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


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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

So, as we speak, I'm seeing the end credits of Silver Snow.

I've done it.

The marathon AM run will be the only reason I will ever have to touch Fire Emblem: Three Houses ever again.

Sweet. Blessed. Relief.

Dang, lucky ducky. Wish I was that far...

Sorry about not posting much, but I haven't played FE12 so I don't have much to say. I'll probably only really post here frequently for Berwick Saga, (IF you decide to do it) since it's the only remaining game I am familiar with. Hope that you enjoy all the remaining games as much as you enjoyed SD, though!

In other news, I have reached the Wooden Cavalry in H4 of Shadow Dragon without using Wolf or Sedgar, so we'll see how that goes!

Edited by Benice
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New Mystery Day 16: Chapter 8

Holy shit, this map.

First off, there's a thief with another star shard, yet again in range of those damned heroes.

Is the game gonna make me use rescue again?

Seriously, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be using my first Hammerne for nothing but this rescue staff, and maybe the warp staff. This is amazingly obnoxious. Unless of course the thief doesn't run south, but let's be honest: there's no way the game's going to be that merciful.

There aren't many enemies on this map, but all the enemies that are on this map are promoted except for the thieves. And thanks to the killer lance on that paladin, Dakota's below-average defense has finally caught up to him and he isn't guaranteed to survive an enemy phase if he goes in to kill the northern thief.

Christ, this game just has such a bizarre design philosophy when it comes to enemy layering. In all the games I've played with the most satisfying player-phase combat, enemies come in distinct groups, where if you manage to player-phase one wave, you'll be safe from the next wave for at least one enemy phase. Like... shit... okay, lemme show you an example with one of my screenshots from Dakota's War Journal.

i4hOqwV.jpg

For my first turn in this map, I highlighted everyone in red except for the enemies I planned to take down on turn one, treating the pink area as a zone that's safe as long as everything goes according to plan and everyone I attack dies.

BSc04Le.jpg

For my successful player-phase gambit, I am rewarded with safety for all of the glass cannons I used to player-phase attack, because the only enemies who could attack the spaces I attacked them from were the ones I already killed. All of the remaining enemies were too far away to attack the fragile units, and while I put some units into the red zone, I made sure those were the ones who could actually survive the enemy phase (the original Dakota because he's the avatar, and Sakura because she's a shrine maiden and the only enemy in range of her was using scrolls).

Now imagine how much more frustrating and obnoxious this map would have been if, say... in the area where that red-highlighted samurai is... there were instead three wyvern riders?

Do you see the difference there? In the actual game, these enemies are only fully covered by other enemies that you can also attack on that same player-phase. There's a set of enemies you can realistically kill on player-phase that will result in all of your attackers ending their turn in a safe-zone. But if there had been wyvern riders in the general area of that samurai, then all of those enemies would have been protected by enemies it would have been all but impossible to rout on player-phase, meaning that a player-phase gambit would have been suicidal, and my more fragile units would have had basically no viable options that turn.

That is basically how the enemy placement of New Mystery works. Every enemy is protected by the attack ranges of enemies even further behind them, with absolutely no breaks in the layering you can isolate and assault, so you always have to either bait them to you and out of the rear guard's covering fire... or send in your avatar.

I have never seen a “player-phase” Fire Emblem game with fragile characters do this. Shadow Dragon didn't do it, Birthright didn't do it, Conquest didn't do it, hell, not even Three Houses did it as far as I've been able to gather. The game's been doing this since the very beginning, and in the prologue chapters it required an obnoxious amount of turtling and over-reliance on my avatar. It's difficult to put into words just how much worse this feels when I'm ironmanning, just how heavily it discourages me from using most of my army in so many situations, and how many times I feel almost forced to use my avatar or else risk somebody dying. Especially since this game has an over-abundance of enemies who wait for you to approach, as opposed to Shadow Dragon's far more engaging practice of sending enemies your way and forcing you to come up with a strategy to deal with them when they arrive. And when it comes to enemies waiting for you to approach... I mean only Conquest has really made that truly exciting.

Adding in that extra step of requiring you to bait in every group to get them out of the way of the other enemies guarding them... I just find that wholly unnecessary and just kills the momentum of the gameplay and makes it way less fun. I'm sure that with more experience with the game and a better grasp of the enemy AI I could probably come up with some better plans, but I can't over-stress just how wrong this feels to me, as someone who's played every other game in the series.

mapa08.jpg

I was so frustrated looking at the mess that is this chapter's unit placement and wondering how the hell I could possibly manage this without giving up on Dakota reaching level 20 and promoting him now or using the rescue staff twice in one turn...

...when I remembered the new tools in my arsenal and realized I had something vaguely resembling a plan.

By positioning Palla and Feena closer to the front, I can have Palla javelin the southern thief, dance her out of the southern heroes' ranges, then have her fly over the river to javelin the northern thief from the west of the bridge, safely out of range of everyone but the killer lance paladin and his auxiliary javelin. I'll then put Dakota on the fort to take out the armorslayer paladin up front, send Marth to the village to be rescued back to the front at a later time, send everyone else forward, and...

...see what the enemy does.

Alright, time to decide who I'm dumping in favor of Gordin for this chapter, read the dang talks, and get on with this.

...I only just now noticed that all of these talks are happening in a castle. Wouldn't it make more sense to be like in Awakening and have the backdrop be a camp?

...Nope, false alarm, Awakening's is stupid too, because the backdrop for support conversations in that game is clearly brick and mortar and not tent canvas now that I look at it closer.

Anyway, Marth and Caeda have a support conversation about how Marth doesn't want her fighting anymore because he's scared she'll die, and Caeda being upset at being told to let everyone else risk their lives to keep her safe. Man, this shit would get dark if I wind up losing her.

Yeah, I am getting really annoyed at hearing this song playing over damned near every single support involving a female character.

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

Admittedly, I was wrong before when I said it was just Cecil who was an exception. Malicia and Catria also didn't have this song play when they were talking to Dakota. But this happens for so many of the female character conversations I'm seeing that it's starting to make me uncomfortable for reasons I can't quite explain.

Incidentally, as I was searching for that song, I saw that this game has a “theme of love”. I've wondered what the hell a “love theme” is since I listened to the Brawl Soundtrack and saw that both Mother 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4 had a “love theme”. I think Final Fantasy 4 has one too. I have to assume that that's just... a thing in Japan, and it means something different in a Japanese context, because all of these “love themes” have rather different tones and seem intended for very different purposes.

Hahaha, wow though, Palla and Dakota's support conversations kinda make it sound like Dakota's grandpa was... an abusive, training-obsessed psycho. Dakota's got an aching, stiff shoulder, and he says that his grandpa used to tell him “If your body hurts, heal it with training”, and like... okay, I'm no fitness expert, but I'm pretty sure that's the worst advice I've ever heard. Honestly, after hearing that, maybe there's a reason why Dakota's defense growth is lagging behind what it should be.

Honestly, there's potential here to make Dakota's insane competence the result of shit that's ripe for making him flawed and hilarious in support conversations. I wish they'd have leaned more heavily into just how messed up his training was and how he just thinks that comically horrifying shit is completely normal thanks to how his grandpa treated him.

And apparently supporting with Luke got me... a re-skinned strength potion. Well, I guess that'll be good to have. It's interesting having these things not be buyable, just random gifts you have to ration rather than a financial budgeting decision. I think I prefer having them buyable though.

Okay, so the game mentions Gordin's relationship with Jeorge, but also has Marth say that he wants to talk to him. Well I'll be bringing Gordin anyway just in case, because I don't want to fuck this up twice in a row.

I remembered I had a skill potion, so I gave it to Palla just in case. She should have a fantastic hit rate on these thieves even with a javelin, but... you never know... and it's situations like this that are my best bet for getting any use out of a skill potion, so down the hatch it goes.

Let's do this.

Ooh! And we've got Cain now! Oh man, so many great units, so few deployment slots. Well, at least I wouldn't be screwed at this point if I had lost a few people.

And this map sells armorslayers! SCORE! The generals up ahead were starting to scare me, so I'm glad I stopped by and checked!

Alright, so, due to a lucky but not fully necessary crit, both the paladins I baited died on enemy phase to my plan. Meaning that there's a safe space to talk to Roger from! I was prepared to kill him if it became inconvenient to keep him alive, but looks like yet again my willingness to do that proved unnecessary!

...Yeah, this... you ever heard that whole “that writer thinks references are jokes” criticism? Yeah, I've got that complaint about the writing here. This was just a clumsy attempt to coast on the writing of the previous game. This version of Roger's support wasn't nearly as funny the second time.

...Alright, so, after that, baiting out the snipers while avoiding the generals was pretty straightforward, if boring due to none of the enemies moving on their own. But with the reinforcements coming now (thankfully not from the fort in the central landmass because I left Arran there to be safe), I'm gonna have to use the rescue staff again to get Marth to the seize point. Feena will help Gordin make it to talk to Jeorge in time though. Unfortunately, I forgot to equip Dakota's armorslayer when I decided to have him take the fight to the generals on enemy phase, so he's not gonna get as much kill exp as I might have liked, unless he crits one. So I decided to send in Palla to trade him his armorslayer. They can both survive the enemy phase.

Unless the game's gonna be a dick and put an ambush spawn on that fort right there.

...It does not, and thanks to switching star shards around, they all attacked Dakota instead of Palla, so he got the kill exp.

I managed to get Dakota his last two levels on that enemy phase and final player phase, but he didn't gain any more defense. He did cap speed though, so... yeah, it was worth it. Alright, time to get out of here.

...Thank goodness this didn't fuck up my plans, but... Marth wasn't rescued to the east this time. He was rescued to the south.

I want to make this explicitly clear: the eastern space was free, and Marth was still rescued to the south.

The fuck? Is the game telling me that the priority is fucking random? Has it been sheer luck that I haven't gotten anything other than south and east?

WHAT!?

Jesus Christ. If the castle had been to the east and I had been counting on him being rescued to the east, that difference in space would have cost me the entire damned ironman!

But anyway, thanks to not going Yumina's full movement range not fucking me over, Malicia is close enough to Yumina that I can Hammerne the 1 use rescue back to 5 uses again so we don't have to do it next map, and now we can seize.

Mission complete.

...Wait, what's this about Marth leaving everyone behind? Are we gonna have a map without Marth or something? Or is it going to be Marth's side of this split-up?

Wow, that's something of a cliffhanger.

Alright then, guess we'll find out what they're talking about tomorrow, because for now, we're done!

Stay safe, everyone!

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52 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Hahaha, wow though, Palla and Dakota's support conversations kinda make it sound like Dakota's grandpa was... an abusive, training-obsessed psycho. Dakota's got an aching, stiff shoulder, and he says that his grandpa used to tell him “If your body hurts, heal it with training”, and like... okay, I'm no fitness expert, but I'm pretty sure that's the worst advice I've ever heard. Honestly, after hearing that, maybe there's a reason why Dakota's defense growth is lagging behind what it should be.

Person who has done taekwondo for about eight years speaking here: yeah it's kind of a bad idea. I tend to baby my right knee (which is unfortunately my stronger leg) due to what my doctor thinks is most likely tendonitis, and let me tell you, it starts to hurt like an absolute bitch if I keep going when I feel pain. Although stretching can help with pain/stiffness/aching, heavy physical exertion will most likely just fuck up your body more.

Which.... reminds me that I need to work out more since I haven't had any classes all year. No wonder I've been feeling like garbage lately.

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2 minutes ago, Espurrhoodie said:

Person who has done taekwondo for about eight years speaking here: yeah it's kind of a bad idea. I tend to baby my right knee (which is unfortunately my stronger leg) due to what my doctor thinks is most likely tendonitis, and let me tell you, it starts to hurt like an absolute bitch if I keep going when I feel pain. Although stretching can help with pain/stiffness/aching, heavy physical exertion will most likely just fuck up your body more.

Which.... reminds me that I need to work out more since I haven't had any classes all year. No wonder I've been feeling like garbage lately.

Oh I feel that big time. I really need to get more exercise again.

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1 hour ago, Espurrhoodie said:

Person who has done taekwondo for about eight years speaking here: yeah it's kind of a bad idea. I tend to baby my right knee (which is unfortunately my stronger leg) due to what my doctor thinks is most likely tendonitis, and let me tell you, it starts to hurt like an absolute bitch if I keep going when I feel pain. Although stretching can help with pain/stiffness/aching, heavy physical exertion will most likely just fuck up your body more.

Which.... reminds me that I need to work out more since I haven't had any classes all year. No wonder I've been feeling like garbage lately.

Something like that happens in Dragon Ball. Goku gets injured, but escapes the hospital and tries to train despite being injured, but in a case of reality ensuing, because he hasn't recovered yet, all he does is hurt himself even more and get hospitalized again (there are no senzu beans at this point in time, so that's not an option).

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5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...I only just now noticed that all of these talks are happening in a castle. Wouldn't it make more sense to be like in Awakening and have the backdrop be a camp?

To be fair, you always end chapters at castles, as this is a seize only game (barring a few minor exceptions).

 

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Incidentally, as I was searching for that song, I saw that this game has a “theme of love”. I've wondered what the hell a “love theme” is since I listened to the Brawl Soundtrack and saw that both Mother 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4 had a “love theme”. I think Final Fantasy 4 has one too. I have to assume that that's just... a thing in Japan, and it means something different in a Japanese context, because all of these “love themes” have rather different tones and seem intended for very different purposes.

The Fire Emblem Theme of Love is one of sadness. I think it gets used for the talk about Artemis's curse, recruiting the clerics at the end, possibly a few other moments. Another fun fact, there is a version of the FE3 love theme in Thracia 776 as well, entitled sorrow that only plays in the scene you get if Leif opens the door to chapter 5's arena to find Nana dead, with poor Eyvel desperately finding words to console him for his lost love...

I just sorta decided to put all the official versions (even the Heroes version)

Spoiler

 

 

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Okay, so the game mentions Gordin's relationship with Jeorge, but also has Marth say that he wants to talk to him. Well I'll be bringing Gordin anyway just in case, because I don't want to fuck this up twice in a row.

I will note that both can recruit him by talking.

 

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Thank goodness this didn't fuck up my plans, but... Marth wasn't rescued to the east this time. He was rescued to the south.

I want to make this explicitly clear: the eastern space was free, and Marth was still rescued to the south.

The priority is south, east, west, then north. If all of the adjacent spaces are occupied, it will drag the character to the nearest available space whose absolute direction is closest to that direction priority, (so South-South first, then South-East next, South-West next, East-East next, West-West after that, North-East then, North-West, finally North-North before moving onto the spaces 3 away...). I haven't as thoroughly tested what terrain will let you be rescued onto it, but I know you can't rescue units onto rivers, even if they can traverse them, so unexpected terrain blocking might have led to the idea that East is the priority.

Edited by Eltosian Kadath
Forgot the Gaiden chapters aren't generally seize maps
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3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

To be fair, you always end chapters at castles, as this is a seize only game (barring a few minor exceptions).

Yeah, what made me notice this being weird was that this chapter explicitly didn't have you staying at last chapter's seize point for any real length of time.

Thanks for the info btw! And I am gonna have to keep an eye out for that rescue thing because I have no idea how that happened if what you're saying is true.

Edited by Alastor15243
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New Mystery Day 17: Chapter 9

I'm actually looking forward to today! I'm gonna finally promote Dakota!

Ah yes, and now we hear the origin story of magic, how it was a gift from the (not known at the time) divine dragon Gotoh, who taught humans how to cast magic but was then immediately disappointed with how they used it for war and capitalism, and fucked off.

Like I've said before, I find this kind of thing obnoxious. Especially since we're never given even the slightest idea of what this presumably utopian dragon society was like, that the mere idea of selling magic and fighting with it would be so horrifying to him. The idea of morally superior, greed-less, war-less utopias looking upon the human race with horror is basically never, ever, ever interesting to me, mostly because nearly every one of them I've seen doesn't actually address the idea of whether or not such a utopia could ever physically work in real life, so it's like the author's just making the laws of physics bend over backwards to suit their beliefs.

So apparently some tomes require the “orbs” (surprised they don't call them “spheres” given that their names all have “sphere” in them) to create, such as aura, which explains why it can't be bought and is only available to the elite.

I hate how the “check transcript” function doesn't work on the opening narrations.

And...

...Okay.

So literally nothing happened as a result of Dakota staying behind.

He just shows up in the very first scene after the opening narration, explaining they all got away thanks to a random sandstorm covering their escape.

The fuck was the point of this?

...Was that the “luck grading” scene or something? Was that an excuse to have Marth verbally suck Dakota's 15-point luck dick? Was something else supposed to happen if I had low luck?

Fuck it, alright, let's read the supports.

Oh god.

Malicia's got a support with Caeda.

Wait, I could've sworn she knew that Marth was betrothed to Caeda thanks to Dakota's support, didn't she? But she's obliviously nice to Caeda and wanting to learn what it's like to live in a castle so that she can be prepared and doesn't “cause trouble to Prince Marth later”.

Can this girl get any more one-note? What the fuck was the point of giving this girl support conversations if she's going to be so one-dimensional that even Mr. Game And Watch can't see her from certain angles!?

Anyway, Malicia's grossly over-estimating the level of luxury Caeda lives in as the princess of a small island nation, and... yeah, she wanders off without Caeda learning what the hell delusions Malicia is laboring under.

But yeah, having Malicia there made the goofy music play.

...But on to Caeda and Dakota.

Holy shit. Yeah, Dakota's grandpa sounds like a real asshole, telling a child that his cooking tasted like steel (direct quote) and threatening to disown him if he tried to make dinner.

So then Caeda offers to teach Dakota to cook... and the support ends. That felt super abrupt. Dakota didn't even get a chance to say yes!

...Okay, that's weird. The “goofy” music is playing for this support between Dakota and Yumina. That fits the tone a lot more, but last time a very similar conversation had the “sweet and gentle” music playing. Was that a mistake last time?

Oh my god. I think Yumina has a tsundere crush on Dakota. That is... we're two supports in and they were basically identical. Yumina stares at Dakota, spying on him from a distance, then gets annoyed when she's discovered. First she was annoyed when she was found out, and now she's annoyed when she discovers that he pretended not to see her because he didn't want her getting mad again.

We're two supports in and I can't imagine this having a satisfying payoff.

...But the Dakota and Arran one ended pretty well. Arran revealed his rather fucked-up backstory that his previous liege ordered him to slaughter an entire village of peasants because they were protesting the poor harvest that was dooming them to die, just trying to be heard. He followed that order, and it's haunted him the rest of his life, causing him to search the land for a liege he could be loyal to and who would deserve it, before finally finding Marth.

I like it. More like these, please.

Marth and Dakota's second support conversation involves Dakota and Marth talking about the drill grounds, and the practice of fighting multiple opponents in a row, like it's casual wholesome training and not a place where Dakota could very easily die.

...And then Dakota reveals he has some extremely Goku-like tendencies to love fighting and getting stronger for the sake of it, and he's ashamed of it because he'd rather want to be strong solely to defend his country, but he can't help enjoying being powerful and beating strong opponents. That's... that's actually an interesting concept, honestly. I wonder where they'll go with this...

Linde says that mages moving quickly in the desert is just because they “dress lightly”.

...Y'know, this just made me realize that this is the only continuity where mages move quickly in the desert and are actually native to the desert. I'm surprised they didn't use that as an explanation.

Anyway, I just realized that Dakota's speed stat is absolutely ludicrous for his level, and he's actually only four away from capping. So after promoting him, I've decided to reclass him to general. Once I actually shore up his defense stat some, I'm gonna make him a warrior so he can get enough of an axe rank to use hand axes as a hero. Then I'll bring him back to hero later probably, once he needs the extra movement, or it's near the endgame and he doesn't need to grow any more, or if he gets psychotically unlucky with his speed growths from here on out.

Ooh, Etzel's here! ...And the boss is named Yodel. Is that said the same in Japanese as the guy from FE6?

...Yes. It's spelled exactly the same way in Japanese. Huh.

Anyway, there are more thieves we have to take out on turn one, but thankfully the only one in a truly dangerous position doesn't have anything important. A steel sword would still be nice though, given how many of those we go through.

We'll see which direction he goes in. It wouldn't be worth using a rescue staff use on.

The main danger of this map is, as I remember from FE3, the reinforcements that'll chase us from behind. I'm pretty sure Astram will be among them, which makes me wonder why it's apparently not possible to recruit him with Jeorge right now.

Anyway...

There's no hint to how to recruit Etzel, so I have to assume you just do it with Marth.

...So it's just a matter of getting through these enemies before the reinforcements arrive...

...Oh right. And also recruiting Minerva at the village. Forgot about that village. Well, then I guess it was a waste to bring Julian, because I'll have to bring Marth over in that direction anyway. I guess Julian will save some turns off, and it's not like Cecil would have been too useful with all this sand.

Yeah, I... I don't like Michalis's characterization, but unfortunately, I can't properly put into words why. He was a complete asshole in the original with no redeeming qualities except for what Minerva and Maria's affection for him implied, and... I don't think what they do here is nearly enough to redeem him. But I do appreciate that they tossed away the idea of Gharnef controlling him. That would've been a cop-out.

...This new music almost feels like it's a remix of “A Hero's Destiny”. Not even remotely as good, but... it feels like the melody.

...No, shit, what am I thinking? It took me a while to even recognize this song from the original game, it was so... unrecognizable.

A bright side of that village being so far out of the way is that there's a chance that's where the thieves are going to go, so I can intercept them without having to fight literally every enemy on the map at once.

...Aaaaaand the whole fucking map charges at me at once, holy shit.

...Oh shit. And that includes Etzel, who I have to assume I can only recruit with Marth, or maybe Caeda. Shit, guess Julian is necessary after all, because how I have to bring Marth back over to recruit him and then cut through the desert at a northeast diagonal to get onto solid ground.

...Also, of more immediate concern, it looks like I'll have to dive in to kill these fucking dracoknights, and then rescue twice.

Holy shit. It is completely insane how quickly I'm burning through this fucking thing. Imagine if Yumina had gotten herself killed in her joining chapter, or if I hadn't managed to get that Hammerne. Do you have any idea how many treasures I would've lost, and how many people would've died!?

If Yumina isn't at the top of the tier list, I am going to be beyond flabbergasted.

...I am beyond flabbergasted. She's in C tier, while Malicia is in S tier. There's only one explanation I can think of for that, and that's if...

...Yep, apparently the rescue staff isn't personal to Yumina anymore.

Well. I mean at least they had the decency to do that, because holy shit, the sheer difference in gameplay if I didn't have access to this damned staff would be mind-boggling.

Thank goodness, Marth can recruit Etzel.

It's weird that we never got a refresher for who the hell this guy is, especially given how likely it was that you'd never see him.

And we got the boots and the capricorn star shard.

And now that Arran and Palla have taken out the boss and the swarm bishops, it's time to get that village before Astram's troops show up.

We've got Minerva, and her stats are... better than they were in Shadow Dragon. Good enough to work with, I think. Especially if we give her a speed star shard. Probably about time we retired Arran before he spreads that disease of his to the whole army.

Anyway, let's see if we can get Marth back on foot before the Astram's forces show up and become a problem. Let's see if I can train Dakota on them while we buy time! Though I'll also need to leave the option open to have one of my fliers bait them around the river or something, so I'm keeping one of them close.

Excellent. Thanks to a quirk of the AI and the enemy's initial placement, it looks like I can fight all of the heroes with Dakota without ever having to fight Astram, because I can keep baiting Astram away with a flier going back and forth! I love doing this. Every time I get an opportunity, I just get all giddy.

But in case things go horribly wrong, I've got Yumina on standby to rescue Marth straight to the castle and seize.

And Dakota got a defense level up!

...And nothing else but HP.

...Well, it's his defense that's important at this stage. All of his other stats, despite how shitty his level ups have felt, are frankly ludicrous for this point in the game. He'll be fine, especially now that he's got a 60% defense growth to shore up the one stat I'm actually unsatisfied with.

The villagers once again warn me there are no more shops up north (but drill grounds are a different story, of course), but that doesn't have as much bite this time, considering that I've got the base shop. Also, the stuff here is really expensive, not the sort of stuff you'd want to buy “just in case”.

Alright, that's more like it! Dakota got everything but magic, speed and res! I love it!

Anyway, that's it for this map. I just had Marth seize.

This map was... okay. Being pursued from behind was great, but the enemy forces were so incredibly frontloaded. After the initial charge there was basically nothing. And the entire western half of the map was completely empty, which was frankly bizarre.

Tomorrow we'll be rescuing Merric (almost certainly literally, because this game is obsessed with that fucking staff).

Stay safe, everyone!

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So this begins a trend that really, really bugs me in New Mystery. I can give the original some leeway, but I really think the remake should have altered these maps more. Like the one two chapters previously where you see the game or ramen in the north and the soulful bridge but the south of the map is new material. I freaking love that shit. But then the next map is literally identical (minus a new castle that was constructed super quickly). But that's not too bad given you're moving across it in reverse like the bridge map in Radiant Dawn. The geography just doesn't provide any alternative. But then here. Here we get an exact copy of the exact same map of the previous game with the same starting position and the same seize point. And sure it has different enemy formations and you have different units and utilities, but it still feels so goddamn lazy. I really wish they did what Sacred Stones did (or even this game two chapters previously) and made the eastern half of the map a repeat but made the western half new material. That would even make more sense in canon as Marth is approaching Thanks from the west in this game while he came from the east in the last game.

Expect more complaints of this nature from me once we reach Archanea.

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40 minutes ago, Jotari said:

So this begins a trend that really, really bugs me in New Mystery. I can give the original some leeway, but I really think the remake should have altered these maps more. Like the one two chapters previously where you see the game or ramen in the north and the soulful bridge but the south of the map is new material. I freaking love that shit. But then the next map is literally identical (minus a new castle that was constructed super quickly). But that's not too bad given you're moving across it in reverse like the bridge map in Radiant Dawn. The geography just doesn't provide any alternative. But then here. Here we get an exact copy of the exact same map of the previous game with the same starting position and the same seize point. And sure it has different enemy formations and you have different units and utilities, but it still feels so goddamn lazy. I really wish they did what Sacred Stones did (or even this game two chapters previously) and made the eastern half of the map a repeat but made the western half new material. That would even make more sense in canon as Marth is approaching Thanks from the west in this game while he came from the east in the last game.

Expect more complaints of this nature from me once we reach Archanea.

Yeah, especially since this chapter didn't even use all of the map.

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2 hours ago, Jotari said:

So this begins a trend that really, really bugs me in New Mystery. I can give the original some leeway, but I really think the remake should have altered these maps more. Like the one two chapters previously where you see the game or ramen in the north and the soulful bridge but the south of the map is new material. I freaking love that shit. But then the next map is literally identical (minus a new castle that was constructed super quickly). But that's not too bad given you're moving across it in reverse like the bridge map in Radiant Dawn. The geography just doesn't provide any alternative. But then here. Here we get an exact copy of the exact same map of the previous game with the same starting position and the same seize point. And sure it has different enemy formations and you have different units and utilities, but it still feels so goddamn lazy. I really wish they did what Sacred Stones did (or even this game two chapters previously) and made the eastern half of the map a repeat but made the western half new material. That would even make more sense in canon as Marth is approaching Thanks from the west in this game while he came from the east in the last game.

Expect more complaints of this nature from me once we reach Archanea.

Oh jeez, my auto correct changed Fane of Raman to game or ramen. And Thabes became Thanks X[ Hopefully context helped there.

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New Mystery Day 18: Chapter 10

Okay, so the intro says that the Archsage (who used to be Linde's dad I think) appoints multiple pontifices to govern. I have to assume that since it's just one city-state that's not big enough to split up into different territories, the multiple different Pontifices are stuff like “Pontifex of Foreign Affairs” and “Pontifex of Fisheries” and shit like that. Either that or they're just advisors or something. But Gharnef taking over last time seems to imply they have some actual political power. Anyway, Merric and Elrean were left in charge after Archsage Wendell left on his big mission, so... does that make them pontifices? They don't explicitly say.

Anyway, this is the first time I haven't gotten a score of “amazing” on a stat assessment, since the stat being assessed is magic, which I don't have any of. Mages get a pretty raw deal in this reclassing system. They have way, way fewer classes at their disposal, either two or one depending on the class branch (or three I guess if you wanna use that new game plus nonsense that completely screws over gender balance). There just isn't that wide of a variety of classes for them, so the fact that they use a completely different stat kinda leaves them left out.

And... holy shit.

I got a pretty kickass wind tome from “How's everyone”. It's on of those things like the Bordcord axe. It's a tome with 100 hit, 8 might, and 30 crit. Pretty good! Twenty uses isn't much, but I'll take it!

Interesting change from FE3: You can actually access the outside chests by walking outside! Good to keep in mind! I'll have to send people out there to intercept the thieves.

I remember I need to bring Wendell to recruit Elrean, and I'll want to take out these swarm bishops from across the “river” immediately.

Also, I know the thieves that will come in to steal the chests have something good to steal, so I'm gonna make sure to send units that way to kill them once they show up.

...Damn it, I hate having to constantly pick and choose who to send.

Alright, let's do the talks.

...Christ, so fucking many of them yet again!

Oh wow.

This is... amusing.

A player-insert avatar... who does not give a single shit about romance and would rather focus on training.

Given what the avatar wound up turning into once the concept was imported into games with an actual proper support system... this is refreshing and absolutely hilarious.

Like, he's looking at Feena's skimpy and presumably sexy outfit and his response can be summarized as “Bitch, do you want to get hit by an arrow?”

This is actually giving me some serious Sousuke Sagara vibes.

And then twice in a row we get Dakota commenting on how “thin” a female character's outfit is, though this time he seems a bit flustered when he brings up the danger of what would happen if her robe got caught on a tree branch and tore.

And... Catria and Dakota's second support indirectly reveals Catria's unrequited crush on Marth, though Dakota's kind of oblivious to the true nature of why she stares at Marth on the battlefield and assumes she just “admires” him like everyone else does.

Oh my god. And now Malicia's started hitting on Dakota right when she's given up on being with Marth. Is the support seriously going to end like this and have her revert back to her Marth-obsessed ways in her support with Caeda?

...Yes. Yes it is.

...Oh yes, I just remembered, I have to keep at least three of the enemy clerics alive to unlock the gaiden chapter or else finish it quickly. That shouldn't be a problem. I'll just leave the clerics alive. They're clerics. They won't attack. They'll heal my enemies, but that'll just let me get more experience out of them. All I have to do is make sure they don't block any important paths. No problem.

Alright, let's go.

First order of business is obviously to rescue Merric, because he's not going to survive for long at his starting position unless we rush the hell out of it with our fliers and risk their lives. Then I'll have Palla kill the swarm bishops with javelins while Feena dances her to attack both, while only staying in range of one mage on enemy phase.

...I completely forgot that mages can have flier-slaying weapons, and my strategy for getting rid of the swarm bishops put Palla in range of one of them. In the split second between seeing the enemy had “shaver” and seeing that Palla had enough HP to survive the attack, I experienced sheer terror. Palla is easily my best unit after Dakota, and her flight lets her do stuff that even Dakota can't do.

...And it appears that in stark contrast to the FE3 version of this map... literally none of these enemies will move without being approached. Not even Elrean. Oh goodie.

I'm gonna use the thief staff to get these two chests. I just don't have the time to send Marth or the deployment slots to send thieves that way and guard them. I'll just be sending Minerva and Palla down that way, and I'll use the thief staff once the thieves are dead in case getting the chests stops the thieves from spawning.

Talk of thieves reminded me of the VIP card, so I went and checked the secret shop list. I unfortunately missed one, but the next one is the next non-gaiden chapter. Also, apparently one of the secret shops sells an elysian whip! Nice! But it's pretty late in the game... Well, I'll see how things work out.

Merric is unfortunately currently all-around worse than Linde. Shame, but I'll still give him a shot.

Luke finally got to D lances, so he can use javelins at long last. Man, I just haven't had many opportunities to train him this week, huh?

Merric seems to know he's on thin ice, because he just got a fantastic level up. Five stats, HP, magic, speed, luck and res.

Linde, however, gets the exact same level up, except she got skill instead of magic. Very competitive, young lady.

I had to keep a mercenary alive a bit longer so that a cleric would heal him again and get out of the way of the entrance to the central chamber that she landed on when healing him the previous turn.

And Dakota gets everything but magic, luck and resistance! Holy shit! It's like I'm looking at Wolf!

Shaver's got a crit rate too, which makes it really scary on enemies. Thankfully, I've got Dakota, whose HP is so close to capping that there's no way he can possibly be one-shot.

...Unless Elrean got a crit with thoron, but thankfully he can't. The crit rate isn't high enough. Right, time to use Dakota to bait him in, since I can't optimally bait him in without also aggroing a mercenary, so I can't have a magic tank do it. And I made triple-sure he had his iron lance equipped, and not his javelin.

...Aaaaand Dakota's started doubling mercenaries. As a general.

...Right, so, looks like it's like people said. The enemies don't surrender once their leader is recruited by Wendell. I wish they had some kind of scene explaining why, because honestly once FE3 called my attention to it, while it's better gameplaywise, storywise it seems so dumb.

...Also, still no sign of the thieves. Dang it.

Alright, Marth swam across the indoor river and is starting to get the treasures, starting with physic.

Second one was a large bullion! Awesome!

Anyway, looks like the thieves aren't coming according to the wiki that I just checked after suspecting it might be some crazy long wait easter egg, so... time to seize. Also, apparently my reward for going total overkill on keeping the clerics alive and not killing any of them... is the silver card! Kickass!

An awesome thing about the thief staff is that, just like what physic lets you do for your wounded in games before the on-map HP bar was a thing, it lets you scan for unopened chests if you're feeling really paranoid that you left something behind. But right now, we're using it to actually get those chests.

And for our trouble, we got the unlock and silence staves. I wonder what the silence staff is like in this game...?

...I think it does the same thing. Global magic sealing, ally and enemy, map-wide, for one turn. Wow. Okay, I'll have to be careful about how I use that.

So apparently the heroes knew the whole time the clerics were being held hostage, and nobody saw fit to tell me, the player?

Anyway, according to Gotoh, apparently Hardin has met the exact same fate that Wendell said happened to Gharnef originally in his recruitment talk with Elrean. He touched the darksphere and his soul got trapped inside. So why won't Gharnef turn back to normal in his brief moments before death like Hardin's going to?

...Oh. I see. It's a matter of how long ago their soul/heart has started getting consumed apparently.

HOLY SHIT!

MARIS!

WE'RE GETTING MARIS! YES!

And Dice, apparently. For a 590 gold down payment? That's so cheap the game doesn't even let you say no and I'm not even mad.

...But now we get a gaiden chapter.

So now I might become mad.

Let's see.

What the fuck is this.

Is this a building or a fucking tic-tac-toe board?

mapa10x.jpg

What lazy son of a bitch designed the new maps?

How the fuck do you manage to fail to improve on the map design of Mystery of the Emblem?

And on this map...

Seven enemies.

All of them Legion.

Four wielding hammers.

I think I see where this is going.

These guys are gonna rush Horace and slaughter him with hammers.

Unfortunately for them, my Dakota's so bulky thanks to his ludicrous HP and recent luck with defense, that even without reclassing, he can actually just tank two hammer blows and survive.

After that, it's just a matter of taking out the Legions who refuse to move up top.

Alright, fine, we're doing this today.


 

Day 18 Bonus: Chapter 10x

Let's do the talks first.

That was an interesting talk between Palla and Catria. Catria's feeling all insecure and down about herself, thinking she has no redeeming qualities, and Palla seems to suspect she's fishing for a compliment, but instead of being hard on her for that, she suggests Catria take some time to figure out what she is good at, because she's so good at figuring that out with other people. It's... an interesting attitude. Like this is Palla's warm and gentle take on tough love. I actually like Palla a lot as a character. It's funny how we can have gems like this and Arran's when most of them are... uh... yeah.

Marth and Caeda... resolved their conflict sooner than I expected. I mean, that's nice, it shows they have a really healthy relationship, but... it also makes me wonder what the hell their A support is going to be.

...And Merric and Dakota's ends ludicrously abruptly. That... seems to happen a lot. I seem to recall having this sort of complaint about Radiant Dawn scenes as well.

Anyway... that's it, time to go save Horace. I remember his gaiden chapter from ages ago. It was... okay. Definitely had more story than the mainline chapters did. They managed to bring Nyna in and give her some good lines. I seem to remember the recruitment conditions being a pain though.

Okay, so things are going well, but the dialogue seems to imply that there will be ambush spawns unless I can kill the real Legion quickly, so I plan to try to do that ASAP.

Dakota got a pretty lame level, just HP skill and luck, but I don't care, he's been doing great lately.

Okay.

So.

Uh.

SURVEY TIME.


 

The uh... map designers, for lack of a better term, of this game, have apparently decided to unmask themselves as titanic, egomaniacal asshats, and spawned four more Legions, right where the original ones were initially deployed.

As ambush spawns.

With devil axes.

On turn fucking two.

And, uh... I feel the need to point out that this map is nine by fifteen tiles.

That's it. I'm sorry. I'll leave this the way it is to take some time to cool off in case I change my mind, but I think we've hit the breaking point. We have landed headfirst in blind Three Houses town. We have reached bullshit critical mass, and I am no longer physically capable of enjoying the experience of ironmanning this game blind.

I know I'm technically still in the game.

I know I “only” lost Malicia, Feena and Linde.

But if I have to play the rest of this goddamned game as a blind ironman with the knowledge that the game is capable of pulling this kind of horseshit on me at damn near any moment, then I'm gonna spend the rest of this playlog in a state of paranoia nearing how I was when I discovered the depths of Three Houses' treachery at Crimson Flower's final stretch.

And I'm assuming, and this is just an assumption here... that you don't want to read that.

If I'm wrong...

...If you guys still want me to ironman this, and keep going and try to salvage this chapter with nobody left but Dakota, Marth, Yumina, Palla and Horace...

By all means, please speak up now.

You have until I wake up tomorrow.

My fate is entirely in your hands.

Stay safe, everyone.

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Honestly, it doesn't sound like continuing to ironman this one would be much fun for you, and it's clearly already failed your ironmanability criteria, so I would say drop the ironman for here and try to have some level of enjoyment.

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6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

New Mystery Day 18: Chapter 10

Okay, so the intro says that the Archsage (who used to be Linde's dad I think) appoints multiple pontifices to govern. I have to assume that since it's just one city-state that's not big enough to split up into different territories, the multiple different Pontifices are stuff like “Pontifex of Foreign Affairs” and “Pontifex of Fisheries” and shit like that. Either that or they're just advisors or something. But Gharnef taking over last time seems to imply they have some actual political power. Anyway, Merric and Elrean were left in charge after Archsage Wendell left on his big mission, so... does that make them pontifices? They don't explicitly say.

I'm imagining the pontifex of fisheries is a technically high level position that Garner's no respect and is embarrassing to hold because they live in the bloody desert 🤣

While I'll not defend a turn two devil axe ambush spawn, I do recall liking the legion chapter. It's basically infinite reinforcements in a chapter you can end any time you want with each turn being a gamble on hanging around longer to get more exp before you're inevitably overwhelmed.

Edited by Jotari
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I feel sorry for hyping up FE12 at all as good, I was going entirely on what I read from long ago. As for the ironman, if you really aren't enjoying this game anymore, I think you can drop that.

 

26 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I'm imagining the pontifex of fisheries is a technically high level position that Garner's no respect and is embarrassing to hold because they live in the bloody desert 🤣

Ever heard of the term "sinecure"? If you haven't, and thats probably the case, it's quite obscure, it means "political or administrative office wherein you have few duties and responsibilities, but nonetheless get a nice paycheck". Translated into a single ordinary English word- corruption. 

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18 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I feel sorry for hyping up FE12 at all as good, I was going entirely on what I read from long ago. As for the ironman, if you really aren't enjoying this game anymore, I think you can drop that.

Honestly, I think my perception of this game might be skewed due to it coming right after Shadow Dragon. I can think of several games on this list it compares favorably to at least in terms of gameplay. But it just does not hold a candle to Shadow Dragon and is a step down in basically every way, and I'm prepared to argue that includes story.

And holy shit did the people tasked with making the new maps not know what they were doing.

I'll even go so far as to say that this game has the worst overall map design in the series, if you only count the maps new to this remake. And the original had some pretty terrible map design to begin with, but christ. I have no idea whatsoever what the devs were smoking when they made these maps. Every single one of them looks like it was designed by an eighth grader.

Honestly, due to how much this game frustrates me, combined with how much certain hardcore FE fans praise its design, I have this lingering fear that I'm playing it wrong. Like I'm scared that in reality I'm like Egoraptor, getting beaten to death by a metaphorical clam because I don't know what the hell I'm doing, screaming and whining like a buffoon, blaming the game for my own stupidity while everyone else who's actually played the game is shaking their heads or raging at me missing the obvious. Like, the only thing keeping me from fully entertaining that fear is the fact that this is the first time I've actually gotten anyone killed.

Edited by Alastor15243
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8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

And for our trouble, we got the unlock and silence staves. I wonder what the silence staff is like in this game...?

...I think it does the same thing. Global magic sealing, ally and enemy, map-wide, for one turn. Wow. Okay, I'll have to be careful about how I use that.

This is one of the powerful staff that gets removed in Lunatic difficulty (replaced with a recover staff instead)

 

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Anyway, looks like the thieves aren't coming according to the wiki that I just checked after suspecting it might be some crazy long wait easter egg, so... time to seize. Also, apparently my reward for going total overkill on keeping the clerics alive and not killing any of them... is the silver card! Kickass!

I think the thief is only in the origional Mystery of the Emblem version of the map. Also the Silver Card is replaced with a vulnerary on Lunatic difficulty...

 

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Day 18 Bonus: Chapter 10x

Let's do the talks first.

After all that doing one map a day, THIS is the one decide to do as a bonus chapter... this is not one to be taken lightly....

 

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

As ambush spawns.

With devil axes.

On turn fucking two.

And, uh... I feel the need to point out that this map is nine by fifteen tiles.

Like Roro warned you at the beginning of the map, they keep coming even after they die, as the reinforcements come whenever you kill one of the Roros to replace a dead one, from the same space (or nearest available space if its occupied) that the dead one started, and they don't stop until you kill the real one. One of the three stronger ones in the back is the real one, and exactly which is randomized when you reset the map, although there is a trick to figuring with the interface if you have to.

Spoiler

use the L button to cycle through enemies, the first of the upper three it cycles to after the lower ones is the real one, due to the internal ordering system.

 

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

If I'm wrong...

...If you guys still want me to ironman this, and keep going and try to salvage this chapter with nobody left but Dakota, Marth, Yumina, Palla and Horace...

By all means, please speak up now.

If you think you can survive this chapter sure, keep going...

Alternatively suspend ironman for the gaidens, as they clearly shake things up enough to make for a bad blind ironman experience (the next one's ballisticians in fog of war  gimmick is sure to be a pain as well...)

 

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13 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Like Roro warned you at the beginning of the map, they keep coming even after they die, as the reinforcements come whenever you kill one of the Roros to replace a dead one, from the same space (or nearest available space if its occupied) that the dead one started, and they don't stop until you kill the real one.

He actually didn't warn me about that. He vaguely implied it, but he didn't outright say it until the very enemy phase when it happened. What makes this really infuriating is that I didn't even get that vague warning until after I already deployed due to how story works in this game and the game's decision not to give me a talk discussing it. So I had absolutely no way of knowing that sending anyone fragile to this map would be a death sentence until it was too late to change my lineup.

 

13 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Alternatively suspend ironman for the gaidens, as they clearly shake things up enough to make for a bad blind ironman experience (the next one's ballisticians in fog of war  gimmick is sure to be a pain as well...)

That would probably be a good idea to keep me from getting bored, considering I always find a game less fun after I fail the ironman due to the decreased stakes and needed attention. But it still would feel really weird since that's not really how ironmans work.

Also, really? They replace the silver card with a vulnerary? Honestly, that sounds like there's basically no reason to do this Gaiden on Lunatic.

Edited by Alastor15243
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3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'll even go so far as to say that this game has the worst overall map design in the series, if you only count the maps new to this remake. And the original had some pretty terrible map design to begin with, but christ. I have no idea whatsoever what the devs were smoking when they made these maps. Every single one of them looks like it was designed by an eighth grader.

Really? Because nothing can possibly top Genealogy in terms of having crappy map design, imho. Literally every goddamn map in Genealogy falls victim to the same fundamental pitfalls.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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I am only extremely late, but I have completed The Wooden Cavalry on H4 of Shadow Dragon with only one armor knight, Roger!

Was it doable? Oh yeah, absolutely!

Was it fun?

 

However, I don't feel that it was designed to be broken by Wolfgar, (I haven't felt the need to snap the game in half yet, and I consider that to be a really good thing considering how...*cough FE16* other games simply seem to want to either be broken in half or break you in half) and it hasn't been much of a slog at all! Me going out of my way to use garbo units certainly slows it down, but H4, thus far, has been quite well designed, first three chapters notwithstanding.

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8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Honestly, due to how much this game frustrates me, combined with how much certain hardcore FE fans praise its design, I have this lingering fear that I'm playing it wrong. Like I'm scared that in reality I'm like Egoraptor, getting beaten to death by a metaphorical clam because I don't know what the hell I'm doing, screaming and whining like a buffoon, blaming the game for my own stupidity while everyone else who's actually played the game is shaking their heads or raging at me missing the obvious. Like, the only thing keeping me from fully entertaining that fear is the fact that this is the first time I've actually gotten anyone killed.

 

To be honest, yeah, pretty much this if how I feel about the current playthrough. Not that I am raging at you for it, but more the fact that it saddens me to see you have so much frustration with a game because the way of play is so different than what the game wants from you. 

Probably true that subsequent playthroughs or playing with prior knowledge helps with this, but a certain mentality and mindset do really help. 

I advise looking at a few of the maps you’ve cleared before and compare them to this H2 0% growths playthrough by dondon. He clears P-8 on Turn 4 for example(which may require a save point, so it is not a 1 on 1 comparison with an ironman) but you get the point. 

It might help you see the difference in playstyle.

 

 

And I am an advocate of continuing the ironman.

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8 hours ago, Benice said:

I am only extremely late, but I have completed The Wooden Cavalry on H4 of Shadow Dragon with only one armor knight, Roger!

Was it doable? Oh yeah, absolutely!

Was it fun?

 

However, I don't feel that it was designed to be broken by Wolfgar, (I haven't felt the need to snap the game in half yet, and I consider that to be a really good thing considering how...*cough FE16* other games simply seem to want to either be broken in half or break you in half) and it hasn't been much of a slog at all! Me going out of my way to use garbo units certainly slows it down, but H4, thus far, has been quite well designed, first three chapters notwithstanding.

You know I'm curious to see what the wider community thinks about this chapter. So dedicated thread.

https://forums.serenesforest.net/index.php?/topic/93243-does-the-wooden-cavalry-suck/

 

Edited by Jotari
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New Mystery Day 19: Chapter 10x Continued

Yep, you read that right.

I'm not saying I've decided to continue the ironman.

And I'm not saying I'm no longer mad about this terrible, terrible, terrible map.

But what I am saying...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr-jh5GTSBM

...is that I have a question.

A question burning in the core of my very being.

A question that nobody can answer but me.

And a question that I will never know the answer to if I click that reset button on my emulator.

Can I salvage this?”

Was that four-berserker-devil-axe-ambush-spawn triple-kill so devastating that I no longer have what it takes to beat this map?

I want to know.

I have to know.

I need to know.

Whether I keep going with this timeline or not, I need to see how this shitshow ends. All questions of how to proceed will be answered afterwards. After I have seen this chapter through to the end, and in doing so secured myself, and all of you, some goddamned closure on this thing.

Part of me hates that I'm doing this.

Part of me, nay, most of me worries that even accepting this challenge as a challenge is giving this map more dignity than it could possibly deserve.

BUT DAMN IT, READERS!

I STILL NEED TO KNOW!

THE ADVENTUROUS SOUL, NAY, THE MAN WITHIN ME CRIES OUT IN PROTEST AT THE IDEA OF RESETTING THIS GAME AND LEAVING THAT QUESTION UNANSWERED FOR ALL ETERNI okay I'm done now.

As some of you might have been able to guess by the origin of my music choice, the above was mostly tongue-in-cheek theatrics. But yeah, that's what I'm doing, and that's pretty much why I'm doing it. I've gotta know, guys. I'll work out if I'm still ironmanning this after I work out how fucked I am.

This is not a pretty road ahead of me. In a single turn, I lost my hammerne user, my dancer, and my best mage. My rescue staff has two uses left, and when those two uses are gone, that's it. I'll have lost my only remaining means of changing the space a unit is on other than moving them. And considering how often the last few chapters have all but assumed that I have that option available to me...

...Yeah.

Questions for later though.

Let's do this.

Okay, so, here's the deal: thankfully, while I had no idea the respawns would happen that quickly, I did suspect they'd happen quickly. So I had Palla start moving towards the back rooms, and she's thankfully in range of fighting them now, bypassing the southern respawning Legions completely while they were too busy with painting the floors with more teenage girl blood than a slasher movie slumber party. I'm gonna have her start with the middle one until I can remind myself exactly what spaces the middle Legions spawn on. Between her and Dakota, she's definitely the more tempting target despite her general tankiness, so I'll want to keep them from coming near her.

Anyway, while brainstorming stuff yesterday while away from my computer, I initially thought about having Marth, Dakota and Horace form a wall towards the entrance and hope that vulneraries and Yumina are enough to keep everyone alive...

...but then I remembered that the central room exists, which has a one-space entrance I can park Dakota in front of now that the enemies have devil axes and not hammers.

...Boy am I going to be fucked if it turns out later respawns have hammers again though, so I'm probably gonna have to give up the training opportunity and switch to Horace, who can't one-round them, just to be safe.

Or just unequip Dakota.

Having Tearing Shadows play for literally every enemy on this map feels really dumb.

...And...

...Fuck, it's over already? Seriously?

...Well that's an anti-climax.

Apparently I guessed right on the first time. It was the central one.

Wow, that wasn't nearly as hard or as entertaining to salvage as I thought it was going to be yesterday.

Don't get me wrong. I am in no way saying I was overreacting to the blow I was dealt yesterday. This is still probably in the top three worst maps I have ever played, and what happened to my more fragile units was still completely bullshit. And the prospect of beating this game without Feena and Malicia feels downright bleak (honestly, I'm 90% confident that no matter what I do, I'm still going to die on the final map because of those earth dragon ambush spawns I remember from Book 2 that I just know these map designers wouldn't have seen anything wrong with).

But damn if the difficulty of this map doesn't peak at turn 2.

In fact...

...Fuck it, honestly, right now the thing I “need to know” is if I could do this deathless after giving it another shot.

So yeah, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna save this onto another file and re-do the file I was given, making today into a sort of timeline-split “what if” in this little adventure, one ironmanning, on resetting, with one of them becoming non-canon tomorrow.

Also, I'm gonna try out this “masquerade mask” option the game's giving me for Dakota. See if it's the sort of thing the original Dakota Waterstone Vendelgate of Nohr would have worn.

So apparently the leader of this guild of assassins is someone named Eremiah.

So the game calls the remaining clones “Roro brothers”... does the game ever explain what his deal was and what those clones were, and why the remaining ones can no longer fight? Apparently they had enough intelligence without the “original” that they could at least flee (which the game explicitly said they did), so it's not like they're lifeless husks now. They can still think, they just... don't have the will to fight?

And is there an alternate cutscene that explains why Legion isn't around anymore if you didn't take this gaiden chapter?

Eremiah is... interesting, but I'm worried that a lot of what makes her interesting is the air of creepy mystery around her, which will be ruined by just being mysterious for the sake of it, with no actual answer intended or even thought about.

...Apparently all of the Legions were in the orphanage together with all the other assassins...?

What...

This guy is dead now, and we haven't learned clue one about what his deal is. Which yet again makes me quite concerned that this is just a JJ Abrams “mystery box”.

Alright, so, let's retry this.

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