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

[Acacia Sgt]

2 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Nope, all they said was that she was too young to be able to resist madness without the Binding Shield, even at roughly 1000 years old. And Nowi's a divine dragon too, judging by the fact that there's no visual difference or difference in stone type between Nowi and Tiki in this game.

Well, that doesn't specify if that's a general problem for Manakete children if others existed, or just applied to her.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Well, that doesn't specify if that's a general problem for Manakete children if others existed, or just applied to her.

Here's what Gotoh says. He says nothing about it being related specifically to divine dragon power or Tiki's power. Just that she's too young (even at 1000) for her to be able to avoid degeneration.

That child is still developing.
Without the Shield of Seals she will begin to degenerate.
Eventually she will become wild and attack humans.
I made her sleep, because I felt sad for her.
But, if the Shield of Seals is restored I will no longer have to worry, because the shield will protect Chiki.
Marth, please take care of Chiki.
You must rescue that child from the path of ruin.

[Acacia Sgt]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

Here's what Gotoh says. He says nothing about it being related specifically to divine dragon power or Tiki's power. Just that she's too young (even at 1000) for her to be able to avoid degeneration.

That child is still developing.
Without the Shield of Seals she will begin to degenerate.
Eventually she will become wild and attack humans.
I made her sleep, because I felt sad for her.
But, if the Shield of Seals is restored I will no longer have to worry, because the shield will protect Chiki.
Marth, please take care of Chiki.
You must rescue that child from the path of ruin.

Exactly. It only speaks about her, and only her. No mention if this is something that other dragon children could be susceptible of.

The only thing we know is that Tiki isn't just any Manakete child.

[Samz707]

9 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

(Got a Stick)

I mean hey if Kellam can still surprisingly have 100 chance to hit and do enough damage to make a log worthwhile in terms of "Eh, I got it for free." I ain't turning down sticks. 

11 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

 

I mean maybe it has something to do with how the Fire Emblem was repurposed since marth’s games 1,000 years prior to awakening. Like I said, awakening would benefit greatly from a prequel about the first exalt and Grima’s initial rise to kind of answer these questions. They don’t have to make it a game either. I’d be perfectly content with it being an anime, manga, or even a set of light novels.

Awakening would need one hell of a prequel to justify the fact that the 6 (Allegedly) writers apparently only skimmed the fan translation of Marth's games and not have it come off as desperate justification made after the fact.

They had to even retcon an entire reason to exist for Grima and IMO that was pretty terrible (both in ways of how it was told and the actual content within) in Echoes, they just expected people to believe that there's an generic evil kill-everything dragon and not question it never being mentioned before, in a pre-established continuity where it never existed before.

In addition to other stuff like Alm's Falchion seemingly not existing since no one ever mentions it. 

This is the game where Panne never met her mother or any of her race in one support but did know her mother in another.

The game almost feels like it was ment to be an standalone continuity but then for marketing reasons quickly slapped it into Archanea considering the sheer volume of retcons. (or if you wanna be cynical, just didn't care at all.)

 

Edited December 22, 2020 by Samz707

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Exactly. It only speaks about her, and only her. No mention if this is something that other dragon children could be susceptible of.

The only thing we know is that Tiki isn't just any Manakete child.

The only reason he gave for why it was happening is because she was a child. If it only applied to Tiki, that almost certainly wouldn't have been how he phrased it. Your suggestion, while physically possible, is a massive, massive stretch.

[Ottservia]

Here are my general thoughts on awakening’s weird continuity with Archanea. The developers/writers do owe fans an explanation for all this since it does fuck with established continuity with the first game of the franchise. However the lack of explanation in awakening itself is rather inconsequential. They owe us an explanation but they don’t have to give it to us right now. They’ll give it to us when they give it to us. It’s like Grima’s backstory in SoV. The only reason he needed one at all was was because his existence didn’t make much sense in what was already established about archanea’s lore cause otherwise his backstory is inconsequential. It doesn’t really make him a worse villain for not having a backstory. He works just fine as a villain without one. They’ll give us these explanations when they give it to us.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Ottservia

[Etrurian emperor]

1 minute ago, Ottservia said:

Here are my general thoughts on awakening’s weird continuity with Archanea. The developers/writers do owe fans an explanation for all this since it does fuck with established continuity with the first game of the franchise. However the lack of explanation in awakening itself is rather inconsequential. They owe us an explanation but they don’t have to give it to us right now. They’ll give it to us when they give it to us. It’s like Grima’s backstory in SoV. The only reason he needed one at all was was because his existence didn’t make much sense in what was already established about archanea’s lore cause otherwise his backstory is inconsequential. It doesn’t really make him a worse villain for not having a backstory. He works just fine as a villain without one. They’ll give us these explanations when they give it to us.

Yeah that's fair. If they had just put a timeline on their site it would have been a lot better handled. And they can still do like Tellius and release a lore book that expands on the world building. 

I think the lack of explanation about how Archenea turned into Ylisse would have been more accepted if Ylisse had been a world that could stand on its own. Same for Valm. I find the lack of any detail about the continent far more important than the lack of explanation why it isn't Valentia anymore.

[Acacia Sgt]

6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

The only reason he gave for why it was happening is because she was a child. If it only applied to Tiki, that almost certainly wouldn't have been how he phrased it. Your suggestion, while physically possible, is a massive, massive stretch.

Sadly, that's true.

The only conjecture I can think of is that back when dragons first turned into Manaketes, it'd be reasonable to assume there were still dragon children around (as the decline in birth rates and the decision to become Manaketes isn't long enough for every dragon child to grow up). So then why Naga only made the Binding Shield to protect Tiki and only Tiki, who was born centuries after possibly noticing any already existing Manakete children going feral despite becoming Manaketes, if it was the case that every Manakete child can still go feral?

That's the only theory I can think of.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Acacia Sgt

[Samz707]

12 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Here are my general thoughts on awakening’s weird continuity with Archanea. The developers/writers do owe fans an explanation for all this since it does fuck with established continuity with the first game of the franchise. However the lack of explanation in awakening itself is rather inconsequential. They owe us an explanation but they don’t have to give it to us right now. They’ll give it to us when they give it to us. It’s like Grima’s backstory in SoV. The only reason he needed one at all was was because his existence didn’t make much sense in what was already established about archanea’s lore cause otherwise his backstory is inconsequential. It doesn’t really make him a worse villain for not having a backstory. He works just fine as a villain without one. They’ll give us these explanations when they give it to us.

Even then Grima's backstory sticks out like a sore quickly-thrown-in-to-sell-that-grinding-DLC thing in SOV IMO.

It feels incredibly lazy, we have memory prisms that give his wonderful scenes elaborating on the world (Especially in the DLC.), in Echoes, you find a bunch of gravestones, in order, detailing the backstory in a way that in-universe makes no sense, who randomly wrote down the history of Thabes on gravestones? why did this one soldier do that? Why would Grima, a evil dragon made to destroy that probably doesn't even know what a decimal is at this point write down himself on a grave.

It feels cheap, like they never intended to do this but some suit decided that since Awakening was popular they have to reference it. (and the dungeon had to be brutally unfair and BS to sell that overclass DLC.)

(Also IMO, I doubt that Alm and company faced down the essentially infant/kid Grima and Grima somehow wasn't killed by this.)

It's like they just skimmed Shadow the Hedgehog's Backstory and did it worse for Grima.

His Backstory IMO just adds more questions than answers and not in a good way, it doesn't fit naturally into Echoes and feels like a shoe-horned in Retcon that the devs had no intention of doing til' they were told to late in development.

It's an explanation sure, but a very cheap lackluster one that fails to be satisfying and just feels thrown in out of obligation.

 

Edited December 22, 2020 by Samz707

[Ottservia]

4 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

It's like they just skimmed Shadow the Hedgehog's Backstory and did it worse for Grima. 

Shadow the hedgehog, Mewtwo, Genesect, Sephiroth, basically half of all kaiju ever. Hmmm I don’t know maybe this whole “ultimate lifeform created by mad science” is just simply a common trope in Japanese media. And where do you think Fire Emblem games are developed? Oh that’s right Japan.

[Samz707]

22 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Shadow the hedgehog, Mewtwo, Genesect, Sephiroth, basically half of all kaiju ever. Hmmm I don’t know maybe this whole “ultimate lifeform created by mad science” is just simply a common trope in Japanese media. And where do you think Fire Emblem games are developed? Oh that’s right Japan.

Yeah and my point is that it doesn't even feel like a natural part of the universe as opposed to Sonic at least.

How does mixing a dragon with human DNA magically make it somehow instantly stronger than any other dragon?

Sure Shadow is the "ultimate" lifeform, but implications are that the prophecies he was built to replicate were actually of Sonic (therefore making Sonic the Ultimate Lifeform) and he's actually weaker than Sonic in several situations due to inexperience, to the point of nearly dying due to this in SA2, while they sorta kept it as a title, it's clear that Shadow isn't actually suddenly the ultimate lifeform just because of his DNA and the experienced Sonic is ultimately better than him and the fact it's implied that Sonic is actually the ultimate lifeform, he can't even run fast without assistance from rocket shoes. (While Sonic is just naturally fast.)

Grima is just suddenly a thing and (according to one of the DLC apparently) able to kill Naga, something apparently at some point stated to be impossible, in addition they're also able to magically survive the god-slayer swords that have killed other dragons, they are seemingly better suddenly from birth than every other dragon and literally immortal, Grima suddenly exists and is seemingly better than everything else because reasons.

Sure Duma degenerated but he was still a dragon and I'm pretty sure Milla was still bested in combat by Rudolf in some capacity (She looks ready to throw down in that cutscene.), you're asking me to believe this random baby dragon was able to survive an actual god-slayer sword?, a dragon, that in terms of gameplay, is actually weaker than Duma and is only tougher due to his ambush actually tougher than him infinite randomized reinforcements. (Duma can only be taken out by Falchion or Nosferatu which is a in-joke while Grima can actually just get easily wiped out by a regular Dread Fighter if it wasn't for those randomized Risen.)

 

Edited December 22, 2020 by Samz707

[Interdimensional Observer]

24 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

It's like they just skimmed Shadow the Hedgehog's Backstory and did it worse for Grima.

Excuse me? They left out Maria!. Abandoning bestial love can only be viewed as a net positive. 🦔x🧍‍♀️= 🚫🚫🚫

[Samz707]

4 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Excuse me? They left out Maria!. Abandoning bestial love can only be viewed as a net positive. 🦔x🧍‍♀️= 🚫🚫🚫

I guess they added Nowi to make up for that.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Samz707

[Baldrick]

The problem with Grima is he doesn’t have a consistent origin or characterisation. We don’t see him interact with his creator, or with anyone to see how he forms the view of the world he has in Heroes.

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...The Risen in front of the seal merchant just disappeared.

 

Huh, so Anna managed to solo a map of Lunatic Skirmish Risen. Must have been the Apotheosis merchant.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Huh, so Anna managed to solo a map of Lunatic Skirmish Risen. Must have been the Apotheosis merchant.

The merchants are actually surprisingly durable. Earlier last week I checked a skirmish out and noticed that Anna's defense was capped. At 20, but still.

[Alastor15243]

Awakening Day 7: Paralogue 3

I am really hoping we get some money from this chapter. Even with the 10,000 gold from renown at the start, I've been getting just barely enough money to scrape by, especially with those seals I've bought. They'll be worth it eventually, and I don't want to risk them not being available when I need them, so obviously I bought them. But for the moment... it's gonna hurt.

First order of business is to reclass Miriel to dark mage. I might be able to sell some shit and buy a nosferatu tome early, but I'll be getting one next chapter, and I really don't have the cash flow to be relying on nosferatu yet. I need to get Alexandria's luck up and start abusing Leif's blade with galeforce and armsthrift.

But yeah, things are generally looking a lot more manageable now compared to last time I looked at this paralogue. I just gave Cordelia the energy drop from last chapter. I thiiiiink I gave Sumia my first one, so now they're even on special treatment as far as strength goes, and the whopping 7 strength difference over 3 levels is now “just” a 5 strength difference. Cordelia's still got a ways to go, but I should be able to use her here.

Of course, Sumia's gonna do the majority of the flier work. Even with silver lances, these pegasus knights are going to be doing chip damage to her. She has 12 defense, which goes up to around 20 once she takes a defense tonic and pairs up with Frederick. So obviously her job is to wipe out the fliers before they can get anywhere near the three villagers. Because in case you didn't know, the main difficulty of this map is keeping the suicidal green villagers alive as they flee to the west... right into an enemy ambush. The majority of the enemies who will be chasing them from the east will die pretty early due to, who else, Alexandria. One of them has a short spear and thus would rather attack a villager with it from across the river, but he won't kill, so I can take him out too next turn once someone who can survive the enemy phase is open to attack him. Once they're down, and once the fliers are down, it'll just be a matter of picking off the stragglers.

..The main annoyance is not knowing what stat boosts Miriel's gonna get from Gregor, and if she'll be able to hit any extra doubling thresholds if she uses a speed tonic. So I left it in her inventory. She won't be attacking on the first turn, so I can just have her use it (or not) on turn 1.

Alright, 3, 2, 1, BREAK!

...No, wait, Frederick and Sumia have a support. They're at A after this.

...Not much to say about this conversation. At least not now that I've seen it a million times. I might have liked it originally. But it didn't really show off anything about Sumia's character that wasn't already shown in her introductory chapter, and it didn't show anything about Frederick's character at all.

But at that rate, we get another bonus to Frederick's pairup bonuses for Sumia. Yeah, at this point, she's gonna be pretty dang powerful. She's not as tough as Alexandria obviously, but she's still really good, and I'm excited to see how she does as a dark flier. Won't do it now though. She's still gaining levels pretty quickly, so I'll wait until she starts to slow down.

Alright, now let's do this!

...Yep, turns out Miriel just barely gets enough speed from Gregor's pairup at base that if she used a speed tonic, she could double mercenaries. Awesome.

...Aaaaand... everything's going according to plan. Minor hiccup where I forgot how fast the pegasus knights were and that Sumia couldn't actually double them, but thankfully she's reached the point where dual strikes are reliable enough to stop that being a problem. I managed to take out the archer and fighter south of the western side of the river by placing Miriel in range of the archer while taking out the mercenary, and Sumia in range of the fighter while finishing off the one pegasus knight who didn't die turn 1 enemy phase.

And now my non-Alexandria forces have made it to the west side of the retreating villagers, so they can protect the villagers from the remaining forces.

Alexandria found a backup Katarina's Bolt at an event tile, which is an awesome find. Obviously there are better ones, but I am not remotely complaining about that as an event tile result.

The village that left the villagers to their would-be grizzly fate is happy to welcome us, and gives us a blessed bow. It's a bow that heals you 10 HP per turn when equipped, and I think is also effective against zombies. Not all risen, just the revenants and entombed and the like. I'm going to be selling the thing if it's worth anything at all.

Ooh, and we get a second Micaiah's Pyre too! That boosts defense and resistance by 2, which is of course great if you don't have nosferatu but you have decent enough defense. It could make the difference in how many enemies you can survive. Miriel's reached the point where it definitely would.

And with an easy boss kill, that's Paralogue 3 beaten with all three villagers alive!

The only good treasure is from getting all three alive. A log and a ladle are all you get for the remaining 2. But I still got a seraph robe, so that's pretty awesome.

Yep, sold the blessed bow for a good 700. Now then... what to do now...?

...Ooh! More supports! And...

Ah yes. Chrom and Alexandria's S support.

Honestly, I'd love this if it were the payoff to a genuinely charming C-A set. Chrom's pretty endearingly awkward here. I will concede I found myself giggling to myself watching Chrom's extreme awkwardness at coming out there and admitting he loves Alexandria. The problem's really more the fact that it's totally unearned due to all the nonsense in the C-A.

And then of course we get the big voice-acted S support line. Every S rank conversation with the avatar ends with one, and Chrom's is...

“You are the wind at my back and the sword at my side. Together, my love, we shall build a peaceful world. Just you and me.”

Oh yes. It's happening, baby.

We've got the single most powerful pairing in the entire game.

...Ignoring Apotheosis of course. Then it's kind of subpar. But fuck Apotheosis. This pairing is the shit, and it lets you trivialize so damned much.

Interestingly, it's also the only possible way for any unit to be objectively better than Morgan, because Lucina inherits everything from their mom, but Morgan doesn't inherit everything from their dad.

Oh, and when we get galeforce in time for the end of Chapter 13...

Hooooooo boy.

Alright, now let's check out Gregor's talk with Miriel.

Miriel rather bluntly responds to an offer to join him for tea by pressing him for information about what makes women attractive to him. They chat a bit more, and then:

Gregor: Gregor is surprised brain does not ooze out of Miriel's ears.

She basically completely killed the mood and actually caused Gregor to go make up an obvious excuse, and she totally buys it because she has no social awareness.

The later supports are much better, but I still love this interaction here.

Ah yes, and Vaike and Cordelia. I literally only remember one thing about this support set all these years later, and that's the absolutely adorable final line to their S rank.

Ah yes, it's coming back to me now. Not enough that I can guess what happens next, but...

...Yeah, basically, Cordelia gets into an argument with Vaike about his constant challenging of Chrom to duels, and then challenges him to a duel herself. And that's where it ends.

I'm very curious to see how this duel ends. The thing is no matter who wins, whether it's Vaike or Cordelia, it's guaranteed to get an amusing response out of the loser.

...So, I just checked the barracks real quick, and was suddenly reminded of the amusing detail that characters won't actually face Kellam during social interactions with him. Subtle details like that are just hilarious.

Oh yeah, also, new characters bring things with them to spruce up the barracks and make it less barren and shitty. We've got what looks like a Christmas tree decorated with lollipops now.

...Alright. Let's check out that DLC again and see if now is a good time.

[Alastor15243]

Day 7 Bonus: Champions of Yore 1

...Oh yeah, this seems fine. Really the only truly scary stat these girls have is their speed, which is consistently high, too high for anyone but Alexandria to double in many cases, But none of these girls can so much as scratch Alexandria, and the other ladies (I... just realized all of my frontline units are women) should be able to handle them with ease, since their numbers aren't that huge.

...The main problem is that I can barely bring anyone. Only 7 deployment slots, counting Chrom. Since Sumia's easily the most well-off of the three non-Alexandria units and the least in need of training, I decide to deploy Miriel/Gregor and Cordelia/Vaike. Along with Alexandria obviously. No way I'm not bringing her. And Lissa's there to heal since there's an odd number of units, so there's no point in skimping on healers to bring another set.

Not much need for prep. This is just FE1's first map full of einherjar of assorted female leads from Fire Emblem, no major gimmicks to be concerned with.

Let's go.

...Ah yes, the story.

…

…

...Yeah, it's funny how easily I can tell how out-of-character Eirika is here. In particular, she is waaaaaaay too quick to anger. She's somehow even worse-written here than she was in her own game, and that's really saying something. She's basically just used as a joke about how naive and gullible she is, which ironically made her the only einherjar who could be reasoned with... until Old Hubba started being a creep about how “innocent and sheltered” she was.

WOOOOOO! DARK DRAGON PLAYER PHASE THEME GOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Yeah, you can also chat with the three NPC allies, Marth, Ike and Alm. Ike, judging by his talk with Alexandria, seems way more in-character than Eirika is, aside from the whole “way too accepting of the fact that they have allies warped in from another world” thing, but that can be chalked up to them being einherjar.

...Ah yes, so, since this game has no light magic users, all light-magic-using einherjar are retconned to dark magic users... and put in new outfits accordingly. This of course results in all the female light magic users being in bikinis (and Micaiah getting artwork in one as a result)... as well as Oliver suddenly being a buff shirtless guy.

...Alright, well, we took out Dierdre, by far the weakest character on the map (fitting). Let's have Chrom chat with Marth.

...All they do with this is have Chrom try to ask if Marth understands he's just a ghost summoned by a card. I was kind of hoping for something more interesting from Chrom running into a recreation of the damned Hero King.

Eirika: Brigands! Deceivers! I will strike you ALL down!

...Wooooooow. Who wrote this?

Miriel can't double these ladies, so she's just counting on critical hits from Katarina's Bolt. I mean I have a spare, right?

Anyway, finally, Lissa has a chat with Alm, where he expresses surprise at the fact that women are fighting in Alexandria's army.

While this sort of thing is annoying as I've said, I do find it hilarious that Lissa tries to talk about the time she ate bear meat as if trying to imply she once ate bear alive.

Yeah, this... I don't really remember getting the sense from Gaiden that Alm was this patronizing about women, though admittedly it's been over a year since I played.

Alm: They say women have a high resistance to magic.

Lissa: Maybe chauvinism is just highly flammable.

Okay, I will concede, that made me laugh. And apparently it made Alm laugh too, which is a nice touch.

...It's a pity that the sheer conceit of this, characters fighting against their own loved ones for no reason at all, didn't allow for any attempt at a more interesting narrative on the side of the einherjar. Like, they do some fairly cool stuff later, especially with the one where you get dread fighter, and the one where it's heroes vs villains. In the “you fight everyone” battle in the latter, the heroes and villains actually team up, and the justification is that you're perceived to be a world-ending, eldritch invasion that they have to band together to destroy. So with that in mind, seeing, say, Micaiah or Celica unite the female leads against us could be pretty dang badass if they took it seriously and didn't just use it to make a childish joke at Eirika's expense rather than making literally any effort to redeem her or make her more interesting.

...And... we get a weird talk with the villager, who hands us a random present, this time an iron lance. But the way he says “Why are we grateful? How should I know? I just hand out the wee tokens!” makes it sound like they're also fake or something. What is this place they're fighting in supposed to be without the einherjar here?

...Yeah, I'll have to see how the other ones play out, but I'm kind of annoyed that the one that, from my memory, is most played for laughs... is the one where the enemies are all women.

Oh, and of course, if you don't kill these enemies quickly, the green units will fight and probably steal a few kills before getting creamed by sheer enemy numbers.

Yeah, Ike just barely tanked a blow from Lyn, and got promptly slaughtered when he attacked her back on ally phase. But Alm and Marth did manage to gang up on a defenseless healer and bring Nanna down.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I fortunately picked the right Einherjar for Miriel to attack, because Miriel just starts talking about how she wants to dissect Lilina like a frog to learn about the magic inside her.

Also... she gets a surprisingly badass line for somebody you'd think wouldn't care about such things.

Lilina: What?! I'm not some frog for you to pick apart!

Miriel: No, of course not. I have no interest in frogs. But come at me anyway. Let's see whether or not you croak.

I had Alexandria finish off another mage with Leif's blade, and she got lucky and not only didn't waste a use, but got a bullion! Sweet! More money is always appreciated!

Yeah, from the second village... honestly, I'm getting the impression that this is some weird Westworld-esque theme park gone awry, where people can pretend to be legendary heroes saving villages from peril. The villagers don't seem to understand what's going on, they just feel obligated to give you shit.

But yeah, I just beat the xenologue.

Okay, Old Hubba is simultaneously really annoying and really funny. He has some fantastic lines.

...Ah yes, and now we have a chat with the card we just unlocked: Prince Marth.

...Weirdly, his style of dress is retconned to be identical to Lucina's.

...I wonder what Lucina would look like if she wore what Marth actually wore, rather than what history has apparently retconned him into wearing.

Ah yes, Marth has the strangest feeling that he and Alexandria have met before, which is likely an allusion to the fact that the einherjar version of Marth doesn't remember Kris due to there being no record of them in history, but they still have a vague sense of a kris-shaped hole being missing in their memories.

...No, wait... Marth seems to remember Kris, even if he doesn't mention them by name.

Then Marth asks me if I'd put victory above saving an ally, and... I mean, in context, that's a no-brainer, obviously I wouldn't save an ally if it meant a game over (and therefore the death of everyone else presumably). And yeah, Marth tells me I made the right decision, even though it's a hard one.

And Prince Marth is...

...Noooooot the best. Like, I could probably train him up, and his aptitude means his level ups would probably be insane... but he's just not that strong, and there's a greater payoff for training my other units, who will make kids I can use in case things go horribly wrong with their parents.

I don't think I have enough time to do another proper full story chapter today, but... fuck it, let's try the second one!

[Alastor15243]

Day 7 Bonus Bonus: Champions of Yore 2

The game thankfully tells me what my turn record for each xenologue I've done is, meaning I'll never have to worry about forgetting I already did a xenologue somehow.

Ah yes, and then it's revealed that Aversa was the one who stole Hubba's cards. Or rather, an alternate dimension version of Aversa, “tidily” explaining why she never uses the cards against you in-story or why she can still be here after you recruit her, because that's a thing in this game.

So we get Celica, Lyn and Eirika. And we're divided up this time, launching a pincer attack from each side. ...Which means I have to have half of my army completely separated from Alexandria. Let's see how tough the guys are...

...Oh yeah. The guys are much tougher. Slightly better stats, but way better weapons. Silvers, those fancy weapons named after them...

...Yeah I'm probably just gonna solo this with Alexandria to play it safe and see what goodies we get. Amusingly, after checking for conversations, it looks like I've got all the characters who talk to these ladies in active use in my army! Cordelia talks to Eirika, Sumia to Lyn, and Frederick to Celica. Alright, awesome. Then let's nab the treasure, slaughter these guys as quick as we can, and see if the einherjar from this one is any good.

Okay, this talk between Eirika and Cordelia felt significantly more in-character than the scene with her in the last xenologue. Actually, I like her better here than in the original game.

...The Sumia and Lyn talk is complete trash though. It's barely anything more than a tripping joke.

And... Frederick's conversation ends with him saying something quite dark about how fleeting einherjar sentience is, and how they probably won't remember him after this fight.

Ah, so Alm has an enemy talk with Alexandria. ...Nothing interesting, just Alexandria being annoyed at Hubba's antics.

Alexandria is impressively completely immune to Leif's crit rate despite him having a 20-crit weapon. Guess her luck really is that high, despite having a luck flaw.

Yeah, so, if you didn't know, these “einherjar” are just created out of the “My unit” maker, with a custom portrait of obvious artwork to represent the fact that it's a card. It's an obvious and understandable effort to make lots of characters for little cost, but it has... consequences. Probably the most egregious of which being the fact that the Black Knight... can't use swords. And also looks like a total doofus in Awakening general armor. And falls flat on his face whenever he uses luna.

Alright, village 1 got us a thunder tome, and we'll find out what the second one has next turn.

Lyn: I suppose it falls on me to wake these boys from their chivalrous fantasy.

Waaaaait... what does that imply about how much she knows about what's going on...?

...Unfortunately for her, Roy got a lucky 4% crit and slaughtered Lyn.

Yeah, while the conceit is technically that the guys are being manipulated into white-knighting like idiots... this joke doesn't really come at any specific character's expense like it did with Eirika in CoY1. It still feels like the girls were being made fun of way more than the guys.

Funny enough, several of these guys are too tough for Alexandria to one-round without crits or dual strikes.

I got another Tiki's Tear. Not nearly as useful now that we have access to the full general spectrum of stat boosters, but still nice to get a full set for free.

Alright, we won.

And now we get Roy. Weird how we got a male character both from defeating the girls and from defeating the guys.

Roy asks Alexandria if she likes her world, and I say yes without really thinking about the potential for just taking a jab at Awakening's worldbuilding, but oh well, too late.

And he asks so many questions about what life in Ylisse is like, questions I would very much like to have heard answers to myself, game.

...Roy's barely better than Prince Marth. Actually, he's roughly the same, just higher level and with some stats slightly worse or better. What a let-down. I was hoping one of these guys could actually help.

...Hmm...

...Y'know...

...If I just Alexandria-solo'd it...

...I might be able to get a strong einherjar early enough to make use of it...

Cordelia and Sumia have supports with their boyfriends, but I'll save those for later. If I can't just easily solo a later set, I'll leave it here for today.

…

…

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OOOHHHHH NO. Yeah, I just checked out Lost Bloodlines 2, and no, not even Alexandria can handle this shit at her current level. Well, I guess that's fair. But I wish the rewards were actually worth using without grinding by the time that you get them. Especially since they have almost no postgame viability at all.

Well, I guess that's it for today, then. Tomorrow we'll actually do Chapter 9.

Stay safe, everyone!

[Samz707]

As someone who's always been a bit confused (And never really enjoyed Awakening enough to consider getting the DLC), this whole einherjar malarkey is non-canon right?

Edited December 22, 2020 by Samz707

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

As someone who's always been a bit confused (And never really enjoyed Awakening enough to consider getting the DLC), this whole einherjar malarkey is non-canon right?

Honestly it's written as if it could be canon. It's contextualized as a literal portal on the map, and in the xenologues Chrom constantly mentions going through that portal to reach each new location, and they go to great lengths to make sure you know whatever you see happening here doesn't contradict what might have happened in the main game so far (like Aversa still being an enemy).

[Jotari]

21 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Honestly it's written as if it could be canon. It's contextualized as a literal portal on the map, and in the xenologues Chrom constantly mentions going through that portal to reach each new location, and they go to great lengths to make sure you know whatever you see happening here doesn't contradict what might have happened in the main game so far (like Aversa still being an enemy).

Course that gets into some particularly questionable territory in Future Past where apperantly Chrom and co are prioritizing saving a whole other random parallel world over their own, ie, they go to the effort of destroying a full powered Grima threatening other people before taking out the one currently and openly threatening them. That one at least they could have suggested it was post game, but I'm pretty sure they confirm it takes place before the end of the story.

[Alastor15243]

Awakening Day 8: Chapter 9

Alright, now let's actually tackle this map. I'm actually starting to get nervous about Alexandria. In my Lunatic+ runs she's usually a dark flier by the end of Chapter 10, and right now she's 4 exp away from level 6 bow knight. Seems like adding Sumia and Cordelia to the training mix has done a number on the exp I've given her. Usually I have Alexandria solo chapters 10, 12 and 13, but I don't think that's gonna be enough anymore. We may have to resort to using some DLC... I mean I could always give her paragon, but putting that on Alexandria seems a waste.

Oh, also, another second seal merchant showed up, but I'm not buying this time. I'm pretty well set for those things at the moment.

...Actually no, I think I need one more by the time I get Lucina. When do they show up in shops...?

...Chapter 16. Yeah that's way too late, I do need one more. Okay, I'll buy it. Fuck. I'm really fucking over my funds. Alright, guess I'll try to find some more opportunities to use Leif's Blade. Also, I just realized I'm basically never going to actually use a bow or an axe, so I can just sell everything of value there without consequence.

Thankfully, I just checked the DLC. I think Alexandria should be tough enough to handle one or two of them on her own by the time Chapter 13 comes around, and there's always EXPonential Growth...

Ah yes, also, we have some supports I'm gonna do before we start.

The one with Vaike and Cordelia is pretty short. We disappointingly don't get an answer to the question of who won that fight between the two of them, but after he's reeling from a loss to Chrom, she basically offers to teach Vaike how to fight better. But of course this conversation does a way better job of having the last line actually feel like an ending to the support conversation compared to when Caeda offered to teach Dakota how to cook in New Mystery.

But now Frederick and Sumia are gonna fall in love.

Let's watch like the crazy eugenicist shipping stalker we are, hmmm?

Ah yes, the “characters other than the avatar fall in love” music. I forgot about this one. I've just gotten the first few seconds of the Fates one (and nothing else) so thoroughly drilled into my head thanks to that stupid lover minigame sequence.

Frederick: But when in your presence, I cannot tear my eyes from you. I am captivated! True, at first it was because I feared you might blunder into a nearby tree...

I don't know why I found that funny. It feels so uninspired and stupid, and yet I chuckled.

...But yeah, this is adorable. Their lover talk is so corny, and yet I couldn't help smiling watching it happen.

And now we have our second S support! Thankfully there's no time limit to get galeforce on Sumia like there is with Alexandria (we can recruit Cynthia at our leisure once we have access to the map), so while we could probably get Sumia galeforce faster than Alexandria if we tried, Alexandria's still top priority for that.

Alright, so... right, without any further ado... let's do Chapter 9.

...Right, it opens with Aversa cold-bloodedly executing a soldier with a sword when he failed his task.

Oh I am going to looooooove seeing how they justify her joining us.

...Then again, they justify it with Walhart and Gangrel too, in fairness...

For some reason I love that they have a heroic generic assassin report to the party as their spy. It's an interesting class to see a blue generic for.

...Weird how they're not letting us hear Grima's voice this time in this scene with Validar despite us already hearing that Grima has the avatar's voice. But yeah, then Alexandria promptly wakes up, and... yeah, since Validar was talking about setting history “back on course”, that means that she's not seeing past life memories, she's just got this weird Harry-Potter-And-Voldemort mind link thing going on where she sometimes dreams about her evil counterpart's actions.

Anyway, they show us a scene using a pretty huge backdrop. We don't see much of the geometry at once mind you, due to the camera angle, but the scale of the distance between Emmeryn and Gangrel is pretty cool.

I notice they didn't put a cheering sound effect when Gangrel was talking to the crowd. I could've sworn this game used cheering sound effects in dialogue scenes sometimes, so either I'm mistaken, or that was intended to just be Gangrel talking to a completely dead silent and unenthusiastic crowd and actually cheering at his own prompt to dead silence. That would be a cool touch, if it didn't raise questions about how zealous the army always seems to be at this point.

But anyway, Flavia throws a hand axe a ridiculous distance, from a direction where it must have just barely whizzed past Emmeryn's face on the way there... and the battle starts.

Yeah, so, the main concern here is the massive army of wyvern riders I know is coming from the north, where we currently are. It might very well be a pain to recruit Tharja. Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if we failed to recruit her, considering we're not gonna use her and also she is the worst, but she has a nosferatu tome that killing her won't get us, so... we'll do what we can.

Man, I just do not get how Tharja got popular.

...But yeah, the more important recruitment is Libra, who has some nice bases and will make a sturdier healer than Lissa for sure. As will Anna, who we'll be getting later.

Oh yeah.

Oh shit.

This music.

I fucking love Divine Decree. It always plays at hugely dramatic parts of the story. I love it. It just always gets me hyped. It's this ominous yet badass song that can be terrifying or triumphant depending on the context.

...I just realized I forgot to give tonics to anyone in my group.

Hopefully that won't be a huge deal. I'm probably gonna be doing this mostly with Alexandria anyway.

Sumia, even without a defense tonic, can take three enemies at once on enemy phase. She's getting really good, super glad I brought her. There's no way I would've been able to get away with training her on Lunatic+, but here? Totally worth it. Nowi's in a similar boat like that, where she's amazing on Lunatic, but the second you get to Lunatic+, training her becomes basically impossible.

I'm getting absolutely terrible luck with dual strikes on this first turn. So far I've only gotten three with my married couples, and all three missed.

A big benefit of my army on this map is that, again, all of my units can move freely on sand.

Libra thankfully managed to use his killer axe to take out one of the three enemies attacking him, meaning he should be able to keep himself alive with his concoction long enough to be recruited. Hopefully. I'm still really concerned about the timing of those wyvern riders. My main priority right now is getting everyone the hell out of that area and plugging up the two lower forts.

...But Libra reminds me of something... why does everyone say “gods”? What are these “gods”, plural, other than Naga? Who do they worship? Is it ever said? I mean it's a cute touch, especially when we get variations like Severa's exasperated “gawds” (I like to headcanon that Elise says “oh goshes” sometimes), but... like... what are they?

Okay, so, Tharja's started charging right after I dove in to get rid of the enemies around her. Which means if Alexandria switches away from her levin sword, everyone around her will die and she'll live, so I can recruit her next turn with Chrom and then switch back to Alexandria, enabling me to get her to safety plugging up a fort. Then I'll recruit Libra and deal with the wyvern reinforcements from the north. Not necessarily in that order, depending on how things go.

Hopefully the reinforcements won't show up the turn after the game gives a warning.

...They don't, thank goodness. But I'll be sure to have it plugged up immediately after.

YES! Okay, so, there are two forts next to each other. I moved to the lower one, the one lower than Tharja's position on the Y-axis, in the random hope that she wouldn't bother moving south and would just move straight west and then attack at a diagonal, adjacent to the fort above me. Meaning that I'd be able to recruit her while standing on the other fort, and then she could move to plug up the one Alexandria was just on, broadening my options. I wasn't banking on this, but it's a nice bonus that I'm glad paid off.

Also, I just gave Chrom a killing edge in the hopes of getting him more dual strike kills and thus more experience in the back row, and uh...

...I'm sorry, I don't hear “Your end has come” anymore. Due to the weird emphasis of the words, it sounds way more like he's saying “Urine has cum!”

So... Chrom just recruits a random creepy girl for no other reason than he thinks Emmeryn would trust her and he's “trying to learn from her.”

...This despite the fact that a big part of Chrom's characterization is that he was already too trusting for comfort. That's the entire point of Chrom and the male avatar's supports! Why would he need to say that, like this is part of him “evolving” as a character and learning to become more trusting?

And then we just got Libra. Bit annoying he can't recruit himself with Chrom in the back row, because I couldn't take the chance that reinforcements wouldn't show up from those unsecured forts towards the center, so I couldn't leave him out after recruiting Tharja to speed things up. But if the wyvern riders show up next turn, I'll be fine. I've got everyone out of the way, and Alexandria can take them all out in one turn immediately after.

So Chrom expresses surprise that Libra knows who Chrom is, which is... so weird. Chrom is a very public figure in Ylisse, what with all his work in the Shepherds and the like. Villagers of Ylisse recognize him wherever he goes, so this seems... utterly bizarre.

Okay, so, so far the ambush spawns haven't been that crazy. We've been given several turns to prepare for them, they show up at the beginning of the map where we have no business being anymore (or on forts that are manageable to secure)... so far I have no complaints with the ambush spawns here that I didn't have for Shadow Dragon.

Let's see how that lasts.

And we get a second catharsis from an event tile! I haven't even needed to use the first! That's awesome!

Alright, all that leaves is the boss. Let's see...

...Yeah, fuck it, I'll just give the kill to Alexandria. She needs any exp she can get, and this is a promoted enemy.

...It's funny how the entire center of this battlefield basically isn't used. It's just a big empty plain with nothing in it but the immobile boss. It's really only there for the purposes of the upcoming map cutscene.

...Speaking of which...

...So yeah, basically Alexandria's plan was to take out the executioner on the huge dragon rib or horn she's standing on, take out the wyvern riders so they have control of the skies, and then fly Emmeryn to safety.

Doesn't remotely explain why the enemy didn't just have its wyvern riders kill Emmeryn while they were still alive, but...

...it's pointless, because the just-recently-rescued Phila is instantly struck down by an ambush spawn of seven risen archers. Man, I'm honestly grateful she doesn't pull that shit in-game. Can you imagine ambush spawn cantors?

Yeah, Phila and her flier allies are instantly struck down, and Gangrel once again has the upper hand, because apparently the rules that let Flavia throw a hand axe halfway across the map are in effect once more, and these archers can just shoot Emmeryn down from their place on the ground.

Gangrel says he has “a dozen bows trained on her”, when really he only has seven, but whatever.

Anyway, now the game gives us the sadistic choice of either giving into Gangrel's demands and giving him the Fire Emblem, thus dooming the world, or refusing to negotiate with terrorists and letting Gangrel kill her. You can choose either option, but it barely matters in the end, because shortly after, Emmeryn rather famously takes the choice out of your hands.

...But for the record I chose to sacrifice her. But if you pick that, Chrom doesn't have the heart to go through with it and changes his mind, just to make sure the remaining dialogue and cutscene always makes sense.

Anyway...

Emmeryn: Plegians! I ask that you hear the truth of my words! War will win you nothing but sadness and pain, both inside your borders and out. Free yourselves from this hatred! From this cycle of pain and vengeance. Do what you must... as I will do. See now that one selfless act has the power to change the world!

...Okay, so... first off... who is she talking to? How much of the Plegian army is still nearby if Aversa had to summon archers in order to turn the tables? If a significant portion of the army is still here to witness Emmeryn's actions, and we're able to hold them all back, why do we suddenly have to run for our lives after this moment like we don't have a clear military advantage?

But uh...

...Okay, the cutscene.

Emmeryn: No reaction. Was I wrong, then?

That line puzzled me for years. I never understood what the fuck she was talking about. If Ottservia is correct, then all that time it meant that she was talking about the Plegians not giving a shit about her speech, and I'm like... well first off, how the fuck could she possibly know from here? We don't see a single model other than Chrom, Emmeryn and Lissa in this scene.

Second... No reaction to what? Do you even remember what you just finished saying? “See now that one selfless act has the power to change the world”? Then dead silence, you just stand there for several seconds talking to yourself in your own head. Ever thought that maybe, just maybe, these invisible, unseen Plegians your superhuman eagle vision can tell aren't reacting... are waiting for you to do the “one selfless act” you just hyped up?

Chrom's reaching out his hand like he expects to have any hope of catching her, and...

...Okay, one thing I absolutely love about this scene is how the rear angle of Emmeryn as she drops makes the actual drop start almost imperceptibly, but then the second you notice it it happens all at once.

...And now Emmeryn is dead, and we get some very well-animated reactions of horror from Chrom and Lissa, just what I'd expect from the top-tier cutscene animations of this game.

...So, Gangrel taunts Chrom about perhaps “[gathering] up her body and [putting] it up on display”, and... like... that just raises so many questions about how the fuck she got out of Plegia, because, uh, spoiler alert...

The spotpass maps decided to make it so that she's actually somehow still alive. She has extreme brain damage, but she's somehow alive, and also pretty much completely fine physically, with no visible injuries.

...But...

...Still...

Emmeryn is dead.

Chrom and Lissa have just lost the dearest person to their hearts. Their world has been torn asunder, and they're forced to retreat without even having the chance to bring home her body for a proper burial. And now comes the chapter where, pelted by the cold, unforgiving rain of a sudden storm, as if the world itself weeps at Emmeryn's passing, we make our panicked, desperate escape from enemy territory by fighting our way through an army of completely demoralized soldiers who can barely bring themselves to fight us after Emmeryn's sacrifice, as one of the saddest and most incredible songs to ever grace the entire Fire Emblem series plays in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...Or we could go to the paralogue that just opened up on the opposite side of the continent, and recruit that cute shopkeeper lady like literally nothing just happened.

[Alastor15243]

Day 8 Bonus: Paralogue 4

Yeah, let's do that.

So in this chapter we recruit Anna. Not the same one who defended the village last time, mind you. She's basically just got an army of identical siblings all in the same family business, like Officer Jenny or Nurse Joy. But she's gonna join us anyway, which I'm extremely grateful for, because she's a sturdy and speedy healer and lock picker who's gonna be great to have for basically any map that has treasure. She can actually take a hit, maybe even two, for a while. But of course unless I actually use her for combat (which I might once I've secured Alexandria's galeforce, given that this is just Lunatic), she's not gonna keep up forever.

I'm mostly gonna solo this with Alexandria, along with the next chapter, mostly to make sure she keeps up with her tight schedule. Getting her galeforce in time for Lucina to inherit it is non-negotiable. It's gonna be so awesome.

...But first, let's listen in on Miriel and Gregor's B support. Basically he finds her mother's science book, and has been engrossed in it lately, even scribbling notes on the pages, something he's very embarrassed and apologetic about. But Miriel just says her mother would have been pleased he found the book so fascinating.

...Okay, this one actually does end abruptly. Right after Miriel says that, she says another line about her just being grateful the book wasn't lost forever and that Gregor found it, and then... the support ends. I remembered it going on longer. That's a bit disappointing.

Okay, so, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna abuse starting placement to make sure that every space around Libra except the northern one will be occupied when he rescues Anna. That way she'll be in just the right space that after Chrom recruits her, I can switch back to Alexandria, and then I can attack an enemy that needs to die on player phase while still blocking up the three enemies dangerously close to our starting point in a little ruin with only one exit. After that... everything else should be pretty easy to manage. Especially now that Miriel has her hands on Nosferatu.

Alright, 3, 2, 1, break!

Ah yes, there's the awesome line:

Anna: Careful love. Prices aren't the only thing I can cut in half.

I made a slight miscalculation. A space that looked like a wall under enemy range highlighting turned out not to be. But as I said, I have nosferatu Miriel now. As long as she can double, she's basically invincible. My plan can easily be adjusted accordingly, I'll just have her plug up that space next to Alexandria.

Honestly, I haven't had much of an opportunity to make this an Alexandria solo. I had to bring staff users to save Anna from instant death in her unfortunate starting position, and well, with that came the need to defend the staff users from multiple angles, and... well that took more units.

But now Alexandria's ready to blaze forward to protect the chests. It's gonna require aggroing the boss, but thankfully I managed to keep a mage stationary in his position guarding a treasure room, so I can just take that treasure last and not have to worry about killing everyone before all the chests are looted.

...I am still amazed at how thoroughly I remember this game and my strategies for it, to the point that I'm ironmanning a difficulty I once thought suicidally insane, and nobody's died yet.

Man, I love the voice they gave for Vincent here. His attack cry of “Ha!” and his death cry of “It can't beeeeeeee...” are just so deliciously hammy. And I love when I find that same voice set randomly used on generic enemies.

I used Leif's Blade again when I saw the opportunity fighting a single foe (it doesn't work on enemy-phase, so any uses there are wasted), and while it did lose a durability point this time, it also still got me a bullion! Awesome, even with the treasure we're getting here, we need all the money we can get. Once Alexandria gets galeforce and reclasses back to Grandmaster, she's going to be using that a lot.

Oh hey, cute little detail I just remembered: if you press the zoom in button on a unit's portrait to see them in action while they're paired up with their spouse... they'll be blushing.

So we get a talisman from Vincent, then an arms scroll, killing edge, a mend staff, and... a large bullion, worth 10,000! Awesome, just what I needed.

And with that mage guarding that last chest killed, Alexandria hits level 11. Four more levels in bow knight before I reclass her to dark flier.

Okay, now let's do what's supposed to be the emotional climax of the entire game.

 

Day 8 Bonus Bonus: Chapter 10

So, we're running for our lives from the Plegian army...

...but all these people, people who were direct witnesses to Emmeryn's sacrifice...

...got here before us.

Sure, game.

Anyway, there's no cute, snappy, mood-killing prep music for this map. To its credit, ignoring the whole nonsense with Anna and how dumb the context is...

...The musical delivery here is fucking superb. There's this track that's just called “...”, and it's this extremely somber piano piece that plays while you make your plans.

...Which in our case are to un-deploy everyone but Chrom and Alexandria and feed this entire map to her, to help ensure she hits that dark flier level 15 benchmark in time. She actually looks like she's making good time after all, funny enough...

...Also, um... this map's probably gonna be a piece of shit with its ambush spawns, but Alexandria doesn't care anymore. Nothing's gonna be able to kill her until she starts capping shit and enemies start catching up near the endgame. The only fragile unit is safely tucked away in her pocket.

I can't lose.

And I'm gonna see if I can grab all the thief treasures, though I wouldn't be completely heartbroken if some of these got away. They're all making their way towards the northwest end of the map, where the boss is, and I want to take them out before they get too close to the boss. Because killing the boss ends the map, and I want to milk the reinforcements here for all they're worth to get Alexandria as powerful as possible. I'm gonna have Alexandria head west, take out the nearest thief on turn one, then take out the seraph robe thief, then work my way north to intercept the rest. And I won't kill the boss until I'm certain all of the reinforcements are gone.

Alright, let's do this.

So, Mustafa shows up and offers us Mercy, because he's this game's Camus. Probably the most sympathetic, because he's not actually really loyal to the king at all, he's just doing his job out of concern for his family, who Gangrel will have killed if he defies him. He offers them mercy if they surrender, but... yeah, they're not trusting him, and even if they did, they can't take chances that he can actually protect them.

Cue “Don't Speak Her Name”.

Honestly, this is an amazing song. If you haven't listened to it, I highly encourage you to look it up. It's this continuous, sad but absolutely intense music that plays nonstop, with no concept of calm or ablaze, player phase or enemy phase. The atmosphere of this map is just sublime.

...Or it would be, if it weren't for the sheer nonsense that letting characters still talk during battles brings.

Honestly, this map really needed to make everyone shut up. No crit quotes. No one-liners. No excitement at a good level up or being bummed out at a bad one. Not even any jingles when you get or break a weapon. Just sheer, dead, piercing silence. Because nothing, fucking nothing ruins this map quite like having Lissa proc a dual strike and having her laugh out “WHAT A LOSER!” as she kills one of these soldiers.

And with that... I mean really, there's not much more to say. This is a really simplistic map in construction. Lots of enemies charging me, some of them staying behind, none of them standing a chance against the sheer madness that is Alexandria... there's nothing to talk about but the dialogue.

Honestly, I wish these two characters, the enemy soldier and the enemy wyvern rider, had faces and names. It would've really improved the impact of this moment where they decide to stick with their general to protect his standing (and therefore his wife and child) even in the face of knowing they're on the wrong side of the war. Two portraits. That's all it would've taken to really make that moment awesome, make us feel these characters had a history.

Honestly, at this point, it's not Alexandria's defense that makes her invincible, it's her frankly ludicrous evasion. She's got 77 avoid before applying any bonuses. Add in patience skill and her support bonus from Chrom and she's nearing 100.

Unfortunately, the positioning is off for these thieves. I can't nab the medium bullion without being able to counter Mustafa, so I have to let it go. Thankfully we're reaching the point where I'll start being able to use Leif's Blade by the time my new funds run out, so... yeah, the extra experience of not ending the map early is worth it. I can grab a wyrmslayer though, for all the good that'll do me. It's useful on Lunatic+ to more reliably one-shot dracoknights that have counter, but other than that, it's just wholly unnecessary due to how ridiculously powerful you can get.

...So, as I'm sitting here, watching enemies die and watching my levels go up while listening to the awesome music, I'm reminded by an axe-using wyvern rider about the weapon type paradigm shift of Awakening that resulted in something that really, really annoys me:

There isn't a single sword-using flier class anymore. With the exception of Three Houses (where it's merely strongly discouraged), every single person with a legendary sword in non-remakes from here on out is capable of reclassing to a flier, but none of them can ever use their legendary sword in that flier class. It's so annoying.

Alexandria's just about level 15. She'll be promoted before this map is even over. Especially now that reinforcements are showing up full force and from basically everywhere.

I need to remind myself how much that would piss me off if I didn't know how to break the shit out of this game.

Another random thought: the first three two-screened games, the DS ones and Awakening, got rid of the special crit bonus for being in a promoted class with only one weapon type. Here, they decided to replace it by giving every single promoted class with only one weapon type a pittance of class-exclusive weapons. This should annoy me, but actually most of these class-exclusive weapons are actually pretty nice, or at least there's at least one worth using in some manner of high-level play in each class.

Seeing I was just three kills away from reaching level 15, I moved Alexandria to a place where she'd only kill three units. And yep, just barely reached level 15 with plenty of enemies still left to kill, earning bowbreaker at long last. And thus we get to a feature that its absence in Three Houses made me appreciate enough to comment on:

When you get a new skill, but don't have any skill slots free... the game actually lets you choose which one to give up, like moves in Pokemon, rather than dropping the new skill automatically and making you pray you remember you got it next time you get a chance to swap skills around.

So obviously I pick to drop rally skill because Alexandria has absolutely no business whatsoever using that thing, and now she's got bowbreaker and will be basically invincible as a dark flier.

So let's make her a dark flier!

Ahhhhh... our first dark flier. The herald of the end of any semblance of difficulty in this game. I question if we'll ever struggle with anything ever again.

Honestly, this is tempting me to just not do DLC anymore... any thoughts? I notice that the DLC stuff I did yesterday got basically... no response compared to the veritable eruption in conversation that almost every other entry has prompted ever since I started Awakening. Are you guys just completely uninterested in me tackling the DLC?

I didn't remember what tome rank Alexandria was last at, so what I did was I went to the convoy, dropped all my swords back into it, and then I grabbed some tomes in order of how much I wanted to use them, so that the game would auto-equip the most powerful tome she could use once she reclassed.

That turned out to be the Katarina's Bolt, not the Mjölnir, because she's at B.

That was probably a mistake. Crits robbed Chrom of several opportunities to dual strike, though he still at least got some.

However, this tome is absurdly useful on Lunatic+. Every crit chance is a saving throw against an enemy with counter if you're forced to fight them on enemy phase, and that makes maps you're all but forced to solo so much easier.

I'll wait around to see if there are any more reinforcements, and then I'll kill the boss.

Doesn't look like it'll happen, so yeah, let's go.

And Mustafa begs me with his dying breath to spare his men. Aw, I almost feel bad. Not much I can do about that now, buddy.

And of course Olivia shows up with... a wagon, or something else we can “pile in” to. Gee, these people invented wagon wheels? But how ever do you grease them!?

And now we've got the ending scene of the chapter. With another great song, though not nearly as good as “Don't Speak Her Name”.

...I just noticed that Basilio's throne room has two swords in pedestals beside it. Like Master Sword pedestals.

Alexandria: I was powerless once, too, remember? And yes, alone. I don't think either one of us is half the person your sister was. But together, maybe we can be something more.

I'm keeping score. I'm keeping a tally of every time Emmeryn is praised as a hero or saint after her death by the heroes, compared to how many times she is criticized in any way. And right now the score's 1 to 0.

Alexandria: When you fight for your sister's ideals, I'll be by your side. You don't have to become your sister, you know. You can still be true to yourself. You just have to give people hope in whatever way you can.

Chrom: And what if I can't? What if I'm not worthy of her ideals? Alexandria, what if I drag you down with me?

Alexandria: If you aren't worthy, you'll keep at it until you are.

I... fuck... look, let's just call all of that 2. And to be really generous, let's take that “but together, maybe we can be something more” line and make that a .5 for the “against” side, like you can technically read that as Alexandria saying Emmeryn had room for improvement at least. So 2 to 0.5.

So all of my soldiers start saying lines to cheer Chrom up, starting mostly with the recent arrivals, then moving to Virion and Ricken. Then it moves on to the Shepherds proper and everyone else.

So now Flavia says the entire Feroxi army is ours to “send crashing against him”, and... it's kind of hilarious that we don't get a single new character from this. The army we're using is apparently majority-Feroxi and yet the only playable ones are Lon'qu, and then way later, Flavia and Basilio.

...Oh no wait. I forgot Olivia is Feroxi. How did I forget that? That just kinda didn't register in my mind.

And in fairness, Basilio says the Feroxi army will be a distraction while we strike right at Gangrel. But still, it's weird that we've relied this heavily on Ferox so far and don't have more characters from there. Especially since Lon'qu isn't even a Ferox native, so we've got a dancer and two Gotohs as our Feroxi representation here.

...Well, at any rate... that's it for today. Three maps a day seems like a good pace with this game, especially when playing it isn't that mentally demanding.

Tomorrow... well... all I really know is that Gangrel is going down tomorrow. Beyond that? No fucking clue what I'll wind up doing.

Lemme know your thoughts on DLC.

Stay safe, everyone.

Edited March 11, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

33 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Honestly, this is tempting me to just not do DLC anymore... any thoughts? I notice that the DLC stuff I did yesterday got basically... no response compared to the veritable eruption in conversation that almost every other entry has prompted ever since I started Awakening. Are you guys just completely uninterested in me tackling the DLC?

I think it's just that there's not much to talk about when you have to resort to the same strategy all the time - have Robin destroy everything because everyone else is all but useless.

By the way, I never got your thoughts on this:

On 12/16/2020 at 2:57 PM, Shadow Mir said:

I don't know about you, but when you HAVE to cheese the game to have a ghost of a chance, I take that as a sign that the difficulty is poorly balanced, which Lunatic is, to say nothing of Lunatic+, which sounds like what you'd get when a pregnant mother drinks, smokes, and huffs paint during the pregnancy.