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


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7 hours ago, Jotari said:

Yeah this really bothered me on my second palythrough of Radiant Dawn when I had the full context of things. It's so confusing I think I'd outright say its a plot hole. By all right Izuka should have found an actual branded to be Pelleas and Pelleas should have been aware of this. The scene with him and Micaiah later just makes no sense with who Pelleas is meant to think he is.

Also, either this is another plothole, or this element of the story confirms that depowered laguz can't sense branded.

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6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also, either this is another plothole, or this element of the story confirms that depowered laguz can't sense branded.

I think what they do go with in the ending with Soren is that Almedha knew the whole time, because it's obvious that Pelleas isn't a branded, but was so desperate to have her son back that she just deluded herself. Which is pretty bullshit, just imagine substituting branded status for gender and trying to imagine a mother doing that without being absolutely raving crazy. But even then it wouldn't explain why Izuka would try it unless he's intimatly familiar with how crazy Almedha would be willing to be. When Pelleas fights Izuka and discovers he's not actually Ashnard's son Izuka outright says he's not Ashnard's son because Ashnard's son is branded. It's a major hole in the cover up story that anyone with passing knowledge of the situation should have been able to call bullshit on, it only works on the player because we don't have that passing information until the end of Part 3 when Pelleas is already dead.

Though coming to think of it I think it might even be possible for a laguz and beorc to reproduce and not produce a branded, since people often say the brand can come from a laguz ancestor (implying non branded ancestors in between). And the brand doesn't appear until later in life, no idea how that affects growth and super powers. Man branded mechanics just make no damn sense. It stood up a bit when the inconsistent and bizarre nature of it was apparently divine intent, but the fact that the canonical gods had no knowledge of them makes them some of the most inconsistent and poorly thought out world building elements out there.

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5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Though coming to think of it I think it might even be possible for a laguz and beorc to reproduce and not produce a branded, since people often say the brand can come from a laguz ancestor (implying non branded ancestors in between).

I think that was just meant to mean that branded will often (but not always) produce branded offspring when they reproduce with a beorc, hence the long line of heron branded apostles.

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8 hours ago, Icelerate said:

Would you have preferred if RD's story started with the formation of the Dawn Brigade? This way the events in the developer notes could have been shown instead of hidden away in some obscure notes. Furthermore, people will gain a stronger attachment to the DB if we see how they came to be from the very beginning instead of being thrown in the middle of their story. 

Yeah that would've been fine had they intended to go that route. It would be nice to see how Micaiah got such a reputation firsthand. But I still don't feel it would've been necessary if they'd have just added actual support conversations.

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9 hours ago, Icelerate said:

Would you have preferred if RD's story started with the formation of the Dawn Brigade? This way the events in the developer notes could have been shown instead of hidden away in some obscure notes. Furthermore, people will gain a stronger attachment to the DB if we see how they came to be from the very beginning instead of being thrown in the middle of their story. 

Honestly I, and I believe many others, think the best thing would have been to make Part 1 it's own full game. Radiant Dawn shoves so much into a single title that Part 4 feels very disconnected from the rest, despite being the climax and having the responsibility to tie up all the (many) loose ends. And Part 2 feels like a DLC bonus mission because of ho irrelevant it is. Part 1 being it's own Path of Radiance length game would have helped to Dawn Brigade to feel like under developed strangers and would have made the Part 4 Ike and Micaiah team up feel more like a team up and less like "Ike's back, move aside Micaiah." My only concerns with making Part 1 it's own game would be if Jarod has the fortitude to be a final boss. I like him as a character and all, but he's a bit of a chump who gets fucked over by Numida (a very flat villain) and has the ultimate goal of suicide by cop by being a massive dick. It's good stuff, but for an actual main antagonist for a stand alone story you kind of need someone who's more ambitious. As many people as there are who enjoy Thracia (well from those who can bear to play it), virtually no one is praising Veld as an aspect of the game. And here we wouldn't even have Thracia's fall back of knowing there's still a larger threat out there. So yeah, if Radiant Dawn were to be it's own game it'd need some antagonistic force beyond Jarod.

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9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

And Part 2 feels like a DLC bonus mission because of ho irrelevant it is.

Personally, if they were going to tell an irrelevant side-story about a country undergoing civil war, it should have been a laguz country, not the country we've already seen tons of. Like I said before, I want to see a laguz story with a laguz lord in a laguz country, fighting laguz enemies in order to solve laguz problems. Not to say Part 2 doesn't have merit as its own stand-alone tale (haven't replayed it yet, so I can't say for sure), but I think we'd have gotten much more out of seeing that kind of internal conflict in a laguz society.

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3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Personally, if they were going to tell an irrelevant side-story about a country undergoing civil war, it should have been a laguz country, not the country we've already seen tons of. Like I said before, I want to see a laguz story with a laguz lord in a laguz country, fighting laguz enemies in order to solve laguz problems. Not to say Part 2 doesn't have merit as its own stand-alone tale (haven't replayed it yet, so I can't say for sure), but I think we'd have gotten much more out of seeing that kind of internal conflict in a laguz society.

Which Laguz country though? What would be the reason for the conflict? People in Galia being against them helping Crimeia and the losses incurred/ Naesala getting deposed for flipflopping politically? As irrelevant as Part 2 is to the grander plot, it does make sense as natural follow up to Path of Radiance for the country and for Elincia's character arc, somehting I think she does need with how underdeveloped she is in Path of Radiance. Of course the answer here would be to have some kind of laguz conflict that actually does tie into the larger plot instead of replacing one decent irrelevant episode in the same setting for another irrelevant episode in the same setting. Just not sure how that would actually play out without rewriting large swaths of the story.

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1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Which Laguz country though? What would be the reason for the conflict? People in Galia being against them helping Crimeia and the losses incurred/ Naesala getting deposed for flipflopping politically? As irrelevant as Part 2 is to the grander plot, it does make sense as natural follow up to Path of Radiance for the country and for Elincia's character arc, somehting I think she does need with how underdeveloped she is in Path of Radiance. Of course the answer here would be to have some kind of laguz conflict that actually does tie into the larger plot instead of replacing one decent irrelevant episode in the same setting for another irrelevant episode in the same setting. Just not sure how that would actually play out without rewriting large swaths of the story.

True, it would have to be tied into the rest of the game, since it wouldn't be a logical follow-up to pre-existing material. Still though, once you get this many narratives and POVs in a duology, it becomes kinda conspicuous that none of them are a laguz, in a story that's ostensibly about them. And again, what we don't know about laguz society could probably recreate Ashunera's flood with paper.

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15 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Personally, if they were going to tell an irrelevant side-story about a country undergoing civil war, it should have been a laguz country, not the country we've already seen tons of. Like I said before, I want to see a laguz story with a laguz lord in a laguz country, fighting laguz enemies in order to solve laguz problems. Not to say Part 2 doesn't have merit as its own stand-alone tale (haven't replayed it yet, so I can't say for sure), but I think we'd have gotten much more out of seeing that kind of internal conflict in a laguz society.

What if they did this not for Part 2, but Part 3? It could open with the Gallians discussing the Senate's response to their envoys. Cainefhis, while angered, is hesitant to go to war, due to the Medallion. Random Tiger Noble is pissed, so she challenges Caineghis to a duel - but Giffca intervenes. Caineghis pulls them apart, and noting that the mood is overwhelmingly bellicose, decides to declare war.

Ranulf is now the main Lord, functioning as the strategist for Skrimir. Lyre, Lethe, Kyza, and Mordecai are in the fight as well. The first few chapters are the initial assault against Begnion, until the Ravens betray them and Zelgius wipes the floor with Skrimir. That's when Ranulf calls on Ike, and the Greil Mercenaries, to help them win this war. 

From there, it's a mix of Ike-led and Ranulf-led chapters through Part 3, with Part 4 basically unchanged. Not only would this give us more time with a laguz "Lord", but it would also somewhat obviate the complaint that Ike "steals the show" in Part 3 onward.

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

Honestly I, and I believe many others, think the best thing would have been to make Part 1 it's own full game. Radiant Dawn shoves so much into a single title that Part 4 feels very disconnected from the rest, despite being the climax and having the responsibility to tie up all the (many) loose ends. And Part 2 feels like a DLC bonus mission because of ho irrelevant it is. Part 1 being it's own Path of Radiance length game would have helped to Dawn Brigade to feel like under developed strangers and would have made the Part 4 Ike and Micaiah team up feel more like a team up and less like "Ike's back, move aside Micaiah." My only concerns with making Part 1 it's own game would be if Jarod has the fortitude to be a final boss. I like him as a character and all, but he's a bit of a chump who gets fucked over by Numida (a very flat villain) and has the ultimate goal of suicide by cop by being a massive dick. It's good stuff, but for an actual main antagonist for a stand alone story you kind of need someone who's more ambitious. As many people as there are who enjoy Thracia (well from those who can bear to play it), virtually no one is praising Veld as an aspect of the game. And here we wouldn't even have Thracia's fall back of knowing there's still a larger threat out there. So yeah, if Radiant Dawn were to be it's own game it'd need some antagonistic force beyond Jarod.

I love Radiant Dawn, but would prefer the structure being kept as it is. A big part of the game's charm is its atypical design (switching between armies) and grand scale. Plus, as you mentioned, Jarod wouldn't be much of a final boss. Part I feels like a longer, more challenging "Lyn Mode" of Radiant Dawn - a story that's its own struggle, contained to one country, but that leads into the bigger battles to come. And while the characters involved could use a touch more backstory and personality, the mode itself is good enough for me.

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4 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

What if they did this not for Part 2, but Part 3? It could open with the Gallians discussing the Senate's response to their envoys. Cainefhis, while angered, is hesitant to go to war, due to the Medallion. Random Tiger Noble is pissed, so she challenges Caineghis to a duel - but Giffca intervenes. Caineghis pulls them apart, and noting that the mood is overwhelmingly bellicose, decides to declare war.

Ranulf is now the main Lord, functioning as the strategist for Skrimir. Lyre, Lethe, Kyza, and Mordecai are in the fight as well. The first few chapters are the initial assault against Begnion, until the Ravens betray them and Zelgius wipes the floor with Skrimir. That's when Ranulf calls on Ike, and the Greil Mercenaries, to help them win this war. 

From there, it's a mix of Ike-led and Ranulf-led chapters through Part 3, with Part 4 basically unchanged. Not only would this give us more time with a laguz "Lord", but it would also somewhat obviate the complaint that Ike "steals the show" in Part 3 onward.

I love Radiant Dawn, but would prefer the structure being kept as it is. A big part of the game's charm is its atypical design (switching between armies) and grand scale. Plus, as you mentioned, Jarod wouldn't be much of a final boss. Part I feels like a longer, more challenging "Lyn Mode" of Radiant Dawn - a story that's its own struggle, contained to one country, but that leads into the bigger battles to come. And while the characters involved could use a touch more backstory and personality, the mode itself is good enough for me.

The thing is that Lyn mode stands on its own because it is quite irrelevant to the rest of the story. Part 1 is not irrelevant, it's crucial to the story as it's introducing an entirely separate faction that will go up against our protagonists. When Ike's crew have an entire extra game of establishment and development, it makes things feel unbalanced during the clash between the two armies. Especially since the Dawn Brigade side are the half of the plot where more of the emotional core of the story is meant to lie with their perdiciment. Consider it this way, would you prefer it if Tellius was one big game as originally imagined? If Path of Radiance was half the length and became the new Part 1 (of 5) in Radiant Dawn? Do you think that would have been preferable, or would something have been lost by reducing the Mad King conflict down like that? Because that's kind of how I feel about Part 1, something was lost by reducing it down to a part of another game. There's a lot of potential there that I think was overlooked and rushed because it needed to get to the rest of the story. Fiona for example is an utterly irrelevant character while in universe she's actually meant to be sort of a big deal, which isn't translated into the narrative as well.

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Radiant Dawn Day 6: Chapter 1-6

It occurs to me that the rechargeable batteries I had before, the ones that connected directly to the battery chamber cover and let you just put the wiimote itself into a charging dock, must have been hot garbage. I've been using the new rechargeable batteries in this wiimote since I got them and have not had to charge them once since then, including all the times I used it during Path of Radiance to turn on the GameCube mode. Hell, the Wii says they're still at 2/4 cells. Holy shit. Meanwhile the old batteries I was using would completely die if the wiimote spent 24 hours outside of the charging dock, even if they'd only been used for five seconds total in that time.

Moving on to the actual game, though...

Looks like pressing the home button can cause glitches with the narration, causing text to be skipped entirely. Noted, I'll make sure to only press home when the narrator finishes a sentence from now on just in case.

Interestingly, the narrator only seems to be used lately to just... summarize the last chapter. He's not being used to set up the next one, either in this chapter or the last, from what I can remember.

So, this next chapter apparently takes place in the “Free State of Marado”, which is apparently some kind of sovereign state within the territory of Daein, I think? Judging by the dialogue I'm seeing here? Anyway, the Begnion soldiers get another scene of being psychotic oppressive dickbags, literally just stabbing a guy for being confused about a law against public assembly, and then we see Fiona, a character I really wish weren't so brutally fucked over by the game.

Interestingly, seeing her portrait for the first time in a while, I suddenly remember she's one of very few dark-skinned characters in this game, along with Devdan/Danved. And whenever I see a game that has just this tiny handful of non-white characters, all I can ask is... where did they come from? What's their genealogical background? What exactly is the history of the racial makeup of this continent that this tiny minority of dark-skinned characters exists, and what is the crazy chain of events that happened in this continent's past that has caused these characters' skin tone to be nigh-extinct, but also simultaneously not of consequence to their daily life in any conceivable way?

Here's the thing about having more than one skin color in a country: it pretty much inherently screams of an interesting history for the country. When I played Wargroove and discovered that just about half of Cherrystone's human population is black (and inexplicably simultaneously half of its completely separate harpy population too, but let's ignore that for now), I was like, wow! That's fascinating! What's the story behind that? How did these two groups of people some to coexist as equals under the same kingdom, and why are both of these ethnicities here and nowhere else? What brought them together? Did they used to fight? Or did the context of being bordered by giant plant monsters and the literal walking dead cause even their more racist ancestors to look at these people who look just like them but with different-colored skin and go “Eh, close enough”? Were they once part of two separate kingdoms that wound up uniting into one in order to defend themselves against a massive threat? What's the story here?

...Of course it quickly occurred to me that there probably wasn't one. This is a spiritual successor to Advance Wars, after all. They just wanted to tell a goofy, cartoony medieval war story that doesn't take itself too seriously, while also being racially inclusive. And that's fine. But when the story gets more serious, I can't help but ask, and be fascinated by, these questions. The way Danved and Fiona were implemented just feels lazy and without any thought put into it. Just a half-hearted act of tokenism.

Fuck, I've apparently spent nearly an hour writing this, I'm starting late anyway due to oversleeping from lack of sleep last night, and I really just want to get on with this game. I'll just sum this whole tangent up by saying that I wish more fantasy worlds would try to include more skin tones, but also do it in a way that makes sense and has actual in-story history behind it. Like, just make it clear that all of these people came from somewhere, and that you thought about it.

Oh look! Jarod's here!

Isn't this guy supposed to be the fucking general of the entire Daein Occupation Army? What the fuck is this guy's job description that he just happens to have business to take care of literally everywhere the Dawn Brigade fucking goes?

I mean, okay, at least in this case Begnion appears to be fully aware of the Daein army's approach, so it makes sense he'd be here to lead, but, like... this guy has still been way too omnipresent among the unimportant, rank-and-file soldiers so far to really make sense.

I wish I knew what the governmental deal with Marado is. Why is Fiona apparently the leader? Was she elected? How much did that have to do with her being the daughter of Lanvega, and how much of it had to do with her own talents? Why do they call themselves “proud citizens of Daein” if they're apparently a “Free State” that didn't fight alongside Daein in the last war (which I have to assume they did after Ashnard left Daein, because while Ashnard can be chill at times, I don't see them getting away with, or even attempting that when Ashnard was in Daein)?

But anyway, the camera shows us a shot of the city square again, and apparently during this whole conversation none of the assembled people Fiona was watching get oppressed have budged an inch, despite just watching one of their neighbors die. And none of the soldiers are killing the rest for refusing to comply either. The game just forgot that part of this scene was happening, apparently.

We get back to the Daein liberation camp, and we see Izuka. Who has apparently been spreading rumors like wildfire of the prince's liberation army. Then he suggests they liberate Talrega and-

...Wait...

...They haven't already begun marching to a destination?

Then how the fuck does Jarod's army know where to intercept them!?

Thankfully it at least seems I was mistaken about this chapter being in Marado, which would have been amazingly dumb. Jarod was just there to have Marado's forces come with them to intercept the army.

...Quite the detour to recruit, like, five people.

But anyway, Micaiah's seer powers let her know that Talrega is a terrible idea due to the landslides that happen in the spring, so she recommends Terin instead, which is far more arid and less prone to nasty terrain in spring, causing Micaiah to make a fool of Izuka and be praised by Pelleas.

But anyway, from looking at that map, Talrega and Terin seemed to be on opposite sides of Daein from each other, more or less. In fairness they're roughly equidistant from where the liberation army is now, but that just means we're crossing basically a quarter of the country to wage our first fucking battle.

...Actually wait, where is the liberation army? I think I just assumed its location due to the direction of the panning camera from these cutscenes, but that doesn't make fucking sense, where the fuck was...

...I'm restarting to see that scene again, with the map, because there's no way I can find that map online.

...Okay, so, the game doesn't actually say where we are currently. We're obviously in the Desert of Death, but it doesn't say where.

...I just checked the opening narration again (I skipped it to check this scene's map assuming it would have the decency to show our current location, which it did not), and found out where specifically at the edge of the Desert of Death we are.

Terin and Talrega are basically across the fucking country from us.

How the fuck are either of these the best targets for our first attack!?

We're passing by numerous cities and the fucking capital to get there, right after Izuka has just very deliberately stripped us of the element of surprise!

Jarod knows we're on the move! They're tracking us! Wherever we go, he's gonna be there! Why are we traveling this far without doing shit, only giving them more time to prepare and corner us!?

...Damn it, let's just move on to info conversations.

...Where we're just casually stopping by in a grassy, non-desert town along the way, confirming that the army isn't staying out of Daein during the trip by traveling along the edge of the Desert of Death or anything. We are then instantly recognized by the peasantfolk and yet not harried by Begnion soldiers in any way whatsoever, proving my point of just how fucking ridiculously Begnion has to behave for any of this to work.

And now we talk to Kurth(naga), and he's talking to Almedha, who seems to be wearing some kind of huge veil in public for reasons I'm not quite sure of.

Which reminds me that Kurthnaga has seen Pelleas, obviously knows what Almedha is due to being related to her, and yet hasn't realized that Pelleas couldn't possibly be her son, meaning that he, a full-blooded, full-power, black dragon laguz, apparently can't sniff out branded. Was he never once educated as to what the fuck branded are and how they make laguz feel? He's a prince! And how can so few laguz know what branded are and what that feeling means, if that feeling is what's supposed to make it so impossible for branded to function around laguz?

...Also, Kurthnaga gives Almedha a sending stone, and it occurs to me that I don't think sending stones were even mentioned in Path of Radiance, even though I excused several instances of instantaneous communication due to assuming Nasir, Ena and others had them. Am I mistaken? Did they mention the things?

But these two conversations got us... 1000 gold and a renewal scroll. Yawn.

Anyway, Jill gets the seraph robe, but I'll hold off on giving her anything else for now. Mekkah says she can become insanely useful if you give her the energy drop and the dracoshield too, but she's already got boosts equal to that and then some, and it's probably going to be overkill when it comes to capping. And I have to be careful about how many units I leave dependent on bonus experience to reach their full potential, especially before I have that much bonus exp to go around.

With that... two hours after I started playing... let's finally leave base.

...Okay, so, the Begnion army knew we were coming. They knew specifically that we were going to Terin, and not any of the numerous towns along the way, which is why they laid the trap for us here. How? Did Izuka broadcast that too? I know Izuka's a traitor working for Sephiran and/or Begnion, but the plan still involves Daein “winning” this war, so why would he do anything that would help Begnion win it?

...Anyway... battle prep starts after this scene, yet again feeling kinda abrupt. Anyway, from here on out, we have four main units we're focusing on training: Zihark, Nolan, Aran and Jill. Due to how the game's endgame works, and especially due to how few good units there are in the Dawn Brigade, it really rewards you for pulling some serious quality over quantity with these guys, as well as every other faction, so that you can take the hand-picked elites you focused on in each army and then combine them into one full-sized mega army for the endgame. I don't think this was intentional, and given how mindless these games can get when you only have a few usable units, I don't think I like this, but it seems to me to be by far the best strategy. Of course, I'll also be trying to use Micaiah as much as I can, and also use Sothe and Volug as panic buttons (though of course the need for panic buttons has been getting less and less severe each map).

It seems that you can't shove mounted units anymore, even with super-heavy laguz. Shame, but... I guess it makes sense.

...I think I probably shouldn't have brought Leonardo, Meg or Edward here. Their chip damage... doesn't feel like it'll ever be necessary again, and they're probably just going to limit my options for movement. Oh well. Too late to change that now. At least they won't cause a game-over anymore if they die.

Anyway, I like how this game makes battles between two fliers actually take place in the air. Near as I can tell, no other game in the entire series does that, which is a massive shame.

HOLY SHIT. Speaking of combat animation improvements...

...Okay, so, normally Myrmidons have this sort of backflip attack that acts like some kind of sword uppercut, making enemies fly up and then fall flat on their ass. But when it happened to Sothe, he just fucking broke his fall with his hands and transitioned seamlessly into a backflip. Badass.

I managed to have Edward and Leonardo make themselves useful by baiting in and taking out a lonely pegasus knight reinforcement to the rear, something that, since I'm trying to do this quickly, nobody else had time to do. So I guess that vindicates my “decision” to bring them.

Anyway, now that I have a lot more good units, I'm finding battles a lot more fun, though still reasonably tricky. I'm always at least slightly on my toes, and hopefully that won't change as the game advances.

One thing I like about this game's music, despite how hit-or-miss the songs themselves are, is that it has the player and enemy phase battle music be longer than normal and pick up where it left off instead of restarting, so you aren't constantly listening to the same starting notes every time a battle starts.

These pegasus knights they're sending for reinforcements... clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel for these guys. They're so weak that their attempts to wield steel lances allow basically anyone to double them. Begnion Holy Guard these girls are not.

I have a weird feeling I may have mentioned this before, but RD seems to have moved the “vanishing in a flash of light” death animation to after the battle, on the map. This probably makes non-canon death animations easier to avoid, so I'll have to be on the lookout for if they take advantage of that.

The fact that this is a route map instead of an arrive map is kind of odd, and the constant pegasus knight reinforcements made this a bit annoying to do quickly. But I did eventually manage it in pretty damned good time. It felt like a continuous march forward, though I forgot to check how many turns specifically.

I also noticed that there doesn't seem to be a height advantage for being on top of these mountains. They don't seem to be treated as ledges at all for some reason, despite them being higher ground. When a soldier attacked Jill while he was on the ground and she was on top of the hill, she sure as hell didn't get a +50 hit bonus against him, given how she whiffed one of her attacks. That's... kind of annoying, how ledges are just an arbitrarily designated terrain feature.

But then the map ends, abruptly, with no dialogue from Micaiah's army, just like how the map started. And I think that's where I'm going to end for today too. I'm feeling tired since I had trouble getting to sleep last night, and I don't want to fuck up the ironman... before the game's probably going to make me.

So yeah, that's it. Honestly, gameplaywise, I'm really digging this game so far! Especially now that I've finally gotten more good units to work with. It's a shame the unit balance is so hilariously bonkers, but honestly, there are only three units I can honestly say I haven't had too much use for: Meg, Leonardo and Edward. Everyone else I've managed to make at least passable use of for now, and that's not too shabby I suppose.

...Oh shit, wow. I didn't even mention Tauroneo in this entry. I thought about him so little for... reasons that most people who have played the game should be well aware of.

Guess I'll have to talk about him next time, then.

Stay safe, everyone!

Edited by Alastor15243
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3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Which reminds me that Kurthnaga has seen Pelleas, obviously knows what Almedha is due to being related to her, and yet hasn't realized that Pelleas couldn't possibly be her son, meaning that he, a full-blooded, full-power, black dragon laguz, apparently can't sniff out branded. Was he never once educated as to what the fuck branded are and how they make laguz feel? He's a prince! And how can so few laguz know what branded are and what that feeling means, if that feeling is what's supposed to make it so impossible for branded to function around laguz?

This one, I think, is actually plausible. Goldoa is super-isolated - nobody is supposed to enter, nor to leave. Obviously a few dragons do leave, in this game and the last, but Dheginsea is hardly a fan of that. Kurthnaga probably didn't encounter any Branded while living most of his life in Goldoa. And Dheginsea either thought there was no need to tell him, or viewed it as a "taboo topic", owing to the Goddess' curse against the Branded.

It's unclear why Vika, once she shows up, can't really tell (aside from a slight feeling of discomfort around Micaiah). Or maybe she can tell, and is doing her best to be polite about it. It might be only among the Beast Tribes, that knowledge of the Branded, ability to distinguish them, and stigma to discriminate against them, is widespread. Not really sure about that, though.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But anyway, Micaiah's seer powers let her know that Talrega is a terrible idea due to the landslides that happen in the spring, so she recommends Terin instead, which is far more arid and less prone to nasty terrain in spring, causing Micaiah to make a fool of Izuka and be praised by Pelleas

TBH it's pretty hilarious that Micaiah's power of foresight gives her... information that anyone with a knowledge of the region's geography and climate would know. She's not even seeing the future, she's just reading Talrega's Wikipedia page.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So yeah, that's it. Honestly, gameplaywise, I'm really digging this game so far! Especially now that I've finally gotten more good units to work with. It's a shame the unit balance is so hilariously bonkers, but honestly, there are only three units I can honestly say I haven't had too much use for: Meg, Leonardo and Edward. Everyone else I've managed to make at least passable use of for now, and that's not too shabby I suppose.

Leonardo is weird, in that he arguably becomes better in part 3. As that part gives him the Lughnasadh and Brave Bow, more bow-weak enemies, and ballistae in 3-13. He's still a bad unit, but he's worth keeping alive at least. Meg is utter trash, though. Enjoy getting another trash unit next map!

Edited by Shanty Pete's 1st Mate
Typo.
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13 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

My immediate thought is that it's a shame all the image links are broken.

Some of the later links are working but you should understand the context considering you are familiar with the script of those early RD chapters. However, unlike your criticism and the one I linked you earlier, this one is terrible IMO. 

  

On 8/1/2020 at 8:58 AM, Jotari said:

Honestly I, and I believe many others, think the best thing would have been to make Part 1 it's own full game. Radiant Dawn shoves so much into a single title that Part 4 feels very disconnected from the rest, despite being the climax and having the responsibility to tie up all the (many) loose ends. And Part 2 feels like a DLC bonus mission because of ho irrelevant it is. Part 1 being it's own Path of Radiance length game would have helped to Dawn Brigade to feel like under developed strangers and would have made the Part 4 Ike and Micaiah team up feel more like a team up and less like "Ike's back, move aside Micaiah." My only concerns with making Part 1 it's own game would be if Jarod has the fortitude to be a final boss. I like him as a character and all, but he's a bit of a chump who gets fucked over by Numida (a very flat villain) and has the ultimate goal of suicide by cop by being a massive dick. It's good stuff, but for an actual main antagonist for a stand alone story you kind of need someone who's more ambitious. As many people as there are who enjoy Thracia (well from those who can bear to play it), virtually no one is praising Veld as an aspect of the game. And here we wouldn't even have Thracia's fall back of knowing there's still a larger threat out there. So yeah, if Radiant Dawn were to be it's own game it'd need some antagonistic force beyond Jarod.

We did discuss this a year or two ago and I agree. But under the constraints of one full game, I still think part one should be longer or the script per chapter should be on par with some of the later RD chapters or PoR chapters. 

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1 hour ago, Icelerate said:

Some of the later links are working but you should understand the context considering you are familiar with the script of those early RD chapters. However, unlike your criticism and the one I linked you earlier, this one is terrible IMO. 

  

We did discuss this a year or two ago and I agree. But under the constraints of one full game, I still think part one should be longer or the script per chapter should be on par with some of the later RD chapters or PoR chapters. 

Well obviously getting two or more big complete games for the price of one is the optimal solution, but Radiant Dawn didn't really deliver that. Part 1 does feel like it's abridged. This chapter in particular I think is a good example, I think it would have been great to revisit Telegra and view Jill's homeland and see the reaction to the Mad King's war there since that's an established location we seen featured in the conflict that makes up the of this story. I think Radiant Dawn wanted to deliver something like that with it's Three Tiered classes, but it didn't really inpractise (inpractice the Dawn Brigade are more like traianiee units).

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2 hours ago, Icelerate said:

What do you guys think of this thread?

Oh wow. I remember reading that back in the day. Was pretty disappointed when it just suddenly stopped. Must have been my really early days in Serenes. Maybe I was stlil lurking, don't see any posts form me at a cursory glance

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I feel like I should be responding more, but I have really forgotten how...flawed.... Radiant Dawn's story is in the early game. They are just rushing through it so much that they don't care about the plot holes they are jumping over to get through with it.

 

6 hours ago, Icelerate said:

What do you guys think of this thread?

First thing that jumps out at me is the guy assumes both the Dawn Brigade and Begnion are supposed to be competent, and I don't think either of them are. The Dawn brigade are mostly teenager relying on explicitly flawed powers to stay alive, with only one person with real combat experience, and the Begnion incompetence also seems intentional, and spins off from the rigid class structure we see from Begnion back in Path of Radiance, with birth being more important than merit. The second thing I notice is it really feels like a lot of the complaints stem from the same underlying problem we are seeing in this thread, that Radiant Dawn part 1 is way too rushed for the story they are trying to tell. Third he does a good job emphasizing how overboard part 1 is on the civilian slaughters and hostage situations to the point of being kinda ridiculous. Fourth thing to notice is there are a lot of silly salty rants that really undermine the credibility of a fair number of his critiques. Finally its a shame it stopped in part 1, it was getting a bit repetitive as the issues with part one are remarkably consistent throughout, but the other parts have problems all their own from what I remember.

 

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Oh wow. I remember reading that back in the day. Was pretty disappointed when it just suddenly stopped. Must have been my really early days in Serenes. Maybe I was stlil lurking, don't see any posts form me at a cursory glance

I do see you commenting about half way in.

Also figured I would add that I am one of those that thinks part 1 should have been expanded into an actual game.

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2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

First thing that jumps out at me is the guy assumes both the Dawn Brigade and Begnion are supposed to be competent, and I don't think either of them are. The Dawn brigade are mostly teenager relying on explicitly flawed powers to stay alive, with only one person with real combat experience, and the Begnion incompetence also seems intentional, and spins off from the rigid class structure we see from Begnion back in Path of Radiance, with birth being more important than merit. The second thing I notice is it really feels like a lot of the complaints stem from the same underlying problem we are seeing in this thread, that Radiant Dawn part 1 is way too rushed for the story they are trying to tell. Third he does a good job emphasizing how overboard part 1 is on the civilian slaughters and hostage situations to the point of being kinda ridiculous. Fourth thing to notice is there are a lot of silly salty rants that really undermine the credibility of a fair number of his critiques. Finally its a shame it stopped in part 1, it was getting a bit repetitive as the issues with part one are remarkably consistent throughout, but the other parts have problems all their own from what I remember.

The OP of that thread ended up contradicting themselves. They said RD does too much tell and tell instead of show and tell but then praised PoR for only talking about Daein's subjugation instead of showing like RD does. 

Would you say that the liberation of Isaac was too rushed? It's much faster than the liberation of Daein but one could argue that Isaac is too minor of a country to focus a liberation struggle on when in reality it was Grannvale that needs to be liberated. However, that logic implies that Thracia 776 was a waste of time because you only focus on a smaller country instead of the entire Empire. . 

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Radiant Dawn Day 7: Chapter 1-6-2

Oh hey! This is a kill boss map! Sweet! That means I can do this super quickly if I play my cards right! And hey! The boss has a drop-when-killed paragon scroll! SCORE!

Alright, time to prepare.

...It's still super annoying that I have to manually count spaces from my starting positions because the game doesn't highlight your own units' movement ranges on the preparation screen. It makes first-turn preparation just that much more tedious. I remember being annoyed as hell that Three Houses doesn't let you individually highlight enemy attack ranges during the prep screen, and this is unquestionably worse. But I think I've got it now.

First order of business is to get that western bridge covered. I do that with Tauroneo and Sothe, who can just barely make it from their mandatory starting positions. Everyone else takes out the enemies around the ballista right in front of us.

Shoddy hitrates really make player-phase gambits a scary gamble. It really hurts the utility of player-phase units when you can't reliably keep them safe by killing the other enemies around them. Thankfully I had enough units around to provide backup plans and some mulligans.

Alright, turn one went pretty well. I'm using my best units to rush each side of the map, because I've gotta protect Fiona when she turns traitor, and also take out the boss as quickly as possible. Jill and Volug are heading to clear the way for Fiona's escape.

See, a scene happens at the end of player phase 1, where Laverton brings out civilian hostages and threatens to kill them if Micaiah doesn't surrender. Micaiah then surrenders, because she foresees that Fiona is going to betray Laverton to save them.

While I do roll my eyes a ton at how ridiculously mustache-twirly a lot of the Begnion army behavior is, I have to say that the line “This so-called 'Liberation Army' is forcing me to sacrifice this boy!” is really good at pissing me off in the right kind of way. All I had to do was hear that one line as he readied his spear at the child hostage and I instantly wanted him to die. Painfully. So, props there. I remember some conditional praise of Lundgren for invoking similar feelings, so yeah.

So then, after Micaiah drops her weapons and everyone else follows her lead... ...Laverton prepares to kill his hostages anyway... before he subdued... any... of the Daein... Liberation... Army.

Like, their weapons are just on the ground. They can pick them back up again, which they proceed to do after this cutscene. Even if Fiona hadn't intervened, Laverton would have accomplished nothing but pissing the Dawn Brigade off and sacrificing his leverage over them. This is... I can't believe I didn't notice how idiotic this plan is.

Anyway, Fiona and her seven unit cavalry platoon all grab the hostages and run off with them, suffering from rescue penalties in the meantime. Except Fiona. Because just to mock us, the game decided she should get two personal skills, and one of them is savior, which makes her immune to rescue penalties.

Alright, Aran's at level 17 and has 19 defense and skill. Chances are, next level up is going to put him in bonus exp territory, so I think I'll be using all of my bonus exp to get him promoted after his next level.

Oh, also, thank goodness! Looks like ballistae at least show you their might in this game, if not their hit and crit.

Anyway, yeah, the west side is pretty trivial, because most of the enemies rushed the east side to pursue Fiona. It's pretty much impossible to save all of the Marado soldiers since they start so close to the enemy, but there are more soldiers than civilians, so you can at least realistically save all of the civilians they carry since others will pick up the slack when anyone falls.

One of the Marado cavalry moved, used a vulnerary, and kept moving. I wonder what the logic was behind where he stopped, or why he stopped at all instead of just using the vulnerary after his full move. He did it right in front of an enemy, though I don't know if that had any bearing on the decision...

I brought Leonardo to take control of the ballista just in case, but unfortunately, the Radiance games decided to be complete dickbags and make all ballistae only operate in one direction. Meaning that all the ballistae you “reclaim” from the enemy are damned near useless to you, since they're pointed at your army, not the enemy's. Great. And here I thought I was gonna have some fun with Leonardo for once.

I've gotta make sure Tauroneo isn't the one to kill the boss. He's insanely useful right now, but the issue is that... well... he has some of the worst availability in the game.

See, Radiant Dawn has this unfortunate tendency to, since it shifts from so many perspectives, constantly take units in and out of your army. Tauroneo is playable in this chapter... and no other chapter of Part 1. So if he kills the boss, he gets the paragon scroll, and it's entirely possible, if I remember correctly, that this means the paragon scroll just stays with him until Part 3. It's possible he's still in the party but unusable after this chapter, but I don't wanna take that chance with this thing.

...Shit, I really should have taken resolve off him when I had the chance. Hopefully I still can.

Damn it. I couldn't save one of the civilians. RIP old man. I just didn't bring enough units to the east side of the map. I miscalculated which side would need more, and only brought Jill and Volug, thinking getting there quickly was more important than being able to kill lots of enemies on player phase. I thought those Marado guys would be able to clear the bridge faster. Thankfully... yep! The boss has been baited in by Tauroneo with his silver lance, so it's over now. As long as I can kill him this turn, we're golden.

Paragon get!

Chapter over.

Ohhh! So that's why I mistakenly remembered this being in Marado. Fiona refers to the people Micaiah rescued as “my people”. Was she talking about her soldiers, or did that boss actually specifically choose Marado civilians to use as hostages to threaten Micaiah? I'm gonna have to assume she means the soldiers Micaiah helped bail out, because, I mean, the latter is just too stupid even for this game. If those were specifically Marado hostages, did Laverton seriously expect to be able to get away with just killing them for shits and giggles without Fiona turning traitor?

Anyway, Fiona is the daughter of Lanvega, who is one of the four riders from when Greil was one. The others were Bryce (the heavily-ridiculed Camus from last game) and Tauroneo.

Honestly, the game makes her out to be this big deal, but...

...Okay.

She's basically one of the worst “Ests” in the series. She's got pretty good growth rates, more than one personal skill, a lot of things going for her... but she's just terrible. Her starting level and stats are atrocious. It's kind of ridiculous how weak they make her for how much of a big deal they make out of her legacy.

And then we get a scene with Jarod and Numida, and they talk about how all the fuss the Daein people are making with their rebellion could attract an inquiry from Sanaki and Sephiran. And here I am frankly amazed that 1: Sanaki is still unaware of this after three years, and 2: these people seriously think Sephiran could possibly not know yet, and that him acting like he doesn't isn't incredibly suspicious.

Anyway, I get a shitton of bonus exp, 3922 to be precise, which is gonna be peanuts eventually, but for now it's enough to start having fun with BEXP abuse.

...Tomorrow. For now, I'm done here.

Stay safe, everyone!

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13 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Like, their weapons are just on the ground. They can pick them back up again, which they proceed to do after this cutscene. Even if Fiona hadn't intervened, Laverton would have accomplished nothing but pissing the Dawn Brigade off and sacrificing his leverage over them. This is... I can't believe I didn't notice how idiotic this plan is.

 

I agree that the plan is dumb. How would you improve it? Keep the civilians hostage for longer but have Fiona get tired of the nonsense and take matters into her own hands? I think that makes more sense. 

I think Fiona should have been Bryce's daughter instead as it would explain why Bryce was so loyal to Ashnard if he decides to let Marado be a free state that has its citizens freed from the obligation of going to war but in return Bryce would be forced to join. 

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I'm pretty sure Tauroneo stays tantalizingly in your party and is just undeployable for, well it feels like the entire rest of the game. Point is that I'm quite certain you can still steal his Resolve.

  

58 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

The OP of that thread ended up contradicting themselves. They said RD does too much tell and tell instead of show and tell but then praised PoR for only talking about Daein's subjugation instead of showing like RD does. 

Would you say that the liberation of Isaac was too rushed? It's much faster than the liberation of Daein but one could argue that Isaac is too minor of a country to focus a liberation struggle on when in reality it was Grannvale that needs to be liberated. However, that logic implies that Thracia 776 was a waste of time because you only focus on a smaller country instead of the entire Empire. . 

Or, on the other side of the coin it begs the question, where's my Isaac 776!? Thracia is great for showing a smaller look at something that was more glossed over in another game. I wish more games did it. Hell yeah would I play a game focusing solely on what Innes was doing before recruitment in Sacred Stones (in fact this thread inspired me to make a thread saying Sacred Stones should have done exactly that, which I'm sure most of you have seen). On the subject of Isaac it definitely could have been a much bigger deal, but overall the fact that it's not I don't think is too much to its detriment. Much as people complain about the pacing of gameplay in Genealogy of the Holy War, it does have some pretty decent pacing when it comes to the story. I can understand why they'd want the first chapter of the second generation to start Seliph quickly gaining victory before meeting much harder resistance at Leinster. Isaac could have been spun out to twoish chapters like Leinster or even more, but the longer the plot lingers there the further it strays from Belhalla. Genealogy's map design also encourages the idea of making physical progress across the continent that discourages lingering in one place to much.

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2 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

I agree that the plan is dumb. How would you improve it? Keep the civilians hostage for longer but have Fiona get tired of the nonsense and take matters into her own hands? I think that makes more sense.

Interesting question! Hm...

...Well, technically there's no need for the hostage plan itself to exist, because all that really needs to happen storywise (if even that) is "something makes Fiona change sides". That could be any number of things with basically no impact on the rest of the story at all. But I do like this gameplay premise of having to protect green units who are themselves protecting other green units, so...

...I'd probably get rid of that "alright, then let's kill the hostages anyway" part of Laverton's plan, because that's really what ruins it. If Fiona had intervened while Laverton was trying to force a surrender, that would allow the gameplay to stay the same while the logic of the plan is fixed. I may be missing something though, this is just off the top of my head.

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Oh also wow. You're almost finished Part 1 already. There's only four chapters left, one of which being the Black Knight Micaiah chapter. They essentially win this war within three plot chapters, four gameplay ones including Part 1 of this chapter...really feels like the liberation army section of the game is way longer than that.

  

9 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

I agree that the plan is dumb. How would you improve it? Keep the civilians hostage for longer but have Fiona get tired of the nonsense and take matters into her own hands? I think that makes more sense. 

I think Fiona should have been Bryce's daughter instead as it would explain why Bryce was so loyal to Ashnard if he decides to let Marado be a free state that has its citizens freed from the obligation of going to war but in return Bryce would be forced to join. 

That would actually be pretty cool to make her the child of an established character. Though I feel giving Bryce more reason to be with Ashnard kind of defies the point of his character. The whole point is that he's a bit of an idiot to put such devotion in monarchy, so much so that Ashnard can mock his loyalty to his face and brag about regicide and Bryce still stays loyal. They also had the whole four riders of the old generation already established with Tauroneo and Gawain, so they were kind of obliged to mention who the fourth one of that generation was. It didn't necessarily have to be here, but Lavenga was bound to be name dropped at some point. 

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