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Radiant Dawn Day 44: Chapter 4-E-4

Almost done, guys. Just one more day.

Anyway, we get another voice-acted cutscene of Lehran, this time talking with Ashera.

It's interesting that the script says Ashera stammers a bit when talking about how Yune caused her to bring about the Great Flood, but in the actual voice acting, far as I can tell, there is no such pause or hesitation. Since this is clearly at the beginning of Ashera's existence, where she's still at least capable of empathy (or at least guilt, since she refers to the stuff she did during the Great Flood as “atrocities”), I think that's a shame. That tiny flicker of her residual humanity that she tore out would be interesting.

Okay, regarding that discussion that's been going on about the pact, Altina (At least I think it's Altina, it's clearly not Ashera or Yune, and it's definitely not Soan or Deghinsea) suggests that they swear that “never again will the laguz or the beorc seek the extinction of the other”. Let's see how else this is phrased in this conversation.

Interestingly, Ashera's refusal to accept the pledge is based on her belief in the imperfections of man, in the sense that they were made in her imperfect image. A fascinating concept, to be sure, but like... demonstrably untrue. Just last chapter Yune exposited that Ashunera made animals decidedly not in her image, because she couldn't make things in her own image, and then they evolved to develop sapience.

...Okay, this isn't the scene that discusses the specific words of the pledge. Alright then, looks like we're back to the present.

Yeah, and like I mentioned previously, Yune explains that she's more well-adjusted than Ashera because Yune wasn't isolated from people. She had herons singing to her and keeping her company through the years.

...And now Sephiran shows up.

Okay, so Sephiran says he's known Sanaki wasn't an apostle “for some time”. Was there a point in their relationship where he didn't know? How did he find out? Obviously de-powered laguz can't sense branded, or else Pelleas's story arc would be complete and utter madness.

Right, and now Ike says that Sephiran had to have been responsible for Zelgius's time as the Black Knight, because “A man like Zelgius could never serve conflicting interests... Never.”

Bitch, how the fuck much do you know this guy?

Okay, so now Sephiran says that neither Ashnard nor Sephiran were responsible for ordering Zelgius to kill Greil. That was... just something he did on his own. Sephiran merely ordered him to take the medallion and give it to Ashnard.

Yep, Sephiran explicitly says what he needed was “a war that would spread all across the continent”. I'd say that's pretty strong evidence that it needs the whole continent involved, not just a lot of bloodshed. I'd say the death counter was more just a “how long the battle has to go on at this scale before the pact officially breaks” thing.

And now Sephiran reveals his true colors and his desire to see all life destroyed. But from what I remember, the reality is that he's playing up the brutality of his actions because he's just outright suicidal and can't kill himself due to the divine blessings placed upon him. He's hoping Ike and company will finally be able to kill him with their blessings from Yune.

...But wait... no, that can't be the only thing. He must genuinely want the world destroyed, because the idea of this being an elaborate gambit for assisted suicide is... beyond asinine. He didn't need to conspire to bring Yune back in order to die. If he wanted himself killed, all he had to do was stab himself with Ragnell. After all, Zelgius (as the Black Knight) confirmed in PoR (and given who he works for, he'd fucking know) that the enchanted invincible armor was blessed by Ashera, not Yune, same as Ragnell and Alondite. Meaning that offensive blessings from one goddess work to pierce the protective blessings of that same goddess. Clearly Sephiran doesn't just want to die.

...And now we're at prep time.

Nolan's finally level 20, and has exactly capped strength. Aran used the rest of the bonus exp to get a bit more res, so he's got enough to at least survive these spirits.

These fucking spirits.

There's basically no working around these fuckers. They have 20 mov and teleportation, and 1-2 range. They're completely ridiculous, but thankfully, we have wardwood tiles I can use to defend against them if I wanna bring my hawk team for this map. Player-phase tactics are going to be necessary for taking Sephiran out due to how he works, which I'll explain when I get to him.

Also, I'm really frustrated that these spirits have no battle animations. You fight them solely on the map, which feels like a massive cop-out for endgame enemies.

Speaking of which...

...Okay, so, from here on out, there's only one physical attack left anywhere in the game, and that's one of Ashera's map attacks. This has resulted in a pretty huge meme about Gareth, the massively slow and tanky dragon who joined you along with Nasir after last battle, being utterly useless, and the worst unit in the series, because his best stat basically doesn't do anything. In reality he's pretty useful, because he's basically a free plus 5 skill and strength aura bot for a final map where that's really handy, but yeah, no way in hell we're deploying him here, with spirits ready to warm the tiniest crack in our armor.

Also, despite having elemental magic attacks, none of these spirits, fire, wind or thunder, have effective damage on anything, so no need to worry about that. So I swapped out paragon for provoke instead of trading it for nullify.

These spirits seem to be choosing their targets rather randomly.

Okay, at first I thought Sephiran was going to be a pain to kill due to his 36 speed, but he actually only has 32 attack speed due to not being strong enough to carry his tome. Alright. Here's the deal.

The game is a colossal dick and doesn't tell you this, but all of the spirits here innately have the hidden skill guard, and from what I remember it always activates. So as long as a single spirit is adjacent to Sephiran, he can't be attacked. Now, you could kill them all, fighting through both them and the +15 def cover tiles they're standing on...

...Or you can just shove them!

Yep, and now all I have to do is pray that neither that 5-ish percent crit rate or corona activates as I slaughter him with everything I have.

Yeah, I fucking hate these mastery skills on enemies.

Thankfully, both Tibarn and Oscar managed to fight him without it activating, meaning all I have to do is attack with Ike and I'm done. I just need to hope both attacks hit.

Oh man, I love this talk between Sephiran and Ike. I love Ike's attitude here.

Ike: I have to ask, Sephiran. What are you after? What's this all about?

Sephiran: Why do you wish to know? You would achieve nothing by learning my reasons. You would help no one. I lost faith in lesser beings, and desire an end to them. That's all.

Ike: So why did you save me on that day?

Sephiran: May I ask you a favor, Ike? Tell me how you feel about it now. Can you bear recalling those horrific memories?

Ike: Yes... I'm fine now. But I suppose at the time I wouldn't have been able to take it.

Sephiran: All beings endure tragedies for as long as they continue to live. It has always been the case that suffering is unavoidable. And this grim reality plays out over and over, in every country, under every ruler... As long as there are beings who feel, they will feel pain.

Ike: So what? We should all just give in and die? Put it behind you. Deal with it.

Sephiran: Do not make light of this...

Ike: I'm not. Sephiran, I'm extremely grateful that you once helped me through a terrible time. But I have accepted that occasionally we all have to deal with hard times. I've had pain, I've had suffering, and I have gotten up and moved on. I don't try to forget what happened that day. I just accept it... And neither that or anything else will ever stop me.

Sephiran: You are a strong man, Ike, son of Gawain. But not everyone is as strong as you...

And now... time for him to-

...What the...

WHAT THE FUCK?

I FORGOT TO SHOVE THE LAST SPIRIT AND DIDN'T NOTICE BECAUSE IT DIDN'T ACTIVATE UNTIL HE WAS AT LOW HP!?

FUUUUUCK!

...Restarting. Damn it.

Aaaaand Tibarn got bodied because the spirits all ganged up on him this time for some reason despite them not doing it before. I guess him getting wounded by Sephiran's shockwave really ticked him up on the attack priority order.

Restarting again.

Alright, this time I'll have him huddle around Kurthnaga with the other birds just in case.

Alright, yeah, They all seem to be ganging up on Tibarn again specifically for some reason, but it's not as bad with night tide protecting him and fewer spaces around him.

Alright, finally we're back at him, with Reyson closer at hand so I can much more easily send my attackers at him. All of the spirits are down, all that's left is to take him out.

...Yep. He's down. Never even had to risk corona, thanks to using Ike and siege tomes.

...Siege tomes.

Long range... magic.

...I avoided corona... using social distancing.

I swear that was not on purpose.

Yep, and now Sephiran claims that he really just wants to die, which, again, I really, really don't buy.

And now we get another flashback of Sephiran on the day he went mad after the Serenes Massacre. I seem to remember something... really fucking weird and unexplained happening here. Let's see if I remember it properly.

Yeah, this scene is... about as compelling theatre as the rest of them. Sorry, it's hard to take any of it seriously with this absolutely atrocious voice acting.

...Holy shit.

I did remember correctly.

So, Sephiran, after fucking centuries of being a powerless heron... just... spontaneously... out of nowhere... temporarily grows his wings back solely for the narrative purpose of outing him to the mob.

He wasn't hiding those things under his shirt this whole time. He didn't have them before, he doesn't have them now, but for this one scene, he suddenly has them again. Wanna know how I know?

https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Sephiran

Go to the bottom of his page and compare his Sephiran portrait with his winged Lehran portrait.

Notice the ears.

De-powered laguz lose all of their laguz features, down to the fucking pointy ears.

...

Is he looking down at the burning forest from above? Is he flying!?

...YES! HE'S FLYING! THE CG SHOWS HIM FROM BEHIND WITH WINGS! HE GREW HIS WINGS BACK AND HE CAN FUCKING FLY!

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO THEM AFTER THIS!?

I can't believe this. I can't believe the game has the audacity to do something this ridiculous this late into the story. Something happened here that temporarily made Sephiran a heron laguz again, and the game isn't going to shine a single flicker of light on it.

...

...However, yeah... this supports my theory that the laguz were the winners/oppressors of the pre-flood war.

This is the moment that makes him decide that nobody deserves to live.

This world... doesn't need beorc. And the laguz... are deeply flawed.”

Obviously the Serenes Massacre didn't do anything to reduce his opinion of laguz. There's just no way. He must've already had an extremely dim view of the laguz before then, if an exclusively-beorc-perpetrated atrocity was all it took to make him decide that everyone deserves to die. And my theory is that it's because of the shit the laguz did before the flood. This is what finally caused Sephiran to stop making excuses for the beorc. To stop seeing the beorc as an oppressed class lashing back at their historic and ancient oppressors, and start seeing them as creatures fully capable of being oppressors in their own right.

And now... this is my reward for some of that crazy shit I did. Thanks to all those hoops I jumped through on this bonus game, Sephiran is going to survive. We're going to save him, just barely, while still bringing him close to death for long enough to break his seal on the door.

Anyway, honestly, thinking about it...

...Sephiran as a twist villain... really sucks. Mostly because we don't actually get to see any of his villainy in action. Ever. We see his origin through flashbacks, but we never actually see any of what he did, or how. Which just raises so many questions about how he manipulated so many people so expertly with seemingly minimal direct influence.

Ah yes, now Sephiran gives Sanaki the Rudol Gem, and like... I have no idea what this is or what it's for. It's treated like some precious keepsake I'm supposed to see significance in, but I've literally never seen it before I saw it in his inventory in this chapter. Its only purpose seems to be to buff Sanaki's defense enough that she can survive Ashera's physical map attack.

Anyway, Ike's practically channeling Hector with Jaffar when he tells Sephiran that if death is the only thing he wants, there's no way in hell Ike's gonna let Sephiran have it. He needs to pay for what he's done to the world.

Honestly... here, Ike's starting to feel like Ike again. That stuff with Zelgius was a major, major hiccup, but... everywhere else he's written consistently, if... really statically. I still really wish they did more to make it seem like he had made any progress whatsoever in the last three years, but there's still plenty to enjoy about RD Ike.

But... that's it for today.

Tomorrow... we finish this.

We defeat Ashera.

We beat Radiant Dawn.

We prepare to begin Shadow Dragon.

Stay safe, everyone.

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43 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Is he looking down at the burning forest from above? Is he flying!?

...YES! HE'S FLYING! THE CG SHOWS HIM FROM BEHIND WITH WINGS! HE GREW HIS WINGS BACK AND HE CAN FUCKING FLY!

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO THEM AFTER THIS!?

No, he never flew, and he always had the wings. Why aren't they around any other time then? M-a-g-i-c! Sephiran is the greatest mage in Tellius, if anyone could create a spell that could conceal animal features, it'd be him. Not to mention the whole Laguz transformation thing doesn't exactly look"non-magical organic" in the first place.

Why the sudden reappearance of the wings? The assumption once could make is that extreme stress broke the spell over himself.

 

43 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

This is the moment that makes him decide that nobody deserves to live.

This world... doesn't need beorc. And the laguz... are deeply flawed.”

Mistranslation! SF has the correction translation of that line available:

Lehran:
“…Humans… 350 years still remain. But there is no need to continue waiting. This world does not need beorc. And neither does it need laguz…Both are deeply flawed. Please awaken! Oh, Goddess. Awaken…and judge.”

Also when Sephiran reaches for the Medallion, there are a few extra lines in the Japanese:

(Image of the medallion on the altar)

Lehran:
“The medallion… I must quell the chaotic energies! Must…calm them…”

Lehran:
“Ungh! NO! Chaos…”

(Several voices appear in Lehran’s mind)

Dheginsea:
“You, who have lost your birthright?”

Misaha:
“And yet, now that I’ve met you, I understand. There is no shame in my heritage. None at all.”

Ashera:
“In deference to you, I will place my faith in your kind one last time.”

Altina:
“You… are the gentlest soul of them all, my sweet Lehran…”

Lehran:
“Why? Why did I lose my power? Why? Why was my tribe stolen? Why, why, why?”

(Image of Lehran holding onto the medallion)

Civilian:
“Huh, what’s up with this guy? He’s been standing there frozen for a while.”

Civilian:
“We won’t allow you a painless death. You need to know what true pain feels like…”

Civilian:
“Yeah, you don’t take blows very well. We just hit you a few times and you drop dead… How can we punish them like this?”

Civilian:
“We can’t let the Apostle’s killers get away so easily… We should torture them, make them bleed until they beg… Then we kill them!”

 

Hallucinations, accompanied by angry peasants staring at Sephiran, whom he presumably killed out of self-defense.

 

43 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

..But wait... no, that can't be the only thing. He must genuinely want the world destroyed, because the idea of this being an elaborate gambit for assisted suicide is... beyond asinine

I'd say his non-suicide logic is simple.:

  • There is suffering in this world, suffering defines it.
  • Suffering is caused by the inability of Laguz and Beorc to get along.
  • Nothing can resolve this intolerance, not even the Goddess.
  • Therefore, the end to suffering has to be the end of Laguz and Beorc.
  • Ashera will recognize these truths when she reawakens, regardless of when it happens.
  • Thus, Ashera should be awakened immediately, the sooner she brings the suffering to an end, the better.

 

43 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Sephiran as a twist villain... really sucks. Mostly because we don't actually get to see any of his villainy in action. Ever. We see his origin through flashbacks, but we never actually see any of what he did, or how. Which just raises so many questions about how he manipulated so many people so expertly with seemingly minimal direct influence.

I wouldn't say he actually did that much manipulation, Manfroy does more in one or two chapters of Gen 1 Genealogy than Sephiran does in two games.

  • The Senate was already corrupt, all Sephiran had to do was let that fester.
  • Ashnard was already wanting of chaos, all Seph had to do was inform him of the Medallion and give it to him, and Sephiran I believe without indisputable proof was the "traveling wise man" who made Ashnard's Blood Pact that brought him to the Daein throne.
  • His manipulation of RD Izuka seems to have been something shared with Lekain. But the details on Izuka are vague.

Rafiel starting the Laguz-Alliance vs. Senate War, the Serenes Massacre, Oliver's machinations in PoR, Kurthnaga at the end of Part 3, practically all of the actions taken during Mad King's War barring sending Ike some additional Begnion support, none of these were the result of Sephiran.

Some important direct manipulation with Ashy 20 years ago, but it's more Seph rode the waves of evil to his benefit than being some grandiose puppet master.

 

 

-But who am I but a self-confessed Sephiran devotee? You shouldn't listen to me.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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On 10/1/2020 at 1:43 AM, Alastor15243 said:

 

 

...Yeah, and Nasir and Gareth are by Deghinsea. They don't move, and will join you if they're still alive when the battle is over. Honestly, I wish they actually positioned themselves adjacent to Deghinsea so that there was actually some extra challenge you had to do to recruit them.

 

Oh yeah, meant to comment on this the first time round too. If they were adjacent to Deghensea it would mean their skills would activate to buff him making him even more of a chore to take down. Unless his stats were lowered to compensate, which would make him a marginally more interesting boss, especially for LTC players (sacrifice two characters to more quickly beat him), but you would lose just a little bit of the holy fuck quotent on his stats.

43 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...

Is he looking down at the burning forest from above? Is he flying!?

...YES! HE'S FLYING! THE CG SHOWS HIM FROM BEHIND WITH WINGS! HE GREW HIS WINGS BACK AND HE CAN FUCKING FLY!

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO THEM AFTER THIS!?

I can't believe this. I can't believe the game has the audacity to do something this ridiculous this late into the story. Something happened here that temporarily made Sephiran a heron laguz again, and the game isn't going to shine a single flicker of light on it.

...

 

I'm pretty sure he has his wings in the final ending with Ashunera too. So...maybe he's just had them for the past seven hundred years and has always kept them hidden. It just says that the laguz lose the ability to transform and, well, bird laguz have their wings even untransformed.

By the by I'd recommend checking out the Extended Script for this flashback. It has a pretty cool kind of montage added towards the end that cumulates in him killing a bunch of villagers.

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11 minutes ago, Jotari said:

  

Oh yeah, meant to comment on this the first time round too. If they were adjacent to Deghensea it would mean their skills would activate to buff him making him even more of a chore to take down. Unless his stats were lowered to compensate, which would make him a marginally more interesting boss, especially for LTC players (sacrifice two characters to more quickly beat him), but you would lose just a little bit of the holy fuck quotent on his stats.

That's basically what I meant. Have Nasir and Gareth buff Deghinsea unless you kill them, so that it's a "do I keep them alive or do I kill them to make it easier" situation.

 

@Interdimensional Observer If the "he always had them and was using magic to hide them" explanation is real, then really, I wish the game explained that, since we have no other reference for what depowered laguz are even like aside from Almedha (who frustratingly doesn't show her ears).

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Just now, Interdimensional Observer said:

Although, if there wasn't magic involved, I just remembered a certain scene in PoR- Naesala disguised himself as Daein grunt in C28 and Izuka fell for it. Had to hide the wings somehow there!

If that's just magic people other than Sephiran have access to, turning laguz into a human form temporarily, that would add another dimension to why beorc were able to keep laguz slaves in line.

...but then that would beg the question of why that wasn't used in combat.

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9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

That's basically what I meant. Have Nasir and Gareth buff Deghinsea unless you kill them, so that it's a "do I keep them alive or do I kill them to make it easier" situation.

 

@Interdimensional Observer If the "he always had them and was using magic to hide them" explanation is real, then really, I wish the game explained that, since we have no other reference for what depowered laguz are even like aside from Almedha (who frustratingly doesn't show her ears).

Ah. For some reason I was just thinking you meant they'd easily be able to attack whomever is fighting Deghensea at melee range, which would be a contributing factor too. With how their shifted behind him and unmoving, not killing them is ridiculously easy. Their recruitment is basically "Do you know this ahead of time?". Which I didn't in my first playthrough, because why wouldn't I kill every dragon I see? Even if they flanked him in front they'd be marginally more useful as attackers as you'd have to maneuver behind Deghensea to attack him without them interfering which would limit your options. Course so long as they don't move all that equates to is even more busy work taking Deghensea down.

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Radiant Dawn Day 45: Chapter 4-E-5

Well.

Here we are.

The final boss of Radiant Dawn.

And here's a fun fact: conceptually? It's probably my favorite final boss in the entire series.

Okay, so, I just saw the actual scene where Ashera decides to sleep until 1,000 years pass or Yune wakes up from the chaos of war (whichever comes first), and she doesn't actually say anything about the whole continent being at war. Just that they can't let “the chaos of war” wake Yune up, or she will awake as well. Lehran also swears “there will be no great war between laguz and beorc for 1,000 years”.

...That would explain why Yune didn't wake up in PoR if that's what it takes. The Mad King's War was really primarily a beorc-beorc war, and didn't really progress to race war yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQiBTT1qMTU

...But the beorc and the bird, beast and dragon tribes of the laguz all swear to this, so maybe all three tribes had to be at war with beorc too? Hence why the years of race war and slavery that happened in the backstory never resulted in the pact breaking, because the dragons stayed neutral?

Sing the galdr of release to awaken us both. Your heirs will possess that ability as well”.

I have to assume he's talking to Lehran, and not to everyone present. But that would mean Altina was never able to sing the galdr of release. So only he and his descendants could sing it. Man, it sure is a good thing that being a heron branded gives you the power to sing that galdr.

That galdr... and literally no others for some reason.

Anyway... time to confront Ashera.

And she has... yep, she's totally lost the plot. It's not about protecting people anymore, it's about protecting order for its own sake. Like I said before, she ripped out her emotions out of a desire to protect her beloved children, without realizing that it was only because of that part of her that she was capable of loving anything at all.

I kinda like that we at least got to see her heart slowly grow cold over the course of two flashbacks, but I wish we got at least one of Ashunera first, so we could get a better sense of what she used to be like.

Wow, bizarrely, Ashera's robotic nature has given her a weird sense of stubborn pride, where she tells Ike, after one last plea for her to see reason, that she refuses to change her mind about anything on principle, because that would make her “mercurial” and indecisive.

Ike: So that's how it's going to be, huh? Then we will fight...and we will save our people. Make peace with whatever the gods worship. Your end is near.

Oh man, I fucking loved that line as a teenager, and it's still pretty hype.

And now... the final preparation screen.

Okay. So. Main priority is transforming all the laguz as soon as possible, getting everyone who can't properly fight Ashera to take care of the spirits who are gonna keep spawning, and then drop the fucking hammer on Ashera as fast as I possibly can.

Let's go.

Yep, Sephiran shows up, officially re-labeled Lehran now, having decided to help us. We don't have any blessed weapons for him, and he doesn't have any of his own, but he does have a badass staff... with a mistranslated description that makes it sound really disappointing. It's the usual “heal all units on the map and restore status to normal” thing, but the description says “restores all HP to all adjacent units”.

...Shit, I wish I brought a proper tome for him, because he's amazing. He has even better stats than when we fought him as a boss. His speed is 40 now! Everything is 40 except strength and defense! Guess I can give him Micaiah's purge though.

Okay, so, first thing I love about this boss fight:

It's the first final battle, in the entire series, to use a constantly-playing boss theme in and out of battle. Awakening would make the first really iconic one of these songs with Id (Purpose), but...

...Ladies and gentlemen...

...for those of you unaware...

...may I present for your listening pleasure...

...A Grasping Truth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IbsSM-zX24

This song really doesn't have what you'd call a “melody”, but Christ almighty is this thing intense. It just does not let up. It's terrifying. And I love it.

And what makes this final boss fight so great is that it's the only one where you actually spend the whole thing fighting the boss. Usually the boss is a pushover compared to the rest of the level, just a bit of spectacle at the end of the real challenge you fought through to get there. But no, not here. Here, she's got eight 90 HP barriers surrounding her that you have to kill before you can attack her, and they all have ludicrously high defensive stats. And all the while, spirit reinforcements keep coming, and she keeps hammering you with devastating map attacks. All of the auras also have the skill aurora, a 100% proc rate version of counter, which is why it's so nice to have nihil on a few guys.

That's also what makes the dragons and their tide/pool powers so useful. Buffing attack and skill or speed and magic by 5 to everyone around you does wonders for helping your main damage dealers fight these guys. Putting both Gareth and Ena around a unit can do shit like sending Zihark from dealing 4 damage to a cover aura with a brave sword in one round of combat... to dealing 44.

Yeah. Yeah, you go ahead and bring Sothe instead of Gareth. Be my guest.

Speaking of which, thanks to standing on a wardwood tile, Gareth managed to survive a round of combat with Ashera when I totally forgot I left him in range of her judgment attack. Guess wardwood tiles will do that. Note to self though: Ena's a better candidate for putting in that spot.

Weirdly, Aran didn't trigger aurora when he killed an aura with his brave lance. Does aurora not activate on brave attacks until the second one is done, and since it killed the aura it didn't activate at all?

Yeah, I'm having fun. While I wish the enemy reinforcements were... more substantial than just two spirits showing up in the same spaces very turn... the sheer premise of beating down an absolutely titanically powerful boss while trying to fend off attacks from reinforcements and the boss itself is still such a great concept that I can't believe it took so long for it to happen again. Really, monster units were the best idea Three Houses came up with, and I just wish they were in a a game I didn't despise with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.

...Fuck. I'm not sure what the rules for that map attack were, but it killed Mist in a single hit.

...Okay, looks like it was a magical attack and she was too close to Ashera when it happened. Wow, I didn't realize her res wasn't that good.

Alright, well, that's no way to end the game.

Restarting.

I'm gonna have to keep Mist far away from Ashera, because her HP is so terrible that no amount of resistance will save her from a point-blank shot. Thankfully though, her attacks are all predictable and happen in a cycling order turn by turn, so I just have to get her out of the way at the end of the third turn.

Alright, Ashera's actually really terrifying when she uses magic. Ena, with all her resistance, actually still just barely gets one-rounded by her. I guess I have to hope that, like with Gareth, she attacks the closest thing she can find.

...Oh thank goodness, she's actually not that fast thanks to the weight of her judgment attack. She only has 32 attack speed, not 40. Wow. That would've been scary otherwise. There are so many guys she'd be able to insta-kill with 40 attack speed and her insane magic power.

Alright, back to turn 3 again, 3 auras left.. Time for Mist to fortify and then get as far away from the center as humanly possible.

Yep, this time she only took 3 damage.

Honestly, this is where the “you can't see what the stats of the map attacks are” issue rears its ugly head. This is entirely memorizing stuff you can't learn beforehand, which is pretty bullshit.

Case in point: the next one is a long-range physical basic attack, meaning she can double. I thought this was the silencing turn, but that barely matters because without playing this beforehand I couldn't know it was any “turn” at all. Someone might die, and right when it got all of her auras defeated, because I didn't know I needed to have all of my fragile units stand on cover tiles this turn.

...No, wait, I don't actually have any units with poor physical bulk and speed. I just need to put Ena on a cover tile and I should be fine.

Okay, he chose Nasir thankfully, and not Reyson, who I just realized could actually die. Not sure why that happened.

But now it's over. Ike can easily stomp her with the help of Gareth, Ena and Reyson, and I'll have Nolan and Oscar wound her first just to make absolutely sure in case he misses one.

Oh yeah, by the way, it has to be Ike. The game will pull a pretty nasty trick where any killing blow delivered by anyone other than Ike... just doesn't take. If you attack with Ike, however, it'll trigger a cutscene where Yune will dump all of her power into Ike to let him deliver the killing blow.

I find it interesting that despite being blessed, you can still see scrapes and scratches all along Ragnell's surface in that cutscene, like the years have slowly been taking their toll even before the blessing eventually wears off in Awakening's age.

Man, this cutscene where Ike talks to Yune... it feels like every single line is mistranslated, because... it just feels weird. Words that don't quite feel right, contradictory sentiments...

...I also can't help but notice that we see the entire room, and it's completely empty save for Ike and Yune. They didn't even bother leaving any plausible deniability there for who you might have actually brought in.

But anyway, Yune... flies around in bird form and personally turns everyone back to flesh. Could she... could she always do that before? She didn't need Ashera to do it? Was the only reason she didn't do it before because it was a waste of power since Ashera would destroy them anyway and all of the useful people already weren't stone?

...Wait... were the merchants in the building when the galdr was sung? How did they survive the stoning?

Well, everyone comes back, and... they don't feel like fighting anymore. Not really sure why other than the narrative purpose of ending things on a happy note.

But yeah, again...

better hope the stone birds and wyvern riders were made of strong stuff.

HAHAHAHAHA!

All of the bird laguz who turned back to flesh in the CG were walking around, as if they realized that issue about fliers turned to stone and didn't want anyone to think too hard about it....Alright, well, that's it. Time to save, and then time for the epilogue.

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Day 45 Continued: Epilogue

We get a talk between Ike, Sothe and Micaiah, and then we see the epilogue text for all of the Dawn Brigade.

Alright, so yah, Micaiah becomes the new queen of Daein and Sothe marries her, and... yeah, like I said before, I can't help but find that a little creepy.

You'll excuse me if I don't comment on all of these. I'd, uh... like to get this done today. Also, their battle stats aren't with their epilogue text, so I have to assume that comes later.

Ugh. Man, Ilyana's ending really wants to lay on her flanderization, doesn't it? Ending her text with “Somewhere, right now, she is hungry”.

Zihark apparently eventually settles down in Gallia. Let's hope he's reunited with his girlfriend.

Micaiah apparently let Talrega become an independent state? I... don't remember that being a point of concern.

Alright, here's the talk with Pelleas and Almedha. I actually kinda like that the game briefly flashes Pelleas's blank page before starting the conversation. Not sure why I like it, but it's a nice transition back to talking scenes.

Yeah, and this conversation makes it obvious that Almedha and Pelleas have not once spoken about... well, much of anything. It's clear that they haven't even had the slightest discussion about his “heritage” or what he needs to know about being a dragon branded, and it's utterly risible.

...Okay, so now Pelleas says that Almedha told him her only memories of her son were of him as a baby. That... ugh. That just further fucks the timeline of when Almedha and Soren were separated, doesn't it?

Hasn't seen Ashnard in more than 20 years.

Last saw Soren “when he was a baby”.

Hadn't seen Soren in 15 years by the time she was “reunited” with Pelleas.

Soren is apparently 16 in Path of Radiance.

I... I won't say it's impossible for all of these things to be true, because I might be wrong... but I guarantee it would be enough of a hoop-jumping affair that it's obvious the writers didn't really think about the numbers they were slinging around.

...Wait, apparently the herons' father... was still in a coma this whole time? Rafiel's ending mentions them using heron magic to wake him. I thought there was some comment about him being healthier or looking better? Were they talking about his unconscious, comatose body?

Apparently Caineghis abdicated the throne immediately after returning to Gallia, and... yeah, uh... I don't think I've quite seen enough of Skrimir's growth to be confident he'd make a good king. Also, come to think of it... I didn't actually realize abdication was a thing in Laguz culture. I guess you don't have to lead the country even if you are the strongest? That... complicates things. But also, did Caineghis lose formshift then?

And now Sanaki “reveals” that Micaiah is Sanaki's older sister. As if that weren't already obvious. And yeah, Micaiah declines to rule Begnion with her, because Daein needs her and also she gives more of a shit about Daein.

Awww... Poor Muarim, mourning his dead friend. Sorry I couldn't save him, buddy.

Anyway... Oliver is just... reformed now. Pardoned for all of his crimes and just living out his days sponsoring artists rather than enslaving herons.

Alright, here's where Reyson says he'll be returning to live in Serenes Forest, and... oh thank fucking goodness. All of the bird tribes are settling down there. That makes much more sense. Yeah, try to commit genocide now, fuckers.

Hahahahaha, Reyson insisting that none of the bird tribe are allowed to hunt in the forest is... gonna be a problem.

Tibarn: Tell me... have you ever heard of a vegetarian hawk?

No! I have not! Hawks are obligate carnivores! Reyson, stop imposing your veganism on creatures fundamentally incapable of surviving on it! Just because you're an herbivore doesn't mean-

Wait a minute...

...Quick Google search...

PPPFFFFHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

HERONS ARE CARNIVORES TOO!

Anyway, Tibarn became the united bird tribe ruler and Naesala stepped down. That's proooobably not gonna sit well with the ravens.

Apparently Ena giving birth to Rajaion's child was the first dragon birth “in centuries”. Wow. Also, other endings, namely Gareth's, confirm that child was a boy.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Okay.

So.

About that theory that Priam is descended from Mist.

Her unpaired ending says that she never married anyone despite having several suitors. It's very explicit about that, which is kind of unusual for this series now that I think of it. So... that... doesn't really speak well to the idea of Priam being descended from her.

Ah yes, and here's the scene where Almedha finally finds out who her son is.

It's a pretty sweet scene, actually. You can read a lot of emotion into her lines and body language despite her actual lines playing dumb about what she knows when talking to Soren specifically.

However...

Kurthnaga: That boy is the staff officer for the Greil Mercenaries. What made you call out to him like that?

Kurthnaga.

Kurthnaga, king of the dragons, the most powerful dragon on the fucking planet, can't sense branded. At all. Not only that, but he's apparently denser than a black fucking hole, because he sees that mark on Soren's forehead, not to mention his distinctive green hair, and doesn't remotely connect the dots.

Ah. Okay. So, looks like it was magic that was concealing Lehran's heron form. I could've sworn this scene was after he had had his heron form restored by Ashunera, but apparently not.

...This is apparently 1,200 years later when Lehran talks with Ashunera. Whether 1,200 years after Ashera's defeat, or 1,200 years after the original 1,000 year pact? They do not say.

Alright, now we're at the staff credits, and... it's implied that this is Ashunera and Lehran singing the credits song, similar to how the Echoes credits song is implied to be sung by Mila. It's... not really my thing. I prefer other ending credits songs.

And... with that... the game's over. All that's left is to see my stats... and give my rating.

Christ, these are going so fast they're gonna be a pain to capture, since the home menu covers up a lot, but I'll try.

1-P: 15 turns.

1-1: 8 turns.

1-2: 22 turns.

1-3: 21 turns.

1-4: 36 turns.

1-5: 6 turns.

1-6: 13 turns.

1-7: 20 turns.

1-8: 7 turns.

1-9: 20 turns.

1-E: 16 turns.

2-P: 9 turns.

2-1: 27 turns.

2-2: 11 turns.

2-3: 9 turns.

2-E: 16 turns.

3-P: 7 turns.

3-1: 9 turns.

3-2: 8 turns.

3-3: 10 turns.

3-4: 10 turns.

3-5: 9 turns.

3-6: 12 turns.

3-7: 13 turns.

3-8: 8 turns.

3-9: 7 turns.

3-10: 7 turns.

3-11: 22 turns.

3-12: 11 turns.

3-13: 13 turns.

3-E: 7 turns.

4-P: 7 turns.

4-1: 9 turns.

4-2: 20 turns.

4-3: 15 turns.

4-4: 22 turns.

4-5: 3 turns.

4-E-1: 10 turns.

4-E-2: 4 turns.

4-E-3: 7 turns.

4-E-4: 2 turns.

4-E-5: 5 turns.

Casualties: Astrid, Leonardo, Rhys, Tormod, Vika. I don't think I missed anyone on that scrolling list...

Then we've got a whoooooole lot of nothing from units it looks like I never even deployed.

Janaff, Ulki and Tibarn got surprisingly few kills, just in the 30s range. It felt like I did more with them.

Zihark only got 78 kills! That's surprising! Though I guess a lot of the time I was avoiding using him so I could BEXP him...

Aran's the first to break 100 at 102, and he's not even in the top 5...

...Jill comes in 5th with 14 deployments, 166 fights, and 114 victories...

...Soren comes in 4th with 18 deployments, 156 fights, and 118 victories...

...Nolan comes in at 3rd with 20 deployments, a massive jump up to 247 battles, and 129 victories...

...rather unsurprisingly Haar comes in 2nd with 12 deployments, 257 battles, and 142 victories...

...and surprising literally no one, Ike comes in first with 18 deployments, 244 battles, and 157 victories.

Alright. That's it for statistics.

So...

...What did I think?

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My Ranking

Difficulty: Honestly, I wish I had played on Hard Mode. Normal was just too easy for me, especially with all of the ridiculous tools the game gives you to cheese it, which I felt compelled to use. That said... nearly all games in the series wound up devolving into mindless cheese by the end. I have to remember that the current #2 spot really isn't all that hard either, just bullshit.

...That said... most of the difficulty in this game came down to raw stats and wasn't very inspired, with way too many ways to mindlessly enemy-phase the game. And all hard mode would do is inflate those stats, take away strategic depth by removing the weapon triangle, and then cripple the game's own interface. I honestly consider what real difficulty there was in Thracia to be more interesting than what I found in this game.

...Okay, for now, I'll put it just above Blazing Blade, but I'm starting to think I need to replace, split or re-assess my criteria for this category soon, because it feels like a massive muddy clusterfuck.

1: Binding Blade (1)

2: Thracia (2)

3: Radiant Dawn (3)

4: Blazing Blade (4)

5: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (5)

6: Genealogy of the Holy War (6)

7: Gaiden (7)

8: Sacred Stones (8)

9: Path of Radiance (9)

10: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (10)

11: Dark Dragon (11)


 

Ironmannability: Yeah, unfortunately this doesn't do too well there. Despite the ridiculously bloated cast, several armies spend large swaths of the game having basically nobody useful to replenish their numbers with if you lose anyone. What's more, more than half of the useful units in Part 1 don't stick around for the DB section of Part 3, which sounds like an absolute nightmare for a blind player.

...The trouble is, the shit this game pulls is hard to compare one-to-one with the shit that the other losers on this list pull.

I think we can agree that you have to be pretty atrocious in order to lose to Gaiden and Dark Dragon without sharing their inability to resist critical hits, and I don't think it quite gets there. Only Thracia's managed to pull off that “feat” so far, and Radiant Dawn is no Thracia.

Blazing Blade is where it is... basically on principle, for having a couple of instances of total horseshit ruining what otherwise would be a pretty nice ironmanning experience, namely two sections where it's entirely possible to lose without doing anything wrong whatsoever.

Binding Blade has ambush spawns and fucking Sacae.

...Yeah no, I'm pretty sure that no matter what, I'd be more pissed off ironmanning Binding Blade blind than I would be ironmanning Radiant Dawn blind. So that's where it goes.

1: Genealogy of the Holy War (7)

2: Path of Radiance (11)

3: Sacred Stones (11)

4: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (9)

5: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (15)

6: Radiant Dawn (9)

7: Binding Blade (8)

8: Blazing Blade (12)

9: Dark Dragon (20)

10: Gaiden (17)

11: Thracia 776 (13)


 

Usability: I'm sorry, but just on fucking principle, I have to take off points here for the idiotic decision to remove usability features from Hard Mode. That is just such a completely bullshit idea, and even though I didn't experience it for myself, I'm still gonna treat the game as if it doesn't have the features that Hard Mode removed. And that puts it, in some regards, at Dark Dragon levels. Every game from Mystery of the Emblem until now has let you see where enemy units can move.

...But it does still have a way better preparation system than those early games though, so I can't in good conscience put it ahead of any game that lets you know and control where your units are deployed. So I'll put it just below Binding Blade, the lowest game on the list that does that.

1: Genealogy of the Holy War (8)

2: Path of Radiance (13)

3: Blazing Blade (15)

4: Sacred Stones (15)

5: Binding Blade (13)

6: Radiant Dawn (15)

7: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (22) and Book 2 (16)

8: Thracia 776 (21)

9: Gaiden (26)

10: Dark Dragon (30)


 

Depth: This adds some minor new mechanics, so it's slightly deeper than Path of Radiance. Seems pretty simple.

1: Genealogy of the Holy War (9)

2: Thracia 776 (23)

3: Radiant Dawn (18)

4: Path of Radiance (17)

5: Gaiden (31)

6: Sacred Stones (21)

7: Binding Blade (20)

8: Blazing Blade (23)

9: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (31) and Book 2 (25)

10: Dark Dragon (40)


 

Balance: In theory this should get a lot of points for finally making purchasable 1-2 range swords a thing, but unfortunately closer inspection makes it clear that even that was fucked up. Swords are arbitrarily and objectively made the worst melee weapon type in the game for no discernible reason, with all-around terrible sats and an inability to forge 1-2 range for reasons I cannot fathom. And that's to say nothing of the terrible, terrible balance of the cast of characters, with huge swaths of the cast being borderline unusable due to a combination of wonky availability and poor joining stats. And the fucking laguz. Honestly? Fuck it, I'm going with my gut: it's worse than Genealogy.

1: Binding Blade (21)

2: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (33)

3: Gaiden (34)

4: Blazing Blade (27)

5: Path of Radiance (22)

6: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (31)

7: Sacred Stones (28)

8: Thracia 776 (31)

9: Genealogy of the Holy War (18)

10: Radiant Dawn (28)

11: Dark Dragon (51)


 

Pacing: The long enemy phases are the real issue here, but I have to remind myself that this and PoR are the only games I haven't been playing with an emulator speed-up button I shouldn't allow to unfairly skew my judgment. That said, the GBA games, the first ones in the series to be completely free of the tedious place-to-place busywork that defined so much of the first five games, are definitely faster-paced in their animations than these games are, particularly the enemy movement map animations. However, unlike Path of Radiance, this game has a much faster map animation option (completely off) that I didn't use. So I'll have to put it above Path of Radiance at least.

1: Blazing Blade (28)

2: Binding Blade (23)

3: Sacred Stones (31)

4: Radiant Dawn (32)

5: Path of Radiance (27)

6: Thracia 776 (37)

7: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (40)

8: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (39)

9: Gaiden (43)

10: Dark Dragon (61)

11: Genealogy of the Holy War (29)


 

Writing: My primary complaints mainly focus on its rushed pacing early on, its convoluted and extremely confusing lore, and its frequent failures to respect and/or live up to the source material it was working with. I have two of these three complaints about Blazing Blade, but I also generally found myself far more frequently genuinely moved by the story and characters of Blazing Blade. I honestly think BlazBlad is a more effective story overall.

That said, overall, it's definitely good by Fire Emblem standards, and it certainly beats the remaining games on this list, most of them by a country fucking mile.

1: Path of Radiance (28)

2: Genealogy of the Holy War (31)

3: Blazing Blade (31)

4: Radiant Dawn (36)

5: Thracia 776 (42)

6: Binding Blade (29)

7: Sacred Stones (38)

8: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (47)

9: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (49)

10: Dark Dragon (71)

11: Gaiden (54)


 

Music: Honestly, I'm not a huge fan. It's got a handful of nice tracks, but nearly all of the music in this game is barely-memorable, un-melodic, “atmospheric” music that I'm not a huge fan of.

I'll put it above Gaiden though. It just seems unfair not to, given how far technology has progressed, how few songs that game has, and given that there are about as many songs I like in Radiant Dawn as there are songs in Gaiden period.

1: Genealogy of the Holy War (32)

2: Thracia 776 (44)

3: Path of Radiance (31)

4: Blazing Blade (35)

5: Sacred Stones (43)

6: Radiant Dawn (42)

7: Gaiden (61)

8: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (55)

9: Binding Blade (38)

10: Dark Dragon (81)

11: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (60)


 

Presentation: I'm torn between the slight visual improvements and the absolutely memetically terrible voice acting, since I'm judging the English version after all (though I've heard, but cannot confirm, that the Japanese version was similarly phoned-in).

...No, honestly, I've gotta give this one to Radiant Dawn. Voice acting may be shit, but it's got the nicest visuals so far, and way more cutscenes than Path of Radiance too.

1: Radiant Dawn (43)

2: Path of Radiance (33)

3: Blazing Blade (38)

4: Sacred Stones (47)

5: Binding Blade (43)

6: Thracia 776 (50)

7: Genealogy of the Holy War (39)

8: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (68) and Book 2 (63)

9: Gaiden (70)

10: Dark Dragon (91)


 

Replayability: Honestly, what “replayability” this game has feels... artificial. Not only does it barely amount to anything gameplaywise, but there's no reason why any of the stuff added to clear data replays couldn't have been available from the beginning. And given that of the three pre-endgame armies, only one of them really has much elbow room to use significantly different units...

...Yeah, I'd definitely say this goes below Path of Radiance.

1: Genealogy of the Holy War (40)

2: Sacred Stones (49)

3: Blazing Blade (41)

4: Binding Blade (47)

5: Thracia 776 (55)

6: Gaiden (76)

7: Path of Radiance (40)

8: Radiant Dawn (51)

9: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (77)

10: Dark Dragon (101)

11: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (74)


 

Which puts us at:

1/2: Path of Radiance (40)

1/2: Genealogy of the Holy War (40)

3: Blazing Blade (41)

4: Binding Blade (47)

5: Sacred Stones (49)

6: Radiant Dawn (51)

7: Thracia 776 (55)

8: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (74)

9: Gaiden (76)

10: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (77)

11: Dark Dragon (101)

Congratulations to Dark Dragon for the dubious honor of being the first game in the series to “score” in the triple digits. Looks like shifting neck-and-neck point values have put PoR and Genealogy in a tie and shifted Blazing Blade down to third place instead of tying for second, and Gaiden is just baaaaaarely securing its recent victory over its ancient nemesis, Mystery of the Emblem Book 1.

...Y'know? I think this is the first placement of a game on the list in a long while that I'm okay with. Doesn't strike me as particularly wrong in the grand scheme of things. As much as this game has going for it... it's not one I'm keen to play again any time soon. ...As most of you reading can probably tell by now.

...And with that...

...At long last...

...After nine long weeks...

...We're done.

Tune in on Monday as usual, everyone...

...and the game shall once again begin anew.

With the first Fire Emblem game I was ever even remotely critical of.

The game I've only touched once, briefly, in about ten years.

The remake of the first game in the series.

A game that may very well cause me to have a nostalgia trip not to my childhood... but to this marathon.

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, for the Nintendo DS.

Stay safe, everyone!

 

Edited by Alastor15243
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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Micaiah apparently let Talrega become an independent state? I... don't remember that being a point of concern.

No she didn't.

If you don't want to read that, the Japanese of that ending uses treats Talrega as a "territory" in the feudal sense of a "fief", and fiefs and the noble who own them aren't nominally independent of their king (in practice history has gone up and down on that front). So treat it more like Micaiah endowing Jill with the title "Duchess Talrega", but not literally.

 

 

You're done with Tellius now. Personally I enjoy both halve of it about equally and inseparably, though I entirely understand why some people like one half and dislike the other, so I get your preference for PoR.

Shadow Dragon should be less to write about, less to nitpick. But that's probably good for your time and health.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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Oh boy. Ohhhh booooy.

Let's just say I might explode during this one and leave it at that.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Tune in on Monday as usual, everyone...

...and the game shall once again begin anew.

With the first Fire Emblem game I was ever even remotely critical of.

Coincidentally, Shadow Dragon was the first FE game I was rather critical of. And even nowadays, I still am rather critical of it.

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1 minute ago, Jotari said:

So have you settled on whether you're going to use a hack to play the Gaidens, or if you're going to slaughter your army?

I still have no idea. Either one seems profoundly wrong on some level. What would you guys prefer?

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1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

I still have no idea. Either one seems profoundly wrong on some level. What would you guys prefer?

I think I'd prefer the hack to put them in. It's not the natural way of doing things, but we all know the natural way is pretty bullshit so this at least allows some enjoyment out of playing it the way it should have been.

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6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, he chose Nasir thankfully, and not Reyson, who I just realized could actually die. Not sure why that happened.

Ashera is one of the many endgame bosses that wont attack the Herons directly, so you only need to worry about him dying to an area effect attack.

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

About that theory that Priam is descended from Mist.

Her unpaired ending says that she never married anyone despite having several suitors. It's very explicit about that, which is kind of unusual for this series now that I think of it. So... that... doesn't really speak well to the idea of Priam being descended from her.

Just because you don't marry, doesn't mean you can't have kids.

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Tune in on Monday as usual, everyone...

...and the game shall once again begin anew.

With the first Fire Emblem game I was ever even remotely critical of.

The game I've only touched once, briefly, in about ten years.

Yeah, Shadow Dragon is one of the Fire Emblem games I am the most critical of. Its a shame it did so poorly that they didn't bother to localize the far better New Mystery of the Emblem...

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I still have no idea. Either one seems profoundly wrong on some level. What would you guys prefer?

I'd prefer it be done the natural way. Having to kill off characters to get the gaiden chapters may be bullshit, but it was the bullshit the game intended.

 

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I’m on team ‘play the tutorial just to be able to review it, then switch to H5 and kill off characters’.

The tutorial can be done in  10 minutes, and is a nice easing into SD after going through RD. 

Then you can experience the gut punch that is H5 early game. Gaidens were made with the intent that it isn’t bad that you are losing units. Losing units and death add to the realism that this is war, and SD was created with that in mind. Just like the earlier FE’s were. 

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3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Just because you don't marry, doesn't mean you can't have kids.

 

That's also her unpaired ending. She does have a paired ending too. All hail Priam, descendent of Boyd.

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3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Just because you don't marry, doesn't mean you can't have kids.

Genuine question: does that sound like Mist to you?

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Ashera is one of the many endgame bosses that wont attack the Herons directly, so you only need to worry about him dying to an area effect attack.

Ahhh, yeah, I had a feeling...

3 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

I’m on team ‘play the tutorial just to be able to review it, then switch to H5 and kill off characters’.

The tutorial can be done in  10 minutes, and is a nice easing into SD after going through RD. 

Then you can experience the gut punch that is H5 early game. Gaidens were made with the intent that it isn’t bad that you are losing units. Losing units and death add to the realism that this is war, and SD was created with that in mind. Just like the earlier FE’s were. 

I'm not so sure about H5. Doesn't sound good for an ironman (but then, neither does deliberately killing off nearly everyone), and also I've heard early-game bosses require you to do shit like make them break their weapons before you can fight them.

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14 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Genuine question: does that sound like Mist to you?

Ahhh, yeah, I had a feeling...

I'm not so sure about H5. Doesn't sound good for an ironman (but then, neither does deliberately killing off nearly everyone), and also I've heard early-game bosses require you to do shit like make them break their weapons before you can fight them.

It’s only the second and third that pose a problem. And that’s more being tedious because of fort healing. The first one is not that bad because of 1 range.

SD was made with losing units in mind, and taking the gaiden requirements away detracts from the intended playing experience imho. 

H5 requires strategic thinking since it is a very player phase heavy way of playing, instead of throwing the super tanks in the enemy army and pressing end turn.

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2 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

H5 requires strategic thinking since it is a very player phase heavy way of playing, instead of throwing the super tanks in the enemy army and pressing end turn.

Unless General!Wolf & Sedgar for a lot of it! -Although they don't work in a couple chapters, namely the last two non-Gaidens b/c the Manaketes actually have 25+ AS despite it not being shown on the status screen and that allows them to double all Generals.

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56 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Unless General!Wolf & Sedgar for a lot of it! -Although they don't work in a couple chapters, namely the last two non-Gaidens b/c the Manaketes actually have 25+ AS despite it not being shown on the status screen and that allows them to double all Generals.

Wait, what does the game do to not show their attack speed? Is their dragonstone speed buff invisible?

Edited by Alastor15243
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2 minutes ago, Icelerate said:
 

She marries Boyd if she got an A support with him. 

Yeah I know that, but I still think the fact that basically her entire epilogue is devoted to explaining that she stayed single for the rest of her life... is kinda conspicuous due to how rare that is in the series.

At any rate, it's kinda meaningless. I don't believe for a second that the Awakening writing team gave a shit about what Priam implied about Ike or Mist when they made him, just like they didn't give a shit about what their lore implied about the actual games it was a sequel to.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Wait, what does the game do to not show their attack speed? Is their dragonstone speed buff invisible?

It's only relevant in the last chapters where you fight in Dolhr. The Manaketes have 20 for their cap in every non-HP/Move stat. The problem? This:

Mage Dragon * 60 30 30 30 24 30 30 30
Earth Dragon 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30
Fire Dragon * 60 30 30 30 26 30 30 30
Divine Dragon * 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30

* Unused (they don’t exist as standalone classes, but are used to calculate the transformed Manakete stats)

I guess that on H5, the Manaketes have stats that exceed the visible 20 caps, and thats allowed because of the higher caps when they're transformed. It's only an issue for Fire Dragons though on the doubling Generals front, since the General Spd cap is 21 and Mage Dragons lose 1 AS from their Magestones.

And yes, the dragonstone buffs are visible.

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