[I'm in over my head - A bad player's first Ironman Fire Emblem 12 run (and first let's play)!]

15 hours ago, KnightOfNohr said:

I say keep, the default hair. BTW, what does LTC mean?

It means Low Turn Count. If more than one unit dies in the prologue, to access chapter 3x, you have to beat it in less than 28 turns on this difficulty. And that map is long as hell. That's why I am so worried about losing units. Not that I've lost anyone yet. Wink wink.

No update just yet. For reasons beyond my comprehension, serenesforest is cutting down the max total size of the files I can upload. Last update it was at 3.91 MB which is why I had to cut the ending out, now it's a measly 880 KB. I'll have to find a mirror to upload the pictures. I've always used Facebook for the odd picture I had to send somewhere, but for this many screenshots it wouldn't be very practical. I'll find a way, and see if I can push the next update by tonight.

EDIT: Okay, Imgur looks good. I still won't be able to do this until tonight, so sit tight, viewers.

[I'm in over my head - A bad player's first Ironman Fire Emblem 12 run (and first let's play)!]

Another day, another part of my LP. Very well, let's place all the files in the virtual palette, ready to paint the next update.

...

Damnit, Luke, you weigh too much.

Part 3 - I think I made a grave mistake.

And had I known I wouldn't even be able to upload the full update, I wouldn't have done it.

Spoiler

With a whooping one vote, Ogma won, so we'll be telling Katarina that we are, in fact, worried about something. Pretzel then proceeds to prove why I dislike naming and modelling the avatar after myself. I would never describe the Roro Legion as "a funny man with a mask". Who do you think you're talking about, Pretz? The guy doubles you in size!

Of course you didn't. I don't think there's anything else to be said, here.

Oh dear, Pretzel now knows too much and is gonna get some poisoned mutton. You know who's never gotten some poisoned mutton? Marth. The king. Pretzel's so important, they use Historical King Killer 101 on him instead of on, y'know, the king. Naaaaah for that, it's best to call a bunch of early game units and chill three rooms away.

Speaking of the devil... why is Katarina here? I understand Marth being Marth would like to speak to Pretzel as the commander of the Best Platoon Ever, but why is Katarina here?

...oh, of course. The face. I get it, now.

...Best Platoon Ever?

Don't you dare.

You're probably expecting me to shit on this scene. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint, but this is rather in-character for Marth. He's an idealistic child, after all. Makes more sense than Elice who's never seen us before in her life.

(also, I don't know if it happens to anyone else, but having played Dishonored to death, I cannot see the phrase "I believe so" the same way anymore. As in, not laughing my ass off).

Prologue VI

We begin this chapter, as usual, with Luke saying things of little relevance to the plot. Gotta love him. Or at least, love to hate him.

Speaking of which, you still have an M in your forehead. Can't really tell you to comb your hair, though, I hardly ever do.

Oh wow. This is interesting.

Ryan looks like an eight year old, what kind of girls are there in here? And Rody's a damn corpse! What, exactly, are these weirdos into? They're worse than me!

I-I-I mean, they're worse than Luke! Dang it, Luke, you're the worst even at being a weirdo!

Well I mean, pretzels are quite tasty.

Oh, you mean my unfortunately-named MU. Well I mean, he could have inherited his father's unisex hips, for all we know.

Surprisingly, Luke doesn't inmediately save us some turns by punching Katarina in the nose, cancelling Prologue VIII, but actually seems to be aware of his status of "third wheel to Ryan and a dead body". Only to botch it all up at the end. Dang it, Luke.

Actually, scratch that, why wait to the end? He already messed it all up by forcing us through Prologue VIII by not kicking Katarina out right now, increasing my chances of having to LTC Matthis. Dang it already, Luke!

Your hair is nowhere near as long as Pretzel's, don't be silly. You can't fix your hair like him.

Then Jagen comes to praise us like always, except he forgot we're not in an ancient epic but in a 2010 videogame, translated by ordinary fans. Come now, that's cheesy as hell, especially when it comes after a Luke scene. I'm just joking, I actually really like the translation. Just in case some easily-triggered translators are reading this.

I hope, this is being too easy!

(Wrys, I think Rody's breaking free, go make sure he stays down).

Frey! I love Frey. He survived dying without getting an anime scar on his face. You'd do well to listen to him, Pretzel.

Never mind, they reduced him to part-time tutorial and exposition giver. Bah. Still awesome.

And we're done with the text at last! Here are our map and boss, Dr--

...

--Ogma, who can double everyone but Athena. And I guess Sheeda but I'm not bringing Sheeda.

I don't believe Ogma needs any introduction, but it's okay, you're likeable enough that I won't rant about your unnecesary formalities.

See? Even this innocent little woman knows about him.

And here is Cecille, who's more or less this game's Hardin, except she's nowhere near as tanky and doesn't get insta-silver lances. Now that I think about it, she's nothing like Hardin except for her join time compared to Luke/Rody and her growths.

It looks like Convenience has kept herself occupied. Thank you, Katie.

All right, time to work. Luke and an unarmed Athena will now ensure the enemies don't go anywhere near our squishy scrubs. I considered Cecil, but her defense is comparable to Wrys', so she'll just stay behind and distribute the convenient weaponery around the troops. This turn, she gives Ryan a steel bow.

First mistake of the day, I left Pretzel in range of this guy. Although, to be fair, it's more like a blessing in disguise, because this guy is the only ranged enemy in the map.

This is how things stand at the moment. Ogma and his cavalier friend have moved up to siege Luke. It would do Luke no good if that Fighter were to die, so let's just disa--

Dang it, Luke!

Jokes aside, this is perfectly fine. Luke has just enough luck not to get critted by Ogma, and the defense to take three hits. If I heal him, he won't follow his friend's footsteps.

You know what's NOT perfectly fine? This! DAAAAAAAAANGIIIIIIT LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKE!!!

Show him up, Wrys!

See? If green represented the stats that remain the same, Wrys would better than you, Luke! You better get up to speed, post-haste!

This is the second reason why worrying about Luke is not necesary. Ogma's decided Athena is a more worthy opponent for him. What an unfitting quote. Ogma, she's not a trainee. Hell, she's better than your boss version in this map!

I guess the second Fighter rushing up to take a shot at Luke helped his decision.

Well, not quite, but Ogma's better armed and his class gives him more HP. Let's just call it a draw.

The fighter almost killed himself battling Luke, giving us the perfect chance to feed Ryan some experience. For her part, Cecille gives Pretzel her Elfire tome.

Predictably, Ogma decides to attack Slowpoke Luke, who survives with little health and deals irrelevant damage.

And with some artillery action, courtesy of Pretzel and Ryan, we defeat the Gladiator.

Hah hah hah! Great! This kid's impressing me quite a bit! I never cared much for him, but that might change. Keep it up.

After that, all that remains is  to clean up. This guy is such a non-issue, I gave his kill to Cecille. It might very well be her one contribution to the cause, but hey, every bit helps.

This, I can understand. Ogma's more or less a legend in Archanea, defeating him, even in mock combat, is quite the accomplishment.

Another choice, so soon! This update's a bit too short for my liking.

Eh, we all know the correct choice, right?

No, Katarina, we don't agree with the likes of you!

Poor girl. I almost feel bad. One of these days I'll have to explain that I don't really hate Katarina this much.

Prologue VII

Thanks, Cain!

What exactly could Frey have told you? As much as I like the guy, all he did was give us a tutorial.

Such a subtle jab at The Walking Dead.

And here's the map of the day, along with the boss, Est!

C'moooooooooooon gotta make it interesting somehow. Unlike the Gordin/Athena choice, where Gordin would be completely useless while Athena's Jeigan, Est is not that much worse than Cain, and her resistance allows her to be of use against the Mages in Prologue VIII. Besides, the most Cain can get in his one prologue chapter is one level, unless you feed him everyone which is basically impossible. He doesn't need this to be good. Then again, Est doesn't see any use ever, but eh.

...yeah I know, I made a mistake and will probably have to LTC Matthis. We've already been over that.

So, let's use this chance to have a chat with our friend the prologue Jeigan.

Well, your english is quite good for a foreigner. You have the most unique kind of recurrent typo I've ever seen, but hey, at least it's not you're fault. Your quite alright, Athena.

W-what!? N-no! Of course not! I only think them... ahem I mean--

...I... how dare... h-how dare you belittle me so?!

Then again I am into that sort of-- I mean LUKE might be into that sort of thing. Dang it Luke!

...

Moving right on.

Look, a distraction! Everyone hates Est, now that she's shown her mug there'll be no hatred left for me or my interests. Hahah you were Abel's downfall. Such an idiotic wench.

Time for combat. Est oversees the battle from the rightmost corner.

See, this map is easier when Est is the boss. We start here, even further away from the boss than if we'd gone for Cain, and there are only two ways to access our healer, which can easily be blocked.

I had this planned and it surely wasn't dumb luck because I've never played this version before.

Formation time. Quite a predictable one.

Except for the fact that I, again, forgot about Archers in range of Pretzel. Steel bow Archers, at that! I'm gonna have him killed by accident, one of these days. The other one goes for Ogma.

Annoying Archers. Meet the graceful Athena! Who now hates me!

This is the part where I've no choice but to heal Ogma, but feel uneasy about it because in Cain's version, one of the reinforcements is a Pegasus that can cover the entire battlefield. Alas, my worries were unfounded.

We fight and break through the enemy lines.

Awesome! That's a masterpiece of a level, Jeigana. Athena's situation is somewhat unfortunate with her awfully late returning time (only beating Est), but one more level like this and she'll be quite solid after coming back. Hell, even with just this one she'll be decent!

 

And now the reinforcements show up. I'd already moved Wrys, correctly guessing they'd come this turn. Turns out I worried for nothing: two Cavaliers and a handaxe Fighter. Reinforcements befitting of their leader. Cain's Pegasus Knight was much more threatening.

Athena was in low health after taking care of the other Fighter, though, and the cavalier brought her dangerously low. And Est has also started to move, which I should have been prepared for but alas, we've already established I'm bad.

Alas is a word that has always confused me as a spaniard. You see, "alas" in spanish is plural for "ala", which means "wing". This has absolutely no relation to the english meaning of the word. I remember in my young, non-english speaking days, I thought people just started to talk in spanish randomly. Then again, I barely read or listened to any english back then.

Wanna know something else? This has absolutely no relation to the task at hand, either. So let's just stop rambling and get on murdering the Lesser Whitewing.

...oh look, turns out there IS a link between my ramblings and the task at hand. Huh. I'm dumbstruck.

Ryan and Ogma take care of the Cavaliers and... I'm in a bit of a bad spot. You see, both Luke and Athena get killed in one round of combat with Est unless I heal them. I can't just heal one and let the other drink some Vulnerary, because I need all three of Pretzel, Athena and Luke to bring down Est reliably. Ryan can't reach her to end the battle inmediately, and he can't help Ogma box Wrys up either, because the Cavalier just barely survived Athena and I need him out of the way. And attacking the Pegasus Knight with ordinary iron tier weapons doesn't pack quite enough punch to do her in. What does this all add up to?

It, my friend, adds up to having to hit thrice with this hitrate, give or take one or two numbers. Anything else, and we'll be waving goodbye one of our units.

You know, Ironman runs may be frustrating, but I can assure you, nothing I've ever done in Fire Emblem has ever been this intense. And I don't always play with save states. Not even that one time I beat FE6 without them. Just the thought of having to LTC Matthis, man. I am really looking forward to getting out of this accursed prologue.

Believe it or not, I'm not sure.

Okay Pretzel didn't ruin everything. Well done, Pretzel. But we're far from being out of the woods.

Athena fares slightly better against Est, but that doesn't mean squat when she still gets 2-shot. Seriously, missing any of these thrusts might very well turn out to be crippling for the LP. It would be up to Est whether we'd lose one of our combat units (of which we don't exactly have many to spare, at this stage) or our healer. And I haven't even mentioned Matthis.

Fantastic! She's on the ropes now.

Luke trades 10% more hit in exchange of making me lose not just one unit but TWO if he is to fail. And no, the iron sword doesn't help either, it has, in fact, the exact same accuracy against Est. It's all or nothing now!

Yeah, it might not seem that impressive to you, cold-hearted viewer, but for me, it was a huge relief to see this.

This, too, was a sight to behold. He now has higher defense than Cain. He's still not as tanky because of his lower HP, but he'll nonetheless do fine. Not that Cain was any better against the Mages anyway.

Or Est for that matter, existent resistance be damned, that 20 HP is just ludicrous. Est, please, your boss form is better than that! The only other ones that share that trait are Luke and Rody, and they're level 1 growth Cavaliers so it's understandable that they'd give them a boost to make them decent bosses.

Anyway.

The handaxe fool kills himself on Pretzel. No kidding, he was wounded last turn when he tried to boomerang Ryan. That was enough to allow Elfire to make short work of his sorry life.

This gives Pretzel some much needed speed. Perhaps not right now, but he'll be needing it later. I would appreciate some defense, considering you're not going to get Nosferatu, but I guess a reclass to Dark Mage can fix that somewhat.

And that's a wrap! The conclusion of Prologue VII will be included in the next update, because I can't fit it in here.

To finish this update up and to make up for not letting you vote the Cain/Est matter, I'll let you decide whether or not Pretzel will be wearing Cecille's headband. Please, do tell me what you think.

Personaly, I don't like it. The female version looks better and it looks really out of place when put in a Mage with a monocle, but I'll do what you think is best. And with that, I fare you all well.

[I'm in over my head - A bad player's first Ironman Fire Emblem 12 run (and first let's play)!]

All right, time to check out my Let's Play! Boy, can't wait to read all the replies--

...

...

Perfect! Now I can choose Athena and fight her instead of Jeorge who has 2 range and OHKOs Sheeda! And to top it off, I'll get a Jeigan instead of Ryan 1.02!

...

...I'd feel better if one of those guys who accidentally click on my thread said something, though. Even if it's just to shit on my Fire Emblem skills...

Part 2 - Dangit, Luke is becoming my best unit.

Spoiler

Prologue IV

We open to Luke drooling over getting a sexy nurse right out of Pornhub on the team, more or less. This ain't no Advance Wars, Luke. Being at full health doesn't make you hit harder. It only makes you not die. Sometimes.

Oh I know and I'm glad it's there 'cause this is like, literally, the best scene in the entire game.

Well maybe not, but it's close. Literally!

...Also I just noticed the face he's making. To be frank, it was just dumb luck, but it's so perfect I'm proud of myself anyways.

Ever thought of changing your name to Convenience, Katarina?

Oh, right, I forgot, Katarina isn't even your re--

FUCKING HELL LUKE let me make my bad references to future events without going berserk over boobies! This game doesn't even have the berserk staff!

Heheheheheheh... aahhh I love this scene. It's so amazing. So, so very amazing. IntSys more or less fully acknowledged Wrys' meme status here.

Oh dear, another perfect blinking shot. Poor Luke. He's probably trying his best not to impale Wrys WITH HIS LANCE... AS IN, THE WEAPON... and then slit his own throat with his sword.

Then again Luke might be into that sort of--

No! No no no no please don't leave, you one watcher! I won't do that again, I promise.

Boy, this just keeps getting better and better. You see this? Can you really blame me for doing those terrible jokes? They make it too easy.

Then Cain introduces us to our foe of the day... who again, isn't an Altean soldier. Think about it, the only Altean soldier we've fought so far is Jagen. They probably heard of Pretzel's Mary Sue powers and decided to stay away.

Can't really blame Arran for not even showing up in the prologue, though. He probably has more important matters to attend to, like trying to keep his insides, well, inside. I'm serious, I actually really like Arran, both as a character and as a Jeigan.

Okay, so, now I could be a douchebag and mock her accent but that would be racism, and racism is bad. I won't fall so low!

Eeeeeehhhh settle for the frying pan.

...well I didn't say anything about mysoginy, did I?

...

Oh crap I just remembered, one of the mods is a girl.

Fuck. Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh hey Eclipse! I recall you like Tomas...? I do too! Check my profile, he's right there listed as one of my favs from FE12!

...don't move your mouse too close to the "ban user" button though... i-it would be a real shame if, say, an unfortunate accident were to happen... right?

...

Let's just move on.

Not really, no, Jeorge is much more threatening. Now watch as I am proven wrong. Well not really 'cause Jeorge is still more threatening I'm just bad but...

Okay, so this is our map of the day. If there had been anyone to vote for Jeorge you guys had voted for Jeorge, I wouldn't have won  there would have been a few changes in the layout. Most importantly, an axe user to destroy your tankiest units (who aren't very tanky to begin with) and two archers counting Jeorge. I believe Jeorge's version of the map to be harder, although the payoff is that if you play through Jeorge's version, you get a level 5 sniper at this stage of the game Gordin, who, unlike Athena, is still there at chapter 1. Still not worth it, having Ryan and all.

Here's our formation. I failed to capture it before ending the turn, and then I failed to capture the level up Luke got after ruining my strategy by critting one of the soldiers. This is where I tried to materialise into the game to punch Luke in the face for making me LTC Matthis.

But in the end, he was saved by the world's worst Myrmydon who did exactly enough damage to ORKO Luke, but lacked the speed to double. Thanks, Samto faceless generic. Your incompetence will be remembered.

...or not, because this is looking really, really bad.

Sheeda kills the Archer so as not to force me to LTC Matthis.

Man, I really am scared of LTCing Matthis. But, can you blame me? It's such a long map if you try to recruit the idiot. And even if you don't, you still have to waste a billion turns to recruit Julian to get the good ending. They thought of everything! The only way they could have made it even more can'tbearsedtodoeverything-proof is if they gave Matthis an undroppable Starshard.

But enough about the future, let's focus on the task at hand. Yes, yes, Wrys is in danger there, but he won't get killed, and will only pull one of the two remaining enemies, ensuring nobody d--

...

I swear, when I was making Pretzel, this wasn't my intention. It wasn't the plan to make sure all the enemies would go for him first, increasing the chances of him dying before anyone else and in turn, decreasing the chances of me having to LTC Matthis.

I guess my terribad fanfic just turned out all right for me. That, and my obsession with training back units and making stuff unnecesarily more difficult for myself.

Regardless, new strategy. This is why Athena's version is easier: at least on hard, this strategy is perfectly viable, while Jeorge would have made my life miserable if I tried this with him.

This is the plan: Luke will keep the point chocked, Wrys will keep him alive, Sheeda will provide eye candy to increase Luke's morale (if he manages to look through Wrys, that is) and Ryan and Pretzel will rain down pain on our enemies.

Man you've got to wonder, how do a Mage and an Archer do mock combat? You can't exactly hold back with arrows, otherwise they just fall to the ground and you end up looking like an idiot. And Pretzel makes even less sense. The guy doesn't just fire sparks at the enemy, he flings fireballs as big as himself at them, and their whole bodies are engulfed by the flames! You can't just retreat from that! These guys aren't named bosses, they lack that ability.

The reason I've typed this little spiel down is to draw your attention away from the fact that I forgot to attack the Myrmidon with Pretzel.

Anyway, this Soldier survives Luke's assault with one HP, and for once, I actually did expect this to happen. If I were to end this guy now, the injured Soldier at his right would attack Luke, dying as well, and then Athena would make short work of Luke's remaining health.

I love this feature. Probably the best quality of life feature IntSys added in the DS era. Not that I really needed it right now, Wrys has the inventory spaces and Luke isn't going to move anywhere, but it's still welcome.

 

Things aren't looking half bad. We should be ready to begin our assault in a turn or two. For now though, Wrys will engage into some sexy mage-on-mage action, just for Luke.

Fuck I promised. DON'T BAN MEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Whatever, one turn later, after the Mercenary's offscreen death in mock combat, the soldier gets skewered by Luke in mock combat. It is time!

Damnit Luke, it was time before you interrupted everything to get a level! Can't really complain though. He missed two very important stats, but I appreciate the defense.

Never mind, looks like it wasn't time after all, because Ryan, too, got a level after chipping down Athena. Mighty fine one, too! That speed is Ryan's crippling flaw, but if he keeps this up, he might just become a permanent staple in the team until I kill him with my carelessness.

Athena foolishly charges at Luke in the enemy phase and is almost killed and I won't go there again. I considered letting Luke have his way at her and I won't go there again, but didn't want to risk him dying, so I just raised the temperature around her and... need I say more?

Pretzel gets this level. I'm glad I butchered canon to make him the child of a farmer, because his unusually high HP is the only thing keeping him alive-ish at this point.

This magnificent man is even more pathetic than last time. Ryan takes the kill, which I believe I screencapped but can't be arsed to check.

But before wrapping things up, Wrys gets a level! Look at that. All the important stats. Learn from your dreamy cleric, Luke. Fun fact: the Wrys in my signature didn't have the growth drop. I didn't know of its existance when I did that one. It was just Wrys' own magical genius and a crapton of RNG manipulation.

Sigh... MORE unwarranted praising!? Sure, he was more useful than Sheeda, but he didn't do any more than Ryan, and Luke's the indisputable MVP of the chapter! Praise Luke!

...that was way too out of character, I apologize. Uh... well, can't blame her for refusing to talk to Luke. Yeah. Good enough.

Hard to forget such a bad name.

Oh... greeeeeeat... *kicks Rody's corpse out of sight*

Hey, bronze medal! That isn't so bad. Well, that is, unless there are only three platoons. I wonder what would Cain have told me if I lost everyone?

...well it's not very remarkable. The neutral version is more interesting, though. Cain mentions "tenth" is "just in the middle". So third really is good! Marvelous!

This is Pretzel's Mary Sue flaw™, he's Wallace except he doesn't casually destroy a gang of brigands while trying to find his way home. 

Then the king's sister nonchalantly comes up to a (at this point of the story) unimportant private and talks shit about Marth to him. Granted, for us players this really isn't so special because these are all named characters to us, but from a story perspective, it's kinda weird.

While we're here, I'll talk shit about Elice as well. Way to be ungrateful. He saves your ass and you criticize him for being kindhearted. Dangit Elice, what do you want? A tyrant for a brother? I'm joking, I get what she's trying to say, but it's still really strange.

Oh dear. Well, then it's about time I closed this thread and stopped playing. Wouldn't want to be remembered by history as the "Guy who Drove the Hero King Marth to Suicide".

Sigh... why this guy? You don't even know his name! Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the game's universe, I don't believe a giant brown box appears whenever someone speaks and their name is displayed inside a grey rectangle above it. There's no reason for this woman to make this request to this random, faceless squire.

Unless, of course, she just tells this to everyone she meets because she thinks so lowly of her brother, she thinks literally anyone would be fit to help him. Yeah. That'll be my new headcanon.

Prologue V

It's a sad day when Luke calls you out for being a bumbling imbecile. I take it all back, you're not even remotely close to a Mary Sue, Pretzel. No writer would ridicule their dear Mary Sues so.

AH! A GHOST! KILL IT!

BOOM

...oh dear, what a mess I've made...

Hold on...

Much better. That'll do until you fall into no-line hell.

Fuck it fell off--

What...? How... h-how did you...?

This is the prologue, remember? We don't die here, we just retreeaaaaaaat. Mock combat!

But... I...

...come to think about it, I don't even have a gun...

I... uh... let's just... blame it on the wind and move on.

A-anyway...

Luke, you dolt, Jagen's not going to kill us. If anything, he'll wear us down in order to feed our kills to his weaker friends. I know I already made that joke, c'mon it can't be that obvious.

What a great idea, master strategist. Let's march all night! Genius! Except for the part where we march the wrong way all night and by morning we find ourselves in Khadein.

such suprise i can see in ur fais """"""""""katarina""""""""""

I like this scene, because it's one of those rare cases in which the generic bandit named Bandit is actually the boss, and not just the guy who says "man I love pillaging, oh lookie there soldiers" to the actual, slightly less generic bandit boss.

And there we go! This is our map, complete with the boss who doesn't even get to keep his portrait and instead shows us his amazing squatting skills. Except he isn't really squatting. Maybe he's got lumbago.

And for the record, I'm not slavic, I'm spanish. Spanish from Spain, Europe. It's kind of awkward. For you englishmen, the George/Jeorge change means next to nothing, but for me, since the spanish G and J are pronounced vastly differently (sometimes, anyway), whenever I see Jeorge I instinctively think of something along the lines of "*disgusting sound of forcing phlegm into your mouth to spit*eorge". Which is fucking atrocious.

...where was I? Oh right, prologue V, FE12.

This is the plan. Athena will bait the barbarian and hunter on the right up, Pretzel will do the same with their offscreen southern counterparts, Ryan and Luke will stick around to help finish them off, Wrys will keep a prudent distance and Sheeda will, once again, chill at a corner because there are bow users in the map.

And for once, it works out perfectly! Athena jeigans the barbarian.

Oh wait, not everything worked as planned because I completely forgot about this thief. I was actually really worried he'd go for Pretzel, but I'm going to guess he was just out of his range, because he decided to go hit on Athena. Which still isn't very good, she was left with 3 HP (neither 7 nor 1 because I'm bad at taking screenshots. But look, it's such a great combat shot!). But we lived, so I'm happy.

Oh. Merric.

Let me tell you a little story, this is actually my third LP. The first two were in a private chat with a friend, taking pictures of the screen with my phone. Real shitty fun between friends, y'know. He had never even heard of Fire Emblem before that. When I showed him FE12, Merric turned out shitty as hell, completely outclassed by Linde and just an overall liability. So we developed this inside joke that Merric sucks and is the worst unit in the entire series.

So forgive me if I sound a tad unimpressed when he's around. It's just habit by now, I'm afraid. We still use Merric as an insult from time to time.

In any case, Luke's our lowest leveled character, so he gets the thief kill. No levels just yet, but he's in the 90s, so one more fight and he'll get there.

Athena then weaken--

Errrrrgh...

So, let's assess the situation. If I let him live one more turn, he'll kill Athena. If I retreat to heal, he'll kill Wrys.

Well. You may have him, Athena.

Like so.

Pretzel's running low on mock fire. Go ahead Merric, give him your fake fire tome for training. Hold on, but Merric just arrived, why would he be carrying a fake--

Never mind I just remembered we're fighting real chapter 1 bandits now. It's all good.

He then finishes off the barbarian, and Sheeda avenges the self-pride she lost last chapter by doing role-reversal.

Is it Lilina? Is it Lute? No! It's a slow-ass mage MU! You can tell it's not Lute or Lilina because his HP is higher than 18.

And would you look at that, everything went as planned! The map is empty, save for our friend Memorabulus.

Athena fares well, but I fear that 6% crit. So I just let Luke trade some blows with Bandit Ruffian and get his level-up.

...

Now, Luke, you might have been fooled by my acting and my impressive photoshop paint.net skills, but... Rody's coming back. And Cecil's on her way, and Draug is great as Cavalier, and then there's Frey, Cain, the sabre knights...

What I'm trying to tell you is, this better not happen again.

Okay so now Pretzel--

Sorry, I mean...

Ryan--

Bah. Well then, it's up to Luke and Athena now.

Luke retreats for some intimate time with his lovely Staffman after one more round of combat with Rufus Band, and Athena engages in combat with him. Things aren't looking too bright for him.

I'd rather have given Ruffian Bandit's kill to Ryan or Pretzel, but I do NOT want to risk missing and having to LTC Matthis, so Luke does the honors. He's still tied with Ryan for the lowest level, so it's fine.

And now we meet Louise doing a Murdock cosplay and going on about how... something, was easier than taking candy from a baby...? Seriously? That's hard as hell! Their parents would sue the crap out of you and some more if you tried!

But no really, what exactly was the point of this? Pillaging a village just in case we got lost and happened to walk by, and decided to drive them away, making Marth take an interest on us, proceeding to knight us personaly so your inside woman can call in a bunch of barbarians, hunters, mages and thieves to kill us while she chills down the corridor for Arran or anyone else to just waltz in and kill her? Assuming, of course, that Katarina would be assigned into a platoon that would make it through the initial tests in the first place, whose commander would have a really bad sense of orientation to make this scenario even remotely possible?

Seems like a really, really, REAAAAAAALLY, REEEEEEAAAAAAALLYYYYYY bad plan to me. But it works because plot.

And here, we come across the Draug/Ogma choice. I'm more or less neutral here, as they're both equally difficult if I'm not mistaken. So feel free to abstain again so I can choose whoever I want!

That would be all. I'll be seeing you tomorrow. Hopefully, not at 2:00 P.M.

[I'm in over my head - A bad player's first Ironman Fire Emblem 12 run (and first let's play)!]

11 hours ago, KnightOfNohr said:

Honestly, your writing is pretty good, though it is considered favorable to use "all right" instead of "alright" in formal writing. I look forward to seeing your first update! :)

Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.

Alright All right, now for real! Without further ado, let us begin this!

(one thing I perhaps should have said in the OP, I am going to assume you all know the story of this game, so I'll be pretty liberal with the spoilers. There, now you can't say I didn't warn you).

Part 1 - I suck at this game and at naming things.

Spoiler

 

This will be our avatar. This is the reason behind the pretzels tag. Ain't it just a ton of fun?

...

I tried.

Pretzel's going to be a red haired mage with a monologe. He's Etzel's long lost son, born just a few weeks prior to Dolhr's attack on Etzel's town, which resulted in Ursula's death and Pretzel's disappearance. In truth, an old warrior was able to save the baby and flee the town before the Dolhrian forces razed it to the ground. Believing Etzel to be dead, he then raised Pretzel until he passed away. As a retired knight, Pretzel's adoptive grandfather tried to teach him the art of war, but quickly came to realise that he was not cut for physical combat, but instead had an extraordinary talent for magic. So he sent the young mage to Khadein as he began to feel death closing in on him.

After Gharnef took over the city-state, Pretzel escaped and wandered aimlessly for some time. In his travels, he heard all sorts of tales about the hero king Marth and how he won battle after battle without losing one man, and grew to really admire him. And so, some time after the end of the war, Pretzel felt ready to become a knight of Altea and meet the legend in person, and perhaps find his father, whom he never believed to be dead.

There you go, that's the fanfic I made up in five minutes. Ain't it just a ton of fun?

...

I tried. Slightly more this time, too. Do I at least get a rolling Knoll? Pretty please?

These are Pretzel's traits. We never did know Ursula's occupation. She might be a farmer, for all we know.

What, valkyrie? Don't be silly, that one lives in Elibe, there's no way. Is there?

Yeah, please, before I lose all the readers.

Prologue I

I know what you're thinking, "that was the worst joke of a name I've ever seen", but look! Katarina likes it! She couldn't possibly be lying!

Here are the christmas cavaliers of this game. I don't like Luke too much. These womanizer types never truly appealed to me, other than Saul for the irony of him being a priest of all things. Rody's Kent. And Lance. And Abel. And Kyle. I still like him for having green armor.

Crap! Jagen's a red unit! He's a traitor! He's gonna chip all of us down to one health and feed the kills to his soldier pal!

Oh maaaaan we'll be facing the reeeeeaaaaaaaal Altean knights. In mock combat.

Also Katarina can't fight wink wink. I guess this means we, as players, take control of Katarina during the prologue...? And I guess Jagen during the main game. Honestly, I like Jagen's lines more than anything the Avatar has to say, so I'm fine with that. That's also why I never called the Avatar after me. I just like to consider them as another character. Who's really important for some reason. Besides, I already have a name-fellow in this game. See if you can guess who it is.

And so, our quest begins! Pretzel's more gifted in magic than Yubello. That's about it. Mage MU was never very remarkable.

The action in these first couple of chapters is pretty crap. Here, have a couple of shots of people getting torched to death incapacitation. Back to the story.

Oh right, almost forgot our first level. Eh. Not that good but... sufficient.

Eh... well you can technically expect much from Katarina but... not in a way you'd like, Jagen.

The Marth comes in and Katarina apparently has never seen his face. Right.

And this is where I missed a line I wanted to screencap, so I just reset the game. But I forgot that, unlike the GBA fire emblems, this one doesn't automatically suspend when you shut down the game. So... I more or less failed the "resetless" challenge. Already.

Damnit IntSys, you added all those quality of life features like skipping turns and combat, and disarming units without trading all their stuff away, and you take away this?

And then I replayed, and replayed, and replayed again to try to get the same level up and--

Oh dear... that's... that's really good... NO! I mustn't succumb to the temptation! I said I'd do this without resetting and that's what I'm doing! Sort of!

Eventually, I settled for just redoing the character and starting over. Which, at this stage, is exactly the same as resetting again, but eh, it's the intention that counts.

This is the real first level. The exact same thing but with one HP. Close enough.

I guess I will be using save states after all. Wouldn't want to miss the chance to make an awful joke.

This is the line I missed. I like how I caught Jagen with his eyes closed. He's like "sigh... damn kid, why won't you just shut up and actually listen to the guy you're drooling over?". Totaly worth breaking the rules.

And then Marth does this and Katarina and Pretzel say good things about him which I didn't quite catch.

Prologue II

What a coincidence!

What a coincidence, too! I didn't screencap Rody because, c'mon, when have the christmas cavaliers ever joined separatedly? Oscar and Kieran? Who are those?

Ryan's not very noteworthy as a character. He's more or less FE11 Gordin if he was allowed to talk.

Time to pick a commander, then--

Luke, nobody's insist--

Exactly!

And then we decide that, obviously, the best way to choose choose the commander is to beat the crap out of eachother and the one with the least broken bones will be it. Katarina doesn't count because she can't fight, nor heal.

Bring it on, Luke. Pretzel'll burn those hair horns right off.

Thus, we jump right into combat. Luke won't even wait for Rody. I mean, sure, you've got one more point in all the stats that matter but it's always nice to have the numerical advantage.

...then again this is Fire Emblem, so Luke has the right idea.

Also, wow were so gud. we praised by jaigan. i much beter.

Together, Pretzel and Ryan beat, uh... the uh... future hero? Dunno, Luke, I like Frey better. Maybe if I lose him, and Cain, and Rody, and Belf and Leiden, and Cecil. Hey, don't be sad, I'd use you over Matthis and the Wolfguard.

As of the level up, not too bad. But I'd like if you stopped getting "not too bad" levels and started to behave like a real self-insert Mary Sue with perfect levels every time. Think you can handle that, Pretzel?

Then we set Rody ablaze as well. Nothing noteworthy happens here.

I'm happy you didn't go "I'm still the best hurr durr but I'll let you be the commander". Kudos to you, Luke.

Then he discusses with his friend why they lost. Rody's right, Luke. Haven't you heard the most iconic Fire Emblem song aside from the main theme? Y'know what it's called? Together we ride! You ride together if you want to win! Those support bonuses you're bound to have built during your years as friends would have given you the edge you needed to end the playthrough right here.

As opposed to the Aurelian knights who'd rather fight with Wolf.

The question is, does he get anything?

Or... are you wondering if he gets what you really...

Nah, Katarina wouldn't think so highly of Luke.

Prologue III

Cain! You can tell he's older because he's looking down instead of up like in FE11 or whatever he was doing in FE1!

We'll have a contest in the form of combat. Is there really any other way?

...oh god. Luke! Don't you dare join the enemy! Sheeda's betrothed. As Roger learnt a tad too late.

There we go. This should be easy.

We bait the enemies into attacking us, exchanging blows. Pretzel gets this level up that looks like it's really great, but then you look at it carefuly and realise he only has a real use for two, maybe three of those stats.

And besides, it doesn't matter because I suck.

First reset. Amazing. Such resetless. Much ironman.

Okay, new plan. And by the way, just in case you think I'm killing Pretzel off when I'm in danger of losing someone, I really am not. I know you've no reason to believe me, but seriously, I'm not trying to cheese my own rules, as you'll soon see.

Cutting it close there, Rody...

DAMNIT NO! I couldn't find a way to kill three people / get Rody to a safe place. So there goes our first unit. Bleh.

God fucking damn it all to hell.

Go and die Rody. I'd rather you didn't but I chose to do this and I'm sticking with it to the bitter end.

Speaking of which...

This... this is going to end horribly, is it not? I'm more scared of losing units here than in the main game, actually. At least there I can reclass or use one of the other guys in the same class. But if I lose anyone else before chapter 1, I'll be forced to be efficient in chapter 3! And I hate chapter 3! And I'm bad at LTCing!

All right, plan C. We do this nifty little formation. Rody's given his lance to Luke, worry not.

Like so. He'll keep this fighter entertained for a couple turns. Well I did say I'd kill these dead people walking as soon as possible. If I simply throw him into Sheeda's range, I'll just lose again.

Ryan, meanwhile, will be taking this guy's sword to the face until I can kill him. The leftmost fighter can't reach us, so things are looking fine for the moment.

Pretzel gets a level that's the exact same as his first one, even if it looks different, and Luke finds a new fighting partner while avenging Rody's leg or something. He's almost the same. He also wears green armor. And he also wears green armor.

Then he catches sight of Sheeda and forgets Rody and his advice entirely. I mean... you do you, friend, but she's the fiancee of the king. And he still has the Falchion at this point of the game. Do you really want to go there?

Ryan saves Luke from embarrassing himself by giving Sheeda more important things to worry about, and gets a Ryan Level-up™ in the process. I don't know about you, but I'm not really feeling our earlygame scrubs thus far.

My, my, we're such gud knights-in-the-making! We defy everybody's expectations! No, I don't know any Rody, why should I?

You don't say! I thought we were going to call you to kick our asses some more.

Then again Luke might be into that sort of--

Okay, okay, I'll lay off Luke now. Jeez.

Oh look! It's a chance to pretend to be one of those good, popular LPers and give the readers something to vote for! Pick the units I'll be getting in the prologue. The choices are Athena/JeorgeGordin, Draug/Ogma and Cain/Est. Don't vote for Est you assholes. Don't make me regret doing this more than I already am. Is the emotional blackmail working? Please do let me know.

And with that, I fare you all well. Until next time, when hopefully, I won't lose anybody else.

Although, I guess I could afford to... I mean losing early cash hurts but there's that hidden bullion in chapter 1 anyways, and... how hard can it really be to get 3x?

...

I usually reach Julian around turn 30...

 

...I'll see you in the next part.

[I'm in over my head - A bad player's first Ironman Fire Emblem 12 run (and first let's play)!]

23:04 P.M., somewhere in the world. A random nerd's room.

Man, it's so much fun playing Fire Emblem! I just love it, all of my units have been blessed by the RNG goddess.

Look at that avatar. She even started as an archer! No wonder they gave her a 10/10 in that old Rate the Unit thread...

My army is invincible. Even Maris can't get killed. Huh. Maris. What's her new official name? Malice? Malicia? Marlacilis? Who knows, I sure don't.

Oh man Palla died. I was foolish to place her there. Well, it's just my fourth playthrough.

That's better. Ogma isn't sitting on a flying creature, therefore he survives getting shot in the neck with an arrow.

...this is so boring. Where did I go wrong? I was playing maniac like a boss! My stats weren't so good, Wrys hadn't capped anything yet. And Tiki died so easily, having to reload the turn was so annoying... but even with these huge handicaps, I still can't shake this feeling that this is too easy. How strange... what shall I do?

...

LET'S PLAY AS KAGA INTENDED US TO!

This is more or less how I got the idea to do this. That, and having recently watched Markyjoe's video on Fire Emblem's balancing.

So, out of tremendous boredom, I decided to do a LP in a foreign language, taking away the ability to reset which I'd never done before, and publish it for all the pros to gaze upon over the shoulder in disdain. I might not even be able to finish this (I'll try as hard as I can, though), as I begin college in around a month, but hey, I just wanted to try this let's playing schtick out. Please bear with me. Not that I expect this to become anything big, but eh, if I can manage to get a stable replier or two, I'll be happy.

The rules are as follows.

- Obviously, I won't be resetting. If I lose a unit, I'll have to press on and use a replacement. Hopefuly, I won't have to settle for using Matthis or Frost or anything like that. I'll also try to recruit everyone and get every gaiden. That would be sweet.

Units defeated in the prologue won't be considered dead for good, and I'll be free to use them in the main game. I think having to LTC Matthis should be enough of a punishment for leaving Wrys and Caeda in range of Jeorge and his archer buddy.

- The only exceptions to this rule will be Marth and MU (whom I have already created, by the way, so I'm afraid I won't do like the good Let's Players and let the viewers participate), as well as the unit who will take the Growth Drop. This is mostly because I don't trust my skills and, well, I'd like to have more than one "permanent" unit to help the seizebot sit on the throne. Now, don't worry, I won't give it to Palla or anything like that. It'll be an early game terribad unit. Place your bets. Once more, because I am a bad LPer, I already have someone in mind.

If any of these die, I will reset the chapter. If I lost any of the other units before resetting, I'll disarm them and kill them off as soon as possible. I won't be allowed to change anything in the prepscreen, either. If I have to reset five times because I forgot to give Marth the starsphere the first time, so be it.

As of the Bond Drop, the Rainbow Potion, and the lunatic statboosters, I won't be using them.

- I will use the reclassing feature. I'll try to have one of each class, though.

- I'll be playing on H1, again, because I don't trust my skills.

- And, just for the record, with this intro, I don't intend to insult people who use save states and the like. I use them a lot, it would be quite hypocritical of me to do such a thing. I just... figured it was an alright introduction to this thing.

- Lastly, I'd really appreciate if you guys behaved like grammar nazis and corrected my mistakes. Partly 'cause I'd dislike to have an ugly mess of a first (and probably last) LP, but improving my english will be of use in college. We could use this chance to turn Serenesforest into a Den of Education and Knowledge.

So, without further ado, let us... wait until tomorrow when I feel like typing down another part! And that's when the LP died.

[Let's Play Sword of Heaven and Earth: Dreaming Of A Better Lyn]

Skang's probably a long lost sibling of Cecilia, considering he shares her problem of having level 5 unpromoted bases as a promoted unit. Hell, genericman is way better than him. He even survives the chapter and returns later! (I'm only partialy joking)

Jeff's a fine unit, I'd say give him a chance. And if both him and Diane do well, they've a support together so you can always use them both. Their affinities (assuming the creator didn't change their bonuses) are just perfect for Diane, as they give her some much needed strength and crit for those armors that cannot be one-rounded. Jeff wouldn't be as well off, in my experience he's got speed troubles, and their support wouldn't give them any avoidance. But hey, it's an idea to consider.

I'm actually rather curious about how will you handle Theus. In both my runs I kinda forgot about him and just pressed on as I didn't trust either of my fliers to be able to take him. In retrospect I suppose I should have tried rescuedropping (what was I thinking? I did that for Skang but not this guy?) but Fenrir's not a very great tome anyways.

[Let's Play Sword of Heaven and Earth: Dreaming Of A Better Lyn]

Wait a minute, you're saying this Amy is worse than your previous one? God damnit, my Amy had that exact same strength after PROMOTING. And I promoted her at level 20! Also kinda envious of your fighters. Toby's more or less the same as when I tried to use him, but Gim was a failure in both runs.

Then again, my entire team is speed and nothing else in this second run. Even my General has more speed than strength! Might share it when I get to the end like I did with the first one, unless you guys think once is enough.

But enough about me. I'm looking forward to seeing how you handle the next chapter.

[Let's Play Sword of Heaven and Earth: Dreaming Of A Better Lyn]

Just when I remembered about this LP and decided to check it out once more. I must be a psychic at heart.

Well, not the most action-filled update ever but if it means the next one will arrive sooner, then it's all good. Hey, at least Dinning's palette is good (What are you frowning at? You got a better name for him?). Better than Otto's, that's for sure, but worse than another bishop boss we'll encounter later on, in my humble opinion.

I already talked about the wonderful human being that is Vince back in my bible of a reply some time back, but...

Spoiler

surprisingly enough, he will actually blow our underachieving pegasus knight right out of the water, if he behaves anything like he did in my run. Not that that's such an accomplishment. After playing a second time through (well sort of, I have to get around to finishing it, but the steam summer sale didn't help at all) I can confirm that pretty much all of the future fliers are better than these two fools. At least she had her glory in the "let's play bandit" chapter, and edgyman can be used in the next chapter to access a certain part of the map... or more likely, to allow other units to access a certain part of the map. I can confirm the next map is pretty good.

 

[Let's Play Sword of Heaven and Earth: Dreaming Of A Better Lyn]

4 hours ago, Vaximillian said:

I will!

  Reveal hidden contents

“Esto” is Edgar (エドガー Edogā), the halberdier is Jeff (or Geff, Geoff or whatever you might prefer) (ジェフ Jefu), wyvern-riding idiot is Vince (ヴィンス Vinsu), Stache-man is Gideon (ギデオン Gideon), and not-Hector is Bruno (ブルーノ Burūno).

Thanks a lot! I really appreciate it.

Spoiler

Wow, Gideon? Even his name sounds elegant and magnanimous. Can't say the same about Vincy though. At least now I have a name to yell next time a Valkyrie reaches him.

Also Jeff is as much of a generic name as the guy it belongs to (no offense to all the Jeffs reading this).

 

[Let's Play Sword of Heaven and Earth: Dreaming Of A Better Lyn]

Hey! So, I just wanted to drop by and say I'm liking the LP so far. Your commentary is great, and it got me to play this amazing hack. It's a ton of fun, I recommend anyone who hasn't played it yet to do so as soon as possible.

One other thing I really liked was the fact that this was my first (almost) truly blind fire emblem playthrough. I didn't know anyone's growths, I didn't know the maps or characters, and since I don't know an ounce of japanese, I couldn't read the story either. It was very interesting to have to deduce which characters were recruitable and, more importantly, who recruited them. I actually feel rather proud of myself, I believe I got everyone, and even found a secret shop in the penultimate chapter. Hopefully the hack will gain popularity and someone will translate at least the menus and names.

Now, there is one last thing I wanted to do here, and that is to share my characters. I will do so in a spoiler, because I am using a few characters not yet met in the LP (part of the reason I want to share these is to see if somebody will bother to translate the new characters. The pictures were taken in the prep screen of the final chapter. I'd like to be able to call them by their actual names during the final battle). So yeah, if anyone's gonna bother checking these out, beware of spoilers.

Spoiler

Allow me to begin with...

Saya! She's actually rather good, really good dodge tank, and her support allows her to crit often, sort of making up for her low strength. Very much a standard sword lord. She's held back, much like every lord ever, by her late promotion, but it's maneagable. Still better than Roy's. She supports with...

Zagarn. I thought the man would be an everyday Jeigan. Then I got him a level through chipping and he filled the left column. That's when I decided he would be my main bow user. He's remained consistently good at everything throughout the entire game. I did feed him an angelic robe, though, much like Seth's, his HP is subpar.

I decided to give Sykes, or however it was spelled, a chance, since my biggest guilty pleasure in Fire Emblem is to train bad units. He turned out pretty great, actually! He was great in the early game, where he was nearly invincible. His tanking prowess decayed a little as the game progressed (looking at you, resistance), but even now he's still great when he's not facing mages. He supports with...

Grape. He's the most balanced unit in my team. He can double reliably, do good enough damage, take a few hits and dodge well. He really only lacked HP, and a robe fixed that. Solid unit.

Remember what I said when talking about Sykes? I thought this guy would be the Wrys of this game, so of course I had to give him a chance, but as it turned out, Lissete ended up becoming the Wrys, while Baldy here is more of a Lena. How... ironic. One of my best units. He supports with...

Druids are my favourite class in Fire Emblem, so I gave the kid a go. Why did Epilepsyduck say he was terrible, again? After babying him a few levels, he quickly became my MVP. He has bad durability, but who cares when he's the best nosferatank around? I really can't get over how fast he is, he's the fastest druid I have ever seen! Even with the huge speed loss from Nosferatu (somewhat alleviated by the body ring), he still doubles and dodges reliably. His magic stat is a tad low (for a druid), but dark magic is powerful anyway, and power isn't that great when you don't have speed to back it up. Speaking of which...

Yeah... I don't really know what to think about this. Sergei is one of the tankiest units in my team, and has a ton of power, but... that speed is bad, and that skill is even worse, and I gave him a statboost for each! I mostly use him as a staffbot, considering I can just throw him just about anywhere to heal the wounded without fearing for his life. Still, he was way better than that other girl whose name I forget. Damn you, christmas girl, I tried to train you, I really did, but you got one-rounded when holding Thunder.

Ah, Lissete. Perhaps my worst unit. Mediocre speed worsened by her bad con, terrible might, puny defenses... she's my designated staff bot, because Otto is usually busy tearing apart armies with Revi.

Dorcas replaced Toby because I liked him better. Mainly because I know who Dorcas is, while Toby is a face and a sprite who occasionaly speaks in a language I cannot understand, much like everyone else (not that it really matters, there aren't any actual support conversations). Also, he didn't gain any skill at all, while Dorcas... Warrior with higher skill than strength. Good unit.

And this is the point where we get to the units from the future! This here is Esto, son of Harken and Isadora. I guess he's the son of Harken and Isadora, he looks very much like Harken, and he joined as a level 8 mercenary in a chapter that took place in Pherae. Which is also a rather late chapter, hence the made-up name. Much like other Ests, he became one of my best units with enough training, but he was easier to train than the usual Est (his joining chapter and the gaiden that followed had a good amount of axemen). Good all around, he still lacks a support partner, which makes him inferior to the Magic Duo of Doom.

This guy. He joined after I visited a random village in a random chapter. I can't say anything else about the man himself, so let's just get to his stats. He's a pretty good halberdier. Really strong, good enough speed and defenses. Great unit, I feel, and also fun to use.

This fucking idiot. He may not look so bad at first glance, but he's still managed to be the unit who's died the most out of everyone in the team. The reason? His one good stat is strenght. mediocre speed, defense that really doesn't work against bows, HP too low to make a difference... his HP really is his fatal flaw. You would expect a character with speed in the 40s to be good at dodging or tanking, but not this guy, he's too busy looking like a sad racoon. Would you believe in the penultimate chapter he was ONE-ROUNDED BY VALKYRIES?! Not even Sykes! This guy really doesn't live up to Zeiss. Much unlike the next character.

Stache man. Probably my favourite mug of the game. Seriously, look at that mustache. If I had facial hair such as this guy's, I'd be fidgeting around with it all day long. Okay, enough of the mustache now, this guy has the honor of being a prepromote who far surpassed his unpromoted counterpart (who also recruited him, and supports with him. Yeah, I made depressed sad sack overthere actively work to make himself even more outclassed. I usually just leave Sadman just inside the support range so Stache can destroy in peace). Good speed, great defenses... his HP still isn't that good, but he at least can dodge bows and double reliably, unlike a certain someone. Great unit overall.

Hector if he survived FE6 (quite ironical, considering the hack takes place at the same time as FE6. And yeah, I can confirm, it does, Roy appears a couple times around the end of the game. Well, I DID say there would be spoilers). The only reason he's here is because I honestly love his appearance. His stats are mediocre, but when there's a free deployment slot, I send him in to finish up stray monks or whatever. Not too impressive, really, and there are way better lategame crutches than him.

Sandra was horrible. I honestly wish I gave Fatface (Astore-like thief who joined in a gaiden chapter) a chance, because he was way better than this. She dies if anything so much as thinks about her. But eh, she did her job alright. Also, unlike what it may seem, she isn't an assasin, thieves promote to rogues in this hack.

Finally, the merchant! He starts leveling up eventually. I lost him in a couple chapters. I'm not very sure, but I believe he started to level up at chapter 15, give or take a chapter or two.

And that is pretty much it. Hope you are able to continue the LP soon!

[Is this normal?]

So I'm doing a H1 run with a save that allows me to use the DLC drops. It's the first run I've done in that save. The first time I used the base armory, I noticed for some reason it now sells statboosters for the normal price. Does that usually happen when you have all DLC or something? Is it a bug, is my rom hacked and I didn't know about it, anything? I'd feel slightly bad about cheating

I'm just asking now because I want to use Wolf. Yeah. You might remember me as the guy who wanted to use Tomas in a post a couple days ago. Still, it's not that important, I'm one chapter away from the Statbooster Secret Shop anyway. And I have the rainbow potion and starsphere. And Drill grounds.

EDIT: nevermind, lurking around the fe12 forum, I found this

So yeah, apparently that is an unlockable from beating the game in a higher difficulty (lunatic, I assume, since buying statboosters anytime is so broken its probably designed for casual post-lunatic runs). Cool. Now Ill feel slightly less bad about making Wolf viable (although to be fair with the man, after drill grounding to level 17 he became pretty decent)

[Sheema vs Tomas]

I don't think anyone's ever asked such a stupid question. But hey, it's not the worst I've ever done I once used Macellan.

So, it's H1, I'm using the DLC items and basically just playing for fun as I usually do. My team consists of, not including Marth, general MU swordmaster Cecille, Horseman Gordin, bishop Etzel, Berserker Dice, Dracoknight Minerva and Abel (I sent Rody to the bench for him, the irony), Hero Frey, Sorcerer Ellerean and Sage Yubello. Even tho the team's sufficiently solid, I still have enough money to hate myself and want to drill grounds one of these two terribad prepromotes with good growths.

So, yeah, that's basically it. Tomas has the worst hair in Archanea, Sheema's the new queen of the worst country in Archanea. They are both terrible. Will become good with some huge drill grounds abuse. Any suggestions? Or arguments to try to persuade me from doing such a foolish thing?

EDIT: Well, after trying a few rounds at the drill grounds (having brought Tomas up to level 5 and Sheema to 3 in their chapter), I ended up choosing Tomas. Sheema had comparable stats to Wolf, while he reached 20 in speed and strenght at level 10. He's... still worthy of a 0/10, and still inferior to Gordin, but eh.

[Who Is Your FE Doppleganger?]

Name: Remember in FE12, the Archanea Saga chapter with Minerva, Hardin and their respective subordinates? The boss of that chapter, Ruben, has the same exact name as I. Love you too, fire emblem.

Appearance: Well Morishige doesn't belong in this series so... hmm... Purple hair aside, I'd say Erk.

Personality: Raigh, but when I have a particularly dumb day I get dangerously close to Matthis. That kinda worries me.

[Cutest/prettiest/most attractive FE girls~]

I'm not sure about cutest, but the prettiest one would be FE11/12 Linde and the hottest is FE6 Igrene, no contest (for me).

[More Unpopular Fire Emblem Opinions]

- I hate Lute and Rutger despite them being some of the best units in their respective games.

- I love Knoll and Raigh despite being terrible and mediocre, respectively.

- My favourite class is Shaman/Druid despite sages being about 99.5% better.

- Frey >>>>> 7th platoon

- I don't mind Arcadia (chapter) that much. Sophia could be way worse if she was a knight (goodness, I got knight Karel in her place in one of my randomized runs... I had to use the boots on him in order to survive and get the guilding ring... not that it mattered, he predictably became my MVP afterwards

[Best chapter in the entire series?]

I haven't played the whole series, so I'll just give my favourite chapter of those games I have played.

That has to be chapter 21 of fire emblem 6, the Sealed Sword.

Everything about it is just so epic. Tons of wyverns, paladins, dragons, the two strongest warriors of Bern, Murdock and Gale, togheder fighting off the Etrurian army in the bloodiest day of the history of Elibe. Heck, Murdock beats Zephiel himself in some areas. Why isn't he the king? Zephiel doesn't have strenght capped!

Gameplay wise, it's a really fun chapter to play. Lots of stuff to take into account, very nice difficulty while keeping it fair, two legendary weapons, courtesy of Yoda, and the best secret shop in the series, period.

Then you go to Bern keep and kill Zephiel because he's the king and Bern won't be officially defeated until he goes down, even if his main force and generals are dead.

Fun fact, the shrine of seals was copy-pasted into Cog of Destiny in fire emblem 7, except this time around you're marching towards it from the south instead of the north. And Cog of Destiny is also my second favourite map from the game (Victory or death being my favourite). And Murdock also makes a cameo in that map, giving Eliwood and Co. a warp staff for protecting Zephiel! That's... kind of twisted, him helping the father of his future murderer (well leader of the murderer, I doubt any normal Roy would be able to kill Murdock Ahue Ahue Ahue predictable Roy is bad joke) in the very place where he'd fall 20 years later.

[Who is/are your guilty pleasure character(s) in Fire Emblem?]

I've only gone through fire emblem 12 once (doing my second run right now) and I can already see Wrys is going to be one of my guilty pleasure character. He's amazing and has the best support combo in the series, in my humble opinion. Just... c'mon.

Best support in the game. I am, indeed, glad I took him with me (and bent the game in ways it was never intended to be in order to make him worthwhile). Even if he can't fight, but he can heal.

Other than him, I'd say my other guilty pleasure character would be Raigh. I just love him, his support with Hugh is pure gold, and him being the only good Druid in FE6 (yes, yes, I know, Niime, but Niime's a utility staffbot, while Raigh's the only one with potential to have great combat capabilities), which is one of my favourite classes in fire emblem, makes him a must in everyone of my FE6 playthroughs.

[What is more important to you, stats or personality?]

Personality, really. There are a lot of units I feel mostly neutral about, so some runs I use them and some runs I don't. But then there are the characters I just can't stand personality wise, so I almost always avoid them, like Edge-lord Rutger, miss perfect Lute and "I am even more cancerogenous than Serra (who I actually like for some reason)" Clarine (I'm going to get so much hatred for this, but eh, I hate myself already anyways), while I tend to do anything for my favourite characters, like Raigh (I've done just a single run of FE6 in which I didn't use him... and I dropped it cause I was a terrible player back then and couldn't beat sacae), Frey (he survived a whole bunch of silver lance knights. And then came back to be an awesome paladin in the next game, not even a Jeigan or anything. That takes some balls) or Knoll (yeah I like Knoll, I find him a very interesting character personality-wise, and summoner goes a long way to making him somewhat useful).

[Raigh as a druid looks better with his shaman palette than his normal druid palette]

Please tell me what you think. Personally, I think it looks better, is more consistent with Raigh's portrait looks and the overall feel of the GBA druids (Canas, Knoll, Ewan and the generic enemy druids all have that weird... symbol? golden)

[Ephraim demonstrates why he's the biggest Gary Stu in the series]

Okay, I think i should clarify a few things:

- The 20% increased growths are for the ENEMY. It makes the game HARDER. Cmon, how could Riev survive a round to Ephraim with Siegmund if Ephraim had 20% increased growths? I thought it was obvious

- The thing of calling Ephraim a Gary Stu is a joke. I don't actually think he's a Gary Stu, but since so many people do think so, I just made the joke with my extremely lucky win in last hope.

- The plot armor thing is also a joke, referencing the fact that apparently Valter and a whole bunch of wyvern knights and druids can't kill him and his squad, and his apparent desire to avoid having me restarting the chapter (again, I don't actually think he's a Gary Stu).

Forgive me if i sound a tad frustrated, but everyone just misunderstood my post so badly

[Themed Runs]

The old men.

Moulder, Duessel, Garcia, Gilliam, Dozla, Saleh (these aren't so old, but Duessel and Moulder solo would be a bit extreme).

You get a healer, a spellcaster (although Moulder'd probably be better than him if you made him Sage), and three physical attackers who can ammount for the 4 weapon types, if you promote Garcia to warrior.

Unarmed Seth should carry Eirika/Ephraim, and he should always stay in the back of the formation, cause using him as a distraction'd be cheating. Otherwise, he's out, unless you hack the game and give him FE1 Jeigan's stats or something. Then he'd technically be an old man.

[Ephraim demonstrates why he's the biggest Gary Stu in the series]

Here, check this out.

So, let me tell you a little story. I'm going through FE8 with 20% increased growths, and a couple other changes I felt like doing (I gave Gleipnir effectiveness so it isn't the worst possible legendary weapon ever cause I am a sucker for dark mages in FE, and gave naglfar 7 weight so Lyon isn't a chump, which I'll probably regret). Playing Last Hope, I am in a terrible situation: Innes was trapped between two generals in the eastern treasure chamber. Heroes and Warriors were going for Mansel after I had to bail out the northern group. I could only rescue Mansel to avoid game over, but that'd mean losing Innes. 3 turns until the chapter ends, so that isn't an option. So I chose to warp Ephraim right under Riev's nose and kill him with Siegmund.

But, I made my calculations wrong, and Riev was left at one HP and ready to finish Ephraim off in the enemy phase.

As I was getting ready to load my savestate restart because I don't do cheats because I couldn't think of anything else to get away with everyone alive, Riev attacked Ephraim.

Ephraim dodged the 82% death blow, killed Riev kicked Riev's ass out of the castle, and proceeded to get a perfect level (he had already capped speed and skill).

Why am I posting this here? No reason, other than the fact that I am still fucking amazed. I did not RGN abuse that, I'll admit I am not the cleanest player ever (I hate hp only levels, although I don't go as far as to make everyone have perfect levels everytime, and I might RGN abuse the occassional 5% bullshit crit), but I wouldn't have had the patience to sit 5 hours trying to make Ephraim dodge that. Instead, he did something even LESS probable.

Anyone there care to run the maths? I'd like to know just how strong Ephraim's plot armor really is.

[Universal GBA FE Randomizer v1.0]

This has been posted a few times already, but nobody answered them, so i'll post it anyway and see if i am luckier.

So, i'm in chapter 10B, with classes, weapon, enemy growths randomized and random recruitment. Turn 4's enemy phrase (when Geese's supposed to appear) never ends. It just moves the enemies around and then it stays there, music and graphics working, without letting me do anything.

I'm really liking this run, so i'd really appreciate not having to restart because Geese doesn't want to appear. Any solutions? Preferably that don't require advanced hacking, i can barely figure out how to change character stats.

EDIT: I checked the changelog. Geese was replaced by Wyvern Rider Astore.

EDIT 2: I found the solution! As some others pointed out, it was the pirate reinforcements in the forts, and not geese, who caused the errors. I used Nightmare's army editor to give all the "western bandit" and "pirate" enemy units the "none" value, and Geese showed up just fine.

Now i can continue with this run, which i am really liking. Thank god.

EDIT 3: Well same problem in 11B, same solution. Except this time, instead of an endless enemy phrase when the bandits arrived, i got plunged back into the title screen. That makes sense, i guess. The chapter became way too easy after erasing those reinforcements, but i had no choice.

[FE8 : Master Version]

So, i got to the end... some things i thought up:

- The fact that some early bosses are in the final chapters is kind of confusing... i get that they might just be reanimated corpses by lyon, but you could explain it somewhere (if you don't want to edit the dialoge, you could at least change their character descriptions to "The body of a former enemy, reanimated by Lyon" or something like that).

- I believe you should lower the difficulty of the chapters, in hard at least. I know your objetive was to give maxed out characters a challenge, but i don't really want to go through the ruins 2 or 3 times to get enough money to max everyone out, and as it is, the chapter's fairly impossible. Everyone having maxed out stats isn't really in line with the rest of the hack, which consisted on smart unit placement changes that increased the difficulty in a fair way.

- Lower the price of the body ring. Getting +2 con isn't really worth that much money. Just getting one for ephraim will force me to slug my way though the ruins again, if i want to max everyone out.

I really liked the whole hack. It was very good. Up until the ending, which is pretty unfair in my opinion. At least on hard mode, maybe i should try normal mode at some point. Guess i'll go up the ruins again, and see if i turn everybody green (some of my characters were pretty blessed, that should help)

[FE8 : Master Version]

So, i'm up to chapter 17 right now. So far, i've loved your hack... although i made a pretty big mistake. I understimated your hack, and chose hard mode. Being FE8 with buffed FUCKING SETH, i thought it would be easy! big error. The early game is around the same level as the original, maybe a bit easier (star seals and buffed units help), but then comes the midgame. Innes' and cormag's chapter were hard already (i chose eirika's route, since i didn't understimate you THAT much, thank god), and by the time i reached the desert, your hack already made me think out more strategies than the official fire emblems (granted, i only played the gba ones... but i beat each of them at least once without save states and i only had to bumrush everything). Chapters 16 and 17 were both pretty insane, with every enemy promoted and the promotees being actually buffed.

So, here are a few improvements i've thought up (might edit something in when i finish the playthrough):

- Buff Knoll. The formation slots down in his place come in handy to build a wall around him, but if you don't do that, he'll die the second he steps in. Try hacking the game so he doesn't appear right when the enemies start moving, so i could at least move him a bit further away, or give him a few levels. I'd say level 15 with these bases (32 hp, 17 str, 13 sk, 13 spd, 10 luck, 11 def, 15 res) should be reasonable enough to let him be a bit more... usable.

- I can't tell yet, but i bet that syrene will probably suffer from the same thing, with her meh bases and her terribly close to the enemy starting point. Dozla could also use a few stat ups in some areas. His growths are good enough, but his bases are still pretty meh (but at least he doesn't have 9 speed anymore)

- Give only one siege tome to the sage in chapter 16. Its already insane enough to have 3 long range enemies (i used colm to assasinate the druids, worked out pretty well), but that one just kept throwing shit at me for the whole chapter (i used knoll to summon each turn, and then tethys so he could also attack/heal).

- Maybe lower fenrir's price a bit...? i know, silver card, but even then it is way too expensive. Maybe 5000, 2500 with the silver card?

Though really, this hack made me think a lot more than the usual games. Props for that, its a very well made revamp that doesn't have to rely on buffing enemies mindlessly.