Saint Rubenio

Hey, now. Just because everyone is convinced that I am a degenerate doesn't mean I am a degenerate. How dare you defy me. Well. Those are fighting words. We duel at the struck of midnight. May the superior taste win. I'll have you know, however, I am quite undefeatable. Having fun, are we. Conglaturation!!! You have completed a great game. Oof. Ahhhh, I thought it was odd you hadn't yet jumped into the fray. Unfortunately, Camilla is not my type. So no. There is no such desire. I am pure.

So I was visiting the family. My cousin's little daughter gave everyone a good night kiss on the cheek. Everyone except me. She refused to give me one. Eventually they tried to convince her to blow a kiss my way, at least. She picked her nose instead. Even toddlers troll me. Whatever have I done to deserve this...? Look at Herlock Sholmes overhere, solvin' the big mysteries. Well, I elect not to confirm or deny your hypothesis. Wallow in the despair of uncertainty! That's a lot of words to deny that you are bonk worthy. Unfortunately, I am not convinced. Hand over the bonkstick, that I may use it on you.

So I read in the comments. That man is worthy of being the Emperor, that much is certain. I mean, isn't that how it always goes? Sooks. Don't insult me. I don't do that with Camilla. Dayni is contemplating joining the dark side of the bonk? What has the world come to? Hahahahahahahahaha Damnit

Ahahahahahaha... I'd never seen that one. Thanks. It's glorious. Coward. Can't tell a real woman when you see one.

Destiny isn't written. Acacia, no...! Bye Chris. Come now, old man. Have some faith in me. I may be a heretic, but not THAT much of a heretic! I mean she's okay but she's not Rinkah or Charlotte-- Not you too! Why does everyone doubt me...?

That's the Hoshidans psyching themselves up to be more effective, because they know their gear is inferior so they need an edge of some other kind. Neat. Banner Saga good. Please do. Ahahahahahahaha... well, I mean, even if her stats don't reflect it, supports insist she's quite strong. Technically my type! ...plus, I'm not there quite yet, nor will I ever be. I will die before I start lusting over Camilla's twin peaks like the devs intended.

Hoshidan scum, their weaponry is inferior! No wonder their blacksmiths go out to battle personally, they need to make up for their lack of forging talent! Oh? When was that? 22 is too much, I had 11 in my first run and still got 3 returns. Be reckless. Glad to be here! Her reward, marrying someone who isn't a shit petson like Disgraceman. I mean, Felicia is quite dreamy. Certainly more than Little Miss Nohrian Scum overthere.

Yeah, those dudes, Orochi's group and Reina's cavaliers are really scary. As well as the group of cavs that appeara at the south when you bait Scarlet. ...honestly, it's just generally difficult, appearances be damned. Gotta say though, for as much as I criticized early!Felicia, I ended up kinda eating my words there. She was completely useless until the flame shuriken, but then she singlehandedly (well, with an Odin pair up, but details) kicked the asses of Orochi's whole squad. It was quite impressive! Jakob is probably still better, but she's more fun. ...just a shame that male Corrin is just straight up worse than female Corrin due to the marriage sim mechanic. Fem can produce two children for the price of one, while male steals a girl from someone else. It's just optimal to use fem Corrin lol. Doesn't Keaton join automatically if he survives the map? Might be annoying but it should be doable. I'm not using the royals, I'm marrying the royals for their children. Rest assured, Camilla won't be deployed past Ignatius's conception. Who? I don't know that person. ...ooohh wait right, it was the guest unit who was in chapter 7 and then left! How could I marry Odin to a temporary character, Sooks? You make no sense! Perfect. Classic Fates. That's what I'm thinking too. Pfffft. That's too appropriate for them.

Okay, done. Hoo, boy. That was difficult. But once Orochi and Reina's squads fell, it was smooth sailing. Really, that outlaw heading for the houses was the toughest enemy, simply because he forced me to hurry through those two. Otherwise, it was a simple matter. I even got Charlotte a couple levels! Her starting gear is pretty meh, but she gets going quickly. Unfortunately, bringing Camilla to support Benny brought forth a terrible side effect: I got her C support with Elfuigi. I read it out of morbid curiousity. It was exactly what I expected it to be. Oof.

Gotta say, for as infamous as chapter 10 is, I felt way more in control than I do in chapter 13. Holy shit, this map is hell.

Wait a minute, when did the 13 hours I spent on Layton turn into 16 hours? Yeah, I originally had it placed lower, but on my second run I changed my outlook. It just has way too many things I enjoy and too few that I don't to put it any lower. It's pretty much just the lack of map saves, a couple of maps I don't enjoy and the obnoxious fanservice in a lot of the female designs that annoys me, everything else is good. Well, I mean, minus the story, of course, but as I've said many times before, FE isn't a series I go to for a story, so I hardly count it when rating a FE. Besides, its stupidity is way too funny, I can't in good conscience say I don't enjoy the story of Fates.

In other news, I finished Layton 1. That was... surprisingly long, actually. Didn't expect to get 13 hours out of it, I thought it'd be shorter. Really fun, though, I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. I think I'll hunt down the four puzzles I've left and then move on to the second one. I mean, it's not my second favorite FE for nothing! In many ways it beats New Mystery, though having no map saves and a cast that I generally enjoy a bit less (not to say I have no favorites in Fates, but it's less consistent because the royals exist) give NMotE an edge. They're really close, though.

Bitter intrigue done. We carved a path through one poison vase and then Haitaka manhandled Ryoma. I finally noticed after two runs that there's a door to the treasure, so Niles took that route. Unfortunately, the very Kaga vase that left Niles stuck in place prevented me from getting both chests, but... Eh, I'd rather have the gold anyway. Neither Mozu and Niles nor Azura and Elfuigi have reached A support yet. Damn them for being slow. Why can't they fall in love more quickly? We need a patch to remove Garon from the game entirely. ...I'd be the only person on Earth who wouldn't use it, but hey. I'd be happy for everyone else!

Since I removed Gay Fates, I'm going to have to rethink my pairings. I think I'll marry Laslow to Charlotte, because I wanna see how the philanderer handles that woman, then Camilla can become Benny's backpack so I get uber Iggy, then Xander can get his favorite psychopath. I kinda wanna give Nyx to Leo and Felicia to Odin, just to mix things up since I did the opposite before, but Odin and Nyx are already at B... Meh. Fuck it, I'm doing it anyway.

I'd rather get more brigands. Like, proper brigands, not high schoolers vaguely cosplaying as brigands.

I am the embodiment of disappointment right now. I finally unlocked one of Gay Fates's new supports... Turns out, only the option existed. Not the convo. Then I checked and there's... Actually a lot less than what appeared at first glance. So fuck it. I removed that mod too. Now I only have the voices, the icons, the extra model color palettes, the endgame save, the shader fix, the weapon models fix and Shigure inheriring his hair color. The gameplay is now entirely untainted. Bragging rights, here I come!

Well, as it turns out, the icons are accurate. I had never noticed, but steel shurikens really do kinda look like daggers. Go figure. As for Mistletainn... Well, I'd love to check, but our internet is still down and my phone's internet is super slow right now for some reason. Sooo yeah. I'll take your word for it.

Oh wait, they actually aren't dagger icons. They're just really dagger-like shurikens. Huh. Well, no matter.

Hey, I just noticed steel and sting shurikens have dagger icons. Someone who is familiar with the icon mod, is that normal or is the mod bugged on my end?

Niles and Mozu B Mozu: "You...you're horrible..." Niles: "And you're boring, which is worse." Well. He said it, not me.

...well. How irksome. Why are all of these anime JRPGs named the same, anyway? Valkyria Profile, Valkyria Chronicles, Xenoblade Chronicles, Xenogears, Tales, Trails, FC and friggin' FC...

FC bad is an opinion that I can get behind. Yet you said Torna good. What is this Torna you speak of?

Well, chapter 10 done. That was my best chapter 10 ever, which is funny, considering it's my first time on lunatic difficulty. Effie broke through their ranks with Arthur, Niles, Mozu and Haitaka and almost managed to get to Takumi, but I decided not to get greedy and instead keep the southern front clean. Then Camilla blocked the enemy in the one open corner to the left of the upper ballista while the rest took out the pegasus that got by her. It didn't get completely out of hand like it usually does. Man, that feels great. I still don't see how lunatic is so much harder than hard. I expect it to pick up at some point, but so far it's very slightly harder and that's it. Also, my fucking internet went down in the middle of the argument with Shrimpy and even with my phone's internet literally every image hosting site I've tried (Imgbox, Imgur, fucking google photos) refuses to load so I can't upload the images I need. Every site loads except the ones I need. The universe refuses to let me to prove to him that Niles isn't as bad as he says. God fucking damnit, this is so annoying... Nope, this is all wrong. The only part that is true is that it disables attack stance. Capture just reduces your hit by 10% and disables attack stance's extra hit and I believe critical hits too. Bonuses to his hit, damage, speed and such remain untouched. Don't believe me? I just tested it myself. I can provide proof later, when the universe stops taking the piss out of me. And, well, of course, then there's Heartseeker's bonus is just huge. Honestly, that alone is pretty much enough to make his chances very reasonable. Of course, there's some risk involved, since Haitaka is basically guaranteed to one-shot Odin and Nyx, but then you just give Niles a pair-up with Jakob/Felicia and all of a sudden that's two opportunities to land the 70~% - heck, actually, not even, since they give him skill, so his hitrate will be even higher. It's very reliable. And this is Haitaka, probably the hardest capture Niles will ever have to pull off - other people you might want to nab won't be on thrones. I mean, yeah. But then why do you refuse to accept that Niles can use them for any captures he may need to do? He doesn't have 0 strength, man. It's not that hard to get him to capture things. Which is a pretty big thing, with stuff like Haitaka, Kumagera, pass peggies and Rallyman running around.

No, it doesn't. Dude, I saw it with my own eyes last night. He didn't double Haitaka before Mozu paired up with him, then he did thanks to her speed boost. Or else how do you think my 17 speed Niles doubled Haitaka? 17 - 13 doesn't equal 5, y'know. You know, if the game absolutely requires that you save every single limited staff for the endgame or else it becomes unbeatable, maybe that's a flaw with the game Like, seriously, how do you get the 10k from the ice village without freeze? There's plenty of ways to lower enemy defense and increase his attack if need be. His strength is low, but it isn't so unbearably low that he deals 0 damage to everything. All he needs to capture is 1, nothing more. Your problem is that you want him to be a combat unit on Mozu's level, and that's just not what he is.

I was so focused on the "Niles is worthless in his join map" thing last night that I glossed over this. This is another straight up impossible statement. Haitaka has 11 defense + 1 from his weapon + 3 from the throne = 15. Niles at base deals 15 damage with the bronze bow + 1 from WTA against Haitaka = 16. At the bare minimum, he deals 1 damage to him. Which, yeah, isn't much, but this is with the weakest weapon he has and without taking any boosts into account. Not to mention that, at base, Niles is only 3 points of speed away from doubling Haitaka, which he's guaranteed to get from a pair-up with both Jakob and Felicia (those bonuses apply when capturing, that's how he was doubling in my screenshot). As for the accuracy... You're just being stubborn now. I've said it before and I'll say it again: It's extremely easy to improve his hitrate against Haitaka. You can hit him with a bronze dagger (which also lowers his defense), toss Odin/Nyx next to him, pair someone up with Niles, and if you want to be extra sure, freeze him. This is so effective that, in my run, even though he hadn't leveled up skill yet, Niles would've had a 100% chance to hit if I had frozen Haitaka. Not that I needed to, double 89% is pretty good odds in my book. Soooooo yeah. I'm gonna have to agree with Eltosian here, your hate boner for Niles blinds you as much as my own for Mozu does. Again, I'm not denying that Niles becomes pretty bleh as the game goes on, but you're talking like he's a Wendy-tier scrub, and that's just 100% not true. "Niles deals 0 damage against Haitaka." I just don't get how she's supposed to be a Niles killer. She doesn't have his outlaw utility or capture. They can co-exist just fine. Shura is more of a Niles killer, and even he doesn't have Capture, which is pretty huge if you know which generics to grab. Actually... I can marry him to Elfuigi 2 and then I kill four birds with one stone: Niles gets to go archer, Mozu gets to sit on the bench, Nina gets green hair (I'm hoping, I've no idea how the mod handles the children of gay parents) and I get to not feel filthy for marrying the 12 year old! Perfect! Lightcosmo, the words that you have said please me. I beseech you to elaborate. Oh, phew. Got me worried there for a minute. Now you just have to keep me informed about your experience with the returns! Pffft... Pretty funny glitch, too.