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FE4 Endgame: The Final Holy War
Edda --> Dozel --> Freege
Spoiler
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How To Trivialise Dozel: Use Dermott.
He has 76 avoid vs. the Great Knights' 98 hit, so that gives them 2 hit against him after weapon triangle. Add Seliph to the equation and that goes down to 0 without anybody noticing.
And with 40 Atk, he deals 4x18 = 72 dmg against their 70 HP. *Chef's kiss*
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Do that over the course of two enemy phases, and Brian's entire entourage (well, except for a few healers) is done.
: "How dare you murder my father... Learn the pain and wrath of three generations of House Dozel!"
And Brian himself, well...
Sigurd/Seliph's Silver Sword has 100+ kills, so he has a 72% crit rate with it.
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(lookit Sharlow being useful!)
Ayra/Beowulf/Dermott's Brave Sword has 74 kills after running through every Grauenritter, which puts him at a 59% crit rate.
: "Even with Helswath, I... I fell so easily? Could it be... Could I have been wrong... all along...?"
Meanwhile, the majority of the unpromoted axe cavs are dealt with by Nanna, who basically could've done the same thing as her brother if given the same resources (namely a Power Ring, Speed Ring for avoid, the gen1 Brave Sword, and a Skill Ring for the better crit rate).
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: "Damn you all! Your heads are mine to cleave right off!"
: "H-how could this be..."
(contrary to what I said last update, I think this is the fifth Philip, not the fourth. I just already was too lazy to make a portrait for No.IV)
Generic Loptyr man is allowed one Fenrir against Nanna (he misses)...
...before Fee stabs him with yet another crit weapon.
I have this weird sense of déjà-vu here...
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Before seizing, there is one little surprise: Seliph did not randomly hook up with Lana, which I think the First Mate (?) said earlier is the most likely outcome if you don't pay attention to his love life.
: "Lord Seliph..."
: "Tinni?! Stay back, please! You are ill suited for the front lines!"
"Warmages and war do NOT mix!"
: "All I want is to help you, Lord Seliph. Please... My power is yours!"
: "But I... I couldn't bear to lose you..."
: "I won't leave your side, Lord Seliph. The thought of meeting the same fate as Lady Deirdre... It's too painful... Please, Lord Seliph. I'll fight at your side till the very end!"
: "You're right... My apologies. How could we not be better off fighting as one? Come, Tinni. We ride together. Your power will bring us victory. I know it!"
: "Lord Seliph... Thank you!"
[+3 Mag --> Seliph]
Well, there is one fate that Tinni shares with Deirdre, and that is that she certainly won't ride together with a twelve-move Seliph without a horse. Honestly, this convo is roughly the 392th time that I've seen some iteration of it in a Fire Emblem game, so I can't really find myself caring too much for it.
I didn't conciously set up this pairing at all, but considering that Tinni starts at 0 love points with Seliph (and everybody else) and only has one convo providing them with a free +100, I suppose I must've kept them adjacent surprisingly often, considering their incredibly different movement types.
Seliph does have the Wind Sword in his inventory, but I believe it's still entirely unused, making the +3 Mag he gained rather useless. I suppose the most efficient romancing (and I feel that's one of the most cringeworthily German things I've ever typed) would've been with Lana after all, who would've given Seliph +2 Res to hit his cap.
After that, Seliph seizes for another cutscene:
: "What a bloody disgrace... How could a pack of idiots like House Dozel be of Crusader heritage? If it weren't for Langbalt, the world wouldn't be in such a mess..."
: "Lewyn, I cannot wait much longer. Just where did the Crusaders' power come from? What in the world are these gods?"
: "I can't say for sure... But whatever they were, they realized that our land's misery was caused by the power of the dragonkin. And so they came to Jugdral from some other world to save the human race. It was they who suddenly appeared at Darna, just as its doom seemed certain."
: "That would be the legendary descent of Naga and the eleven gods found in scripture, yes?"
: "Yeah. They say the gods took human shapes. Naga, the light god, appeared as a little girl, while the fire god Salamand was an old man. With twelve chosen warriors, the gods bound themselves in a blood covenant."
: "A blood covenant?"
: "Basically, the gods drew their own blood with a scratch to the fingertip and presented it to the warriors."
: "...I beg your pardon?!"
dun-DUN-dunn...?
This is played as a big revelation, but I have to wonder: Does this matter?! Comparing this to the similarly awful plot dump at the end of Binding Blade - and I can't believe I'm using that one as a more positive example: Jahn's story time at least changes the historic narrative that Roy had been taught, describing humans and dragons as two sides in a fight for survival instead of the humans being bullied by those dreadful lizards. Here, I suppose that the "gods" are made more mundane, but... the basic narrative is still "Loptyr (super-powerful being) empowered an asshole to conquer the world. Twelve other super-powerful beings decide to help the oppressed to fight back".
But back to Lewyn, who isn't done expositioning yet:
: "With a single taste of the blood of dragons, these once humble warriors of the liberation army were reborn as the Twelve Crusaders. Each dragon presented to their crusader a weapon steeped in their own power. And then, with some final parting words of wisdom to the Crusaders, the dragonkin departed Jugdral."
: "I see... So our power is, in truth, that of dragons..."
: "Now, Loptyr himself is actually from a dragon clan whose fell power is amongst the mightiest of all the dragonkin. The great dragon Naga, strongest of them all, bestowed their own blood upon the leader of the liberation army, the priest Heim. Naga knew only their power could possibly hope to stand against that of Loptyr."
: "So nobody else among the dragonkin would be able to prevail against Loptyr?"
: "It certainly wouldn't be easy, I think. Even if you had every last dragon fighting together, they'd still need Naga's power. This, of course, means that if we're to win today, we'll need the surviving heir to Saint Heim. In other words, one of Deirdre's three children. Of those three, you didn't inherit the full breadth of Naga's blood, and it's pretty obvious that Julius didn't. Actually, I only recently learned who it is. The inheritor of Naga's power is Julius' twin sister... Princess Julia."
: "E-excuse me?!"
: "Yeah, that was more or less my reaction too at first. Julia is Julius's twin sister... which also makes her your sister, Seliph."
: "So all this time... Julia was my sister..."
: "I guess now we know why Manfroy took her to begin with. Needless to say, Seliph, we've got to rescue her, no matter what. We absolutely need Julia's powers if we want any hope of stopping Julius!"
'nother question, Lewyn: How did you figure out that Julia's parentage? I sincerely hope it was after your "so you wanna tap that, eh?" towards Seliph, so it must have been very recently.
But even if this entire exposition dump turns out to be entirely sensible and consistent, I really dislike this way of presenting it. Apart from the pacing issue of Lewyn just barfing it out all at once, there's also no narrative weight to it. Seliph doesn't find out about anything by, say, finding an ancient temple in which the twelve gods are represented as dragon statues. He doesn't even find an ancient sage on top of the tallest mountain. No, the dingus who has been traveling with Seliph for almost the entirety of the second generation just didn't feel like explaining anything until now. Bleh.
Since the conquest of Dozel wasn't the most exhausing of battles, I'll continue to Freege, so let's see how this'll be set up:
: "Dozel's fallen to the rebels? What the hell were my men doing out there?! Feh, why'd I ever expect any better? Worthless cowards, the lot of them! It's time I took this into my own hands. All I need is to lure these flies into my web. Then I can crush them, once and for all! Send Scorpio of Jungby a messenger! Pass on to him this plan. The Gelbenritter will coax the rebels our way, leaving them wide open to a deluge of the Beigenritter's arrows from behind! They'll have nowhere to run or hide. Kill them all! No survivors this time!"
So, here's the next target. For now, not a very diverse group of enemies: Hilda with a bunch of Barons, and a gaggle of Sleep Loptyrians led by your average Fenrir Dark Bishop.
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Apart from swapping her holy blood, Hilda also lost her Speed Ring while retaining all of her other stats, so she's a bit weaker than she was in Ch.10. However, since she's on the field now, I suppose she's more likely to apply her Charm aura to her mooks.
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Going from Dozel to Freege is the return of the bad ol' walking simulator that is Genealogy at its weaker stages. But at least we have the Rescue staff to speed it up a bit.
Eventually, we get close enough to Freege to trigger the reinforcements from Jungby:
: "With Freege at their front, we'll choke them like a snake on a rat!"
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The Beigenritter won't be particularly relevant.
One interesting detail is that Scorpius doesn't have any holy blood. His dad still had minor Ullur blood, but I suppose, contrary to the game mechanics, it's too watered down to have any effect for Scorpius.
Now, to make the Beigenritter irrelevant... You only have to kill a single Baron to open a path to the castle, which Seliph can do even without fishing for a Silver Sword crit.
Unfortunately, Leylia fell back ever so slightly too much, so Leif has to use another Rescue charge (the last one, as it turns out, but he'll have the funds to repair it).
Leylia's dance also gives Fee the reach to attack Hilda...
: "Hmph... I won't fall anywhere near as easily as those other worms!"
...who falls just as easily as Brian. Fee does need a crit to one-round her (4 x 16 dmg vs. 70 HP), but at a 57% chance per hit (83 kills + 24 Skl), the odds are quite in her favour. Like, we're talking 3.4% to not get the kill.
: "Gaah! This is a travesty... Ishtar... Avenge me... You must avenge me..."
...all three Loptyr dudes on the castles have had the same lines. Hm.
Anyway, killing Hilda wasn't strictly necessary here, I don't think...
...since her entourage disappears with Freege's capture. However, you can see that the Loptyrians on that ridge stick around...
...and will put Leylia to sleep after she cantered forward. I might replay that last turn; I haven't overwritten that save yet. But that only happens after a couple more cutscenes, so let's get to those:
: "But... I can't help but wonder... Are the children at Belhalla still unharmed? I pray they are..."
: "Funny you should say that! We've got a visitor who's got a bit of news on that front, Seliph."
: "And who are you?"
: "My name is Felipe, sire. I was once an aide to the late Emperor Arvis. On secret orders from His Majesty, the abducted children were moved here to Freege for safe-keeping."
: "What? Is that true? You've saved all of the children?!"
: "Rest easy, sire. They're all hiding in the city's abbey, and they're all in good health."
: "And all under Hilda's nose, at that! That you've kept every last child safe in Hilda's own city... Color me impressed."
: "Actually, sire... Princess Ishtar deserves your thanks. Without her generous aid given in secret, we could never have done this. No imperial soldiers dared come even close to the abbey, on pain of the princess' wrath."
: "Princess Ishtar?! But why... Why would she-"
: "Few people in this land are as kind and caring as Princess Ishtar. All along, the princess has toiled behind the scenes to aid our cause. It was Princess Ishtar herself who ensured that every last child escaped from the bowels of Belhalla."
: "I see... At any rate, thank the gods for their safety. I'm certain everyone will be glad to know the children are in good hands. You have my deepest thanks, Lord Felipe."
Very nice of Ishtar to be so nice. Off-screen only, of course. I'm sure nobody in this thread has any particular opinion on this scene.
: "Well, Seliph, that's one job done. Good to see we're finally getting some results out of this mess."
: "Mm. And yet, Julia still eludes us... Where could she possibly be?"
: "The only options left now are Belhalla and Velthomer. It's got to be one of those two."
: "And Belhalla is where Julius awaits..."
: "Yeah, we'll have to find Julia first if we want to go anywhere near Belhalla. Without Julia's power on our side, we won't have a hope in hell against Julius."
: "But no matter what's happened, Julius is still her brother. Will she even want to fight him..."
: "...You'll have to convince her."
: "If I may, Lord Julius, I'd like to lead the Weissenritter to bolster the capital's defense. This will require that I leave your side, even for a while. I beg your forgiveness."
: "Feh. Why the rush to get out there so suddenly, Ishtar? All the soldiers they could ever throw at us could never so much as scratch me. Why even bother with those maggots?"
: "Yes, I know... But for me, there is no greater pride than being one of Freege's great mages. My parents and brother lie dead, and I cannot stand to leave their murderers to run amok... Please... All I ask is a chance for vengeance."
: "It sounds as if what you really want is to join your family in death on a rebel's blade! Are you so desperate to escape me, Ishtar?"
: "No... Nothing like that, Lord Julius. I love you. Nothing will ever change that."
: "Hmhmhmhmhm... I know. Very well. Fight if you must. I won't stop you."
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: "The time for games is over. Every last rebel dies, here and now!
And here's the defenses of Belhalla. At the same time at Velthomer...:
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Julia joins the field, slowly moving west towards Belhalla and Freege.
To re-recruit her, I know that we'll have to beat Manfroy first - who is quite tanky even by the standards of the quite tanky Dark Bishop class. He has Pursuit, Adept, and Charm which makes him quite dangerous for some to face(specifically, Dermott gets two-shot by him).
And he is surrounded by Hel/Sleep users, so Dermott is very much not the play here.
Mr Final Boss grabbed a Meteor tome to make sure he can harrass any approaching unit, and the Nihil skill to make sure he can't be cheesed.
And his girlfriend grabbed a trio of Falcon Knights, Triangle Attack inclusive. They have minor Forseti blood, represented by a capped Spd stat.
I forgot to make a screenshot of Ishtar herself, but she received quite significant buffs compared to last chapter. HP from 50 to 70 and Def from 10 to 18 means that she's a lot more difficult to one-round, especially considering her incredible Spd and therefore avoid. Apart from that, her stats didn't go up as much, but "that" is a pretty big thing to be apart from.
Finally, the Deadlords. I neither speak Latin nor know a ton about biology, but I assume they're all named after scientific species names?
Not going to show them all, though. Wide variety of classes and weapons.
Before closing the update, I almost forgot about two lovers' convos that were unlocked (and that I grabbed) after Dozel's capture. First, the kissing Dozel cousins:
: "But hey, Dozel's in our hands now, right? Gotta keep going! Just a little longer..."
: "Don't do anything too dumb, okay? Dozel'll still need you around to rebuild."
: "Yeah, you got it. I can't just die now and leave behind my father and brothers' mess, now, can I? I'll be needing your help too, Larcei."
: "Sure. You've helped me an awful lot, you know. I ought to return the favor."
: "Whoa, thanks! I love ya so much, Larcei."
: "Wh- Johalvier! What'd I say about doing dumb things?!"
B-baka!
This convo would've gotten Johalvier +3 Str, but he's already at the (rather disappointing, tbh) cap of 26.
: "Say, Lord Leif... how soon do you think this fight will be over?"
: "I cannot say for sure... And yet I cannot help but feel our triumph is drawing ever closer."
: "And once this is over, I take it we'll be headed for Leonster?"
: "Indeed we are. The Thracian Peninsula has known naught but strife for decades, and to unify it was my father's dream. I'll pledge my life to fulfill his grand vision, and I'd love nothing more than to have you by my side every step of the way, Nanna."
: "Of course, Lord Leif! I'll be by your side forevermore, wherever your path leads. Even to the very ends of the earth..."
I don't suppose we'll comment on the detail that Quan's grand vision is surprisingly close to Travant's.
Again, no stat bonus because Leif already has capped Def at 27. Would've been a nice +3 otherwise, as well.
...Well then, one more update left for Genealogy, I assume, plus then the usual summation of my thoughts. Curious how tricky it'll be to recruit Julia quick and safely, when you can't just press the "WARP" button. Well, you can, but it won't be very helpful towards this goal.
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I think I'd give Tellius the nod. Character designs and portraits are the best in the series, in my opinion. Although GBAFE is great, too. The battle animations are as fun as they go, and I actually like the map visuals a lot, too. Later games might have more "realistic" visuals, but GBAFE maps look good while also being very easy to read. In some of the later games, i sometimes struggle to see at a glance what terrain a specific tile is.
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10 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:
And yeah, people usually pin it on Manfroy but Julius just goes with it because we need the villains to become dumb so we can actually win. You know how else we could've won? By not having the random-ass kidnapping happen, so this problem doesn't exist.
You don't ask the stream not to flow down the mountain
You don't ask the rock not to fall to the ground
You don't ask Shouzou Kaga not to include a 13th creepy abduction scene in his newest videogame, available on the SNES.10 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:We got trouble?
"Bye, Felicia" actually has a wikipedia page, which I think is funny.
10 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:...By the way, since we're coming closer to Thracia... Er, I have a feeling I might've already said it, but I'll say it again just in case: I extend to you Hicks. Please do try to use my guy, Hicks. That is all for this game.
10 hours ago, BrightBow said:7 years ago. So it's not like Ishtar's boyfriend turning evil is a recent thing.
Welp, I was going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she got together with normal Julius, but... guess not.
10 hours ago, BrightBow said:Most certainly on another level than his brothers.
And here I was hoping that Larcei could go out and channel her inner Sheeda once more.
6 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:You got us. Unlike the Germans, we can't even afford to put two dots over a third of our vowels.
Wales is secretly the wealthiest place in the world.
6 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:If I'm not mistaken, Boyce has the same portrait as Jacoban - the Gen I Hero who also fought with a Bolt Sword. It was neat of them to give him some scary skills. Finally, a case for Nihil.
Well, that or a case for Forseti go brrr.
6 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:One thing I would've liked- mention of these rebellions in the prior chapter, at least on the villains' side. -But somebody then assures the other villains "but if we win here and kill Seliph, they'll all fall effortlessly overnight".
Likewise, for this the final chapter, I'd like some villain grunt to tell Julius or the like "Our surviving forces withdrawn from Silesse and Agustria have been reorganized for this the defense of the imperial heartland.". To which Julius or Manfroy would respond- "May the worthless lots regain a shred of honor here or die failures to the end.".
Merely little scribbling-ins to make the Empire feel more under pressure.
Not to congratulate myself too much over my Ch.10 relocation idea - but if that penultimate chapter took place around Evans Castle, you would be able to integrate that into gameplay, too. Manfroy/Julius give orders for the local garrisons from Agustria, Verdane, and Silesse (they're pegasi, so that still works) to move to Grannvale even though these rebellions have broken out. Or maybe it's even Arvis giving the order, seemingly to crush Seliph, but really to make sure that those rebellions don't get brutally subdued, and because he gauges that Seliph's army has a better shot at handling those troops even if they're combined. Or maybe he trusts that they don't all arrive at the same time.
4 hours ago, Revier said:Yeah that's pretty unfortunate, especially considering how strong Lex seems to be in the beginning. Perhaps some axe shaped spears would've served them better? Not like it matters much, most units die to the awesomeness of Seliph, Ares and Shannan at this point anyway.
I've seen people say that Lex isn't all that hot even with the Brave Axe, but I have to say that he held his own even in the later stages of the game. Even in Silessia, with all its wind mages, he could still one-round those (although +hit auras do help), and against physical enemies, he's just straight up the tankiest character in Gen 1.
Except for Bridget, who in my final stat overview is listed with 81 Def because of a typo -
FE4 Endgame: The Final Holy War
Chalphy --> Edda
SpoilerSeliph's long journey is drawing to a close. His army's victories are a beacon of hope to the Empire's victims, and a wave of further rebellions sweeps across Jugdral.
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Meanwhile, Verdane... exists or something, idc.
Duke Brian of Bozel and the axe knights of the Grauenritter; Duke Scorpius and his elite archers, the Beigenritter; and Freege's Queen Hilda and the war-mages of the Gelbenritter stand between Seliph and the capital. Belhalla itself lurks under an eerie silence, as Ishtar and the enigmatic twelve Deadlords lie in wait to defend Prince Julius himself. Over a year has passed since that fateful first battle in Isaach. The tragic struggle pitting kin versus kin wears on, splitting the Twelve Crusaders between the light and the dark...
So begins the final holy war...
♪♫ Of our elaborate plans, the end ♪♫
♪♫ Of everything that stands, the end ♪♫
♪♫ No safety or surprise, the end ♪♫
♪♫ I'll never pay money to trade items again ♪♫: "Father died, you say..."
: "The Emperor had long served his purpose, Your Majesty. He was little more than an obstacle to your ambitions. He had to die."
: "Pfeh. I almost feel sorry for him. All his life he was your tool, Manfroy, only to be thrown away so casually..."
: "All in your empire's name, Your Majesty. Arvis was a lost cause. To think he, a man of Loptyr's blood, dared to challenge the revivale of the empire! The righteous heart of the crusader Vala burned too fiercely within him. It was only a matter of time until he turned on you."
: "I know, I know... Now then. I hear those rebels have stumbled as far as Chalphy. Are our defenses really that pathetic?"
: "Rest assured. I've already tasked Edda's Bishop Rodan and Brian of Dozel with purging Chalphy of those vermin. You've no need to worry, Your Majesty."
: "Don't I, now... Where's Julia?"
: "She awaits her end in the dungeon... You there! Bring us Princess Julia!"
♪♫ Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain ♪♫
♪♫ And all the children are insane ♪♫
: "Ah, Julia. It's been a while, hasn't it? Tell me, do you know who I am?"
: "Julius... My brother, Julius..."
: "Oho! So you do still remember! I can hardly believe seven long years have passed since you slipped away."
: "I... That night is seared into my memory, clear as if it were only yesterday..."
The killer awoke before dawn
He put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and then he
Paid a visit to the Dark Bishop and then he
He walked on down the hall, and
And he came to a door
And he looked inside
: "That night... The night Manfroy came with that eerie black tome... Nothing was ever the same again. My real brother, the kind and caring boy I once knew and loved so, died that night. In his place stood a demon of terrifying power... My brother in name only. You... You monster... You've taken my mother and my brother from me! Who are you? WHAT are you? Why... Why must you torment us all so?!"
: "I am the heir of Loptyr's kin, and the inheritor of his limitless power. This world belongs rightfully to me. And you, Julia? You are the heiress to the power of Naga, my eternal foe. I cannot allow you to live any longer!"
"Father?" "Yes, son?" "I want to kill you"
"Sister? I want to... actually, I want to kill you, too."
: "Using Naga's power to serve me? Interesting... Very interesting. Very well! I must return to Belhalla. Julia is yours, Manfroy. But be warned. Be extremely careful! Even a single mistake with her could cost her dearly."
Fuck, fuck-ah, yeah
Fuck, fuck
Fuck, fuck
Fuck, fuck, fuck yeah!
Come on baby, come on
Fuck me baby, fuck yeah
Woah
Fuck, fuck, fuck, yeah!...wait, no, that doesn't really work that well here. Hmm...
Kill
kill
kill
kill
kill
kill♪♫ This is the end ♪♫
♪♫ Beautiful friend ♪♫
♪♫ This is the end ♪♫
♪♫ My only friend, the end ♪♫Similar to the big firework celebrations at the midway point of the game, Julia's "Who are you? WHAT are you?" is a great twist/revelation that I can't fully appreciate because I already knew. The previous chapter (or chapters, I don't quite remember how long this goes back) already set up the idea that "no human would ever do these things", and Julia's outburst, while not outright saying it, functionally states that Julius is possessed, if not fully taken over by Loptyr (or the Loptyr tome, which at this point could still just be a cursed artifact).
On a less positive note, I also have to point out that Julius is going along with Manfroy's idiotic plan very quickly, considering that he recognises Julia as the greatest threat to his power and his life. It's necessary, to a degree, to allow this dramatic confrontation to take place and have Julia not bite the dust at the end of it - but if I ever see anybody point to Ethlyn and Quan as the dumbest idiots of this game, I'm going to assume that that anybody never played the entirely to Genealogy.
: "His Majesty has issued his command. Priest and sellsword units! Defend Edda itself with your very lives! Cavalry unit, move in on Chalphy! Reclaim our land from the rebels!"
: "Yeah, that's what this is. Julius is descended from Loptyrian royalty, and he's been working to revive the dark empire. No matter what it takes, we must stop him."
: "It feels as if you know everything, Lewyn. I'm beginning to feel left out... Please, what in the world are you talking about?"
: "Yeah, sorry about that, Seliph. I know there's a lot I've not been telling you. I've spent over a decade on a journey to figure out the truth behind all this, and I'm finally onto a bigger picture here."
: "...The bigger picture? "
: "It seems the old Loptyr Empire's founder, the Bishop Galle, dedicated his youth to a world-exploring voyage across the seas. He desired nothing less than to drink the blood of a legendary beast. Even a single drop, he believed, would bestow upon any human limitless power."
: "Do... do you mean the dragonkin of old? It couldn't be... Is that not a myth?"
: "You'd think so, but... When Galle returned to Jugdral, he bore bizarre powers nobody else understood. With these powers, he set to work swaying youths across the land to aid his ambitions. Before anyone else realized, he'd raised a fell legeion unflinchingly loyal to his cause."
: "Where, then, does Loptyr enter the tale?"
: "Odds are Loptyr was a dragon himself. Every last one of Galle's heirs has borne the blood of the dragonkin. The dark powers Loptyr's kin command are nothing more than the dragonkin's powers."
: "And what of the Crusaders?"
: "I'm sure you know how the legend goes. The gods descended upon twelve warriors of the old liberators at the fortress of Darna. But..."
: "But?"
: "Sorry, Seliph, but this'll have to wait. The enemy's just about on our doorstep."
I smell a sequence of plot dumps incoming. Every time our boy Seliph seizes a thr-- castle.
Before getting to the map, I'll quickly go over the arena. With everybody at, or close to, Lv.30, I don't really need to have everybody beat every opponent - which is nice, because this last arena is actually quite a lot more tough than the other ones in gen2. I believe all the opponents are the final bosses of previous arena runs. I still have a decent portion of the team run the whole gauntlet - sometimes for the money to repair their staves or holy weapons, but also just out of principle.
(By the way - despite all the deserved shit-talking about the Lck stat: That extra avoid that Lana gets from her 29 Lck does help with her odds in the arena, where her flimsy Def would otherwise pose a significant problem)
The opponents are as follows:
(1) Dulles - Lv.19 General - Skill: Pavise 59 HP | 17 Def | 4 Res [Steel Blade] - 31 Atk | 82 Hit | 8 Avo | 4 AS [Steel Bow] - 29 Atk (2) Chaimos - Lv.23 Hero - Skill: Pursuit 63 HP | 13 Def | 5 Res [Steel Blade] - 34 Atk | 96 Hit | 24 Avo | 12 AS (2R) Marilyn - Lv.23 Sniper - Skill: Pursuit 63 HP | 13 Def [Silver Bow] - 36 Atk | 106 Hit | 20 Avo | 10 AS (3) Xenon - Lv.23 Swordmaster - Skills: Pursuit, Adept 63 HP | 13 Def | 5 Res [Silver Sword] - 32 Atk | 122 Hit | 36 Avo | 18 AS (3R) Jackson - Lv.23 Sniper - Skill: Pursuit 63 HP | 13 Def [Killer Bow] - 32 Atk | 136 Hit | 30 Avo | 15 AS (4) Thornton - Lv.27 Great Knight - Item: Shield Ring 67 HP | 18+5 Def | 5 Res [Brave Axe] - 36 Atk | 100 Hit | 6 Avo | 3 AS (4R) Luigi - Lv.27 Arch Knight - Item: Shield Ring 67 HP | 16+5 Def [Brave Bow] - 32 Atk | 112 Hit | 16 Avo | 8 AS (5) Canaan - Lv.27 Baron - Skill: Pavise - Item: Magic Ring 72 HP | 20 Def | 9 Res [Tornado] - 34 Atk | 100 Hit | 26 Avo | 13 AS (6) Atlas - Lv.30 Baron - Skill: Pavise - Item: Skill Ring 75 HP | 21 Def | 10 Res [Bolganone] - 30 Atk | 112 Hit | 8 Avo | 4 AS (7) Zeus - Lv.30 Emperor - Skill: Pavise - Item: Pursuit Band 75 HP | 24 Def | 18 Res [Earth Sword, melee] - 36 Atk | 118 Hit | 38 Avo | 19 AS [Earth Sword, range] - 32 AtkSpoilerNote: Like Queen, Emperor has Charm as a class skill, so (7) Zeus probably has it, as well. It doesn't change the fight against him either way, though.
(3) Xenon uses a Silver Sword, not a Silver Blade as the wiki states.(4R) Luigi has 16 Spd, not 15 as the wiki lists:
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112 (Faval's base hit) - 20 (arena avo) - 76 (disp. hit) = 16 (Luigi's avo)
--> Luigi has 8 AS. Brave Bow has 8 Wt --> Luigi has 16 Spd....and The Team at the end:
Lv. HP Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res Funds XP Arn Seliph 30 69 25 7 22 22 28 22 16 49200 -- [*] Leif 30 66 27 8 27 27 17 27 11 19472 -- [*] Oifey 30 58 23 10 24 22 14 22 8 50000 +134 [7] Finn 30 51 24 1 18 22 24 21 4 50000 -- [2] Dermott 30 65 23 0 30 25 22 20 7 19957 -- [1] Nanna 30 58 24 7 22 21 24 24 8 42000 -- [*] Ares 30 73 24 9 23 22 19 24 14 33280 -- [*] Fee 30 56 20 17 24 29 15 20 24 25257 -- [1] Altena 30 69 27 3 24 22 11 29 8 32520 +183 [*] Lester 30 58 24 3 18 22 25 18 4 29916 +190 [*] Arthur 30 70 6 23 22 22 27 11 11 24340 -- [1] Shanan 30 66 26 1 30 26 13 22 7 14440 +165 [*] Ulster 30 70 27 7 27 25 12 22 4 17500 +152 [*] Larcei 30 69 27 2 30 30 21 22 6 26465 +172 [*] Patty 30 62 22 16 21 27 25 17 9 19350 +49 [*] Johalvier 30 60 26 0 19 21 7 25 8 10845 +126 [7] Hannibal 30 66 23 1 17 12 8 26 6 28920 +112 [6] Faval 30 68 19 15 20 27 30 13 6 22120 +143 [*] Ced 30 55 5 27 22 30 29 14 27 7800 -- [2] Tinni 30 63 4 27 24 27 30 10 17 50000 +115 [*] Lana 30 61 12 24 24 23 29 12 11 21446 -- [*] Sharlow 30 46 4 27 18 18 14 9 17 7663 +242 [3] Leylia 13.76 29 9 2 1 14 8 2 8 16000 +50 [1](Technically, this is from the end of the update - Leylia didn't earn 50 XP out of nowhere, and Sharlow had to spam a few staff uses to get to 30 - but by and large, this is the team with which I started the fight.)
The order of business seems fairly predictable: Go to Edda, then Dozel, then Freege - then past Belhalla to rescue Julia at Velthomer, *then* to Belhalla to finally fight Julius. Jungby Castle isn't on the map, but I assume that Scorpio (the cousin of our four Jungby kids) is going to appear in the southeast corner at some point.
The four Loptyr priests (two with Fenrir, two with Silence) northwest of Chalphy are a funny bunch. Yes, they reach Chalphy with their spells, but not anyone who goes east towards Edda. Clearly, they'll become relevant once Dozel wakes up, but Fee with her enormous Res stat should be able to murder them all while everybody else faces the Eddan forces.
Edda's force is fairly big - although the group of horsemen isn't too intimidating. But the defensive line - with tons of long-ranged magic users - seems potentially headache-inducing.
The leader of the horsies is this Waltzy-looking fellow: Brave Sword, Pursuid, and Accost, so he could be dangerous if he can attack one of your weaker units. But his raw stats aren't amazingly strong. His generics use Silvers and Elfire tomes.
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The castle's defenders are actually two groups: One under Boyce the Swordmaster (with Pursuit, Adept, Critical, and Sol!); the other under Rodan, who isn't particularly noteworthy apart from his Sleep staff. And even with that he isn't too special, since six (!!!) of his underlings carry Sleep, as well - plus four Meteor Bishops and four Bolting Bishops.
On top of the castle is a guy.
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So, out we ride, killing the for Loptyrians to the east of Chalphy on our way.
Still with most of our forces on the field, but to be honest, I don't see much of a point in moving everybody out. They're Lv.30 anyway, so there isn't much of a reason to feed them kills, so they might as well stay back, not require the button presses to move them around, and watch for potential backstabs.
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The only "meme" I'm allowing myself here is to use Tinni as our frontliner, but with her good base avoid plus aura support from Seliph, Nanna, and Dermott, she actually isn't half bad at it. ...Now if only she had bought the Pursuit Band off of Johalvier... I might do that for the next part of the map.
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The following player phase, everybody dies.
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On the enemy team, that is.
And before I get to the assault on Edda, I'll quickly mention that, as I said earlier, Fee cleans up the Loptyrians northwest of Dozel easily enough.
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You can actually pull apart the two squad guarding Edda very easily - the physical enemies all move if you step in one of their ranges, while the magical enemies don't move, full stop.
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Bye, Felicia.
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But here starts the annoying part: Sleep. Sleep everywhere.
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I go with the same tactic as I used at Miletos last chapter: Bring so many characters that those Sleep spells don't matter all that much.
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MORE SLEEP!
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...and an Altena that actually gets rather low on HP (silly me for not swapping her to a lighter weapon), but actually no chance of death.
I'll admit that I didn't invest much brainpower into this - otherwise, I'm sure I could've figured out how to do this without having a third of my team doze off for a few turns, and without relying on the long-ranged damage spells to be spread out between multiple characters. But to be honest, this is also one of my issues with Genealogy's gameplay in a nutshell - because everything is so variable, it's often too valid a strategy to just shove and see how the RNG works out.
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Yeah, this definitely could've worked without moving everybody into Sleep range. But no matter - hopefully, we'll see what comes next.
: Oh, of course. Ced and Fee. They're going to be great rulers for Edda. And after all they've been through, I know that'll bring a smile to the people's faces."
And that's the first part of the fight. I did finish the turn, so I'll also show what happens next:
: "Against the full force of Dozel's legendary axe knights, the Grauenritter, the rebels stand no chance! They'll drop like leaves!"
: "At once, milord!"
(I know, wrong colour on the clothes, but come on...)
"Grauenritter" is a pretty good, edgy name for a group of evil knights, by the way. It's still yet another colour (the Grey Knights), but can also be parsed as "Dread Knights".
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This is actually interesting: Two groups of enemies attack Chalphy and Edda at once...
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...with the force sent against Chalphy being significantly stronger. Although the generic Great Knights don't have the greatest accuracy, so I think I should be able to set up some reliable interception. But Brian himself is of yet another caliber, with Helswath raising his defenses to pretty ridiculous levels.
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By contrast, the guys attacking Edda are a bunch of chumps. Even Philip... IV, I think? isn't even as strong as a generic Grauerritter.
But I haven't played that next part, or even just figured how exactly I'm going to approach this, so that'll have to wait for another day.
10 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:I'll actually be interested in seeing this, because in my run... Uh, well...
You are a crazy man, Ruben. Godspeed. Hannibalspeed, even.
10 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:Yeah, not like Garon, who's just an evil child-murdering king with exactly two cronies that he has do everything.
: "Evil child-murdering cults are like seeds. You must plant and nurture them until they grow into full genocidal bloom."
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11 hours ago, BrightBow said:
Man, with jumps like that, Celice could attack Berwick Saga wyvern with 0 range attacks.
Fun Fact: In his initial appearance, Superman couldn't fly, only jump really high and far.
...which doesn't have that much to do with your comment, but I managed to amuse myself with the image of Seliph (or any other horse unit) imitating flight in a similar way.
10 hours ago, RPGuy96 said:A lot of Saias talk already here, but this seems like another time for him to show up! Arvis tries to legitimize his bastard and place him over Julius after whatever happened with Julius vs Deidre and Julia. But now that Julius has awakened to his power, he (and Manfroy) aren't having it. Arvis goes from proud Emperor to the broken old man we see in Chapter 10 after losing everyone dear to him, Deidre is dead, Julia is missing, Saias is allowed to live but banished from Grannvalle, Julius becomes Emperor in all but name, and the Lopt sect start their child hunts.
I remember barely anything about Saias's actual character, but in concept, I like this a lot. A nice, concrete plan instead of the vague "Arvis banished Julius, or tried to, didn't work" that we got.
7 hours ago, Jotari said:The Ghost Scene with Sigurd is, like all Seliph scenes in my view, nice in isolation. Sigurd takes Seliph down a peg, humbles him and stressed that all of this is being done for the common person. But, this just follows the pattern of Seliph:s story beats having little to nothing to do with each other. Like, what the hell? The suffering of the common man? Seliph only lived hunted by the Lopt Sect and the Empire all his life. I don't think we're meant to believe growing up in Tir Na NOg was a resort for him. He has felt the suffering of the common man because he's been down in the trenches with them. And when does he ever display any iota of arrogance that would suggest he thinks his victory over Alvis was single handed? And how would the spirit of Sigurd understand the plight of the common man any better than Seliph? Sigurd grew up in luxury all his life, and even after things went bad for him he still lived in a Castle in Silesse with a close personal relationship with the ruling queen. Sigurd has always had a power base and people looking up to him. Death just bestows enlightenment, I guess.
Honestly, I don't even like it in isolation. What Deirdre ("power of friendship, yay!") and Sigurd ("stay humble, son") have to offer aren't exactly fresh new concepts, nor are they really specific to Seliph's character or situation. For me, all it does is take a previously underlying theme ("despite being orphaned at a very young age, Seliph's life is still influenced by his parents's deeds") and turns it into a baseball bat to hit you over the head with by making Sigurd and Deirdre physically (or rather ectoplasmally) watch over Seliph's progress.
3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:: "Well well well, Seliph-boy. You may have come this far, but I still hold all 12 Egyptian Deadlords. Only the five pieces of Naga, the Forbidden One, could possibly save you now!"
"My mother's family has no pathetic members except you, Julius. But it does contain... the unstoppable Julia!"
"Gah! Impossible!"(Sorry, I'm not actually familiar with actual Yugioh, outside of watching some of the early episodes disjointedly as a wee lad, and then the abridged version later.
Pretty sure you're quoting Pegasus-man there, but I have no idea how that scene plays out.)
3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:Ah, that's English English. Flavoured with a bunch of unnecessary "u"s, and centred on "r before e". In American English, it's Bern.
Look at those Ameripoors. Can't even afford the printer ink to write every letter 😭
2 hours ago, Jotari said:
"The Crusaders made a grave mistake, Seliph. They didn't commit genocide hard enough. You must learn from history. Be wiser than those who came before you. Make sure you eradicate the enemy completely. Let no tolerance of alternate religions flourish in this land. Make this, the Last Holy War."
: "Evil child-murdering cults are like seeds."
4 hours ago, Revier said:Not much else to say about the ending, besides dropping a special mention for Arvis' sick beats. I really do think Genealogy would be a lot better if it scaled enemies better to keep up with your crazy overpowered fighters. That, or nerfed them a bit, but that's not as fun.
I think the second generation is an especially severe case of the usual FE problem that the powerlevel of a player's endgame team is extremely variable, so it's tough to create an endgame that is challenging for an optimised team, but still doable if the player didn't reset for the OP bosskiller, didn't focus XP on the good growth units, or, in Genealogy's case, didn't set up inheritance. Most games of the series, as far as I'm aware, tend to be somewhat frontloaded with their difficulty as a result.
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FE4 Chapter 10: Light and Darkness
Miletos --> Chalphy
Spoiler
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Well then, time to kill some Roteritter (would one decline that noun?). Getting through the group of Knights in one turn isn't too difficult, although it's a little scary to do so with the mages and horsies nearby. For reliablity, Ced silences the nearest Mage, and Ares takes the point with his high HP and (with Mystletainn) mixed defense stats.
By the way - you're seeing Patty one-rounding the Commander, thanks to a siblings crit. I think that might be the first one in this playthrough? I did see a handful of lovers' crits, though.
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...and killing almost all the mages and horsies on the next player phase turns out to be quite doable, too. Just one Great Knight (the axe variant) and one healer remaining.
So, next are the Meteor Mages in front of Arvis.
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A bit less successful, but still -
- only a single Meteor is thrown at us.
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Meanwhile, Fee and Altena have defeated the Dark Mages to save the children. Easy task when you have both your flyers available. Nanna then warps Altena back so that Sharlow can bestow upon her some magic resistance:
: "Are you hurt at all, Your Highness?"
: "Ah, Sharlow. Thank you, but everything's fine. Don't forget to take care of yourself as well. You shouldn't do anything too risky."
: "Er... Say, Your Highness..."
: "Is something wrong, Sharlow?"
: "Your Highness, I want to cast a Ward spell on you."
: "Oh, right. You're concerned about my low resistance to magic, aren't you? Are you sure? I've heard that few spells endanger the caster as much as Ward does. Look, Sharlow. I'm honored, but I don't want you risking yourself for my sake."
: "But you've always been there to help me, Your Highness. You're the closest thing I've ever had to a mama. Please, Your Highness! All I want is to do anything I can to help you!"
: "Oh, Sharlow... Very well. I can hardly refuse if it's so important to you, now, can I? All I ask is that you stop casting the spell the instant it puts you at any risk at all. Promise me this, Sharlow."
: "Okay! It's a promise, Your Highness. Don't worry, I won't let myself get hurt."
: "Thank you, Sharlow. Now, shall we? I'm ready when you are."
: "Right, I'm ready! ...Hear me, O great Saint Bragi. ...I implore of you! Bestow upon this woman your exalted power..."
[+5 Res --> Altena]
Speaking of things that will make you feel old - I think being told that you're "like a parent" to them by somebody less than 10 years younger than you will probably do the trick.
I appreciate that Genealogy is consistent with Ward to be a dangerous spell to cast, between this, Julia casting it on Seliph earlier, and the classic Barrier staff not being available at all - even though I know that T776 is going to retcon the heck out of this. Not sure if it also comes up in the story, but I know that both the Barrier staff (or maybe Magic-Up staff, I vaguely remember that name) and Holy Water are back as temporary Res boosters.
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With the Rotenritter defeated, Seliph makes the trip to Palmarch. With the Leg Ring, it doesn't even take that much time.
: "Are you unharmed, Your Grace?"
: "Lord Seliph! Ohh, bless you! We've awaited you for so long. I've done all I can to survive, all to ensure you receive your birthright. Here... Take it, milord."
: "W... what is this?!"
. "It is the sacred relic of House Chalphy. The divine blade... Tyrfing."
: "But... How could you have it, Your Grace?"
: "My apologies, milord, but I cannot say. I swore an oath..."
: "I see... Fair enough, then. I couldn't possibly thank you enough, Your Grace. So this is Tyrfing, then... I've never felt power quite like this..."
: "Milord, I beg of you... Please, retake Chalphy at once! Your subjects have endured for so long, in hope of one day seeing your return..."
: "Rest easy now, Your Grace. So long as I have Tyrfing in hand, we have nothing more to fear!"
And it's even fully repaired! Pretty sure Sigurd didn't scrape enough money together for that.
The five children around Palmarch go to Faval (x2) and Tinni (x3). At the end of this chapter, everyone but Sharlow and Leylia is at least at Lv.28, which I should expect is enough to have a full Lv.30 team after the last chapter's arena.
(all the kids say is some variation of "oh wow! Liberators!", so I'm not going to bother combing through my screenshots to collect the exact wordings)
Nice little detail: Palmarch heals characters in his range. Not necessary in this playthrough, but still very nice of him.
Now, Arvis. I know that Seliph has to be the one to defeat him in order to get him to see ghosts, so nobody even tried chipping him before Seliph returns.
: "You... Emperor Arvis! Why... Why did you betray my father..."
: "At long last... Seliph. I must commend your courage, boy. But courage cannot save you now. Not since your dear departed father have I seen such a pathetic worm... My flames shall purge you from this world!"
I like how Arvis starts complimenting Seliph before realising that he's playing the villain and thus has to follow some narrative conventions. It's an interesting parallel to Travant that Arvis is also convinced that he has to die in battle for the Greater Good.
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General strategy against Arvis: Avoid chances of death, we wouldn't want that on anybody's permanent record, but otherwise just hack away and hope that no random Adept proc kills him.
(Valflame's animation is pretty sick, btw)
Part of the effort is Arthur - one attempt on player phase, another one (after being healed twice by Ced's Fortify) on enemy phase. The latter brings Arvis down to 10 HP...
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...which is enough for Seliph to get the kill with his second swing on the next turn.
And while he makes his way to the nearby beach, I'll go over the remaining side objectives:
Sharlow promotes and does some arenaing. Massigli is a massive roadblock for him, since Sharlow has no +dmg skills whatsoever to swing the unfavourable numbers, but some start-of-turn save abuse during Oifey's arena run allows him to eventually overcome him.
...I don't even bother with the second Jormungand user, though. Five out of seven ain't bad.
Back at Chronos, Ulster rescues the last remaining child, bringing him to Lv.28 as well...
...and Ced gets warp-relayed to grab the village near Rados.
: "'Tis only been lately that we've had t'deal with these rites of sacrifice. Not so long ago, from what I hear, Emperor Arvis himself forbade 'em entirely. What the devil could've changed his mind? Please, I'm beggin' you! You've gotta save our children! Here, this magic ring oughta help you out."
[Magic Ring; 3000 gold --> Ced]
: "Seliph... Oh, Seliph..."
: "I-is somebody there?"
: "Oh, Seliph... How you've grown..."
: "Could it be... M-mother?! Mother! Is it truly you?"
Gasp!
: "...Seliph, never forget. Your friends... Your companions... You must always cherish them... You owe them so..."
: "...Y-yes, Mother. I understand. Oh! I've defeated Emperor Arvis! At long last, Father has been avenged!"
: "You did... But what of Julius and Julia...?"
: "I still don't know. Wait! Mother, how could you know of what happened to them? ...Mother?"
(I blame the fandom.com wiki for the poorer quality of Deirdre's portrait)
(and my laziness to clean up her portrait from a screenshot)
: "Listen, Seliph. You must stay humble, no matter what. Remember, your power alone was not what put an end to Arvis..."
: "What? How do you mean, Father?"
: "You must learn the sorrow of the common man, Seliph. Your truth is not the reality of all."
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[Renewal Band --> Seliph]
: "Rely on the Heart of the Cards, you must! Hrm."
Not a huge fan of this scene, to be honest. Very heavy-handed. Seliph's story has a bit of a theme going that he's standing on his parents' shoulders - game-mechanically in the form of inheritance, but he also benefits from Sigurd's reputation and the personal friendships he had forged. Most directly Shanan and Oifey, but there's also Fee who is moved to help Seliph by Erin's stories about Sigurd. I liked that better when there was more subtlety about it.
: "A job well done indeed, Seliph. And would you just look at that! The locals are so happy to see you. Look! They're already pouring into the streets to rejoice at your return!"
: "Mm. I'm home. At long last, I'm home... Nothing has ever felt this good. But... I mustn't celebrate just yet..."
: "Julia, right? You must be worried something fierce. Heh... Got a little thing for her, do you?"
I'll take this as evidence that Lewyn doesn't actually know who Julia is, or even that she has Naga blood. I think that came up recently in the thread?
: "Oh! Er... No, nothing of the sort..."
: "I've had a word with some locals who've seen her. Archbishop Manfroy's got his grubby hands on her, by the sound of it. It's a pretty safe bet that Julia's still somewhere in Grannvale."
: "Say, Lewyn, Something feels amiss. We've defeated Arvis and avenged my father, and yet I still feel... Empty."
Seliph, literally 20 seconds ago: "Nothing has ever felt this good."
: "That'd be because we still have a while to go until we reach the end of all this. If anything, the real battle here's only just about to get started. Trust me. By the time this holy war has come to a close, Seliph, the truth behind it all will be clear as day."
And endgame time it is. I don't think I have much to add to what I've already said about the chapter. Arvis mostly good, but with too little stage presence. Julius... mixed, although I think I'll keep my thoughts on that for the summary after finishing the game, since it intertwines with some other thoughts. Ishtar still hasn't had a chance to actually do something to make herself appear more sympathetic.
The Team:
Lv. HP Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res Funds XP Arn W/L Seliph 30 69 25 7 22 22 28 22 16 37720 +422 [*] 51/0 Leif 30 66 27 8 27 27 17 27 11 14892 +521 [*] 27/0 Oifey 28.66 56 21 10 23 22 13 22 8 27840 +332 [*] 22/2 Finn 30 51 24 1 18 22 24 21 4 50000 +91 [*] 19/0 Dermott 30 65 23 0 30 25 22 20 7 19957 +456 [*] 48/1 Nanna 30 58 24 7 22 21 24 24 8 40680 +210 [*] 11/0 Ares 30 73 24 9 23 22 19 24 14 33870 +494 [*] 23/0 Fee 30 56 20 17 24 29 15 20 24 30417 +276 [*] 40/0 Altena 28.17 67 27 3 24 22 11 28 8 43860 +641 [*] 16/0 Lester 28.10 56 23 3 18 21 24 18 4 41316 +614 [*] 32/0 Arthur 30 70 6 23 22 22 27 11 11 46520 +410 [*] 31/0 Shanan 28.35 64 24 1 30 26 13 20 6 42880 +485 [*] 19/0 Ulster 28.48 67 27 7 27 25 12 22 4 3000 +708 [*] 6/0 Larcei 28.28 67 27 1 30 30 20 22 6 36570 +368 [*] 17/0 Patty 29.51 61 22 16 21 27 24 17 9 3000 +461 [*] 28/0 Johalvier 28.74 58 26 0 18 21 7 24 8 29715 +134 [*] 28/0 Hannibal 28.88 65 23 1 17 12 8 24 6 40820 +692 [*] 1/0 Faval 28.57 66 18 15 20 27 30 13 6 38423 +706 [*] 16/0 Ced 30 55 5 27 22 30 29 14 27 28600 +647 [*] 10/0 Tinni 28.85 61 4 27 24 27 29 10 16 50000 +1026 [*] 13/0 Lana 30 61 12 24 24 23 29 12 11 17726 +27 [*] 0/0 Sharlow 27.58 43 4 27 15 18 13 9 16 6708 +1658 [6] 0/0 Leylia 13.26 29 9 2 1 14 8 2 8 16000 +250 [1] 0/0- Holy Matrimony: Ulster/Patty, Larcei/Johalvier, Nanna/Leif, Arthur/Fee
- Truly in Love: Seliph<->Tinni, Lana->Seliph, Leylia<->Ares
- They Fancy Tinni: Shanan, Dermott, Oifey, Lester, Ced
- They Fancy Lana: Faval, Sharlow
- Nobody Has Anyone On Their Mind:
- Forever Alone: Altena, Finn, Hannibal
4 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:with Seliph contrary somewhat to the public mood promising him a burial (or cremation by pyre, which was popular for most of Rome's history) with full honors.
Cremation by pyre seems... appropriate.
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9 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:
Amy: Um… Kitty-cat man, will you come, too?
Ranulf: Sure. I’ll even let you sleep on my furry belly.
Amy: For real? Yay!
Ranulf: Don’t tell anyone, but my belly is super comfortable. You’ll be asleep in no time!
Lucia: Wow, that’s great, Amy. Let’s get going.
Amy: Yes! Kitty-cat pillow! Kitty-cat pillow!
Elincia: …Thank you, Ranulf.
Ranulf: Don’t mention it. I’m a sucker for kids.1996 vs. 2007, the difference.
I can't believe Ike's sexy catboy husbando is a nerd, too9 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:Eeeeeeeh? IIRC, reading a history of the entire Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire, the surging Arab menace didn't silence all internal court-squabbling. A national crisis should but by no means is guaranteed to shut down needless infighting.
Plus, Julius has probably spent the vast majority of his life in Grannvale. Warp magic does make for a higher degree of potential travel than IRL, but he could still have very well spent 70% or what have you in Belhalla and wherever the other grand imperial estates are. What is Manster District and to a greater extent Issach, to him? Real places? Or merely names on a map? While Julius may believe the world is his to rule, Seliph has yet to show up on his real doorstep, when the true concern might set in.
You can certainly explain Julius not taking the threat seriously, what with him (as you later say) being a spoiled brat that has never faced an actual threat to his power before. But I think it might cheapen the eventual victory a bit: Seliph doesn't win because he achieved something super special awesome - Seliph wins because his enemies handed him the necessary tools on a silver platter. Making your arch villain so imba that the heroes can't touch him, so the villain has to produce his downfall himself sounds like a beginner dungeon master's blunder - although I'm sure I exaggerate (at least a little) with this description of Julius and Manfroy.
9 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:Honestly I don't think I bothered putting anyone who could be Sleep'ed into the range of the staffers. I used the handful of units who passed the Res check to dispatch everything (I went canon with Lewyn for Erinys, and gave Claud to Silvia, so I forget if Phee and Ced passed the Res check), and the rest gathered elsewhere doing nothing.
I went with the opposite approach. Shove everybody into the fight, so it doesn't matter if three guys get slept. Still enough offensive power to punch through.
9 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:Once again, what makes Arvis less effective than he could've been is that this is his third ever scene in the game. He's not forgettable, not after the barbeque, but he kinda would've liked to have a bit more time so they didn't have to cram literally all of his gen 2 character traits (regretful, humbled, unconcerned with personal risk if it means atoning for his actions, latching on to his titles in a desperate attempt to retain what little power he's got left, afraid of Julius, afraid of even Manfroy) into the one cutscene.
'Tis what happens if you skip 17 years of a story, but I agree. I think it works better with Arvis because his transformation from smug badassery to humbled and broken is something of a "oh, damn" moment, but he shares with Travant the problem that their most intriguing stories happened off-screen. And that aspect is arguably worse for Arvis, since it basically happens twice for him, with his scheming in Belhalla while Sigurd is out a-conquerin'.
9 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:That must've been SUPER long ago, considering we never even saw him when Sigurd was the protagonist of the game lol
I first thought that he's the guy who officially made Sigurd a Paladin after the prologue and later shared juicy court gossip with him, but...
...nah. Other Oldman.
9 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:Get Hawke while you're at it.
Either that or Arden/Erin.
8 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:"Ishtar"? No, that's Julius, speaking to himself in the third person! As Julius is wont to do.
(first 30 seconds)
8 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:Daddy Lewyn is interesting because - while you obviously want him to pass down Forseti - I wouldn't call any of his pairings actively bad. Critical and Adept make for a really solid pair of skills, especially on kids who already have Pursuit (the Sword Twins and Faval). The Speed boost from Sety Holy Blood is always welcome. And Lewyn!Lana probably has the best post-promotion combat of any version, thanks to the skills and Elwind access.
Honestly, considered "on average" or "overall", Lewyn might be the best dad, period.
It's a hard choice from the perspective of the children. On the one hand, you get incredible speed, solid +dmg skills, and maybe even Forseti... but on the other hand, your dad's going to be Lewyn.
4 hours ago, Jotari said:Killing a unit is indeed the lamest way to deal with them. The most based way to deal with them is to have them deal with each other.
Very nice.
Their dialogue afterwards is surprisingly appropriate (if you don't know what "game" Julius is referring to) - like they just had a little sparring match.
4 hours ago, Jotari said:Would be nice if we got the implication, or even a scripted battle, that Alvis was willing to fight, until it came to the moment where he actually had to trade blows with Julius and he just couldn't. Despite everything he couldn't fight his own son. And Julius would miss the weight of that entirely believing it only to be his own power.
It would require some more rewriting, since it's only Manfroy in that scene with Julia, but I agree that seeing Arvis at least trying to fight for Julia's sake would've been nice. Maybe if you made the First mate's suggestion (that Manfroy is threatening to kill Julia right there if Arvis doesn't co-operate) more explicit in the writing, that would work. (although that would still sell Julia, who's likely to be pretty competent at fighting magic users in particular, very short)
4 hours ago, Revier said:To be fair, Isaac is separated from the Grannvalian core by a harsh desert, so it's unlikely that news of its liberation came to the royal court in time. Leonster is a bit less explicable, but Thracia is also seen as a backwater, and from what we see Leonster has been embroiled in a civil war for a while already, so it's possible that news from there isn't considered very reliable, because it must be a complete mess of contradictory reports about the battles conducted there. That said, the fact that a Loptyrian shrine that was once the former Loptyrian HQ itself is situated right in the middle of the desert makes Seliph evading detection rather unlikely.
Ah, but you didn't consider that information travels instantaneous across Jugdral.Loptyr HQ being an early target of Seliph's campaign would explain why Manfroy is so worried about this - although it's not like he really needed additional reason with Isaach and all of the Thracian peninsula being taken from Grannvale's control.
4 hours ago, Revier said:So the pragmatic strategist is not completely a jerk. Just mostly.
He is sometimes, in some timelines, not completely a jerk.
Lewyn: Heh... Bratty little thing, aren't you...
Fee: EXCUSE ME?! Ohh, that does it!So, since T776 makes Lewyn/Erin canon, he's officially always completely a jerk.
3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:Wait... how did Arvis become Emperor in the first place? King Azmur stipulated that his successor would be a male child of Arvis and Dierdre with Major Naga blood. Until such a child reached maturity, Arvis would serve as Regent. Now obviously, those traits were split between two children, so it's not clear which one has a stronger claim to succeed Azmur. But in either case, while Arvis might be the next Ruler of Grannvale, I don't see how he could claim to be the next Emperor of Grannvale. ...Outside of, say, simply declaring himself Emperor. And nobody of influence being left alive to challenge such a declaration.
Anyway, if Arvis weren't Emperor, then Julius' immunity from being displaced would make more sense. Arvis' rule was never in-his-own-right, but only via his marriage to - and parentage of - descendants of Azmur. If he banishes Julius, he removes the only known surviving source of his own legitimacy.
Well, Arvis made himself Emperor. As you say, Azmur was King Azmur. Probably a good helping of headcanon on my part, but it wouldn't be unrealistic if Arvis would've arranged the inheritance laws of that new political entity to be more to his liking, and maybe disconnected it from Azmur's bloodline.
Come to think of it, it would've been an interesting touch if Julius would already have been King Julius of Grannvale - only that he'd still formally answer to Arvis's authority as Emperor.
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FE4 Chapter 10: Light and Darkness
Rados --> Miletos
Spoiler
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Well then, on to Miletos we go.
: "It has been a long time, Ishtar. How fare you of late?"
: "Oh, Your Majesty! What brings you here?"
: "Listen, Ishtar. Release the captive children. I know you care no more for these foul deeds than I do."
: "My apologies, sir, but I'm on Prince Julius's-"
: "Pay Julius's orders no mind. I'll be having a word with him soon."
: "But..."
: "This is an order from your emperor, Ishtar! Has Julius bent you such that you will no longer listen to the word of your liege?"
: "No... Never, Your Highness..."
: "Julius! How dare you-"
: "Why, Father, it almost sounds as if you still don't know any better! Old age must already be dulling that once brilliant of yours. Why not retire before it grows still feebler? Unless... Ohoho! Don't tell me you still seriously believe that you can banish me?"
: "No... I know better than to try something so futile again... I... I have no objection."
: "That's better. Now, then. Begone! Return to your post and haunt my sight no more. Defending Chalphy is crucial. Don't fail me for once in your sorry life, Father."
: "Y-yes, Julius. At once..."
Clearly, Julius is the true self-insert character of Genealogy, to give the teenage boys the fantasy of ordering around their parents after cruelly being told to clean up their rooms.
(It's a nice little disturbing detail that Julius calls Ishtar "his", in particular in response to Arvis trying to give her orders)
: "Never would you think this wretch, now clinging only to the ghost of a crown, was once the most powerful man in Jugdral."
: "Ah, Manfroy. Where's Julia? Have you restored her memory yet?"
: "Your dear little sister is in Chalphy, burdened once more by her old memories. Never have I seen such horror as when she recalled how you, her brother, almost killed her! Or how her dearly departed mother spirited her clear of the castle and your clutches..."
: "Indeed... Near everyone puts up some defiance to death by my hand, yet Deirdre never so much as flinched in the end. She accepted her own demise, all to save Julia with what little strength she still had... Julia possesses the foul powers of that ghoul, Naga, just as Deirdre once did. Nothing is more crucial than killing her now, Manfroy, lest we lose the chance."
: "You overestimate her threat, milord. After all, the Book of Naga remains under the strictest lock and key in Belhalla. Without it, I cannot fathom now Naga's soul could ever come to dwell within that girl..."
: "How many times must I explain, Manfroy?"
: "Every last one of the avatars of Naga, the heirs of Heim, must be purged from existence!"
: "Understood, milord. I'll have my men see to it that Julia is dead by sundown."
: "Do not fail me, Manfroy. Now, then. I suppose I'm needed in the capital."
: "I shall ensure that holding the Miletos territory is the Order's highest priority. Before the week is done, Your Majesty, the corpse of Seliph will lie before you."
: "Seliph? ...Ah, of course. The one the peasants call the 'scion of light'... Feh, just as they call me the 'scion of darkness'. The alleged eldest son of Deirdre, and the alleged true heir to Grannvale... A fairy tale told to inspire hope amongst fools!"
: "He poses a threat to use nonetheless, milord. The sooner we dispose of him, the better."
: "Surely, he doesn't truly bear the power of the crusader Baldur... He couldn't possibly... I might not care about him, Manfroy, but you're welcome to do with him as you will."
: "Very good, milord..."
: "Lord Julius..."
: "Ishtar. Shall we be off, then? I've tasked the Order to defend Miletos. Say... I have a better idea."
: "I want to play a game. Rumor has it that a small army of fresh sacrificial meat is headed our way. Let's see who can claim the life of a rebel first."
: "Yes, Lord Julius. I'd love to!"
Sounding rather excited there, Ishtar.
In a way, I appreciate how Julius and Manfroy mirror each other in how they underestimate the threats to their power: Manfroy is worried about Seliph while Julius dismisses him - Julius is worried about Julia, but Manfroy dismisses her. But I feel like it's getting really late for that story beat to continue. Seliph has liberated Isaach (let's ignore Shanan) and Leonster (let's ignore Leif) already - surely, that's enough to draw some attention?
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Back to gameplay - a couple enemies start very close to the gate that opens after Seliph seizes Rados. Results in a little jump scare because one of them uses Hel, but no other enemy is in range to follow up on this.
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The entire defense force of Miletos is unusual for Genealogy, in that it's spread out all over the place. The Dark Mages also have varied equipment (Fenrir, Hel, Jormungand, Sleep), although that is pretty much the standard at this point.
__
Julius takes the field, and he's obviously quite the terror. The Loptyr tome seems like one of the weaker legendary weapons at first glance, only providing a measly +5 Res, but it also carries the same effect that Medeus had in FE1 and FE3, halving any incoming attack's power.
As a big ONLY USE SELIPH AND JULIA, THEY HAVE NIHIL sign, Julius has the Wrath skill, guaranteeing a one-shot on literally everybody (well, save sub-100 accuracy) when he is below half health. And to keep it spicy even for those two, he has Accost, as well.
Ishtar seems fairly similar to her previous appearance - fairly frail, but evasive and very deadly. Notably, she has effectively 31 Res, which makes it *almost* impossible to disable her via status staff. Ced (27 Mag) and Tinni (who'll reach 27 during this update) should be able to silence or sleep her if they equip a Magic Ring. But I don't have that set up, so there'll be a chance of Vantage/Adept shenanigans from her.
I know that Julius and Ishtar will both leave the map if the respective other is defeated in combat - so realistically, killing Ishtar is the way to go. With how Julius is introducing them to the map, I also assume that they leave if they kill one of your units, so the easist (and lamest) method would be to allow somebody to get killed and then use Valkyrie to revive them. And finally, if Seliph just runs around them to kill the boss and seize (not difficult, between Leif's Rescue staff and Leylia's dancing), I would guess that they disappear, too?
(and the way I've written that previous paragraph spoils what I'm going to do, I suppose)
The guy on top of Miletos Castle is very forgettable.
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While the presense of Fenrir and Sleep is, if not dangerous, at the very least annoying, the spread out enemy formation makes this next segment easier than one might think, so I won't be giving a turn-by-turn.
Of course, facing multiple Sleep staves is annoying, especially when the Restore staff is still on poor ol' 5-Move Lana, but that's nothing that can't be solved by the Rescue staff and a dance or two.
...Good thing I did that right away, too, since Leif is one of the targets on the second turn of this engagement.
And quite soon, the forest is free of enemies. On to Julius and Ishtar! ...OK, just Ishtar.
First attempt: Dermott with the Brave Sword, with aura support from Seliph and Nanna.
: "It seems as if this game shall be mine, Lord Julius!"
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Well, that's awkward. Vantage: activated. But no fear!
Ares is still available, can benefit from Dermott's aura in addition to Seliph and Nanna...
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...and he has the HP/Res to survive two Mjölnir hits! Huzzah!
: "You've lost, have you? Hmph... We leave at once!"
And with this, Ares won't die to the remaining Fenrir Dark Mages, either.
In the meanwhile, some side objectives:
Arenaing for Hannibal and Dermott (before the latter was returned to the frontlines by Sharlow and Leif). Only Oifey and Sharlow (90 XP away from promotion at the end of the update) remain. Well, and Leylia, but that's not gonna happen.
: "She goes 'round stealin' kids, then if they so much as cry, she kills the mams so calm-like, you'd think she was just swattin' flies! There's no way that woman's human! It's a fiend that's rulin' us now..."
[5000 gold --> Ulster]
: "A terrifying man, that Prince Julius is... Just a single glance into those eyes of his and you're gone... You lose yourself. So many of my friends and others my age've been all left for Belhalla to serve him. I've heard nothing from any of 'em since..."
[5000 gold --> Oifey]
: "None of yeh come even close t'being strong enough t'fight Prince Julius. Hate t'say it, but sometimes, yeh need t'make sacrifices if yeh wanna keep goin'..."
[5000 gold --> Oifey]
Visiting villages - with Ulster because he's nearby saving children and can give that money to anybody via Patty, and Oifey, because he was below 40000 gold and hasn't arenaed yet.
And Oifey also eliminates the last remaining threat to the last remaining village. Speaking of - that last village (near Rados) contains the second Magic Ring. Arthur or maybe Ced seem like the logical recipients.
Finally, villagers are being rescued from nobody in particular. Ulster gets a second one, then Hannibal gets another two, and one is still remaining near Chronos. Honestly, there's just nobody who *really* needs the XP. If this was a ranked run, Leylia would be the obvious target here, but other than that, most characters are on a good way to reach Lv.30 either way - and we're about to get another five rescuable children. The lowest-level (besides Oifey, who hasn't done this chapter's arena yet, Sharlow, and Leylia) are Lester (Lv.26.66), Faval (25.59), and Tinni (25.55), so I suppose they're going to split the XP between themselves.
: "Wait, you're a crusader? Really? Huh..."
: "Ohh! You're a crusader... I was really scared there..."
: "You're the liberation army? Wow... You're all amazing!"
Oh, and I almost forgot: seizing Rados unlocks a convo between Tinni and... not Seliph, actually:
: "Pardon me, Tinni. Lewyn would like a word with you. If you need anything from me, I'll be waiting over there."
: "Say, Tinni. Hilda was your aunt, right? I can only imagine how painful having to fight her was..."
: "No, not really. Lady Hilda is a horrific woman..."
: "She didn't treat you well, did she?"
: "Mm... Day after day, again and again, she kept on beating and abusing us. And she kept on accusing Mother of being a traitor..."
: "Your mother... Taillte, right..."
: "Yes... After the Battle of Belhalla, she and my brother, Arthur, fled to Silesse. I was born there soon after. I never knew my father. I think he must've died long ago..."
: "I see... Then you went to Alster, right?"
: "King Blume and his minions came to Silesse one night... They dragged us away to Alster... Mother never left there alive..."
: "I... You've had such a hard life..."
: "Mm... Hilda hated Mother so much. I've never seen anything like it... Mother must've coped with so much, all to protect me from Hilda. She was always in tears, right till the end..."
: "She... She did?"
: "Lord Lewyn? Is... Is everything okay, sir?"
: "Yeah. Why d'you ask?"
: "It's your eyes, sir... Are those tears?"
: "I... No, it's... It's nothing. This is just a bit of sweat. I'm fine... I... I'm okay..."
[+4 Mag --> Tinni] (normally +5, but that would've brought her above the cap)
Astonishingly, I believe this is Lewyn being as good at being a dad as he goes. With Lene, his refusal to tell her that he's her father follows her lament that she's so lonely without her parents. Towards Fee, who would've known that he's her father, he's just being a complete arse.
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But with that, the Miletos arc is over. We've talked about it between updates, but I think I maintain that this entire island didn't need to be a part of the story, since it's virtually unused as a backdrop to the plot - at least as far as events go that couldn't have happened in the exact same way at another location.
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: "Looks like we're too late, Seliph. The kids are already gone. I'm guessing they're well on their way to Grannvale."
: "Blast... Not again..."
: "I hate to admit it, but I doubt we could've gotten here soon enough either way. Now, then. It sounds like they're finishing up repairs on the Miletos Straight bridge. Ready to move in on Chalphy?"
: "Chalphy... My father's homeland..."
: "So it is. I'm betting the citizens there will be even happier to see you than usual. Let's not let them wait any longer!"
: "Indeed! Everyone, move out. Onward to Chalphy!"
This time, I did finish the turn after seizing, so I'll include the cutscene playing afterwards:
: "Ah, Bishop Palmarch... Your Grace, I need you to escort these children to safety."
: "Come again?! Are you setting them free?"
: "Indeed. More of Julius' minions from Belhalla will be here at any moment. You need to move, and quickly!"
: "Y-yes, of course! Thank you, Your Majesty... Thank you so much..."
: "I... I also wish to entrust you with this."
: "Hold on a moment... Isn't this-"
: "Once, long ago, you were a confidante to Sigurd, were you not? ...You already know what you must do."
: "Y-yes, sire..."
: "Julia, I... I beg your forgiveness. For all the misery I've wrought, you must hate me so..."
: "That's not true! It doesn't matter what happened, Father. Not even for a moment have I hated you! To me, you've always been one of the kindest men I've ever known!"
: "No... I am a fool. I've been a fool from the outset. All this time, I've been Manfroy's puppet. When I finally saw the strigns he was pulling, it was too late. I was powerless to do a thing. I had already given the Empire to Julius... The embodiment of Loptyr, the dark god. He... He took the love of my life from me... And you are next..."
: "Mother sacrificed herself for me... She gave the last of her strength to ensure I made it as far away from Julius as possible. I think the trauma must have wiped my memory... And if Lewyn hadn't found me... But just knowing that Julius did that to his own mother... Now I remember, I almost wish I didn't... It hurts so much..."
: "Oh, Julia... We have so much more to talk about. I wish we could, but time is short."
: "Now, I do believe His Imperial Majesty should keep to Prince Julius' orders. That is, unless you want your dear daughter ot meet the axe."
: "How dare you, Manfroy! You address your Emperor! How dare you seek to use my daughter as a common bargaining chip!"
: "Hmhmhm... So you still feebly cling to your titles and thrones, do you? Your time has long passed, Arvis. You, and this world, now belong to Prince Julius. Unless you wish to know pain beyond the ken of mortal men, still your tongue and obey your new liege without question. It is almost a pity your heroics are for naught. Every last child you freed shall be a festering corpse before this day is done! Hee hee hee..."
: "F-Father!!"
: "Julia... I am so sorry... Julius' thugs are too powerful. I cannot protect you... All I can do now is give you this... This circlet belonged to Deirdre. This... Only it could possibly save you n-"
: "Enough! We leave at once, Julia!"
: "Father! Oh..."
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And the pieces join the board.
Seeing Arvis this pathetic is a bit hard to believe. I appreciate the shock effect - the mighty and prideful Arvis is now cowering in fear before Julius and Manfroy, not daring to defy their orders openly - but considering that gameplay is about to present him as a still incredibly powerful fighter, I have to question why he doesn't even make an attempt to stand up to Manfroy.
What I do appreciate without reservations is Arvis's regretfulness. He sacrificed a lot of other people to become Emperor, and now the ends that justified the means are not just in shambles, his ambition to overhaul Jugdral has been entirely perverted.
: "Come along, children! Hurry!"
: "But there's nowhere for us to go, sir..."
: "The dark priests are right behind us! We're gonna die, aren't we?"
: "Be at peace. All will be well. Lord Seliph will be here at any moment to rescue us. have faith in the crusaders, my children!"
But first, the crusaders have to endure the onslaught of... one Bow Armour.
Guarding the approach are three groups of enemies - Armours, some Priests and Mages, and a couple Paladin-adjacent classes.
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No additional commander with a face, but all quite strong enemies.
Arvis himself doesn't have Julius's strength-halving trick or Wrath one-shot potential, but his raw numbers are even stronger than those of his son. He also has the Nihil skill (in addition to the usual Pavise, as well as Charm and five leadership stars), so he doesn't brook any bullshit from the player's side, either. Just a bunch of big numbers, even one-shotting a decent share of our characters.
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And finally, a group of Dark Mages, who I assume will go after Palmarch and the children. Fee should be well-equipped to face them, though.
The Team:
Lv. HP Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res Funds XP Arn Seliph 29.84 68 25 7 22 22 28 22 16 34720 +406 [*] Leif 30 66 27 8 27 27 17 27 11 27372 +521 [*] Oifey 25.58 53 20 10 22 21 12 20 8 47340 +24 [1] Finn 30 51 24 1 18 22 24 21 4 50000 +91 [*] Dermott 30 65 23 0 30 25 22 20 7 16957 +456 [*] Nanna 30 58 24 7 22 21 24 24 8 37680 +210 [*] Ares 29.26 72 24 9 22 22 19 24 13 30870 +420 [*] Fee 30 56 20 17 24 29 15 20 24 27417 +276 [*] Altena 28.05 67 27 3 24 22 11 28 3 40860 +629 [*] Lester 26.66 54 22 3 18 20 24 18 4 30563 +470 [*] Arthur 29.42 69 6 23 22 22 26 11 11 43520 +352 [*] Ulster 27.48 65 27 7 27 25 12 22 4 5000 +608 [*] Larcei 28.28 67 27 1 30 30 20 22 6 33570 +368 [*] Shanan 27.49 63 23 0 30 26 12 20 6 39880 +399 [*] Patty 28.63 60 21 15 20 27 24 17 9 12000 +373 [*] Johalvier 28.74 58 26 0 18 21 7 24 8 26715 +134 [*] Hannibal 28.88 65 23 1 17 12 8 24 6 37820 +698 [*] Faval 25.59 62 17 15 20 27 28 13 5 35423 +408 [*] Ced 30 55 5 27 22 30 29 14 27 22600 +647 [*] Lana 30 61 12 24 24 23 29 12 11 13226 +27 [*] Tinni 25.55 58 4 27 24 27 27 9 16 29753 +696 [*] Sharlow 19.10 36 3 21 12 13 10 6 13 10458 +810 -- Leylia 12.26 29 9 2 1 14 8 2 7 13000 +150 [1]On 4/20/2024 at 11:09 AM, Saint Rubenio said:Next you'll tell me he has emotions. Real men aren't like that!!
What a nerd. We should give him a wedgie.
On 4/20/2024 at 11:09 AM, Saint Rubenio said:lol
lmao even
As is my nature, I'm already contemplating interesting ways to replay Genealogy. "No Forseti Inheritance", even though I'm not really looking to do a full substitute run, is looking like a strong option, honestly. Well, not a strong option. You know what I mean.
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6 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:
Can't wait for "Archer Lana" to be meta in the inevitable sequel. Alongside "Warrior Brigid" and "Sage Arthur".
Warrior Sharlow.
Finally, a worthy successor for Yubello.
6 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:Ooh, imposter syndrome. He just like me fr fr.
Seliph's almost a character in that specific dialogue.
6 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:Crazy how similar the statistically-worst sword in the game (Thief's Sword) looks to one of the statistically best swords in the game, Mystletainn. Is Ares here to crit-kill me, or to tickle all my gold away?
Can't say about Ares, but Dermott is here to tickle you to death and take your money.
5 hours ago, Revier said:It's a bit weird for sure. But he did annex Verdane and Agustria almost single handedly, and that alone would've won him a lot of reputation, I would imagine. Not to mention his dad himself was very close to the crown prince and had won honors in multiple battles.
Although the conquests of Verdane and Agustria might not have the same positive vibe with the people that it once had. The end result is that Sigurd handed these territories on a silver plate to Arvis, who, as far as the common man knows, may or may not be the antichrist. I do like the explaination that Jotari gave (or relayed), that it's Imperial propaganda backfiring, painting Sigurd as this powerful enemy of the state - but unfortunately, that angle isn't present in the actual game at all, at least thus far.
5 hours ago, Revier said:What setting is it, then? It clearly has the outward looks and trappings of Middle Ages Europe, though there are definitely bits and pieces of jarring presentism, especially in the more recent games.
Fire Emblem has the aesthetics of Medieval Europe, but outside of feudalism being the mode of production, its settings are very much modern in terms of social norms. That's not meant as a criticism (FE never pretents to be "historical"), but it means that "this is how it worked in 1200 AD" is basically a non-argument when talking about anything FE-related.
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34 minutes ago, Jotari said:
The way I interpret it (possibly backed up by some village statements or Kaga notes, or Thracia or something, possibly just my own creation, it's kind of hard to keep track of things with how scattered some of this information is), is that the Empire's propaganda against Sigurd has backfired on them. They painted him as a devious rebel who wanted to snatch the throne for himself. But, because the empire turned out so shitty, Sigurd as the enemy of the early empire instead became the only sane man who saw the writing on the wall and tried to stop all the tragedy before it happened, at least in the eyes of the common people. The dramatic irony is that he wasn't that either and was really just a dude trying to protect himself with no real knowledge Lopt Sect plans or possible future beyond the vaguest knowledge that they existed.
That would've been really interesting if it had ever come up in the game. A Kaga special, tbh.
27 minutes ago, BrightBow said:Gotta push those cousin romances, I suppose.
Well, in medieval Europe, cousin r--
27 minutes ago, BrightBow said:Although since their mothers were identical twin sisters, biologically it's less cousins and more half siblings.
Oof.
(Disclaimer that Fire Emblem isn't really a medieval setting, specifically not when it comes to social standards and values, so "it happened in medieval Europe" isn't really much of a point, anyway)
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FE4 Chapter 10: Light and Darkness
Perlucos --> Chronos --> Rados
Spoiler
I'll have to immediately credit this map for this: No two turns of walking about before encountering the first group of enemies. Right out the castle gate, we can (and have to) take a stab at the Dark Mages.
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And with all our mounted units plus a dance, you can do quite a lot to those Loptyrians, too. You can also see Shanan at the top right of our group, after having a convo with Seliph:
: "You've grown so strong of late, Seliph! You really are your parents' son. There's nothing left for me to teach you."
: "Thank you, Shanan... For everything. Any might I have springs from your teachings. To me, swordplay is every bit as natural as breathing, and I owe it all to you."
: "Heh... You think so, do you..."
: "You look awfully weary, Shanan... Is something amiss? If only I could lend you my strength..."
: "Hey, come on! You needn't treat me like some old man. I'm as young and spry as ever, you know!"
: "Oh! My apologies, Shanan... That wasn't what I was-"
: "Heh, it's fine. ...Thanks anyway, Seliph. It heartens me to know that you care."
[+3 HP --> Shanan]
Shanan was probably called "mister" by a teenager for the first time recently, so that's why he's a bit sensitive here.
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And here's the result of the first round of combat. Very horse-centric, since foot units just don't have the reach. Most importantly, both Fenrir and both Hel wielders are dead immediately, and Altena is not in range of the left enemy Sniper.
In the back, Faval and Lana had a little moment:
: "Wait a minute... I've never seen someone so frail hold their own out here like this. Aren't you scared at all?"
Fun fact: If Lana had decided to become an Archer instead of a Priest, her Str would've been 7 points above Faval's, and on par with Finn, Nanna, and Ares. She's also basically as tanky as Faval on the physical side (+1 HP, -1 Def) even in her High Priest class, although she admittedly has an 8-level lead at the start of the fight.
: "I won't lie to you... I am. I really am. But I could never sit back and do nothing knowing all those children are still in peril."
: "Huh, so you're fond of kids, then?"
: "Oh, certainly! I love children. And from what I hear, you do as well! You've been looking after orphans, haven't you, Faval? I think that's just wonderful!"
: "Er, don't get too excited there... Patty dragged me into the whole 'look after orphans' thing. Not the biggest fan myself."
: "Hee hee hee... You sound so sure! I'm not blind, you know. How, then, do you explain all the sobbing children who begged you to stay as you left to join us? Why, they must all see you as some sort of father figure!"
: "H-hey, stop it, would you! I... it's just that... Look, I've got some things to go do, okay?"
[+3 HP --> Lana; +100 love points]
Everybody point and laugh at Faval for his lack of rugged manliness. He's good with children! How embarrassing!
Speaking of children, Patty gifts Sharlow her arena earnings. He'll pick up the Warp staff to spam himself to promotion and beyond, although he won't get started with that just yet. But next update, somebody is going to be ping-ponged between Perlucos and... somewhere. I believe Larcei is still carrying around one of the Return Bands.
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No danger during enemy phase. Not sure what the logic behind targeting Leylia is here - I redid this first turn once because I didn't think of selling Warp with Lana and Leylia took a map in both cases, so my first guess was that maybe it's because Leylia has the lowest HP on the team. But that Sleep Dark Mage is going to survive for another turn and he'll target Johalvier next, even though Leylia was also still in his range, so I have no idea.
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I think I like this John Constipatius. Too bad he has to die.
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So, on we go, with Leif starting to make use of the Rescue staff. He has a decent amount of cash (about 27k) and absolutely zero need for the Paragon band, so I don't think I have to be conservative about its usage.
So he rescues Leylia ahead a second time on the same turn. I'm feeling very ltc right now.
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Not a lot to say here, except "sucks to be you if you don't have a horse".
Turn 3, Dermott stays behind a bit to kill the two Pirates coming from the south. He kills the first with the Brave Sword and will get a double-proc next turn, allowing him to one-round the second with the Thief's Sword.
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You'll also notice that I try to get Tinni some work. She's carrying the Paragon Band onto the field, so she ought to make use of it (...although she could easily cap out by grabbing the Return staff to play ping-pong with Sharlow).
Still on turn 3, Seliph reaches Hilda. ...Rescue staff with no worries about durability is fun.
: "It's you! YOU are Seliph! Gah... If not for you, Blume and Ishtore would still be... You will not escape me!"
...well, that was a very productive first round of combat.
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Much better. Sure, I'm wasting my time by chipping with Seliph, since that means he won't be able to seize with the same action, but I see a chance for narratively appropriate boss killing:
: "You really are every bit the ingrate your dear mama was!"
: "Hilda! You... What you did to Mother..."
: "Ahh, that takes me back! It's been so long since I've had as much fun as tormenting that eyesore you call 'mama'... Ahahaha!"
Hilda, she called her "Mother" just now.
: "No! You... I won't forgive you..."
: "Why, if I didn't know better, I'd say that's the smart mouth of someone all grown up! What could a brat like you ever hope to do? Good think you miss your mama. You're about to join her in hell!"
Bzzt!
: "Gah... This can't be happening! I can't stay here... I must retreat..."
With Leif using Tornado already, there's not much use for Bolganone, so it's really just some extra cash for Tinni.
Here, Leif and Altena cross path again, which ticks the box for the third and (for now) last conversation available:
: "Is everything alright, Altena? You look rather weary."
: "Oh, Leif... No, it's nothing. Don't worry about it."
: "Well, if you say so... Listen, Altena. Don't be afraid to ask for my help. If you ever need anything, I'll gladly do all I can."
: "Thanks, Leif. Er, actually... I was thinking of Arion."
: "I thought as much. Is it true that someone came to spirit him away after we brought him down?"
: "It is, and from what I hear, that someone was Prince Julius..."
Seliph is really bad at relaying critical information to his companions.
: "The Empire's crown prince himself?! But why... Why in the world would he do that?"
: "Perhaps he's trying to win himself a new ally by appealing to Arion."
: "That makes sense... And I suppose it means we'll be crossing blades with Thracia's dracoknights again."
: "Mm. I'm afraid so. So long as this war continues..."
: "To be honest, Altena, I believe this actually good news."
: "Huh? How so?"
: "Think about it. So long as Arion is still alive, there is still hope that we can help him. Never give up, Altena. So long as we keep moving forward, surely everything will be fine in the end."
: "Thank you, Leif... I think I'm feeling better already."
: "Oh, thank the gods. I couldn't bear knowing that my sister was in such grief. I'm here for you, Altena. All I want is to ensure your happiness, and I'll do whatever it takes to help you."
[+1 Lck --> Altena]
And while we're collecting dialogue:
: "Ohh! Oh, noble crusader! We beg of you, save our children! The children... the dark priests want to sacrifice them to their god!"
[5000 gold --> Oifey]
And because I'm forgetful, Seliph does not seize Chronos despite being part of Leylia's dance. Although this will be somewhat useful next turn, so I should probably pretend it was deliberate.
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This is also the first bit of combat against Riddell's group. Altena is in the range to counter three of them, one-rounding them with the Silver Lance, and to get a big zap from one of the Mage Knights. She can't use the Gáe Bolg (and she might not have doubled with it) because the Lance Pala probably wouldn't have attacked her.
Now, how much can we do on player phase...
Well, first of all, Dermott can get another one-round with the Thief's Sword. Very nice.
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And the general answer to the question is, "Quite a lot, actually". And Seliph being that extra few tiles forward does help including him in Leylia's dance.
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: "Nngh... So this is how the gods will my fate..."
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And here I thought Genealogy was an EP-focussed game.
: "Any luck finding the children, Lewyn?"
: "Nope, no luck. Looks like they've already been sent to Miletos. Let's move! There's no time to lose while they're still in danger. But it looks like we'll need to capture Rados as well, if we're going to get the gates of Miletos open."
: "Understood. Castle Rados is our next challenge, then!"
And the next turn, I remember to actually seize Chronos.
: "Long ago, the Twelve Crusaders waged holy war against the Loptyr Empire for fifteen years. Nary a single corner of the land of Jugdral escaped the war's clutches. It was Saint Heim who smote the dark god's avatar, Emperor Galle XVII, restoring light to this land at long last. And yet... the dark god is upon us once more. Oh, great crusaders, protect us all!"
[4000 gold --> Leif]
Well, I suppose I was still thinking about Leif's staff repairing budget.
Seizing Chronos unlocks a conversation between Oifey and Seliph, mirroring that of Shanan earlier:
: "Look, sire! The territory of Chalphy awaits us just acroos the Miletos Strait."
: "Chalphy... My father's homeland... I can only imagine all the memories you must have of it, Oifey."
: "Mm, of course. I don't think there's a single corner of Chalphy which I don't recall fondly... Lord Sigurd and Lady Ethlyn... Noish, Alec, and all of my other peers among the young knights of Chalphy..."
---
: "..."
---
: "Every last face there was a friendly one..."
: "Hm... I can only imagine, Oifey. I've never so much as set foot in Chalphy, have I?"
: "Indeed, sire. You were born in Agustria, and raised in Silesse and Isaach. Come to think of it, sire, you've never been anywhere Grannvale till now."
: "Quite the sorry excuse for a prince of Grannvale I make, wouldn't you say? It almost feels as if I've tricked the world."
: "I know, sire, but I pray you understand. This is the will of your citizens, all long abused and stripped of power by the Empire. They've endured decades of suffering beyond compare at the Empire's hands, all in the hope of, one day, seeing the coming of their savior."
: "This savior... Do they believe it to be me?"
: "They do. The common folk have long prayed for the second coming of the hero Sigurd. The folklore claims he comes once more in the form of a legendary child whom Sigurd begat with Empress Deirdre."
: "A legendary child... It's terrifying to know that people have taken to seeing me as some sort of god, Oifey."
: "Think of it as a product of the sheer brutality of the Empire's regime, sire. Look around you. We stand in a realm where children are snatched from their parents in droves, and all who resist are put to slaughter. No mere human could ever wreak such madness. A great evil lurks behind it all..."
: "Say, Oifey... I've been hearing tales that Emperor Arvis is the dark god itself. Where do you stand?"
: "I've heard the same from countless others in our travels, but I doubt it."
: "Then who could it be? Manfroy, perhaps?"
: "Sire... Whoever it may be, the dark god's return is fast approaching. We must hurry. Your people have come to revere you as a crusader destined to save them. The time to heed their call is upon us."
[+3 HP --> Oifey]
To be honest, I didn't expect Sigurd to be exalted to this degree. I appreciate that he's remembered fondly by the people he fought with (for example, Erin telling her children stories about him), but making him into the great hero whose "second coming" (in case somebody still didn't pick up on Seliph's messianic vibes) will deliver mankind from all sins seems more than just a little disproportional. He drove off barbaric invaders, yes, but those aren't connected at all to the current catastrophe, and his following victories all took place outside of Grannvale. When he returned, he was basically tricked by Arvis to help remove his rivals for power, Langbalt and Reptor, before immediately getting murderised himself.
That said, Seliph being perceived as a savior isn't entirely baseless, as much as I dislike the trope of the "Chosen One" - but that should come from who his mother is. Deirdre is the one with Naga blood - and since Arvis's claim to power comes from her lineage, that isn't much of a state secret, either. Who exactly Seliph's father is (apart from "not Arvis") doesn't really have to matter in this narrative.
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After Riddell is defeated and Chronos seized, getting to Rados is pretty much a formality, with no mobile enemies remaining on the field. So, a small delegation pays him a visit, while the other mounted units already move further on towards Miletos.
(note: Those who played this map will possibly be a bit anxious at that second screenshot. I will indeed have a little shock after seizing Rados - although I didn't make screenshots or saved the game after that - but nobody is going to die)
: "Behold. In your final moments, you will cower in fear of my dark sorcery!"
That's not dark sorcery, that's blue sorcery!
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And after cleaning up the nearby enemies (XP is XP! ...what do you mean, they'll cap their level anyway?), Seliph kills Morrigan and seizes.
...okay, that does not sound like something DA:O!Morrigan would say.
: "This is... It's like a ghost town..."
: "The handiwork of Morrigan's mages, I hear. Any who dared to resist met a grisly end..."
: "How could they... How could anyone be so savage..."
: "And that's why we've got to fight this war to the end, Seliph. This is something you've got to understand. This is the way of the Loptyr Empire. They have no place at all for the good-hearted... Now, it shouldn't be too long before the gate through to Miletos opens for us. What's your next move, Seliph?"
: "Needless to say, we must march on Miletos. We can't afford to rest while those children are still at risk... Or Julia, for that matter."
: "Good. And after that, Grannvale awaits!"
Speaking of children, the ones of Chronos have been pretty much ignored this entire time. Ulster rescues one of them on the turn Seliph seizes and might rescue another, but overall, since this isn't a ranked run (and cannot be because I have way to many L's in the augury), the XP from these really doesn't matter much anymore.
That's it for now. The story didn't really move forward very much ("Loptyr bad" and "Seliph is blue-haired Jesus" have been established already and have only been reinforced here), but having peeked ahead to what will happen next turn, I can say that something will come up then.
The Team:
Lv. HP Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res Funds XP Arn Seliph 29.84 68 25 7 22 22 28 22 16 34720 +406 [*] Leif 30 66 27 8 27 27 17 27 11 27372 +521 [*] Oifey 25.34 53 20 10 22 21 12 20 8 37340 -- [1] Finn 30 51 24 1 18 22 24 21 4 50000 +91 [*] Dermott 27.26 60 23 0 30 23 20 19 7 42532 +182 [1] Nanna 30 58 24 7 22 21 24 24 8 37680 +210 [*] Ares 28.46 71 24 9 21 21 18 23 13 30870 +340 [*] Fee 30 56 20 17 24 29 15 20 24 27417 +276 [*] Altena 27.25 66 27 3 23 22 11 28 2 40860 +549 [*] Arthur 29.39 39 6 23 22 22 26 11 11 43520 +349 [*] Lester 26.54 54 22 3 18 20 24 18 4 30563 +458 [*] Ulster 26.48 64 27 7 27 24 11 22 4 0 +508 [*] Larcei 27.88 66 27 1 30 30 19 22 6 33570 +328 [*] Shanan 27.29 63 23 0 30 26 12 20 6 39880 +379 [*] Patty 28.22 60 21 15 20 27 24 17 9 0 +443 [*] Johalvier 28.74 58 26 0 18 21 7 24 8 26715 +134 [*] Hannibal 21.96 60 21 0 16 12 7 23 6 44120 -- [1] Faval 25.59 62 17 15 20 27 28 13 5 35423 +408 [*] Ced 27.69 52 5 26 22 30 27 14 27 22600 +416 [*] Lana 30 61 12 24 24 23 29 12 11 13226 +27 [*] Tinni 24.81 57 4 23 24 27 26 9 16 29753 +622 [*] Sharlow 13.10 34 2 16 9 11 9 5 11 20493 +210 --- Leylia 11.56 29 9 2 1 14 7 2 6 13000 +80 [*]6 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:Was it because Kaga thought so little of Sigurd that retracing the failure father's footsteps was deemed unexciting? Or that total map reuse, even with changed enemy formations or whatnot, was frowned up as too repetitive to feature? -I would strongly assume the latter.
6 hours ago, Revier said:Do we know how Book 2 was received back in the day? It getting complaints over reused maps could likely explain why Genealogy actively tries to avoid revisiting places besides Grannvale during its campaign.
That is a good point. I don't know if it was much of a point of criticism when it was released, but Book 2's reused maps (with the exception of the bridge) really weren't all that good, so I could understand if Kaga was reluctant to repeat it... even if I still think it would've been cooler than this entirely new country without any real relevance to the story outside of this one chapter.
4 hours ago, Jotari said:*
Manfroy kidnapping Julia(it's there, but really they barely even tried)*Confronting Hilda in some manner
*Seeing Julius in action for the first time
*Getting Tyrfing
*Killing Alvis
- Since House Freege was supposed to get the Agustrian lands anyway, having Hilda appear in this area would make a lot of sense. Maybe not so much in the border fort of Evans, but she could appear together with reinforcements - maybe at the start of the fight, maybe when Evans is seized. Realistically, she'd reside in Agustry Castle, but rush to the scene when she hears of Seliph landing near the borders of her lands. You would have to put yet another Philip on guard duty in Evans, but it's not like Genealogy is shy about that kind of thing.
- Julius could appear similarly to how he does in the real Ch.10, in front of Jungby once you've seized Evans. Or maybe in front of Chalphy ("You sit back and see how Ishtar and I handle these upstart rebels, father. At your age, you shouldn't excert yourself too much.")
- I haven't read up the details, but I know that Arvis will send out some old man to deliver Tyrfing to Seliph. He could to the same here, just for that old man be intercepted by Scorpio and brought to Jungby. That would also address your (good) point that the path past Jungby to Chalphy is so open that ignoring Jungby would seem like a good move. And speedrunners / LTCers could figure out if it saves time or not to skip Tyrfing... although I suppose they have to do that in the original, too.
- Yeah, Arvis wouldn't really require any changes.
...I wrote that before reading your own thoughts, and I see mine didn't turn out too different.
4 hours ago, Jotari said:
I remember that you alluded to this back in chapter 5
Nothing to add, she should've had a gen 2 appearance.
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17 hours ago, Jotari said:
I tried to mock up a Chapter 10 where Miletos doesn't exist. I wanted to start from Luthecia (the chapter where Coirpre/Sharlow is held) and end up in Edda, to have continuity between the maps, but the distance is too far both vertically and horizontally to fit on a standard Genealogy sized map. I could just about fit a chapter in where they start at Melgen (Ishtore's castle) and reach Edda.
As comparison, my much simpler suggestion of smushing ch.1 and the prologue together:
So basically, Seliph arrives at Genoa by boat; from there, he captures the strategically important Evans; after that, the Grannvale reaction is to attempt a surround with collaborateurs from all over Jugdral: Verdanian axe bois and hunters from the southwest, Agustrian paladins from the northwest, Silessian pegasi from the southeast where there is just the ocean and definitely nothing else, and probably some dark mages stationed in Jungby. Could possibly make for the equivalent of Victory or Death in BlaBla, Murdock's map in BinBla, Clash! in PoR etc.pp.
If Kaga absolutely wanted Miletos to exist on Jugdral's map, there could still be half of an island in the bottom right - with the castle just out of sight, similar to Nordion and Marpha on the other side of the map, so that Seliph doesn't have to go seize it. Plonk a village or two on there that only Fee or Altena can reach, and you can have a little bit of backstory fluff about Miletos, too.
16 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:All of Gen 2 has this one consideration behind it- how does a ragtag group of Issachan rebels end up overthrowing one-and-a-half-decade-almighty Grannvale Empire?
Direct confrontation between the core Grannvalian armies and Seliph's group could've happened as early as Chapter 7. Edda is directly west of Darna, the Empire could've easily sent out Brian as Seliph was dealing with Ishtore and flanked the rebels.
However, if you've any liking for a notion of realism, that couldn't happen. And if you wanted Gen 2 to be longer than maybe three chapters (without writing a retreat into Seliph's story), you couldn't have it happen either. Helping Leif on the Thracian Peninsula keeps away from Grannvale, and limits Seliph to only fighting regional imperial occupation forces -even if they're led by one of the leading families in the Empire. Travant & Arion are another useful distraction.
It's only with Miletos, 5/6s into Gen 2, that Seliph begins strategically aiming for Grannvale itself, he isn't moving away from it as he did going into the Thracian Peninsula. His army is well-experienced by now. Even if it might not feel like it, because Gen 2 has to share a game with Gen 1, and those giant maps... might impose limits on the feeling of story development/progression?
I agree that it makes sense for Seliph to first operate at the fringes of the Empire's control. However, I still think that you don't actually need Miletos to create that story structure, and that the story doesn't actually do anything with the new setting it introduced. Hilda could be stabbing children in Verdane (or Agustria, but that doesn't work geographically) just as well. Narratively, I think it would me much more interesting to return to Sigurd's old stomping ground - it's a cause to reminisce about Sigurd meeting Deirdre, or a little drama that Ares, Nanna and Dermott must fight their countrymen, or even the question if Sigurd is to blame for the desolation in Verdane (and/or Agustria) because he was always thinking with his seize button.
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10 hours ago, Revier said:
She's supposed to be sympathetic? I don't get that at all, what I get is an impression of a lady who sticks to a terrible man for the sake of love, and is willing to do terrible things to keep said love, but knows deep down that those things are terrible and is ashamed for it. So basically, a self centered villain with some shades of grey applied in all the wrong places.
I would say, so, yes. There's a village in Ch.7 where we're told that she and Ishtore are "fine youths", for example, and later, after Julius warps Ishtar out of Ch.8, Tinni tells Seliph, "Ishtar was like a sister to me. She was one of the few who treated me well..." With what we're given at this point, I think it's a valid interpretation that Ishtar fell in love with Julius without seeing the pedocidal side of him (or maybe they met before Loptyr took Julius over, but I'm pretty sure we don't actually know about that just yet)... and now that Julius is off his rocker, she's too terrified of him to ever do or say anything that might upset him. It wouldn't make her a good person - she's still helping along the child murding machine - but it would make her a tragic villain.
10 hours ago, Revier said:The plot point so nice, we had to use it twice!
"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." - Karl Marx
10 hours ago, Revier said:You know your writing is bad when the smart guy/Gary Stu goes, "Why is this happening? I have no idea!" There's no admission of failure more complete than this, lol.
I don't disagree with the overall point, but I don't think Lewyn is much of a Stu. He has special blood and bullshit powers, sure, but not beyond the degree of other characters with major holy blood. And while he's indeed gen 2's "smart guy", I think an important part of Sue/Stu-ness is that the narration assumes that everybody (both in-universe and the reader) loves the Stu, with the exception of the most irredeemable villain. And that's certainly not the case for Lewyn, who is a bad son, a bad husband, a bad father, a bad crown prince, and just an all-around bad person - and all quite deliberately written as such.
9 hours ago, BrightBow said:To be fair to her, if you talk 4 times to someone of the opposite gender, you are legally obligated to marry them and treat whatever heinous acts they commit as harmless quirky behavior.
Can confirm. I was at the market early this morning and said hi to another regular customer. The police immediately appeared and brought us to the closest registry office.
7 hours ago, Jotari said:She's probably a few years shy of fifty if you think about it. Assuming Bloom's marriage was a result of Chapter 5 and not something that happened earlier, Ishtar is at most 17, possibly younger. And assuming Hilda was a hot young bride of about 22 when she was an eligible bachelorette, that would but her in her late 30s now. Well maybe an extra year for Gen 2 having taken place in to put her in her early 40s. Unless she was older when she married because she was putting herself through Sorceress School first or something.
Since "late 30s" is basically 70+ in anime age, I suppose I have to rescind my previous statement and say that Hilda looks really young for her age.
Jokes aside, those numbers do seem more realistic, but I'd say my point about Hilda being allowed to look middle-aged still stands.
7 hours ago, Jotari said:I think perfectly legitimate cadet family is the Occam's razor answer. She says her family is from Velthomer, like the royal family. That kind of suggests it's not the royal family. And you'd think she's either be bragging about a close family connection to Alvis or denying it completely if she were a bastard. Instead she's bragging about a loose geographical connection.
I personally headcanon one of her parents are Thracian. Since for some bizarre reason they accidentally gave her Dainn holy blood in the final chapter.
Yeah, I like the @Interdimensional Observer's head canon, but I agree that Hilda would make a bigger deal about being brothers with the Emperor
unless she doesn't want to direct Ishtar's attention to her and Julius being cousins.Just from her looks, I would've headcanoned Isaachian heritage for her. I'm sure there's black-haired characters explicitly stated to be from somewhere else, but that hair colour is still mostly associated with that country.
3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:Yay, more incest. I mean, not surprising. And at least it's the clearly evil folks pushing for it.
Interesting to think that Arthur and Tinne - if fathered by Azelle - can basically be "double cousins" with Ishtar and Ishtore. Obviously, Blume and Tailtiu were siblings, while Azelle and Hilda are both Velthomers.
All very much in line with the standards of European nobility. Gotta keep those bloodlines pure.
3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:I mean, it's kinda nice to see Miletos... but it's also the portion of the continent with the least lore. Who was running the place before Grannvale? What is their culture like? What are the people from there even called? Is there literally a single named "Miletosian" whom we can identify?
Thing is, Miletos really is just on the Jugdral map for this one chapter. Outside of it, it appears in the Jugdral timeline (the first instance of child hunts) and as Seliph's shopping location. You could just move the "Sorrow of Miletos" to another location and have Seliph take another angle to flirt with Julia, and you could remove the island from the map without losing anything narratively.
And no, we don't know any character from Miletos.
3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:The Res stat: "my time has come".
Fee stocks at an all-time high.
3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:Now I love to imagine Axe Lewyn "crab-walking", FE4 Brigand-style.
Sylvia tried to teach him how to dance.
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4 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:
Even still. Beats most RPGs, where they tell you your guy's strength is 47, your weapon's power is 81, the enemy's defense is 19 and then you deal 472 damage one turn and 521 the next and God knows why the fuck anything happens.
Oh, I agree. But just saying "Oh, I agree." is boring.
6 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:Hilda's great. She's not sympathetic, she's not possessed, she's not sexy... She's as horribly, unabashedly, generically evil as every ugly recolored man ever, and she's about as physically unattractive as anime women are allowed to be. And, you know what? That's neat.
One thing that's remarkable about Hilda is that she looks like she's about 50 years old. I think she's the only woman in the game who is allowed to be and look middle-aged? Rahna is probably 40-50 years old, but has a generic "somewhere between 25 and 40" portrait. Other than that, there's only two of the generic village women - the one with the headscarf looks about as old as Hilda, and then there's the one portrait that's actually old.
12 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:I feel like I should know who this is but I can't put my finger on it right n...
...Wait, Morrigan? Why Morrigan...?
It wasn't necessary for me to make the obvious joke, but I was quite delighted when this Morrigan even talked in a way that absolutely could've been DA:O!Morrigan. Like, child mass murder is (probably) a step too far even for her, but she'd totally present an unpleasant order with a similar faux-polite schadenfreude.
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FE4 Chapter 10: Light and Darkness
Perlucos (turn 0)
Spoiler
As I was discussing in the last update, I went back to last chapter's last save to trim down Julia's inventory a bit more. Specifically, she sells Silence (which will go to Ced), the Skill Ring, and the Miracle Band (both still at the Pawnbroker by the end of the update).
Now, back to the regular broadcast...
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...which was once a vibrant and wealthy hub of commerce for all of Jugdral. Now, though, only a dying land choked by the Empire and Loptyrian Order lies before Seliph.
At Chronos Castle, the seemingly mad rule of Queen Hilda has condemned countless citizens to savage, merciless deaths. And in the Rados region, Bishop Morrigan, under the command of Archbishop Manfroy, conducts child hunt after child hunt. Wealth. Liberty. Hope Even life itself... All crumbled through the people's fingers.
As the evil cult plies its sacrificial rituals and pile the bodies of their victims ever higher, Seliph knows he cannot leave Miletos be. Greeted by raucous cheers from the people, the liberation army routed the Empire's men in a fierce battle, freeing the city of Perlucos. The hope of Miletos had slowly been rotting away in the Empire's hands, but at long last, the arrival of Seliph and his liberation army breathes new life into the nation's future.
Well, Seliph promised Julia to go shopping in Miletos in their convo last chapter, so I can't say that the Miletos Distric just fell out of the skies to feature in this chapter. But it's really a bit of a downgrade, as far as the setting goes: The second half of the game started in Isaach, whose war against Grannvale was constantly a background factor for Sigurd's story, then continued to the Thracian peninsula, where Quan, Ethlyn, and their killer made their home. And now we come to Miletos, where Sigurd would like to buy an icecream sundae for Julia.
Now, this chapter isn't just about freeing Miletos, it's also the triumphant return to Chalphy (so to speak, Seliph himself was never here, after all). But I'm wondering if the border region of Verdane and Grannvale would've made for a better stage for this: Splice together the maps of the prologue and Ch.1 and cut off the part west of Marpha, which is to say Nordion and Verdane Castle. Genoa could be the home castle, with the order of objectives being Marpha (optional) -> Evans -> Jungby -> Chalphy.
This would allow plenty of characters to visit emotionally charged locations: Marpha is where Seliph's parents first met, and for Bridget and Aideen's children, visiting their mothers' home would be a Big Deal, as well. I wouldn't add Nordion to the map, but Ares and Raquesis's kids could have some dialogue talking about being close to home, too. Taking a quick peek at the endgame's map, you'd have to reshuffle enemies a little bit (seems that André jr. will arrive from the direction of Jungby, which would make less sense if Seliph had already captured it), but I think it could work quite well.
But back to what actually happens...:
: "Heh... I wonder what it must be like to be as terrified of our sacrifices to the dark lord as the peasants must be."
: "I've seen it myself. Knowing their children are doomed to the stake nigh drives them mad with grief... Particularly the mothers..."
: "Hmhmhm... Magnificent. Let them learn now the true meaning of despair. Let their will to live erode and crumble. Let them become little more than ragdolls. Let them become the ideal slaves for the rise of the Loptyr Empire."
: "Also, it seems we've captured far too many children. This castle simply doesn't have the room for them all. How shall I handle this?"
: "Send them to Belhalla at once. I will groom them personally, I think. Friends, family... it matters not. By the end they will despise each other, ready to kill their own in power's name. Only the fittest will survive, and these fittest will become the ideal citizens of Loptyr's new world."
: "But Lord Julius... What of your father? What of Emperor Arvis? The emperor refuses to allow any child hunts under his watch."
: "My father? Heh... My father is not worth fretting over, Ishtar. I will persuade him easily..."
Way to take a stand, Ishtar.
I get it, she's probably dead as a doornail if Julius at any point decides that he doesn't love her anymore, and she presumably knows that, but she seems distinctly unfazed by the prospect of more dead children than the castle can hold.
: "He did, did he? ...You know, Ishtar, I daresay the prince has quite the love for you. Hell, I'm already hearing the wedding bells ring!"
: "I... I don't-"
: "Open your ears, Ishtar! Freege is by far the most esteemed of Grannvale's noble houses, and I, like the Emperor himself, am of House Velthomer. There is nobody in this land who could ever be worthier to the prince's hand than you!"
: "A-as you say..."
: "Now, then! We have more pressing matters ahead. Those rebels, murderers of my dear husband and son, are coming our way, Ishtar! Now [sic] only that, they dared to steal Alster from us! Never has history given Freege a more dire enemy than Seliph, his father and all of his kin! I shall await them here at Chronos, that I may give them the welcome they deserve. You run along to Miletos. After all, those brats won't arrange their own journey to Belhalla!"
: "Yes, mother..."
This part does a somewhat better job at making Ishtar look moderately sympathetic - not just because Hilda's callousness, but also because Ishtar's (short) lines have more of a "I have to get out of here" quality to them. With a bit of goodwill, one could assume that she's just holding herself together when her not-explicitly-abusive-but-holy-red-flags-batman boyfriend is present.
: "A small few children escaped our hold amidst the cover of confusion from our deployment. What are your orders?"
: "Excuse me?! How dare anyone under my command be so incompetent... No matter. Kill them all. Teach them all a lesson. Relay this command to General Riddell at Rados. He is to put them all down at once."
Of course, it helps Ishtar that basically everybody looks like the lesser even when compared to a woman who doesn't just go along with the child hunts, but is furious when some babies aren't stabbed, nagadamnit.
: "But... But if we get..."
: "Don't cry! It... It'll all be fine! Don't ya know? The crusaders are coming! They'll save us all. I know it!"
: "Sniff... I guess you're right. The crusaders'll come... They will... They will..."
: "Ah, General Riddell. We've got orders for you from Queen Hilda. She wants you to move out at once."
: "Excellent. It's high time that we had work which better befits knights. I am absolutely fed up with hunting children! I swear, if I have to hunt even one more child..."
: "Oh, what a pity that is. You see, we've a handful of escaped brats who are all in sore need of an execution."
: "Oh, for the love of..."
: "What's this? Are you, a loyal imperial general, dissatisfied with your orders? Do I smell a filthy traitor to the trust of His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Arvis?"
: "...No sir. I could... I could never consider betraying his majesty... Very well. I suppose I have no choice..."
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Funny dialogue, I have to admit.
: "Heh... The shock stripped you of your memory all those years ago, did it? Perfect. Now, come!"
: "N-no! Take your hands off me!"
: "Heh heh... You cannot resist fate, my dear. Now, cease your struggle and come along..."
: "No! Ahh... Lord Seliph... Help... me..."
Funny dialogue, I have to admit. If Kaga hadn't been a coward, he would've had Manfroy kaga Arion like this in the previous chapter, too.
: "We've got another problem, too. It's Julia... She's gone. I've searched high and low, but she's nowhere in sight."
: "No! Oh, no... How could this be..."
: " I can't believe it, but that's how it is... My guess is the enemy seized her. But why... Why would they only target Julia? This doesn't make any sense..."
: "Gah... Hold on, Julia, wherever you are... No matter what happens, we'll find you!"
I'm loathe to say this, but Deirdre's abduction was much more well-written. For Deirdre, there was at least some set-up - it's established that Manfroy is looking for her, and Deirdre's feeling of dread (which Julia shares) comes back in dramatic irony when her acting on it (running after Sigurd because she felt impeding doom if they came apart) allows Manfroy to kidnap her without anybody's notice. Julia's abduction... just happens.
But that's it for the update, as far as the story is concerned. The map honestly seems very straightforward - we start at 3 o'clock and move clockwise through Chronos, Rados, and Miletos to Chalphy. A few villages have to be rescued along the way (the red dots on the water are pirates/brigands, and so are the two separate dots near Rados), as well as six children just north of Chronos.
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These children are, I assume, only threatened by Riddell and his knights. Depending on how quickly they move up the road, they might arrive very quickly though.
The group as a whole is comparable to the Grannvalian reinforcements on the previous map, which is to say a group of promoted cavs with a variety of Silver Weapons (and three Mage Knights with Elthunder). Riddell himself is quite dangerous, too - no holy blood like the previous John Constipatius, but he has both the Pursuit and the Critical skill. Not somebody you'd want to attack in melee.
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The group closest to use mostly consists of Dark Mages, with varying tomes. Marked red are two Hel wielders, which are obviously extremely dangerous unless they move last. Purple are two (otherwise unarmed) Sleep users, and yellow are two long-ranged Fenrir users.
Guarding Chronos is Queen Hilda, who is pretty straightforwardly very strong. 50 Atk hitting Res two-shots most of our team, and she has Pursuit with a still respectable (considering she uses a fire spell) 17 AS. The Queen class also has Charm as an innate skill, although Hilda doesn't seem to really apply that aura to anybody.
Morrigan is about what you'd expect from a Dark Bishop. Fairly tanky. Weighed down by their tomes. The three castle guards all use Hel, so you'll need a healer nearby to approach Morrigan, but since the guards don't move while their boss is alive, you should be fine if you take that precaution.
On to the arena, which, as a little curiosity, also features a Queen using Bolganone. Here's the full line-up:
(1) Hasmann - Lv.13 Wind Mage 39 HP | 2 Def | 8 Res [Elwind] - 24 Atk | 98 Hit | 20 Avo | 10 AS (2) Grants - Lv.16 Paladin 56 HP | 13 Def | 6 Res [Steel Sword] - 23 Atk | 106 Hit | 20 Avo | 10 AS (2R) Closroi - Lv.16 Arch Knight 56 HP | 12 Def [Silver Bow] - 32 Atk | 94 Hit | 8 Avo | 4 AS (3) Roland - Lv.19 Hero - Skill: Pursuit 59 HP | 12 Def | 4 Res [Silver Blade] - 37 Atk | 94 Hit | 22 Avo | 11 AS [Wind Sword] - 18 Atk (vs. Res) (4) Massigli - Lv.22 Dark Mage 62 HP | 9 Def | 16 Res [Jormungand] - 36 Atk | 118 Hit | 4 Avo | 2 AS (5) Riva - Lv.25 Great Knight 65 HP | 17 Def | 5 Res [Silver Axe] - 41 Atk | 98 Hit | -8 Avo | -4 AS (5R) - Gloria - Lv.25 Sniper - Skill: Pursuit 65 HP | 14 Def [Silver Bow] - 37 Atk | 108 Hit | 22 Avo | 11 AS (6) Nothe - Lv.28 Dark Bishop - Item: Shield Ring - Skill: Pursuit 68 HP | 12+5 Def | 20 Res [Jormungand] - 43 Atk | 126 Hit | 12 Avo | 6 AS (7) Indra - Lv.30 Queen - Item: Speed Ring - Skill: Charm 65 HP | 19 Def | 21 Res [Bolganone] - 41 Atk | 108 Hit | 28 Avo | 14 ASNote: fireemblemwiki.org lists Adept as skills for both (1) Hasmann and (3) Roland. I never saw it proc on either of them, and opponents in the arena generally only have skills innate to their class, so I believe the wiki to be mistaken, but I can't disprove it ingame.
Pursuit on (6) Nothe and Charm on (7) Indra are class skills, but the latter doesn't improve Indra's hit/avo.
The wiki mistakenly lists a Silver *Sword* as Roland's melee weapon: https://i.imgur.com/Rfp7B6K.png
---
And here everybody who went through the arena right away - which is almost everybody. The only ones missing, with the expectation that they might get enough money for a full Paragon run down the line, are Dermott, Oifey, and Hannibal. Well, and Sharlow and Leylia, for obvious reasons, although I hope that Sharlow will be able to promote during this chapter.
Lv. HP Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res Funds XP Arn Seliph 28.78 67 25 7 22 21 28 22 16 44720 +300 [*] Leif 26.47 60 27 8 26 27 16 25 11 18572 +168 [*] Finn 30 51 24 1 18 22 24 21 4 50000 +91 [*] Nanna 29.18 57 24 7 22 21 23 24 8 37680 +128 [*] Ares 28.22 71 24 9 21 21 18 23 13 40300 +316 [*] Fee 29.84 55 19 17 24 29 15 20 24 27417 +260 [*] Altena 25.76 63 27 3 22 22 10 27 2 40860 +400 [*] Arthur 28.86 67 6 23 22 22 26 11 11 43520 +296 [*] Shanan 27.06 60 23 0 30 26 12 20 6 39880 +356 [*] Lester 25.88 53 22 3 17 19 24 18 4 30563 +392 [*] Ulster 25.48 62 27 7 27 24 11 22 4 20500 +408 [*] Larcei 27.88 66 27 1 30 30 19 22 6 33570 +328 [*] Patty 28.10 60 21 15 20 27 24 17 9 20493 +320 [*] Johalvier 28.74 58 26 0 18 21 7 24 8 24315 +134 [*] Faval 25.59 62 17 15 20 27 28 13 5 35423 +408 [*] Ced 27.09 52 5 26 22 30 27 14 27 22600 +356 [*] Tinni 22.97 55 4 23 24 27 24 7 15 12753 +438 [*] - Paragon Lana 30 58 12 24 24 23 29 12 11 8226 +27 [*]
Last item on the menu: The Rescue staff finally makes its appearance. Leaf is the very obvious recipient for it. And as I see the Flame Sword in his inventory - right, I need to swap that over to Oifey or Ares. And for Seliph, there's the Wind Sword finally on sale, after I managed to un-acquire it in the first generation.
9 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:Yeah, it's not like this is the one game series where you can do basic math with the stats displayed and actually get a result you can use for anything lol
...Seriously FE is so cool for that.
Spoiler
I wasn't sure in which direction to go, so I went with both.
6 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:They went ahead and gave us four variants of Knight, four unpromoted mono-weapon cavs plus unique promotions, and still retained the typical two-weapon Cavalier + Paladin. Threw in Bard when Mage would functionally make no difference for Lewyn, three Wyvern classes in a one-promotion game, and has that Forrest oddity.
I don't think it was storage.😝 Or it was, yet they wasted their limited capacity on arguably sillier things.
That's fair. Dangit, Lewyn's need to be ~special~ cost us an Axe Mage class!
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Skatole, or 3-methylindole, is the main contributor to the smell of poop. In low concentrations, it smells of flowers.
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re: Holy Blood on John Constipatius - Honestly, I stopped checking for that on semi-generic bosses. But if Lewyn's character is representive for the paternal side of his family, it isn't too surprising to see Forseti blood appear unexpectedly anywhere in Jugdral.
8 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:I have one wisecrack: Why does Cairpre not get this?!
Being Cairpre is suffering.
Lex!Coirpre will most likely cap his Def at 18, but still and reach 60+ HP. He won't be hurt by such insignificant hits.
8 hours ago, Jotari said:Arion can certainly be a pain to deal with. One solution is to actually just not fight him and seize his castle from beneath him. And if I were on charge of things I would have made that the suggested goal, with him only surviving to reach the final chapter if you don't kill him here. Because I agree that the Julius rescue is a bit nonsensical.
I almost expected it to work like that, so yeah. Even skimmed through the endgame wiki page before fighting him to see if there's any "if he survived" conditional for Arion's appearance.
8 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:Meanwhile Endless Space 2... is much more annoying with truces. If the enemy proposes one (some of the time, not all of it, I'm not sure why) and you don't have Influence (a currency akin to Culture + diplomatic/administrative capital) to refuse the truce, you'll be forced into it.😑
In the very old Civ games (1 and 2, dunno about 3), you can be forced into a truce if your country is a republic or democracy. If an enemy asks for peace, or you want to declare a war, there' a chance (50% for republic, 100% for democracy) that your parliament overrules your warmongering ways. If you want to be a warmongering democracy, you can build the United Nations world wonder, which will provide your parliament with an excuse to be warmongering 50% of the time... but it also forces any enemy to offer you peace if you contact them, so wars will still end prematurely all the time.
8 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:You took notice, but fell into the trap anyhow. -You're definitely not alone in that.😉
Look, you can't expect me to do basic maths when fire embling.
5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:Whew, and I had thought Kaga wouldn't make good axe infantry until the next game! This Johalvier is cracked.
Wellll, his wife is stronger (+1), faster (+10), sturdier (+6 HP), more skillful (+13 Skl), more magical (+1), and luckier (+12) than Johalvier. He does have +1 Def and +2 Res over Larcei, at least.
5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:It's actually really kinda funny that there are no playable infantry classes with inherent A-rank in any offensive magic type. Like, who is writing these tomes that only a handful of people with the proper blood type can use? Unfortunately, it kinda undermines the magic types being threshed out. We have Wind Mages, but no Wind Sages. Or, maybe they could've made three types of War Mage: "Wind/Axe", "Fire/Lance", and "Thunder/Sword". Something along those lines.
Definitely seems like something a modern FE game would do (although I don't know about the differing physical weapons). Maybe it can still be blamed on storage capacity on the SNES cartridges.
4 hours ago, Revier said:The power of...CONTRIVANCE!!!!!! 😆
Julius ex machina.
3 hours ago, Jotari said:Step 5: If Julius has to rescue Travant, then let Julius and Seliph actually talk to each other a bit. Make a moment of it instead of an out of nowhere WTF.
Julius could also make an appearance earlier - maybe when Travant dies, to offer Arion support (the reinforcements coming from the northwest) and tell him how friends are supposed to help each other, and how important mutual trust is for him, and how repugnant he finds the idea of let a friend hang out to dry.
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FE4 Chapter 9: For Whose Sake
Luthecia --> Grutia --> Thracia
Spoiler
The next turn starts with Faval, who I had intended to grab money from the villages, retreating back south, because I peeked ahead a little...
...because another John Constipatius (surely related to Incontinentia Buttocks) spawns from that area.
: "Heh, no matter. The rebels' little rampage ends here. Ready, men? We're going in. The Emperor himself's put a handsome bounty on each rebel head. We mustn't waste a chance to claim it for ourselves!
And at the same time, Grutia starts... Well, I'd love to say "moving", but you'll see...
: "The enemy has got their grubby paws on Kapathogia?! I should've known better than to trust those worthless Thracians... I suppose it was unavoidable. Fortify our defensive line. Until reinforcements arrive, we must defend the castle at all costs."
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It's a whole group of ballistae... and nothing else. This is so dumb.
What's also dumb is Dermott getting hit by a 1%. The Thracia experience, I guess
: "A liberation army, is it... There is no place for your precious light in this realm. This world is Lord Loptyr's to smother in darkness!"
To make up for it, Oifey manages to avoid a 58, so yay him.
Judah is about what you expect a Dark Bishop to be, which is to say fairly bulky for a mage, pretty accurate (Jormungand has +20 hit compared to Fenrir) and hard-hitting, but slowed down a lot even with his 1-2 ranged option, so his Pursuit skill doesn't matter a whole lot.
I forgot to make a screenshot of the stats, but the commander of the Ballista squad uses a Killer Ballista. Its Mt is right between normal and Iron Ballistae, but it's really accurate (100 hit compared to the others' 60) and gives the Critical skill. Luckily, enemy Ballisticians have all-around awful stats, so the crit chance is relatively low.
In the north, John Constipatius CIXX. is even tankier than Judah, even before taking his Shield Ring into account. He's also really fast, since Tornado, like all the non-Forseti wind spells, only has a weight of 2. This is important, since he also has the Pursuit skill, and 18 AS actually doubles a lot of units on our team.
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His team is a bunch of promoted Cav classes - three of each weapon type, all carrying Silvers, plus two unarmed healers in the Paladin class.
Before getting to the fight, recruiting Hannibal unlocks a conversation between Sharlow and Leylia - and thanks to the Knight Ring, she can dance and talk on the same turn. Convenient!
: "Hey! You're Sharlow, right?"
: "Huh? Sorry, but who are you, miss?"
: "I'm Leylia! Er, you've never seen a dancer before, have you?"
: "No, sorry... Not yet."
: "Heh! Y'know, if you ever have time to spare, I can show you a bit of dancing. Deal?"
: "T-thank you..."
[+1 Lck --> Leylia]
Certainly a conversation of all time. With words and all. Looking at the chapter's script on the wiki, Lene and Coirpre discover that they're both from Dahra, but even that is absent from Leylia and Sharlow's dialogue. Supporting Jotari's suggestion that Sharlow could just have been Hannibal's biologial son, it seems like their being siblings won't amount to anything in the story.
Let's get Judah and the Ballistae out of the way first. I had hoped that Oifey would draw another Fenrir attack to allow Dermott to just march in and one-round Judah...
...but because Nanna stayed a bit too far back to heal her brother up, Arthur does the job instead with an Adept proc.
: "Heh... Lord Loptyr's return is nigh... And when it comes... You will all..."
Dermott can just kill the dangerous Ballistician instead.
Fee also approaches from the north a bit ahead of time - not really necessary in hindsight, since I'm going to wait for my units to group up a little anyway, but as you'll see, Musah's group also won't be too much of a problem.
The rest of the Ballisticians will go down in the next couple rounds. Nothing interesting there, so I'll consider this part of the fight done.
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For starters, a little bit of kiting and (frankly not really necessary) money stealing, including Ares eating a 6%. My GBAFE-conditioned brain is losing its mind right now.
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More kiting, although at this point it's mostly about staying just out of Musar's range...
...and it's clean-up time. At this point, the non-mounted units start approaching from the east, too, and it's not that big a problem to finish off the remaining enemies.
As for the boss...
: "Death to all rebel scum! Only oblivion awaits those who dare to threaten the Empire!"
...swapping from Silver to Slim actually gets Seliph from being doubled to double Musah, although he doesn't exactly hit him very hard like this.
Leaf ended up significantly faster than Seliph, and he can double even with his trusted Silver Blade and gets the kill with a hit, a miss, and an Adept proc.
: "Glory be... to Grannvale!"
This also puts the Tornado spell into Leaf's inventory which... honestly seems not too bad. It's nice to have a very light 1-2 option, and Tornado makes up for his not-too-impressive Mag stat. He can pass his Flame Sword to Seliph, Ares or Oifey at the start of the next chapter.
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Patty spots her brother some dough for a Paragon arena run, and Altena flies up to grab the villages instead. She isn't the greatest recipient for the Res ring that you get from one of them, since her Res will still be arse after the +5 bonus, but I'm sure Seliph can afford it without much issue. He's at 50k gold at the start of the next chapter.
: "General Distler of Luthecia's nothing more than a slimy toady to the king! Useless as he is, he still acts all like he's some almighty tyrant... What a foul little man."
: "They say a priest from a dark cult has got his foul hands on Grutia. Could it be true? Make no mistake. I know well the life King Travant is trying to crawl free of... But to allow a fell agent of the Loptyrian Order free run of his country... How could he make such a foolish choice? Accept this here barrier ring... And with it, please, save our beloved nation!"
: "Oh, hey! You've gone and sorted out them Imperial reinforcements already? Wow... I'm pretty dang impressed!"
That's a very small thing to (presumably) include alternative dialogue for.
: "Thracia has many generals in its service, but Lord Hannibal is the most revered of 'em all. The man has devoted nigh on his entire life to the battlefield, so he never found a wife. Mind, twelve years ago or so, he did take in an orphan. He treats the boy as if he's his own flesh and blood. What a wonderful guy!"
: "King Travant's as heartless as men come, he is. But oddly enough, his two kids, Arion and Altena, are the kindest souls you'll ever meet. Like peas in a pod, those two are! Always have been. Oh, I pray nothing ever changes that..."
Well, about that...
[22500 gold; Barrier Ring --> Altena]
Now, to more important things: Some more money for Johalvier from Larcei...
...and Johalvier can make use of the Killer Bow's low weight now. We'll see if I can get away with not giving this to Arthur for full Forseti onslaught against the bosses in the last chapters.
Moving, moving, moving...
...and Seliph eventually arrives at Grutia and seizes.
: "Lewyn, do you think Arion still intends to fight us?"
: "Looks like it. I've sent envoy after envoy offering a truce, but he's not responding."
Fun Fact: An important mechanic in the multiplayer of the strategy game Europa Universalis IV is "stab-hitting": If you have at least +50% warscore against a human opponent and you sent them a peace offer that has at most half of that value, their country will suffer a loss of stability if they refuse the offer. You can spend a resource to increase stability again, but it's too expensive to keep up indefinitely, and an opponent at minimum stability will be forced to accept the next incoming peace offer. So, part of warfare is to send diplomats to an opponent you want to peace out (in particular a secondary participant of a war) as frequently as possible, with once per ingame month being the optimum. I'm imagining Lewyn sitting at a PC hovering his mouse cursor over the "offer peace" button to click it the second it lights up.
: "I guess his stubborn dracoknight pride compels him to fight to the bitter end. And here I was hoping the legendary Arion of Thracia'd be a wiser man than this... Seliph, I hope you understand we can't turn back now. This last battle needs to be fought."
: "I don't understand him... Why? Why must Arion insist on fighting such a futile battle... Arion... How can he be so callous? Does he not understand the grief he is inflicting on Altena?!"
"Also sending swarms of soldiers to their death, but Altena was looking really sad!"
Otherwise - glad we're on the same page here, Seliph.
Seizing Grutia unlocks a few more conversations, starting with Sharlow and Hannibal, although that one is more of an easter egg without a Talk command (or appearing in the unit list). There was no reason why the two should split up, so this one I can get on the same turn Seliph seized:
: "Sharlow..."
: "Hm? Is something wrong, Papa?"
: "Son... I feel as if I am in some way responsible for all of your misfortunes... If you'd been raised by a normal family, rather than by a soldier such as myself, you would never have been abducted..."
: "Don't say things like that, Papa! I'm as happy as can be to live with you! And thanks to you, I'm using my magic to help you all fight for peace and justice. I wouldn't give that up for anything!"
: "I see..."
: "Oh, and by the way."
: "...Yes?"
: "I'm so proud that you're my papa, Papa... Kapathogia's people love you so much. They all say you're the best thing that ever happened to them. Not to mention, you adopted an orphan!"
: "They do, do they... Thank you, Sharlow. I'm so glad I have such a fine son... Which reminds me. This staff is for you. I found it discarded in the castle grounds. I believe you're skilled enough to wield it."
: "Ohh! And it's a lovely staff, too! Thank you, Papa! Thank you so much."
[Berserk --> Sharlow]
Very sweet convo. No wisecracks to be made here.
: "The enemy has come as far as Grutia... Very well. All hands, deploy at once! Engage them in the Dragon Trinity Strike formation! This is our final chance. Thracia's destiny hangs in the balance of this final assault!"
I could make a joke about the Trinity Strike involving four platoons... but Arion, with his larger and more powerful group, stays behind at Thracia Castle.
Arion is, obviously, quite threatening with Gungnir combined with his high mobility.. Despite his slightly lower level, his base stats are higher than his father's, too, and he replaces Vantage with Adept to make sure that you'd never want to fight him at melee range. Of course, he still has Nihil to fend up bows and Pursuit to completely destroy any character without adequate speed. And of course, there is the Miracle Band to potentially give you a headache if you trigger that skill.
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His platoon consists of the stronger Dracoknights (with Slim Lances and Sleep Edges) instead of the Dragonrider mooks that will assault our castles - although those squads are at least led by a Brave Lance Dracoknight each.
So, what's the plan?
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Why, it's to rely on our primo combat units Patty and Johalvier, of course!
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Patty is a bit better at the job, because the Dragonriders all insist on attacking from range (I assume at this point that the 2-range magic of her sword confounds the AI) and get one-rounded and stolen from. Johalvier is just shy of one-rounding now that he can double (although he gets two Accost procs), but like Patty, he has no trouble staying alive.
The third group can mostly be intercepted on their path west, so Luthecia doesn't really come under assault.
However, the commander got away - right there next to Thracia Castle - and it's, once again, going to fetch another group of enemies from the enemy castle. But, as you can see, the last battle of this map is about to start:
: "They've come at last... Move out! Whether we win or die, we'll have fought in our fatherland's name! Dracoknights! Descend upon the enemy!"
...oh.
Yeahh, let's not let that happen. This swarm of Wyverns needs some kiting, and a sleeping Arthur (without Forseti equipped) is not going to survive if he's left behind against Arion.
There, better.
Here, the AI actually did a smart, and is using the cliff to make hit-and-run tactics less effective. With how the cliff is formed, I wonder if this is deliberate map design - if so, nicely done.
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So, more kiting, avoiding Arion's range...
...and the first and last wave of reinforcements comes out, although not quite synced up with Arion's group. Despite how this looks, the reinforcements already took their turn on this screenshot, while Arion's group is about to assault.
So, let's see what Arion has to offer.
: "Heh... What fools. You dare challenge me, even knowing I wield Gungnir, the heavenly lance?"
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...yeah, I know, running right into Miracle range. I was just thinking "let's see if Arthur procs something" - he did - and didn't even consider that Forseti might have this low a hitrate.
It gives an opportunity to check out Arion's battle convo with Seliph:
: "So... You're the famous Prince Seliph... Heh, I trust you'll make for a fine foe. Shall we begi our duel, then?"
: "Prince Arion, please! Lay down your arms! It isn't too late to end this peacefully!"
: "Enough! I've nothing left to say. Now, come! Come acquaint yourself with Gungnir, Seliph!"
No Adept proc from Arion, so no entry in Seliph's "L" list, but he obviously doesn't connect with his 0% hit attempts, either.
: "How... How could this be?! I've... I've brought shame on myself... Altena..."
Instead, Julia hits one of two coinflips. With how Micaiah-like her appearance is, you wouldn't expect her to double Arion, but her Spd is actually tied with Fee's for second-best (after Larcei) on the team.
And then, Arion gets saved by Julius.
I'll be honest, I had to laugh a little at this. I know, there's the precedent of Julius saving Ishtar earlier, but since he and Arion didn't really have any connection at all, this is still an extremely contrived way of letting Arion return in endgame. Manfroy could've swooped in, all "Mwahahahahhh, I shall brainwash youuuuuu!", and it couldn't have been sillier.
...I believe that is what they call foreshadowing.
I won't bore you with the details for the rest of the fight. Easy clean-up, a few remaining arena runs (everybody except Leylia and Sharlow).
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Although this is, er, nice: Patty realises that Ulster's raw stats are even sexier than Shanan's. She can immediately use Ulster's 50k to enable full Paragon arena runs for Altena (who was still slightly below 40k despite getting all but one village), Ced, and Arthur.
I didn't forget about the remaining conversations, either:
: "Are you at all hurt, Lord Seliph?"
: "Ah, Julia! No, I'm fine, thank you. I pray you're taking care of yourself."
: "Lord Seliph..."
: "Is something amiss?"
: "Er... No, it's nothing..."
: "Listen, Julia. You've been acting oddly all day. Is something troubling you?"
: "I... All I can feel is dread... I feel as if I'll be torn from you, and we'll never see each other again... I... I'm terrified..."
: "You've no need to worry, Julia. I swore to you all those months ago that I'll protect you, no matter what. Have faith, Julia. I'll never let you down."
: "I know... I do believe in you... I'm so sorry, Lord Seliph... I've never been more than a nuisance to you."
: "You must be weary. We have been on the march for weeks on end, after all! Listen. Once we're done here, we'll be headed for the free city of Miletos. You can have a nice, long rest there. Oh, that's right! Miletos is famous for its merchants, no? I can take you shopping while we're there. I'll buy you anything you desire. Well, as long as it's not too pricey. Heh... I can only imagine how poorly Lewyn would handle any over-spending!"
: "You would do that...? Oh, thank you, Lord Seliph... Thank you..."
: "Is that a little smile I see before me? Heh, now that's more like it!"
: "Lord Seliph... Close your eyes, please."
: "Hm? Why do you ask?"
: "I wish to cast a Ward spell upon you... It will help you better resist enemy magic."
: "Are you sure, Julia?! Wouldn't the use of such a spell endanger you?"
: "Everything will be alright... I've done naught but take and take so far. All I want is to give something back."
: "Julia..."
: "Oh, lords in the heavens above... I implore you, confer your blessings upon Lord Seliph..."
[+3 Res --> Seliph]
Look, Kaga, I know they still don't know about it, but would you mind not shipping the siblings this hard? Ignoring that... One, has there any rule of magic been established why this spell is dangerous for Julia to cast? And two, I can not believe that fuckin' Lewyn seems to be in charge of the treasury.
Lastly, Altena can have one of two conversations, although the magic of mid-battle saves allows to see both:
: "Princess Altena. I've been filled in on your situation. You have my deepest condolences."
: "General Hannibal... You've chosen to ally with Lord Seliph as well, have you? Thank goodness... I was dreading the very idea of considering you an enemy as well."
: "Hm. Pray tell, milady, what has become of Prince Arion?"
: "My broth- Er, no... Arion simply refused to listen to anything I said. Perhaps you would have better luck persuading him, sir?"
: "If you couldn't convince him, milady, then nobody has a chance. I would surmise that Prince Arion is resolved to die a warrior's death, not giving in to the indignity of a truce. We've no choice left."
: "But sir-"
: "I know how you feel, milady... But some men like Arion are stubborner than mules. Most likely, Prince Arion would never wish to reveal such perceived weakness before you. Please understand this at least, milady..."
[+3 HP -> Altena]
Just in general, it's a nice touch that Altena tries to dissociate herself from the Thracian royal family, but can't quite prevent herself from still seeing them as brother and father.
Both Hannibal and Finn's conversations with Altena give her +3 HP, so that's why you can only have one of them. Since they go in very different directions, this seems a bit silly - why not attach the HP bonus to only one of them
and have the other increase all of Hannibal's stats by +5 instead?Anyway, one reload later...:
: "Pardon me, my lady... I am Finn, a knight of House Leonster. It is an honor to meet you once more."
: "So you're Sir Finn, then? Leif's told me about you already. I can't thank you enough for all you've done to protect him all these years."
: "Thank you, my lady, but it is I who owes you an apology. Not once in the past seventeen years did I ever suspect that you yet lived on, let alone just across the border! My failure to search for you is... is inexcusable..."
: "Sir Finn... Are those tears I see? Why... Why are you crying?"
: "I... My apologies, my lady. You shouldn't have to see me in such a state as this..."
: "Hold a moment... I remember something... Yes, I... I was incredibly fond of you... And I always sought your attention, didn't I? That's right... Sir Finn..."
: "My lady, I..."
Before she gets kagaed, Julia leaves the Silence staff at the Pawnbroker. I kept both Skill Ring and Miracle Band on her - probably a mistake, thinking about it, so I might replay the last turn to change that.
But for now, we're done.
: "Say, Lewyn... Did my eyes deceive me, or did Arion really vanish like that?"
: "Yeah, he did. Witnesses to the fight are saying Prince Julius appeared and took Arion."
: "The Emperor's son himself?"
: "Mm... and your half-brother, at that..."
: "I can hardly believe we share a mother..."
: "And yet you do. Empress Deirdre was a talented priestess, and it looks like he inherited her skill with white magic. For Prince Julius, common warping and healing spells are the merest of trifles. He doesn't even need staves! But that's not the whole story, Seliph. Prince Julius's true power comes from something else entirely..."
: "How do you mean?"
: "Loptyr... It's the power of the dark lord..."
...still no elaboration?
The way Julius's deal is presented through Lewyn is honestly really bad. Lewyn clearly knows what is going on, but he only makes two vague comments and now this less vague one - but he still refuses to explain what exactly he means, presumably for the sake of drama. It's like this annoying shape of a conversation: "I just can't believe [X]!" - "Why, what happened with [X]?" - "Ugh, I don't want to talk about it."
And with that being the end of the chapter, I don't think I don't have anything new to say about the plot. Arion's still an idiot, Travant is pretty cool but could've been cooler... We've gone over that.
As far as gameplay is concerned, the map had some neat ideas. The two Wyvern squads, led by Altena and Travant respectively, going after Meath were a decent way to have the player divert some resources. The Dragon Trinity Strike is pretty cool, although it's easily foiled by Return and Warp because the squads are really weak. At the start of this update, we *could* have had a cool pincer between Grutia's troops and Grannvale's reinforcements... but then we didn't because Judah decided to go for the all-stationary approach. Lost opportunity. Overall, a 5/10 map - an effort was made, and some of it was successful.
The Team:
Lv. HP Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res Funds XP Arn W/L Seliph 25.78 63 25 5 22 20 28 22 16 50000 +458 [*] 40/0 Leif 24.79 57 27 8 24 26 15 25 11 16072 +622 [*] 24/0 Oifey 25.34 50 20 10 22 21 12 20 8 32340 +363 [*] 21/2 Finn 29.09 50 24 1 18 22 23 21 4 50000 +189 [*] 17/0 Dermott 25.44 58 23 0 30 23 20 19 6 33732 +576 [*] 40/1 Nanna 27.90 55 24 7 21 19 21 23 7 28800 +895 [*] 7/0 Ares 25.06 66 24 9 21 20 15 23 13 50000 +577 [*] 13/0 Fee 27.24 54 17 17 23 28 15 20 24 42217 +473 [*] 33/0 Altena 21.76 57 27 3 20 22 10 25 1 43960 +476 [*] 2/0 Lester 21.96 49 21 3 17 19 21 17 4 40063 +648 [*] 23/0 Arthur 25.90 62 6 23 22 22 25 11 11 47400 +596 [*] 24/0 Shanan 23.50 55 23 0 30 25 11 19 6 42900 +418 [*] 14/0 Ulster 21.40 56 27 6 25 21 11 22 4 3000 +436 [*] 6/0 Larcei 24.60 63 27 1 30 30 19 22 6 16070 +384 [*] 16/0 Patty 24.90 55 21 12 17 26 23 13 9 6993 +688 [*] 25/0 Johalvier 27.40 57 26 0 17 20 7 23 8 16435 +634 [*] 28/0 Hannibal 21.96 60 21 0 16 12 7 23 6 17520 +196 [*] 1/0 Faval 21.51 56 16 13 20 27 25 13 5 43903 +733 [*] 13/0 Ced 23.53 48 4 24 22 27 25 11 27 21500 +518 [*] 4/0 Lana 29.73 57 12 23 24 23 29 12 11 30826 +834 [*] 0/0 Tinni 18.59 51 1 17 21 21 20 3 10 37853 +642 [*] 6/0 Sharlow 11.00 34 1 15 9 11 8 5 10 3000 +1000 -- 0/0 Leylia 10.76 29 8 2 1 14 6 2 5 13000 +310 [1] 0/0 Julia 25.93 46 4 30 18 28 10 5 27 +406 [*]- Mawwied: Ulster/Patty, Larcei/Johalvier, Nanna/Leif, Patty/Ulster
- Truly in Love: Seliph<->Lana, Arthur<->Fee, Tinni->Seliph, Leylia<->Ares
- Fancy of Late: Shanan->Tinni, Dermott->Lana, Oifey->Lana, Lester->Tinni
- Dwelling on Mind: Ced->Tinni, Faval->Tinni, Sharlow->Lana
- Forever Alone: Altena, Finn, Hannibal
Ced, Faval, Shanan, and Lester love Tinni, but Tinni loves Seliph, but Seliph loves Lana and Lana loves Seliph. I think Hugh Grant played in this movie?
6 hours ago, Jotari said:Which...yeah, those clumps of villages are definitely not. Hell Melgen and Ulster are practically on the same line of latitude yet on the intro chapter map Ulster is quite a bit to the north. I wonder if Kaga came up with his world map first and then tried to design the chapters around that map and had to make compromises for the sake of gameplay, or if it was all gameplay first and someone just really half assed their job of designing the intro map.
Welp, RIP perfect consistency. It's not the biggest deal, but I can't help but be a little disappointed that the ambitious goal to accurately display the world map in the slightly overlapping chapter maps has only almost been reached.
6 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:Ah, but I did have a reason to do that: it greatly amused me.
So you consider your enjoyment of the game more important than a miniscule mechanical advantage?
Fake FE player.
6 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:Pretty sure Project Naga tried to go for this but corrupted.
This greatly amuses me. I love these little localisation jokes, as long as they're not as heavy handed as they are in America.
6 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:Also, I am Travant.
The greatest twist about that is that you secretly haven't been a beardman all along.
3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:Obviously, Gary OldMan is an integral part of our army. Altenna couldn't meet him, and discover his wisdom, until she defected.
OldMan he may be, but good on him for looking no day older than he did almost 20 years ago.
3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:I gave 'em an A. Not only does Coirpre become a mini-Charlot, but Leen gets 20 EXP per Dance. The defense boost usually helps, though it can occasionally make Miracle strats trickier. Not sure if it's as good as Claud passing down his own Staves (and major Bragi blood for stupid Mag and Res), though.
I'm basing this on very little actual knowledge of the endgame, of course, but I'm not sure how valuable that additional staff user really is in the endgame. Even without Julia, you still have Lana, Fee, Leaf, Nanna, Tinni (in any ranked run, I'm sure she'll promote with ch.10's arena), and then Coirpre/Sharlow. How important is it really to have six instead of five? Even though not everybody can use all the important staves, I'm not convinced that it's that big a deal.
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6 minutes ago, BrightBow said:
Don't think warrior codes have much to do with that. Pride, maybe. But above else I would say he is just done with life at this point.
After decades he is still stuck in the Southern end of the peninsula.
Not only that, his worst fear has finally become realized. The girl he raised for 17 years has finally found out that what he did to her biological parents and now looks at him with the eyes of her mother and sees in him nothing but a murderer.
I would imagine he saw his two kids as a symbol of a united Thracia. Now they have instead cause a repeat of the tragedy of the Gae Borg and are if anything a symbol of it's ongoing divide.Point is, his reign was a complete failure. For all his plotting and scheming he has nothing to show for but the corpses of the good people who died in his wake.
Interesting perspective. I read Travant as having decided on this last resort at the start of chapter 8 already, with Arion's line about Travant looking more fearful than ever foreshadowing that. If Arion seemingly killing Altena was what pushed him over the edge, that would put quite a different spin on this.
Personally, I think I'll still keep a hypothetical code of honour in the back of my mind. Arion must've gotten his ideas about honour from from somewhere, so I kinda expect Thracia to have one.
10 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:...Sooooo is the Manster District supposed to be akin to Medieval/Renaissance Italy politically then? -With way less internal conflict I would imagine.
One would expect a lot of Grannvalian meddling in the diplomatic affairs between the Manster realms, no? With Thracia playing more of a role of plundering brigands with less diplomatic finesse, I can buy that they wouldn't have much success in that game, but surely, some Grannvale kings would've tried to play the Manster factions against one another.
SEQUEL IDEA: Thracia 1492, in which the seafarer Chris O'Lumbus from the Manster district conducts an naval exploration in the name of the Thracian king and queen. And lo and behold, he actually discovers what will later be known as Valentia! Unfortunately, he turns out to be a complete piece of shit, killing and enslaving the natives, and it's the mission of the player character to expose his evil deeds.
12 minutes ago, Revier said:LOL
Gameplay-story segregation strikes again. 😆
Although tbh why do clerics know the name of characters' parents? If they can detect these things through prayer or spiritual concentration, wouldn't that make Arvis' deal even weirder?
An oddity that I'm willing to accept because it is convenient. And a character's parentage isn't important enough in the turn-by-turn business that it would have to be crammed into the stat screen somewhere.
(A small detail that is missing and that I would've liked: Characters like Ares and Johalvier could've given an answer from the augury, too. If nothing else, it would allow Jotari to add Finn's parents to his list of named FE characters that never actually make an on-screen appearance)
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I'm going to say Sylvia. It's not that she's a promiscuous character, but I really don't need a promiscuous character whose childishness and immaturity is dialed up to 11 in virtually every scene she is in. And even if those traits were removed, it also bothers me that Sylvia's behaviour needed to be given a justification in the form of daddy issues, while characters like Sain or Saul are allowed to be man-sluts just because.
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Why didn't Altena just ask a random old guy who her real parents are? Is she stupid?
6 hours ago, Jotari said:I think they might have meant that it's closer to Ulster. Leif's city of Leinster is up on the northern coast of North Thracia. While Ulster, the city you first fight Bloom in, is the south western part. And the whole region is called Munster District and not Leinster. So unless the map looked something like this.
Which would give way too much territory to Leinster, unless it's pushed up right to the coast. There also doesn't seem to be a way to give the titular Munster much territory, thanks to Thracia getting that east coast that is only accessible from right beside Munster.
You're right, it is a bit surprising that it's part of Leonster. I haven't really been thinking about the four realms of the Manster district, so that never occurred to me. Directly west of Meath and north of Luthecia would put it here on the map:
So we probably just have to assume that Leonster controls like half of the Manster district.
5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:Murderer.
Spoiler
4 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:Roddlebahn
Make it "Rodelbahn" and you have the German word for a sled run. A beautiful name for a boy.
5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:...in all seriousness, letting both get berserk would help, but the problem is that Coirpre really really needs paragon due to his starting situation, and he just... Doesn't get it, unlike Sharlow. Unless they completely change how they function as units, I fear the concept is kinda dead on arrival. I mean, seriously, level 1 priest halfway through chapter 8?
Lex/Sylvia, let's go.
(just theorycrafting - but that actually sounds like the most convenient option if you're going for ranked, no? Coirpre gets Paragon, Lex can pass him the Renewal band to give him a nice 20k to blow on staves, not like Lex would lack the funds, and you don't really care about how useful Coirple's staff botting is. And Lene can do Vantage/Sleep Sword memes to get through the arena, so she'll cap out, too.)
1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:My error then, my misinterpretation.😅 Sorry for wasting your time.
Hey, no worries. We're both entitled to our opinions, and it's not as if I wasn't spamming mine all over this thread.
2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:Completely unserious explanation for anything stupid any flier character does.: Spending a bunch of time high in the sky where the air is thinner leads to slight oxygen deprivation, the effects of which on the brain and cognitive functions are subtle yet significant. -This explanation doesn't work at all, because there is simply no way pegasi and wyverns fly at such altitudes that oxygen masks/pressured cabins are necessary to stay alive and functionally conscious.😝
We see wyverns fly above peaks (yet close enough to spot the sadness in their eyes), so this seems like a perfectly realistic explanation.
It also covers why Erin would ever be attracted to Lewyn. -
8 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:
Tycho Brahe?😕
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant_(military)
8 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:Arion is Daddy Issues/10.
As I said, Arion as a person, growing up with a father like Travant, would have my sympathy. Arion as a fictional character is frustrating because first, he's just evil daddy's yesman, and when evil daddy finally showcases a shade of grey, it just goes over his head entirely, with the conclusion that he and his kidn-- adopted sister must stab each other eventually.
7 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:For what it's worth, I don't think he's getting himself killed for "weird honor codes" here. Travant's many things, but he doesn't strike me as one to put much stock in honor. No, I think what he's doing here is ensuring that all the baggage you listed dies with him. With him having paid for his many misdeeds, the rebels' fury is satisfied, and nothing stops Arion from wiping the slate clean and, with Bloom gone as well, negotiating a path towards a new, bright era for Thracia. In theory.
It's not a terrible plan, all things considered, and it shows that at least to a degree, he did genuinely wish the betterment of his homeland, if he's willing to ensure it even if he will be too dead to benefit from it.
I was thinking that he maybe could've reached the same goal by just pulling a Siriüh and disappear without a trace
and only come back wearing a bitchin' mask when Arion is kidnapped by a somehow revived Manfroy. But you're right, him dying is a clear cut that would fulfil any desires of revenge on the side of Leif specifically.7 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:There was no need for this. You needlessly killed Philip 4.
Murderer.
You consider 25-ish XP on a character who already one-rounds bosses with plenty of overkill "no need?"
Fake FE player.
6 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:If/when Genealogy gets remade... I haven't the faintest how they could possibly fix Coirpre. Short of turning Silvia's Dance from a class skill to a personal one, being a second refresher would maybe improve him?
FE 3-STYLE AGAIN STAFF
4 hours ago, Revier said:Of course, the game has to shoot all moral ambiguity by painting the enemy as "evil". Also, what? The Leonsters were ruling over the northern part of Thracia, not here.
Can't comment on the T776 involvement that Jotari is talking about, but the geography works out:
The cluster is west of Meath across a mountain range and north of Luthecia, so that would actually put the village cluster pretty deep into Leonster territory. Relative to Ch.8's map, it would be further west (if from the southern part of the map), not south.
4 hours ago, Jotari said:We get to see him being nice and fatherly to her in Thracia 776, which is cool...doesn't exactly help Genealogy as it's own piece of media though.
I'm principled not to use any sequel or prequel's badness against an original piece of media (like BlaBla making some BinBla characters look stupid, or terrible FF7 spin-offs), so I agree. Sorry, FE4!Travant, you're just a bad parent.
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On 4/14/2024 at 10:38 PM, Etrurian emperor said:
I'd say Lang scores a lot of points. He's an overly evil douchebag, but in a role and position where he's exactly what he's supposed to be. Lang's meant to be so evil that it shows how far Hardin has fallen, and be powerful enough to be an early game antagonist. In both aspects he succeeds. I think the key aspect to his success is that unlike many villains who hold this role Lang is never depicted as incompetent, allowing him to be a serious threat.
I fully agree that Lang is great (honestly, Book 2's story becomes weaker almost the moment he's dead), but I'd say he stretches the category "minor villain" a bit. While there's never the illusion that he's the Big Bad of the entire game, he's still the major antagonist for almost a third of the game. Heck, I'd even say that he's the Book 2 villain with the most presence, even compared to the official main villains Gharnef and Medeus.
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FE4 Chapter 9: For Whose Sake
Meath --> Kapathogia/Luthecia
Spoiler
Well then, time to semi-engage Hannibal's troops. This isn't really necessary - as Hannibal said near the end of last update, he and his men won't come after you right away, so one could just deal the Altena's platoon before moving on Kapathogia.
__
After a not-too-productive enemy phase, we get another small cutscene in Luthecia Castle:
: "What a sorry joke... Me, a distinguished general, stuck babysitting some brat?"
: "Excuse me, Mister Distler, but... Let me go! Papa doesn't want to fight. He's out there risking his life all because of me!"
: "Silence, boy! If Thracia's legendary Shield refuses to ply his warrior's craft of his own will, then we will force him to, by any means necessary!"
:" Oh, Papa... Sorry..."
"Mister Distler" sounds funny. And as far as extremely minor bossmen go, he's... alright. While he doesn't display much of a personality in this exchange, the contrast to his extremely compliable "Yes, King Travant, whatever you say" attitude earlier is a neat small detail.
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The next turn, while the vanguard still stays just outside of Hannibal's range, Altena's group arrives...
...and with a Dance, Leaf can have his little chat with his long-lost sister.
: "Waaaaait! Please, my sister! Stop it!"
: "Your sister?! ...Who are you, and why do you think calling me your sister is a good idea?"
: "I... I am Leif, of House Leonster."
: "Leif? Oh, I see... The famous Prince Leif, is it? In case it wasn't obvious... And, evidently, it wasn't... I am Altena, daughter of Travant."
: "Listen to me, Altena! Your true parents are Quan and Ethlyn, whom Travant slew seventeen years ago. You vanished in Travant's attack, and so too did Gáe Bolg, the sacred earth lance of Leonster. Which, I might ad, is the very lance resting in your hand as we speak! Only a true heir of House Leonster can wield Gáe Bolg."
: "What are you talking about?! Are you seriously trying to claim my real father is my father's arch-enemy? That could never be... It mustn't..."
: "Look into my eyes. If anything can prove the truth of my words to you, it will be my eyes. Please, sister..."
: "Fine... ...What is this?! I know you're lying, but I... I can't bring myself to doubt you anymore!"
: "...Altena!"
: "Wait! I... I must speak with Father. I need to confirm this..."
I'm sure this will go swimmingly.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but I think I would've preferred if Leif would've brought a bit more rational substance to his speech. In particular, comparing Gáe Bolg to Gungnir and ask if Altena never wondered about her weapon being equivalent to her father's legendary heirloom. But even if not too cynical, I'm certainly being very pedantic with this.
: "Altena? Oh, you have got to be joking. Why? Why, why, WHY did you abandon your post for the second time in as many days?"
: "My apologies, Father... but I have an urgent question to ask of you. Are you my father? Or was my father really King Quan?"
: "Feh... I see you've found out at last. Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time before this day came. It's true. Quan did indeed sire you, but what difference does that make now? It doesn't change that it is I who raised you."
: "So you... You murdered my parents, Father..."
: "Heh heh... I suppose I did. Quan and Ethlyn died at my hand. Do you take issue with that? War is hell, Altena. War claims lives. Worrying now won't change a thing."
: "Gah... How dare you! How dare you mislead me all these years, Father! Er, no... Travant!"
: "I cannot allow this. If you dare to turn on Father, then you'll have to contend with me first!"
: "W-wait! I can't fight you, Arion! I could never-"
: "It's too late for you to stand down now... Farewell, Altena!"
: "Nngh... Arion..."
: "...You didn't just kill her, did you, Arion? You know, you didn't need to go quite so far... Eh, no matter. I'm going to join the fray, Arion. I suppose there's little choice now... You're in charge of defending the castle."
: "Understood, Father."
: "I'll entrust this spear to you... and with it, the future of Thracia."
: "Hold on a moment, Father... This is Gungnir! What is the meaning of this? How do you intend to fight without it? Unless... Father, you can't be-"
: "I am. Frankly, Arion, I've had enough. Thracia is yours to do with as you see fit. But we don't need to be hated by their kind..."
: "Are you seriously suggesting I should seek a truce, Father? No! Never! To comply with the rebels now would be unthinkable!"
: "As I said, Thracia is yours. Do as you see fit. All I ask is for you to find a way to liberate Thracia's people from their suffering... Farewell, Arion."
__
Add a "It wouldn't have made a--" before Travant's "Eh, no matter", and I would've loved this scene.
It's still good, though, I think. Of course, I know (and knew when playing) that Altena is playable and Arion stabbing her is a fake-out - and I do wonder if I would've recognised it as such if unspoiled because of the lack of fanfare. Maybe not, considering the Wiseau-like brevity of Eldigan's execution...
Anyway - Travant is great in this scene. Might be the first time he shows a certain moral greyness, with how his adoption of Altena has been framed as just an act to use her innate power. But here, he recognises the writing on the wall: Seliph's army is going to win, and with Travant being a famously traitorous and backstabby (even though that's a bit of an informed attribute, in my opinion), not to mention the killer of Leif's parents and abductor of his sister... Travant's chances to negotiate a peace with Seliph seem slim at best. So, instead, he hands over his crown to Arion, who does not carry any of that baggage, with what I see as a pretty clear implied recommendation to make peace with Leonster, and then he goes off to get himself killed with his honour intact because warrior codes are weird like that.
'Tis a shame Arion is an idiot.
...I don't think that joke works in English. Oh well. Not every language can import awesome Czech words into their astronomy vocabulary.
Hmm...
Er, right. Travant. Fairly strong, although far less so after passing Gungnir to his son. He does have Pursuit, Vantage and - most importantly - Nihil to make it more difficult to kill him quickly.
One of Altena's companions managed to find a particularly smart spot to land on: Outside of 2-range attacks (unless I'm unaware of some peak-walking class, only Fee, who has to hurry west, would be able to attack him), but just close enough to Meath to cause a game over to an unprepared player.
With that, we can focus on Hannibal's group - first, put the man himself to sleep to avoid any unpleasant accidents...
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And then start whacking away. This position might look dangerous...
__
...and it kinda is, since Ares could've suffered from success by killing one of the other Knights attacking him - but despite their Brave weapons, the Knights don't hit *that* hard. Or rather, most non-Mage characters have quite good Def at this point.
This turn Fee also arrives at the village cluster, potentially figuring out another AI quirk: Maybe it has trouble figuring out the ranged damage of magic swords. Or maybe the three Heroes are just not very smart in general.
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: "My lord Hannibal is depending on me to defend this castle. If you wish to claim it, you must first claim my life!"
: "General Hannibal... Forgive me, my liege..."
Kapathogia: Beaten. Not terribly difficult. Dermott and Seliph run ahead to beat Distler quickly, too.
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And villages (including a second Barrier Ring - haven't decided yet who to give that to): Saved.
On the way down, Fee only visits one village - she's just below 40k gold and hasn't done the arena yet, but she doesn't need more than this.
: "It wasn't all that long ago that the region here was under House Leonster's rule. Oh, what a peaceful time that was... As soon as the last war was over, though, the Thracians pounced on us like a starving cat..."
[5000 gold --> Fee]
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Travant's group arrives just as Seliph gets ready to attack Distler...
: "The rebels are already here?! Blast... We aren't ready for this!"
I'll say - he didn't send a single soldier out. Unless we count the three heroes chilling next to the villages, I guess.
I could've easily RNG abused for a crit here, but don't need to - first attempt, dead Distler.
: "Nngh... King Travant... I beg... your forgiveness..."
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: "I'm Sharlow... I'm General Hannibal's son. And... Wait... Aren't you Lord Seliph, the liberator?!"
: "Indeed I am. If I may ask, Sharlow, why would Thracia imprison one of their own generals' sons?"
: "King Travant took me hostage. Papa didn't want to fight your army at all, sir! The king threatened my life to force Papa to fight... Please, sir... Please take me to Papa! If Papa knows I'm safe, then he won't have to keep fighting! Please! We've gotta save him!"
: "I see... Don't worry. I promise we'll find him. Move out, everyone. I pray we'll still be in time to save General Hannibal!"
[HP 70% | Str 10% | Mag 50% | Skl 20% | Spd 20% | Lck 30% | Def 10% | Res 30%]
Skill: Paragon
Weapon Level: Staves (B)And so, as almost everybody on our team has reached promotion, we are given a Lv.1 Priest. How nice.
Honestly, while Paragon is obviously great, and 50% Mag growth without any holy blood is pretty nuts, Sharlow doesn't really seem like he has much of a niche. With Julia leaving after this chapter, you might think that he can be an alternative offensive staff user with high Mag, but Sharlow needs to get to Lv.20 and promote (at which point he'll be at 25-26 Mag on average) to overtake what Ced (24 Mag) and Lana (still 22 Mag despite her physical dad) have right now.
He does come with a Physic staff, which means that he still isn't useless, and I spend his initial cash to get him a Heal staff as a cheaper alternative, too. And with Paragon, he will level up at a rapid pace, too.
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Now then, to Travant we go...
: "Heh heh heh... Welcome, rebel scum. I am Travant. Remember this well: a final gift from the depths of the inferno!"
And at this point I realise that he has Nihil.
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: "Thracia... Nngh... My beautiful fatherland..."
Which leads to an admittedly less cathartic boss kill than we could've had.
After Travant's death, Arion remembers that he's supposed to be somewhat of a Camüh (...I assume, considering that he's young and generically anime-handsome):
: "My apologies, Altena. I had to give Father a convincing show, that I might ensure your survival. I had no choice but to deal such a powerful blow."
"But I promise, I always had the Gungnir setting on 'stun'."
: "Don't worry, Arion. I understand. But where is Fath... er, King Travant now?"
: "You won't see him again... Father has died in battle."
: "He has? ...How did it happen?"
: "You'd be better off not knowing. Father's heart was an enigma at the best of times..."
: "...Listen, Arion. What do you think I should do now?"
: "Join Prince Leif, your true brother. I'm certain he is still waiting for you."
: "Then what will you-"
: "Altena... This is my fate. There's no helping it."
: "No! You can call for a truce, Arion! Now that Travant's dead, there's nothing at all to stop you from seeking peace! And I... I could never fight you!"
: "I wish I could, and I would were it not for Father's final words to me... Please, Altena... Go! However, be prepared. Our next meeting shall be on the battlefield, and I will not stay my hand!"
: "Oh... Arion..."
What an idiot. Seriously, I don't understand how Arion hears Travant say "But we don't need to be hated by their kind..." and concludes that Travant wants him to keep fighting. Seems to me like a very clear suggestion to make peace. What a pure, unadulterated Camüh - down to the cool beardman contrasting his idiocy. I just hope that he feels differently about Altena than Camüh about Nyna.
And Altena makes her way towards Seliph.
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At this point, there isn't that much to do except movement. Nanna teleports Sharlow home because Hannibal is currently standing between Meath and Kapathogia...
...although that turns out to be a moot point, since Hannibal is one of those "return home to grab more mooks" bosses, and Kapathogia is more or less in the center between Meath and Luthecia.
However, seeing that, I also remember something I randomly saw long ago - either as advise for this chapter or as an example for stupid AI: While in retreat mode, Hannibal won't attack anybody, so you can just block his castle to completely confound him. So, Ulster does just that, while Patty hopefully starts thinking that he's hot before she entirely falls for Shanan. We'll see if there'll be enough time until the latter happens.
*sigh*
Well, Patty has a conversation with him, so we can get that one out of the way:
: "Hmph... So you're that Sharlow guy? Here I thought the son of the great General Hannibal'd be this amazingly hot guy, but you're just some snotty kid..."
: "You're not any better yourself, you know."
: "Oh, excuse you! Are you really trying to say I just look like a child?"
: "Yeah. I really am, because you really do."
: "Nrrgh... Y-you little... You JERK!"
[+3 HP --> Charlot; +100 love points]
How very romantic.
(Genealogy's repeated "look at how childish this woman is" convos really go on my nerves)
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Ares and Fee do their arena runs; Nanna warps Ares back to get his new outfit (and Lana can warp him back afterwards); and the last two recruits come in. Altena is actually a little faster than Sharlow reaching Hannibal:
: "Pardon me, Lord Seliph. My name is Altena... Daughter of Quan of Leonster. My brother, Prince Leif, has explained the truth to me, and I can no longer oppose you. If you plese, I'd like to join your ranks."
: "Princess Altena?! ...Ah, yes. That's right! Prince Leif has told me everything and we've both prayed you would come... He'll be so glad to know you've joined us. You've made a difficult but wise decision."
: "I can still scarcely believe this has all happened. And yet, the moment I gazed into my brother's eyes, I understood everything. His eyes revealed my father's warm gaze... And as clear as if it were only yesterday, I felt for a split second as if I were a mere baby, once more swaddled in my mother's gentle arms..."
Actually, that makes the dialogue with Leif a bit better in retrospect. If Leif has Quan's eyes, it seems appropriate that seeing them might trigger some subconcious memories for Altena.
: "I admit I'm still not entirely sure what King Travant was trying to do with you. I still cannot see what would have led him to spare you and bring you home after murdering your parents..."
: "I've heard he once told my brother, Arion, that he sought to use the might of Leonster's holy lance, Gáe Bolg, as his own. For that alone, he needed me..."
: "You were little more than a tool to him?"
: "I... I'm still not entirely sure. For all his cruelty, he still treated me as if I were his true daughter. He was still a father to me."
: "Did he, now... I suppose I've never known much of his ways."
: "I must ask a favor of you, milord. It's about Arion... We need to help Prince Arion!"
: "Certainly! I'm hardly eager to fight a man of his fine caliber, if what I've heard is true. The only question is, can we convince him?"
: "I'll do my best to persuade him again. All I ask is a little time. Please, Milord!"
[HP 135% | Str 65% | Mag 7% | Skl 45% | Spd 60% | Lck 25% | Def 55% | Res 12%]
Skills: Adept, Critical
Weapon Level: Swords (A), Lances (*)
Major Nova blood; Minor Baldur bloodHonestly, Altena looks like she's 40000 gold (i.e. the Pursuit Band) away from being insanely good. Scratch that - she gets Pursuit in her promoted class, so she looks like she just one arena run away from being insanely good.
However, I know that people apparently consider her to be one of the less powerful Wyvern Riders in the series, so I have to assume that the next chapters won't be too kind to her. Maybe lots and lots of magic enemies? Her Res is honestly the only weak spot in her stat line.
And, finally, Lawrence 2.0:
: "Papa, stop! It's me! You don't have to fight now! The liberators have gone and captured Luthecia!"
: "Sharlow?! You... You're safe!"
: "Yep! Listen, Papa... I want to join Lord Seliph's army. Thracia's changed so much lately... I want to fight to help all its people, and bring back the old Thracia!"
: "You've grown into such a splendid young man, Sharlow... Very well! I, too, shall serve Lord Seliph."
: "Yes! Thank you, Papa! First we'll help free Thracia, and then together, we'll challenge the Empire!"
Sheeda would've done a better speech than this, though.
[HP 60% | Str 50% | Mag 5% | Skl 10% | Spd 10% | Lck 10% | Def 30% | Res 5%]
Skills: Pavise, Adept, Vantage
Weapon Level: Swords (A), Lances (A), Axes (B), Bows (B)Unfortunately, Hannibal seems like he has much less of a niche than Lawrence's indoor Gradivüh usage. He's bulky, yes, but actually slightly less so than Seliph, Leaf, Ulster, and Larcei. And Nanna, Fee, Altena, and Johalvier aren't all that far behind, either. His Str is middling (same as Oifey, Patty, and Lester), his other stats kinda bad. No innate Pursuit, either.
To close things out, Seliph immediately has a talk with Hannibal, too:
: "General Hannibal, it is an honor to meet you at last. Please accept my apologies for engaging you in such a pointless battle."
: "Lord Seliph... it is I who need apologize, not you. You have my deepest gratitude for all you've done to rescue my son..."
: "Your reputation precedes you, General. We've all heard of Thracia's great Shield. That a warrior of your caliber was coerced onto the battlefield by use of hostages... King Travant is an utterly sickening man!"
: "Indeed... And a pitiful man, at that. All he has accomplished is shattering any trust hs subjects once held in him. The people's hearts can only endure so much abuse before they break..."
: If I may, General, would you join us? To have the power and wisdom of a great general like you would be the finest boon."
: "Very well! If you have a use even for these old bones, Lord Seliph, then you have my fealty."
And that is that. I didn't finish this turn, so technically, Hannibal's recruitment hasn't happened officially yet, so this is where the update will end, too.
Now that he's dead and buried... I'm not entirely sure how to feel about Travant. Ambivalent or inconsistent? His final conversation with Arion was great (on Travant's side, anyway); outside of that, I didn't see much evidence that he was more than an ambitious bastard. With which there would be nothing wrong with - I still think Chagall played that role quite well back in Gen 1 - but the attempts to humanise him mostly seemed half-hearted and not that convincing as a result. Specifically, when Altena tells Seliph that Travant did treat her like a daughter, that is in stark contrast to the actual scenes with them and Arion, where the latter is the golden boy while Altena is treated as that annoying brat that will spout her bladibla about not being an asshole and won't do what she's told.
Still, overall, Travant made for a good villain for these two chapters. Opportunistic, with less than world-spanning (or -destroying) ambitions... but with a bit of an impression that he could've been used a bit more interestingly.
The Team:
Lv. HP Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res Funds XP Arn Seliph 24.86 62 25 5 22 19 27 22 13 50000 +366 [*] Leif 23.09 56 27 8 23 25 15 25 11 13072 +452 [*] Oifey 25.00 50 20 10 22 21 12 20 8 29340 +329 [*] Finn 28.98 49 24 1 17 22 22 20 4 47735 +178 [*] Dermott 23.92 56 23 0 30 23 19 19 5 30732 +424 [*] Nanna 24.99 52 24 7 20 18 19 22 7 25850 +604 [*] Ares 23.71 63 24 9 20 20 14 23 13 36600 +442 [*] Fee 26.08 53 17 17 22 28 14 20 23 39217 +357 [*] Altena 17.00 49 22 2 17 19 10 21 1 3778 -- [1] Lester 20.36 48 20 3 16 19 21 16 4 37063 +488 [*] Arthur 20.97 55 5 23 22 22 22 8 11 38113 +103 [2] Ulster 21.40 56 27 6 25 21 11 22 4 50000 +436 [*] Larcei 24.60 63 27 1 30 30 19 22 6 26570 +384 [*] Shanan 23.50 55 23 0 30 25 11 19 6 39900 +418 [*] Patty 22.49 53 20 11 15 25 21 12 8 11715 +447 [*] Johalvier 26.38 56 26 0 17 20 7 22 8 36500 +632 [*] Hannibal 20.00 60 20 0 16 11 7 22 6 5000 -- [1] Faval 15.28 47 11 12 17 23 19 9 1 27688 +110 [1] Julia 24.09 45 3 30 17 28 10 5 27 10300 +222 [*] Ced 19.09* 44 4 24 20 25 24 11 25 27702 +74 [1] Lana 25.63 53 11 22 24 23 25 11 11 28036 +414 [*] Tinni 18.35 51 1 17 21 21 20 3 10 28853 +618 [*] Sharlow 4.10 29 1 11 9 9 4 4 9 0 +310 -- Leylia 8.66 28 6 2 1 14 5 2 4 10000 +100 [1]
To Become an Elitist [Playlogs FE1-5] [currently playing: Genealogy]
in NES and SNES Era
Posted
In a way, the odd phrasing ("I crave your pardon") makes it worse - if it was more generic, I would've been more likely to pass over that they're the same word for word.
Turns out that Brian wasn't the messiah. Just a very naughty boy.
I didn't even tamper with that one!
I'm waiting for the inevitable "was Zephiel right, actually?" discourse if/when Binding Blade gets remade.
Petition to rename Genealogy LTC runs into FAS (Forever Alone Seliph) runs. Seems like it's at least a bit of a challenge to achieve.
It needs a lot of force of persuasion to be as obviously cackling evil as Manfroy and still convince people to go along with your plans.
Earned by suffering Lewyn's presence for this entire campaign, I assume, since it's not like Seliph did anything else. Specifically to unveil the grand secrets of the Twelve Crusaders, that is.
That is a neat little detail.
It'd be Elffin - prince, posing as a bard, exposition bot for a while (though not as long as Lewyn), fleeing his homeland, associated with the annoyingly immature dancer girl. Elffin's just far less of a prick about all this.
Not to mention chances are that Lewyn left behind two children of his own. Fuck 'em, I suppose.
Hurray...? Well, at least it's also an army that is very easy to ignore almost entirely.
Interesting. I haven't continued playing yet, so I was just going by what FEWoD and the wiki.org say. We'll see, maybe I'll be forced to see for myself, considering just how mobile they are.
Not in Project Naga, though. Ich glaube, das hätte ich sonst gemerkt.
...Honestly, yeah. Every sword user could've done this, I think. Even Oifey still would've had the necessary stats, I think. Although Hannibal (-26 avoid, compared to Dermott if using the same weapon and stat rings) would've needed a little more support to do this safely.
Ah, that would work. Hannibal was in that state for a turn or three, although in his case, it's much easier to set up because you can just plonk somebody on his castle without seizing.