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

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

You only need to field one to get use out of it on chapter 8, and the bow triangle attack doesn't even have one chapter you can get away with reducing its ludicrous requirements.

Even though this is also the chapter where the maps start to get really big (which would discourage me from bringing Bors in the first place)? And even if I did, Barth and Wendy spawn halfway through the map, meaning that I'd have to actively go out of my way to use the triangle attack even in the one chapter I could (supposedly, according to you) feasibly get any use out of it. Which I consider rather telling, by the way. Not to mention fielding three armors is a rather ludicrous requirement in the first place, especially when all three of them are among the worst units in the game, and ESPECIALLY when the game in question is a low point for armors in general.

2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

One of the worst, Sofia is in that game as well...

True, but I still think Wendy is the worst owing to her class, among other factors.

2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

that is why you see talk about baiting, it doesn't take that much move to suround a unit that is already adjacent to one or two your armorknights already (and you can rescue drop them with the abundance of mounts to get them in position to bait, or join the triangle)

One of them happens to be hard to transport even before peeps start promoting, at which point it gets even harder. And this assumes I'm fielding all three of them in the first place (why in Anankos's name would I torture myself by doing this???). Not to mention you yourself are admitting that I have to actively contort my game to focus on pulling it off. And who's to say that I'm not going to be baiting with a better unit (read: almost anyone else) instead of my armors???

Edited July 10, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Sure. On the other hand, I think it's asking a lot - too much, even - to expect a player to field three crappy armored knights, especially when one of them is the worst unit in the game, and get them to surround an enemy unit when we're talking about a game with giant maps.

No one's making you field the knights. If you do want to though then that's an option. Even if you're fielding Oscar, Boyd and Rolf, chances are you'll never actually use the triangle attack (especially given how east Path of Radiance is as a game).

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Thats because Corrosion was buffed in RD, there, it depletes durability equal to the user's level, adding +20 for each prior tier. So Leonardo as a 9 Sniper would deplete 29 uses of a weapon, regardless of whether his promotion was at 10 or 20. PoR Corrosion is (20 if promoted + current level)/4, so at most it'll be a reduction of 10 uses- quite awful.

 

I swear there are notes from PoR's earlier drafts that confirm there was to be choosing between Soren and Titania stated to be directly inspired by Augustus and Dorius somewhere, but SF is very very bad when it comes to finding them.

I know it isn't in the Making of: Path of Radiance article, which is where it is said the base may have been planned to be more like the future MyCastle, and FE4 in its Making of article may have had unfulfilled dreams of MyCastle too.

 

You mean what Ike and co. think at this moment without greater evidence?

Because if you look carefully at the CG, somebody is laying at Lehran's feet during the defining moment when his psyche breaks. Given magic exists that can put people to sleep for two decades, and Seph is the greatest mage in Tellius, putting Lillia in a slumber and then bringing her to Ashnard never awakening a single moment along the way sounds feasible.

625-626 had to be a packed and short period for Seph. He:

• Fell into despair.
• Determined Ashnard would be his vehicle for global euthanasia. 
• Dragged a Heron and his Medallion to Ashnard.
• Met Zelgius before Gawain fled Daein and then recruited him.
• And later I would interpret it wrote up the Blood Pact. 

 

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Which would mean he went to Ashnard while Ashnard was still just a really badass soldier.

And then helped him become king by way of a scheme that could have easily killed Ashnard before it killed everyone in his way. And I have to ask... why? What did Lehran gain from this specific course of action?

 

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But if Lehran really did invent the blood pact, the Kilvas blood pact implies Lehran invented the blood pact before he became omnicidal, and had a part in enslaving the ravens to the senate while he was still relatively sane.

No, not just that, this all implies he kidnapped a heron to end the world before he went crazy, or else had an opportunity to intervene in the massacre to some degree and yet didn't aside from one heron he doomed to a miserable existence.

Dang. Well I'm glad I read ahead before posting and repeating half this info. Just so everyone's on the same page, this is the CG in question

I don't think even the expanded Japanese text ever even references her in Radiant Dawn, but it is a nice detail that slots things into place when explaining Sephiran's backstory (and fun fact, he kills a bunch of people in the Japanese text too in a scene that I think is a major sham it was removed). Sephiran had his mental break down during the massacre, kidnapped Lillina, then went to Daein and start collaborating with Zelgius and Ashnard, which resulted in making Ashanrd king two years later.

[Alastor15243]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

 

 

Dang. Well I'm glad I read ahead before posting and repeating half this info. Just so everyone's on the same page, this is the CG in question

I don't think even the expanded Japanese text ever even references her in Radiant Dawn, but it is a nice detail that slots things into place when explaining Sephiran's backstory (and fun fact, he kills a bunch of people in the Japanese text too in a scene that I think is a major sham it was removed). Sephiran had his mental break down during the massacre, kidnapped Lillina, then went to Daein and start collaborating with Zelgius and Ashnard, which resulted in making Ashanrd king two years later.

And does the game ever explain why specifically Ashnard got the job?

[Jotari]

22 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

And does the game ever explain why specifically Ashnard got the job?

According to Sephiran

Sephiran:
“My aim has always been to wake Ashera so that she might pass judgment on all the people of the world. What I needed was a war that would spread all across the continent. How could I achieve this? My attention turned to the young Daein prince… I could use the fiery Ashnard for my purposes. He was ambitious, a fierce warrior, and more than anything, he had an earnest desire to change the world. When I allowed him to know of the goddess sealed inside the medallion, he became determined to set her free. We could use heron galdrar or a massive, continent-spanning war to throw the world into chaos.”

As for why Sephiran even knew to focus on Ashnard to begin with, he apparently made quite a name for himself even as Nth in line for the throne.

 Tanith: On the battlefield. As you know, Daein is home to many brave warriors.
         At the time, then-prince Ashnard was said to have been a match for an
         entire troop of pegasus knights. Begnion and Daein both keep close 
         watch over their borders, and their patrols fought in many skirmishes.
         Although there was no war to speak of, these land disputes did end 
         with Daein claiming a small portion of Begnion soil. It would be no
         exaggeration to say this was solely due to the strength of one man:
         Ashnard.

So basically he was the most obvious war mongerer on the continent. Fun to imagine who Sephiran would have chosen if Ashnard didn't exist though. My guess would be Tibarn. A Phoenics Begnion conflict wouldn't be out of the question.

Edited July 11, 2020 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

According to Sephiran

Sephiran:
“My aim has always been to wake Ashera so that she might pass judgment on all the people of the world. What I needed was a war that would spread all across the continent. How could I achieve this? My attention turned to the young Daein prince… I could use the fiery Ashnard for my purposes. He was ambitious, a fierce warrior, and more than anything, he had an earnest desire to change the world. When I allowed him to know of the goddess sealed inside the medallion, he became determined to set her free. We could use heron galdrar or a massive, continent-spanning war to throw the world into chaos.”

As for why Sephiran even knew to focus on Ashnard to begin with, he apparently made quite a name for himself even as Nth in line for the throne.

 Tanith: On the battlefield. As you know, Daein is home to many brave warriors.
         At the time, then-prince Ashnard was said to have been a match for an
         entire troop of pegasus knights. Begnion and Daein both keep close 
         watch over their borders, and their patrols fought in many skirmishes.
         Although there was no war to speak of, these land disputes did end 
         with Daein claiming a small portion of Begnion soil. It would be no
         exaggeration to say this was solely due to the strength of one man:
         Ashnard.

So basically he was the most obvious war mongerer on the continent.

Fair enough. Though while, unless I'm missing something else, this all makes sense with the new information (except that we have no idea how specifically Sephiran kept the blood pact from killing Ashnard before everyone else in front of him in the line of succession), I'm amazed nobody in the group noticed how suspiciously unrealistic all of this would have been for a low-succession-tier prince to accomplish 2 years before he coincidentally had the title of king thrown into his lap by what they think was just a plague.

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Fair enough. Though while, unless I'm missing something else, this all makes sense with the new information (except that we have no idea how specifically Sephiran kept the blood pact from killing Ashnard before everyone else in front of him in the line of succession), I'm amazed nobody in the group noticed how suspiciously unrealistic all of this would have been for a low-succession-tier prince to accomplish 2 years before he coincidentally had the title of king thrown into his lap by what they think was just a plague.

Well up until this point the singular thing he's apparently managed to do is kidnap one person during a massacre. But throw war bias on top of it I guess. For what it's worth they are wrong about their conclusion that Ashnard was behind it and in anyway to blame for the Seneres massacre. And characters being completely wrong about a hunch in a nondetective story is phenomenally rare in fiction.

Edited July 11, 2020 by Jotari

[Dotty]

Howdy. I've just caught up completely after reading through this whole topic (you've seen my name in the recently browsing section plenty over the last month or two no doubt). Just wanted to show my respect for this rather massive undertaking and will be keeping up regularly from here on out.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Dotty said:

Howdy. I've just caught up completely after reading through this whole topic (you've seen my name in the recently browsing section plenty over the last month or two no doubt). Just wanted to show my respect for this rather massive undertaking and will be keeping up regularly from here on out.

Hey, great to finally hear from you! Glad you've been enjoying it!

[Shadow Mir]

On 7/11/2020 at 12:40 AM, Jotari said:

No one's making you field the knights. If you do want to though then that's an option. Even if you're fielding Oscar, Boyd and Rolf, chances are you'll never actually use the triangle attack (especially given how east Path of Radiance is as a game).

You have a point there. At the same time, my point is that as Binding Blade is pretty much the Horse Emblem game outside of Genealogy (not to mention terrible for armored knights in general), odds are I'm not going to bother with any of the armored knights, and even if I was insane enough to use all three of them, their low movement means they're gonna struggle to get in position to actually use it. 

[Alastor15243]

Path of Radiance Day 21: Chapter 23

So, after a ridiculously short exchange between Ike and Zelgius, we for some reason go to the narration screen. This game has put dialogue before the narration screen before, but it was always more substantial than this.

Yep, and okay, so, this chapter offhandedly mentions Ike's decision to abdicate rule of Daein and pass it to Begnion, which... hahahaha... well, let's just say this decision causes almost the entirety of the sequel to happen.

...Man, this bridge between Crimea and Daein... if this is really the best place for an army to cross over into Crimea from Daein, then why didn't Daein use it? I mean, they can't have, could they? Did all of Daein's surprise attack troops come across this bridge, and crush the bottleneck siege so quickly that not a single soldier managed to warn Crimea? Does Daein have an army of warp-powder-using warriors who warped behind the bridge outpost limits and slaughtered the entire guard in a pincer attack so nobody could escape? Otherwise this seems... really stupid.

Yet again Ike mentions being born in Gallia as having an influence on how he behaves when he can't remember any of it. I mean maybe subconsciously it could have done something, but he puts way more stock in this than he really should, multiple times.

Yep, so, the game confirms that everything so far, from the moment they fled Crimea to the moment they moved on to enter Crimea again... has taken a year. That... okay, that feels really weird. Ground travel is implied to be way faster than sea travel, and yet most of this year was spent traveling on land, over distances that by Soren's account should have taken weeks, not a year. And apparently it was the beginning of spring when they left, and the beginning of winter when they went to Daein... which would imply that... they were in Begnion for... like...

...Seven months.

And Ranulf shows up, taking the opportunity to yet again tease the audience with an Elincia-Ike romance that will never happen, when ironically he's one of the two closest things to a canon pairing Ike has.

Ranulf: Once I heard the news that the Crimean army had taken the Daein capital, I ran all this way to greet you!

...From where? In Gallia? You ran from Gallia all the way across Crimea, a country occupied by Daein, in the same time it took Ike to go to a temple and back and then march here?

...And that's assuming he got the news via sending stone.

...Which would imply that Nasir was still fulfilling his duties as Gallia's spy... even after he outed himself to Ike's army as a Daein spy. Or more likely just before. Assuming they didn't leave him his sending stone inside wherever they're keeping him prison, and he wasn't just pretending everything was still cool when communicating to Gallia.

Alright, so, it's kinda funny how well Ike and Ranulf are getting along now, like old friends, when they were barely together for a couple of days. Like, I got some serious levels of “bro”ness between these two from that conversation. And also, yes, I didn't see anything in that conversation that would contradict the idea of them potentially having a thing for each other. I'll have to keep an eye out for shit like that, see if I can actually come to a conclusion as to whether or not Ike was actually written to be gay.

Anyway, on to Tanith and Marcia. Tanith says that she's “seen some knights leave because of a silly romanic distraction”. What, so they got boyfriends who didn't like them being holy pegasus knights?

In this economy?

Or does being a holy pegasus knight leave you basically no time for dating at all?

...What annoys me about this next part of the support is that it feels like they tried to phrase this to account for the fact that Makalov's recruitment is optional, since it would have happened by this point if at all, but they seemed to lean a bit too hard on the “Makalov is dead and Marcia doesn't know it” angle, because this does not sound like something someone would say if they've already reunited with their brother:

“I met Ike and his company during my search, and I joined after they saved me from a vicious band of boat monkeys. But I still didn't find my father. I figured that if I traveled with Ike, I'd eventually find my brother. That's why I'm still with them.”

...Couldn't they just have changed this conversation depending on whether or not he was recruited and/or is still alive? They did it with other talk scenes, and apparently in Jill and Mist's support, they added in conditionals there!

But apparently, Tanith still considers Marcia a deserter, despite sympathizing. Which is kinda funny, but I'm a bit annoyed that it's ambiguous whether this is a talk between a comically over-zealous superior officer who can't accept that some people leave, or a talk between a military general straight-woman and her comically irresponsible soldier.

Anyway...

Looks like we have exactly two of each stat booster. Good to know. I hope I can cap Ike's defense naturally so that Jill can cap hers with the two dracoshields. It's cutting it very close, and could go either way.

Oh thank goodness! Looks like luck smiles on me! This is the silver card chapter I think! Which means I can buy a shitton of expensive gear this chapter and be set for the rest of the game! I can buy silver weapons for Ike and have him gain all of the rest of his levels with a defense boost!

HAHAHAHAHAHA! And it's just as funny as I remember! With Ike hiding from...

...Oh shit.

...No, this is the Hammerne event, isn't it? Damn. Still though, this is funny as hell, with Ike fleeing into a tent with Soren to escape being pursued by Aimee.

“Oh. Soren. Ew. I mean, um... Hi.”

Wow, is this an anime filter or something? Is Soren really all greasy-haired and sickly-pale? I can't imagine a girl looking at Soren and going “ew”.

Okay, so... looking at this scene... I'm actually starting to think this proves that, if Soren does have a thing for Ike... he certainly doesn't know it right now. Because right now he's giving Aimee tips on how to get Ike's attention romantically, which... is not something I can imagine Soren doing if he actually had a crush on Ike. Especially not since it's clearly genuine, good advice, telling her that Ike's more likely to be impressed by cooking than by super-rare magic staves.

...Then he teasingly mimics Aimee's “Ikey-poo” pet name.

...Does anyone know what Aimee called Ike in Japanese?

...Anyway, we get a conversation with Ike and... a drunk-out-of-his-mind Shinon.

...I get the feeling that he really admired and respected Greil. Amidst all the jealousy and racism and incoherent word-slurring, he seemed to be really pissed off that Ike keeps calling it the “Greil Mercenaries”, telling him he has no right to keep using his father's name. It also seems that Shinon was really hoping that he would be the one called on to lead the Greil Mercenaries, and is jealous of Ike for all the favoritism he got from Greil before he showed he deserved it.

Also, yeah, remember when I said this on Day 8?

“This is going to demonstrate that racism against laguz is pretty dang rampant across Crimea. So I've gotta ask... how did Ike wind up completely ignorant of their existence his whole life? Like, if you hate these things so much that you'll just start beating one in the street the second you see him... that's gotta, like... leave evidence behind in the world, right? How sheltered has Ike's life been? How much of it has he spent just living inside the Greil Mercenaries' base? Has he never talked with people outside town, or read a book, or been in the same room as Shinon while he's drunk?”

Yeah. This is why I mentioned that last bit.

Ike: It was never about the commandership... it was about my father.

Is that him protesting Shinon's accusations, or realizing how much Shinon respected his father?

Man, I've gotta say this, and I'm not sure if I've said it already... I love this new support system. While I generally prefer the action-based, generally-finite system of Fateswakening, this is a massive improvement in how to gain support points when compared to the “just end your turn next to another unit a bunch of times” system of 4 and the GBA games. This version doesn't remotely punish going quickly.

Well at any rate, if I can't silver-card a bunch of silver swords... fuck it, I'll buy a bunch anyway. They have 25 uses, only 10 less than the iron blades I bought in bulk that have been lasting him a good long while, and they're a massive improvement in damage output. So fuck it!

Anyway... I think that's all we need to do today, so let's get moving.

So Ranulf hears that Nasir is locked up and accidentally assumes that this is because he was outed as a Gallian spy, which... causes Ike to learn that Nasir is in fact a Gallian spy.

Hmmm... do we actually fight Petrine here? I could've sworn it was later. Which made me wonder how the fuck she wormed her way out of punishment again. She had so many opportunities to personally fight the CLA, so... the fuck didn't she? And if it's because she's a coward and a hypocrite, then why did they have her willing to face off with Greil himself earlier?

Anyway, Ranulf joins us, and I wish we had space to bring him and everyone else, but we do not. So I'll be benching Mordecai for today at least, to at least try him out. He certainly looks to be than Lethe, except he doesn't transform right away.

But enough about that, because this is the infamous pitfall bridge. Everyone finds this gimmick super annoying. I'm inclined to agree in principle, but it's been ages since I've actually experienced it firsthand, so I can't remember how much it hurts.

...Anyway, Haar's here, and he's pretty good. Fairly slow for this point in the game, but his strength and defense are comparable to Jill's. Making it really tempting to use him.

...Also, he has a brave axe here, meaning there was a reason he was given a brave axe in Heroes, and not just because apparently that's a weapon a lot of units are given in Heroes when the devs don't know what to do with them.

I'll be trying to use this map to train Soren and Zihark, who have fallen a bit behind in levels.

Also, just like I remember, Haar ditches the field immediately after deployment. He was only there to essentially confirm that yes, you fight him this map, and you need to bring Jill to recruit him. Good on the game for making that clear before you press start.

All of the killer-axe-equipped bonus exp I've been pumping into Jill has gotten her to level 14, and I think I've kept her defense sufficiently above-average that she'll be able to cap defense with two dracoshields. Assuming Ike doesn't need any.

...Honestly, I may be tempted to just give her the dracoshields anyway, given how absurdly close to capping most of RD Ike's stats are to begin with. But ideally, Ike will cap defense on his own.

…

...And all of a sudden, my day goes to hell.

I accidentally hit “end turn” due to a slip of the control stick. A short axe warrior instantly came by and killed Reyson.

Right at the start of turn two.

WHY.

WHAT THE FUCK.

I JUST WANTED TO HIGHLIGHT THE BALLISTA RANGE!

...And Reyson vanishes in a flash of light despite explicitly being stated not to die.

This...

This is not fair.

HOW THE FUCK DID I FUCK UP THIS BADLY!?

...Welp.

This is why I hate playing strategy games with a control stick. THE TINIEST TWITCH OF YOUR THUMB AT THE WRONG TIME CAN HAVE DIRE CONSEQUENCES.

But what the fuck can I do? Restart the chapter because that wasn't my fault? This is ironman. The rules are painfully clear. You restart once, for any reason, and it stops being an ironman.

Guess I'll have room for more units.

Man, if only the D pad on this controller weren't so shit.

On the bright side, Zihark got poisoned, which means tons of free staff exp for Soren!

...Now, I think it's a pretty big dick move to put so many goddamned ballistae here, and then leave secret pitfalls traps for the foot units you then force them to use. Unless of course you cheese the hell out of this with an overpowered full guard flier.

...I'll be trying to do that to a degree with Tanith. Jill of course has to stay behind to recruit Haar, who if I remember properly will be charging our rear eventually.

...Well, we run into our first pitfall, and yeah, this is a completely ridiculous gimmick. Just randomly deciding to negate your unit's movements is... I mean it's a strategy that needlessly encourages tedium, and actively makes the game more plodding unless you know in advance where all of the pitfalls are. And that's infuriating.

At least you aren't stunned during the enemy phase apparently, though that begs the question of why it stuns at all, rather than just ending your turn like running into someone in fog does.

Alright, so, I killed the blizzard guy with Tanith before he could waste any uses. We're slowly but surely advancing here. But I'm constantly terrified that my player-phase tactics are going to be needlessly punished by these hidden traps. Honestly, you are making an enemy-phase-centric game even more enemy-phase-centric.

So, we've got a stronger version of the ballista, and no way to check its fucking stats. It did thirty damage to Marcia due to me forgetting its range, and for all I knew at the time, it could have been a one-hit kill! Would have been, in fact, if this game used the traditional triple effectiveness!

And both Oscar and Ike wound up stuck in pitfalls, too far away from each other to provide their support bonuses. Good thing they're so tough anyway, but still...

...Anyway, Jill's so overleveled that she can handle all of the rear reinforcements on her own, and she will do so, waiting for Haar.

So, at level 15, Jill has officially reached the defense she needs to cap with two dracoshields. Maybe the hand of experience-modding fate will smile on me and I'll only need to give her one?

So, Jill talks to Haar, and he says he's gotta keep the remaining troops alive long enough to get them back to Begnion, and then Jill asks why he's still “in Daein”.

...Weird phrasing. She should have said with Daein. Because technically, until the moment he crossed over the bridge, he was in Crimea.

...Also... the riders he was with... are still here... and still red.

...

...HE JUST SAID HE'S GOTTA GET THE REST OF SHIHARAM'S UNIT BACK TO BEGNION.

ARE THESE WYVERN RIDERS HE'S WITH NOT PART OF THAT VERY SAME UNIT!?

SO WHY DID THEY NOT TURN GREEN!?

WHY DIDN'T THEY RETREAT!?

...Ugh. I have to assume this isn't them. That would be an amazingly stupid oversight if it were.

(NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: It was indeed not them. I checked this conversation again in the text log during the end-of-map cutscene, and yes, the group he was assigned to attack with was part of Petrine's loyal guard. I misread. But I'm leaving my initial reaction up for posterity and your amusement.)

...Okay, in fairness, it looks like if you fall into a pit... you can't be targeted by the enemy. At all. By anything. Like, by the looks of things, pitfalls aren't even valid spaces to attack even with ballistae, if range-highlighting is any indication. That's nice that the specific units that get pitfall'd don't get fucked, but it's still heavily punishing player-phase combat.

Oh, great, and now we've got killer ballistae that we can't see the stats of!

Yeah, fuck it, we've got another game that still can't beat Genealogy in usability despite coming after it, if only just barely. There's a few more QOL features, but they're diluted juuust enough by badly-incorporated new features, like Thracia, though to a lesser extent. Genealogy is just really weird in this regard. The castle system essentially eliminated the need for unit positioning two games before it was even invented, and that single feature has managed to keep its interface extremely well-aged, especially in light of the awkward GBA menus and Path of Radiance's ballistae and too-zoomed-in camera that makes checking some enemy ranges a nightmare.

Anyway, I guess I'll be having Ike bait these guys in. I've already lost someone today, and I want to train Zihark and Soren, so I'll have to do some ballista cheese here.

Oh shit! I forgot about this! The Crimean army arrives! Shit! I've gotta hurry up and finish this map with Ike and Oscar before those green units get themselves killed!

Oh, and we see Bastian, and his tendency to speak in iambic pentameter, something I always find fun. I'd love to write a character who speaks like that.

...But Jesus did they fuck up one of his opening lines.

“But lo! What do I spy in the distance?” is not iambic pentameter. That's just a sequence of ten syllables. Iambic pentameter, for those of you who don't know, is when when you speak in sets of ten syllables, or more specifically five iambs, which are pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables. So

“I am a pirate with a wooden leg” is iambic pentameter.

“But lo! What do I spy in the distance?” is Captain Kirk having a stroke.

...Damn it, a ton of his lines are similarly botched. I can't believe I didn't notice that as a kid!

Anyway, the green units make a good first impression taking out some wyvern riders in an impressive ambush, as well as taking out the sniper manning a trebuchet.

And either these green units are unnaturally tough, or this is just more of this game's enemies being unnaturally weak, because an entire enemy phase went by without any of them dying.

...Probably because the enemy... didn't... gang up... on... any of them. They just distributed their attacks almost evenly between them all for some inexplicable reason.

That very brief moment I alluded to where Oscar might become faster than Ike has arrived. Oscar just capped speed, 27 at level 20/11.

I only noticed though because Ike can't double Petrine but Oscar can.

Anyway, Petrine went down. Ike took her out after Oscar softened her up, and now that moment where Oscar is faster is officially over. Ike just hit 27 speed too.

And he still hasn't capped, because unlike how he's been flanderized and typecast in every single appearance since Radiant Dawn, Ike is fucking fast. He's a speedy, agile badass, only slightly less agile and nimble than swordmasters are. Definitely more focused on speed and skill than strength. Which makes it absolutely frustrating that even his younger version has been typecast as a slow heavyweight in every single non-canon depiction since then, with the exception of Valentine Ike in Heroes.

Anyway, I'm done with the map. I just seized with Ike. And now Elincia is reunited with Lucia.

And now Lucia lists a bunch of names I've never heard of among the list of survivors among Crimea's nobility. But due to the way it's phrased, I can't tell if General Taigo or Silok is the one who's supposed to be “Marquis Katol's orphan”, or if “Marquis Katol's orphan” was just another person on the list smack dab between these two people, not specifically named.

And Lucia reveals that Daein's frantic and desperate searches for “Princess Crimea” (which they've done for reasons that have still not fucking been explained might I add) has had the effect of making the people of Crimea recognize Elincia as legitimate despite her having lived in secret.

Hmmm... Wait... so Ranulf said that when Ike's “actions in Daein” happened, Nasir told Caineghis, who told Ranulf, who told... Lucia? When did he get in contact with the remnants of the Crimean army? And he said he ran all the way to Daein to greet Ike when this happened, didn't he? Was Lucia in easy communication range of this trip?

Anyway, turns out Nasir escaped, which makes me wonder what kind of security he was under. They did know he was a laguz, after all, even if they didn't know which type.

But it looks like I got some bonus exp despite taking it slow (none for keeping all of the green units alive, sadly).

So... yeah, not a fan of this map. It's not a huge nightmare, but that pitfall system is a bullshit gimmick that can't be countered with skill, only knowledge. So fuck it. I wish I never have to see it again, except of course I do have to see it again. But we'll deal with that when the time comes.

Anyway... time to close this the same way I closed Day 12.

Stay safe, everyone.

Stay safer than Reyson.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

53 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I accidentally hit “end turn” due to a slip of the control stick. A short axe warrior instantly came by and killed Reyson.

Right at the start of turn two.

WHY.

WHAT THE FUCK.

I JUST WANTED TO HIGHLIGHT THE BALLISTA RANGE!

...And Reyson vanishes in a flash of light despite explicitly being stated not to die.

This...

This is not fair.

HOW THE FUCK DID I FUCK UP THIS BADLY!?

...Welp.

So ein mist!

That's all I have to say here.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Yeah, fuck it, we've got another game that still can't beat Genealogy in usability despite coming after it, if only just barely. There's a few more QOL features, but they're diluted juuust enough by badly-incorporated new features, like Thracia, though to a lesser extent. Genealogy is just really weird in this regard. The castle system essentially eliminated the need for unit positioning two games before it was even invented, and that single feature has managed to keep its interface extremely well-aged, especially in light of the awkward GBA menus and Path of Radiance's ballistae and too-zoomed-in camera that makes checking some enemy ranges a nightmare.

 

I think you might be romanticizing Genealogy a bit. That games makes you do maths.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway, Petrine went down. Ike took him out after Oscar softened him up, and now that moment where Oscar is faster is officially over. Ike just hit 27 speed too.

 

Huh, so Petrine's trans.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Anyway, turns out Nasir escaped, which makes me wonder what kind of security he was under. They did know he was a laguz, after all, even if they didn't know which type.

 

I'm not sure how they couldn't know what type he is, especially after encountering Ena. Laguz do have key features in human form, and Nasir is entirely lacking in cat ears, a tail or wings. He also has that dot on the top of his head just like Ena and Kurthnaga. Figuring out he's a dragon shouldn't be that hard.

[Alastor15243]

6 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I think you might be romanticizing Genealogy a bit. That games makes you do maths.

What maths does it make you do that PoR doesn't?

6 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Huh, so Petrine's trans.

...I have no idea how that typo happened.

[Jotari]

22 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

What maths does it make you do that PoR doesn't?

 

Battle forecast. Post Snes games tell you how much damage you deal while pre GBA games tell you what your attack and the enemy's defense are and you have to do the simple arithmetic yourself. Pretty sure it also doesn't tell you if you double enemies.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Jotari

[Eltosian Kadath]

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Man, this bridge between Crimea and Daein... if this is really the best place for an army to cross over into Crimea from Daein, then why didn't Daein use it? I mean, they can't have, could they? Did all of Daein's surprise attack troops come across this bridge, and crush the bottleneck siege so quickly that not a single soldier managed to warn Crimea? Does Daein have an army of warp-powder-using warriors who warped behind the bridge outpost limits and slaughtered the entire guard in a pincer attack so nobody could escape? Otherwise this seems... really stupid.

Perhaps they snuck the troops over in boats, or used their wyverns to attack the bridge defender at night in a surprise attack... unfortunately we don't have enough information to do more then speculate.

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...And all of a sudden, my day goes to hell.

I accidentally hit “end turn” due to a slip of the control stick. A short axe warrior instantly came by and killed Reyson.

Right at the start of turn two.

WHY.

WHAT THE FUCK.

I JUST WANTED TO HIGHLIGHT THE BALLISTA RANGE!

...And Reyson vanishes in a flash of light despite explicitly being stated not to die.

This...

This is not fair.

HOW THE FUCK DID I FUCK UP THIS BADLY!?

...Welp.

This is why I hate playing strategy games with a control stick. THE TINIEST TWITCH OF YOUR THUMB AT THE WRONG TIME CAN HAVE DIRE CONSEQUENCES.

But what the fuck can I do? Restart the chapter because that wasn't my fault? This is ironman. The rules are painfully clear. You restart once, for any reason, and it stops being an ironman.

Oof, death due to third party controller jank... that hurts.

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

At least you aren't stunned during the enemy phase apparently, though that begs the question of why it stuns at all, rather than just ending your turn like running into someone in fog does.

I guess that means you can't dance them away from the pitfalls...

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

So, we've got a stronger version of the ballista, and no way to check its fucking stats. It did thirty damage to Marcia due to me forgetting its range, and for all I knew at the time, it could have been a one-hit kill! Would have been, in fact, if this game used the traditional triple effectiveness!

I could have sworn this was a game where you could check their stats by hovering over the front half and pressing y...than again its been long enough that I don't quite remember, or might be thinking of Radiant Dawn as I always played that with a GC controller.

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Path of Radiance's ballistae and too-zoomed-in camera that makes checking some enemy ranges a nightmare.

I think you can change the zoom level with the L button although the extremely gradated pressure for those button always made that feel rather awkward to do, and I don't think any of the zoom level every felt quite right. Also the c-stick chages the camera angle some which might help.

[Alastor15243]

5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Battle forecast. Post Snes games tell you how much damage you deal while pre GBA games tell you what your attack and the enemy's defense are and you have to do the simple arithmetic yourself. Pretty sure it also doesn't tell you if you double enemies.

True. On the other hand, it also actually tells you how much damage ballistae do, you can see the full range of a mounted enemy without zooming out and twisting the camera to a weird angle, and it doesn't have units that periodically shift between two different sets of stats you can't see when they aren't active.

But that reminds me... what the fuck am I going to do for usability when it comes to Radiant Dawn? RD Hard mode deliberately cripples is own interface in the name of difficulty. Should I allow that to mark the game down? Should I ignore hard mode when judging usability? Or should I do some weird halfway thing where I judge the average of its easy/normal and hard usability scores?

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

True. On the other hand, it also actually tells you how much damage ballistae do, you can see the full range of a mounted enemy without zooming out and twisting the camera to a weird angle, and it doesn't have units that periodically shift between two different sets of stats you can't see when they aren't active.

But that reminds me... what the fuck am I going to do for usability when it comes to Radiant Dawn? RD Hard mode deliberately cripples is own interface in the name of difficulty. Should I allow that to mark the game down? Should I ignore hard mode when judging usability? Or should I do some weird halfway thing where I judge the average of its easy/normal and hard usability scores?

Are you dead set  on playing Radiant Dawn in hard mode?

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Are you dead set  on playing Radiant Dawn in hard mode?

I mean, that's the thing: how fairly can I assess the game's difficulty ranking if I don't play the hardest mode? It kinda seems to me like I have to.

[Etrurian emperor]

On 7/9/2020 at 5:56 PM, Alastor15243 said:

..Damn. This conversation between Ena and Kasatai is... yeah, this game probably does the best job of any game so far in the marathon at making these insignificant enemy characters feel human. This is a borderline-nameless enemy general, only relevant enough to the story to be introduced in the very chapter in which he dies, coming to the slow and horrific realization of how little of a shit his king gives about him and even his country if it isn't useful to him, and even demonstrating horror at the thought of his king killing the citizens of an enemy nation.

I always had a big soft spot for Kasatai. He's probably one of the best minor bosses the series has ever had. 

In many ways he's a bad person but there's also a lot of good on him. Even if he's highly critical of Ena's appointment he seems fond of her, is respectful to her and doesn't hold the situation against her. He might be a racist but he's shown to be fully loyal to Enna and her identity coming to light doesn't decrease his loyalty at all.  Even if patriotic and an Ashnard supporter he's very open to being convinced that Ashnard doesn't give a damn about him and even if they're his enemies he has discomfort about the idea of Crimeans dying. 

All in all a really good and nuanced character. 

[Alastor15243]

7 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Perhaps they snuck the troops over in boats, or used their wyverns to attack the bridge defender at night in a surprise attack... unfortunately we don't have enough information to do more then speculate.

Yeah, this is one of those things that could have a logical explanation, but the lack of one despite how much it demands one suggests they didn't realize how unlikely it is and weren't thinking about it.

7 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Oof, death due to third party controller jank... that hurts.

If it was due to controller jank, it was probably due to having a clumsy D pad that made me want to use the control stick instead, but I'd have to try an original controller's D pad to be absolutely sure. The control stick feels acceptable from what I can tell, the issue is that a lot of the time I just can't stand controlling games with non-analog movement with an analog stick, and that especially includes menus.

 

7 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I guess that means you can't dance them away from the pitfalls...

Yeah, but you also can't do that anyway, since you can't rescue units from pitfalls either due to elevation or something. Hell, I'm not even sure if you can use the rescue staff to get units out of pitfalls. Plus, if you could get a unit out of a pitfall, restore staves are a thing.

7 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I could have sworn this was a game where you could check their stats by hovering over the front half and pressing y...than again its been long enough that I don't quite remember, or might be thinking of Radiant Dawn as I always played that with a GC controller.

I didn't know you could use the GC controller for RD. The wiimote was always fine for me though, and I'm looking forward to using it. But anyway, I'll check doing that next time I see a ballista to be absolutely sure, but I'm 95% positive I already tried that.

7 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I think you can change the zoom level with the L button although the extremely gradated pressure for those button always made that feel rather awkward to do, and I don't think any of the zoom level every felt quite right. Also the c-stick chages the camera angle some which might help.

Yeah, that's the issue. With some enemies, in order to see their full movement range without highlighting them, you have to fully zoom out and tilt the camera angle, and then you can just barely do it. It's so weird.

[lenticular]

14 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Well, we run into our first pitfall, and yeah, this is a completely ridiculous gimmick. Just randomly deciding to negate your unit's movements is... I mean it's a strategy that needlessly encourages tedium, and actively makes the game more plodding unless you know in advance where all of the pitfalls are. And that's infuriating.

So, I was inspired by this thread to drag my Gamecube out of storage and do a replay of my own. I did this chapter a couple of days ago, and for some reason, I kept having Boyd be the one to trigger the pits over and over. I wasn't paying much attention to what exact tiles people were walking over, and a lot of the time my other units walked around the pit only for Boyd to fall into it. Imagining what this must have looked like and how annoyed he must have been made the whole thing infinitely more hilariously and less annoying than it would otherwise have been.

[Alastor15243]

30 minutes ago, lenticular said:

So, I was inspired by this thread to drag my Gamecube out of storage and do a replay of my own. I did this chapter a couple of days ago, and for some reason, I kept having Boyd be the one to trigger the pits over and over. I wasn't paying much attention to what exact tiles people were walking over, and a lot of the time my other units walked around the pit only for Boyd to fall into it. Imagining what this must have looked like and how annoyed he must have been made the whole thing infinitely more hilariously and less annoying than it would otherwise have been.

Oh wow, that sounds priceless.

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I mean, that's the thing: how fairly can I assess the game's difficulty ranking if I don't play the hardest mode? It kinda seems to me like I have to.

You really going to go Awakening Lunatic+ then as well?

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

You really going to go Awakening Lunatic+ then as well?

That is another really frustrating aspect of this decision I have to make. What would you recommend?