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

[Jotari]

If it wouldn't be too boring for you, then I'd be up for seeing you play each simultaneous chapter back to back. You'd notice more of the differences that way.

[Alastor15243]

7 minutes ago, Jotari said:

If it wouldn't be too boring for you, then I'd be up for seeing you play each simultaneous chapter back to back. You'd notice more of the differences that way.

From an analysis standpoint, that would definitely be best, and I think I'd probably be okay with it doing it. I'm just wondering if people would be okay reading it.

[Boomhauer007]

I actually think it'd read better too, maybe with slightly shorter entries on round 2, so that changes are more obvious and fresh as opposed to going through once and then trying to remember most of the same stuff again. 

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Boomhauer007 said:

I actually think it'd read better too, maybe with slightly shorter entries on round 2, so that changes are more obvious and fresh as opposed to going through once and then trying to remember most of the same stuff again. 

Fair point.

[Hello72207]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

From an analysis standpoint, that would definitely be best, and I think I'd probably be okay with it doing it. I'm just wondering if people would be okay reading it

I'd be good.

42 minutes ago, Boomhauer007 said:

I actually think it'd read better too, maybe with slightly shorter entries on round 2, so that changes are more obvious and fresh as opposed to going through once and then trying to remember most of the same stuff again.

This is a good suggestion. I support the simultaneous chapters.

[Alastor15243]

Sacred Stones Day 23: Chapter 15EPH

Right, let's go save Eirika's ass yet again.

But before we do, obviously I need to make item preparations... and...

...Actually, truly seeing how close Jehanna Hall is to Grado Keep... I can't help but wonder why the fuck it took so long for Jehanna to be invaded. Maybe it has a really impressive military thanks to its mercenary culture? Maybe since they have a ton of warriors but little home-grown food, they had to get to the surrounding allies first to halt trade and starve the nation into submission, except then Lyon had a better idea in manipulating Carlyle?

That would be cool.

Pity we'll almost assuredly never know.

Anyway, as I said earlier, I'm promoting Knoll instantly. He has no chance in hell of catching up in conventional combat at this rate, not with that eight speed and zero luck, so I might as well make him staff and summon utility. I'll try to get him some chip damage to get up to S rank dark though. He doesn't need good stats to kick ass with-

...Oh wait. Yes he does. Because Gleipnir's dark magic, and that made the developers decide that that means it can't be monster-slaying.

Funny how the best hero got the shittiest weapon.

As for Garm though, that's gonna be fucking fantastic on Duessel. Plus five speed is an insanely useful bonus for him, given he isn't the fastest, and his con is so high that the 13 weight doesn't even affect him, letting him take full advantage of it!

Duessel's actually a lot more useful than I remember him being. Then again, as a kid I instinctively avoided every unit who joined you promoted (with a few exceptions like Jaffar), assuming that, like Marcus, they'd wind up terrible in the end compared to your growth units. But his defense is pretty damned great! Still the highest in my army, not counting Seth with support bonuses, who ties.

Okay. Here's the dilemma. I know I said I wanted to show off all of the new classes if possible, but...

...I'm gonna pick wyvern lord over wyvern knight for Cormag. That +3 speed is tempting, but for those of you who don't know, there's a rather infamous glitch with wyvern knights where the pierce skill, when used with javelins, can cause the game to crash in certain situations if you have animations on. And I really don't want to have to turn off animations just for Cormag. So... wyvern lord it is.

So, I just got into and hopped out of a skirmish in order to get past some monsters on the map to do some weapons shopping, and that makes this as good a time as any to bring up something... rather dark about skirmishes.

In every skirmish battle, no matter what, every village on the map is in ruins. No matter which ones you saved.

You can't save anyone. You can only offer them a temporary respite from the horrors of the undead, long enough to be rewarded with material wealth and let you feel good about yourself before they're inevitably slaughtered the second you leave.

That is... almost assuredly unintentional, but amazingly, shittily dark. Like, really, I get they don't want us to be able to visit the villages again, but couldn't they just have all the villages be closed? I don't think they really wanted to imply something that pessimistic, did they?

Hmmm...

Okay, important thing to note here. Ephraim says he has “no time to wait for Frelia's troops” in this one. Sensible. The idea that Ephraim has time to do anything in this situation is absurd, so sure.

But what about Eirika Route? Does he still have “no time to wait for Frelia's troops” even then?

I'm gonna have to pay attention to what the pre-or-post-battle dialogue says tomorrow, because if the same thing is canon there too...

...Holy shit.

Imagine how utterly, depressingly humiliating it would be to have your entire battalion “rescued” by three people.

Three people.

AND ONE OF THEM IS KNOLL.

...But that'll have to wait for later. I have to judge what's currently in front of me.

So, moving on...

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

...Wha...

...What?

This...

...Please tell me this is a joke.

Seth: I've discovered which of Grado's generals lead the forces surrounding the hall. Valter the Moonstone and Caellach the Tiger Eye.

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

 

NO YOU HAVE NOT FUCKING “DISCOVERED” THAT, YOU JACKASS! WE KNEW THAT AT THE END OF LAST FUCKING CHAPTER! YOU WERE FUCKING THERE! YOU RESPONDED TO BEING TOLD THEY WERE THE ONES DOING IT!

AND!

I!

FUCKING!

QUOTE!

Messenger: We've received dire news from Jehanna! It's about Princess Eirika and Prince Innes... They're under attack by Grado forces led by Tiger Eye and Moonstone.

Ephraim: Eirika...

Seth: Caellach Tiger Eye and Valter Moonstone... They're supposed to be the most powerful of Grado's imperial generals. For them to have abandoned the capital and led the battle into Jehanna...

AND NOW YOU'RE TAKING CREDIT FOR “OBTAINING” INTEL THAT BOTH YOU AND EPHRAIM ALREADY KNEW!?

WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING TALKING ABOUT, SETH!?

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS WRITING!?

DID SOMEBODY SERIOUSLY NOT DOUBLE-CHECK THAT THIS FLOWS PROPERLY WITH THE WRITING THAT CAME BEFORE IT!?

DID NOBODY PROOFREAD THIS!?'

IS THIS A LOCALIZATION GOOF, OR WAS THIS IN THE ORIGINAL JAPANESE!?

WHO DO I BLAME FOR THIS!?

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE!?

…

...Deep breaths...

...Anyway, Ephraim rather misleadingly says that their objective is to either rescue Eirika or route the enemy troops, when I know for a fact that reaching Eirika doesn't end this map.

Anyway, now Lyon's in normal form, talking to Caellach, and that normal form is commanding way more respect than Lyon's normal form did in Eirika Route, so I have to assume that yes, only that conversation Eirika had is canon from Lyon's behavior in Eirika Route.

Honestly, I like Ephraim!Lyon a lot better than Eirika!Lyon. It's... interesting how much they retained of his old personality while still making him... distinctly creepy.

By the looks of things, this desert map isn't so bad. A significant part of it actually isn't a desert, so the fact that I don't have any foot mages besides Knoll, and only one good flier, shouldn't be too much of a pain. Especially since that flier is promoted and pretty damned good.

The only real concern is that those wyvern riders start flying before I can bait them over to my side and not towards Eirika's army of three. Saleh and Innes are okay, but they're not exactly durable. And Eirika... yeah.

Anyway, as is customary for this game, I will be looking up the desert treasure map, and trying to get all the treasure. That's gonna be mildly annoying to do twice, but fuck it, a lot of this shit is worth it.

I'm finally retiring Tana and Vanessa in order to make room for Rennac and Knoll. They were handy to have around,, but they were also mostly an effort to use up vacant slots in the army that are no longer there. I've got plenty of mounted units to use for rescue-drop shenanigans without them.

Let's go.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Alastor15243]

Sacred Stones Day 23 Contd.

So Innes mentions holding out for Ephraim's arrival. Two things about that:

1: I'll have to keep an eye out for when the game says they sent that messenger in Eirika Route, because as of the end of 14EIR, it hasn't happened yet.

2: This heavily implies that when Innes sent the messenger to get help from Ephraim (his sworn rival mind you), despite the latest news of the progress of the war being long out of date and not very far along, he sent the messenger straight to the Grado capital, confident that Ephraim has already conquered it despite Innes failing with what is at most an equally difficult mission. That is some serious, and extremely subtle, bro-tsundere shit.

He constantly tries to assert his dominance over the guy, but when shit gets serious, Innes has nothing but the highest respect for what Ephraim's capable of, to the point that in a life-or-death situation, when Innes has to guess where Ephraim is in order to ask for help, his best guess is that Ephraim is doing better than him, and has conquered and secured the entire capital.

Man, I almost like that. But alas, for reasons I think I've made perfectly clear, I've lost any and all faith that that anything subtle or indirect in this game is intentional.

And it seems Eirika has been auto-leveled to level 14. Sadly, her ridiculous luck with defense growths hasn't carried over, so she's not as tanky as the version in Eirika Route.

Honestly... fuck it. Sure. I'll try and use Eirika. On Eirika Route at least.

But more importantly, I managed to get Cormag over to Eirika's group pretty quickly, solving the problem of the handful of wyvern riders and the pegasus reinforcements coming that way to wreak havoc. They should be safe now, but I'm gonna try and kill everyone but the bosses quickly anyway. Honestly, tomorrow probably isn't gonna feel like much of a repeat. Different starting location, and I'm guessing drastically different enemy formation too. But we'll have to see.

Ooh! That eclipse shaman has a stealable guiding ring! Gotta make sure I nab that. Gotta get rid of these enemies before he runs out of seige tome uses and starts attacking in javelin range.

Oh wow! Glad I played it safe and bought those barrier staves. Turns out the Jehanna shop doesn't have them! Well, three total barrier staves is plenty to get L'arachel to level 20, as Ephraim Route has demonstrated. She's really close now, and will be a valkyrie by the time Ephraim is a great lord.

Alright, Ephraim's side is pretty well cleared, but naturally we're still working on Caellach's troops over by Eirika. I think I'll be sending Lute and Knoll that way to help take care of them. Also, for obvious reasons, I'll be having Cormag go south to finish off Valter.

I had a bit of a scare with that devil axe berserker by the ruined village, but I managed to switch Franz over to a sword in time, and the berserker went down pretty easily after that.

Reinforcements arrive from around our starting point, but no worries, Seth and Franz can take them.

FUCK!

I ACCIDENTALLY ENDED MY TURN EARLY!

WITHOUT MOVING ANYONE ON EIRIKA'S SIDE!

RIGHT AFTER BAITING IN THAT BERSERKER WITH A PHANTOM!

NO! PLEASE! NO! PLEASE!

THANK GOODNESS.

Okay. Saleh came closest to death, but he held on with literally 1 HP. Wow. That was... such a rookie mistake. Could have fucked over the entire ironman, and just because we had reached the point where some units didn't have shit to do so I thought it was safe to select end turn instead of making absolutely fucking sure everyone had moved.

...Shit.

Cormag can't fight Valter. There's a crit rate, and the risk of pierce, and the risk of the pierce crash, and also Valter doubles him thanks to him not having quite enough speed.

...I've gotta see that conversation though...

...Okay. Here's the deal. I'm getting the hoplon guard first. Then I'm gonna try and get Cormag one more speed. Then I'm gonna fight Valter. In melee.

YES!

Cormag was just about to level, so I got him that last bit of exp, and he got speed! Thank you! Just when it counts, I'm not let down by the RNG!

And in the meantime, while we sort this out... let's get the treasure!

...Judging by how low Cormag's luck seems to be, I think it might be a good idea to have this guy use both the Hoplon Guard and the Fili Shield at all times. He can't really count on a support partner all the time if that support partner isn't also flying. I'm gonna have Lute get the Hoplon Guard for him, since he's in danger of being critted to death by Caellach too.

I was torn between using the swiftsoles on Cormag, so he can move faster, and Duessel, so he can move faster while supported. I ultimately decided that the only thing he really needs a support partner for is crit evade, which as I just said, I have another solution for.

It seems Lute's streak of defense level ups is over. She's 20/10 now, and she just got a defense level for the first time since promoting. Still, it's been more than enough for her.

Alright. I got all the treasure. Time to have Cormag, with his newly-acquired total crit immunity, fight off Valter and his spear and killer lance.

...Funny. It seems Valter's blissfully unaware of the fact that Grado has fallen. Talking about how he'll spare Cormag if he swears fealty to Grado again. But more importantly... it seems that in Ephraim Route, Glen just... stops existing. Valter doesn't even boast to Cormag that he killed his older brother!

...Then again, in fairness, I suppose we never find out what happened to Selena in Eirika route either...

Curious. So the game's weapon-choosing algorithm for enemies attacking seems to recognize that Valter can't crit, and so he's using the spear instead of the killer lance. Cool!

...That's... weird.

...I'm 95% sure that usually, when you fight a boss with someone who has unique dialogue with them, the next time you fight, they don't say anything. But here, Valter fights Cormag for the second time, and he's using his generic boss quote. How can I not have seen that before?

Aaaand Valter's down. And if he had held out just one turn more, L'arachel would have promoted.

But let's see how this ends. The big reunion, at long last.

Hmmm...

So Eirika just outright gives the Jehanna sacred twins to Ephraim. I get why, from a Doylist perspective: he's the protagonist of this timeline, he's in charge of all the items. But what about the Watsonian one? I guess she just figures he's the more competent one, or should be the leader? I'm curious to find out how this is going to work the other way around tomorrow.

It's cool how they show they're sitting in an unoccupied desert fort to discuss this, btw. I like that little touch.

Ephraim “sees unfamiliar faces” among the new people. Unfamiliar faces plural. As in, more than just Saleh. He obviously knows Eirika and Innes. So I guess this is Eirika's invisible escort group he's referring to?

...And then L'arachel introduces herself, which amusingly enough, if you forgot this was Ephraim Route, could be read as her introducing herself to Ephraim, in response to his introduction to her, rather than her introducing herself to Eirika (who curiously has no response to the revelation that that weirdo she saw a while back is actually the princess of Rausten).

…

...I just checked the Eirika Route script.

The exact same exchange happens there.

I don't know whether that's a brilliantly lazy effort to avoid having to write more than one line for this scene, or an actual mistake.

Whatever. It works. So far.

Curiously, if it was a mistake, then that would mean that Eirika Route was written first, and Ephraim is the modified one, to be changed or not changed as the differences demand. Otherwise, anything they forgot to change because they didn't notice it didn't apply anymore would be in Eirika's version of this, not Ephraim's.

Wow, Innes, arbitrary skepticism much? You accept that foul black magic artifacts, zombies, gargoyles, demonic hellhounds and rabid centaurs exist, but you think the artifacts that the main bad guy has spent the entire story trying to destroy are “some fool legend”?

...Why are they talking like they're just now putting together that the reason for the war was to destroy the Sacred Stones? That's been... that's been known for ages now!

...Well, at any rate, that's it. That's it for Chapter 15EPH. Tomorrow we'll be doing Chapter 15EIR, and seeing if anything stupid happens there.

...You may have been able to tell, but this game isn't scoring high in the writing department.

Stay safe, everyone.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Jotari]

Maybe all the people in the villages just fled to more populated centers after they were embroiled in the combat when the player was around.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Jotari said:

Maybe all the people in the villages just fled to more populated centers after they were embroiled in the combat when the player was around.

Hmm... I seem to remember that being normal practice in times of crisis, so I suppose that works.

[Hello72207]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

...I'm gonna pick wyvern lord over wyvern knight for Cormag. That +3 speed is tempting, but for those of you who don't know, there's a rather infamous glitch with wyvern knights where the pierce skill, when used with javelins, can cause the game to crash in certain situations if you have animations on. And I really don't want to have to turn off animations just for Cormag. So... wyvern lord it is.

It seems this glitch is caused by dealing damage to an enemy before their HP bar has finished decreasing. The minimum amount of damage dealt by the first strike that is required to freeze the game is as follows:

• Ranged Pierce followed by a normal hit: 31
• Ranged Pierce followed by a critical hit: 35
• Melee Pierce followed by a normal hit: 60
• Melee Pierce followed by a critical hit: 78

These are the bars for the pierce glitch to freeze the game.

They are fairly hard to hit and I've never had them happen to me, but they can happen.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

...I'm 95% sure that usually, when you fight a boss with someone who has unique dialogue with them, the next time you fight, they don't say anything. But here, Valter fights Cormag for the second time, and he's using his generic boss quote. How can I not have seen that before?

I'm fairly certain you can see all boss quotes in this game just by attacking with differing units.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Valter doesn't even boast to Cormag that he killed his older brother!

Surprised you didn't mention at all through this that on Ephraim mode Joshua never bothers mentioning that oh by the way, he is the prince of Jehanna, and the epilogue just kinda... Says it in his ending, and that is the only mention of him being prince of Jehanna in Ephraim mode.

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Hello72207 said:

 

I'm fairly certain you can see all boss quotes in this game just by attacking with differing units.

Surprised you didn't mention at all through this that on Ephraim mode Joshua never bothers mentioning that oh by the way, he is the prince of Jehanna, and the epilogue just kinda... Says it in his ending, and that is the only mention of him being prince of Jehanna in Ephraim mode.

No, I mean, I thought you had to attack with someone who didn't have a special quote in order to get the generic one.

 

And in fairness, remember, my Ephraim Route Joshua has been dead for a while.

[Hello72207]

9 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

And in fairness, remember, my Ephraim Route Joshua has been dead for a while.

True, but even when he is not dead, he never mentions it, he doesn't ask about the queen, he doesn't speak up at all about being the prince of Jehanna, and I don't know why they left it out in Ephraim route.

13 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

No, I mean, I thought you had to attack with someone who didn't have a special quote in order to get the generic one.

Fairly certain Calleach and Valter are the only bosses in the game who do that. I don't know why.

[Boomhauer007]

Honestly my biggest takeaway is that after all this time you're still playing with animations on. 

Truly a madman.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Boomhauer007 said:

Honestly my biggest takeaway is that after all this time you're still playing with animations on. 

Truly a madman.

Animations off never feels right for me in any game. I skip or fast forward sometimes, but it never feels right to turn them off entirely EXCEPT to avoid that glitch.

[Tylwyth Teg]

17 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Animations off never feels right for me in any game. I skip or fast forward sometimes, but it never feels right to turn them off entirely EXCEPT to avoid that glitch.

"that glitch"?

Now I'm afraid. What glitch?

edit: Also, I'm totally with you on the animations. My wife turns them off, but they add so much flavour to the experience for me!

Edited May 27, 2020 by Tylwyth Teg

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Tylwyth Teg said:

"that glitch"?

Now I'm afraid. What glitch?

edit: Also, I'm totally with you on the animations. My wife turns them off, but they add so much flavour to the experience for me!

There's a glitch with the wyvern knight class in Sacred Stones that causes the game to crash if you activate pierce in the wrong way. It's explained further above.

[Benice]

5 minutes ago, Tylwyth Teg said:

Now I'm afraid. What glitch?

Wyvern lords have the Pierce skill, which negates defenses on a critical hit, but if they activate it while throwing a 1-2 range weapon, (Such as a Javelin or spear) and then make a follow up attack, the game crashes.

[Tylwyth Teg]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

There's a glitch with the wyvern knight class in Sacred Stones that causes the game to crash if you activate pierce in the wrong way. It's explained further above.

Ah, dang! Sorry I missed that.

That sounds like a nuisance.. But I'd miss the animations!

[Benice]

Just now, Tylwyth Teg said:

Ah, dang! Sorry I missed that.

That sounds like a nuisance.. But I'd miss the animations!

Well, they are only in FE8, and there's three wyvern knights in the whole game. (Valter, a generic in ch. 17 and potentially a playable character, although he may be promoted to wyvern knight instead) so it'd be hard to get it.

[Tylwyth Teg]

2 minutes ago, Benice said:

Well, they are only in FE8, and there's three wyvern knights in the whole game. (Valter, a generic in ch. 17 and potentially a playable character, although he may be promoted to wyvern knight instead) so it'd be hard to get it.

Good to know!! Thanks, friend 🙂

[Eltosian Kadath]

A bit random, but I have a funny story to share about the devil axe berserker that drops his devil axe on this chapter. When I did this map on my ironman of FE8, I used a summon to lure that Berserker out, and he crit backfired with it, killing him instantly, ensuring I would never get the devil axe, as you can't trade with the phantom, and he got it when it dropped.

[Alastor15243]

12 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

A bit random, but I have a funny story to share about the devil axe berserker that drops his devil axe on this chapter. When I did this map on my ironman of FE8, I used a summon to lure that Berserker out, and he crit backfired with it, killing him instantly, ensuring I would never get the devil axe, as you can't trade with the phantom, and he got it when it dropped.

Ah yes. I was careful to make sure not to send the phantom near any treasure juuuust in case that applied there too.

[Interdimensional Observer]

I rather like Scorched Sands. It's probably the best of what is usually a terrible map type- desert. The story scenario, if not great, isn't bland; the amount of desert itself isn't too bad; theres no diabolical FoW or side chapter requires. And the battle itself isn't bad, I prefer Ephraim's take for the little rescue. It could be better though Caellach and Valter after X turns have passed should move out and attack you. Caellach should move several turns earlier than Valter, and on Ephraim's route should beeline towards Eirika's location- to strengthen the need to get to her soon.

 

On animations, it depends on the era. GBA has the simplest, crude actually, and the worst map animations. By contrast, I genuinely appreciate Jugdral's map animations. They're "dynamic" and I can feel the thud of every landed swing of an axe and the wispiness of every dodge. Because the animations are alive, I feel no true loss swapping to them to speed things up.

FE9's map animations are hideously slow, and RD's aren't a whole lot better (but on 2nd runs you can turn off animations altogether in RD), but after GBA FE, I do like the return of Jugdrali dynamism but in 3D. TearRing Saga has the same wonderful 2D Jugdrali dynamism too.

 

3 hours ago, Hello72207 said:

True, but even when he is not dead, he never mentions it, he doesn't ask about the queen, he doesn't speak up at all about being the prince of Jehanna, and I don't know why they left it out in Ephraim route.

Same reason Eirika's route never mentions that teensy problem Grado is going to have sometime soon. -Well, not exactly the same, since Eirika's route post-reunion is all about that Lyon bond in the end, and Ephraim's route post-reunion is somewhat more concerned about the world. 

[Alastor15243]

43 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I rather like Scorched Sands. It's probably the best of what is usually a terrible map type- desert. The story scenario, if not great, isn't bland; the amount of desert itself isn't too bad; theres no diabolical FoW or side chapter requires. And the battle itself isn't bad, I prefer Ephraim's take for the little rescue. It could be better though Caellach and Valter after X turns have passed should move out and attack you. Caellach should move several turns earlier than Valter, and on Ephraim's route should beeline towards Eirika's location- to strengthen the need to get to her soon.

Yeah, I agree, it's... among the least offensive.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Animations off never feels right for me in any game. I skip or fast forward sometimes, but it never feels right to turn them off entirely EXCEPT to avoid that glitch.

What? Even for Tellius? Like, no issue with the animation themselves (because I never watch them), but the animations take up like 50% of the play time you're likely to have just because of how long the loading transition takes. And the map animations are absolutely fine.