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

[Icelerate]

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Nope. What gives it away to Seth that Orson is a traitor is:

1: No reinforcements came from the castle

2: He claimed to have escaped and still left Ephraim in chains

3: He knows about the bracelets

4: He's hiding a blade in his doublet.

Do you think Fado told Emperor Vigarde about the secret of the bracelets? That's the only thing that justifies the Empire knowing about the bracelets. Or Lyon/Demon King used some weird magic power to know about it. 

[Alastor15243]

6 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Do you think Fado told Emperor Vigarde about the secret of the bracelets? That's the only thing that justifies the Empire knowing about the bracelets. Or Lyon/Demon King used some weird magic power to know about it. 

Those were the two options I mentioned when that came up too. Problem I see with the latter is that would mean Lyon has access to intel about the twins' locations he isn't providing with Grado's troops to help catch them.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Alastor15243]

Sacred Stones Day 10: Chapter 8

So Orson says that Ephraim got captured “some two weeks past”. This is unfortunately useless information, as not only is he an unreliable source, but he could be lying about how far back it happened, too. And even if we did know he was telling the truth... I'm pretty sure we have literally no other mention of any timeframe anywhere. So there's literally nothing I can do with this information to make any sense of the plot.

...Orson is strangely claiming that he doesn't know Renais fell. While if I remember correctly he wasn't on-screen when this information was shared to us, I can't imagine it wasn't shared to him later.

...Which suggests to me that “two weeks” ago is a time before he would have heard news of Renais's fall.

...I can't imagine why he'd want to claim that though, and there's still nothing useful I can do with this information.

And then Orson tries to convince Eirika to give the bracelet to him or to Seth, hoping on a 50% chance of getting it right away without looking too much like he specifically wants to have it. But he makes the mistake of revealing he knows what the bracelets are for. Hence the exchange that we had just been discussing prior in this thread:

Seth: ...Sir Orson, I am sorry for this, but please give me your weapons.

Orson: What are you talking about, Seth? Can't you see I'm unarmed? Do you think they allow prisoners weapons?

GEE, ORSON, I DON'T KNOW YET. THAT SEEMS TO CHANGE EVERY FUCKING GAME.

Orson: What kind of injury have you taken that you suggest such foolishness?

Seth: If I am mistaken, then I will give you all due apologies. However, there are questions I have that I cannot answer. Too many questions. Why did no enemy reinforcements come from the castle during our battle outside? Why would you escape your cell and yet leave Prince Ephraim in chains? How do you know of the tie between the bracelets and the Sacred Stone?

Orson: Seth, there is some misunderstanding here. I...

Seth: And why... why do you conceal a blade within your doublet?

...I'm sorry, it may be the fact that I've kind of been binging Danganronpa 2 in my non-FE free time lately, but I'm liking this scene even more than I did as a kid. Damn, Seth, nothing gets past you.

Honestly, it's kind of depressing to say this, but Seth isn't just on top of the tier list in gameplay. He's also on top of it outside of it. He's practically the real lord of this part. He's been making the plans for how to best get to their destination, he's been making all the smart calls, he's been doing all the heavy lifting of getting Eirika out of trouble...

...Honestly, Eirika's last meaningful positive contribution to the plot was back in Chapter 1, when she convinced Seth they should rescue Tana and then secured a few more soldiers for them. Past that point, this story so far would have gone almost exactly the same if Eirika had died shortly afterwards and begged them all to press on to save Ephraim. Exactly the same, except the Lunar Brace wouldn't have been stolen twice.

...In fairness, that second time is totally on Seth not telling Eirika what the bracelets are for, for no justifiable reason. Though on the other hand, I'm not fully convinced that knowledge would have been enough to make Eirika not give the bracelet to try to save the girl's life.

My point is that Seth has really been the one doing all of the actual work in this story. Eirika hasn't really done much of anything in a while, she's just this VIP that Seth, the real driving force of the story, has been escorting around. It's... kind of sad, really. I think this might be a big part of why people hate Eirika so much. If this continues, yeah, I can totally see her as among the worst main characters. Like with Corrin, her fuckups stand out all the more because she hasn't established herself as much of a positive influence on the plot otherwise. Just like with Corrin, aside from her compassion demonstrated in Chapter 1, nearly everything of value she contributes to the story hinges upon what she is, and not what she does.

At least so far.

Still though, on to more positive things...

That moment where Orson turns red... that always got to me as a kid. Such a rare thing to see, and I loved it.

I have to wonder what Tirado and Valter's history is. He's gotten a bit too thoroughly into the role of “loyal aide to Valter, general of Grado” for someone whose master only had that title for what sounds like a few weeks at most.

Was he always Valter's underling, even before his promotion to Moonstone? And was Valter always a high-ranking member of the military, even before Vigarde died and got zombified? That... wouldn't be good.

Man, this game just keeps driving home my earlier point by laying on how much Eirika would have been fucked if Seth weren't here, doesn't it?

Orson: You haven't changed a bit, Seth. If only Eirika had been alone. You, however, simply will not be deceived.

Tirado: And you are General Seth of Renais, correct? I thought to catch a little bird in my net, and it seems instead I've snared a hawk.

Anyway, Tirado confirms that Ephraim escaped that ambush at Renvall's gates, and they merely spread rumors of his capture to lure in Eirika. Rumors which survived whatever Ephraim did in the meantime, despite rumors abounding of Ephraim's exploits before. Those were what the pegasus knights delivered back to Hayden, right?

Valter and Tirado have a pretty impressively strong relationship if Tirado can fuck up twice and still get a chance to redeem himself.

...No, wait, never mind, that was a stupid comment. Valter was the one Ephraim escaped from, and Valter is far too prideful and blood-knight-y to blame other people for his own defeat against an impressive opponent.

…

So they destroyed the bridge to the castle.

...Which means that Ephraim was already inside the building when this happened.

He didn't see Eirika and follow her in or anything.

He's been hiding within the castle walls this entire time.

He escaped from Valter...

Infiltrated Renvall again...

...and hid inside it for days, while it was full of soldiers, waiting for Eirika to arrive so he could bail her out.

...I honestly don't know whether to swoon or vomit at that ridiculous feat.

I think the fact that it happens off-screen is what's getting to me. Honestly...

...Wanna know what would fix a lot of Ephraim's problems in a remake?

Make all of Ephraim's pre-chapter-8 exploits playable as some kind of post-game mini-campaign, or like some inverse to Lyn Mode, where you get to choose your POV character at the beginning of the game, and not the halfway point. If this shit right here were a playable chapter, I'd have no trouble at all thinking Ephraim was a badass for doing this, because I'd have made him earn that achievement, and made it less ridiculous by achieving it myself.

...Actually, the shit Ephraim gets up to prior to this sounds like a way more fun campaign than what we got with Eirika. Guerilla warfare in a Fire Emblem game sounds fascinating, kind of like the beginning of Thracia.

Another thing: As I just said, there's only one entrance to this castle.

...So what exactly was the throne that Ephraim seized before if this map is completely diff...er...

...Oh.

Oooooooooh.

No it isn't.

That's... pretty damned cool! This is clearly the same map! I don't know how I never noticed that before! It's just been slightly moved, like the stuff FE7 did with returning locations!

...Curious how the entrance is clearly different from what they showed on the zoomed-out map they used for Chapter 7 though. There's no huge grassy landmass between the bridge and the entrance, for one thing. And the entrance appears to be on the side of the front wall, rather than in the center. But I have to assume that was so they didn't have to make a custom castle sprite or something. Budgetary concerns.

Speaking of which, I wonder how much more FE6 cost to make than FE7 and FE8, given most of the new assets for the latter two were just character portraits, lord sprites, and unique boss sprites.

In fairness, this game also adds in a shitton of monster class sprites, so I imagine this game was more expensive, at least in the art department, than FE7 was.

This is the first time I've ever had to give any thought to my first move while at the preparation screen. Positioning wasn't that important, but I did have to think about who'd be attacking who, because we're actually in a situation where we have to clear near enemies that are in turn at least partially covered by the attack ranges of other enemies. Meanwhile neither of my currently-trained non-Seth units have that much bulk, so I can't exactly move them with impunity...

Anyway, the soldiers were a joke when picked at from afar. With those steel lances they might have been a threat, but I was able to kill them from out of range of everyone but the archer thanks to magic and javelins. Things would have been slightly messier if either of them had been swordlocked though.

And now Ephraim, Kyle and Forde show up on turn two to bail Eirika out, in a situation that makes nearly the entire adventure Eirika went on seem less than pointless. Even after all of this journey, in the end, it's Ephraim saving Eirika, and not the other way around. Yet again, Eirika feels pointless.

Honestly... Eirika doesn't seem to be a character who was intended to do things. She seems to be a character intended to be and feel things.

Franz finally gained a point of defense... by getting to C with Seth. Well... bulk is bulk.

LUTE GOT DEFENSE AGAIN.

LUTE NOW HAS MORE DEFENSE THAN FRANZ, AND SHE DIDN'T EVEN USE THE DRAGONSHIELD YET.

I'm using Colm and Lute to bait out these knights one by one. Nobody in my army but Seth can enemy-phase the whole lot at once, so I need to wall with someone who can't one-round them so we only fight one at a time while Lute kills them from behind cover. I've got everyone else in my army going in that direction too, except for Seth, Franz and Moulder, who are heading to join up with Ephraim and pals in case those chests start getting swiped.

...Not likely though. If any thieves show up to raid the chests, it'll likely be from the stairs. They can't reach the western chests without breaking a wall or flying across the... indoor pool... so I have to assume any thieves will be headed east. Perfect. That means I can refresh my lockpick supply with Colm without having him chase after Ephraim's group.

Hahahaha. Oh this is cute. It's almost as if the game had a connecting narrative between supports and talks. So in Seth's support with Franz, he tells Franz that by the time he gets to Seth's age, he'll be Seth's equal or even superior.

Then when Franz talks to Forde, he's basically excitedly telling Forde about how one day he'll be on the same level as Seth, almost as if he's still giddy from that compliment he got from Seth and couldn't wait to tell his brother about it.

Oh shit. I tried to bait in one of the cavalry with Ephraim's nearly-broken javelin, but I was thwarted by the AI's stupidity when a non-javelin-bearing unit rode onto that space first. Now I have to have Franz and Seth backtrack a bit to clear these guys out, because I don't think Ephraim can take all three at once.

Also, lesson learned: you can't talk and attack in the same move in this game.

Anyway, the danger with the three cavaliers down to the southwest has passed. Time to clear the path to the treasure room for Colm, and wait for the reinforcements to show up by the staircase.

...As if the game's trying to mock me, Franz finally gains his first real point of defense... and nothing else. As if to say here is your fucking defense level! ARE YOU HAPPY!?

Finally having an opening, Lute uses the dragonshield to bring her defense to an impressive 9 at level 15. Lemme check how she's doing based on averages...

...She's blessed by 2 in magic, skill, speed, res and defense (not counting the dragonshield), and screwed by 1 in HP and luck. I'd say that's a damned good Lute. And thanks to the dragonshield, she'll have more defense upon promotion than she's projected to have at level 20/20.

Oh yeah. This is gonna be good.

I baited in the thief, but... alas... it looks like Colm isn't fast enough to steal from him. Hopefully we'll get Rennac before we run out of lockpicks. If Colm's not out-speeding the thieves now, I don't think he ever will.

Honestly, this narrow hallway to the north of Ephraim's starting position is pretty annoying. Way too little room to navigate. Though it's nothing like some of the stuff seen in earlier games.

And now Lute has the angelic robe, officially putting her into the territory of “bulkier than Franz”. Meaning I can finally feel safe doing some enemy-phase combat with her.

And given how freakishly close she is to promoting, I think I'm gonna feed her the rest of the kills, including the boss.

Alright, so apparently, according to his conversation with Eirika, Ephraim escaped Valter and decided to just... rush Grado keep. But then he turned back when he heard that Eirika's group had ben “waylaid”...

...What exactly is he referring to here? He was already in the castle before the bridge collapsed. Which incident of being “waylaid” is he referring to? Is it Chapter 6? I don't see any opening for what the hell he's talking about.

And then Eirika apologizes for being a useless protagonist who came all this way to rescue him, only to need rescuing herself.

And then Ephraim cheers her up with something that amounts to “it's the thought that counts”, and that actually satisfies her.

Jesus Christ.

The remaining chests had another silver sword (after the one we took from Orson) and an elysian whip, which we won't be using for a good while.

The exp gain formula in this game is... amazingly generous. Lute's still gaining absurd amounts of exp from killing these enemies, even at level 18. Is this what FE7 was like on normal mode?

Oh shit.

It's Powerful Foe time.

That midi guitar screech is just awesome. I love this song. I don't think I ever really appreciated it as a kid, but... holy shit. This is easily one of the best pieces of music the GBA Fire Emblem games ever produced.

Anyway, I'm gonna see what boss conversations this guy has before I let Lute finish him off.

Eirika's gonna have to face him from a distance, because she'll be one-shot by his silver lance.

He has nothing to say to Erika, which... feels like an incredible waste.

He also... has nothing to say to Ephraim.

...Wow. Well at least the game's consistent.

At any rate, that was mostly an excuse to let him heal a tad so I could milk just a little more exp out of him. Lute's so close to leveling up, but it looks like if I don't stall this, he's not gonna last long enough to get Lute to level 20.

Fuck it, one last shot, I'll let Seth try, from a distance.

Nothing! This guy doesn't have anything to say to anyone! Not to the princess he tried to capture, or the paladin who thwarted his plan, or even the prince who repeatedly made a fool of him!

I love Tirado's death quote though.

“Very... impressive... However... I expect you'll wish you'd died here on my steel. Lord Valter is... not nearly as merciful as I...”

Looks like Lute will have to promote towards the beginning of the next map then.

Let's seize.

...And Ephraim... has Myrrh with him? So he's also just been escorting a defenseless little girl around in the middle of all this madness he's accomplished?

Wow. This is...

...Oh. In fairness it looks like she's been useful, using her dragon clairvoyance to warn Ephraim of “darkness” that's coming. That might explain how he was able to get back into the castle, but... I wonder when he picked her up? I'm assuming they'll tell.

I love how Eirika's commenting on the color of Myrrh's hair like we're supposed to have any concept of what hair colors are and aren't normal in this anime universe. And doesn't Lute have purple hair too?

...Yes! She does! So I wasn't crazy!

Unless Eirika's suddenly remembering that description she was given by Saleh, like she's Westley seeing Count Rugen for the first time.

I like how this game lets you save before choosing which path to take though! That's really nice for people who want to quickly do both. I suppose I might as well see this conversation before stopping for the day. And actually, thanks to this convenience... and given how badly I want to stall for time...

...Fuck it! We're doing both, boys! We'll be doing both Eirika's maps and Ephraim's maps. I'll be starting with Ephraim's, but then I'll either do all of his and then all of Eirika's, or try to get a better sense of chronological order by alternating with each chapter.

But first, we've gotta see the story for this pseudo-chapter.

...Why are they stopping at Serafew like it's a remotely secure location? Did they really fully “conquer” Serafew in chapter 5? They didn't even have an army to keep it out of Grado's hands!

Apparently Serafew is supposed to be close enough to Grado Keep that a flashback of a meeting “at Grado Keep” can also take place in Serafew.

Yeah, this flashback is the most personality I've seen out of Eirika so far. She's showing way more attitude here than she did in her flashback with just Ephraim.

Hahaha. Ephraim saying he'd be fine with Eirika taking the throne and with just traveling the land as a mercenary...

...Moments like that make me so pissed that Warriors was a Fateswakening-Archaena wankfest. I'd really have liked to see moments of Ephraim, Hector and Ike interacting with each other in some professionally-made capacity.

…

...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

OH MY GOD.

EPHRAIM JUST SUGGESTED EIRIKA DRESS UP AS HIM AND PRETEND TO BE KING, AND HE DOUBTED ANYONE WOULD NOTICE SHE'S A WOMAN.

WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO KEEP THESE TWO APART FOR 70% OF THE GAME!?

Seriously! These are the best character moments from either of them that I've seen all game, and they're in a flashback. Eirika's way more interesting when she's with her friends than she is with Seth!

And now Innes shows up. Apparently Innes warned them that the invasion of Renais happened because they provided Grado the opportunity to strike. The hell does that mean? Is he saying that they were warned of what was going in in Grado, and they did nothing?

...This isn't explained any further. Awesome, game. Just awesome.

If Hayden already heard Ephraim and Eirika's report about what they heard about Vigarde's motives, why did he say “But the riddle still needs answering. Why did Grado begin this war in the first place”?

Hayden also says he's strengthened the Tower of Valni's defenses, and Innes has reported that the war with Grado has been going smoothly... and yet I know we're just about to hear the news that the tower of Valni has been utterly curb-stomped, making me question what the fuck is going on here that Grado's army could progress so easily into Frelian territory.

Weird.

Also, I keep forgetting until this moment, every time I play this game, that the Tower of Valni used to be a holy place to house the Sacred Stone of Frelia.

I mean... in fairness, it doesn't remotely look like it. The place is way, way too massive for what its apparent purpose was, unless it was designed that way to deter and ward off intruders.

Ah. So that's what Hayden meant when he still was confused about Vigarde's motives. Yes, Vigarde wants the Sacred Stones destroyed... but why?

So Ephraim met Myrrh while fighting in Grado territory. Wow, Myrrh got separated from Saleh pretty badly, huh?

Anyway, this implies Ephraim did a lot of stuff before he snuck back into Renvall. Making it even harder to believe that the rumors of Ephraim's capture passed uncontested through the populace. Maybe he went in the opposite direction as the rumors? But if rumors that Ephraim was free couldn't reach where Eirika was, how did rumors that Eirika was in trouble reach where Ephraim was?

Also... so Myrrh and Saleh were going to investigate the “mysterious dark energy” pouring out of Grado, and got separated...

...that implies that this whole “dark energy” thing happened very recently. So Myrrh didn't sense the dark energy until roughly around the time the war started? Did she sense the moment Lyon became possessed with the dark stone... or was she sensing something else Like the moment monsters started coming back?

Weird. Apparently it's “Caellach the Tiger Eye”, but just “Selena Fluorspar”.

Also, I caught a typo. They said the tower fell before “half a day had past”.

Anyway, by the looks of this, it seems like monsters can just... spawn anywhere that's too far away from a Sacred Stone. Before now, that was just the Darkling Woods, but now, they've started showing up around Grado... and now Frelia.

And now that I'm hearing the “trouble” theme of this game again, it occurs to me that while this soundtrack has some serious bangers, a lot of the game's songs sound like... knock-offs of their counterparts in FE7. Most dialogue themes in particular. So many of them have similar meters and even similar rhythms at times. Just try to tell me you don't hear “Together We Ride” in “Comrades”.

Anyway, now comes the route split time, and...

...I'm gonna wait until I see what the details are with what happens when you pick Eirika, but... Eirika's version of this, if I remember, just puts the nail in the coffin for how dumb Ephraim's military prowess is.

And now we hear the news that every named unit is going with Ephraim. Whichever lord you picked will have this happen. Your entire army always follows you, which is great for gameplay, but storywise... well, like I said above. I'm not sure of the exact circumstances of who is going with Ephraim. I'll have to find out. With Eirika, she's got a small Frelian group escorting her. Honestly, I picked this one first, and it made total sense to me at the time. She's just sending a message. She doesn't need a massive army, and in fact a large army would probably be detrimental to her mission. I honestly assumed that Eirika's route would have you ditching your army and getting a handful of brand new characters if you chose it.

Honestly, this is the first proactive thing Eirika has done in a while. She apparently privately met with each member of the army individually and persuaded them all to join Ephraim's cause.

...And since we haven't touched a single preparation screen where Ephraim is force-deployed since getting him, I think this is the only time in the entire series where you can look at your unit list and your lord isn't on the top.

...Well. That's it for today. And for this week.

Come Monday, we'll be starting with Ephraim's route. Lemme know if you want me to do all of it at once or alternate with the save file for Eirika's!

Stay safe, everyone!

[Hello72207]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

The exp gain formula in this game is... amazingly generous. Lute's still gaining absurd amounts of exp from killing these enemies, even at level 18. Is this what FE7 was like on normal mode?

I believe that yeah, SS hard uses the same xp formula as FE7 normal, and if you think that that is ludicrous, you should see the xp gain on normal mode FE8.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Hello72207

[Etria]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

And now Innes shows up. Apparently Innes warned them that the invasion of Renais happened because they provided Grado the opportunity to strike. The hell does that mean? Is he saying that they were warned of what was going in in Grado, and they did nothing?

Nah. Somewhere (I think in the opening?) it was said that Grado and Renais were very close and trusting. Innes, being the wary dude he is, saw the massive security problem that Renais didn't. Hence, a very easy invasion with little resistance because they just didn't see it coming.

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Was he always Valter's underling, even before his promotion to Moonstone? And was Valter always a high-ranking member of the military, even before Vigarde died and got zombified? That... wouldn't be good.

To consider Caellach, he couldn't have been anything other than a mercenary pre-Vigarde death. Yet, Aias the boss of Eirika 13 was a close comrade of his. Tirado could've been a lowlife like Valter on the very fringe of the army.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So they destroyed the bridge to the castle.

...Which means that Ephraim was already inside the building when this happened.

Uhhh he swam? Whats a little water to Ephraim? He's a lord, 80% of them can waterwalk, Ephraim chose to ignore the "rivers only" part.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

OH MY GOD.

EPHRAIM JUST SUGGESTED EIRIKA DRESS UP AS HIM AND PRETEND TO BE KING, AND HE DOUBTED ANYONE WOULD NOTICE SHE'S A WOMAN.

As a child, I never interpreted "You're so skinny" as meaning Ephraim thinks Eirika is flat, not until last year did someone point this out to me.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Hayden also says he's strengthened the Tower of Valni's defenses, and Innes has reported that the war with Grado has been going smoothly... and yet I know we're just about to hear the news that the tower of Valni has been utterly curb-stomped, making me question what the fuck is going on here that Grado's army could progress so easily into Frelian territory.

I wish this was explained/visualized better. Looking at Frelia on the map:

Mountains are usually no good for invasion, unless one must cross them- so I'll assume the mountain range under the "E" in "Frelia" is practically impassable. Renais is in chaos now, and Grado if it wanted to could've marched to the Renais-Frelia border and launched their invasion from there, but with Eirika and Renvall and her peacefully returning along that very path, I'd think Grado didn't occupy the Renais-Frelia border. Therefore, the only other approach Grado could've struck from is over the mountains to the west- where Ephraim starts his invasion of Grado in the next chapter.

I could've swallowed a sudden syringe-like strike from the Renais border to smash the Frelia Sacred Stone and then get out and return to the safety of the border. But doing that from further to the west near Fort Rigwald? Might as well have tried to take the capital while they were at it.

And Innes has been fighting near Rigwald, so Selena and Caellach would've had to have slipped past Innes. Though as it'd still be possible to ignore Renvall and Eirika path and directly travel from Grado to Renais to the Renais-Frelian border, I would not entirely rule out that possibility. But, I would've liked a clearer explanation on this point.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...I'm gonna wait until I see what the details are with what happens when you pick Eirika, but... Eirika's version of this, if I remember, just puts the nail in the coffin for how dumb Ephraim's military prowess is.

No, Ephraim never conquered Grado by himself + Duessel. Regardless of whether you side with him or not, the invisible "Frelian Army" joins Ephraim- Vigarde says as much at the start of the next Ephraim chapter. T'would be great if the Frelian Army had a PC to represent it akin to Tanith symbolically representing the Begnion contingent in PoR Ike gets after C17, SS could use a couple more characters.

It's not impossible to have its help and give Eirika a bodyguard, she, like Celica before and after her, did not need a kingdom's entire army to support her mission. Ephraim, like Alm before and after him, did need a national military.

-Just ignore what Hayden said of having few spare troops. That might affect Innes and Eirika, but if Frelia has an army, someone has to use it, and Ephraim has to be that person.

[Alastor15243]

5 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I wish this was explained/visualized better. Looking at Frelia on the map:

Mountains are usually no good for invasion, unless one must cross them- so I'll assume the mountain range under the "E" in "Frelia" is practically impassable. Renais is in chaos now, and Grado if it wanted to could've marched to the Renais-Frelia border and launched their invasion from there, but with Eirika and Renvall and her peacefully returning along that very path, I'd think Grado didn't occupy the Renais-Frelia border. Therefore, the only other approach Grado could've struck from is over the mountains to the west- where Ephraim starts his invasion of Grado in the next chapter.

I could've swallowed a sudden syringe-like strike from the Renais border to smash the Frelia Sacred Stone and then get out and return to the safety of the border. But doing that from further to the west near Fort Rigwald? Might as well have tried to take the capital while they were at it.

And Innes has been fighting near Rigwald, so Selena and Caellach would've had to have slipped past Innes. Though as it'd still be possible to ignore Renvall and Eirika path and directly travel from Grado to Renais to the Renais-Frelian border, I would not entirely rule out that possibility. But, I would've liked a clearer explanation on this point.

Yeah... trying to get any sense of space and time in this game is... tricky. At least if this were Genealogy, they'd have to actually show us what the invasion looked like, since they don't have any outdoor talk scenes that aren't on the map.

 

7 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

No, Ephraim never conquered Grado by himself + Duessel. Regardless of whether you side with him or not, the invisible "Frelian Army" joins Ephraim- Vigarde says as much at the start of the next Ephraim chapter. T'would be great if the Frelian Army had a PC to represent it akin to Tanith symbolically representing the Begnion contingent in PoR Ike gets after C17, SS could use a couple more characters.

It's not impossible to have its help and give Eirika a bodyguard, she, like Celica before and after her, did not need a kingdom's entire army to support her mission. Ephraim, like Alm before and after him, did need a national military.

-Just ignore what Hayden said of having few spare troops. That might affect Innes and Eirika, but if Frelia has an army, someone has to use it, and Ephraim has to be that person.

I guess I'll see for myself on Tuesday when I start Eirika route. But still, the ultimate humiliation of Eirika's character has to be Chapter 15, where her massive army needs to be "rescued" by Ephraim's group's three visible units.

[Boomhauer007]

I think alternating would get confusing, my vote is for the all of one a time choice. I think the maps are identical after 16 as well. 

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Boomhauer007 said:

I think alternating would get confusing, my vote is for the all of one a time choice. I think the maps are identical after 16 as well. 

Yeah, I'm only gonna do the unique maps. But noted about alternating vs all at once.

[Hello72207]

16 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

18 minutes ago, Boomhauer007 said:

I think alternating would get confusing, my vote is for the all of one a time choice. I think the maps are identical after 16 as well. 

Yeah, I'm only gonna do the unique maps. But noted about alternating vs all at once.

If your gonna do one all at once, I suggest Eirika route first because it has a few more story things going on.

[Eltosian Kadath]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, I'm only gonna do the unique maps. But noted about alternating vs all at once.

I prefer alternating; that is what I did when I cam back to FE8 to play through both hard modes a while back, and I remember a couple of times where knowing what the other army was doing in the same rough time-frame gave some interesting context.

 

2 hours ago, Boomhauer007 said:

I think the maps are identical after 16 as well. 

Spoiler

The first part of endgame is slightly different depending on the mode, with the Ephraim and Erika versions being mirror images of eachother (which has the largest impact on how the reinforcement zones work)

 

I will also note the story is different on Ephraim and Eirika mode even after chapter 16.

[Jotari]

I made a hack that intended to mix Ephraim and Eririka's modes. It did create some weird errors with some units just vanishing though. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe because I had to make some original units to bulk out the roster.

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Another thing: As I just said, there's only one entrance to this castle.

...So what exactly was the throne that Ephraim seized before if this map is completely diff...er...

...Oh.

Oooooooooh.

No it isn't.

That's... pretty damned cool! This is clearly the same map! I don't know how I never noticed that before! It's just been slightly moved, like the stuff FE7 did with returning locations!

Ah yes, I remember my delight upon realizing this too. They do a very good job of disguising the fact by only moving the map like three or four tiles to the right, yet it makes an absolutely massive difference to the overall gameplay experience. THIS is how you you reuse a map. This is a fun way of establishing the same location but a different experience, instead of just porting it wholesale. I didn't complain all that much during Mystery of the Emblem, but I will be complaining about this a lot come New Mystery time. As a remake it had no excuse for making such boring reused maps.

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Moments like that make me so pissed that Warriors was a Fateswakening-Archaena wankfest. I'd really have liked to see moments of Ephraim, Hector and Ike interacting with each other in some professionally-made capacity.

Honestly as soon as I played it and seen the general set up I was convinced they would have been better off replacing their twin protagonists with Ephraim and Eirika. Darios could have been Lyon and then we could actually see a bit of interaction between the trio outside of flash back. Make the big bad dragon guy Loptyr and bam, you're referencing all continuities with literally zero extra effort. The Loptyr thing wouldn't even need a design change given we never properly see Loptyr's original body. That's just changing the character names. And what was with them not using at all the perfectly decent rogues gallery of monsters Fire Emblem already has!? I was surprised when I ended up fighting a random manakete in that game because it was recognizably something from a Fire Emblem game. THAT SHOULD NOT BE YOUR REACTION WHEN PLAYING A FIRE EMBLEM GAME!

Edited May 9, 2020 by Jotari

[Shadow Mir]

On 5/9/2020 at 12:20 AM, Jotari said:

Honestly as soon as I played it and seen the general set up I was convinced they would have been better off replacing their twin protagonists with Ephraim and Eirika. Darios could have been Lyon and then we could actually see a bit of interaction between the trio outside of flash back. Make the big bad dragon guy Loptyr and bam, you're referencing all continuities with literally zero extra effort. The Loptyr thing wouldn't even need a design change given we never properly see Loptyr's original body. That's just changing the character names. And what was with them not using at all the perfectly decent rogues gallery of monsters Fire Emblem already has!? I was surprised when I ended up fighting a random manakete in that game because it was recognizably something from a Fire Emblem game. THAT SHOULD NOT BE YOUR REACTION WHEN PLAYING A FIRE EMBLEM GAME!

The issue here is that Lyon was likely possessed even well before the invasion of Renais that got Sacred Stones's plot rolling. Darios doesn't get possessed until about halfway through. In addition, I seriously don't think a possessed Lyon would willingly fight his own soldiers... Long story short, you'd likely have a lot of questions to answer if you didn't have the likes of Seth, Myrrh, and a few others in the game as well. Also, trying to reference every continuity would probably be little more than a half measure that wouldn't satisfy most anyone. If anything, the lack of focus would likely backfire.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

The issue here is that Lyon was likely possessed even well before the invasion of Renais that got Sacred Stones's plot rolling. Darios doesn't get possessed until about halfway through. In addition, I seriously don't think a possessed Lyon would willingly fight his own soldiers... Long story short, you'd likely have a lot of questions to answer if you didn't have the likes of Seth, Myrrh, and a few others in the game as well. Also, trying to reference every continuity would probably be little more than a half measure that wouldn't satisfy most anyone. If anything, the lack of focus would likely backfire.

They include Archanea without raising questions of where Gotoh and Cane are. And whatever the name of the original kingdom is managed to get by having just three original characters and literally no one else. Considering how little an impact the OCs from the game did make (they haven't even been available for CYL, even Tokyo Mirage Sessions has managed that now. While I'm referencing Heroes making them Alfonse and Sharena would have worked much better and established them as the designated spin off lords for any kind of full series project, but timing and lack of internal communication prevented that) I think a half measure would have been better than the zero measure they went with to include. Course if I really had my way I'd overhaul the entire system of the game to make it more class based and include dozens of characters from the series.

[Alastor15243]

Sacred Stones Day 11: Chapter 9EPH

Well, that's a pretty clumsy way of naming the chapter, but it can't really be helped. I can't call it 9E for... obvious reasons.

So by the sound of things in the narration, despite Hayden saying he can't provide troops, Ephraim, a non-Frelian, seems to have been given some authority over the Frelian army. Isn't that... a problem? That sounds like it would be a problem.

Also, the game uses some very strange phrasing, saying that “unbeknownst to Ephraim, Grado's forces are waiting for them at Fort Rigwald”, but then says that “Undaunted, Ephraim remains determined to root out Grado.”

That... kinda goes without saying, right? Why even bring it up? How can someone be daunted by information they don't have?

I suppose this wouldn't be the first time Ephraim is described as being brave for acting in spite of discouraging information he does not yet possess.

And now in the big “talking with the Gemstone Generals” cutscene, Vigarde apparently is under the impression that Ephraim is commander of the Frelian army, which is... I mean... if he's commander, what's Innes? How do military ranks work here? The game surely isn't suggesting that Ephraim is Innes's equal or even superior in authority, right?

...Anyway, Duessel finally has had enough about how psychotic this war is and reveals that... the generals have been given literally no justification whatsoever for why they invaded Renais. None. Not the slightest inkling of how this campaign to destroy the Sacred Stones benefits Grado in any way. And if the generals don't know, then either no one has any idea, or the lower-downs think it's something that the generals know is a deliberate lie.

...I think I have exhausted the last drop of rage in my heart for this stupid, stupid war for the time being.

So let's move on to the actual map itself, starring the man, the meme, the legend...

Gheb.

I don't know what stroke of fate compelled the internet to make a meme out of him, but a meme he became, and.. Jesus is this man ugly.

And Tana is brought before him after she stupidly somehow flew right into enemy hands and got herself captured by people who were under fucking seige, and uses the only defense she seems to have in her arsenal:

“Touch me and some man in my life will kick your butt”. This time it's Ephraim she name-drops. And then...

Yeah, this is... wow. They're barely even trying to hide how rapey Gheb is. Holy shit. This was rated E for everyone.

So apparently Fort Rigwald here is some legendary, infamously impregnable fortress that...

1: was built at the edge of the continent, where it could not conceivably have had any strategic merit in the war with the demon king, the only military force the Grado Empire has done battle with for more than 800 years...

2: did absolutely nothing to stop Eirika from simply walking around it with her merry band...

3: is about to, of course, be curb-stomped in a single day by Ephraim Irondick, who, may I remind you, has never led a full army into full-scale war so much as once in his entire life.

In fairness, the stupidity of 1 kind of undermines the stupidity of 3, but that's a pretty weak fucking defense for a plot point.

And now is the first time in the game that Grado soldiers having low morale due to the utter pointlessness of this war is brought up.

That said, stupid context aside, the plan seems fairly solid, and I like how he explains it.

Wow. Gheb is hilariously hateable. Wooooooooow. It's kind of obvious that, due to the absurdity of this entire war, when Lyon's doing all of these new “promotions” through Vigarde, he, in the words of Jon Stewart, “separates the willing from the able, and goes with the willing.” He clearly has a ridiculously over-inflated view of his importance and actually seems to think he got his position on merit, and not because he was the only person shitty enough to take the job.

Man, I like that nameless soldier character Amelia was talking to. The one whose sister and her husband were living in Renais. I wish we could recruit him.

After spending more than a third of the game on a goddamned training wheels tutorial, it looks like it's finally time for us to face some real battles.

And of course, Tana doesn't show up on the map until after deployment, which I have to assume is so you can control her when the fight starts but can't give her any gear on the prep menu.

Anyway... let's get moving.

Things are going pretty well so far. Lute should gain the exp for her last level shortly. Ephraim, however... holy shit. He's screwed, sometimes by as much as 2 points, in everything but HP, Spd and Res. That speed is appreciated, but holy shit. I hope this isn't a bad sign.

That's... bizarre. The enemies here aren't giving nearly as much exp as the enemies on the last map. Lute was gaining 20-30 exp per kill on the last map, and now she's barely gaining 10!

But eventually she gets there, just around the time we get to the front gate. It swings open with the help of the door key, and Amelia starts charging. I promote Lute to mage knight, as planned, and try to enemy-phase these knights, soldiers and mercenaries as Amelia walks into range.

Success. Time to see Ephraim's talk with Amelia.

It's not quite as funny as I remember, but it works. Anyway, now I've got Amelia and, more importantly, speedwings! Though I'm not sure who's getting them. Probably Kyle though, since he's the one having the most trouble doubling at the moment. But I'll hold off a bit before deciding.

Oh dear lord.

This is a bittersweet feeling.

After all the grief it gave me...

Jesus Christ, luna tome, what have they done to you?

The thing's been nerfed by 5 uses, 45% hit, and 10 crit. It was frustrating before, true, but now... now it's just... pointless. Before, it was put on enemies capable of one-shotting anyone with insufficient crit evade. Now it's just another attack, and one you'll almost never get hit by.

I misplaced Colm, and only kept him because I was lucky enough that the enemy AI behaved the way it did, with the longbowman attacking Natasha instead of him.

Franz gets his second defense level, this time without having to get an otherwise bad level to do it.

I'm trying to keep the longbowman alive long enough to steal his red gem. This isn't exactly a gold-tight game, but still, might as well.

Looks like I exaggerated earlier. That longbowman's attack is terrible. Colm would've been fine. But it's really making me nervous that I didn't see that jav-cav coming.

Ephraim continues to gain almost nothing but speed. This is starting to be really, really worrying.

Okay, it feels like some switch has been flipped to reduce the exp gain on this map compared to the last. Does Ephraim Mode do it, or is it just the prologue chapters where you get that insane exp boost, and Erika's route is this slow to level too?

JESUS CHRIST. HE GOT A SHITTY LEVEL AGAIN, AND THIS TIME HE DIDN'T EVEN GAIN SPEED!

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY EPHRAIM!?

Okay, if this keeps up much longer, I think I'm gonna actually just flat-out write his stats out for you, because this is getting absurd.

Wow, Ephraim. Tana explains how she managed to get captured by the troops of a castle that was under siege, and Ephraim's, to paraphrase, basically says “I see. Well, I'm glad you're okay. Now go home.”

And then Tana's like “No! I came all this way to help you!”

And Ephraim says, with snark I can feel from all the way over here, “and yet, here I am, helping you.”

Anyway, I got all of the chests, so it's time to finish this map.

Seth and Franz get their B support, meaning another attack and defense each.

Awww... this support is kinda cute.

Alright. Now it's time to fight Gheb, and I am not trusting him to not use that obtainable killer axe in his inventory. Since he has two melee weapons and he's not equipping the better one, I have to assume that's an incentive to never fight him in melee, or else the fight gets harder and he drops the shittier iron axe instead. So I'll just have Lute kill him.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

THE HEALER DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER HEALING GHEB!

Either that was because the enemy just doesn't heal anyone with more than 50% HP as usual...

...Or the enemies were all coded to want Gheb to die!

Please let it be the latter. That would be amazing.

Ephraim apparently does 0 damage to Gheb with an iron lance, which is... depressing.

Anyway, time for the ending cutscene.

I really hope this soldier they're interrogating is Amelia's friend from earlier.

...So, it's outright confirmed that nobody was given any justification for this war. It's entirely operating on the justification of “because I said so”. That is outrageously unsatisfying.

Also, we get the bombshell that... dun dun dun... rumor has it that the war was Lyon's idea.

We have a fairly okay conversation after that between Ephraim and Seth, and then...

...Pfffft-

Ephraim says Myrrh's eyes remind him of Eirika's, and... holy shit I totally see it. How are Eirika's eyes that ridiculously huge that a child is drawn with nearly identical ones!?

Oh Selena... girl, why are you this much of a dumbass? It's blatantly obvious that Vigarde has become literally nothing like the man you once admired, he's acting like a borderline zombie now, and still you're faithfully doing everything he says with minimal resistance. It's depressing.

Anyway...

I have to question why the fuck we're taking this route to Grado. If the still-available shops are anything to go by, the route Eirika took to get deep into Grado is still pretty much entirely clear of troops. You had time to stop in Serafew to reminisce about the past. Why are we taking this roundabout route to get back into Grado when things are clear as far as Serafew!?

...Ugh.

Yeah, uh...

You may have noticed...

While I did a lot of bitching and praising in comparable measure in FE7...

...Here it's been pretty much all bitching.

...I have serious, serious doubts that this game is going to beat Blazing Blade when it comes to writing.

But anyway...

https://strawpoll.com/2rhpbbrk

Here's a straw poll for how I should proceed with this dual-route system. Whatever it says by tomorrow morning is what I'm gonna do, so get voting if you have a preference!

Until then...

Stay safe, everyone!

[Shadow Mir]

So... what are your thoughts on Sacred Stones's story thus far?

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

JESUS CHRIST. HE GOT A SHITTY LEVEL AGAIN, AND THIS TIME HE DIDN'T EVEN GAIN SPEED!

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY EPHRAIM!?

Okay, if this keeps up much longer, I think I'm gonna actually just flat-out write his stats out for you, because this is getting absurd.

I wanna see.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

So... what are your thoughts on Sacred Stones's story thus far?

Like I said, I'm not impressed. The story's developed issues pretty rapidly, Eirika's a really boring lord, and Ephraim, while not as bad, still has some major issues.

[Shadow Mir]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Like I said, I'm not impressed. The story's developed issues pretty rapidly, Eirika's a really boring lord, and Ephraim, while not as bad, still has some major issues.

Ha. To think we have someone in this thread who has the gall to insist it's better than Blazing Blade's.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

Ha. To think we have someone in this thread who has the gall to insist it's better than Blazing Blade's.

Ah yes, the gall to have an opinion on the internet. The brazen fool.

[Espurrhoodie]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't know what stroke of fate compelled the internet to make a meme out of him, but a meme he became, and.. Jesus is this man ugly.

I think it was some fanfic? I can't exactly remember, but I'm pretty sure it was that.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Espurrhoodie said:

I think it was some fanfic? I can't exactly remember, but I'm pretty sure it was that.

A rom hack I'm pretty sure is what started it, but I'm more curious as to what on earth possessed the hack maker to make a hack about him.

[Hello72207]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

A rom hack I'm pretty sure is what started it, but I'm more curious as to what on earth possessed the hack maker to make a hack about him.

I don't know, maybe he was high or something.

[Espurrhoodie]

54 minutes ago, Hello72207 said:

I don't know, maybe he was high or something.

Ah, Veggietales. One of the two (the other one being Prince of Egypt) good Christian cartoons out there imo.

[Shadow Mir]

On 5/1/2020 at 4:31 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, but there's terse, and there's sounding like a literal zombie.

Vigarde: I appreciate your work in fulfilling my previous orders. You are the hammers that drive the nails of the empire's will... You will continue to operate... without hesitation... wherever I send you.

What the fuck kind of thing to say is "You will continue to do what you are told"?

Tyrant speech, to say the least. Also, more than enough to make me think something is seriously fucked up.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ah yes, the gall to have an opinion on the internet. The brazen fool.

Ehh, I was already going into this believing that Sacred Stones's plot was seriously flawed, and now it looks like by the time you're done with your run, I'll be thinking it's even worse than I dared to think it was. 

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

Tyrant speech, to say the least. Also, more than enough to make me think something is seriously fucked up.

Ehh, I was already going into this believing that Sacred Stones's plot was seriously flawed, and now it looks like by the time you're done with your run, I'll be thinking it's even worse than I dared to think it was. 

I'm happy people enjoy my observations.