This might not really be worth it after all, especially since she can't use galeforce while supporting with Hayato. Which I just realized is why it didn't activate at the end of the battle.

Oh, but Mozu and Hinata have a support too!

You'll notice that I've been reluctant to say more than a sentence or two about any given support. I don't know if I've just completely lost the energy to delve too deeply into story commentary since Tellius, or if the supports here are just that much less substantial, but I just dread the idea of coming up with stuff to say about this shit. I will say though, while I've been finding plenty of supports mediocre, they're only really annoying to go through because I have to talk about them. If I were just reading them, it'd be no issue at all... as opposed to Three Houses, where even without playlogging, just looking at a full list of newly-unlocked supports makes me want to whine like a toddler.

Okay, this support with Mozu and Hinata is... amusing for reasons I can't really explain. Didn't make me laugh, but it did make me smile.

I gave all the remaining visitors a princess crown accessory. I've decided that I'm gonna give everyone the same thing each day, shifting to a new one the day after, just so I can actually make sure I'm not accidentally giving people the same thing repeatedly. If you have any requests for what you want me to send tomorrow, lemme know! First one to ask for something I actually have wins!

...Mozu's not doing that fantastic a job as a chef. She failed to get what's supposed to be her usual result 3 times in a row. I got standard, crisp, and... something bad, can't remember. But finally she got it right on the fourth try. Thankfully I have a lot of ingredients.

...Alright, it's still early in the day. I'll try to do another chapter.


 

Day 7 Bonus: Chapter 12

Ah yes, this one. This is where you get Camilla. And your ships are besieged by a bunch of Ice Tribe warriors attacking you from a frozen sea. This map is hardly difficult, but fliers make it a lot less annoying if I remember correctly.

...Dakota says “The entire sea has been frozen solid”.

...And Flora takes sole credit for it.

I still can't get over the fact that Ice Tribespeople can do shit like this when chilling a fever is apparently such a strenuous task for their heatbending powers that it risks being lethal.

Ah yes, and the same thing happens here that happens in Birthright, where Flora has to betray you or the entire Ice Tribe dies.

Funny how this has a completely, ludicrously different outcome this time when very little around it changes.

Ah yes. Alright, so, you're stuck on these tiny boats while the enemy comes to you, which means that the more fliers you have, the fewer of your units have to be completely isolated from healers or defenders. I'm just bringing Mozu, Dakota, Felicia, their partners, and then Sakura and Azura. Mozu/Hinata, Sakura and Azura will go on the northwest ship, while Dakota and Felicia will go on the one immediately south of it.

On the plus side, this means, unless I am very much mistaken, that we actually get a map where the enemy comes to us now. Awesome. Let's do this.

Felicia's resistance is frankly absurd, though her magic isn't quite as high and she's struggling to kill some mages. Still, she's got enough attack power to take out almost any physical enemy with little assistance, so I'm glad I have her.

You smell like a goat!” is still one of my favorite “funny” quit quotes. It's got similar energy to “I! DO NOT! LIKE YOU!” from Genny in Echoes.

I forgot how terrible the wyvern rider luck cap is. Dakota's already reached it, at 18, thanks to the luck stat boosters I gave him. Pity I needed to use that second one for the reliable crit defense against that Chapter 7 boss.

OH SHIT.

So I just casually decided to attack “Selena” when all of a sudden I'm blasted with some of the best fucking music in the game. I forgot how much Condemnation SLAPS. It just explodes right out the gate, and I adore it.

...The berserker got a crit, which makes me so grateful that I chose the guy with a full shield gauge to bait him in.

Honestly, the fact that I have fliers that can fight on the sea makes this way less tedious than it should be. Lets me actually take the fight to these guys rather than waiting for them to slowly approach.

Alright, the dragon veins showed up, so now I can finish this.

I trust it goes without saying that Camilla's refusal to break “ara ara” character while lamenting being forced to kill her own brother is just another demonstration of how messed up she is as a character. Granted, this adds to the unintentional cheese factor for sure.

...The elevation in this map is completely fucked. The northeasternmost of your ships transitions terribly from the path, to the point that if you walk onto it from the lowest part of the upper ice walkway... it looks like you're just ghosting straight through the bow when you walk from the path onto the ship. All because they had to put some of the path in spaces that the ship itself almost completely conceals from view. It's some kind of freakish lovecraftian perspective screw. Apparently the bow of the ship, which you can't walk on, is considered a tile to the south and only appears to be the same tile as the ice path due to elevation and camera angle... but the second you get to the actual walkable main deck... suddenly that's on the exact same y axis as the ice path that's supposed to be to the north and down from it.

Felicia's taking on the southern ship singlehandedly thanks to careful positioning and dual guards. Not nearly as impressive as that sounds.

We've started running into promoted enemies. This seems a bit early for it... but given that it's the only way we can gain experience now, sure, why not?

Alright. Just finished up. That got a bit stressful towards the end, and this is the first map where I feel making Mozu a dread fighter was a huge game-changer. There were many times where I'm not sure what I'd have done if I trained up someone else. Not that I think I would've lost, just that I literally don't know what plan I would have come up with if I had trained someone else.

...You know, looking at Beruka... I can't help but wonder if I'd have liked her more if she had been voiced by Connor Kelly-Eiding. I've seen her ability to do deadpan professionalism, both seriously and for comedy, in Heroes, with Catria and Marisa. She's really good at it. Looking at Beruka's face, I don't think a high-pitched voice necessarily has to come out of it. Food for thought.

...Yeah, uh... regarding the whole “can't speak about Valla” thing... while in fairness Dakota doesn't know people are allowed to say the word “Anankos” without dissolving in this timeline... this isn't the sort of plotline where ignorance mixed with dramatic irony really works out as a reason something bad happens. Especially not in what's supposed to be the golden ending.

...No explanation is given for why Flora... doesn't react the way she does in Birthright... except maybe seeing Dakota's sword glow maybe arguably giving her more confidence or something? Yeah, speaking of, this version of events only turns out to be the “right path” by sheer fucking luck, doesn't it? Like, Leo and Xander only join you due to events that happen entirely outside of your control. But I'll get to that when we get Leo and Xander.

...Yeah, and after a dumb scene with Camilla talking to the others... I think that's a good place to leave it for today.

Stay safe, everyone.

Edited by Alastor15243
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19 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Revelation Day 7: Chapter 11

 

...No explanation is given for why Flora... doesn't react the way she does in Birthright... except maybe seeing Dakota's sword glow maybe arguably giving her more confidence or something? Yeah, speaking of, this version of events only turns out to be the “right path” by sheer fucking luck, doesn't it? Like, Leo and Xander only join you due to events that happen entirely outside of your control. But I'll get to that when we get Leo and Xander.

Speaking of paths, is it just me? or maybe Revelation would have been less terrible if it was shorter? by that I mean, if Fates had actual choices, that mattered and Revelation was actually a path that you jumped into half-way through either Birthright or Conquest depending on choices?

So Corrin had to actually try in some fashion to get answers via possible to fail side-quests during missions and such instead of just "Did Azura feel like it or not."

Sure it'd be shorter but well, a good bit of Revelations seems so far like extreme padding, like they had no idea how to stretch this route out for an entire game.

Edited by Samz707
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18 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...I heard the enemy stats were supposed to get ridiculous on Lunatic, but this is still an absolute cakewalk. Maybe it only happens later?

I wouldn't say all enemy stats do, but did you take any particular notice of generic Master Ninjas this early? It's promoted enemies with decent stats before you have a full and fully competent team that adds a little toughness to early Rev.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Hayato and Felicia's support is cute... but... not in a “I want to ship these two” kind of way, more of a literally cute way, like an interaction between a woman and a child.

I just looked up the support chain and yep, I got exactly the same vibes. Remove the S support and you have a cute, if a little milquetoast, support. With the S support... fucking Fates, man.

It reminds me a bit of Hayato/Azura, which has a similar structure, even though Azura obviously acts completely different from Felicia. But you also have the initial conversations between two people of noticably different ages, then we get an extra empathetic "I AM NOT A CHILD" from Hayato because he developed a crush on Azura/Felicia, which he then confesses in the S support.
Interestingly enough, unlike Felicia, Azura politely declines, or rather plays the "let's see about that when you're grown up" card:

Quote

Azura: Goodness, Hayato. That's very sweet of you.
Hayato: You think so? Really?
Azura: I do. Until then, let's be good friends. We can talk about this more later. Who knows? You might change your mind!
Hayato: Never!
Azura: Well, we'll see. Either way, you'll always be special to me. You've helped me to remember many things that brought me joy. I'm grateful to you.
Hayato: We'll have a good life together, Azura. I promise.
Azura: Heehee... Thanks, Hayato.

I genuinely like this end to the support (and the entire support chain, really), but of course Fates is still fucking Fates, which means that babies have to be made immediately. A microcosmos of my frustrations with Fates - it builds up something good and then proceeds to knock it over with its butt.

Edited by ping
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