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

[AnonymousSpeed]

8 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Saying that Sacred Stones's story is good is even more of one.

As long as you admit that FE7 is a stupid story about stupid characters, I'll let that one slide. After all, video game plots are never good, they merely are more acceptable than others.

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'd prepare for disappointment on the villain front if I were you. In fact, the quantity-over-quality approach on villains is yet another aspect that hurts Sacred Stones's story.

"Quantity of quality" except the villains in Sacred Stones actually bother to show up and do things and are still higher quality than the FE7 ones.

Nergal can twirl his Jafar goatee and warp around like a lunatic who literally does not remember his motivation all he wants. Lyon is still the better antagonist, because even being possessed by a literal demon, he's a more sympathetic tragic villain than Nergal is.

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I don't see it when one side of the story is essentially filler.

At the very least Eirika feels like she belongs in the game (unlike Lyn) and has mostly original maps on her route (unlike Hector).

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

While the actual story is full of nonsense, it's so good at storytelling compared to the games that came before it that I can only really consider it worse than the only game so far to have a story I found engaging at all. Blazing Blade managed to make me feel things. Only Genealogy managed to do that so far. I also had to consider that half the games on this list don't even beat Blazing Blade in terms of story.

59 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

I think a lot of people who critique stories ignore just how important presentation is.

Nah mate. FE7 is both logically and emotionally contrived, the (presentation / storytelling) is superficially acceptable but just as bad as the rest of the story.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Nah mate. FE7 is both logically and emotionally contrived, the (presentation / storytelling) is superficially acceptable but just as bad as the rest of the story.

Maybe I'll agree with you after seeing later stories again, but you have to keep in mind what I've played before this and just how many strides forward this game took for the franchise, doing crucial story stuff for the first time ever in the series. This game does not have very impressive competition so far.

[Shadow Mir]

16 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

"Quantity of quality" except the villains in Sacred Stones actually bother to show up and do things and are still higher quality than the FE7 ones.

Like Riev, who does fuck all until all the other generals are dead (or turned traitor, in Duessel's case), and all he does is attack the heroes at night? Yeah, no. That's not winning any awards from me anytime soon. And that's ignoring he's about as nuanced as Caellach and Valter, aka not at all. I've seen Saturday morning cartoon villains with more nuance than him, or most of SS's villains, for that matter. As far as I'm concerned, Glen and Duessel are the only SS villains who aren't steaming piles of manure (and Duessel probably doesn't even count as one).

Edited April 28, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Koops]

What about attacking at night is bad, though? Isn't that the better thing to do since that's the time where everyone is supposed to be the most vulnerable? I don't see how that detracts from Riev's character (although among the villains he IS the least interesting but I don't think this moment in particular is the reason).

[Shadow Mir]

7 minutes ago, Koops said:

What about attacking at night is bad, though? Isn't that the better thing to do since that's the time where everyone is supposed to be the most vulnerable? I don't see how that detracts from Riev's character (although among the villains he IS the least interesting but I don't think this moment in particular is the reason).

Nothing, other than the fact that that's all he does of note. For someone who's supposed to be one of the main antagonists, that's pretty bad. Of course, I'd blame that the fact that that's all he does on the fact that Sacred Stones is so short. On that note, I'd like a remake to lengthen the game, because SS being so short just does its already questionable story no favours.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Koops]

Fair enough.

Although I wouldn't say it's because FE8 is short. 20-ish chapters is still enough time to develop a character so they could've made use of that, since they introduce him early on anyway.

[Acacia Sgt]

55 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Like Riev, who does fuck all until all the other generals are dead (or turned traitor, in Duessel's case), and all he does is attack the heroes at night? Yeah, no. That's not winning any awards from me anytime soon.

Oh really?

Then wait until Alastor reaches Chapters 6, Ephraim Chapter 11, AND Ephraim Chapter 12. Then we'll see if he really does nothing at all until Chapter 19...

[Hello72207]

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Meanwhile Franz, who starts off with a promising full left side level up, is... well I mean he's a cavalier in a GBA Fire Emblem. He can't be anything but amazing.

I can't get over how young he looks though. He looks barely older than the trainee units. Such a baby-face!

Forde, Kyle, and Treck would like to know your location.

Also, I believe in Franz's support with Amelia, he says that they are about the same age. So yeah, he's just a trainee that got trained as a knight and Amelia didn't.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Hello72207

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

As long as you admit that FE7 is a stupid story about stupid characters, I'll let that one slide. After all, video game plots are never good, they merely are more acceptable than others.

If you seriously believe that, then why the hell are you arguing with me in the first place? Anyway, you're wasting your time, and mine, asking the impossible.

[Benice]

1 hour ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Oh really?

Then wait until Alastor reaches Chapters 6, Ephraim Chapter 11, AND Ephraim Chapter 12. Then we'll see if he really does nothing at all until Chapter 19...

 

I actually think Eirika's decision in ch. 19 doesn't detract from her character:

Spoiler

I mean, if my best friend was dying and I had a way to potentially save him, I'd absolutely try it.

 

[Boomhauer007]

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

There doesn't appear to have been an actual war between any of the sacred stone nations in ages! I get the idea of keeping a military ready just in case, but I'm pretty sure that Grado couldn't possibly need an army big enough to invade multiple other countries simultaneously unless it was actually planning to invade other countries simultaneously, or to do some America-level shit like taking up the job of policing the seas against pirates and bolstering the armed forces of its allies.

And near as I can tell, Grado never did any of the latter, and wouldn't dream of doing the former until Lyon got possessed and Vigarde became his zombie puppet. So what the fuck did they plan to use that massive army for? Is it just part of their culture in case the demon king or anything else like it should ever return?

 

IIRC they started building up the army at the possession like you said, which was a year or two ago in the game. So not a ton of time, but the army didn't pop out of nowhere. And the entire time they were recruiting people like Callaech and Valter, and probably literally anyone, instead of vetting for knightly virtues and all that.

It's also heavily implied Riev has a hotline to the demon king, which certainly doesn't hurt their invading capacities. 

[AnonymousSpeed]

2 hours ago, Koops said:

Although I wouldn't say it's because FE8 is short. 20-ish chapters is still enough time to develop a character so they could've made use of that, since they introduce him early on anyway.

It's about how much content you get in FE7 without Lyn mode. Gaiden chapters certainly do help FE7 a bit there, though.

2 hours ago, Hello72207 said:

Forde, Kyle, and Treck would like to know your location.

Hey now, Kyle and Trek are good. Trek may be the worst paladin in FE6, but he can still rescue drop, which makes him C tier by default.

58 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

If you seriously believe that, then why the hell are you arguing with me in the first place?

Because it's funny.

Besides, all because the story in Sacred Stones isn't great doesn't mean it isn't better than the story in Blazing Sword.

58 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Anyway, you're wasting your time, and mine, asking the impossible.

Hey now, don't be such a pessimist. The impossible is only a thorough enough theory crafting away from being done.

[Alastor15243]

35 minutes ago, Boomhauer007 said:

 

IIRC they started building up the army at the possession like you said, which was a year or two ago in the game. So not a ton of time, but the army didn't pop out of nowhere. And the entire time they were recruiting people like Callaech and Valter, and probably literally anyone, instead of vetting for knightly virtues and all that.

It's also heavily implied Riev has a hotline to the demon king, which certainly doesn't hurt their invading capacities. 

And in all of this time, not one peep of this war preparation got out to the other nations?

Edited April 29, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Koops said:

What about attacking at night is bad, though? Isn't that the better thing to do since that's the time where everyone is supposed to be the most vulnerable? I don't see how that detracts from Riev's character (although among the villains he IS the least interesting but I don't think this moment in particular is the reason).

I just wouldn't bother arguing with Mir at all. It gets very tiresome and repetitive.

[AnonymousSpeed]

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Maybe I'll agree with you after seeing later stories again, but you have to keep in mind what I've played before this and just how many strides forward this game took for the franchise, doing crucial story stuff for the first time ever in the series. This game does not have very impressive competition so far.

I actually forgot to respond to this, sorry.

Yes, it's competition isn't very impressive, but I wouldn't say it's good just because it's "good for Fire Emblem" and I would still dispute that claim. It might have tried something new for the franchise but not new in general, I think the excessive numbers of cliches in the plot is part of its problem. It's like there was this list of beats they thought good stories had to hit and tried to cram all those in there instead of adding the beats to make a cohesive Blazing Sword story.

[Alastor15243]

9 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I actually forgot to respond to this, sorry.

Yes, it's competition isn't very impressive, but I wouldn't say it's good just because it's "good for Fire Emblem" and I would still dispute that claim. It might have tried something new for the franchise but not new in general, I think the excessive numbers of cliches in the plot is part of its problem. It's like there was this list of beats they thought good stories had to hit and tried to cram all those in there instead of adding the beats to make a cohesive Blazing Sword story.

Which 1-6 games would you consider to have better storytelling than FE7?

[AnonymousSpeed]

12 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Which 1-6 games would you consider to have better storytelling than FE7?

Honestly, 4 and 6, which are coincidentally the two I've played.

I don't think either is great, but let's look at FE6, since I'm more familiar with it. It's extraordinarily plain, but I think neutral execution is preferable to negative execution, and I find the FE7 story to be fairly obnoxious.

[Jotari]

Just now, AnonymousSpeed said:

Honestly, 4 and 6, which are coincidentally the two I've played.

I don't think either is great, but let's look at FE6, since I'm more familiar with it. It's extraordinarily plain, but I think neutral execution is preferable to negative execution, and I find the FE7 story to be fairly obnoxious.

Alastair's argument though is that Blazing Blade had rather good execution, it was just executing a very bad plot. The terms I'd personally try to use would be narrative and writing, with writing being the prose (or mostly the dialogue here) and narrative being the actual things that happen. The how Vs the what so to speak. In which case Blazing Blade has good writing but a very poor narrative.

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Alastair's argument though is that Blazing Blade had rather good execution, it was just executing a very bad plot

And I think that's wrong, for reasons I've mentioned. There's an extent to which you can't separate the content and presentation of the content which may be the cause of this confusion, but I'll go ahead and say that I don't like the moment-to-moment dialogue in FE7. The characters are annoying, and that goes hand in hand with not liking their "how"-ness.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

And I think that's wrong, for reasons I've mentioned. There's an extent to which you can't separate the content and presentation of the content which may be the cause of this confusion, but I'll go ahead and say that I don't like the moment-to-moment dialogue in FE7. The characters are annoying, and that goes hand in hand with not liking their "how"-ness.

Well that's a judgement call by you then, and not one I can really contest as I haven't earnestly read the story of Blazing Blade since my initial playthrough many years ago. I think Alastor is correct in identifying that it did change the overall style in which Fire Emblem stories are told (with the exception of Shadow Dragon which retained the older more story book style).

[Shadow Mir]

On 1/31/2020 at 4:53 PM, Alastor15243 said:

And here we meet Saul, the very, very first in the long and “proud” tradition of obsessive flirts that have become a staple of this series, ranging from the adorably hopeless romantics like Sain and Gatrie, who are in love with love itself, to the manipulative scumbags and rapey filth embodied by Sylvain and Soleil, the latter of whom somehow manages to compete for the worst character award in a game with an unapologetic serial killer with bad hair and the voice of Tommy Pickles. 

I don't think Sylvain is that bad - the thing is, his issues with women come from the fact that people overemphasize Crests (See: his support with Dorothea, who admits she had a similar problem during her tenure as a songstress - that while she got presents and marriage proposals, it was only for her talents, and that people never bothered to get to actually know her).

Edited April 29, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

I don't think Sylvain is that bad - the thing is, his issues with women come from the fact that people overemphasize Crests (See: his support with Dorothea, who admits she had a similar problem during her tenure as a songstress - that while she got presents and marriage proposals, it was only for her talents).

I'll have to check that support out, but I don't think it'll change anything. That doesn't go anywhere near far enough to explain the way he treats people.

[Boomhauer007]

14 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

And in all of this time, not one peep of this war preparation got out to the other nations?

Going off memory:

Carcino was bought out by Grado and the bad guys (Pablo and crew) were actively hunting the good guys so they don't care

Jehanna was being usurped by Carlyle with no Joshua around

Frelia is weird, where I think Innes has to have an idea it was happening because "spy network" but couldn't do much about it (their Prince is a bow locked foot unit after all) but Tana has no idea

Rausten knew the darkness was coming from Grado but for some reason their solution was to send their possibly brain damaged lone heir to the throne with two other people.

I've always believed King Fado is Eirika level of "Vigarde would never invade us we've been pals forever"

Idk if those are good explanations but I think that's what's going on 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Boomhauer007

[Alastor15243]

Sacred Stones Day 3: Chapter 2

...I just realized I never actually finished the Chapter 1 cutscene somehow. I was derailed by the timeframe Tana implied and never finished the rest. Okay, let's see that real quick.

...More time fuckery. Apparently word of what happened to Fado reached Hayden before Eirika and Seth did.

I can only assume that the “mounts have infinite stamina” trope is in play, and that information was delivered by pegasus knights, like the info about Ephraim's activities.

...But even then, how the fuck were they able to confirm his death while the country was swarming with enemy troops and Seth and Eirika barely escaped with their lives?

And then Hayden talks about Ephraim charging into Grado “Even though Renais has fallen.”

Okay.

That...

...Hayden.

Dude.

Let me explain something to you about how time works.

You say that you received word that Ephraim has learned of Renais's fall and is still fighting. That is what you're saying. When you say “Even though Renais has fallen, he charges into the enemy's heart,” you don't follow it up with “The poor lad doesn't even know yet that his fight is pointless”, you follow it up with “He is truly Fado's son... What a valiant youth.”, clearly indicating that he knows Renais has fallen, and is valiant enough to fight on anyway.

Okay. So.

One thing that this implies is that, by the time the pegasus knights even started their return trip from Grado back to Frelia, enough time had already passed since Renais fell that word of it reached Grado and thus Ephraim. Otherwise, the pegasus knights would be lying, or Hayden's talking out of his ass, assuming that Ephraim's fighting on in spite of his country's fall when in reality Ephraim either didn't know it happened yet, or it hadn't happened yet at all.

Which means that Eirika and Seth made a trip from Castle Renais to Castle Frelia...

And in the same fucking timespan...

...messengers from Renais made it back to Grado, Ephraim overheard, decided to keep fighting anyway, and then Frelian pegasus knights, arriving long enough after Renais's fall for this to be the information they arrived in time to collect, flew all the way back to Frelia.

AND THEN...

AND THEN...

He finishes it off with “I wish I knew whether or not he remains unharmed, but I do not.”

That is an utterly meaningless statement to make, because it's blatantly obvious to anyone who understands the concepts of snail mail. Unless, of course, he's saying that the pegasus knights didn't even know the answer to that question at the time, meaning they're only going by rumors of what Ephraim's been up to, meaning the battle that spawned the word-of-mouth that Ephraim's kept on fighting in spite of his castle's fall occurred even further in the past, which would imply that even more fucking time must have gone by.

...UGHHHHHHH...

...I feel like one of those people trying to comprehend the infamous 5-week-long car ride in All-Star Batman and Robin.

...Can the Fire Emblem games just make “sending stones” a mainstay of military technology already? That's all it takes to make this idiocy go away! Just give your soldiers telephones if you're not going to take this seriously!

...Alright. Moving on.

So of course, Eirika decides to head off on a rescue mission to bring Ephraim back, despite having never actually been in a real battle before in her life.

Now.

On one hand, I can totally imagine a character doing this. It's a rash, stupid, but entirely understandable emotional decision. She's just lost her father. She only has her brother left, and he could die any day now. She would rather risk almost certain death than simply leave her brother to die, leaving her without any family left at all. I totally get that.

...Or I could, if she displayed even the slightest bit of emotional motivation here. But she's just so... reserved.

Calm.

Polite.

It makes it feel like this is a decision she's made calmly and rationally, which feels... utterly surreal.

And now Hayden, who recognizes this plan as borderline suicidal... caves, and sends three of his most loyal knights with her, where he must be confident they will almost assuredly die.

And almost as if Moulder is my fucking spirit animal, he's all “Hm. Quite a grave responsibility you've given us.”

Actually, as much as I love that borderline deadpan snark there, that highlights another problem I've been having with the story so far. Every single heroic character introduced so far, with the exception of Tana, has almost the exact same temperament. Seth, Eirika, Hayden, Gilliam, Vanessa, Moulder, and to a somewhat lesser degree Franz, have this exact same attitude of “unfazed, stiff, polite and unflappable”.

An entire fucking country has just been ransacked. The king is dead. The army has been decimated. Villages and houses have been burned to the fucking ground.

And so far, not one single protagonist has displayed even the slightest emotional reaction to any of it.

Eirika had forcefully been pulled away from her father and onto horseback by Seth, and had to watch her father vanish around the corner as huge numbers of troops swarmed the throne room...

...And the next line we hear from those two is Seth apologizing for being improper in how he grabbed a lady in order to pull her to safety, and Eirika's telling him not to be ridiculous, because the extreme situation more than justified it.

THE FUCK ARE THESE CHARACTERS!?

Imagine if this were Ostia, or Pherae, or Caelin that had been invaded and destroyed, and the FE7 trio and their retainers barely escaped. There would've been a much wider variety of reactions to this event. Marcus and Oswin might have acted similarly to Seth, but we would've gotten interesting character moments between Hector, Eliwood and Lyn, and those reactions would have varied wildly depending on which castle had just been destroyed.

...In fairness, as I write this, I realize that's not entirely a fair comparison. We know Hector, Eliwood and Lyn. Hell, even by the start of chapter 11, we knew Lyn. We don't know Eirika yet, and emotional reactions to intense tragedy often feel empty and cheap when they're done by people we don't yet know anything about.

But that doesn't mean the solution is to make everyone have no reaction at all.

The game should have had at least a few chapters before the fall of Renais. Enough time for us to get to know these characters in a non-crisis situation. To make the fall of Renais actually mean something to the audience, and to give the characters the opportunity to display some goddamned emotion. And I'm not even saying it needs to be Eirika who shows it! It would make her decision to go save Ephraim more sympathetic and understandable, but really I just want to see more than one single fucking attitude represented by this party. I've got five party members already, and they barely even superficially have different personalities.

By this time in Lyn Mode, we only had three playable characters, and yet we knew a hell of a lot more about each of them.

We knew that Lyn was a proud but lonely girl with a heart full of thoughts of revenge against the monsters who killed her family, but we also knew that this thirst for vengeance was in a sense largely secondary, a result of having no other outlet for her crushing loneliness, as we saw her instantly sidetracked from her Inigo Montoya training plans by the thought of still having a grandfather left and getting to see him.

We knew that Sain was a foolhardy, hopeless romantic prone to making stupid decisions fueled by passion, such as completely ignoring the weapon triangle.

Kent is the one we knew the least about, mostly due to his job as a straight man, but we still got to see more of his personality than anyone so far in Sacred Stones due to seeing how he interacts with Sain.

And right at the end of the chapter, Tana is the first one to give any kind of emotional reaction to the fall of Renais, even if it's just a little, and it's not even her country! She asks questions that Eirika could have easily asked by now. Why is Grado invading when the emperor is a man of peace and she and Ephraim are friends with his son?

Anyway, on to the actual chapter 2 proper. We start on the menu, and with no shops available yet, we have no option other than to “manage items” or move forward.

I do kinda like how easily the navigable overworld map transitions into traditional pre-battle narration scenes.

Curious how the spot that's marked as our eventual destination is literally right in the middle of a body of-

...No, wait, that's right, the castle where we reunite with Ephraim was in the middle of a body of water.

...Is that castle's “moat” so huge that it's actually a whole lake?

Anyway, we finally, in chapter 2, get playable characters with a different temperament than the first five.

The battle starts, and I wish difficult mode still had that scene from the tutorial where Ross and Garcia talk as Vanessa rescues Ross. I don't know why, I just like how the game acknowledges that a pegasus knight just swooped down and grabbed Garcia's son, and he knows they've come to help. That line still could've been there if the rescue happened on turn 1, so I don't get why they removed it.

…

Okay, so this village talk is kind of ludicrous. Selena and a villager are already talking about the danger the bandits pose, but then “Erina” shows up telling them to close their gates, and that's all it took?

“Bandits are coming! What are we going to do!? We're doomed!”

“Everyone! You must close the village gates! Bandits are coming!”

“...Close... the gates? My... my god... that's brilliant!

I wonder if Selena actually doesn't recognize Eirika. She was there when Renais fell. I suppose it's believable she didn't see Eirika on Seth's horse's back, given she didn't give chase then...

...Ah fuck it. It can't possibly compare to Corrin not recognizing Azura at the opera house, so let's just keep going.

But then... oh wow... Selena's reaction to “Erina” being startled at the revelation that Selena is a general in Grado's army, is to say “is something wrong?”. As if she can't even imagine the likely reason why a citizen of Renais is bothered by being face to face with a general of the invading army. Really, a far better response would have been something like “Peace, I mean you no harm” or something, to make it clear she recognizes the very understandable concerns people would have. I mean, she had to have seen the destroyed houses right outside the capital, the ones that almost assuredly had to have been destroyed by Grado's men.

...Unless the villagers near the castle retreated into the castle weeks ago and have been holed up there this whole time while the bandits outside considered their abandoned homes fair game. I mean I suppose that's plausible.

“These aren't soldiers. They're people. Should they suffer because their leaders fight?”

She says this as if she has some kind of sense that Fado has done something wrong that the villagers shouldn't be blamed for. Do we ever actually clearly hear anything other than ad-hominem attacks against the royalty as to what on earth the people of Grado thought they were fighting for?

Curious. I just saw a strange, green diamond-shaped icon next to Garcia's name during combat. I'll have to look out for that to see under what conditions it appears, because the bandit he was fighting didn't have one.

Anyway, we have Ross, the first of the trainee units. Units who aren't even tier 1. I loved this concept as a kid, as I'm sure a lot of people did, but now that I'm basically completely done with grinding, it's entirely lost its appeal with me. Ross at least shows up really early, and has the most realistic chance of being trained without grind. But I won't be using him.

Actually, what I'd really like to do is leave Ross, Ewan and Amelia completely untrained so I can try this fun challenge run idea Mekkah came up with, where you do the Tower of Valni the whole way through using only the trainee units at minimum level. I actually did that earlier replay two ish years ago largely for the purpose of setting that up, and I nearly managed to do it, but Amelia got a single point of exp from being attacked at range that I frustratingly didn't reset the level over, and while that didn't stop me from trying it (though I gave up when I lost super close to victory), I'd really like to try it again with a file where they're completely at 0 exp gained. Of course, the way he did it, he had them all use their trainee promotions too, but that'd require doing a third run of the game to unlock them, and I'd like to try this with free promotion first.

I'd also have to work out what the rules for getting new supplies are, because I don't think you can survive just with what you get from chests and enemy drops.

Ah yes, the other northern village has a girl talking about some gallant gentleman who saved her. “He was dressed like a mercenary, but he had an air of elegance about him”...

I have to assume she's talking about someone we meet in-game, but I can't imagine who it could possibly be.

Anyway, we get an elixir for our trouble.

And then Seth gets the pure water while Franz deals with the bandits by the southern mountains and Eirika fights the reinforcements from the mountains above the pure water village, in the hopes of gaining some much-needed exp while swordfighters are still king of the land of axes.

I really like how well Eirika's normal attack flows into her critical attack. She lunges, she recovers to the rear and then immediately continues the step into a hop even further backward, in one fluid motion, to lunge even harder.

Also, I got Garcia on schedule, forgot to mention. He's... I mean I'm looking at his stats, he's basically Dorcas. That same inexplicable, ridiculous, this-game-has-armor-knights-who-are-faster-than-that 20% speed growth.

In fact, I just checked. There's literally only one playable character with a speed growth as bad as Garcia's, and it's Ewan's phantom.

Funny enough, despite all the wildly varying tens digits of the weapon costs, I managed to spend exactly 2000 gold on weapons before finishing up. Of course, I forgot that there's literally no rush, and I can go back to buy shit basically any time I like. I'm torn. I liked the sense of being stuck in a part of the game with limited supplies and needing to make what you have work, but also... it's kind of, no, amazingly shitty to do that to a first-time player, especially one you warn in the tutorial not to buy too much at one time.

Seth killed the boss, and he's got 90 exp so far. Almost to a level up.

I like this thing about how Garcia quit being a soldier to take care of his son as a single dad.

...And also that Ross is having none of it. Ross is probably my favorite character so far in this game, mostly because he's the one who finally breaks up the monotony of calm, unflappable stonefaces I've been dealing with. He's not exactly smart or wise, aside from him pointing out that Garcia clearly misses fighting and is lying to himself, but he feels like an actual child.

Though the sweetness of this entire scene is kind of undercut by the fact that Ross is persuading Garcia to join these people on what would in real life be a hilariously doomed suicide mission.

And now the villagers deliver yet more “rumors” laden with timespace fuckery. Apparently the villagers got word of even more up-to-date news of Ephraim's situation, and that he's in danger of being overwhelmed any day now. In fairness, they may just be hearing Grado propaganda from the Grado soldiers, but... after what happened at the end of last chapter, I'm not kidding myself. The writers aren't thinking about this at all.

Okay, at first I thought they were going to have Eirika's bracelet stolen literally the scene after she got warned about bandits stealing anything valuable, but at least they put a flashback between the two scenes.

It's occurred to me that her portrait might be helping to color my impression of Eirika (though the text is certainly doing a good enough job on its own). The eyes feel a bit too... big and vacant. Lyn, Eliwood and Hector all had smaller (though still very anime-esque) eyes that felt alert and alive and could believably fit with multiple different minor emotions, and when major emotional scenes happened, they had other expressions on their sprites to convey that. Meanwhile, Eirika's eyes are huge, and her expression is completely vacant. I'm almost reminded of Female Byleth's robotic, soulless gaze.

I'm surprised that Eirika didn't immediately get suspicious that her reasonable (from what she knew at the time) statement (that they couldn't waste time getting back a bracelet just for sentimental value when her brother could die at any time) was so swiftly rejected by Seth who insisted they get it back “regardless of cost”. How could Eirika hear that and not demand to know what the hell is up with the bracelet? How could she then proceed to get to a situation where Grado soldiers were holding people hostage in order to get that same bracelet from her and not realize there's something she doesn't know about how vitally important those things are?

...But at any rate, that's it for today.

Alright, I'm heading off.

Stay safe, everyone.

Edited July 26, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Icelerate]

On 4/27/2020 at 11:59 AM, Alastor15243 said:

Eirika is doing surprisingly little freaking out about her father's capture and possible death. She is concerned, but she's staying impressively calm in the situation. Her naivete may be frankly legendary in the fandom, but I don't think I gave her enough credit for her nerve.

That said, it could also be interpreted as her being so sheltered she doesn't fully understand the gravity of the situation, but... time will tell.

 

Seth has to literally grab her because Eirika is paralyzed with concern for her father. 

Spoiler

Eirika:
“Father, you can’t stay! You mustn’t! If you remain behind, then so shall I!”

Fado:
“Go now, Seth! Ride! Take her to safety!”

(Seth leaves)

Eirika:
“Father!”

Seth:
“Forgive me, your highness.”

(Seth and Eirika leave, a bunch of enemy soldiers come up to the King)

----------------------------------------------------------

Seth:
“Princess Eirika! This way! I can see no more of Grado’s men. If we’ve made it this far, we’ve surely earned a moment’s rest. Please forgive my grabbing you so… brusquely earlier.”

 

Also, Seth tricked her into thinking her father was fine so yes you answered your own question. 

Spoiler

Eirika:
“… I wonder how my father fares alone in the castle. Do you think he’s safe? And what of my brother on the Grado front? We’ve heard nothing from him for days.”

Seth:
“King Fado and Prince Ephraim are both valiant and brave men. I doubt even the might of the Grado Empire can hold them in check. More important to me, Your Highness, is that you look to your own safety. How sad the two of them would be if something were to happen to you. We must reach Frelia to ensure the day of your happy reunion.”

Eirika:
“Yes, of course. You’re right. Until I’m reunited with my father and brother, I must not despair. Come, Seth. Let us go.”

 

Quote

Yeah, at least so far, Eirika is... just not nearly as interesting a main character as Hector, Lyn, or even Eliwood. It... actually feels kinda jarring, after the various scenes of tragedy in FE7, to see a character reacting so little to a massive amount of tragedy in their lives.

Did you expect her to be anywhere near as interesting as them in just the prologue even with the tragedy that she hasn't fully grasped the weight of? 

 

Quote

...Or I could, if she displayed even the slightest bit of emotional motivation here. But she's just so... reserved.

Calm.

Polite.

It makes it feel like this is a decision she's made calmly and rationally, which feels... utterly surreal.

And now Hayden, who recognizes this plan as borderline suicidal... caves, and sends three of his most loyal knights with her, where he must be confident they will almost assuredly die.

Well my interpretation of why she's so calm and polite is because she has to negotiate support from Hayden to go on the expedition. Imagine if she shows frustration and desperation in that situation, it will make her look weak and incapable of taking such a big responsibility. It's merely a facade considering how much more personality she has when she interacts with people she's close to, such as Ephraim and Lyon. 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Icelerate