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

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, lenticular said:

You're actually immune to that particular problem if you're playing on Normal, since Normal will level everyone up to at least level 20 when you hit the timeskip (which is exploited ridiculously in speedruns). But yeah, even in Hard, there is a potential risk of softlock, though far less than it is on Maddening.

It's honestly just such a beyond terrible idea for a chapter, to force-deploy units you've had the option to phase out of your army since basically Chapter 1. Other games do that, but none do it for basically your entire deployment.

Edited March 7, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Jotari]

46 minutes ago, Benice said:

You know, I really dislike everything about Three Houses...

But I never actually found chapter 13 to be that bad, at least on VW. I just made my Brigand>Pegasus Byleth and Claude ignore everyone until Lysithea showed up with her warp.

The one that bothered me more was the rout map with infinite reinforcements unless a green unit with a crit rate against them manages to survive.

There's this neat little game called Berwick Saga/Yakuza 0/Colonel Sanders dating simulator...

Verdant Wind and Silver Snow will be the easiest versions of it given the flying mobility you'll have with your first ally. Keeping underlevelled students alive will still be difficult if you haven't trained them though.

36 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Honestly, I feel that the problems with Three Houses Maddening are overstated. They definitely do exist, and the chapter 13 thing is a pretty major black mark, but it's unlikely to softlock anyone who knows that it's coming. Beyond that, I don't think it's as awful as people make it out to be. The stat inflation can sometimes make it a bit of a slog, but it isn't irredeemably awful or anything. And the other option would be playing on Hard, which offers very little in the way of challenge, so is a bad choice from the perspective of fairly assessing difficulty.

Yeah, I agree, and was going to say something pretty much exactly say something exactly like that. But I've also only ever played Maddening with the aforementioned New Game+ abuse which I don't want Alastor to do.

[lenticular]

11 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

It's honestly just such a beyond terrible idea for a chapter, to force-deploy units you've had the option to phase out of your army since basically Chapter 1.

I both agree and disagree with this. To me, it feels a lot like the chapter from Radiant Dawn with Micaiah and the Black Knight. Which is to say that while it is an absolute disaster from a gameplay perspective, I actually really like it in terms of its integration of gameplay and story. You start off facing overwhelming odds against you, but then gradually over time, your old friends rejoin you to turn the tide of battle in your favour and allow you to triumph. All done on the back of a promise made five years previously. The first time I played it, it was a really cool moment, and I enjoyed the game more for it being present. Except that the moment only works if you've actually been using your in-house students. If you dropped most of them early and you're left with "here are a bunch of underleveled idiots who you've been deliberately not using" as your reinforcements then it completely fails at both gameplay and story.

So, overall, I don't think it's a fundamentally bad idea. I think there is a decent idea at the core of it but that the implementation is a mess. If I ever tried to do a fan balance patch (not that I ever will), I think I would keep the same underlying idea of no preparation and then gradual reinforcements over time but I'd change the units that you get as reinforcemtns to be your highest level units or the units you deplyed in chapter 12 or something like that.

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Except that the moment only works if you've actually been using your in-house students. If you dropped most of them early and you're left with "here are a bunch of underleveled idiots who you've been deliberately not using" as your reinforcements then it completely fails at both gameplay and story.

I'm... gonna save the rest of my thoughts on this shit for the actual game,  but suffice to say this highlights why I don't think the game had any business even attempting something this at odds with basically the entire nature of Fire Emblem.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Yeah, I agree, and was going to say something pretty much exactly say something exactly like that. But I've also only ever played Maddening with the aforementioned New Game+ abuse which I don't want Alastor to do.

Exact same boat map. Granted, I'd be fine with him playing it on Hard.

17 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

It's honestly just such a beyond terrible idea for a chapter, to force-deploy units you've had the option to phase out of your army since basically Chapter 1.

It seems to have been designed under the presumption of the player using all their in-house units, or resetting upon their deaths. Things that the player is by no means bound to do.

Anyway, my "rework" has this chapter open with the Professor visiting a nearly-empty Garreg Mach. But as they move around the monastery, they start encountering their old students (plus out-of-house recruits, plus Church units) one-by-one. Give them each a one-liner there. The "Explore" session ends at the Goddess tower, where you meet your old star pupil. Then you go to the Chapter 13 Map, but aside from Byleth and Main-Lord, you get 7 deployment slits to fill with whomever you choose. Plus the usual prep options (reclassing, battalions, inventory, etc.). Needing to set your army up for chapter 13 five goddamn years in advance is... just ludicrous.

3 minutes ago, lenticular said:

both agree and disagree with this. To me, it feels a lot like the chapter from Radiant Dawn with Micaiah and the Black Knight. Which is to say that while it is an absolute disaster from a gameplay perspective, I actually really like it in terms of its integration of gameplay and story. You start off facing overwhelming odds against you, but then gradually over time, your old friends rejoin you to turn the tide of battle in your favour and allow you to triumph. All done on the back of a promise made five years previously. The first time I played it, it was a really cool moment, and I enjoyed the game more for it being present. Except that the moment only works if you've actually been using your in-house students. If you dropped most of them early and you're left with "here are a bunch of underleveled idiots who you've been deliberately not using" as your reinforcements then it completely fails at both gameplay and story.

IMO this aspect doesn't even work as well as it could. Rather than reuniting in the Monastery you know and love, you meet in... the town right next to it, I guess? Where... some supports are set or something? Like they're going there to help, but it's unclear how they know a scuffle to be happening at that site in particular. Still think merting at the Monastery beforehand, and coming in with an actual plan, would be better, albeit more boring.

[Alastor15243]

Frankly, that thing about normal mode auto-leveling them... Honestly? That should've just been a basic feature in all difficulties if they were going to pull this shit.

[Benice]

25 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Keeping underlevelled students alive will still be difficult if you haven't trained them though.

The only GD I'd used were Raphael, Leonie and Lysithea*, but I managed to make it through with no deaths. I imagine that it'd be rough with the blue lions 'cause Dimitri's a footie, though.

[lenticular]

22 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm... gonna save the rest of my thoughts on this shit for the actual game,  but suffice to say this highlights why I don't think the game had any business even attempting something this at odds with basically the entire nature of Fire Emblem.

I will sit on my hands and not reply to anything else for now, in that case. I do look forward to many inevitable arguments discussions when you actually get to Three Houses, though.

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Early, and easy access to cavalier (and thus the shelter skill) is still some great value he has even ignoring his personal (especially in Birthright), and I think Alastor has shown the situation where that personal skill can make him into one of the best units around. It is situational, and one you have to play with it in mind (if you want to take advantage of it at all), but you can generally set that situation up, and the cost to your Corrin can be mitigated by using them in more supportive roles (like the backpacking Alastor has been using them as... although converting Corrin to a staff bot, or rally bot would allow for similar value with the same expectation of safety...)

I would imagine that (referring to using Corrin in more supportive roles) would have a major opportunity cost, though... and aside from that, would be shooting myself in the foot. Anyway, I much prefer Sophie because using her to the best of her capabilities doesn't involve shooting myself in the foot (and that's not even getting into the other cavalier competition Silas runs into if you're not playing Birthright).

Edited March 7, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Exact same boat map. Granted, I'd be fine with him playing it on Hard.

It seems to have been designed under the presumption of the player using all their in-house units, or resetting upon their deaths. Things that the player is by no means bound to do.

Anyway, my "rework" has this chapter open with the Professor visiting a nearly-empty Garreg Mach. But as they move around the monastery, they start encountering their old students (plus out-of-house recruits, plus Church units) one-by-one. Give them each a one-liner there. The "Explore" session ends at the Goddess tower, where you meet your old star pupil. Then you go to the Chapter 13 Map, but aside from Byleth and Main-Lord, you get 7 deployment slits to fill with whomever you choose. Plus the usual prep options (reclassing, battalions, inventory, etc.). Needing to set your army up for chapter 13 five goddamn years in advance is... just ludicrous.

IMO this aspect doesn't even work as well as it could. Rather than reuniting in the Monastery you know and love, you meet in... the town right next to it, I guess? Where... some supports are set or something? Like they're going there to help, but it's unclear how they know a scuffle to be happening at that site in particular. Still think merting at the Monastery beforehand, and coming in with an actual plan, would be better, albeit more boring.

Even on my first playthrough I was a bit disappointed they didn't provide a gloomy empty night time exploration of the Monastery before meeting the house leader. We see it in cutscene and background, but I think they really could have made a very nice integrated immersive experience there by having the player have to actually explore an area they're familiar with being full of life now desolate and empty.

1 hour ago, Benice said:

The only GD I'd used were Raphael, Leonie and Lysithea*, but I managed to make it through with no deaths. I imagine that it'd be rough with the blue lions 'cause Dimitri's a footie, though.

Yeah it's still possible, but at least in my experience it's kind of trial and errory in the first few turns. Wouldn't like to do it without the turn wheel.

[Interdimensional Observer]

10 hours ago, lenticular said:

I both agree and disagree with this. To me, it feels a lot like the chapter from Radiant Dawn with Micaiah and the Black Knight. Which is to say that while it is an absolute disaster from a gameplay perspective, I actually really like it in terms of its integration of gameplay and story. You start off facing overwhelming odds against you, but then gradually over time, your old friends rejoin you to turn the tide of battle in your favour and allow you to triumph. All done on the back of a promise made five years previously. The first time I played it, it was a really cool moment, and I enjoyed the game more for it being present. Except that the moment only works if you've actually been using your in-house students. If you dropped most of them early and you're left with "here are a bunch of underleveled idiots who you've been deliberately not using" as your reinforcements then it completely fails at both gameplay and story.

I'd say this works in Super Robot Wars, and I'd think it uses it a lot, not that I'd truly know from playing just the two officially-translated Original Generations.

However, SRW doesn't have the same problem with forcing you to use certain units in a huge cast even if you've neglected them. Permadeath doesn't exist. And while pilot stats matter, ultimately you can compensate for being underleveled -which is fairly easy to overcome due to how the EXP formulas work- through investing some money into and temporarily throwing some parts perhaps onto an unused character's mech. Careful use of Spirits can even things as well.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

13 hours ago, Jotari said:

Even on my first playthrough I was a bit disappointed they didn't provide a gloomy empty night time exploration of the Monastery before meeting the house leader. We see it in cutscene and background, but I think they really could have made a very nice integrated immersive experience there by having the player have to actually explore an area they're familiar with being full of life now desolate and empty.

While I appreciate that the monastery looked different after the skip (lotta scaffolding, the ruined Cathedral), it still felt very much static. I would've been a huge fan of quests to improve the monastery, that also have the effect of bringing people back (rather than all the important NPCs returning just after you do). Maybe a quest sequence that could restore the monastery to its former glory.

I bring this up because, it seems like cut corners. They made two physical versions of the monastery (albeit mostly identical), and once an NPC showed up, they were there to stay, even between versions. Making an "empty monastery", or one where just a few people show up, or one where the repairs haven't yet begun, may have been more programming than they had the time or energy to do. Which is an honest shame.

13 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

would imagine that (referring to using Corrin in more supportive roles) would have a major opportunity cost, though... and aside from that, would be shooting myself in the foot. Anyway, I much prefer Sophie because using her to the best of her capabilities doesn't involve shooting myself in the foot (and that's not even getting into the other cavalier competition Silas runs into if you're not playing Birthright).

Worth keeping in mind that Silas joins before Xander and Peri on both Conquest and Revelation. And that you need to use Silas, to at least some degree, to get Sophie. You can put Jakob on a horse, of course, but that costs a Heart Seal.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I bring this up because, it seems like cut corners. They made two physical versions of the monastery (albeit mostly identical), and once an NPC showed up, they were there to stay, even between versions. Making an "empty monastery", or one where just a few people show up, or one where the repairs haven't yet begun, may have been more programming than they had the time or energy to do. Which is an honest shame.

To say nothing of the fact that they undermined the sense of time passing by making the monastery look exactly the same all year round, through winter and spring and summer and fall.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

To say nothing of the fact that they undermined the sense of time passing by making the monastery look exactly the same all year round, through winter and spring and summer and fall.

Yeah, that too was disappointing, for a game that uses the passing seasons as a motif. Would have been nice to see light snowfall, or maybe some dropping leaves.

[Samz707]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

To say nothing of the fact that they undermined the sense of time passing by making the monastery look exactly the same all year round, through winter and spring and summer and fall.

Yeah 3H as a recurring problem where it's missing details.

Byleth apparently looks sickly after they pass out for....I'm not sure what, people said it was their heart starting to beat but they patched the SFX to the "Divine Pulse" sound instead of a heartbeat so I dunno what it is now but they look the exact same, not even their skin is paler yet most characters can tell they're sick from a glance.

I know I've said but 3H still feels like it's in development, like we're actually playing some mostly finished beta build where all the small details aren't finished,  aside from the monestary's time of day changing if you spend a bunch of time outside, there are no cool minor details that most games would at least have one or two examples of. (Such as making Byleth more sickly looking or the monastery actually looking different as the seasons go on.. or even just making sure Edelgard's animations don't have her hand clipping through her axe even though it's literally her weapon type of choice.)

Also I swear it's like watching a movie at times, where you'll boot the game up then realize you have 10 supports to go through, are we sure Hideo Kojima didn't secretly work on this game?

 

 

 

Edited March 7, 2021 by Samz707

[Alastor15243]

13 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Also I swear it's like watching a movie at times, where you'll boot the game up then realize you have 10 supports to go through, are we sure Hideo Kojima didn't secretly work on this game?

Try two movies. I did some math, rounding down in the game's favor with every calculation, and I still came to the conclusion that the time I spent watching support conversations in Three Houses over my first playthrough could have been spent watching two entire lord of the rings movies.

[lenticular]

2 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Also I swear it's like watching a movie at times, where you'll boot the game up then realize you have 10 supports to go through, are we sure Hideo Kojima didn't secretly work on this game?

I've never understood this particular complaint. If you don't want to watch a support conversation then you don't have to. If you want to get the gameplay benefits without bothering with anything else, then it's incredibly easy to skip them. If you want to watch a handful with only your favourite characters and skip the rest, you can. If you don't feel like watching them now but think you might want to watch them later, then you can skip them and then go back to watch them in the support library. If you want to turn off the sound and quickly skim read the supports instead of listening to the voice acted version, you can do that too. The game gives you plenty of options to engage with the supports in whatever way suits you best. So where's the problem?

[Samz707]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Try two movies. I did some math, rounding down in the game's favor with every calculation, and I still came to the conclusion that the time I spent watching support conversations in Three Houses over my first playthrough could have been spent watching two entire lord of the rings movies.

So 6-7-ish movies in total considering how you aren't getting all supports in all playthroughs? (and probably an extra bit from the DLC characters needs added too.)

Just now, lenticular said:

I've never understood this particular complaint. If you don't want to watch a support conversation then you don't have to. If you want to get the gameplay benefits without bothering with anything else, then it's incredibly easy to skip them. If you want to watch a handful with only your favourite characters and skip the rest, you can. If you don't feel like watching them now but think you might want to watch them later, then you can skip them and then go back to watch them in the support library. If you want to turn off the sound and quickly skim read the supports instead of listening to the voice acted version, you can do that too. The game gives you plenty of options to engage with the supports in whatever way suits you best. So where's the problem?

I do want to read all the supports and listen to the voice acting but there's simply lots of them and it's kinda overwhelming to boot up the game after a few battles and suddenly everyone has 2-3 supports.

I've had over 10 supports lined up at times.

 

 

 

Edited March 7, 2021 by Samz707

[lenticular]

4 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

I do want to read all the supports and listen to the voice acting but there's simply lots of them and it's kinda overwhelming to boot up the game after a few battles and suddenly everyone has 2-3 supports.

I've had over 10 supports lined up at times.

Sure, but you don't have to do them all at once if you don't want to. You can do one or two now and save the rest until later. And if you're eager to get the linked attack benefits immediately, then you can skip through them now and then watch them in the support library later.

[Alastor15243]

7 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I've never understood this particular complaint. If you don't want to watch a support conversation then you don't have to. If you want to get the gameplay benefits without bothering with anything else, then it's incredibly easy to skip them. If you want to watch a handful with only your favourite characters and skip the rest, you can. If you don't feel like watching them now but think you might want to watch them later, then you can skip them and then go back to watch them in the support library. If you want to turn off the sound and quickly skim read the supports instead of listening to the voice acted version, you can do that too. The game gives you plenty of options to engage with the supports in whatever way suits you best. So where's the problem?

The problem is that the game's ridiculous overabundance of supports causes the system to overstay its welcome and actually put me in a position where I'd want to skip them. In previous games, they were a reward for making units fight together a lot, the story half of a story-and-gameplay reward for your choices and effort. In Three Houses, it barely matters what you do, chances are you'll get 90% of the support conversations it's possible to get between all the main members of your army, whether you made any active effort to make any specific units fight together or not. Which means that in addition to being ridiculously numerous, it's less that they're a reward for your effort and more something that's being imposed upon you. I shouldn't be in a situation where my emotional investment in the characters and story has been overwhelmed by my desire to not watch a ridiculous amount of dialogue further padding out sparse segments of actual gameplay. Yes, I can skip it the story, but when I want to skip story segments I haven't even watched once, that is a pretty good sign the game is doing something horribly wrong.

And that's setting aside how comically bland the support bonuses are, just flat boosts to hit and avoid and maybe with some super special relationships, some added damage. No charm or individuality to it at all. No feeling like you're actually doing anything different with them between playthroughs.

[Shadow Mir]

36 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

And that's setting aside how comically bland the support bonuses are, just flat boosts to hit and avoid and maybe with some super special relationships, some added damage. No charm or individuality to it at all. No feeling like you're actually doing anything different with them between playthroughs.

Then what is the perfect support system to you? Because I would take 3H's support system over the GBA support system any day - even if supports in the latter gave more than just hit and avoid, that doesn't even come close to making up for all the stalling you needed to do because most supports were slow as molasses (this is most true in Binding Blade, but Sacred Stones and Blazing Blade were also guilty of this); it doesn't help matters that the affinity-based support system pretty much forced you to consult a guide to figure out what affinities gave what.

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

Worth keeping in mind that Silas joins before Xander and Peri on both Conquest and Revelation. And that you need to use Silas, to at least some degree, to get Sophie. You can put Jakob on a horse, of course, but that costs a Heart Seal.

Okay. But as I see it, if Silas struggles to keep up with his frigging daughter, there's no chance in the seven hells he can compete with the goddamn Batman--err, Xander. 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[lenticular]

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

The problem is that the game's ridiculous overabundance of supports causes the system to overstay its welcome and actually put me in a position where I'd want to skip them. In previous games, they were a reward for making units fight together a lot, the story half of a story-and-gameplay reward for your choices and effort. In Three Houses, it barely matters what you do, chances are you'll get 90% of the support conversations it's possible to get between all the main members of your army, whether you made any active effort to make any specific units fight together or not. Which means that in addition to being ridiculously numerous, it's less that they're a reward for your effort and more something that's being imposed upon you. I shouldn't be in a situation where my emotional investment in the characters and story has been overwhelmed by my desire to not watch a ridiculous amount of dialogue further padding out sparse segments of actual gameplay. Yes, I can skip it the story, but when I want to skip story segments I haven't even watched once, that is a pretty good sign the game is doing something horribly wrong.

And that's setting aside how comically bland the support bonuses are, just flat boosts to hit and avoid and maybe with some super special relationships, some added damage. No charm or individuality to it at all. No feeling like you're actually doing anything different with them between playthroughs.

OK, that's interesting. And also completely different to how I experience supports in FE. I am much happier with the support system in something like Three Houses or Path of Radiance where they just happen pretty much automatically than I am with the support system in Awakening or Fates which requires smooshing two people together at every opportunity if you want them to support. Fundamentally, I don't enjoy "have these units superglued to each other" from a game-mechanical sense. It bores me. I want to change up my tactics from map to map, and use different formations and different synergies. If there's a map with a great choke point that would be perfect for defending with an armour knight and a mage then I want to be able to do that and not have to think "yeah, but I'm not supporting Effie with Odin so I'll use someone else instead". For me, it isn't a story-and-gameplay synergy but a story-and-gameplay disconnect. Basically, it's giving me a narrative reward for playing the game in a way that is less fun and interesting, meaning I have to decide whether I want to focus on gameplay and sacrifice story or vice versa. (With the previously documented results when it comes to Fates.)

[Alastor15243]

25 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Then what is the perfect support system to you? Because I would take 3H's support system over the GBA support system any day - even if supports in the latter gave more than just hit and avoid, that doesn't even come close to making up for all the stalling you needed to do because most supports were slow as molasses (this is most true in Binding Blade, but Sacred Stones and Blazing Blade were also guilty of this); it doesn't help matters that the affinity-based support system pretty much forced you to consult a guide to figure out what affinities gave what.

Yes, but we moved on from that issue ages ago, this isn't some revolution that Three Houses added. Every game since then has avoided having that "waiting next to each other for turns on end" thing as a system. The 3DS games have my personal favorite growth methods, though the GBA games probably have my favorite support bonuses.

 

23 minutes ago, lenticular said:

OK, that's interesting. And also completely different to how I experience supports in FE. I am much happier with the support system in something like Three Houses or Path of Radiance where they just happen pretty much automatically than I am with the support system in Awakening or Fates which requires smooshing two people together at every opportunity if you want them to support. Fundamentally, I don't enjoy "have these units superglued to each other" from a game-mechanical sense. It bores me. I want to change up my tactics from map to map, and use different formations and different synergies. If there's a map with a great choke point that would be perfect for defending with an armour knight and a mage then I want to be able to do that and not have to think "yeah, but I'm not supporting Effie with Odin so I'll use someone else instead". For me, it isn't a story-and-gameplay synergy but a story-and-gameplay disconnect. Basically, it's giving me a narrative reward for playing the game in a way that is less fun and interesting, meaning I have to decide whether I want to focus on gameplay and sacrifice story or vice versa. (With the previously documented results when it comes to Fates.)

Ah yes, I remember you discussing this with regard to why you didn't have any pairings in your BR ironman until really late. I've never really run into this problem you bring up, mostly because I choose what supports I'll do based on which characters would already work well together, which means they're generally put on the same teams in all of my strategies and not likely to be needed in separate areas. Since it's just sets of two, among armies numbering in the teens by the end of the game, deciding who goes where can easily work with regards to pairs as well as it could work with regards to individuals.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Okay. But as I see it, if Silas struggles to keep up with his frigging daughter, there's no chance in the seven hells he can compete with the goddamn Batman--err, Xander. 

Again - you literally have to use Silas to get Sophie. Use him and drop him after you get Sophie, I don't care. Or better yet, give him to her as a statpack - as father/daughter, they start with an instant C-support, after all.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

The problem is that the game's ridiculous overabundance of supports causes the system to overstay its welcome and actually put me in a position where I'd want to skip them. In previous games, they were a reward for making units fight together a lot, the story half of a story-and-gameplay reward for your choices and effort. In Three Houses, it barely matters what you do, chances are you'll get 90% of the support conversations it's possible to get between all the main members of your army, whether you made any active effort to make any specific units fight together or not. Which means that in addition to being ridiculously numerous, it's less that they're a reward for your effort and more something that's being imposed upon you. I shouldn't be in a situation where my emotional investment in the characters and story has been overwhelmed by my desire to not watch a ridiculous amount of dialogue further padding out sparse segments of actual gameplay. Yes, I can skip it the story, but when I want to skip story segments I haven't even watched once, that is a pretty good sign the game is doing something horribly wrong.

Honestly, I prefer the 3H system, in that inter-character relationships come across as forming more "organically", so to speak, versus being pushed by the player's hands. Rather than forcing these people to interact, we're peering in on them as they get to know each other. And part of the reason they feel so long is the game's full voice acting, which I considered to be a huge step up in presentation for the series. The option not to engage in them, or to simply skip over the dialogue, is still at the player's disposal.

[Interdimensional Observer]

44 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

though the GBA games probably have my favorite support bonuses.

I'm not into horoscopes IRL, but for the medieval and magical setting FE has, I like it. Astronomy and Astrology were interconnected back then, and many a learned man and woman consulted the stars for guidance.

The only issue with the GBA (and Tellius!) bonuses once you got them, is that prior to RD (not PoR, right? I forget), you couldn't clearly see what the bonuses were.