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


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4 hours ago, Jotari said:

At least Path of Radiance did it on a somewhat frequent basis, even though pretty much all of them come down to a wrong and right choice (Janaff, Ulki and Reyson vs Renewal -_- yeah you're really enticing me with that lower mid tier skill I'll have to commit to giving a single unit since you don't let me rearrange skills at all).

Worse still, the objectively superior answer was always "yes".

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6 hours ago, Jotari said:

At least Path of Radiance did it on a somewhat frequent basis, even though pretty much all of them come down to a wrong and right choice (Janaff, Ulki and Reyson vs Renewal -_- yeah you're really enticing me with that lower mid tier skill I'll have to commit to giving a single unit since you don't let me rearrange skills at all).

Worse than that, the chapter right after the one featuring this decision has a mega-powerful enemy that you need the birds to convince to leave, and that exchange can get you a great item for the trouble as well. Meaning that there's literally no reason to refuse.

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

But Corrin and Azura's goal here is very specific. They need Garon to sit on the Hoshidon throne. Having resistance to that, the Hoshidon leadership, removed will further that goal with less bloodshed. Sure it is low, but storming their capital and murdering everyone inside is pretty gosh darn low as well. A situation where they can strong arm Hoshido into surrendering and then overthrow slime Garon would be far, far better for both Hoshido and Nohr in the long run. I think if it were merely about achieving victory Red Wedding style it'd be a different scenario, but here victory is a means to an end for Corrin and Azura since they don't actually want to see Hoshido defeated.

The issue here is that in that case, you make martyrs of the royal family, which means that Hoshido winds up with much more reason to fight. Ergo, it's more like throwing gasoline on a fire. Also, the goal they're trying to accomplish here is to get Garon to sit on the Hoshidan throne (on an unrelated note, I like that while it's stated to have a mystical power early on, that turns out to actually be important, as opposed to just talk), and this would be counterproductive to that.

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm really nervous about this chapter. You've gotta talk to all four green soldiers (whom the enemies won't attack) to find out which one is actually Shura in disguise, then beat him. It's always the last one you pick, something that, interestingly, really pissed off a friend of mine I got the game for. He thought it should've been random, which personally I do not agree with or even understand. Having a random chance for the map to be over as early as a quarter of the way through it sounds amazingly anticlimactic and open to cheese and abuse, especially since it's a timed mission. But I was wondering what you guys think.

I'd agree with this.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

With my take or my friend's?

With your take. If it WASN'T designed the way it was, it'd be too easily abusable and cheesed, and that would render most of the enemies irrelevant.

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6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

I'm really nervous about this chapter. You've gotta talk to all four green soldiers (whom the enemies won't attack) to find out which one is actually Shura in disguise, then beat him. It's always the last one you pick, something that, interestingly, really pissed off a friend of mine I got the game for. He thought it should've been random, which personally I do not agree with or even understand. Having a random chance for the map to be over as early as a quarter of the way through it sounds amazingly anticlimactic and open to cheese and abuse, especially since it's a timed mission. But I was wondering what you guys think.

I understand the complaint. From a level design perspective having the last one works the best, but if you think about this level as if the scenario described in the story is actually happening, having it always be the last one makes no sense, which is iritating. Its a lot like the jokes about Ryoma waiting 20/25 turns for his revenge, that time limit makes the level work better, but if you think about it from the perspective of the story being described by the gameplay, its incredibly dumb.

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Basically she's looking for a religious artifact that was lost in the chaos, but Niles indirectly convinces her to head back by offhandedly pointing out that whatever blessings the village allegedly received, the gods didn't save them from being brutally slaughtered.

That is some cold cynicism coming from Niles there...

 

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7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm really nervous about this chapter. You've gotta talk to all four green soldiers (whom the enemies won't attack) to find out which one is actually Shura in disguise, then beat him. It's always the last one you pick, something that, interestingly, really pissed off a friend of mine I got the game for. He thought it should've been random, which personally I do not agree with or even understand. Having a random chance for the map to be over as early as a quarter of the way through it sounds amazingly anticlimactic and open to cheese and abuse, especially since it's a timed mission. But I was wondering what you guys think.

I think that having to talk to all four of them is a much better objective, for much the same reason that you do. It's not as if there aren't RNG cheese strats in other levels across the history of Fire Emblem, but they're generally things that you have to deliberately choose to do. If you choose to try to one-turn a map with meteor even though it only has a 25% chance of hitting the boss, then that's on you. If you found Shura on your first try and the map is over more or less before it's even begun, then that would all be down to the game and blind luck. I know some people get a kick out of getting lucky like that, but it's not fun or interesting for me.

However, that said, I do have a bit of a problem with how the objective is presented. Based on the way it's given to the player, I think it's reasonable to assume that it might be random or that it might even be pre-determined. Which is a problem because...

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Now, here's one thing about the map I think was a pretty bad call design-wise: the fact that the boss is, by certain definitions, a tripwire reinforcement. He shows up right after you talk to him, and so you have to be prepared to kill him immediately unless the guy you talked to him with can survive the turn. Problem there is that he comes with counter and a killer weapon. Thankfully he's still pretty easy to take out, but it's definitely heading closer to a compromising position than would be ideal. I'm attacking with Dakota in melee (since whoever talks to him has to fight in melee if they want to fight him at all), and either she'll hit and be brutally wounded but survive, or she'll hit with dragon fang or a crit and thus one-hit kill, taking no counter damage at all.

...of this. If you don't know in advance that it's guaranteed to be the last soldier you talk to, then you have to approach all of the soldiers carefully just in case this is the one. Admitedly, if you don't know the level beforehand then you also won't know how dangerous he is, but it's reasonable to assume that he's going to be at least fairly dangerous and that you should be careful. Which is a problem in a timed level. So, overall, I wish they'd kept the objective basically the same, but reframed it to be clearer that you always need to talk to all four soldiers.

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7 minutes ago, lenticular said:

So, overall, I wish they'd kept the objective basically the same, but reframed it to be clearer that you always need to talk to all four soldiers.

Yeah, maybe frame it as some kind of thing where they have to talk to all four before they have enough information to confront the fake one. And while we're on the subject, have that confrontation take place at the beginning of player-phase to get rid of the tripwire thing.

  

9 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I understand the complaint. From a level design perspective having the last one works the best, but if you think about this level as if the scenario described in the story is actually happening, having it always be the last one makes no sense, which is iritating. Its a lot like the jokes about Ryoma waiting 20/25 turns for his revenge, that time limit makes the level work better, but if you think about it from the perspective of the story being described by the gameplay, its incredibly dumb.


That is a fair take on it.

Edited by Alastor15243
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8 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

The issue here is that in that case, you make martyrs of the royal family, which means that Hoshido winds up with much more reason to fight. Ergo, it's more like throwing gasoline on a fire. Also, the goal they're trying to accomplish here is to get Garon to sit on the Hoshidan throne (on an unrelated note, I like that while it's stated to have a mystical power early on, that turns out to actually be important, as opposed to just talk), and this would be counterproductive to that.

The Hoshidon's have plenty of motivation to fight with you invading their capital. The indea is to use the royals as levrage (with maybe executing just Ryoma to cut off their leadership). Granted I think that's the smart thing to do for Corrin and Azura's plans, but it is possible ridiculously evil Garon would just order all of them executed even though using them as leverage would be better for him too. That would lead to the scenario you suggest.

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7 hours ago, Jotari said:

 

The Hoshidon's have plenty of motivation to fight with you invading their capital. The indea is to use the royals as levrage (with maybe executing just Ryoma to cut off their leadership). Granted I think that's the smart thing to do for Corrin and Azura's plans, but it is possible ridiculously evil Garon would just order all of them executed even though using them as leverage would be better for him too. That would lead to the scenario you suggest.

Well he does canonically see the value of having one hostage, but no more. Around Chapter 23 or so, Iago conveys Garon's explicit orders that any more hostages are unnecessary and unwanted, and to kill any other Hoshidan royals they find now that Sakura's a prisoner.

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Conquest Day 16: Chapter 17

And it's my birthday, both in-game and out! Well, I'm past the point where I get overly excited about birthdays, but I am glad I get to show this off! In addition to Dakota getting the usual birthday bonuses characters get, everyone around the fort wishes you a happy birthday too, with voiced lines!

Niles and Peri got one of those “let's team up next battle” conversations, and honestly, I'm weirdly intrigued by the idea of their supports. Niles seems like the only dude psycho enough to dish as much as he takes with Peri. Might be entertaining.

Awwwwwww! Even Lilith wishes you a happy birthday! Not voiced, but still!

Anyway...

Let's go to Chapter 17. Check out what we're up against, and make our preps.

Right, so, we meet Kotaro again, and decide to help him out with an ill-timed invasion by Hoshidan ninja. Who are described as having “marched into Mokushu”. Since when the fuck is anything ninja do described as marching?

Anyway, we go downstairs into the caves, the game expects me to believe that Azura fought off a bunch of ninja single-handed, Kaze calls a ninja a coward for acting like, well, a ninja, and we meet Saizo.

Hm? Second time? Oh right, we did have a chance to have them fight each other, back in Chapter 12. Haha.

Anyway, Saizo reveals Kotaro killed their father, and...

...Okay this is psychotically dumb.

At first I was prepared to defend this story a little by saying, ethics of hostage-taking aside, Kotaro still lied to his Nohrian allies about why the Hoshidans were fighting them.

But nope! Kidnapping Kagero as a prisoner of war isn't what this fight is about! That's actually something Kotaro recently did to try to make the Hoshidans stop!

Yes, how dishonorable of this man to try to... attempt to end a conflict with something other than the complete and bloody routing of the enemy side.

Unless the wording of this is just really bad and they mean he kidnapped Kagero before they ever attacked him in an attempt to make Hohido surrender to Nohr. Which would line up with the timeline of events in the other games more.

But at any rate, he's definitely lying now. If they focused more on the fact that Kotaro was blatantly lying to, and manipulating, representatives of Nohr for his own ends as a justification for taking him out, then sure, I could totally buy that. But this is just a confusing and arbitrary moral stand to take here.

But enough with terrible stories, on to awesome gameplay.

This map is awesome, and it's got possibly my favorite dragon vein in the game. Tons of ninja swarming you from all sides and attempting to eat you alive, and your only real defense is a bunch of one-use dragon veins that open and close a bunch of pathways in the level.

So one thing I know for sure I'll be wanting is strength. Gotta hit those dual strike one-shotting thresholds. I'll be cooking with some meat and also some milk. Speed is gonna be important to get a few more options while facing Kotaro.

And we got defense in the bargain too! Awesome!

...Christ, this map is still really scary though. As much as I love this map, I'm filled with pants-shitting fear at the idea of starting it. Especially since some of my units are a little behind.

You know what? I'm gonna check out what Odin's paralogue is like, see if that's a better option right now.

Ah yes, and now we meet Ophelia. Honestly, I think the localization screwed up big time with her. She comes across more as some kind of airheaded hippie than the chuunibyou her lines imply. She should've sounded more like Cynthia.

Ohhhh yeah, this is a really bad time. I'd have to use a master seal on her almost immediately, and that'd be 2K that I wouldn't have to spend if I just wait one map longer.

Alright, Chapter 17 it is.

I've bought two master seals, so I can promote the first three people to hit level 20 on this chapter, and judging by the enemy levels that's going to happen. And I also bought a bunch of strength tonics to improve my damage thresholds and give me more combinations of dual-strikes that will one-shot these ninja. I can't think of much more beyond that to do planning-wise, so I'm just gonna rip off the bandage and get going. I've spent a ton of time on this prep screen.

...Aaaaaaaaand I failed a critical spot check regarding the consequences of using attack stance instead of guard stance, and Dakota goes down on turn one in the second fight of the battle to a 2% critical hit from a master ninja.

Meaning all three of my Fates ironman attempts ended in an utterly embarrassing, anticlimactic, out-of-nowhere defeat.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ME.

Goodnight everyone.

I'll need some time to recover from this.

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Happy birthday you.

Honesty just about the worst evil opportunist villain in the series. Even incompetent villains who lure the lords into a trap and are easily defeated have more rhyme or reason to their actions.

I suspect Avatar Worship is to blame. Can't have Corrin work with someone so shady so lets just have him and the opportunist pick a fight with each other for no reason to get him out of the picture.  No one makes a problem out of it too. Garon who already wants to kill people just because they stand in the same room as him somehow doesn't get any violent urges about Corrin picking fights with Nohr's allies for no reason and then killing them.

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STILL THINK FATES IS THE BEST GAME TO IRONMAN?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

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14 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

STILL THINK FATES IS THE BEST GAME TO IRONMAN?

Yes. This was all terrible, terrible luck that could have happened to me in damned near any other game.

Doesn't change the fact that I'm royally pissed off.

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29 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yes. This was all terrible, terrible luck that could have happened to me in damned near any other game.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. Rather, I think that Fates is much easier to make this sort of mistake in than other FE games because it has so many moving parts, meaning that there are a lot more things that it's possible to overlook. That you've had your first carelessness-casualty be your avatar in both Revelation and Conquest does seem as if it's just terrible luck, but I think the game design does make carelessness-casualties a bit too easy. That said, I do agree that it is one of the best games for ironmanning, if not the best.I think the only point of contention should be whether it gets a +9 or a +6 on your scoring scale. I'd personally argue for a +6, but that's still good.

Regardless, commiserations on the lost ironman, and I hope that the rest of your birthday treats you better and brings you more joy.

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Happy birthday! 

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Aaaaaaaaand I failed a critical spot check regarding the consequences of using attack stance instead of guard stance, and Dakota goes down on turn one in the second fight of the battle to a 2% critical hit from a master ninja.

Meaning all three of my Fates ironman attempts ended in an utterly embarrassing, anticlimactic, out-of-nowhere defeat.

Reminds me of when I foolishly attacked Yukimura in the Sakura battle, he had a like 5% chance of landing a fatal crit. I think I was rushing because I'd sent everyone to the left and the enemies from the skipped right side of the map were starting to move towards me. I learned my lesson.😅

 

On 4/3/2021 at 1:10 PM, Jotari said:

(Janaff, Ulki and Reyson vs Renewal -_- yeah you're really enticing me with that lower mid tier skill I'll have to commit to giving a single unit since you don't let me rearrange skills at all).

Don't forget- you have also have to rush around or worse kill Naesala in Chapter 19 without the bird trio, and you can't get the Knight Ring.

Renewal was glitched in Japanese PoR too, being usable by only the two characters who start with it as a skill- Ena and Elincia.

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Fates, getting number 1 in the iron man score XD

2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Happy birthday you.

Honesty just about the worst evil opportunist villain in the series. Even incompetent villains who lure the lords into a trap and are easily defeated have more rhyme or reason to their actions.

I suspect Avatar Worship is to blame. Can't have Corrin work with someone so shady so lets just have him and the opportunist pick a fight with each other for no reason to get him out of the picture.  No one makes a problem out of it too. Garon who already wants to kill people just because they stand in the same room as him somehow doesn't get any violent urges about Corrin picking fights with Nohr's allies for no reason and then killing them.

It is rather comical that Corrin is threatened with execution every other time they see Garon, but actively taking out large swaths of the Nohrian military goes unnoticed. How many of Conquest's chapters have you fighting against Nohr anyway? Well the first two are against the faceless and ice tribe, you fight kotaro here and Zola next chapter, then the eternal staircase is faceless again, then the Iago chapter and then Garon himself. So seven off the top of my head (and I guess maybe a half with Cheve), out of Conqeust's...22 chapters. So roughly a third of Conquest has you fighting against Nohr, and they couldn't properly dedicate time to a Nohrian coup plot.

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Renewal was glitched in Japanese PoR too, being usable by only the two characters who start with it as a skill- Ena and Elincia.

Oh wow. That's hilarious.

Edited by Jotari
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happy birthday! shame about the 2% crit, and i agree the game design isn't at fault for this. if that's any consolation, which it probably isn't.

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7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

.Aaaaaaaaand I failed a critical spot check regarding the consequences of using attack stance instead of guard stance, and Dakota goes down on turn one in the second fight of the battle to a 2% critical hit from a master ninja.

Yet another reminder of why Luck is the most important stat.

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But nope! Kidnapping Kagero as a prisoner of war isn't what this fight is about! That's actually something Kotaro recently did to try to make the Hoshidans stop!

Yes, how dishonorable of this man to try to... attempt to end a conflict with something other than the complete and bloody routing of the enemy side.

The fact that Corrin and company get high and mighty over Kotaro taking Kagero as a prisoner-of-war, when that's something your army has been joyfully doing since Niles showed up, is... certainly derived from a consistent ethical framework. Mm-hmm.

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

And it's my birthday, both in-game and out! Well, I'm past the point where I get overly excited about birthdays, but I am glad I get to show this off! In addition to Dakota getting the usual birthday bonuses characters get, everyone around the fort wishes you a happy birthday too, with voiced lines!

Happy that thing!

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6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

And it's my birthday, both in-game and out! Well, I'm past the point where I get overly excited about birthdays, but I am glad I get to show this off! In addition to Dakota getting the usual birthday bonuses characters get, everyone around the fort wishes you a happy birthday too, with voiced lines!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Christ, this map is still really scary though. As much as I love this map, I'm filled with pants-shitting fear at the idea of starting it. Especially since some of my units are a little behind.

Yeah, the opening of this map is really tricky. I have generally found that once you have made the first little area outside the starting room safe, you have won the map, but exiting that starting room is so hotly contested that a death there is hard to avoid...

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Aaaaaaaaand I failed a critical spot check regarding the consequences of using attack stance instead of guard stance, and Dakota goes down on turn one in the second fight of the battle to a 2% critical hit from a master ninja.

Meaning all three of my Fates ironman attempts ended in an utterly embarrassing, anticlimactic, out-of-nowhere defeat.

...Oof, if only you thought to take a luck tonic you would have been safe. I guess hindsight is 20/20...and of course it is just Corrin again isn't it...

Ouch, shame it ended on your Birthday...I have always found Birthdays to be unlucky, tis a shame it is so for you as well.

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Conquest Day 17: Interlude

Christ. I really, really don't want to playlog today. That incident yesterday has put me in such a sour mood.

And incidentally, I think I've finally remembered why I've played so little of a game I can't get enough of singing the praises of.

As much as I love Conquest, I'm also kinda terrified of it. There are just so many moments in the game where, especially when ironmanning, the sheer multitude of things that could go horribly wrong just feel like this crushing weight on my soul, making me terrified to pressing the start button and potentially losing everything. But that terrifies me because of how much I have to lose. How much fun I'm having with it. It weirdly reaches this point where Conquest is just kinda... too much for me. It's like a roller coaster where I always have fun doing it, and yet I'm always scared shitless to get on. And of course, when I decided to just bite the bullet, I forgot to check whether or not that would give me lead poisoning.

Losing the ironman hurts more here than with Revelation or Birthright. But the fact that it happened on all three perhaps hurts harder still. Here I am, trying to show off how ironman-friendly the games are, how many added features they have to prevent the bullshit that usually ends an ironman in an unsatisfying fashion, and all three times, but especially here, my runs have been ended by chinks in the armor that could have been hit in any other game in the series.

Most notably: instant lose conditions. Doing this marathon has kinda caused me to hate them. It's easily the worst possible outcome of an ironman, to suddenly and randomly lose out of the blue, sending the adventure to a grinding halt. No setbacks to overcome, no adversity to triumph over, no frantic suicide mission to rush the final boss's throne room with the closest thing to an army you can still scrounge together. Nope, you just lose, when mere moments ago everything was going perfectly swell and barely even felt like an ironman.

Honestly, it kinda makes me want to see a Fire Emblem game where the lord doesn't actually join the battle until the final map, and if they die there it doesn't end the game. A game where anyone you're allowed to deploy is disposable and the game can go on without them.

Now, I could just pull a Birthright and go “look, I know I lost, but I'm still gonna keep going like I didn't and play like it's still an ironman”, but... nah. That wouldn't really be appropriate.

Dakota died.

I fucked up, and Dakota died.

I lost a unit due to my own incompetence, and I can't just keep going on in spite of that like nothing happened and still act like this is an ironman.

I have transgressed against the gods of ironman, as cruel and spiteful as they may be. And to restore my honor, blood must be spilt.

And as absolutely terrifying as this is...

...I'm leaving it up to you guys to decide whose blood that will be.

https://strawpoll.com/roj1op3rf

There's the strawpoll. Within it are the names of the top 17 non-Dakota units in my army. Whoever it says is the winner 12 hours from now will be treated as dead, no longer deployable. And through their sacrifice shall the ironman continue.

I honestly have no idea what the mindset of my readers is gonna be on this. I don't know if you're gonna go easy on me, or try and make it more likely that your favorite underdog unit gets picked as a replacement for whoever you get killed, or pick whoever you've coldly calculated will cause me the greatest conceivable amount of agony because you like to watch me suffer. And honestly, the fact that I don't know that, combined with the fact that this adds in a bit of good ol' audience participation, means this is way better than picking some random number generator and doing it myself.

I will not check the progress in any way until the appointed hour of 9:00 PM EST, when I will discover my army's fate.

Say safe, everyone.

Stay safer than whichever poor bastard you pick.

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17 minutes ago, Dayni said:

I would argue to kill your guilt about this, but that's not an option.

This would've also been my vote.

Meanwhile, I refuse to vote otherwise.

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