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


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1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I liked Leif's uplifting theme playing here, if you take it as "just hold out a little longer and help will arrive". Hopeful in desperation, not triumphant.

All it would have taken to make me feel it fits would be to have him make a speech to his troops rather than mildly moping with Augustus.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Oh wow, we have some bishops with unlock staves. Enemies getting to use copies of my army's personal weapons? Well first off, I'm gonna wanna see if I can steal some of that shit with Callion, with Nanna supporting with the fleece-and-release.

I will note that there is also an enemy on the B route that uses a Bhuj (great thief staff fodder and the only other one in the game), and Reinhardt has his own Dire Thunder as well.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

So yeah, looks like the reason killing him didn't end the chapter is because the game just doesn't check if you've won until the turn ends for some reason. Have there been any other “Defeat boss” missions? Is this how they usually work, or is it because this is also a defense chapter and there are two conditions to fill, one of them time-based? Well, whatever the reason, it let me get a little bit more experience for Orsin and Tanya on one last enemy, so if somebody is complaining, it sure as hell ain't me. And so I've beaten the level, with an hour of free time to spare!

This is the only one with "Defeat Boss" as even part of the mission objective. Its a small thing, but I think I would prefer it if boss kill and rout chapters didn't end until the end of turn on most games, simply to compensate for it being a luck based objective (you can't unexpectedly miss, or crit, or see a skill proc when you seize, or escape, or arrive, or end the last defend turn, etc.). Plus if you captured a boss on a "defeat boss" chapter it would be fairly irritating to not have the rest of turn to grab his loot off of him (you can't capture Barat due to his capped con, so this is mostly if a hypothetical earlier Boss kill chapter gets added in a remake).

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Honestly, once you get past the potential dangers of initial unit placement, and how obnoxious it is to actually make the preparations for this map... I had a lot of fun! Great music, and a pretty fun battle, if not quite as thought-provoking as I thought it would be. Mostly my best units could go wherever they wanted unimpeded, just as usual. Still, it was paced well and didn't overstay its welcome or encourage/reward tedious capture-grinding. So yeah! Well done, game! Good job!

That matches my feeling on this map as well.

 

As for my Ironman, only loss was due to me goofing off by sending Conomore into the arena. He made money and was doing fine up until he got crit. Otherwise this chapter was fine as Mareeta and Orsin came down and cleaned house in the enemy ranks, while most of my cavalry camped out on the right, and Lief with the rest of my army marched down the left. Only managed to capture one spare use of the unlock staff, but captured a few spare Meteor (I have been training Miranda a fair bit for funsies, so I will have a master in each of the elemental magics even before Ced arrives).

 

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

All it would have taken to make me feel it fits would be to have him make a speech to his troops rather than mildly moping with Augustus.

Nah, no speech. More moping, and a different theme playing. This is meant to be Leif at his absolute lowest. He just got his friend killed and his life is entirely in the hands of a cousin he's never even met. Leif's entire agency is outside of his hands.

Regarding the next chapter, they continue tue whole "this is basically Holy War" part of the story, but for some inexplicable reason Faval, Ishtar and the Mage Sisters don't appear on the next map. Faval I can get as they would need to hurriedly introduce Patty to recruit him (even though once he's there his holy weapon would actually work really well to further Leif's inferiority complex) but they could have at least given us a scary Ishtar fight. Or at the absolute minimum the three mage sisters. They had the attention to detail to have the same random Thracian boss appear in both games, why not these three mushroom heads? Number 1 reason to remake the game imo. It must be rectified.

Edited by Jotari
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3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Nah, no speech. More moping, and a different theme playing. This is meant to be Leif at his absolute lowest. He just got his friend killed and his life is entirely in the hands of a cousin he's never even met. Leif's entire agency is outside of his hands.

Where would you make Leif's theme play in a hypothetical remake, if this chapter's music were replaced with some sort of "Don't Speak Her Name" of Thracia?

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1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Where would you make Leif's theme play in a hypothetical remake, if this chapter's music were replaced with some sort of "Don't Speak Her Name" of Thracia?

Maybe in the Xavier chapter. That's when he's reclaiming his castle after all. And it ends with his promotion, so it's very much his moment.

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57 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Maybe in the Xavier chapter. That's when he's reclaiming his castle after all. And it ends with his promotion, so it's very much his moment.

I could see that working. I'm wondering how the rest of the story is going to play out, though; ideally I would like it to play at least once after that "darkest hour" part too.

Honestly the placement of this song, which in to be clear is a great song I'm totally grateful was put into the game in some capacity, makes this whole chapter's tone feel weird. I can't tell what kind of tone they want to go for, because the story and the music seem to be speaking two completely different languages in this chapter. Either give Leif a moment like Will in Days of Ruin where he snaps out of his misery from the death of his mentor and rallies the troops to victory, or make this a "Don't speak your name" style chapter with darker music to emphasize how shitty things are getting and how Seliph is their only hope. The fact that they went with the music of the former and the story of the latter leaves me royally confused as to what their intentions were.

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1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

I could see that working. I'm wondering how the rest of the story is going to play out, though; ideally I would like it to play at least once after that "darkest hour" part too.

Honestly the placement of this song, which in to be clear is a great song I'm totally grateful was put into the game in some capacity, makes this whole chapter's tone feel weird. I can't tell what kind of tone they want to go for, because the story and the music seem to be speaking two completely different languages in this chapter. Either give Leif a moment like Will in Days of Ruin where he snaps out of his misery from the death of his mentor and rallies the troops to victory, or make this a "Don't speak your name" style chapter with darker music to emphasize how shitty things are getting and how Seliph is their only hope. The fact that they went with the music of the former and the story of the latter leaves me royally confused as to what their intentions were.

I find Jugdral's music in general has a weird relationship with its content. Like when I think of The Last Holy War I imagine as this grand dark conflict where you're taking down an evil dragon god. Even the sprite work for the map is darker than normal. Yet the music is...not bad, but not that.

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Thracia Day 30: Chapter 21

Honestly, it's pretty cool seeing Seliph in the FE5-8 sort of art style. Makes him look cooler.

But more importantly, it's time to get started on this chapter. It seems pretty straightforward. There'll be some tough reinforcements, but the reinforcements end around turn 10, meaning I am free to spend all the turns I have to with Asbel to get him to his 150th staff use and making him a rewarping fiend.

Obviously this is outrageously cheap and will destroy my ranking, but now that I know it can be done, I refuse to finish this game without creating a self-teleporting badass. It just feels like something I am morally obligated to do as a Fire Emblem fan, and it sounds fun as hell. Also, I'm not really a fan of LTCing at any rate. Or at least I hate it when that's what they do to encourage difficulty. I prefer it when games punish, or at least just avoid rewarding, the player for turtling or taking things slow, rather than when games go “yes, we're well aware you can snap our game in half by doing it slowly, but we'll give you a shiny star if you don't!” I like being challenged in more direct, concrete ways.

Incidenally, I've seen LTC videos, and while the actual movements and strategies look like they took a lot of work to come up with, a lot of it seems to revolve around finding the quickest way you are physically capable of doing something, and then constantly retrying the level until you get lucky enough to do it. And that does not sound like fun to me.

Speaking of incentives to move quickly, this map seems to have... literally no incentives to move quickly. No time-sensitive villages you have to save from bandit reinforcements, no time limit for getting the gaiden chapter (which I'm really looking forward to doing with warp Asbel), no reinforcements coming from behind to make me at least move to a better position... nothing. Well, that works for me I guess.

Well that's lame! They almost completely skip over Seliph and Leif's first meeting! We only really see the end of it! I was hoping to actually see Leif's reaction to meeting Seliph for the first time!

Also, it's kind of hilarious how worthless and redundant Dermott's Beo Blade's qualities are. It gives Wrath and Vantage, but if I understand correctly, Wrath only activates on the second attack if you have Vantage. But he has a PCC of five and the Beo Blade already has a crit rate of 30, so there's literally no point whatsoever to Wrath being there! His second attack is always going to be a crit with this thing regardless!

Still though, he's a free unit with charm and decent stats, so I can't really complain here.

I brought Linoan along because apparently she has a special promotion sequence if she visits the church. I haven't really been using her, but I figure I might as well deploy her for that, since I'm not really struggling for deployment slots here.

Also, apparently we'll be getting a new shipment of rewarp staves, courtesy of a dark mage delivery from turns 7 to 10. I'll be keeping my army relatively close together until the reinforcements stop showing up, for this reason (yet another way this map doesn't discourage and in fact rewards turtling). And I'm also bringing along two cavalry units, Kane and Hicks, with empty inventories so I can store all the cool shit I get. And also so that I don't have to have a unit I'm actually using be the one who gets poisoned.

Unfortunately, I failed a spot check and didn't notice the sleep staff user. He took out Orsin, so now I'm gonna restart and silence him with Linoan. That should solve my problems here. I do have restore staves, but I don't want to risk it being someone who I put in danger on the first few turns.

...Nope, Linoan can't use silence staves. Gotta bring someone else for this purpose.

Sarah should do nicely!

Alright, that's done. Hicks got poisoned and survived, Lithis is baiting all three initial ballistae at once, and I'm bracing myself for the reinforcements.

The reinforcements arrive right on schedule. The soldiers are trivial, Orsin and Tanya just stand in place and let the soldiers unmake themselves upon them. The cavalry is a bit trickier, but I have Callion take care of it. He's got more than enough avoid to dodgetank the poleaxes. Making this the turn where the rewarp mages finally show up.

...But they don't. Disappointing. Guess it's an RNG reinforcement thing. Oh well, I've still got more than enough uses of the things to last me until the end of the game. Especially since I've barely been using them.

The Thracian dracoknights seem to have a bizarre AI where they'll only advance when there are units in the area, and if those units retreat, so will the dracoknights, back to the mountains. Well, Orsin and Tanya should make quick work of them regardless once it's finally time to face them.

Yeah, I got exceptionally (un)lucky, and the rewarp dark mages didn't show up on literally any of those turns. They're kind of poorly designed, honestly. Less enemy reinforcements and more “free shit”. They can warp, yes, but unlike when enemies use warp staves, rewarp users can't move and attack on the same turn. So really they just show up and you get a whole turn to capture them with minimal consequences beyond the risk of poisoning yourself. And if you use a brave weapon, probably not even that. So yeah, serious shame they didn't show up, but...

On the plus side, Asbel got 3 for 3 with his remaining 3 levels on both luck and defense, and has now capped his luck and has 12 defense. Which is largely why I'm not restarting to get luckier with the rewarp staves. The odds of Asbel capping luck again if I retry … aren't bad, but I prefer this. I have plenty of rewarp staves.

Due to the formation of the Thracian dracoknights, Tanya can enemy-phase three of them in one turn when they attack at maximum range with their javelins. They'll be a cakewalk. And with the Njörun scroll I gave her, she's consistently gotten great level ups in the one relevant stat she needs to max out: strength. Pity about her low con, but she's doing fine with 15AS, and she can go up to 17 with a killer bow now that she's promoted and she got an extra weapon level for free. She's not amazing, but it's nice having an aura bot partner for Orsin who's just as dodge-tanky as he is.

Alright, everything that has any kind of initiative against me has been defeated. Now to grind 100+ turns to finish off that staff rank, and be very, very, very careful taking out the rest of this map. I'm going to do most of it while I staff grind with Asbel, and I'm gonna take this opportunity to finally scroll train Leif.

Watching Leif whiff against a ballista, twice, was a surreal but hilarious experience that I'm so grateful I got to witness in a safe environment.

46 turns in, and Asbel's reached C rank staves! Only 100 more turns to go~!

Now, the fact that I am choosing to do this is not the game's fault. You could argue that it's a problem that I can milk this much free exp out of a single chapter, but obviously I'm not holding this against the game's pacing. I'm only doing this because I consider the fun of having a rewarping Asbel to be worth this tedium, so if anything, this is a point in the game's favor when it comes to fun factor. However, I do have to question the wisdom of making weapon ranks this slow to level in a game that's intended to be beaten in a time limit of only a few hundred turns for ideal ranked runs. Especially since staff ranks can, at best, be leveled three times a turn, with dancing and a movement star proc. Most of the time just once.

In the meantime, I bought some wind tomes with my excess cash flow, since they're the best common tomes, they let him reach 19 AS and 58 base avoid, and Asbel needs to level up his wind rank anyway to be able to use blizzard. I also take the opportunity to sell some of my mostly-broken stuff in storage, since there's a storage house.

For some reason, hammers are way cheaper than armorslayers despite basically being the same thing. Pity I can't get much for them.

Linoan promoted. The bonuses were... kind of impressive, and it was cool to learn she has Naga blood, but I don't think I'm gonna use her for anything beyond staff botting. Because however good it made the rest of her stats, 17 HP is... abysmal. Shame I never got around to training her, but she was just never a priority for me.

Whew! Well, I'm finally done! My hand was getting sore towards the end, once I had finished up all the stuff I wanted to do in the meantime, because I was mostly just healing and turboing as fast as I could. But I did it! Asbel has an A rank in staves! Time to finish this level!

I warped in Callion to the little opening in the middle of the enemy forces, which I believe was made when I made the sleep staff priest retreat by silencing him. I warped him in hoping to capture the boss with the Kingmaker and then move on to the gate to be safe until next turn. That... didn't work, because all but one of the four hits missed. I'm pretty sure Callion will still be fine though.

I am acutely aware that he doesn't have a crusader scroll.

I am going to be very, very displeased if I have to do that over again.

Well, Callion survived, but unfortunately since he was stuck in melee range, there was no escaping killing the boss and wasting his fortify and blizzard. Oh well, a win's a win. And at least I can nab the other guy's bolting and physic!

Alright, map's over.

Holy shit guys.

Asbel can rewarp.

Asbel, an 11 defense, 20 everything else badass magical juggernaut, can now teleport himself around the map at will.

Totally fucking worth it.

I can't wait to try this out tomorrow. We've got a prison break chapter! An escape right point by our starting location, we have to break in, get out, all within a strict time limit before massive reinforcements of Fenrir dark mages arrive.

I think this is the most hyped for a Thracia chapter I've ever been.

I can't wait to get started on it!

Edited by Alastor15243
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22 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Asbel, an 11 defense, 20 everything else badass magical juggernaut, can now teleport himself around the map at will.

 

Welcome to Thracia my friend. The game is about to become much more fun xD

Having an army of badass teleporting mages that can also teleport other baddasses is so much fun xD

I guess if you had done this sooner, you wouldn't be complaining as much xD

 

Edited by Shrimperor
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14 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

I guess if you had done this sooner, you wouldn't be complaining as much xD

 

"This game gets less annoying if you grind for 150 turns" is not really a hill I intend to die on, as much fun as the result may turn out to be.

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Even if though they can't attack and rewarp in the same turn, if you find one area getting swamped by multiple rewarps in a row, the strong-ish (~24 Mt hitting a largely nonexistent Mag stat isn't weak for most non-mages) and not entirely inaccurate counters if they hit enough can be a concern if you've split your forces too much or didn't put enough healers wherever all the rewarpers are gathering. -So I thought.

 

As for Linoan I used her and gave her Wrath. She soloed parts of the final fights better than Asbel or others could, 64 Mag-hitting Atk Nos crits were less worrying than dodgetanking. You could technically make Sara do this, but you have to conserve Homer's Light tome for her, and bring her to the C20 Arena with Lara for refreshing- Sara gets a Light tome in the Arena. Once she gets the 50 WEXP for C Light, promote her and viola, Nosferatu access with Wrath.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Yeah, I got exceptionally (un)lucky, and the rewarp dark mages didn't show up on literally any of those turns. They're kind of poorly designed, honestly. Less enemy reinforcements and more “free shit”. They can warp, yes, but unlike when enemies use warp staves, rewarp users can't move and attack on the same turn. So really they just show up and you get a whole turn to capture them with minimal consequences beyond the risk of poisoning yourself. And if you use a brave weapon, probably not even that. So yeah, serious shame they didn't show up, but...

I think you may be bumping up against a different Thracia mechanic here. There is a unit limit of 50 enemies of each color on the map at one time, unless you press in enough to start taking out enough of the starting enemies, or wipe out more than one round of cavalry reinforcements they get blocked from spawning by the enemy limit.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

46 turns in, and Asbel's reached C rank staves! Only 100 more turns to go~!

Now, the fact that I am choosing to do this is not the game's fault. You could argue that it's a problem that I can milk this much free exp out of a single chapter, but obviously I'm not holding his against the game's pacing. I'm only doing this because I consider the fun of having a rewarping Asbel to be worth this tedium, so if anything, this is a point in the game's favor when it comes to fun factor. However, I do have to question the wisdom of making weapon ranks this slow to level in a game that's intended to be beaten in a time limit of only a few hundred turns for ideal ranked runs. Especially since staff ranks can, at best, be leveled three times a turn, with dancing and a movement star proc. Most of the time just once.

Staffs do have a bit of an easier time at it as the amount of weapon XP scales with the weapon rank (to compensate for the Fatigue scaling with weapon rank). Of particular note personal staves give a ludicrous 10 weapon xp even if they miss, so rigging hammerne misses with Stafiya tends to be one of the LTC ways of grinding up staff rank for warp. Now grinding up tome ranks are the most obnoxious thing, as it goes at the slow rate of 1 per weapon hit of all the weapon types, and there are so few magic tomes that it can often take multiple ranks to unlock the next tome.

 

As for my ironman I had enough of my main fighters, and highest ranking staff units fatigued that I decided to take it fairly slow as well (I am saving my far more limited supply of stamina drinks for 22 and endgame). Plus it gave me a chance to grind up Miranda, although the boss ended up being a rather scary prospect. This hasn't been hugely relevant before but my Asvel has been extremely magic screwed, now he is only 1 below cap but he is high level and we are near the end of the game. Now with a pure water a capped magic unit has high enough magic that they have just enough turns to reach and attack the boss before their magic drops low enough that the boss can deal damage with the sleeping siege tome (and thus wont try to use it), but I tried it anyway, getting what avoid I could with a forest on the second turn to hope to dodge the 30ish hit of the one attack...which he didn't and got slept. I did have a contingency plan with Eda having 10 moving being out of his range but able to attack him with a Master Lance, but she needs 3 hits in the high 50s (with the enemy having big shield to make those odds even worse), and if he uses a wind tome of any kind against her she is screwed. She only successfully gets 1 hit, but thankfully both siege tome continue to target the sleeping Asvel (I honestly wasn't expecting it but the pure water boost to his magic stayed after his magic dropped to 0 in his sleep, and a combination of Linoan and Nanna can physic him up). Now Asvel has a few turns of the pure water keeping him going, but just in case I have a cavalry bring a silence staff from the supply (as her promotion let her hit the needed rank for it, and Asvel has high enough health to take one of those hits even at 0 magic). Eda's next turn she hit two of the master lance hit, but the throne healing was enough to keep him just barely alive, so I try for something a little risky. I canto her back into a safe dancing space, and this time try for a capture instead with a doubling Silver lance (it has higher hit, and with the Master Lance weight means she no longer doubles with it after the half speed, so same number of hits overall). Then had her sit on the throne so the bolter can't escape after being silence, so managed to nab his stuff as well. I guess I need to do another session to catch up as this is as far as I have gotten (assuming I reach endgame I have a plan to show off an easter egg that you will probably miss).

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50 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I think you may be bumping up against a different Thracia mechanic here. There is a unit limit of 50 enemies of each color on the map at one time, unless you press in enough to start taking out enough of the starting enemies, or wipe out more than one round of cavalry reinforcements they get blocked from spawning by the enemy limit.

Oh! Well, at least this map discourages turtling in some way. But it would be nice if the game discouraged it in a way that was less arcane.

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Rewarping Asbel will be very useful in the final chapter. Though as good as you've made him, he'll still be inferior to the juggernaut that is Sety.

After the prison break chapter you'll be faced with the infamous Reinhardt bridge chapter and it's million enemy leadership stars. Have fun with that one! Don't forget, cheesing things is part of Thracia's DNA.

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Thracia Day 31: Chapter 21x

Like I said, I can't wait. But also I checked and it looks like I'll finish this game this next upcoming Friday if I do one weekend map, which is a nice and tidy way to do it, so... looks like there's no reason not to! I also wanna make sure I don't just unceremoniously throw the final installment at you guys with no fanfare or buildup. Y'know. Like I've done with every single other game so far. This time, I promise, Thracia's finale is coming on Friday, and not a day sooner.

This is gonna be a tricky map, but also, I suspect, a lot of fun. The main issue is the 6 warp staff users summoning what amount to ambush spawns at my party at all times, which I suspect means deploying any weak links at all is going to be completely impossible. I'm hoping not, because Asbel's my only sturdy A rank staff user. Nanna is close, but not quite there unfortunately. I'm gonna deploy Safiya to see if it's remotely practical, but I'm probably gonna have to give up on that depending on how the AI behaves.

I'm going to have to deploy Asbel and Callion, both of whom are fatigued, so while I still have a few S drinks left, I'm gonna have to be more frugal with them from now on. I'm bringing my big guns here... and Safiya. Leif, Lithis, Asbel, Callion, Tanya, Orsin and Pan are all coming. Unfortunately Tanya and Orsin do not start on the same side, which is... very, very inconvenient, but I'll have to make do. I have a feeling I'll want them both on my team by the end of the mission.

Attempt one was... a pretty big failure. It initially seemed to be going fine; I warped in Lithis first to the chamber with the warp priests and the mages, and doing that stopped the mages from being warped as they simply attacked Lithis, saving the warp staff uses for him to steal at his leisure. However, on turn two, after I warped in Callion and Leif to start taking care of the upper warp room, since the other warp staff room ran out of people to warp in to fight Lithis (and not Safiya, for some reason I'll have to do more research on), they immediately started breaking out the seige tomes on Lithis, which cost him his life. I think I'll have to warp in Callion and Leif first, then Lithis. Let's try that.

Also, I'm kind of disappointed that the basic map theme is playing here. As much as I like it, I feel that literally any other map theme in the entire game could fit here better than this one. This is a fucking prison break chapter. A heavily fortified base is being stormed by a handful of troops to rescue prisoners. The fog of war map theme would work. The “we're fucked” map theme would work. The “we're Galzus fucked” map theme would work! Hell, even Leif's theme would work here! No, scratch that, especially Leif's theme would work here! I was half-hoping to hear it, honestly, to underscore this badass and heroic rescue mission, showing the good sides of Leif's rash and heartfelt decision-making.

...Speaking of Leif's theme...

...A small tangent, if you will.

One thing that occurred to me about a remake, and this is something I wanted to share because I like it so much...

It would be absolutely awesome if, in a Genealogy remake, they find a way to add in a scene with baby Leif, and add in a sort of musicbox/lullaby rendition of Leif's theme during that scene. I think it would be really sweet and the melody of Leif's theme really fits a lullaby as well, amazingly enough. And also it would be an amazing gut-punch, to help to hammer home the impact of something that kind of fails to sink in emotionally due to how overdone it is in this series: this kid is a fucking orphan. He had amazing, wonderful parents who brought him into the world with a big, happy, wonderful life ready for him, and they were slaughtered in the desert like cattle over a centuries-long feud they had almost nothing to do with.

If we got to see a bit more of baby Leif, maybe showing us the moment when Cuan finally gets to lay eyes on his new son, that could make Ethlyn and Cuan's deaths hit just that much harder. It would give us the tiniest taste of what sorts of parents they could have been.

...Well.

...This is... outrageously embarrassing.

...I guess we have to make that four Fire Emblem songs that have moved me to tears. I'm sorry, I actually couldn't keep my composure while writing that. Just trying to picture that scene, with that music...

...Let's... uh...

...Let's move on.

So it turns out that in both cases, if you warp someone in, the warp-ready soldiers will attack the intruder first, preventing the warp staves from being used at all. So maybe I should someone into each chamber on turn one, making sure none of them use the warp staves? I'll have to see if that's actually how this works.

...Nope, if I warp Lithis in on turn one, and Zaun has no one to warp, he'll use blizzard, and the lower treasure room is easily within his range. For some reason, none of the warp staff users have ever wanted to warp anyone outside of the fortress bounds.

Funny thing is, this map could easily be 2-turn cleared with a rescue staff, but obviously there's a shitton of cool shit to steal in this chapter I'd be missing out on. Also... damn it, I just wanna do this the proper, badass way.

Anyway, about the music: I discovered the absolutely lovely “turn off the music” option, and proceeded to play Leif's theme on YouTube in the background, turning it into what I'm hoping it'll be in a remake: a completely uninterrupted triumphant anthem that keeps playing, even over fights and over the enemy phase. And I love it. So, yeah. Plus side to this game: it has that option! I don't know if I've even explored the options menus of other games, honestly. Maybe I should go back and check that for a little bit of usability extra credit?

I gave Safiya a restore staff, and I'm having Pan bait out Zaun's Blizzard tome on the first turn so that I don't have to risk someone I've warped out getting hit by it. Also, I moved Alba to the corner of his room, out of siege tome range.

Leif got a movement level here, and the warp rooms have been neutralized! Now to quickly but carefully get all of the loot and then GET THE FLYING FUCK OUT OF HERE.

One trick I learned to improve my strategy once I realized Lithis couldn't be warped in until turn 2: I had Lithis unlock the door to enter the west side of the fort on turn 2, then I warped him away. He couldn't then act on the same turn, but since those priests won't warp each other, there's no rush. All 6 staff uses are his for the taking.

Honestly, my little experiment with turning off the music and playing my own in the background really cements to me how much I feel the new system introduced in Awakening is an improvement. Now that I consistently have uninterrupted, awesome music playing in the background, I don't even feel like fast-forwarding through these fights! This feels way more entertaining and cinematic!

It occurs to me now that since the Zaun can't be captured, a better thing to do would have been to assassinate the boss on turn one, then warp in Lithis to the lower room also on turn one, to make sure that none of the warp staff uses get used before I can take them. Oh well. I'm not keen to restart this chapter over just 3 warp uses out of 15 when I got a move level up for Leif, but I will be sure to do that if I have to restart. Which I'm hoping I don't.

Another thing I'll probably do if I have to restart: Give Leif a damned door key. I wanted to save the two I have in case there was another “Chapter 20” incident, but I feel kind of dumb now that Leif and Callion are stuck doing nothing for a few turns while Pan rushes in to unlock their door.

But anyway, at long last, it's finally time for Asbel to have some fun with the rewarp staff!

First, he warps in to the room above Leif and Callion in order to take out the axe armors there.

Next, he warps in with Lithis to help him block the staircases so he doesn't have to get too much blood on that wind sword I gave him. Asbel's then gonna help Lithis steal the rest of their shit, and then he's gonna warp Lithis out of there to help Callion and Leif get out and take the treasure.

Honestly, given the game's expectation of cheesing chapters, a 30 turn time limit before shit hits the fan is kind of ridiculous.

Alright, I've gotten everything but the one chest with a vulnerary, and it's turn 20. Time to start making my way out of here, with a ridiculous amount of time to spare. Honestly I'm kind of shocked the game's being this lenient given the kind of warp staff abuse it expected out of me in order to get (and clear) chapter 12x.

But the item and ambush spawn guide confirms there aren't any more dirty tricks coming up. Not that I'm going to rely on that. There's little else left to do.

I almost badly screwed up by prematurely taking Leif off the staircase blocking the hero reinforcements. But I caught myself just in time and realized that a high-skill enemy with a hand axe could easily get a lucky potshot on Alba. So I waited another turn for him to get out of the way.

That's funny. I saw Orsin's escape quote and it seemed entirely new to me. Have I really never once taken Orsin into an escape chapter? Funny.

Anyway, I cleared it in 17 turns, getting everything but 6 warp uses (if you count the one I could have stolen from the boss). But still, that's four warps I traded for 12, for a net gain of 8, with only five chapters left! I can warp once a chapter from now on and still have four for the final chapter! And that's ignoring the rewarp staves!

Also, this chapter reminds me of stuff I read about Hilda that didn't occur to me before: Hilda is related to Arvis. I'm not sure how, but they're from the same royal family. So Julius marrying Ishtar is basically Julius marrying some kind of cousin. Of course... that's kind of the least fucked up thing he's done, honestly. By a substantial margin.

Julius changing the subject about the child hunts by deflecting into flirting with Ishtar with talk of a romantic date and lavish gifts is... honestly impressively creepy. But it still brings into question what the hell she sees in him. When I've seen her in this game she seems like a battered spouse in a gilded cage, staying with him only out of fear, but in Genealogy a lot of the time she seemed genuinely in love with him. Still though, I haven't seen anything that bad in this game, so I can't really blame this game for writing her in a more consistent and believable manner.

Anyway... tons of fun, but not remotely difficult after I worked out the first opening gambit. That... that seems to be a recurring theme with the “hard” late-game levels I've seen. And yes, some of that was thanks to Asbel's insane staff rank, but I get the idea I could have easily done this with Schroff instead, just not quite as magnificently, since the game's decent enough to not warp enemies outside and thus allows you to bring weaker units. Strangely nice of the game, even if yet again there's no consistency to when it's forgiving and when it wants to sucker-punch your skull into a fine paste.

Leif has really come into his own. Especially when he's holding his light brand, he can easily fight alongside my other best warriors. Which is good, because he has infinite stamina, and my best warriors... do not. I did however manage to get Asbel through this without crippling his stamina for a second chapter in a row (those advanced staves are taking a toll on him). I should be fine for units in the next chapter.

Speaking of which... next chapter...

...Ah yes.

The enemy now uses the Reinhardt.

See you on Monday, guys.

Last week of Thracia.

Let's do it.

Edited by Alastor15243
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12 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

One thing that occurred to me about a remake, and this is something I wanted to share because I like it so much...

It would be absolutely awesome if, in a Genealogy remake, they find a way to add in a scene with baby Leif, and add in a sort of musicbox/lullaby rendition of Leif's theme during that scene. I think it would be really sweet and the melody of Leif's theme really fits a lullaby as well, amazingly enough. And also it would be an amazing gut-punch, to help to hammer home the impact of something that kind of fails to sink in emotionally due to how overdone it is in this series: this kid is a fucking orphan. He had amazing, wonderful parents who brought him into the world with a big, happy, wonderful life ready for him, and they were slaughtered in the desert like cattle over a centuries-long feud they had almost nothing to do with.

If we got to see a bit more of baby Leif, maybe showing us the moment when Cuan finally gets to lay eyes on his new son, that could make Ethlyn and Cuan's deaths hit just that much harder. If would give us the tiniest taste of what sorts of parents they could have been.

God, that would sound great. I want an FE4 remake to punch me in the gut with feels.

 

14 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also, this chapter reminds me of stuff I read about Hilda that didn't occur to me before: Hilda is related to Arvis. I'm not sure how, but they're from the same royal family. So Julius marrying Ishtar is basically Julius marrying some kind of cousin. Of course... that's kind of the least fucked up thing he's done, honestly. By a substantial margin.

Maybe she's one of Victor's many illegitimate children?

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24 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Another thing I'll probably do if I have to restart: Give Leif a damned door key. I wanted to save the two I have in case there was another “Chapter 20” incident, but I feel kind of dumb now that Leif and Callion are stuck doing nothing for a few turns while Pan rushes in to unlock their door.

The next time you can, buy a bunch of these, the final fights will thank you.

 

27 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

But it still brings into question what the hell she sees in him.

Well, Mother Hilda is exerting pressure on her to wed, a dutiful daughter would obey. Ishtar knew pre-possession Julius, but that was like 10 years ago, they would've been too young to form a "rational" romantic bond. It'd work better if Julius got possessed later.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Julius changing the subject about the child hunts by deflecting into flirting with Ishtar with talk of a romantic date and lavish gifts is... honestly impressively creepy. But it still brings into question what the hell she sees in him. When I've seen her in this game she seems like a battered spouse in a gilded cage, staying with him only out of fear, but in Genealogy a lot of the time she seemed genuinely in love with him. Still though, I haven't seen anything that bad in this game, so I can't really blame this game for writing her in a more consistent and believable manner.

Sadly, when it comes to reality, those two depictions are more mutually inclusive than one would probably assume.

44 minutes ago, Espurrhoodie said:

God, that would sound great. I want an FE4 remake to punch me in the gut with feels.

 

Maybe she's one of Victor's many illegitimate children?

No, she proudly declares herself a member of house Velthomer when talking to Ishtar in chapter 10 of Genealogy. She's probably Alvis's distant cousin or something. Maybe one of her parents is a cousin of Victor. Even if she's first cousins with Alvis their children getting married is pretty far removed genetically. Curiously she does seem to be Queen of Miletos in her own right even though she also says she's originally from Velthomer. Maybe she was shipped off and married to the unseen never mentioned, possibly quietly assassinated king of Miletos.

Edited by Jotari
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9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

No, she proudly declares herself a member of house Velthomer when talking to Ishtar in chapter 10 of Genealogy. She's probably Alvis's distant cousin or something. Maybe one of her parents is a cousin of Victor. Even if she's first cousins with Alvis their children getting married is pretty far removed genetically. Curiously she does seem to be Queen of Miletos in her own right even though she also says she's originally from Velthomer. Maybe she was shipped off and married to the unseen never mentioned, possibly quietly assassinated king of Miletos.

Isn't she Blume's wife?

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21 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Isn't she Blume's wife?

Well during the time of the game. Hence the reference to assassinating a king of Miletos. Though maybe I am interpreting things wrong and she has no connection to Miletos at all. We really know shit all about Miletos to be fair.

Edited by Jotari
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1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Well during the time of the game. Hence the reference to assassinating a king of Miletos. Though maybe I am interpreting things wrong and she has no connection go Miletos at all. We really know shit all about Miletos to be fair.

I don't think marrying the king had anything to do with that. She's been married to Blume for a while, because Ishtar sure as hell didn't get the ability to wield Mjölnir from her mom.

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9 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't think marrying the king had anything to do with that. She's been married to Blume for a while, because Ishtar sure as hell didn't get the ability to wield Mjölnir from her mom.

I've taken a look at the script and the reason I'm thinking she's Queen of Miletos is that several times she's called Queen Hilda of Chronos (a castle in Miletos). So Miletos isn't just her holiday get away. She is in some way connected to it and ruling it at the time of the game. So potential theories (bearing in mind we're using a fan translation so some of the info here might be inaccurate due to wording)

A) She was from Velthomer originally, got married to a king of Miletos, he died and then she remarried Blume while continue to hold onto her authority in Miletos.

B) She was from Miletos originally, born there as a princess and later inherited Queenship, with one of her parents being a noble from Velthomer. Her from Velthomer original line refers to her blood line and not her specific personage.

C) She has no connection to Miletos at all, but because of her particular skills (unrelenting psychopathy), she was assigned to it by the Lopt Sect and styled herself as Queen Hilda of Chronos setting herself up as ruling on her own authority. Side point, if this is true it's weird that even the villagers she's oppressing and hate her still respect her position enough to call her Queen.

Edited by Jotari
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2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I've taken a look at the script and the reason I'm thinking she's Queen of Miletos is that several times she's called Queen Hilda of Chronos (a castle in Miletos). So Miletos isn't just her holiday get away. She is in some way connected to it and ruling it at the time of the game. So potential theories (bearing in mind we're using a fan translation so some of the info here might be inaccurate due to wording)

A) She was from Velthomer originally, got married to a king of Miletos, he died and then she remarried Blume while continue to hold onto her authority in Miletos.

B) She was from Miletos originally, born there as a princess and later inherited Queenship, with one of her parents being a noble from Velthomer. Her from Velthomer original line refers to her blood line and not her specific personage.

C) She has no connection to Miletos at all, but because of her particular skills (unrelenting psychopathy), she was assigned to it by the Lopt Sect and styled herself as Queen Hilda of Chronos setting herself up as ruling on her own authority. Side point, if this is true it's weird that even the villagers she's oppressing and hate her still respect her position enough to call her Queen.

I generally just assumed C when I played the game.

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14 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I generally just assumed C when I played the game.

Just seems weird to style yourself as 'Of' somewhere if you're there as a representative of a foreign power with no personal connection to the place. But hey, as I said, these are fan translation. For all I know she's really calling herself the Queen In Chronos rather than Of Chornos.

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54 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Just seems weird to style yourself as 'Of' somewhere if you're there as a representative of a foreign power with no personal connection to the place. But hey, as I said, these are fan translation. For all I know she's really calling herself the Queen In Chronos rather than Of Chornos.

I dunno, seems like she'd rather put the place where she's a queen in her title rather than the place where she doesn't have nearly as much power. But I can't remember too many details about that aspect, so I can't say more.

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