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


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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Biggest concern I see is the shitload of ballistae I see scattered all over the map, ballistae I know weren't there on other modes. With a lot of these, there's no chance any archers are getting anywhere near them, but there are still the ones that archers clearly start near.

They're there on Hector Normal Mode, but neither version of Eliwood Mode. I find them to be a little weird as you do. Maybe it's a giant natural cavern that the Black Fang found vacant? IS far more likely simply wanted to stick us with vanishing bridge fun again.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

How the fuck can she go on about being “literally perfect” and not know that she was hand-made?

What did she think her backstory was that explains why she's never questioned why she has no memory of her childhood or parents?

I'd guess she had no backstory and didn't need it to stabilize her sense of self, so she never thought about it. Some artificial constructs need self-stabilization in stories, others, do not. Simple as that I suppose.

If you had skipped Night of Farewells, this would've started off CoD's story sequences:

Nergal:
“Ah, Sonia… So, you botched the assassination of the prince, did you?”

Sonia:
“Ah… My lord, it was–”

Nergal:
“The king is in a dark and terrible mood over your failure. I’ve a message from him severing all his ties to the Black Fang. And then we have Eliwood. He invaded my fortress and annihilated the Black Fang itself? Have I misplaced my trust in you?”

Sonia:
“Lo-Lord Nergal. I regret to inform you that the Black Fang is indeed no more. However, I have a plan for a new group. My next–”

Nergal:
“Ah…You believe there is to be a ‘next’?

Sonia:
“Here! Look at this!”

Nergal:
“That is…magnificent quintessence.”

Sonia:
“It comes from Brendan Reed, the Black Fang commander. He was sniffing around where he shouldn’t have been, so I killed him.”

Nergal:
“I see…This is Brendan’s– Ha ha ha ha!”

Sonia:
“Do you like it?”

Nergal:
“Yes. Yes, I do. This is strong quintessence, and yet you say you killed him? You are quite… …..”

Sonia:
“Um… What is it, my lord?”

Nergal:
“Your side… Are you injured?”

Sonia:
“Oh, yes. When Brendan resisted, he…”

Nergal:
“I see… He wounded you.”

Sonia:
“Lord…Lord Nergal?”

Nergal:
“I’ve no need for a defective puppet.”

Sonia:
“Pardon? Pu-Puppet?”

Nergal:
“Sonia, you’re a failed work. You’re no match for Limstella in any way.”

Sonia:
“!!”

Nergal:
“Disperse.”

(Screen flashes in black and red, as Sonia is killed. The scene then shifts to the shrine.)

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9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Hector talks about how Jaffar “slaughtered our friends” like he knows who a single one of the people he killed is. He's never once seen the man kill somebody he cares about. And who exactly are “our friends” outside of this merry band that he's killed, and he knows he's killed? Really, he only has Jaffar's word that Jaffar killed anyone Hector cared about, and that was an off-handed comment when Jaffar was kinda-sorta trying to goad Hector into killing him. His hatred of Jaffar is still obviously understandable, but it feels way more personal than it should have any right to be, since we don't even have any idea of who Hector thinks Jaffar has taken away from him.

I mean they did have a brief confrontation at the Dragon's Gate, where both Elbert, and Ephidel hint at how vicious Jaffar is, but I guess they never outright say he killed anyone.

 

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Things go reasonably well, but I forgot I put away Priscilla's restore staff to make room for an elixir, and holy shit am I going to need that thing... no, both of them, this map. There are several promoted status staff users that I can see. So I had to restart a couple of turns in.

Yeah I also forgot my restore staves on this chapter on my victorious iron man. Once I realized my mistake I figured I could try and get away with baiting them with high resistance units barriered up, but then I discovered that enemies will Berserk units without weapons (Pent had already broken his tome when they hit the below 15% berserk). That made it much easier to deal with.

 

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

I forgot that enemies in this game have basically no luck. Even without a killing edge, Jaffar has a 12% crit rate at base, using a weapon type he doesn't even have an S rank in.

The morph enemies literally have no Luck.

 

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, all of the platforms are back now. Guess I was wrong. Well, still gotta wait one more turn for the bolting to be expended.

Not all of them. In fact I was afraid I might have soft locked my ironman on this chapter, as Hector got trapped on the middle of the bridge between the starting area and the platform just north of it, and that path disappears forever on turn 10. With all of my fliers dead I was genuinely worried Hector was trapped there, but fortunately Hawkeye has enough Con to carry him, and can walk on water.

 

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

I just realized the implications of this whole “Sonia discovers she's actually a morph” thing. I mean, I thought it was kind of amusing that Sonia thought she was human, but like... they do nothing with it.

They don't let the audience know she thinks that until it's time to reveal the truth to her, and she looks so much like the other elite morphs that even if they did, it wouldn't be a reveal to basically anybody but her.

She does have that trash talking session with Limstella at the start of the chapter that makes it clear she thinks she is human, but having that established even slightly earlier would have been nice.

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16 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I also let a wounded nomad live, hoping he suicides onto Nino, because she can take it, and that would be even more exp for her.

He does indeed, and dies like a bitch. Unfortunately, some of the enemies I was trying to feed to her also suicided onto Jaffar, due to that “you'll never take my XP alive” mentality the enemies seem to be coded with for when they know they're outmatched.

I... have seen crap like that myself. It's annoying as all get out, especially when they suicide on, say, a level capped lord. Spiteful AI much?

 

On 4/15/2020 at 4:04 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

Rina, to be precise she said "Let's do our best!" but thats basically the same thing in meaning.:

latest?cb=20110224211315

If the art style looks vaguely familiar, it because she's from Luminous Arc 2, Stella Glow is basically Luminous Arc -three narratively unrelated DS games, third is Japan only- with a name change b/c legal rights, but exact same developer. An SRPG with a story emphasis on lovely anime Witches (but Rina isn't one). They'll probably be inferior to Stella Glow, but they might interest you.

Ah, yes. I'm familiar with those games. In fact, they're (at the least, part of) why Stella Glow caught my interest in the first place.

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Blazing Blade Day 29: Chapter 29

Happy Fire Emblem Day, everyone! Hope it's going as well as it can under the circumstances!

Me? I made the brilliant decision last night to stay up until I finished that damned last case of Danganronpa... and lemme tell ya, I now dearly want that hour and a half of sleep back. Holy shit was that a garbage last case. The game just dumped exposition in my face for an hour and a half and then the hero Power of Friendship'd his way to victory. And that game was so much fun back when it was about the actual killing game and there were more characters alive. But then halfway through the game it just completely shifted gears into a bunch of shit I found infinitely less engaging.

But we're not here to talk about Danganronpa. We're here to talk about Fire Emblem. So let's do this.

Chapter 29.

Cog of Destiny.

...Alright, I'm going to assume there's a good reason why the Black Fang remnants know where the Shrine of Seals is, and I'll wait for the game to tell it to me.

...Nobody asked, and it would be weird to ask that after the battle, so I have to assume the game just... isn't gonna say. Maybe King Desmond told them for... some fucking reason? I can't imagine why he'd do that, nothing he needed them for involved going there, and he's severed ties with the Black Fang now.

More importantly, Merlinus now has his wagon! It would've happened earlier if I hadn't lost him in a couple of chapters and if I hadn't missed two entire damned gaidens, but the point is, now he can move with the group.

Curious. Female druids are flanking Linus. Random generic female versions of a unisex class? In a GBA game? Even Fates, which doesn't even have non-DLC genderlocked classes, still only made generic enemies female if they were in a traditionally female-only class.

Three Houses finally fixed that, but honestly, I think their resources would have been better spent making non-white portraits.

You know.

For the factions in that game that aren't white.

Moving on, I think I figured out what was going on when I said that checking enemy staff range wasn't working during Genesis. It apparently doesn't work on the battle preparation menu for some reason.

Well, this is outrageously annoying.

I just realized I have to field way more deadweight units for story reasons than is remotely convenient.

I want to bring Nino (least egregious since she's close to promoting and is pretty great at this point) in order to get the dialogue with Linus.

I want to bring Louise because she has a talk with Pent here.

And I want to bring Eliwood, because this is my last chance to get him and Ninian to A support before it's too late to get their ending.

And if I do all of that, I have four units left to bring. Jaffar's a must, because he's the only guy I have fast enough to double those valkyries, and Lowen obviously is a must too. Priscilla is mandatory because I need, need that restore staff, leaving only one space left. And I really, really need a flier for this map, to deal with that village before anything surprising happens.

...Looks like I'll be dropping Marcus for... I think the first time since I got him.

Also, looks like Linus has a light brand, which is, may I remind you, a terrible weapon. I remember him having like a tomahawk or something before, which would be way scarier.

Okay. Let's discuss basic strategy. Essentially, there are way, way too many status staff users on this map for me to be comfortable splitting up. So we're all going to stick together and just hope for the best until all the staff users are gone. I'm going to make sure that nobody getting berserked is going to be a world-ender here.

Since Eliwood is a complete dead end, I'm going to promote him at a lowly level 11 so he can at least be good at running away. At least then hopefully he'll be as easy to keep alive as Elise is in Fates, albeit not anywhere near as useful.

Man, if he had turned out remotely okay statwise, that promotion would actually have been amazing. Only 7 mov, but-

...Wait, that reminds me.

Time to give Ninian the boots, something I should've done last chapter.

But anyway, getting a mount and access to lances would've done so much to make Eliwood a badass if he actually had the stats to pull that off.

Anyway, I think this is the first time this map theme is playing, and I like it! It's not great, but it suits the tension of the endgame maps. I prefer the triumphant ones, as I've said before, but the setting of this map really wouldn't suit it.

Pent and Louise's “support” is fairly dry, mostly just pointing out that Pent can now leak the location of the Shrine of Seals to the Etrurian government, which... hang on... did that ever come up in FE6? I can't remember.

It seems Priscilla can double most of these valkyries too, but unfortunately their resistance is really high, so she can't do too much.

I have to keep making sure that everyone is in range of either Pent or Priscilla, including Pent and Priscilla themselves, just in case that berserk staff hits. If I can't restore them immediately, I'm gonna be in serious trouble.

I also have to clear through these shamans in order to intercept the bandit heading for the village, but that shouldn't be too big of a deal. The main concern is that I can't fly over the mountains for it because then I'd have a flier who my healers can't reach with restore, which... yeah.

I don't remember the enemies here being this... insanely mage-heavy before. I remember there being more generals.

Priscilla with Heath support means I have another luna counter. Good to know!

Especially because there are a lot of luna tome users here, randomly snuck into enemy ranks.

Honestly, I'm reminded of a way, way easier and more tedious version of Chapter 21 of Binding Blade. The main concern I have here is running out of tomes against the sheer number of enemies Priscilla is fighting before I can restock.

Also, Nino promoted, but while she was able to one-round the monks with Elfire before promotion, now that the big guns have arrived in that area, this map really isn't giving her an opportunity to shine.

Heath got hit by a nosferatu but thankfully dodged a luna. But he's in a state where he may very well die. I had to put him forward in order to kill that valkyrie and have any chance of saving the village, but it may cost me this attempt.

...Nope, I'm good. Thankfully he missed against one of the shamans and failed to finish him off, limiting the enemies' attack spots.

I'm really needing to use a lot of physic due to how tied up my healers are. I'm hoping I can get some at a secret shop.

Louise has managed to save the day twice killing these valkyries, first a full health one with a killer bow, and second a wounded one with a brave bow.

Okay, seriously, the sheer number of mages here is kind of ridiculous. These are all the real Black Fang. No morphs. None of Nergal's men, as Jaffar points out. Which means that there really is a massive cabal of monks and priests and other members of the church who decided to go become vigilante assassins.

I wanna know the fucking story behind that! Did they get all of these guys from one big mass defection from the church, like literally a whole church went rogue? Or do they have ways of seeking them out individually over time after they were trained by the church?

And also, if there is this big of a base of light magic users no longer affiliated with the church, why is the church seemingly the only organization capable of training people in the art of light magic!?

Really, I get that maybe light magic is powered by faith, but surely there should be at least some practitioners who have never had faith specifically in that one church doctrine, right? I mean, that canonically isn't the only religion in Elibe! Why can't the pagan Sacaeans use light magic? They have shamans and druids, so clearly they know how books work! Kenneth can channel his faith in a delusional psychopath, why the fuck can't the nomads channel their faith in Mother Earth and Father Sky!?

...Anyway, my army has barely left the vicinity of that one little river-bound island at the bottom center of the map. There's been little need to, or any sense in it, given that the berserk staff users will arrive at any time.

Priscilla and Lowen are the big stars here, as usual. I've barely needed anything more than them, which is fortunate, given all the borderline dead weight I've had to bring.

That is... utterly bizarre. Those druids I mentioned before use the female druid map sprites, but in battle they're clearly using the male ones.

Yeah, this map is... way less fun than I remember. I think I found it fun before because I had a bunch of badasses at this point that I could just blindly throw into battle and watch kick ass. But now that the number of characters who can do that is greater than 0 and less than “nearly all of them”... it feels a lot more tedious.

Also, not even Jaffar can double this valkyrie who has a berserk staff but no weapons. She has 21 speed.

Priscilla can, however. She just capped speed this map at level 14 ish, and with 25 speed and luck, her evasion is crazy, even without a good boost from supports.

Jaffar's been getting terrible level ups, and I don't even care, because he starts out so insanely good already for what his class can do.

I have to remember that those “female” druids have Luna, and that I have to have Priscilla or Lowen take them down. Preferably Priscilla since she actually has her support partner.

It's turn 13, and Vaida still hasn't shown up, which I have to assume means her reinforcements are proximity-triggered. Well, we've weathered the reinforcements, so, might as well move forward now.

I just realized that if I restore every time somebody's hit, I'll actually likely run out of restore staves before I can buy more in Battle Preparations. So I may need to take some acceptable losses, like non-essentials getting silenced.

The valkyries in the northwest corner charged, but thankfully, they're not as terrifying as I thought they would be. For one thing, they're significantly weighed down by elfire tomes. For another, only two of them have status staves, because the far more dangerous berserk-holding one moved prematurely and got killed. Nearly all of them suicided into Lowen, who I had stand on a fort while everyone else evacuated to the edge of their attack range.

Also, Vaida showed up too, but I think I can handle her wyverns while I recruit her.

Alright, Eliwood and Ninian A ranked, and... I'm underwhelmed. I think I was distracted by Ninian's character design, because this relationship is just... boring. I really wish they had better supports, because holy shit is the payoff at the end of the next chapter a gut punch, and would be even more so if I gave more of a shit about their relationship.

I love how Vaida expresses amused shock at Hector's decision to attack her, despite the fact that she literally just attacked him. She really should be self-recruiting, honestly.

Anyway, her defense is so insane that she can't even be hurt by the reinforcements she's traveling with unless they're using a steel lance. But thanks to her high con and her... being a mounted woman in a GBA Fire Emblem game... her aid is atrocious, at 8. I had to get Eliwood to bail Hector out so he wouldn't waste any exp here.

Okay, so, fun story. Despite missing Night of Farewells because I didn't realize you could talk to Jaffar with Nino, I brought Nino on this map for story reasons, and honored her request to talk to Linus. That, as you can imagine, didn't end well. She couldn't talk to him, so I left her in his range hoping that'd trigger something.

No dice. He one-shot her as I was helpless to do anything but watch. And what with this being such an atrociously long chapter... I let her stay “dead” on my first playthrough.

Now, I'm pretty sure that at least Lloyd does have a talk with Nino besides a battle conversation, so I'm gonna see what happens if I keep having Linus fight her.

And Priscilla just got an A support with Heath, and found a second love. A second love that isn't going to turn out nearly as well as the first one would have.

Pity.

Yeah, it's looking like nothing's happening here. It seems only Lloyd can talk to Nino, not Linus.

Maybe there's a special scene if she kills him.

I mean, she needs the exp anyway.

And then of course Athos teleports to the shrine immediately, and Hector demands to know why he didn't warp them there ages ago, and Athos says they had to prove they could trust their own strength.

...I mean...

...It's hard to accept that line of reasoning when 1: the entire damned world is at stake, 2: they barely even had a solid plan to get there without his magic, and 3: Athos making them jump through all of those hoops to reach the shrine of seals the hard way... directly resulted in the entire plot of Binding Blade.

...Alright, Athos clarifies that the entire thing was a test to see if they were worthy of the legendary weapons.

Oh right, for Bramimond. Yeah, no. Fuck that.

Not that I don't get why people have to prove themselves worthy of immense power, and of course, they have to be able to convince Brammimond to undo the seals, but what the fuck was your Plan B, Athos!? Who were your backup candidates to wield the weapons!? Were you seriously going to just sit there with your thumb up your ass and do nothing if it turned out they couldn't get to the shrine of seals without your help!?

WHY DID IT LOOK LIKE YOU WERE DOING LITERALLY NOTHING TO STOP NERGAL UNTIL THESE RANDOM TEENAGERS CAME TO YOU!?

...Wait a second...

HOLD. THE FUCKING. PHONE.

Don't tell me...

So, it seems like that entire battle was to prove their worth where Brammimond would be watching.

There had to be a battle in this area, or Brammimond wouldn't have been able to see the proof Athos wanted to show them.

And the Black Fang just happened to all be waiting there, ready to make a massive last stand.

...Did...

...Did Athos tell the Black Fang where Hector and the gang would be?

Did he show up in front of Linus in disguise and rat out their location so that they could all die and prove to Brammimond that Hector and friends have the strength of body and heart to be worthy of the weapons?

That...

Jesus Christ, man. If so, that is kind of amazingly stone cold, and I actually kinda like it.

...Moving on...

Is it ever explained why weapons designed to fight dragons are also effective against Nergal? His power doesn't come from dragons, right? He's harvesting the essence of human souls.

What the fuck.

Athos actually called Durandal the Blazing Blade!?

That... that's absurd! I don't remember that at all!

But there it is, plain as day on my rom! He's saying it!

I know they called it the Sword of Sacred Fire when I played it as a kid, and apart from in the game itself, the subtitle was “Blazing Sword” in all media before around Smash 4. They already came up with Blazing Blade back then, and yet called it Blazing Sword until years later?

So, Nergal shows up, Ninian's scared he'll kill someone and so goes with him willingly in exchange for their lives, Nergal does some scary earth-shaking magic, and then...

...They wake up at “camp”. Curious, because the background is clearly that of a wooden house, and not any kind of portable tent.

But fuck that, because now it's time for the moment I've been waiting for.

The third fucking heaven seal.

Hector's story promotion.

HOLY SHIT YES.

...And the game kinda spoils the moment by revealing that the map cutscene hasn't changed, and they're all still at the shrine of seals exactly as they were left when Nergal vanished. No camp in sight.

BUT MOVING ON, HECTOR NOW HAS 19 STRENGTH, 16 SPEED, and 20 DEFENSE.

Sixteen speed in this game is actually pretty fucking respectable, so once he gains some levels, he might actually be able to hold his own against most enemies! He's definitely way faster than Marcus, at any rate. Granted, that took two whole speedwings, but who else was going to use them?

Honestly, this cutscene about “newly awakened power” makes me really wonder what the fuck these promotion seals are supposed to be and do... canonically. Like, what's happening in the world of Fire Emblem when they use them? Do they become basically magic Captain America, a super soldier augmented by the power of a magical artifact, blessed with powers beyond the abilities of mortal men? How are these things made? Are they made? And if not, why are they in human-recognizable shapes, and why are they filled with knowledge humans can make use of in specifically man-made professions?

Man, Hector says he's not sure if the sword they're going to get is for Eliwood or Lyn, and honestly, I kinda wish the game gave you a choice. Or, instead of making up that Sol Katti nonsense, I wish they had Athos go and get Mulagir for her. That would be sweet. Even in this game where the speed would be overkill. Given that the enemy density would go way down by the time you can actually use it, and enemy quality goes way up, I imagine that'd be a handy weapon for her to use.

So, this scene kind of implies that this is when Oswin starts hiding Uther's death, and yet he told the messenger at the beginning of that conversation to relay a message to Uther. What's going on here?

...Well, that's the end of the chapter at any rate. Tomorrow, we have some fun with a newly promoted Hector basically soloing a map. Take care, everyone!

Stay safe!

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3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

And I really, really need a flier for this map, to deal with that village before anything surprising happens.

I will note that I managed to make it there in time with Hawkeye's mountain walking capabilities (well its more that he got into range of the brigands before they sacked it).

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Honestly, I'm reminded of a way, way easier and more tedious version of Chapter 21 of Binding Blade. The main concern I have here is running out of tomes against the sheer number of enemies Priscilla is fighting before I can restock.

That is a very fitting comparison seeing as how both center around large area based reinforcement triggers that can be mostly cheesed with a flier.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Really, I get that maybe light magic is powered by faith, but surely there should be at least some practitioners who have never had faith specifically in that one church doctrine, right? I mean, that canonically isn't the only religion in Elibe! Why can't the pagan Sacaeans use light magic? They have shamans and druids, so clearly they know how books work! Kenneth can channel his faith in a delusional psychopath, why the fuck can't the nomads channel their faith in Mother Earth and Father Sky!?

With how prevalent Shaman and Druids were in the Sacae maps, I always got the impression that their faith gave them easier access to elder magic.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Yeah, it's looking like nothing's happening here. It seems only Lloyd can talk to Nino, not Linus.

Maybe there's a special scene if she kills him.

There is actually a special scene if Hector kills him. Its frustratingly hard to find any recording of, but Ghast's support science was about the only place I could find it recorded

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Is it ever explained why weapons designed to fight dragons are also effective against Nergal? His power doesn't come from dragons, right? He's harvesting the essence of human souls.

One tidbit that might explain it is that Nergal learned the secret of harvesting quintessence from the dragons of Arcadia...

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Man, Hector says he's not sure if the sword they're going to get is for Eliwood or Lyn, and honestly, I kinda wish the game gave you a choice. Or, instead of making up that Sol Katti nonsense, I wish they had Athos go and get Mulagir for her. That would be sweet. Even in this game where the speed would be overkill. Given that the enemy density would go way down by the time you can actually use it, and enemy quality goes way up, I imagine that'd be a handy weapon for her to use.

Seeing how much FEH loves to give her the Mulagir, I have the suspicion a remake of this game would have that added in.

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4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Or, instead of making up that Sol Katti nonsense

I'll always remember that line I heard of "sol katti: weaker than a silver sword and heavier than a silver axe". She loses 8 speed from it lol. 

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I mean, why not? It's gonna be low-deploy anyway.

Isn't it literally 1 unit with Hector?

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5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't remember the enemies here being this... insanely mage-heavy before. I remember there being more generals.

Hector Hard Mode exclusive. For every other difficulty, there is the total absence of anyone barring Linus/Lloyd who is magical in CoG. HHM made it the opposite- the near complete dearth of physical enemies.

 

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Is it ever explained why weapons designed to fight dragons are also effective against Nergal? His power doesn't come from dragons, right? He's harvesting the essence of human souls.

None of them are in gameplay though, except Aureola. Being thats the ultimate Light spell and a slight Gotoh-Gharnef parallel with Athos & Nergal, you could think of it in this instance as copying Starlight.

 

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So, it seems like that entire battle was to prove their worth where Brammimond would be watching.

There had to be a battle in this area, or Brammimond wouldn't have been able to see the proof Athos wanted to show them.

I wouldn't rush to the worst possible answer. A poorly explained clairvoyant omnipresence bestowed by true mastery of the darkness for Brammy and a magic orb for Athos conferring similar on a select target, combined with the purely coincidental battle above the Shrine that was entirely the result of one insanely vengeful brother is my preferred, if not flawless writing, answer.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

More importantly, Merlinus now has his wagon! It would've happened earlier if I hadn't lost him in a couple of chapters and if I hadn't missed two entire damned gaidens, but the point is, now he can move with the group.

It legitimately bothers me that you can't get Merlinus to 20/20. The game has 42 bloody chapters at maximum before end game but because you don't get Merlinus till like chapter the fifteenth chapter you can only get him to like 20/10. They could have made him available in Lyn mode, his gimmick is the kind of thing that would fit into a tutorial. Or failing that give him some more base levels. Yes, I don't even care that he maxes out most of his stats before 20/10, the fact that I can't theoretically get him to max level bothers me to no end.

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Curious. Female druids are flanking Linus. Random generic female versions of a unisex class? In a GBA game? Even Fates, which doesn't even have non-DLC genderlocked classes, still only made generic enemies female if they were in a traditionally female-only class.

It's pretty damn silly that Fates didn't give random female generics given that it specifically has skills that use gender as a metric. The ones that give a boost if fighting a female enemy can only be used on like six enemies in the game (slightly exaggerated, but by percentage it's practically nothing).

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Pent and Louise's “support” is fairly dry, mostly just pointing out that Pent can now leak the location of the Shrine of Seals to the Etrurian government, which... hang on... did that ever come up in FE6? I can't remember.

Well not directly afaik because obviously it was made first, but it does resolve the whole nobody knowing where it is in this game but everyone knowing where it it is in the previous game. Basically it's this game filling in the plot hole it's making as it's making it.

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Man, Hector says he's not sure if the sword they're going to get is for Eliwood or Lyn, and honestly, I kinda wish the game gave you a choice. Or, instead of making up that Sol Katti nonsense, I wish they had Athos go and get Mulagir for her. That would be sweet. Even in this game where the speed would be overkill. Given that the enemy density would go way down by the time you can actually use it, and enemy quality goes way up, I imagine that'd be a handy weapon for her to use.

Not only would Mulagir have been a cool and suitable weapon for Lyn, but it's also the only one of the legendary weapons from Sword of Seals that we don't see the resting place of. So visiting that shrine in this game would have been something new to see.

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15 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't remember the enemies here being this... insanely mage-heavy before. I remember there being more generals.

...Yeah, HHM Cog of Destiny is pretty much the only case in the series where the enemy lineup gets that drastic a shakeup on hard mode. 

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Blazing Blade Day 30: Chapter 30

Here we are, at the resting place of Armads, where our one job is to utterly slaughter an army of spirits using my newly-promoted Hector... or the one unit I'm allowed to bring with me in case my Hector turned out to be softlock levels of trash.

And since I really want that third speedwing (I'll check next map if Hector needs it, and if not I'll give it to Marcus), that single unit is gonna be Legault. I guess that's my reward for having a good Hector, that I can afford to bring a weak thief as my second.

Of course, these thieves are no joke. They're level 20 and while their other stats are complete garbage for that level, they're faster than Legault, meaning anything they steal from me isn't getting stolen back.

Even if it's the one set of elixirs I brought since I'm not bringing a healer.

So we gotta chase after those guys to get the treasure. And I don't think getting all of the treasure with two guys, one of whom can't really fight and the other of whom has less mov than the thieves, is really realistic. So instead I'm gonna check online to save some time and see which chests are actually useful, and focus on those.

Yep, looks like the only really important thing is a second Wolf Beil. I don't know what the fuck a copy of what is presumably a custom-made axe is doing in a cavern made centuries before its owner was born, but oh well.

So I'll go for that, and make sure to steal those speedwings and the goddess icon.

Beyond that, this is just gonna be “watch Hector wreck everything” day.

I notice the color scheme and map tiles for this map seem to have been... completely ripped whole cloth from Binding Blade, old color scheme and all. It looks really out of place given the more subdued colors of the rest of the game. Suddenly we're just bombarded with these gaudy yellow rocks that I have to assume are supposed to be sulfur or something, given the toxic nature of the cave.

Hand axes turn out to be just barely not enough to one-round some of these armor knights, so I'm going to switch up Hector's loadout a bit. Incidentally, he's carrying nothing but weapons, with Legault carrying our one 3-dose elixir, an iron sword, a lockpick, and two empty slots for stealing.

Actually, I don't have anything much stronger than hand axes in my stock. That's always been enough for axe users to kill most things until now. Looks like Hector's just gonna have to use the brave axe for a little while, until he gets a bit more strength or we're not in such a hurry. Shouldn't take long.

...

...And it looks like these thieves don't care too much about the chests and will steal shit from anyone who's too slow. Which is basically everyone. Hell, it's impossible for a thief to not be too slow to resist stealing. It's just that with 20 speed they might also be able to steal it back.

Thankfully, stolen items become the new things you can kill them to get back instead of their chest keys, so I have some chance. But due to their high speed, their evasion is crazy, and neither Legault nor Hector can reliably kill them alone. So it'll have to be a team attack, which means we can't attract the attention of more than one per turn.

Holy shit. Man, they really aren't fucking around with how difficult this mission is if you're trying to protect a thief and keep moving forward at the same time.

I had to reset again to give Legault an armorslayer, because he absolutely needs to be able to fight some of these tougher knights.

...Okay, no dice, that plan isn't working. I basically can't be slowed down at all making my way up north if I want to intercept that Wolf Beil without equipping a hand axe and killing the speedwings mage. But that's looking impossible with my first strategy, because...

...Because I have to kill that first thief in the corner.

But what if I didn't?

...Nope, that won't work. Attempting to move forward out of range of the corner thief puts me in range of the other thief, who will go and steal something if he's able, and if not, he'll...

...Wait...

...Okay, hear me out...

...What if I give him something the thief will want to steal, but which I won't miss?

Yes, that should work! Lemme test this...

OOOOH! So close!

One thing I learned, incidentally, is that the “items you get from slain enemies refill their uses” thing works on items that they steal from you. So you could, for instance, take a one-use elixir, let a thief here steal it, and then kill it to get it back with 3 uses.

But basically, I gave Hector two one-use vulneraries, put him in range of the two starting thieves with Legault out of the way, and had them steal the worthless vulneraries. Then I tag-teamed one of the thieves with Legault and Hector wielding swords, with the hope that the remaining thief would then steal something next turn that wouldn't matter because we'd steal it right back by killing him. But unfortunately, Hector didn't have a third thing to steal, and Hector's positioning blocked the thief off from Legault. I should be able to fix this though, by just trading back something stealable to Hector once the thief runs away, so he'll run right back.

Or I can just have Hector be the one to kill the thief and get the vulnerary back, so the thief can then steal that again.

Oh right, that's what I did do, but the issue is that there was only one slot to attack the thief from, so I only had room for one accurate sword attack, and it didn't occur to me to let the thief steal something again as he ran away.

...Only for that entire strategy to prove unnecessary, because the thief just... attacked Hector intead of running off towards the chests. Did luring him in to steal completely derail his chest-hunting AI permanently?

At any rate, we have a bunch of healing items, and all but one of the thieves died, so I think that's gonna be the hardest part of this whole chapter.

YES! The speedwings are mine! Legault also has been able to kick the ass of some of these axereaver generals with an armorslayer.

And I also managed to get the goddess icon, though at the cost of having to drop the three-use lockpick I brought just in case. Which means that elixir in the chest (I already grabbed the Wolf Beil and the pure water got stolen by the remaining thief) will have to remain there. Pity, but it's worth it.

...This kind of makes me wish I trained up Matthew more. It would've been interesting to have this be a sort of counterpoint to “Taking Leave” where once again it's those two in action and nobody else. Honestly, this feels like the sort of chapter that should have optional dialogue if you choose to bring someone story-relevant with Hector. Then again, I guess I haven't tried, so who's to say it doesn't?

...The game's script on Serenes Forest. The game's script of Serenes Forest is to say it doesn't.

But yeah, this is... not a fun chapter. At least not when you care about stealing those items. Which I do. Figuring out that initial puzzle with the thieves was a challenge, but after that, it's just kinda dull and straightforward.

I wonder why the fuck they changed the objective to “Claim a space” if the “space” can only be “claimed” by Hector, and thus it's functionally identical to a seize objective. Especially since in the cutscene right after, Hector describes the “space” as a throne. Did they just not want to give the boss a throne's terrain bonuses and healing?

...And then after that scene where Durban says “if you take my power, you will die in battle one day”, the screen blackens... and... Hector's right outside of the cave Eliwood got Durandal in.

...And Hector calls it the “Thunder Hammer”, not the Thunder Axe. Curious.

Oh no, apparently they didn't go to get Durandal yet. Okay. Fair enough. But it still feels weird that they don't even show Athos doing the teleportation he's obviously doing to get them to these places so fast.

Oh shit.

It's text auto-scrolling time.

I forgot this part of this... this scene.

Holy cow I remember this scene depressing me as a kid.

Yep, Lyn calls Durandal the Sword of Sacred Fire (though that isn't capitalized for some reason).

Oh wow, I totally forgot, Hector Mode seems to skip the cutscene with Nergal and Ninian for some reason. Not sure why, it's not like that's Eliwood's POV.

Yeah, now Athos is calling Durandal the Sword of Sacred Fire again. Honestly, I think that's a way cooler name than “The Blazing Blade”.

Okay, this scene is... a massive gut punch and all, but how the fuck does Nergal not only know that Ninian loves Eliwood, but that Eliwood loves her back? I know this line changes if they don't have an A support and the love is one-sided. I remember he just says “That is Ninian. The girl who adored you.” But now that it's an A rank, he flat-out says “the girl you loved”. How the hell would he know that? Does this game expect me to believe that topic came up? He can't be that much of a sadistic shit that he made her spill her guts about their relationship just to have material to gloat with, can he? I mean I can imagine this kinda coming up, if he's interrogating her for information in her brainwashed state, but the second she ever started rambling about boys, I have to imagine he'd make her skip ahead to a new subject.

...Honestly though, the idea of a villain dedicated to the craft of villainy enough to listen with rapt attention to a teenage girl's angst, taking notes and everything, just so he can have more monologue material later to gloat with to her loved ones, is a pretty amusing concept.

Villain: Tell me everything you know.

Girl: Nobody understands me. My mother wants me to be a lawyer when all I want to do is dance, my father chased my last three boyfriends away with a shotgun for daring to so much as hold my hand...

Villain: Fascinating! DO GO ON!

But yeah, I have to assume the dialogue is fixed scrolling so that it syncs with the music. For example, the reprise of Ninian's theme shifts to a far more intense version with full orchestra the second she dies.

Oh, I see.

Right, I remember now, the idea is supposed to be that even legendary weapons aren't effective against him anymore. Which rendered... this entire effort nearly pointless.

...And that really makes me feel that Athos should have been fucking faster in getting those weapons, so they could teleport straight to the Dread Isle and kill the fucker while he was weak!

...Oh wow.

Those faces.

It looks like they gave Hector a face specifically for this moment, when he awkwardly looks away when Nils asks where Ninian is. Wow. In a game where facial expression changes are so rare, that... that use of it was really effective to make this scene hit home.

OH GOD. And then that CG where Nils is on his knees with his hands on his head in agony, with Lyn burying her face in her hands and Eliwood hunched over Ninian's dead body.

Wow. This... the presentation of this scene aged way better than I expected it to, even if the fact that I don't give as much of a shit about Ninian anymore means it's lost some of its power.

And then... it cuts to black, as well it should.

Honestly, this version of the chapter feels... wrong. Playing this exact same thing, while still really effective in a lot of ways, just doesn't... doesn't have the same weight if we didn't follow Eliwood as he fights tooth and nail to get Durandal, only to have all the triumph he earned in that moment horribly, brutally taken from him. And taking out Nergal and Ninian's scene... just feels pointless and is a clear net loss to the scene.

But at any rate...

You know what happens tomorrow.

This is a message from Alastor15243:

I await you tomorrow in Chapter 31.

Stay safe, everyone.

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I feel it's a real shame you don't fight the ghosts of Roland and Durban in there chapters, preferably wielding their own holy weapons. Am I the only one who wanted to see them in action? Instead we just fight some random ass no name ghosts as the bosses.

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2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I feel it's a real shame you don't fight the ghosts of Roland and Durban in there chapters, preferably wielding their own holy weapons. Am I the only one who wanted to see them in action? Instead we just fight some random ass no name ghosts as the bosses.

It would've been cool to use a modified Roy sprite for Roland given he's supposed to be so young and he looks kinda like Roy.

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Bringing a thief to The Berserker was too annoying, Pent/any other promoted magic user is better. So what if I miss out on a few items? Eliwood is he who does the start-of-battle Tactician talk for this chapter BTW.

I love Durbans's dialogue, a good personality he has for what minuscule screentime he has. I think "Thunder Hammer" is a mistranslation.

 

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

I feel it's a real shame you don't fight the ghosts of Roland and Durban in there chapters, preferably wielding their own holy weapons. Am I the only one who wanted to see them in action? Instead we just fight some random ass no name ghosts as the bosses.

The boss here does finish off a weird thrice-used class pairing. Karel and Harken are Swordmaster and Hero, you only get to recruit one on any playthrough. Lloyd and Linus are Swordmaster and Hero, which dies first can vary from playthrough to playthrough. Georg and Kaim are Berserker (an Axe Swordmaster with less Skl more HP & Str) and Hero, you only get to fight one any playthrough. 

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7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Oh wow.

Those faces.

It looks like they gave Hector a face specifically for this moment, when he awkwardly looks away when Nils asks where Ninian is. Wow. In a game where facial expression changes are so rare, that... that use of it was really effective to make this scene hit home.

OH GOD. And then that CG where Nils is on his knees with his hands on his head in agony, with Lyn burying her face in her hands and Eliwood hunched over Ninian's dead body.

Wow. This... the presentation of this scene aged way better than I expected it to, even if the fact that I don't give as much of a shit about Ninian anymore means it's lost some of its power.

And then... it cuts to black, as well it should.

The quality of presentation set with such limited resources by this scene set a bar so high I don't think any of the other GBA, or even DS games were able to match. The way those expressive faces were used, together with the music, and that CG all ooze emotions that the blandula twins wish they could reach, the card board cutout that is Shadow Dragon's Marth is an empty facsimile by comparison, Roy and Lilina's only excuse is that their game came before this one, and while New Mystery gets the tiniest sliver of credit for trying slightly, it still pales in comparison.

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4 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Bringing a thief to The Berserker was too annoying, Pent/any other promoted magic user is better. So what if I miss out on a few items? Eliwood is he who does the start-of-battle Tactician talk for this chapter BTW.

I love Durbans's dialogue, a good personality he has for what minuscule screentime he has. I think "Thunder Hammer" is a mistranslation.

 

The boss here does finish off a weird thrice-used class pairing. Karel and Harken are Swordmaster and Hero, you only get to recruit one on any playthrough. Lloyd and Linus are Swordmaster and Hero, which dies first can vary from playthrough to playthrough. Georg and Kaim are Berserker (an Axe Swordmaster with less Skl more HP & Str) and Hero, you only get to fight one any playthrough. 

That dichotomy is less important than the awesomeness that would be proving your worth by fighting the legends themselves, and even if it were that important, they could have just made Durban and Roland a Berserker and a Hero (though I do like the idea of a modified Roy sprite)

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Blazing Blade Day 31: Chapter 31

Alright, let's keep going.

So Athos tells the story of how he met Nergal a few hundred years after the Scouring, and with him they discovered Arcadia, a place in the desert where humans and dragons were living in harmony.

But apparently they made the oasis for them at this point, so these humans and dragons were living in the desert without an oasis for apparently centuries. Is that even possible?

Curious that they also mention a barrier. Did Binding Blade ever bring that up?

Anyway, I know I mentioned this in Binding Blade, but I really like the Arcadia theme. It's got this bittersweet feeling to it that I really like.

Wait...

Nergal already knew how to keep himself young before he turned evil and started messing with quintessence? The story says that a few centuries passed in the blink of an eye, but slowly, they turned down different paths. That heavily suggests that at least 100 years passed while Nergal and Athos were still friends.

Hold on.

HOLD ON.

Okay, so, he married a dragon and became a loving father to two beautiful turquoise-haired, red-eyed half-dragons...

Then... wait... from what I remember of that chapter I missed, for some reason Nergal and Aenir were on... the other side of the dragon's gate... then Nergal went looking for his wife... and told the kids to wait for him... while he went and looked for her...

...And then...

...Okay, I just realized I literally know fuck all about what the hell Nergal's deal is. What happened to his wife? I have to assume he met her in Arcadia, so why did they go back through the dragon's gate when they were presumably still welcome in Arcadia until he turned evil, which he only did after she went missing, which only happened after they went through the Dragon's Gate? Did he meet Aenir and go on the quest to... find her... or save her... or something... before he found Arcadia? Was he on the other side of the dragon's gate all along? Did he defect to the dragons' side during the scouring, flee through the dragon's gate, and stay young due to Narnia time or something before having to go back to our realm for some reason?

...Fuck it, I'm looking this shit up.

...Okay, looks like I was right. Nergal has been alive since the scouring, when he met Aenir. But no, it wasn't magical interdimensional Narnia time that kept him young. He'd apparently been searching for Aenir, in the human world, for like 500 years before he met Athos. And yet he continuously looks way younger than Athos that entire time, meaning I have to assume he's not using the same method of longevity that Athos is. But he didn't learn how to steal quintessence until he found Arcadia, at which point he'd already been alive for more than 500 years.

So, in conclusion, I don't have fucking clue one what's going on here. I always assumed that Nergal was younger than Athos and only lived as long as him to the present day through soul-sucking, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

But there's no time to ponder such questions, as Denning has just arrived! Ah yes, the classic broken record Denning. We all know that thing he says over and over an over. And if you don't... I mean, I'm flattered that your first experience of the story of Blazing Blade is reading my write-up, but seriously, this shouldn't be your first experience of these things.

Ah yes, the classic near-endgame “defend the castle” mission.

Knowing how ridiculously easy the game's gotten whenever there isn't some huge gimmick, this should be outrageously straightforward. The only real hiccup is that this is my last chance to get Bartre the 129 experience he needs to hit level 10/5. I think I'll be able to do that if I have Bartre take out some of these mages from behind walls.

I've gota say, my Priscilla turned out amazing. Not counting the two defense and 7 HP she got from stat boosters, she's 3 ahead in HP, 4 ahead in speed, 2 ahead in defense, and only slightly behind in luck and 3 behind in skill. She's easily a frontline combat unit, which is fantastic. Looks like I finally got my wish of getting a badass troubadour. And it looks like her performance here isn't that out of the ordinary. The biggest difference is speed, and aside from a handful of enemies in Cog of Destiny, that's not gonna change her ability to double much in this game.

Speaking of doubling, Hector's got 17 speed. I could use the speedwings to make him basically guaranteed to surpass 20 very soon, but I think I'm gonna wait, since he sure as hell doesn't need it to double here.

This chapter has some pretty lenient recruitment limits, and to make them even more so I'm having Jaffar take over all thieving duties. It's nice that assassins can still use lockpicks, even if it makes no sense why they forgot how to steal.

I have to assume that killing Denning is not an early victory condition. If it is, and it turns out that somehow the rest of the morphs can't function without his “leadership... I am going to be very unkind to this game in numerous ways.

Holy shit this map has a lot of post-deploy dialogue. First Farina gives me some shit about deploying her indoors, surrounded by archers (I know Vaida does this too, but funnily enough, Heath doesn't, which accidentally makes sense because he has the Delphi shield), then Hector tells all the green units (who yet again refused to show up until after deployment) to hold their positions and not move, then Lyn talks to a still-recovering Eliwood, then Nils comes out of hiding in the basement briefly to show he's still completely shaken up about Ninian's death.

...Speaking of which...

...I just noticed...

When Erk died, Priscilla's support with him vanished and she could A rank Heath.

But Eliwood's A support with Ninian is still there.

I mean, I get that it's to keep him from A ranking someone else later, but holy shit, that's a pretty big spoiler for anyone who notices that! It pretty much gives away that she comes back!

I decided to just go full tilt with Priscilla, rushing out to fight the southern generals with her insane 30% crit rate with thunder (thanks to Heath's bonus and the enemies' 0 luck), only for things to go wrong pretty quickly. Bartre got put to sleep, Canas got silenced, and Heath got berserked, and I only had Priscilla down in that lower four-deploy area to start healing them with, so obviously Heath got priority. But now the luna shamans are barreling towards a Bartre who can't be healed or moved, and Heath and Priscilla have to retreat back into that chamber to hold them off.

But in a massive change of fortune, the second turn had all three status staves miss, just in time for me to kill all but one of the staff-using druids. I managed to protect Bartre by having Lowen block off the only spot across the wall he could be 2-ranged from and then killing off the longbowman. But Denning is... his resistance is absolutely ridiculous, so I'm gonna have to be persistent to kill this guy, or bring down some more heavy hitters quickly.

Honestly, I don't like Hector's promoted hand axe animation. Holding the thing with two hands like a fighter, holding it close to his face like he's trying to defend himself, when he used to do it with a badass single handed throw... it's just not as cool.

...Were these druid and sniper reinforcements from the upper stairs always here on other modes?

The reinforcements coming from the place Nils is allegedly fucking hiding in!?

Thieves have arrived, but for some reason they prioritized the southeastern door rather than the chests. Works for me, gives me more time to kill the thieves with Heath and Priscilla.

A devil axe general just attacked Harken, succeeded in hitting, and killed himself because it backfired. And hilariously, his sprite vanished, but then the “clunk clunk” stepping sound effects played for him returning to his stationary position despite there being no sprite there to actually do the stepping back.

At any rate, given that I haven't had any time or opening to restore Bartre, he's only just now recovered halfway through the map, and he's not strong enough to do even one damage to a lot of these generals... I think I can safely say that there's no way in hell I'm gonna be able to get him to level 5 in time. Even if I restart, the odds of Bartre not having to spend a ton of the chapter asleep are... slim to none.

And I was so fucking close, too.

Oh well.

It's not like I was actually gonna use Karla, but... to come so close, only to have to give up...

I have one last-ditch effort I'm gonna try. It looks like with a killer axe, Bartre can damage one of the recent reinforcement generals. I'll have Canas hide behind him. And try to chip damage him as much as I can.

...Oh man, this is actually working well enough that it's going to hurt so much if it just barely doesn't.

...Hahahahaha.

Remember when I said Pent's staff rank was so good I was worried he'd cap staves before tomes?

...Guess what I just realized actually happened.

Pent has an S rank in staves. Hilarious, but tragically useless.

Alright. I've timed it to milk the general for as much battle exp as I can while still just barely managing to finish him off on the enemy phase of the final turn. I just need 26 exp, and Bartre hits level 5.

Come on baby, don't fuck me on this!

YES! FUCK YES!

BARTRE HIT LEVEL 5 ON THE LAST POSSIBLE TURN WITH 7 EXP TO SPARE!

YEAH, BARTRE, GO AHEAD AND GET THAT HP AND LUCK LEVEL UP! I DON'T FUCKING CARE! YOUR DUTY HAS BEEN FULFILLED! FUCK YES!

I'M GONNA FINALLY SEE THIS SHIT FOR THE FIRST TIME.

Ah yes, now Athos is asking why they didn't use the legendary weapons. Now, I get the story reasons for why Eliwood and Hector don't want to use their legendary weapons. Eliwood's traumatized, and Hector's gotten a very bad impression of what a weapon that acts on its own is capable of. But... gameplaywise, it's a massive cocktease to have us go through those major ordeals to get the things, only us to have to wait until the very last chapter to use them.

I mean, in fairness, I probably wouldn't use the things until the final chapter anyway, given how fragile they are, but still, having the choice taken away is annoying.

Of course, when it comes to having a legendary weapon and refusing to use it... I mean, Hector and Eliwood have nothing on a certain other lord in the series.

But more on that in a month or two.

Oh yes, and, of course, the ending scene, where Hector confronts Oswin about what he's obviously been hiding from him... only for him to refuse to tell even under threat of death, which makes Hector realize that his brother isn't just bedridden, he's dead.

That... I'm not gonna lie, that was a pretty fantastic scene right there. Really great way to end the chapter, and by far the best Hector-Mode-exclusive scene in the entire story. I don't remember this scene as a kid at all, and I know I beat Hector Mode at least once.

But with that, we're done here. Tune in tomorrow and I'll be doing 31x and, obviously, since that chapter is a 5 turn long shopping spree, I'll do chapter 32 as well.

Stay safe, everyone!

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ah yes, now Athos is asking why they didn't use the legendary weapons. Now, I get the story reasons for why Eliwood and Hector don't want to use their legendary weapons. Eliwood's traumatized, and Hector's gotten a very bad impression of what a weapon that acts on its own is capable of. But... gameplaywise, it's a massive cocktease to have us go through those major ordeals to get the things, only us to have to wait until the very last chapter to use them.

I mean, in fairness, I probably wouldn't use the things until the final chapter anyway, given how fragile they are, but still, having the choice taken away is annoying.

Of course, when it comes to having a legendary weapon and refusing to use it... I mean, Hector and Eliwood have nothing on a certain other lord in the series.

But more on that in a month or two.

Speaking of which, I'd honestly say that Hector is the only one whose legendary weapon is worth using, and that's because he is built such that he can use it with minimal AS loss. Compare to Eliwood and Lyn, who cough up 7 and 8 AS hairballs respectively with Durandal and the Sol Katti. What the bloody fuck? All this trouble for a weapon that isn't even practical to use? :facepalm: The Sol Katti is even worse because for how heavy it is, it's not even stronger than a Silver Sword.

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Priscilla is statistically always a baller if you promote at or near 20, the rough part can be getting out of E rank anima and it's 4 might tomes.

Pent always S ranks staves for me, physic gives 22 w-exp while any non Elfire tome gives 1 (Elfire gives 2).

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I find the most logical assumption in regards to Nergal is that he is a dragon and he's simply just forgot. That would explain both his longevity and the fact that Nils and Ninian can transform while Sophia appearantly can't. I seem to be the only one who's ever jumped to this conclusion though.

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Maybe Sophia just doesn't have a stone tho. Or does she? Idk I forgot her FE6 supports, maybe she mentions it at some point.

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2 hours ago, Jotari said:

I find the most logical assumption in regards to Nergal is that he is a dragon and he's simply just forgot. That would explain both his longevity and the fact that Nils and Ninian can transform while Sophia appearantly can't. I seem to be the only one who's ever jumped to this conclusion though.

I think he's stated to be human. I don't really like the FE7 plot though, so I tend to ignore the things that don't make sense and just play FE6 instead.

37 minutes ago, Koops said:

Maybe Sophia just doesn't have a stone tho. Or does she? Idk I forgot her FE6 supports, maybe she mentions it at some point.

I actually went through and read her supports. Gotta say, it affirms that she's not a great character, but it also affirms that there is no mention of a dragon stone in it. It also didn't say why she's a shaman and not a manakete, though, but that was never a complicating factor before FE7 came along. Until FE7, every transforming unit was a full blooded manakete, and I think Ninian and Nils are the only exceptions to that before inheritance mechanics became a thing (EDIT: specifically in Awakening and Fates, forgot about FE4 somehow). There are no branded that transform, no half-dragons in Archanaea.

Sofia's support with Igrene also says that Arcadia is actually a technologically primitive society compared to the rest of Elibe, which I think FE7 ignored because FE7 is a badly written game. I like it though, because even though it's played as a noble savage thing it affirms viewpoints established in an FE6 fanfiction which I wrote.

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1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I think he's stated to be human. I don't really like the FE7 plot though, so I tend to ignore the things that don't make sense and just play FE6 instead.

Hench the whole he's forgotten about it thing. If he lost his dragon stone centuries ago and has been wandering the world in human form then both him and Athos would assume he's human.

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I think assuming this stretches beyond the canon, tho. It's just easier to just say that he's human but being a shaman who didn't get possessed by dark magic early on gave him the knowledge needed to make his own life longer somewhere down the line? Everyone else who uses dark magic in Elibe is apparently either just consumed by it (Canas's brothers) or just die (Canas, although not because of Dark Magic specifically), but even then Niime exists so that probably doesn't work anyway, because she sure as hell looks like she might drop dead any minute in a year or two after FE6, while Nergal doesn't look nearly as old.

Dammit. What's Nergal's deal anymore? Yeah let's just say he's secretly a dragon and call it a day.

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