Saint Rubenio

Jamulan becoming a dedicated armor killer is neat. Sadly it's probably not as valuable as it would've been in Berwick, but it's something interesting, at least. Jamulan was in a dire need of that. Being able to warp items from the other side of the continent is super janky but, eh, preferable to just getting screwed, I guess.

I mean decent romances. Nah but yeah, Samson and Sheema is neat. FE4 remake, you know what to do. Actually, the other way around. Aida was from Gen 1, this is Liza. Anyway, yeah, she's kind of like Hemorrhoids Knight in that she doesn't look overtly evil, but the reuses give her away. All things considered though, this is far from the funniest screenshot of this kind. Even if it's still plainly obvious who the playable is. And hey, I actually didn't realize that first part. Huh. Interesting. He does, but it's pretty heavily implied that Hannibal doesn't buy it for two seconds. He just chooses to play along. Dang, you're right. We must look deeper into this. Who was the Kaga of Sacred Stones...? I may have realized the implications and paid them no mind.

I believe there are versions where he was translated as Kutuzov, so yeah, that's probably the intended reference. Thanks for the heads-up!

It sounds so weird when you put it like that, but yeah, it's a real rarity in any FEs without dedicated marriage systems. Hey, guess what, it's time for the same joke I make every time there's one of these screenshots. ...To be fair, Ishtore isn't particularly ugly. He could kiiiinda pass off as a playable. Except he's instead probably the most forgettable asshole that gen 2 pretends is kind of important. Wah wah. Yeah, I think he's reused maybe once more? Or maybe he's only used twice. Honestly, could've given him a couple more appearances and cut back on the constipated knights. One of these is more prestigious than the others. Kaga loves this gag so much. Eh, can't really fault him, it's an enjoyable one and a decent way to implement an incentive to hurry up. I mean, Kaga does write "1% of the population" in Vestaria Saga 1. ...But then he frames the head honcho of the 1% as a really awesome dude, and really the problem is the one evil ugly greedy politician, not the system. So uh. Genuinely curious how that guy's name is supposed to be pronounced. I googled it and it just shows the FE character, which is always a somewhat reliable sign of a name that's just gibberish they made up. Honestly, I'm just fond of his status as the singular character to be playable in both generations. It's just a cool thing. This boss is complete garbage. I distinctly remember him. He's everything that sucks about FE4 bosses combined. Archanea has almost no romances period. Marth/Caeda works very, very slightly if you squint really hard, Julian/Lena has like, one cool line, and that's about it. ...Also, Rickard/Julian. Not sure if I'd call that excellent, but... They do get the same amount of interactions as Julian/Lena (exactly two), and heck, in FE12 they actually get more, due to sharing a support. There you have it. To its credit, I also find Vanessa and Tana less annoying/boring than most peggy sues. While not really enough to put them significantly above their brethren like Syrene, they're in the higher leagues. ...Jesus fucking Christ, don't remind me of that without warning like that... And yeah, Oifey and Shannan being able to fall in love with, potentially, the kids they helped raise is just... I mean, there's already that one other gen 2 fixed unit who cannot fall in love despite being of the same age as the rest of gen 2's cast, not to mention the old guy with the fantastic beard. Why not just extend that courtesy so those two? Feed Oifey some kills, would you? Don't let him get outdone by... the guy who's probably older than him, come to think of it.

Mia-tier levels of obscure background character, but this spells it out rather clearly - not only does she exist, she's alive. She's not even mentioned in Tana's support with her brother (where they just talk about Hayden and make him out to be a rather bad dad), she gets no name - in fact, I'm just now realizing there's no gender mentioned either. For all we know Tana and Innes were raised by a gay couple and Sacred Stones is the most revolutionary game in the series. Their time together in each other's arms were the precious few moments of joy they ever got in their turmoil-filled lives. It really is just a strange omission. They have the most history together out of any characters alive in gen 2, spending a good 2/3rds of their lives living and working together. I can't claim to know what goes on in Kaga's mind, but if I were writing this game, I know this is one conversation I wouldn't just want to write - I'd be looking forward to writing it all game long. Certainly more than a random-ass lover convo with the generic pegasus knight.

Hah! I didn't get that one, I don't think. Well, nobody's gonna miss him. Huh. Didn't remember that, but yeah, that's right, there's basically no other axe users in this generation lol "Johan can you stop talking about Larcei for five minutes? There's more to life than her." "Maybe to you, my dearest brother. But I live for naught but love. Perhaps this is why she thinks the world of me, while she doesn't even know your name." "Hey, what are you two layabouts doing? Go get more children from the villages! For, uh... you know, the imperial policy!" "Ahh, maybe I'll run into my beloved Larcei on the way... Servants, fetch my steed! We must away at once! I'm coming, my love! I'm comiiiiiing...!" "I hate it here." And then Kaga decided to make them both able to marry kids 20 years younger that they raised because he doesn't know what the word gay means. Good to see "Kaga's accidental gay ships are his best" is a Kaga convention that extends all the way back to his origins. Or, you know. Maybe it's not one of his best ships because he didn't even bother. Gen 2 fucking sucks... Which, if anything, is out of character for Johan lol. They wanted to badly to make him out to be a completely horrible guy that they even established he treats his men like garbage (the mirrored convo just has one of Johalvier's men being the asshole and judging his taste in women instead). He doesn't seem like someone who'd be particularly bothered by the child hunts, unless it got in the way of his obsession with Larcei. I aim to please. Oh I love that idea. That's a great idea. You know, I never stopped to think about this, but... Considering it was the next game that established they know each other, I can't blame them for not having the conversation, but the remake has no such excuse. That works too, yeah. 1. Syrene's design is better. She has a cool headband and cool armor and a hardened expression without those annoying giant eyes every peggy sue gets. 2. She has a personality. Aside from being "warm and motherly" with Tana and Vanessa, she carries herself with the dignity and confidence of her station as one of Frelia's highest-ranking commanders, but she still has the occasional inner strife and can be a tad too reckless. She even shows a mild sassy streak in some of her supports. 3. Admittedly, she shares both these advantages with Tanith, but Tanith is, even more than Titania, that one PoR unit I just can't use because she breaks the game almost as hard as Seth does. Reinforce is so stupid. ...Also, checking her supports again made me realize they mention Hayden's wife in her support with Tana. Huh. I never knew that guy had a living wife. I might have to make a couple changes to dialogue in my current hack to reflect this...

It's like Kaga decided to balance the choice by making the obviously worse unit be the obviously better character. ...I mean, it's not a terrible concept. Kinda dig it. Er... Oh, I got it! He was talking about Brian. He sent a letter eons ago requesting his help and Brian just wouldn't come. In truth, the letter was lost when the messenger went to take a dump on the river. The raging waters made away with his bag, and thus Brian only got the message much later, when his entire family had already been killed. Alas, what a tragedy, the life of Brian... Yeah, that might be more likely. God, I hate them. I fucking hate them. Syrene deserved to be a wyvern knight... Yeah, exactly. If they were going down this road, maybe they should've come up with a better reason for Johalvier to stick with his dad. Say... Rather than ravenously vying for the same girl that wants nothing to do with either, the brothers just despise each other on a general basis (which would be very easy to believe after reading the first three words out of Johan's mouth). Then when Johan joins the rebellion, Johalvier is disgusted that they'd take him in and decides to stick with Dannan and keep working against the child hunts from the inside. Or something like that. It's rather flimsy but it's not as idiotic as it is. ...It's worth noting that Johan and Johalvier have a convo with Larcei's substitute specifically in this chapter. They have to stand next to each other for 10 turns (inspiration for GBAFE's support system?). I only saw Johalvier's version, of course. You aren't missing much. He's basically just acting like a moron following her around, she tells him to fuck off and gains 2 strength from the whole experience. I guess only she gets it because it's supposed to kinda sorta not really compensate for her being the inferior sub? He does have Ward, Derrick and Sylvis on his side. Sylvis could've beaten the entire nazi army by herself, I'm sure.

A lesson that's cost me a few ironman deaths to learn. I think it's just he doesn't get dibs on the awesome axe. It's basically the only thing that makes Lex any good. I feel like they just had to sort of force it for the sake of the Arran/Samson, because Johan's response to Johalvier's recruitment is totally inline with his characterization while the opposite is wildly out-of-character. I mean, Johalvier's recruitment barely spends a couple lines on the crush, while Johan might as well not have a character outside of it. Very slick way to avoid having to program two different cutscenes based on which brother betrays. No he's not, he's in Berwick Saga I know who you reference here, Kaga just did it again in BWS. Musta really loved that guy. Or... maybe not, considering his minor boss naming schemes also include nazi higher-ups. Eh, as far as "haha please marry my young relative" jokes go, this one's okay. The old guy's retort is a nice punchline. Oh look, there she is. Erin again. You are starting to see why gen 2 is not as good as gen 1. More on that later. Though, yeah, you'd expect Shannan would go around telling people "hey, please don't hate on this kid, his dad was one of the good ones." I'd call it worse, honestly. The whole "rivalry of the towns" thing is kinda weird, but at least it doesn't affect the characters - they just never meet Marth and keep on living their own life (until Samson canonically gets recruited by Sheema). In this case, it harms the characters themselves - Johan has to be made into an irredeemable psychopath, and Johalvier has to act entirely out of character to expedite the thing. You'd think they'd let Johan also chime in with the the "hey I'm actually an okay guy", but Kaga figured being a creep made him so much more relatable. The curse of permadeath hit him and Oifey really hard. Frankly, I'm the same way, so uh... Eh.

Oh, huh, does he? Well, guess we'll see.

Enough people offered their help that I'm inclined to believe that's probably a fan portrait. Oh hey, this. Like the first one, I might end up watching it by sheer coincidence. Friends and I were thinking of going hiking but the weather is being shitty. Not entirely sure what we'll do instead but we might just end up watching this. Even though one of them hasn't seen the first and neither of us can remember how the first one ended.

Well, hello there. It's been a while.

Ahhh, I remember him. Abrahm in VS1. He was a pain in the ass in the original...

That moment when Kaga himself gets Kaga'd

Ghost Trick was very nice. Wonderful little cast of characters.

That's true, but he's also showed up what, four times already? ...Though to be honest, the idea of Kaga using John Diarrhea seven times and then giving you a playable one with no warning sounds absolutely fantastic. To be fair, it's not that out there when you consider some of Kaga's later insanity. Fair enough.

I know I've made the joke once or twice already, but gee, I wonder which of these are playable and which are the bossmen. Personally, I prefer Johalvier. It's tempting to assume it's just because I like bad units more, but it comes down to their recruitment convos. Both of them are shackled by the shitty stalker characterization, but Johalvier shows signs of being a decent person in his recruitment. Johan's a pervert asshole character through and through and there's basically nothing else to him. Also, Johalvier's green. Green's good. The really funny thing about Oifey is that he's not even an Oifey. He seems like an Oifey, with competent stats and growths, but that's all in a vaccuum. In the average FE4 gen 2 run, each child will be able to kill armies by themselves, and Oifey quickly becomes too mundane for keep up. He falls off harder than most Jeigans lmao Still, if you do want to use him, he keeps up decently well. Really, his problem is that the army around him is just obscene, and even in a sub run, he can't really compare to the likes of the other static units or even some subs like Hawke. Proper wording is important, Selyboy. The Aideen thing is just weird though. Other Belhalla survivors do things. Aideen does nothing. She's alive because... she's alive. I don't know why actually. Did Kaga just feel merciful for her magnificent locks or what? Get used to the stench. lmao. Well that's a random gag, but I like it. Let's not forget that this was a bug. I think. Uhh... I seem to recall people discovered this ship was a bug? Or maybe Kaga just considered it a feature. Eh, who cares. For the record, there's a way to get both. They're gotten when you seize whichever castle turns on you when you recruit one of the brothers. The others turn green, so you can't seize the castle... Unless a certain group of enemies seize it, then you can seize it back from them and get Julia both her tomes. I believe that's how it went? Your call if that's too tedious to do or not. ...Also I don't remember which Roger gave which tome lmao, though I think nosferatu's probably better. Probably.

Perhaps I misremembered. It was a while back. The problem wasn't the amount of text, anyway, it was the genre, the tone and the characters, which weren't to my (personal, subjective) liking. And, again, the fact that the first map was basically a glorified cutscene before throwing me at more comedic hijinks. I decided the game was not the kind of game I enjoy, which is fine, I'm not saying it's bad at all, I'm just saying it's not my kind of game. That's all I've ever said, and I'm sorry if it came across differently. But, really, that's enough. I shouldn't have said anything at all. My bad.

See, this is why I usually try to avoid talking about SRW with you. Clearly I need to be more diligent about it.

Come now, be fair with me. I picked it up for like 90 minutes. Spent 30 of those reading exposition and another 30 reading comedic hijinks, leading to a first map less complex than the Sacred Stones prologue. Then more hijinks. No ill-will towards the series, it's just not my preferred kind of strategy game. Or story. Good music, though! Whatever it takes to keep making more romcoms that are all identical, I guess.

Have you ever considered that every person of color in the game looks gray? ...Oh my God his own kids are racists against Garon. Now I'm never going to be able to unsee it... In my run Tristan died unceremoniously stalling Brian because I had nobody that could kill the guy lmao Instead, I killed Arvis with the only character that deserved it. To be honest, it fits. He finally got there to find everyone dead and Arvis's cronies long gone. He swore revenge... On the "no armored knights until late midgame", I mean... That's basically how it is in FE4 gen 2 as it is. Not that anybody minds, because armor knights in this game are at the height of their badness. Bors, Wendy and Barth are walking memes but they are at least usable if you put your back into it. In this game? You need to put your back, eyeballs, liver, urethra and house insurance into it and it's still probably just going to result in a bunch of burnt villages.

This is the only SRW song I know, because it was a boss theme in a FE hack. I can agree, it is rather 🔥

Highly based.

I mean, you can always go the Gay Fates route. I'd have loved if Xander just kept on being like "no my dad is awesome, this proves nothing" and then Corncob eats shit and dies. Oh, I'm not saying they're identical, but they do tend to be brought up together (probably because the topic tends to be "good FE villains" and there's not exactly many), and I find Lyon's tragedy to be done a lot better than Arvis's, different execution and all. Imagine discouraging hoarding. Greatest strategy game of all time FE6 would never.

At least in other games they recolor the hair as well. This game just has seven of the same guy wearing different capes.

I instantly died by making the wrong first choice. Amazing.