Deltre

This resonates with me on a spiritual level. Suicune @Ether

Thank you once again for a quick and detailed response. It's really interesting to see things from the perspective of the creator, and I appreciate that comment you left on my video about this hack too btw. First of all, in hindsight I don't think that the Jill/Nolan comparison was the best one. If tanking is the name of the game, then a Nolan/Aran or Nolan/Meg comparison would probably be more appropriate, and the advantages of Nolan in those scenarios are more apparent. That said, shouldn't it be impossible for Nolan to have 27 SKL at 16/8 without boosters? With 17 levels, it should be more like 22-23 unless something changed between versions. To add one counterpoint to the Jill/Nolan thing, it's true that while on paper Nolan may have a ~50 hit lead on Jill vs Halberdiers, but in practice she still has ~80-85 hit (~90+ with some of those hit related statboosters) even vs. a Halberdier at Best, from neutral. This does assume a forge of some kind (I used a +15 Hit Steel Axe, in this case), however Nolan really wants a +Mt one to keep up offensively during Part 1 until the Silver Axe anyways, so I think it's fair to factor that in for both sides. I keep forgetting that enemies have passives now though, so Nihil actually does help him stand out as a tank type character vs Aran or Meg. I don't feel very knowledgeable on Aran or Meg in practice, so I don't think I should be the person making that comparison. I will say that I think an extra point of speed on promotion would go a long way to stabilizing him a bit more for Part 1. After all, if reliability is his thing it's kind of a shame that he sits riiiiiiight on the edge of doubling/not doubling during 1-E with your projected stats. If he hits that 18 SPD, he's probably fine enough. If he does really well, he might even pick up those 16 AS enemies too. If he hits 17 SPD though, suddenly his offense has just plummeted into a really bad place, since many enemies have 14 SPD on this map. Specifically, the Warriors, Strategists, Bishops, and correct me if I'm wrong but I think the first Halberdiers can potentially hit 14AS, and all the later ones do. It's potentially problematic with the Generals too, where that 25% STR may leave him losing AS from the Hammer, especially if Nolan ends up a level or two lower than projected for whatever reason. Shoot, I fully admit my bias for Jill and in my playthrough she still rolled into 1-E at 18/3 compared to your 17/6 projection, so it's worth mentioning lol. For the record, I don't think Nolan is unusable trash or anything. I just don't think he quite stacks up as of Part 1, but I do admit that the numbers aren't as bad as I thought. I tried using him again and while he was better than my first go, I just felt like he was lacking...something. I wish I could post a picture of my first Nolan though. That dude was legendary for all the wrong reasons.

Mega-Scizor @DisobeyedCargo

Interesting that you would say that, and even though I can really only speak for myself I do think that this is actually explainable. Take Nolan vs. Jill for example. Now, I know there's obviously a pretty big difference between the two, but before even looking at enemy composition, movement scores, or anything like that, Jill just has a better stat spread. She's more likely to hit things harder and is also more likely to attack twice while doing so, and because she's more likely to be attacking things twice she's actually roughly on par with Nolan, or at least not substantially worse than Nolan in terms of reliability since she'll be getting two attacks to his one. Unless he's pulling 100% hitrates, his one statistical advantage is nullified. Perhaps he may survive one more hit, but he will likely expend that one extra hit immediately by virtue of the fact that he can't kill anything on his own in one round. For example: Nolan attacks Enemy A -> Enemy A retaliates -> Enemy Phase -> Enemy A attacks Nolan -> Nolan retaliates -> Enemy A dies vs. Jill attacks Enemy A -> Enemy A retaliates -> Jill finishes -> Enemy A dies Enemies on the whole are tougher in this hack than compared to vanilla, so leaving them alive for enemy phase is rarely the preferred option unless it absolutely can't be helped. Even then, when enemy phase rolls around the problem then becomes the fact that you want your hard hitters to be getting as much action as possible so that you have an easier time cleaning up on Player Phase. It's just better to have them on the front, then follow up with weaker/reliable characters on the following PP rather than doing the opposite. Adding to that, I'd rather have Unit A that can potentially deal ~70% damage to an enemy in two hits roughly 75% of the time than Unit B who can deal ~40% damage to an enemy in one hit 95% of the time, especially when Unit A still has the chance to deal 35% damage should one attack miss, with effectively about the same reliability as Unit B. It just makes things that much easier come time to actually finish the enemy off, especially if Unit A should connect both attacks. Unit B on the other hand, doesn't have the potential to deal as much damage, and is therefore less favorable when deciding who should aggro the next group of enemies. This means that Unit B is less likely to be getting EXP compared to Unit A, and that's likely a large part in why you're seeing a lot of cases where Nolan in particular is behind where you might expect him to be come 1-E. He just needs a lot of in-chapter combat favoritism (I.E kills) that units with better combat or other utility simply don't need. For what it's worth, I also think that my example is a little conservative. If we replace 'Unit A' with say, Jill/Fiona/Edward, and Unit B with Nolan, it only gets worse since Jill/Fiona/Edward can actually ORKO things sometimes, and Nolan never will without effective damage and several above average levels. Another factor is that it's comparatively easy to fix bad hit rates as opposed to fixing bad STR/SPD. Hit boosting supports, switching to a more accurate weapon, intentionally targeting an enemy on Worst Biorhythm, +Hit on forges, etc. are all viable options. Meanwhile the only way to fix lackluster damage output, effective damage notwithstanding, is through +MT forges and some very highly contested stat boosters. Meanwhile, the boosters for Hit are much less contested, and can be distributed to units who are already strong, but would like a bit more reliability. In fairness, some of these low hit/high mt weapons that these reliable characters make good use of haven't been released yet, so that's something to consider. I think the problem is specifically with Nolan though. A unit like Aran, for example, actually has things going for him compared to your other characters besides 'probably won't miss'. He's tankier, about as evasive, more stable thanks to no Biorhythm, can fix his offense WITHOUT statboosters thanks to the Brave Lance and hits harder even disregarding that, has effective weaponry readily available (tbf, Nolan has the Hammer and can use Crossbows early at the expense of your first Master Seal and levels that he may desperately need), and is pretty open to fixing problem stats through BEXP once STR/SKL are capped. All of these factors combined make Aran a fairly solid pick that allow him to be used in a broad sense, rather than waiting for a specific set of circumstances to really shine. Meanwhile, Nolan needs to wait for a very specific set of circumstances (I.E maps with Fliers and Generals) to be useful, and once those enemies have been dispatched he's not capable of keeping up offensively. Now, if the Tarvos can give Nolan a relevant niche he so desperately needs, I feel as though people will be kicking themselves for not raising him a bit more seriously. From a Part 1 perspective though, anything he can do can be done by someone else (Jill w/ Hammer, Leo for Fliers), and they'll probably do it better. I digress, the point of this post isn't to poop on Nolan, just to explain why reliability isn't enough for most people, at least from my perspective. With no other outstanding features it makes the "Reliable Unit" very underwhelming once units with an actual niche start to appear. Aran and to an extent Muarim are the obvious examples of reliable units with other defining features that I'd argue contribute just as much, if not more to them being rated more favorably than Nolan. For example, if I'm looking at Aran it's because I want a tank first and foremost. His particular set of idiosyncrasies (hit rates/mobility/weapon type, etc.) might persuade me to use him over Meg, but those traits are secondary to his main role which is that of a tank. If you were to remove Aran's ability to tank, I'd wager people would sour on him a lot more than if you just dropped his Skill by a few points. This last point is a bit of personal bias I admit, but I think that if reliability alone is supposed to sell me on a unit, then they better not miss an attack no matter what, highly inaccurate weapons notwithstanding. Biorhythm be damned, Nolan shouldn't be going below 70% in a Worst/Best Biorhythm match-up even on 1-E unless he's at WTD or ledge disadvantage, and I'd prefer to not have to use an Iron Axe to do it. His offense is just that much worse than everyone else in the DB in Part 1.

Tapu Fini @Nym you're up man

Kyurem-Black @DisobeyedCargo

I heard that Heatran can use Hidden Power Ice. Countered? :p

For some reason, I didn't get a notification. Weird. Anyways, I'll go ahead and be that guy and say Landorus-Therian. @Nym You're up bud

As much as I'd love to grab Gren, I agree wholeheartedly agree with a BAN. Drafts should encourage some out-of-the-box thinking IMO, but there's only so much you can do against Greninja unless you can perfectly predict the set at team preview. Even then, you still need to play pretty much perfectly too. There's only a handful of answers to begin with, and if I know exactly which answers my opponent has/can bring due to the draft ruleset, then it's pretty easy to tailor a Gren set that can beat almost any team as needed. To he rest of the listed examples I say Do Not Ban, and here's some quick reasoning: Mega Charizard Y: If anything, X is scarier despite immediate power of Y. Between stealth rock, base 100 SPD being not that great, flash fire mons, thick fat mons, AV, (Scarf) Rock Slide/Stone Edge, opposing weather, the list goes on. Essentially, even if you need to resort to an unorthodox set, there's plenty of things to choose from that can beat/neuter this and still be relevant in non-Charizard Y match-ups. If someone drafts Char-Y, my first thought is gonna be 'how do I beat this' and I think that it's fair to expect that kinda of mentality when deciding draft picks/counter-picks. Mega Sableye: It's going to be next to impossible to give this thing the same level of support as in standard OU. If one person ends up with an OU ready full stall team then its kinda our own goof, given that M-Sable doesn't come as a package with say Chansey/Toxapex/Zapdos or w/e. Basically, I think that M-Sable relies on teammates to reach peak annoyance, but on it's own it's just another strong OU pick among many. It's too easy to draft it's best partners away from the M-Sable user, essentially, and if that doesn't happen then it's our bad. Mega Diance: You'd be surprised how many mons can learn Bullet Punch, unless this ends up paired with Tapu Lele: I personally don't think this is even the strongest Tapu, but I kinda get this one. Still Base 95 SPD isn't great, switch-ins do exist, there's plenty of viable dark-types that can neuter any choice set just by existing (and can potentially pursuit trap as well), plenty of viable steels to go around, plenty of faster scarfers, Lele itself is weak to every hazard, and the list goes on. I can elaborate more if needed but I don't think it's broken on its own, and again, I think the draft format itself limits a lot of the potential damage this one can do. Landorus-T: Versatile, but not broken like Gren. Lando can do a handful of things really well, whereas Gren can do anything well enough, if that makes sense, despite them both being versatile. Volcarona: Essentially the same reasoning as Charizard-Y. Strong pick that you're going to need an answer for, of which there are plenty of options to choose from. Celesteela: I don't get this one. Sure, anyone who picks this would benefit from having it around, but honestly there's so many mons that can threaten this thing across every tier that it shouldn't be a problem for every player to have at least one solid answer, if not multiple. No better than any other strong defensive pick IMO. Hoopa-U: Really strong wallbreaker, but way too slow to be overcentralizing IMO. 4X weakness to bug/U-Turn and having relatively bad PhysDef isn't doing it any favors either. Also ye, I think 4 per person per tier is a better approach fwiw

In

Well, as you say, you really don't have to do much of anything to make Fiona useful. That's kind of my thing with her, actually haha. She's almost unscrewable in my mind, provided of course you're at least putting in the bare minimum of effort. RNG is of course a bit of a factor, but when isn't it right? It's pretty clear I might need to give Nolan another look though. Out of curiosity, how much BEXP each are the Marado Knights/1-8 Prisoners worth? I feel as though they're worth enough that this might be a 'why not invest in both?' sort of scenario, but I'll be honest and say that 1-8 rocked me the first time, and I definitely could have done better saving the first wave Marado Knights too. Laura changes sound good, and honestly for me personally I think that Heaven is a more useful affinity for her to have, although it's true she doesn't need it. The other non-Aran/non-Muarim characters though? I think they'll really appreciate another way to negate Biorhythm, at least the Hit portion of it. There's only one Meg after all and with accuracy fluctuating (sometimes greatly) on a turn by turn basis, it'll be nice to not have to deal with as many whiffed attacks and randomness in general. Also this is kind of (potentially) an indirect buff to Gamble!Edward, so that's neat. Curious about the Heal EXP nerf. If it's just for general balancing then that makes sense, but in Laura's case as others had pointed out the reason she can potentially level so much faster in the early game is because she's durable enough to staff-counter now and it just so happens to work out that it's a good idea to make use of that, at least a few times anyways. I was able to get her an extra level or so this way, which meant that she could juuuust make it to 10 with the BEXP I had, and well, you see how that went. With a nerf of only 1 EXP, you could counter that as easily as throwing out a Mend/Barrier once. Magic nerf sounds reasonable, since she'll still be a good fighter, especially if you slap Adept on her or something. She also has to choose between utility and offense on any given turn, so yeah, sounds fair. Removing the Master Seal from 1-5 is lowkey genius. It keeps degenerates like me from trying to roll Ilyana or anyone else for 1-5 instead now that Laura's getting the nerfbat lol. True you don't need to give Eddy all that, just the Wo Dao is probably enough. Worth mentioning though, that if you do get him to the Wo Dao and had a decent time with his first few levels, he's potentially your best unit in 1-4. Sounds like that's only gonna get better too, since Laura can actually support him in time for that to matter, unlike Meg. Basically, I've 180'd on him since my first run haha. I still think he's random, but I can buy into the possible payoff. For the record, I did play through NM the first time. Playing through it again on HM is just for fun really. Speaking about staves though, was it intentional that you can steal the ElSleep in 1-E? I was able to snag it with Sothe when I last replayed 1-E, and I had noticed that the ElSilence guy had his items locked so I thought I'd ask.

I can definitely give a little more context if that helps. For example most of my impressions are formed under the assumption of trying for max BEXP Turn Counts, getting all treasures/stealables barring vulneraries, etc. Pretty standard stuff, but worth mentioning still. Also, these opinions are of course only from what I've personally played, which is up through 2-2. It's entirely possible that some of these guys have a 'secret weapon' later on that I'm totally unaware of, so take these opinions with a grain of salt haha. I like the idea of changing Laura to Heaven affinity. Not only would that nerf her ability to potentially dodgetank through the mid/late-game with the proper support, but it would also give the player another way to shore up hit rates earlier in the game, where biorhythm can make a substantial difference in reliability. Her STR is so bad that it's clear she won't be OP with Resire past a certain point, especially with a nerf to her Light Rank, so the benefit that she herself would see from Heaven is pretty minimal honestly. Good idea IMO. It's also true that she can get magic screwed, but as things stand there are 2 Spirit Dusts available in Part 1, and she is of substantial use in getting the first even with slightly subpar magic. Also worth mentioning that with her current growths Magic is one of the more likely outcomes when using BEXP, so if you're willing to throw her a bone every now and then it's really hard for her to fall too far behind even in the worst case scenario. And since I saw others bring it up, the Provoke + Resire Laura thing is specifically to clown the lower right hand of the map in 1-5 while Sothe is busy running around stealing stuff so you never have to deal with the guys who start behind you, while also eating all the Meteor attacks from the boss. It also has the side effect of making the Boots guy run out towards you to heal the guys that Laura doesn't kill, which is nice. I can't imagine how much harder that map is without that haha. I'm sure that it's possible to do similar things on maps such as 1-6-1 as well, but her bad STR should in theory gate her from breaking the game much past that point. That's a fair point with Aran, and I don't think he's bad per se. He didn't have that same wow factor that some other units did for me personally, but he definitely has some use. That early Horseslayer is one that comes to mind, for example, seeing as he's probably the person who benefits from it the most. And immunity to biorhythm is really great as well, as you pointed out. He's good enough early on that you'd want to bring him along for certain tasks whether you invest heavily in him or not, and I admit that I could have put more thought into his lategame potential when deciding how much I invested in him. With Nolan, I guess seeing is believing. I will say that, insofar as Part 1, raising him to Warrior will at least allow him to contribute come time for 1-E, and I can see where giving him more resources than I did could make him a bit better than I'm giving him credit for. For the record, he was 14/1 by 1-E, and looking at it now I can see that I got a little bit unlucky with him, notably not hitting Strength one time where as when I posted my opinions on him I assumed he was at least average. It's hard to say where his potential can go without the full context of Part 3/4, but my initial feelings on him as far as Part 1 are mostly unchanged. He's still clutch early on, much like vanilla, but I feel that every DB unit, including the likes of Edward can quickly outshine him in terms of value when given the same amount of attention. Again, at least in terms of Part 1. I do like the idea of a mid/late-game crossbow specialist though, so if that's the idea then by all means. He certainly has the spread for it, but in that case I'm kind of with the person who suggested a very slight buff to his speed in some way. With Fiona my feelings are a little bit more complicated. While I don't deny that she practically demands investment to be anywhere near the level I'm describing, I kind of based that opinion around the idea of "who uses this investment the best?" In my opinion, Fiona does a lot more with that initial investment than other units could hope to, at least at this stage of the game.Of course, I'm not saying that you HAVE to invest in her or anything, just that if you should choose to invest in her immediately the returns are insane. And while it's true that she'll never be as tanky as say, Meg and Aran, she's still a lot more durable than the numbers suggest thanks to innate Imbue, she'll get there first thanks to her great movement, and she'll be able to hold her own as well thanks to good combat stats. I guess I just felt that she snowballed a bit for me personally, where giving her that initial investment easily let her get kills and keep her own momentum going without any outside help. On the other hand, the way speed tiers are set up in this hack make it next to impossible for even the best Fiona to say, double Swordmasters or something crazy like that, which I like. She has limits, but those limits are quite high. The fact that she really only has a noticeable movement advantage at Tier 1 is something I didn't consider though, and of course there's the fact that the actual map design of the game has it out for Fiona too. I won't say that I think she's super OP or anything, just really good and arguably low effort. Not to mention her support abilities, which can be really insane when combined with other passive healing. She makes every team better just by existing, since even the worst Fiona can support her teammates in a unique way that mostly disregards her combat stats, provided she's at least durable enough to be near the action. Funnily enough though, with Edward, I see your point exactly. I started another playthrough on Hard, and sure enough, Eddy decided to make the most of his first few levels this time and really start to carve himself a niche. I will say that I think HM makes him more of a necessity early on which may have led to him gaining steam, but your point still stands IMO. I feel like I also undersold the amount of damage he can do with the early Wo Dao + Gamble, if luck is on your side. It's situational sure, but if you can get Biorhythm in your favor it can be a pretty powerful tool in his kit. However, it is shaky at best since the hit rates are not outstanding even factoring in Biorhythm, and you'd pretty much have to dump that first Arms Scroll on him if you want to use this combo ASAP, which is a gamble (ha) considering how unreliable the whole strategy is to begin with. There's more to factor with him than I considered, so he's definitely good at filling the role of 'wildcard' if that's the idea. I meant to include this in the last post, but for reference these were more or less my MVPs of 1-E by the end of the map, in no particular order: Obviously RNG did have some influence on my impressions (Leo got super strong quickly, and Vika quite honestly could do no wrong when leveling up), but at a glance I don't think most of my units are too far off the norm. I think Laura is dead average on Magic, if a little behind defensively, and we seem to agree she's a bit too much for example. And thank you! That was a fun playthrough for me and I'm glad that you enjoyed watching. Don't get me wrong either, I really enjoyed what's available of this hack so far and I definitely look forward to future releases!

Just finished the current patch, so here's a whole boatload of feedback! Characters Didn't include Tauroneo/BK since obviously they're still a cut above the rest of your guys at this point (albeit, not as much as in vanilla). Just to give better feedback about why I feel this way about the characters, I'll talk about the oddball rankings a little bit, starting with Laura. She's easily the best unit in this hack IMO. Being your first healer besides Micaiah ig (who would rather be attacking), she's almost mandatory if you ask me, but what sets her over in this hack is just how much easier it is to train her up. Between 1-2 range on healing staves, earlier access to some utility staves, and her ability to occasionally finish off an enemy with a staff counter since she can actually take a hit in this hack, she can easily coast through to promotion by the 1-5 Base with a little help from BEXP. Since she still gains more than enough EXP through staves and her promo bonuses are quite good, there's really no reason not to promote at Level 10 for her right now, as far as I can tell. Needless to say, 10/1 Laura completely trivializes 1-5 with Resire + Slayer + Provoke, making that map in particular a lot easier than I believe it was intended to be. Furthermore, unlike the rest of your promoted units, her levels don't really slow down any because of staves, so I wouldn't be surprised to find out that early promoting her could sort of break her level curve a bit. Shoot, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that she could be a Saint by the end of 1-E, it's just that simple to level her now. It's not just 1-5 she snaps though, of course. Having the option of dealing some really great magic damage (since her speed is bonkers) at will while having the flexibility to complete other utility tasks seems like it could be too much for Part One. In this scenario she has a leg up on the rest of your guys in terms of stats throughout most of the hack thanks to an inflated level, so she's not particularly frail either. Give her a forged Light and she can cripple/KO just about anything with ease, all at 1-2 range. As an example of just how crazy she gets, I was able to double that Elite Brave Sword Swordmaster in 1-E for well over half his health at about 60% accuracy per shot from a ledge disadvantage. By 1-E, on an even playing field, she doubles everything and basically can't miss while casually having ~80 Avoid at neutral biorhythm and no supports. Vika struggles to put up those kinds of numbers by the endgame, and speed/avoid are the name of her game. And all of that doesn't even consider the other useful things Laura can do, like Physic, Silencing that Tornado (or was it Arcwind?) dude in 1-E, etc. God help you if you can steal that Elsleep for Part 3... SUGGESTION: Increase her magic cap as a Cleric while reducing the promotion bonus accordingly thus giving you incentive to leave Laura unpromoted for a bit and reduce her base Light rank to E. Just reducing her magic isn't enough IMO since there are two Spirit Dusts in Part 1, the first of which Laura makes incredibly easy to get and the second of which is easy enough to come by normally. She can easily climb back to D rank if you leave her with Discipline for a map or so, and this way she likely won't have Resire by 1-5 unless you go far out of your way to do it via grinding or whatever. I also put Micaiah a lot higher than I think other people would, but I found her insane damage to be both very useful in setting up kills/avoiding counters as well as a ton of fun to use. 1-E is really the only map where she's not all that IMO, but since she's useful in every other map bar none, I feel like she deserves a little more love. Sure she's still not all that fast, but she's one of the rare instances in Fire Emblem where her sheer power makes up for it. Good unit. Ilyana is really good now too, albeit she didn't impress me as much as say, Laura which is why she's a bit lower. Not too much else to add about her, really. The overhaul is nice, and a magic user that focuses on defense is interesting in concept. Fiona is phenomenal. Now granted, I pumped her up by about 5-6 levels or so, and promoted her for 1-7, so I can't really say how bad it is to train her naturally. Either way, I think BEXP on her is good since she has a growth spread that gives you a good shot for STR/SPD levels, but I digress. Duke Knight Fiona along with Laura are really the only units that are capable of soloing sections of a map afaik, so that's automatically huge for Fiona. I legitimately had her handle the left side of both 1-7 and 1-8 by herself, and she came out on top both times. Imbue in combination with her respectable defenses make her really difficult to take out, far more so than any of your other high movement frontliners. If that weren't good enough, she also heals up surrounding allies every turn based on her respectable Magic stat, making her one of the most valuable units to have IMO. The only reason she's not right up there with Laura is because she's only playable for 3 maps. And if that weren't good enough for you, she also has +2 Move over other cavaliers, just because. SUGGESTION: I'm not sure if Fiona is even up on the chopping block for nerfs, but if she was I'd say -1 Move. Her healing abilities feel nice to use, but she's hands down the best combat unit in the DB as is (arguably Jill ig but Fiona isn't frail) and idk if that's what you were going for. I kinda got the impression that she was supposed to support your heavy hitters rather than be a heavy hitter, you know? She reminds me a lot of Mathilda from FE15 actually, in that the weaknesses she might have on paper don't really exist, at least not as of right now. I assume there'll be more effective weaponry and such later on, so maybe that'll change my opinion of her in later parts. Really fun stuff, regardless. Meg...isn't OP at all IMO. Now granted, the fact that I had Laura for 1-5 probably reduced the usefulness of her tankiness a bit, but still. Not to say, I think she should be buffed though, as far as I can tell she should be perfectly usable now if you wanted to train her. I'm perfectly willing to admit that my playstyle doesn't really mesh with Armor Knights, but I will say that she's at the very least worthwhile to carry to Level 10 for that promotion. In that sense, I think she's balanced in that players who enjoy using Armor Knights will finally have a decent payoff, and players who prefer faster, high movement units would still have incentive to raise her at least to General since her Butcher skill will probably be of some good use in Part 3 if vanilla is anything to go by. Now, for the units I didn't care for too much. First, there's Nolan. I have to say, I'm not 100% on the design choices behind him. I take it he's supposed to be a BEXP character, since his strength makes him utterly outclassed without some sort of favoritism to give him a leg to stand on. My problem with that is that it runs counter to every other character in the DB, none of which who need favoritism to function in the same way Nolan does. Wicked promotion gains or no, it's just not worth it to raise him seriously IMO since he'll only be relevant at the start of each Tier without some serious luck or BEXP abuse to keep his strength up to par. Energy Drops are in high competition and used better on almost any other character, since a Nolan with both Energy Drops would be lucky to keep up with say, Jill. Tarvos is something to consider, but until that is revealed he's average at best and that's not a good thing with everyone else getting a massive boost to usability in this hack. SUGGESTION: 35% Strength, please. Take it out on his other growths if you have to, but I can't see a 25% STR physical combat unit being much to look at in the mid-late game, and his early game isn't so special to make up for that. Alternatively, increase his promo bonus for speed so that he could maybe function as a crossbowman or something. As is, he seems like a huge resource sink that doesn't have great returns. Aran...idk. He seems fine and all, just not my cup of tea. Should be usable, he just doesn't really mesh with my playstyle. I will say though, that if I were looking for a tank, I think that Meg is the superior choice on paper because of her abilities and Heaven affinity actually being alright in this hack. Edward sucks in Part 1. I read through some of the more recent posts in this topic so I understand the logic, but it doesn't change the fact that he's pretty garbage whereas at least Nolan had a few maps of being your best tank. He's not a great damage dealer nor does he have high durability/evade. He's just outclassed in every role he could fill at this point in the game. Wrath is neat, but it's sketchy and has little application on the enemy phase since his durability isn't so good that he can comfortably take hits from within Wrath range. Wrath + Gamble is cool, if gimmicky, but it's not so strong a combo to put up with Eddy's awful start. Your idea for the Caladbolg is pretty neat, but if he needs to rely on it for durability then he's really in a bad spot since it sounds like it will cut into his already shaky ability to double. I guess we'll see what happens with Part 3 but for now his viability has got to be on the lower end when compared to all the units released so far. SUGGESTION: Slightly increase his base stats (like +1 across the board) and increase his base level slightly to compensate. He's garbage if he can't double, and that should give the player a little more breathing room without making him RNG proof or OP lategame. He should still be a growth unit, but he needs the ability to well...grow. He can't exactly do that as is with such poor combat parameters and practically requiring his first 3 or so level ups to be above average before he even has a chance. 1) In terms of difficulty, what map(s) do you feel is too difficult for that particular point in the game? I wouldn't say too difficult, but 1-8 is noticeably more challenging than 1-7 mostly because of those damned Red Dragons. I liked that map though, so I wouldn't really change it. 2) In terms of difficulty, what map(s) do you feel is too easy for that particular point in the game? Difficulty curve in Part 1 feels fine TBH 3) Are there any units who you feel are too weak for what their purpose is? See above 4) Are there any units you feel are too powerful? "" 5) How do you feel the gold income is? Too much gold? Too little? What should be cheaper/more expensive? Gold feels just about right. Maaaaaaaybe cut a Red Gem at some point in the later half of Part 1, but otherwise it feels fine. There's enough money to give you options, while still being restrictive enough to make sure you can't have everything the second it becomes available. 6) What weapons do you feel are too powerful or too weak for what they're designed for? I feel like cards are right on the edge of being something good, but I don't want to suggest anything without trying them on Gambit Heather first. If I were to suggest anything, I'd say that an accuracy increase would be nice since I recall a few times I'd have used the Reaper Cards in 1-E if only they were more reliable. Or maybe instead they could ignore Ledge Penalties? Volug would actually be pretty sweet in 1-E if they did. Magic users can't use cards anyways so I don't think it would be OP. 7) Are there any mechanics you feel that need tweaking? Not really a mechanic per se, but since Hand Axes are so rare in this hack please make the Fighter in 1-3 that drops one spawn earlier. I was escaping with my last units as he spawned and it sucks to be locked out of one of the 2 (?) available Hand Axes in the entire part. 8) In regards to skills, do you feel that the capacity costs are appropriate? Any availability changes you'd like to see for certain skills? Pretty good, and I like that some of the more lucrative skills like Celerity are more readily available for use. 9) 2-3 is currently the map being polished for release. Any thoughts on this map and what you might want to see? Do you feel that less enemies would be preferable to improve the pacing, or that more plentiful but weaker enemies is fine (same EXP total in both scenarios, which will be far higher compared to the original in order for the Crimean Knights to not end up under-levelled)? I personally prefer stronger, more threatening enemies. That said, from a storyline perspective they should be numerous and weaker. As long as the generics aren't like 40HKOing Geoffrey like in vanilla, it should be fine either way. 10) 'Elite' enemies (mini bosses) are currently an experiment for 1-E. Do you believe they are good to include and would you like to see them on some earlier maps? Are the stat bonuses they receive sufficient, or should be stronger/weaker than they are? What enemies do you feel could become 'Elite' to improve the pacing/difficulty of any particular map? Great idea, please keep it. Off the top of my head, maybe make the escape point guard in 1-7 an Elite to make it harder to solo the left side with just Fiona. Bonus points for a Horseslayer. His entourage is usually enough to keep other heavy hitters from soloing, but that entire area is oddly Fiona weak, believe it or not.

Chapter 10 goes down, and we get two new characters for our troubles. Whenever she decides to move, Lute will be fantastic, but that's a small price to pay for a unit this good. Definitely shaping up to be Mage Emblem, and I'm completely okay with that.

Glad this caught your eye and hope you enjoy man, it's definitely been a ride so far for me! Got another update. Again, Part 2-4 can be found in this playlist here to avoid spamming a bunch of videos in the first few posts haha. In this part we do the first battle of Ephrahim's route, and like you might expect it's drastically more difficult. Getting to Gheb was no joke, but in the end we manage to pull it off and even snag a few new recruits on the way. Got a little lucky near the beginning after a horrible mistake, but hey, we take those. All I know is that if Fort Rigwald was this hard, then the Phantom Ship has me super shook right about now.

After doing a randomizer run of both FE6 and FE7 more recently, I figure I may as well do the only remaining game in the GBA trilogy as well. Sacred Stones may not be the strongest entry in the series, but it's still a game I have a lot of love for, and I've had a ton of fun with this so far (currently on Part 4, playlist here). SO, what makes it Lunatic mode? -Enemy growths increased by 20% -Bosses buffed twice (using the randomizer's 'Buff Bosses' option) -All classes/characters randomized (including monsters/special classes) -For Chapter 8 and beyond, enemies have been given better class bases to (hopefully) keep them competitive all game -A Skills system (by circleseverywhere) -Ephrahim's Route I also made some other little changes here and there, like palette edits and music edits, just to keep it a little more fresh. It's definitely been a very different experience so far, I can say that much haha. Part 1 includes the prologue up through Chapter 4, in which we meet our first units. This feels like some bizarro FE8 where Renais takes a back seat to Frelia, since 95% of my playable characters so far all come from there. Moulder as a Tarvos and my Eirika replacement is pretty hype, and he's as much of a beast as you'd expect. Some people had suggested that I give monster classes the promotion bonuses of their human counterparts, and I just might have to since I'd hate to see this guy fall off. Overall, I'm blessed with a pretty good starting squad, so we'll see where they go from here!

Well, this playthrough was one hell of a ride. @Interdimensional Observer Those Bastian supports are all gold. You're not kidding though, keeping that up for an entire ~50 hour adventure would be maddening. The Oliver conversations are of course phenomenal as well. I find Astrid to be a surprisingly interesting character (not so much as a unit, but I digress) so thank you for posting her PoR supports. It seems like she really does most of the things she does because she absolutely hates the life she was born into. I'm sure being a noble has its perks and all, but her whole life was essentially planned out for her, leaving little/nothing to her own decisions. It makes sense why she would latch on to the first few choices she was able to make as her own person, which would explain why she's committed to being a knight. That, and Makalov in general. I might give her crap, but I think she's handled pretty realistically, actually. That's a neat little detail with those battle themes. I love when games do that, and I feel that it helps the soundtracks feel more whole in a way. Caineghis obviously has a similar thing going, and so does Naesala though his is a more drastic remix. I'll be honest, I have a totally different interpretation with the Kilvas Blood Pact. I guess you could chalk it up to the Blood Pact being very unclear (again!), but that explanation makes me question a few things. For example, if Kilvas had a Blood Pact all this time, then wouldn't that mean that the person who laid the curse is still alive somewhere? If that's the case, then why would Lekain have it? And if the pact-maker is dead, wouldn't it effectively be a scrap of paper with no way to invoke the curse? If not, then does that mean that by stating that Kilvas must obey Begnion, anyone can invoke the curse? If Naesala was really cursed all throughout PoR, wouldn't Begnion invoke the Blood Pact when they realized Kilvas was pillaging their ships for God knows how long? I get that the story Lekain told to Pelleas was meant to be about Kilvas, but the way I understood it in relation to Naesala was as two separate events. It seems kinda messy to say that Kilvas was cursed all this time. Interesting that Lekain would be empty on the inside. I guess his actions ate away at him more than he let on, which is a pretty cool angle to take. None of that redeems him, of course, but it's still kinda neat to see that the lifestyle he lived had some effect on his conscience, however small it may have been. Hetzel is a bit more disappointing. While he was definitely in the wrong, and cowardly to boot, the option to spare him would have been cool in my book. Maybe make it like the Shura choice in Fates or something. Unlike the other senators, I'm not convinced that Hetzel was beyond any redemption, though it would have been a long road for sure. That change with the Lehran flashback is huge. Most of the tweaks (like the Sephiran/Ike convo before 4-F-4) all had one theme: keeping the mastermind's true identity and motives more mysterious. The flashback scene is a glaring omission however. Maybe they wanted to make Sephiran seem more sympathetic? After all, that mob was going to try and kill him, and yet we clearly see that they failed. Either they gave up and went home, or Sephiran slaughtered them. @BrightBow https://discord.gg/Gp6M2Tz I was under the impression that Ike was referring more to Asunera rather than Ashera or Yune separately in that final scene, but I have to admit that all things considered it sounds better in the original script. I'll be honest though, what we got doesn't really bother me either way. That's too bad about Ashera's conversations, though I feel like should could have used even more than that. It'd mostly be fluff, sure, but since they didn't give everyone a line or two before the battle (like Light or Together to the End), some boss conversations would have been appreciated. It's an even bigger shame when you consider that 95% of the playable cast can talk to Ashnard, despite literally not being able to damage him. I still stand by my statement that all the Second Playthrough stuff should just be available from the start. Lehran as a playable character I could go either way on keeping him a second round exclusive, but all those story bits should be in there for sure. Their cryptic nature already ensures that you're likely to miss it on a first playthrough anyways unless you use a guide, so it's not like they're hurting replayability. And for God's sake, I get that they worked hard on these animations, but just let people turn them off from the start. @IcelerateI talk about that a bit in the last video, but as a whole I have to give to PoR for story, but not by as much as you might think. I'm the kind of person who enjoys seeing how the characters in a story play off each other, react to the world around them, react to the plot etc. and PoR has that in spades. Side characters felt more lively, and frequently made themselves relevant one way or another. While I find the casts of both games to be charming, PoR fleshed out the characters just that extra bit more to make them truly feel alive at times. That's not to say that RD doesn't do any of these things, or that PoR wins every category though. There's little doubt in my mind that the story of RD is far more grand. The stakes are high, there's tons of memorable story moments in this game, and even though I'd give the edge to PoR overall, I believe that if you take characters out of the equation, the plot of RD is more engaging, and the ending for RD was far more satisfying. This is just opinion of course, but if you were to put me on the spot for a top 5 stories in FE, it'd probably be 9>10>TRS(it counts I swear)>15>4/5. You can probably tell, but I really do value the characters in these games quite a bit. 4 vs 5 is an interesting one for me, since I look at it in a similar way to 9 vs 10, but that's a whole different discussion Part 38 (4-F-4 and 4-F-E) Part 39 (Epilogue) I've had some time to sit on it a little since recording the last parts, and I still think this is a fantastic game. Absolutely worth playing, though if you were going to play this yourself I'd have to recommend grabbing a save file with the second playthrough content unlocked. My thoughts haven't really changed that much, so I'll let the videos do the talking. And if anyone wants to see how right (or dead wrong) I was about some of the units I used, here's this little bonus that one of my subscribers had suggested

The way that it works in FE8 is more complex for whatever reason. I assume it's because of branching promotions but idk. Anyways, assuming you've already inserted your palette, you need to open your ROM in Nightmare, along with the two Palette Association Editors. The first one contains what classes that a character can potentially be, and the second one contains all the different palettes that correspond to each class. With Eirika for example, in the first editor you should see Eirika Lord as her base class, and Eirika Master Lord as her first promotion. If you wanted to change her palette for her base class, you'd open up the second editor, select Eirika, and pick your new palette in the dropdown menu for "Base Palette" Essentially, just make sure that the Class/Palette slots line up between both editors, and it should work out for you.

There's a small bug with the skills system that causes stat penalties for playable units whenever you have more than 16 units in a group. Split the unit list into groups of no more than 16 and the problem will go away.

Okay, so I'm significantly ahead in the game compared to the last update I posted in this. As in, I beat the game haha. Life's been a lot busier than I expected lately, it was all I could do to get the videos out. Instead of dropping 4 videos in this one post, I'm just going to link the playlist here with Part 34-37. Part 38 (4-E-4 and 4-E-F) will be up lateish tomorrow night, with the epilogue the next day. I'll also go back so I can see all these alternate conversations for myself, since I hear there are some good ones in the Tower especially. Part 34 (4-5) (Spoilers to avoid wall of text) Part 35 (Prep and 4-F-1) Part 36 (4-1-F/4-2-F) Part 37 (4-F-3) @Interdimensional Observer Geez, you weren't kidding! I looked up another video of 4-4, and oh my god, if I had been even one turn slower I'd have gotten swamped with enemies for sure! In fairness, the BEXP Turn Limit is 10, and the reinforcements don't get out of hand until after that. I'm all for anti-turtling incentives, but I think 12 Enemies per turn for 5 rounds is waaaaay too much haha. I definitely agree about Tormod. It's a huge shame that the LEA doesn't show up in Act 3, especially because that seems to me like a really logical place to reintroduce them. As it stands, it almost feels like the Devs just forgot they were in the game to be perfectly honest. What were they doing in Tanas Manor anyways? Speaking of Tanas, those Oliver supports are gold. I kinda wish they would have ran with it though, and make the support partners hate Oliver from C rank through A rank, but that's a small price to pay for such an oddball character to make his return I suppose. I definitely need to do a second tower run to see his boss conversations, since I'm sure they're all great. Rafiel and Nailah are married, huh? In a weird sort of way, I can kind of see it to be honest. Strange that they wouldn't mention something like that though, I love little details like that. @BrightBow There sure are a ton of differences surrounding this Blood Pact between the two versions, huh? I feel that maybe during the localization process, they realized that as a plot point it needed some work. Sadly, I think that both the JP team and the NA team missed the mark a bit, but if you take what's there between both versions you get something closer to a decent plot device, albeit not quite. I think the implication was supposed to be that in the NA version, the pact was still active, which I honestly believe is the better way to go about things. This way, there's still some tension due to the fact that even saving the world from Ashera won't be enough if we can't beat Lekain as well.

Pretty tired atm so I'll come back and edit some proper responses later, but for now: I was not prepared for this.

@Interdimensional Observer Thanks again for going through the extended script, it was an interesting read! I really like the extended scripts' version of Lekain's little speech before sending out the Disciples of Order. It's a small change, sure, but it makes him feel so much more like this 'cult of personality' type figure that he's supposed to be. It's still implied in the NA script that he's sort of like that, all the senators in fact, but it's nice to see him go about his business a bit more in the JP version. I also thought that change to Sigrun's reaction to the DoO was an interesting one. She seems a lot more hardcore in the NA version. While the PoR crew maybe don't need as much characterization, the new ones and the newly playable ones seem like they would have benefited a decent bit from the portions you've posted so far. I can't help but wonder if other characters are any different in the JP version? Of course, like I almost always expect at this point, there's a lot of characters who get shafted a line or two in the NA script, and I still just wish they would have left it in. Does it matter that Elincia has a little bit to say before moving out? No, not really, but it's still nice to see how everyone is responding to this wildly outrageous situation, and the game could have only been stronger for including stuff like that. I will say that the absence isn't really noticeable until you're looking at the scripts side by side, except in rarer cases like Skrimir appearing in a scene that he never speaks in. @BrightBowI didn't process that, but you're right. You'd think Tanith would have something to say to Catalina, given that Tanith almost certainly would have trained her. I think it's very possible that there were originally going to be more locked characters, especially since someone like Tanith actually does have some boss conversations on Micaiah's side, and most of the Dawn Brigade as well. At least for 4-3, as someone was kind enough to mention on the video. I'll definitely have to take Mercy off Elincia the next time I go to Tibarn's group. I'm glad that didn't come back to bite me lol @KruggovThank you, I'll definitely have to give the Triangle Attack a try soon. With the convoy, I don't know for certain but I'm 99% sure the game would make you discard something if Ike went over capacity, had a full inventory, and had a full convoy. Kinda like how the game will make you discard stuff if you go over the item limit before you meet Aimee/Daniel/Jorge/Muston. 4-1 4-2 4-3 I'm gonna totally honest: a large part of why I haven't updated in a few days was because I was kind of waiting for something MAJOR to happen with the story. It never really did. There's plenty of side characters that get some spotlight, and some interesting things do get revealed, but only after 3 maps do I feel like there's anything really worth saying. As for the maps 4-1 can go straight to hell. It's one thing to have a rout map, sure, but to then have totally nonsensical reinforcements, and top it off with fog of war is just...not fun haha. Needless to say, I didn't care for it. On a repeated playthrough maybe it isn't as bad, but I feel like a map should at least be good the first time, especially with FoW maps. The way it is now is just trial and error on whether or not you can find all the enemies before even more show up from any location they so choose. 4-2 is better, luckily. I had a good time taking out Valtome, and Fiona was FINALLY able to promote. At long last she's as good as I want her to be. Tibarn is a lot of fun to use, and the reinforcements here tended to be a bit more logical. Maybe it's because you can see the enemies initially and therefore plan around that, but I just feel like this map had a much better flow to it. 4-3 is just a desert map. Really, that's all I have to say about it. I do like that the game sort of nudges you towards using fliers on Micaiah's side, which is good when it comes time to do this map. With fliers, or mages I guess, this is pretty simple honestly. I did enjoy the feeling of ducking in and out of enemy ranges with an army of fliers abusing Canto to the fullest, so that was pretty fun if nothing else. Also Naesala is super broken with Resolve. Again, the story bits were interesting, but they are spread a little thin throughout these three maps. Kurth's characterization was nice, and I appreciate how they handled Ashnard/Ameldha's relationship. I think the most interesting bits were in 4-3, where we got to learn more about Yune's origins, as well as give Sanaki a chance to overcome some of her self doubt. The Black Knight making another sudden appearance raises some questions as well. I appreciate the knowledge on these characters...but again I can't help but wish for a bit more action on the main plotline.

@Interdimensional Observer The lack of unique Boss Conversations was definitely one of the more disappointing aspects of Fates. At least Saizo got one! As an NPC haha. Almeldha's breakdown is really kinda chilling in a way. I almost wish that I'd be getting those scenes, to be honest, since Pelleas really hasn't done or said much in a while honestly. It makes me wonder what her relationship with Dhegensia must be like, considering she doesn't seem like she feels that she has a lot to live for anymore. I guess with your husband being insane, one of your brothers being killed by said husband, and your child's death as the icing on the cake it would be very hard to keep it together. I'm really surprised that people think the Blood Pact cheapens Ashnard. It seems perfectly in character to me to do something so completely insane, like @Icelerate said. If anything, it adds to his character since at best in PoR we could assume that he got to his position by coincidence, besides killing his father himself of course. It was heavily implied to be some sort of disease that did the Daein royalty in, right? Seems awfully hands off for the 'Mad King' in my opinion. If they would be a little clearer with this Blood Pact deal, it might even greatly strengthen his character and the impact of the Blood Pact as an idea as well. If say, the Wise Man that Ashnard got to create the Blood Pact with his father had cursed Ashnard as well, he'd certainly seem batty as hell, and the Blood Pact would accomplish something pretty unique that would hard to replicate by other story devices. Shoot, it seems perfectly possible to me that Ashnard would take such a crazy gamble, all to gain the power he desired. In fact, with how I understand the Blood Pact, he certainly did curse himself, unless you can somehow pick and choose who gets affected when you curse an entire country. Of course, that goes back to the Blood Pact needing some more clarity, but if I'm even close to correct, then this is actually a pretty big plus for Ashnard, as far as I'm concerned. @BrightBow You know, I hadn't even considered that they would assume Yune had revived us to do her work. That makes perfect sense, actually, and hey, they're even half right since we are working with her technically. Is the triangle attack any 3 Seraphs or does it have to be Elincia/Marcia/Tanith like in PoR? So, Part 4 begins. I've heard that this is the weakest part from here until endgame, so I'm curious to see how I'll feel about this one. The prologue map wasn't too bad, and if I'm being perfectly honest I kind of like it. I found it to be short and painless, with lots of new toys to play with. Skirimir, and more importantly NAESALA are awesome and tons of fun to use. These Disciples of Order stood no chance, and I even trained up Tanith too. I ended up replaying this one (sent Eddy to the wrong squad RIP me), and I still feel the same. While the main story is pretty cut and dry (head to the tower!), I like that they're taking the time to set up some side-character arcs here. I think it's a pretty good guess that Naesala is being manipulated by someone, and the big shocker is that Sanaki might actually be a fake. That second one is extra surprising to me, since it was the Begnion Paragons of Stupidity AKA the Senate who came up with that one in the first place, and the obvious assumption is that it's all total BS. It'll be a nice little subversion if it actually turns out to be true. Last, but not least, I'm liking Yune. She's pretty funny, not gonna lie. She even buffed up Sothe! But she couldn't give him a properly sized shirt, as I guess that would be beyond even her power.

@IcelerateI actually think that Pelleas signing the Blood Pact is fine in the JP version anyways. They make it pretty clear with the dialogue that @BrightBow posted that it's more the act of making the blood pact that causes the curse, rather than the actual text of the document. That's all well and good, but it should have absolutely been in the NA version as well to make things less confusing. I agree 100% with your feelings on 3-13, and Heather being able to expose the trap tiles would have been really cool, and actually give her some purpose. I just noticed, but there haven't been any chests since 1-F lol. @Interdimensional ObserverI definitely think that the Blood Pact raises the stakes like almost nothing else could. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the pieces of a good idea are there, but spread so thinly and across multiple languages/hard to trigger dialogues, that I can't call it good. I talk a bit about this in the next part (not the one in this post, but the one that should be up tomorrow), but even the nationality/location problem can be reasonably deduced I feel. With the mark of the blood pact appearing on Micaiah (another scene that needed to be there I think), we know that the curse will appear on those who are affected. If you take that, and remember that Ilyana is decidedly of Daein nationality, it has to be based on region since she never gets the mark. Of course, it could be that it hasn't affected her yet, but with dialogue that was posted for me on the newest video, specifically the Jill/Pelleas dialogue, it seems to imply that Jill would be affected too. Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't she technically be from Begnion even if she considers herself to be from Daein? I think it must be a regional thing. If that is the case, things make a lot more sense. It's not as if everyone in Daein can up and immigrate to a new location all at once. Even if every single person had the means, it would be a logistical nightmare for whatever country wanted to accept them as refugees. Not to mention the fact that everyone there seems as if they are already cursed, as implied by the curse appearing on Micaiah despite not being part of the pact originally. It's just much easier to buy into if it works based off an area: it makes a lot more sense than a curse that can somehow sense a persons nationality and I feel like based on what is there that the game seems to somewhat imply that region is the deciding factor. Even if leaving Daein could somehow lift the curse, the kingdom is effectively destroyed. In the end, I think the idea itself could have worked despite still being kinda out there, but all the needed information is just too hard to find as it's explained in game. Having to search through hard to trigger dialogue that most players may never see, not to mention gather information from a version in an entirely different language just to understand the fundamentals of how this thing is supposed to function just makes this whole blood pact thing lose a lot of credibility. The pieces may be there, and I'm all for reading in between the lines to understand the story, but this is one thing that's just too important and needed to be made perfectly clear from the get go. The entire motivation for Micaiah/Pelleas in Part 3 literally hinges on this one point, and if it can't be adequately explained to someone who doesn't want to browse through the script from 2 different versions of the same game, then it has failed in my eyes whether there is reasonable explanation to all the elements that make up the blood pact or not. Hopefully Part 4 can shed some more light on all this, but for now I think it could have been handled much better, even just by correctly utilizing what's already there. On the plus side, this game definitely has a lot more good writing than bad, and I can't see my opinion of that changing any time soon. Those Ike boss conversations were hilarious lol. And I feel that a lot of the Player vs Player unit conversations, on 3-F especially, are really well done and add a lot of much needed characterization for certain people. They also help explain some things that might not otherwise be explicitly stated, like Calil v Tauroneo, for example. Soren v Micaiah Round 2 is pretty interesting too. Shoot, I think Ilyana is supposed to even have a conversation that doesn't even mention food, which is a true milestone for her character. It's a shame that half of these are next to impossible to get. Soren v Micaiah I could maybe see, if you gave Soren a siege weapon and can somehow trigger him to move, but some of the ones on 3-F are flat out impossible afaik. All the ones with Micaiah are next to impossible, and good luck ever seeing Tibarn v Nailah! @BrightBow I think that's why the Micaiah thing doesn't bother me on 3-12. The game actually treats the situation with a degree of seriousness. Shoot, I actually felt kind of dirty for employing these tactics, just because the game makes it very clear that it's a horrible, horrible thing that you'd be doing by committing to this. Yes, I'm glad no one mentioned the kill counter on 3-F. That was such a cool idea, and it really added to the tension of the whole fight. You never really knew when the next event might trigger, and even if it became really obvious where things were headed about 20 kills in, that only added to the sense of dread. Not to mention all the awesome conversations you can theoretically get on this map. Pretty good finale, if you ask me, albeit a pretty easy chapter if you're not rushing for that Soren/Pelleas conversation. In this part, we end the world. Oops.

@Icelerate Well, since I can pretty much say who the character is now, I'll say that Pelleas does a little better than I gave him credit for at first. I still think that some of his actions are ignorant at best, but I guess that's maybe the point. Either way, he gets some points back for choosing to quite literally give up his life if need be, which is FINALLY a leader-like decision, so I have to respect him a little bit for that. And yeah, the enemy AI is quite good on 3-11. While messing around, I once had the Rescue guy rescue a weakened Bow Knight who then ran up on Sigrun to take a potshot. He missed, and I highly doubt it was one purpose, but still it was sketch. Though annoyingly, even if you direct Tibarn to stand on a pitfall he won't go there despite being immune to them. @BrightBow I actually like Micaiah's decision to ignite the apostles army a whole lot, really. It's good development for her IMO, going from someone who didn't even really want to fight Jarod in Part 1 to an almost ruthless in a way military leader who will do anything to get the win. It's drastic, sure, but it just goes to show how far she's willing to go. I just assumed that he unknowingly signed the pact in blood. Like, assuming he used a quill pen, the vial he used just happened to be blood and not ink, or something to that effect. The way it is in the extended script certainly makes me raise an eyebrow, but it's less ridiculous than assuming he never even read the agreement, so there's that at least. Tbh, I think a combination of both making it clear he read it, and being tricked into signing with blood would have been the least ridiculous outcome. It's not like he needed to do so willingly for the pact to work or anything. Was it Volug's supports are awesome, thank you so much for pointing that out because honestly I probably would have skipped them haha. @Interdimensional Observer Hmm I see, so it basically is just as any other government then. We just happen to be playing out a time where Begnion is ruled by a group of horrible individuals. It's nice to see that the era before the Beorc ruled is fleshed out a little bit, since I know that on at least one occasion it's mentioned that Beorc and Laguz were reversed in terms of influence. I have mixed feelings about 3-11 honestly. On one hand, it's a lot easier in RD thanks to having an abundance of godly units compared to MM in PoR. On the other, I almost want to say that the gimmick worked better in FE9 since you were never cutoff completely with your grounded units. Once you hit the 3 pitfalls in the center of the bridge, that's it for anyone who isn't flying. If that happens, you have to rescue or wait for the Shine Barriers, which is a bit frustrating. I happened to hit the pitfalls with all the right units (yay?) so I didn't need to do that, but it could be aggravating on your first time for sure. 3-12 The infamous Blood Pact, eh? Again, I think the video does a better job of explaining my initial feelings towards it than I could with words. I get into that about 13 minutes in or so, for anyone who is interested in that. I talk about it a little more at the end too, I believe. And the beginning of the next part too, haha. It's quite the confusing thing, that's for sure. The map itself is pretty vanilla honestly. I can't really call it bad though, because it's so short. It never really has any time to overstay it's welcome, at least not the way I did things. Just FYI, I ended up replaying this one with Resolve!Jill, which makes the strategy of "throw good unit in the middle of everything" a lot safer. As in, 'enemies have 20% hit if they're lucky' reliable. Still, there was time for other units to play a little catch-up, but I think if you really wanted to and your Jill was good enough, you could do it in about 2 Turns. Pretty good from a story standpoint, but pretty average from a gameplay one. Unlike This map, which is great from a gameplay standpoint. This game knocks it out of the park with its defend maps, and this one is no exception. It doesn't even really have the problem that many of them do, in that killing Ike is no joke if you're not preparing your entire playthrough for this one moment. Casually dealing with Wrath!Ike who has A-Soren (who himself has a forged Thunder FML) is really not something that I feel most teams will be well equipped for. Of course, you can cheese it (I think) by giving him a lame weapon in 3-11 and no support, but where's the fun in that? Sleep helps, but my Laura was pretty weak, so I essentially had to wait for him to move before I had a chance to get in range with her. Not to mention cutting through the onslaught of Laguz between you and him. Man, those Tigers hit hard! There's something amazing about an Edward that takes 6 damage from cats though. Gods aside, I feel like there's something for everyone to do here, with a few exceptions. Shoot, even Leo was nice for his ability to 1 Shot Hawks at base and do some decent chip with his personal. Mechanics like ledges were used well, the music is great, and the Greil Mercenaries showing up on the last few turns was a nice touch. Probably my favorite map so far, honestly. The story was engaging here too. The scene regarding Pelleas right at the start was very well handled in my opinion. Regardless of me still not being sold on the Blood Pact, there's no denying that the stakes are high and it creates for a very tense scene. I honestly like the outcome where you choose "Obey his command" more. It's a genuinely great section in the story.. The only downside is that for some reason this whole choice is locked behind a second playthrough, which is just silly. Kurth showing up at the end is of course just plain awesome. Kid knows how to make an entrance, I'll give him that. But now, there's representatives from every nation in Tellius wrapped up in this whole mess. That can't end well...