Alastor15243

That was literally my immediate thought upon seeing Ivy get it. Honestly, what that tells me now is that next time, when I know which of these later units I want to use in advance, I'll try to pump as much exp as possible into a smaller group of about half the size of my deployable roster and hope they're then as good as the newcomers due to the extra attention.

Day 13 Bonus: Post-Mission Cleanup Right, so, I found myself with way less shit to do this Sunday evening than I expected to, and as a result, as the title implies, I’m just gonna do the post-mission cleanup tonight so I can jump right into the action tomorrow. So time for some Somniel exploration. …So apparently the fact that I have damned near all the Fire Emblem amiibo in my possession does count for something with this game. Turns out you only get those tickets for each unique Fire Emblem amiibo you scan. Which I just ran out of. I haven’t really been using these things regularly, and maybe I should, since they seem to give some fairly decent random prizes, and my amiibo collection is like 5 feet away from my desk in my apartment. The new songs we get are Wind Across the Plains and Destiny (Ablaze). Fairly good picks, honestly! …Ooh, looks like I might want to get my hands on the Byleth amiibo if I want to get all the songs. Alright, I’ll see if I can get more for a good price later. More importantly, let’s work out who’s getting our Emblem rings. I’m thinking Alcryst is gonna get Lyn, because it’ll get him sword proficiency in the long term while making him a better archer in the general-term. In fact, I’m gonna boost his bond with Lyn significantly to make up for the fact that we don’t actually have anyone who’s an expert with any of our current rings. …Okay, given that Diamant has gained two levels since promoting, I’m gonna say that at least in the short term, promoting early doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on exp gain. In that case, I’ll start doing it more for the units I think need the help, and hedge my long-term bets by making sure the units who are good without a promotion will wait for theirs. Speaking of which, lets get Clanne to level 20 right away because I want to ensure he’s good long term but also holy fuck do I want him to use staves again. …So I forgot to take elthunder off of Clanne, and I have to say, it’s frustrating that you use your equipped weapon and yet you have to leave the arena menu to change what weapon you fight with. …Either Lucina’s really terrible or Alcryst is way better than I’ve been aware, because when I accidentally picked Lucina for a bond battle instead of Lyn, Alcryst wiped the floor with her despite wielding a longbow. Lucina was doing 4 damage and not doubling compared to Alcryst’s 15. …It’s amusing to me that both of these ladies use swords and bows. …And Lyn performed even worse! Wow! What’s going on here? Usually the Emblems put up way better fights than this at level 5! …And I just realized through their bond conversation that I’m making Alcryst use the Emblem that killed his father. …And… holy shit, I was apparently right! They do have Lyn acknowledge what she was used for and feel upset about it! Lyn: Until you can forgive me, Alcryst, think of me only as an Emblem, not as Lyn. Holy shit, speedtaker is a basic inheritable skill in this game!? How much does it cost!? …A lot, as I figured. 2,000 SP, to be exact. Alright, that’s definitely something I’m saving up for. Oh, and I like what they replaced those “proficiency” skills with in this game. Instead of skills that give objective net gains to using a weapon type, undermining 3H’s allegedly freeform weapon system and cluttering up characters’ skill slots with skills that are simultaneously objective no-brainers and fucking boring, these are cheap skills that give pretty good and diverse bonuses, but at a cost. That said, while I like it in concept, I think they might be too underpowered in this game, given that they’re competing for one of your two skill slots. Some, like Sigurd’s lance power boost at the cost of evade, are great, but others, like Lyn’s bow accuracy boost at the cost of dodge, are terrible. I gave Alcryst speed +2, since it was cheap and this is a game where more speed is always handy. I’m keeping Lucina on Pepsiman because he’s a dragon and he gets the best use out of Emblems in general, and I can’t see any of my units benefiting from Lucina as a particular niche… hmm… lemme double check what she does, actually… … “Dual Assist” “If unit is able to chain attack, unit will do so when allies attack foes unit could reach by moving.” …That is insane. I need to unlock that and see if dragon gets any “this unit can chain attack” bonuses from this, otherwise I think I might actually want to give this to Diamant. …Nope, no bonus for Pepsiman there. Though he gets some pretty great bonuses for other skills. And upon closer inspection, it’s only a 35% chance the skill will activate, that’s not remotely reliable enough to be basing who gets it on. Shame they gave this girl a skill that’s basically “for backup only” though. Honestly Lucina’s inheritable skills are pretty shitty in general, though that’s probably to be expected for whoever gets saddled with dex as the stat they boost. Still, an Emblem is an Emblem, and she’s got plenty of nifty use when engaged. And it looks like we’ve got a load of supports, so I’ll just run through these real quick. Pepsiman and Celine’s C. PFF. So Pepsiman and Céline apparently had a tea party. Which reminds me, when I looked up that song on Youtube, I was highly amused to see that the comments for that lighthearted quirky song were akin to those of traumatized war veterans having flashbacks, because teatime was just that fucking stressful of a minigame. So it’s a bunch of talk about tea, some mild worldbuilding about Firene, and then… Okay, she says there’s a folktale that Céline thinks Pepsiman will find interesting. Okay, I’m going to predict… that it’s saved for next part! …Oof, looks like I pushed my cynicism a bit too much. She does, in fact, go on. …But it’s not much of a “Folk Tale”. She basically recited the one-sentence synopsis of the folk tale. Which is lame as all get the fuck out. Now for Anna and Pepsiman’s C. …I am always tickled by how comically massive Pepsiman looks whenever he’s in the same shot as Anna. …So while the Heroes counterpart of Valentines’ Day is the “Day of Devotion”, here it’s “Sweethearts Day”. Oh heaven help us. An endearingly plucky commercialist is brainstorming gift concepts for a world where people only think to give flowers. What madness will she be inventing? Hallmark cards? Please tell me she invents Hallmark cards. …Oh, okay, so it isn’t just flowers like she implied. They also give gifts like necklaces. For a second I was thinking this was going to be an “Anna corrupts an innocent world with rampant materialism” plot, but it’s looking like it might not be that at all. Shame, that would’ve been hilarious. But I’ll keep my mind open. Now we’ve got Clanne and Louis’s B! Okay, so thankfully this isn’t actually about what they set out to do in the C support. It’s about the aftermath. Which makes sense, because it would imply implausible things about the timeframe of these supports if what they next set out to do had to wait until now. …I cannot fucking put finger on why, but I find Louis’s behavior amusing here. Very weird while well-restrained. He, uh… he seems to be weirdly wildly imaginative about the implications of Clanne and Alfred’s friendship… almost to the degree that I’d expect Nina to be, just not saying the naughty implications out loud. I wonder what the hell he’s thinking, and what the punchline of this is gonna be. Now for Alfred and Diamant’s C. So, this is an interesting bit of worldbuilding. Diamant’s trying to work out how many political favors he can afford to owe Brodia’s nobles in exchange for funding for the Brodian military. Which is an interesting concept, if somewhat undermined by the fact that we’re kind of ambiguously on the run and it’s not clear how much access to Brodia we actually have. Meanwhile, judging by the voice acting, I’m guessing that Alfred doesn’t have clue one about this because his country is so pacifistic, but is pretending he knows all about this sort of situation so he can sound cool in front of a fellow crown prince. Whether it’s this or him being genuine about relating to the issue of political bullshit in general, however, is not explicitly said here, because the conversation ends. …Actually, the ending lines make me think I may have read too much into it. Thinking back on it, Alfred’s not really the sort of person to be ingenuine or put on fronts. He’s actually kind of endearingly, obliviously forward. Well, at least they’re being consistent. …No, wait, he was “putting on an act”? I’ll have to wait until the next conversation to see if they follow up on this. Louis and Céline’s B. …Céline… talks an awful fucking lot about tea. Honestly, so far she’s come across as the most boring character in supports from what I can explicitly remember. Though in fairness, if I were to forget about anyone, I would entirely believe that it would be someone even more boring than her. It does at least get more interesting by her being upset that Louis endangered himself to get his hands on the tea leaves, and deciding she doesn’t want to encourage him no matter how good it is by accepting that second cup. Louis and Yunaka’s C. Yet more tea talk, but at least now it’s between two of my favorite characters. And yet again Yunaka accidentally brings the conversation to something she doesn’t want to talk about. Louis is polite enough to take the pressure off and change the subject, however, which is cool of him. Pff, Louis pronounced “specialty” and “speciality”. Alright, that’s all the supports. Honestly, this is a pretty good cast. It’s something of an Awakening situation where the main story is dumb as all hell, but the characters are pretty good and interact well. Though personally I prefer the Awakening cast, but then again that might be because I know the ins and outs of all my favorite supports in that game. I’ll give this more time. …Okay, so, I’m a bit frustrated to discover that Zelkov is just objectively better than Yunaka in basically every way except crit rate. He’s a far more advanced level, has better offensive and defensive stats, way better build, to the point that I don’t know if there’s a single knife he can’t carry flawlessly, and he’s even faster. Does he just come absurdly overleveled for his join time, or have I somehow been underleveling Yunaka by a ton while laboring under the delusion that I’ve been showing her a decent amount of favoritism? …No, my new recruits are just, like, Radiant Dawn Zihark levels of better than my existing ones. Which, hey, great news for me, but I do feel a bit miffed that these nobodies I have no attachment to have just waltzed in and outclassed characters I’ve been invested in from the get-go. I was expecting to get these characters way later than I wound up getting them. I cooked up some Kind of Odd Steamed Dango that boosts everyone’s speed, def and res by 1. Now then, let’s see what Lyn and Lucina’s engravings are like. Lyn gives a nasty -3 might penalty, but gives +40 hit and +20 crit, in addition to some weight loss. Which seems like a great thing to put on the unexpectedly-heavy killer weapons. Meanwhile, Lucina also has an attack penalty, but just -1, and it gives a +30 to evasion, -1 to weight, and +30 to hit. Okay, so these are pretty good. Though I think in general Lucina’s is better. I Lyn-engraved a killer bow I bought. Its might isn’t too impressive now, but it’s got 50 crit and a hell of a lot of accuracy. I think it’ll be pretty handy for Alcryst, which is good because I think the upcoming chapters are going to be his time to shine. I’m making a Lucina-engraved steel dagger so that Yunaka can have some crazy avoid. But I’m really starting to run out of money now, unfortunately. Hopefully I’ll be getting some more soon. At the very least I still have just about all of the supplies I stocked up on, so I’m not in too heavy need of vital supplies at the moment. …Forging a steel dagger to +3 adds six might. Holy shit! Alright, this is totally worth it. Can I get it even higher!? Yes I can! After some resources trading, I have a +4 with +8 might! Holy shit, this is gonna be such a game changer for Yunaka, especially with that +30 evasion that’s on it now! She’s gonna be untouchable! …Alright, I think I’m feeling pretty good about the next map. But let’s see what exactly the next map is, shall we? …Looks like a paralogue opened up at the Brodian arena. Hmmm… …Interesting. Apparently this is one of the Emblem trials, this time for Lucina. Which makes sense, since it’s a pretty memorable early-game Awakening map concept. So it seems like trials are for Emblems I already have, not ones I wish to reclaim. …But it suggests I be significantly more powerful than I currently am, I notice. Let’ see the main story map, then. …Yeah, let’s actually carry on with the story premise of us being in retreat and not given full movement range over the continent. Alright, that’s what I’ll check out tomorrow. Alastor, signing off!

This subject occurred to me recently, and I thought I'd ask around about this. There's a pretty wide range of quality in Fire Emblem when it comes to the story department. A lot of games have pretty bad stories. For me, however, one particular game has a story so terrible that it becomes a delight to experience. That'd be Fates, all three routes but especially Birthright and Conquest. It's a perfect storm of goofiness that causes me to laugh hysterically whenever I experience it, to the point that it gives me more genuine joy to experience than more than half of the stories in the series. They aren't the only stories I consider terrible, just the only ones whose shittiness makes me smile. And I'm wondering if it's different for other people. What games, if any, have stories that you consider to be so bad they're good?

On that topic, of me is still tempted to incorporate the Mediocre Valley bell curve SuperEyepatchWolf talked about into my writing rankings. Except replacing Cowboy Bebop with Path of Radiance and The Room with Fates.

Yeah, story's hot garbage. Just because I don't hate it as much as I hate Three Houses' story, friendly reminder that I don't think it's better. It just doesn't piss me off as much because it's not as badly-localized, time-consuming, shitty in presentation or up its own ass.

There's this quality to it I never saw in her voice or personality that I can only describe as a hint of "bright sassiness".

Engage Day 13: Chapter 11 Alright. Here we go. Welcome to hell. Needless to say I am simultaneously excited and terrified someone is going to die. Emotionally I’m kind of conflicted. It’s a cool story beat, but it deserves a better story to beat. And also, gameplaywise… I have a feeling we’re not getting these Emblems back for a while, and that’s sad, because the Emblems are probably the most fun aspect of the gameplay. I hope we get some new toys to play with soon. My guess is we’re going to retreat to the final kingdom to get our hands on theirs, and then slowly regain the old ones. Perhaps via these Emblem paralogues I’ve heard people talking about. But christ am I going to miss Sigurd-Louis-chan-san-sama-senpai-san-sama-san-chan-san-sempai-chan. And I am definitely going to miss Micaiah-Clanne. Speaking of… that reminds me about some things I needed to check on… …Okay, so the game does let you re-assign bond rings to the people who lost their Emblems. Which pretty heavily indicates that even if we kill the Corrupted who got them… we’re not magically getting them back. I wonder how they’re gonna explain that. Also, HUGEASS FUCKING ZOMBIE DRAGONS ON THE MAP. They’re pretty blatantly there to keep us from trying to do anything but escape in this chapter. And I like that. I like actually having insurmountable odds to run away from. Very few maps genuinely do this in Fire Emblem. There’s always the optional side-objective of just completely trouncing them instead of running away, and maps that do that bug me. It cheapens the urgency and aesthetics of the whole “running for your life” thing when you know it’s entirely realistic to win. The thing I am most fucking terrified of is the Micaiah-Corrupted who has a freeze staff and range augmentation. Actually, the furthest back tile, which someone has to be on, presents no method I can see aside from using rewarp to get out of that freeze staff’s range on turn one. So I’m going to promote Alfred too. Alfred’s honestly my worst unit at the moment, so I’m not too worried about crippling his long-term potential if early promotion turns out to be unwise. …And as I hunt to give him new weapons, I can’t help but notice that my engravings are still apparently active and valid. That’s handy as hell, but I wasn’t expecting it. Glad I made them while I had the chance! …Unfortunately I actually have several spots in the back row I can’t realistically evacuate people out of freeze range from. So I’ll have Clanne occupy one of them just in case so he can at least rewarp himself out. …Honestly, if that guy uses freeze on turn one, or at least moves to use it, I think a lot of my allies are fucked. But there’s precious little I can do about that, so I’m just gonna put restore staves on my- …Clanne can’t use staves anymore. Framme is my only healer. …That realization hits so fucking hard. …Okay, vulneraries for everyone. Alright, so my back spots are reserved for units who can realistically escape freeze, or people I least mind dying horrible, undignified deaths, depending on how much this map decides it wants to fuck around. And damn it does it hurt when the game fucks around and I find out. Main thing is I’m making sure that Framme has both restore and rewarp. That way in an emergency she can get somebody out of there and then hopefully warp herself out later. …And with that, I think I’ve reached the point where delaying accomplishes nothing but freaking me out. Let’s do this. …Yep, as suspected, Veyle teleported the ring away before we could take it. This… could get very, very ugly. Especially since that corrupted was so fucking strong. … … … … … WHY DIDN’T I USE TONICS ON EVERYONE!? Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it! And I had just convinced myself I’d done all I could do! That’s gonna reinforce my prep-screen paralysis even further, but there’s jack shit I can do about it now, so I’ve just gotta do my best and hope for the best. GOD DAMN IT! I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT FREEZE STAFF IS ACTUALLY BEING USED LIKE THIS! Okay, thankfully only Alcryst got hit, so technically I can restore him and get him to safety, then rewarp with Framme and everyone will be in the clear. The problem… is that there’s no valid position to do this from without Framme being in range of one of the fucking dragons stampeding through the woods. …No, wait, it’s the cavalier holding Sigurd. Okay, does that mean I have a chance? …No, holy shit, I can’t fucking let Sigurd’s brave lance get Framme. She’d be fucked the next turn. How… …Restore… is ranged. RESTORE IS RANGED! YES! THANK YOU! …Okay, but I still have to deal with this Sigurd fucker. Either I run away and let him come to us with a ridersbane and a brave lance (dangerous), or charge into him while he’s on a forest tile and covered by the Micaiah-Corrupted’s freeze staff (EXTREMELY dangerous). I think I’m gonna just check to make sure he can’t one-round anyone and then proceed and hope for the best once he’s outrun his support. …Okay so he can’t one-shot Alfred with ridersbane. Which means I just have to worry about him using his brave lance against my most fragile unit. Which would be Celine. …Thankfully I managed to shield her, but the fucker still managed to retreat back into freeze staff protection. I had Diamant run in to finish him off after he fought Anna, and I’m gonna have to restore him next turn unless he gets lucky with a dodge. …Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. There’s no way to restore Diamant and get him back out of staff range. He has to stay behind and fend off these guys on his own for several turns until freeze wears off. DAMN IT! Okay, thankfully the dragons don’t seem to be advancing. Which means he should be fine just handling a couple of enemies for three turns. And he’s the one I had stock up on extra vulneraries for everyone, so he’s fine for healing. Good. Alright, let’s keep moving then. Diamant will have to catch up. AND THE HOUNDS SHOW UP. OH THANK GOODNESS! PEPSIMAN DESPAIRS THAT THERE ARE TOO MANY OF THEM! AND THE MUSIC STOPS! AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! IVY COMES IN! AND ZELKOV SOMEHOW FUCKING MANAGED TO STEAL THE TIME CRYSTAL BACK FROM VEYLE!? AND WE HAVE TWO RINGS NOW! LYN AND LUCINA WOOOOOOOOO! …Okay maybe this isn’t the best time to say this, what with her saving our ass and everything, but… I’ve never really been a fan of Lyn’s voice. It’s absolutely nothing like I imagined her voice as a child. Honestly, the way I imagined her voice was closer to Lucina’s than what we got. But I guess I’m gonna have to deal with that, because it’s been pretty thoroughly cemented. Okay, Lucina’s was pretty funny. She does that “hands on one shin” cute pose she’s done in a lot of media, and then it’s a zoom in on her eyes which suddenly choose violence, and it zooms out and she’s got her sword. …And it’s pretty thematically cute how we get Lucina after we lose Marth, given that, as they allude to, she took up his name for a while. …Okay, so I just checked, and the game doesn’t let you rewind to before you had the time crystal. I see! Makes sense, and I was very, very curious about that. Yunaka scores a double crit to kill a lance fighter, which is awesome. For some reason the staff guy isn’t using his staff. He’s prioritizing chain guards. I’m using this as an opportunity to have Diamant run the fuck away. I let a thief get on a forest, so I had to use both my specials to secure a kill on him. …Okay, I’m very close to the end, but the hounds are getting very close to me. I doubt I have more than- …Wait… …Only Pepsiman needs to escape? I’m noticing nobody else can do it. …Well that… drastically simplifies things. …I’ll be honest, I was hoping this was going to be an “Everyone needs to escape” map. But in fairness I guess that makes that terrifying freeze staff more reasonable. So Diamant is far more ready to forgive Ivy than Alcryst is, for two big reasons: 1: She helped them find their father in the first place 2: She too is a child grieving the loss of a father. He pretty effectively points this stuff out to get Alcryst to stop lashing out at her, and I like the way he phrases it too. I notice that Alfred has been in these conversations, but not Céline. Either the game’s shafting her as a main character, or as soon as this Brodia-centric arc is over, Alcryst will fade into the background too, leaving only Diamant as a main character representative from Brodia. Incidentally, I should probably talk about the music from this map. It’s my least favorite of the “sad map themes” in the series. Both Don’t Speak Her Name and Thorn In You are significantly more memorable and emotional. That said, I don’t hate it. It does its job decently enough. It’s just not something I think I’d ever listen to on its own. But as if in self-defense, the game immediately reminds me of something I do like about the soundtrack. Its use of evolving music. They incredibly effectively segue from a tragic to a hopeful and dramatic version of the same song in this cutscene where they retreat and rally their courage. Woo! We got new items at the shop! Perfect timing! Great time to do it, right when we’ve been without it for a map! But I think I’m gonna check that stuff out tomorrow. For now, I’m coming to the end of my time. I’ll work out how we’ll be moving forward next time. So, what did I think of the map? Pretty damned intense. I can only imagine how terrifying it is on Maddening. But the fact that they expect you to do most of it without rewinds is something I absolutely adore about it. Because it demonstrates confidence that they aren’t necessary for the game to be fair, even on Maddening. Honestly, part of me really wants to start playing this game on Maddening too, but I’m worried that’ll cheapen my impression of the blind ironman Hard mode difficulty and make my blind ironman less fun. I’m gonna have to come up with something though, because I wanna give this game’s difficulty a totally fair assessment for the ranking. Well, I’m sure I’ll come up with something. Alastor, signing off!

This further embiggens my since-the-start-of-the-marathon headcanon that he's a deranged dragon fetishist.

Yes but they imply that happened after he summoned Sombron. Which makes me question his mental stability to begin with.

Engage Day 12: Chapter 10 I just got a reminder to “Promote Anna for the hell of it”. Fuck it, I could use a guinea pig to see if this talk about early promotion being consequence-free is true. First off, gotta get her to level 10 though. …Unfortunately her first arena opponents are Vander and Louis. Needless to say, she loses both. But then then she fights Boucheron, who’s equipped with a greataxe I don’t recall ever giving him. In fact come to think of it, I’m pretty sure it was steel. Well I guess that’s to keep you from cheesing these fights by unequipping every other conceivable opponent. …It’s kind of weird that this is more effective when you’re training a unit who’s already strong. Shouldn’t you gain more experience from losing a fight, logically, than winning one? Still, Anna continues to get good levels. Also, gotta say, I’m digging the arena music. Which I have time to appreciate while Clanne tries to fight Micaiah and can literally do 0 damage to her. …As Shanty Pete’s 1st Mate said… yes, these two-line bond conversations are indeed way better than what Radiant Dawn did, as weird as that is to realize. In fairness though, you only need to write 12 of these, maybe a few more for DLC, for each character, as opposed to Radiant Dawn needing you to essentially write (Radiant Dawn’s massive cast) x (Radiant Dawn’s massive cast minus one) of these. I just inherited avoid + 10 on Yunaka and yes, sure enough, it does reduce the cost of the subsequent avoid boosting skills. I’m gonna get Jade some training with Micaiah in the arena to let her inherit skills, because she can afford the resistance boost, which will be a big help with her apparent niche. I’m gonna try to use her, and potentially give her Micaiah long-term eventually. A staff using armor knight sounds like a really fun niche, but Louis clearly makes the best use out of Sigurd, so I’ll see if I can have her be my armored healer later. PFFFF I just ran past Etie and she was all “Oh! Are you out jogging?” That was funny. Jade: I might have to write a book about this. Oh, so she likes writing? I see! Okay, moment of truth: what happens to res+2 when you get res+3? …It says it’s inherited automatically. Okay, so that settles that. I must’ve been misremembering what I did with Louis. Oh shit! I just got an S-rank Arden bond ring! Niiiiiiice! Might as well put that on Jade, then! Speaking of which, Jade now has Celica’s engraved hand axe, forged to +4. Hopefully this helps her contribute a lot! We’ll see. …Ah, so that makes sense, even if it’s a bit annoying. Apparently leftovers get destroyed next time you make a meal. I mean, they’re leftovers, they’ve gotta have a limited shelf life, so it makes sense. …I wonder if Jade and Etie have supports. A bookish heavy infantry and a body-building rear lines unit sounds like it has potential to build on as a dynamic. Alright, now let’s look at supports! Pepsiman and Clanne’s B. So Pepsiman is now really concerned about Clanne being a workaholic out of his devotion to the Divine Dragon. And I have to wonder… …I really hope this game allows for the occasion to talk to Clanne, Framme and Vander after the “big reveal” I’m expecting that Pepsiman isn’t Dragon Jesus, but Dragon Antichrist. Like Sanaki talks to her holy guard when she realizes she might not actually be the apostle. Not that I expect it to be brilliantly written, but I really hope they at least have the presence of mind to try. Because that is a big deal with their dynamics. Hell, if this were Three Houses, and I can’t believe I’m saying something nice about Three Houses’ support system, but if it were Three Houses they’d probably lock their A support until this reveal happens and require you to do the C and B supports before that point so it makes sense. So Three Houses could totally accommodate this story arc. But anyway, predictably, if still a bit charmingly, Pepsiman “orders” Clanne to get some rest. I like the vocal performance when Clanne says he’ll “lie down for a bit”. He sounds like he’s literally about to collapse on the floor from how much he’s been overworking himself. Pepsiman and Louis’s C. Oh my god. Pepsiman’s voice actor really knows how to play “awkward and weirded out” to a T. It’s pretty damned charming, honestly. Especially with the improved facial animations. Louis is just standing in the middle of the square watching two people talk, and Pepsiman’s like “Um… okay. And you’re doing that… why?” and Louis is all “That is the question, is it not?” PFFFFFF And then he goes on a fucking philosophical tangent unpacking the word “why”. …Okay, I’m half disappointed, half relieved that he actually answers the question and gives a mostly-reasonable response. Louis is probably my favorite character in the game gameplaywise, and it would be a damned shame if I had to live with him being some kind of deranged creeper, even if it were funny. Still, they do point out it’s still a little creepy, and Pepsiman really sells the awkwardness of trying to explain this to him. Louis kinda reminds me of Azama. Except “kinda socially oblivious” instead of “comically unrepentant asshole”. Now for Clanne’s B support with Framme! So now Clanne and Framme are handing out those fliers they mentioned in town, and Clanne is apparently dealing with social anxiety. …And Framme completely throws him in front of the train. Framme: Listen up, everybody! My brother has a reeeal important announcement to make! Anyway, after some awkwardness, Framme relents and introduces them herself, and Clanne has a nervous breakdown over his stage fright. This is simultaneously really cringey but also really endearing. But while they don’t get into a fight, Clanne as a complete breakdown of confidence that in its own way makes this another “how the fuck does their cooperation improve after this exchange?” B support. Oooh, Framme and Anna? Lemme guess, Anna tries to run some sort of racket revolving around Pepsiman. …Anna’s insistence on being called “Lady Anna” and acting like it’s less formal than “Anna” is an incredibly quick joke to get stale, I have to say. Seems like my guess was off. In fairness I guess it would be a repeat of what they did in Awakening with her and Tiki. Framme’s looking for advice from Anna about an anniversary present for her parents, and she shows her a bunch of cool trinkets they might like. …And then Anna brings up the fact that she doesn’t know where her family is. Honestly, this is a good bit more… uh… “substantial” than I was expecting to give the game credit for. Ooh, Yunaka and Alfred have a B support! …. FIRST LINES. Alfred: So, where are you from! Yunaka: Ooo, look at you! Shootin’ off questions like barbed arrows outta camouflage! I swear, Yunaka has a lot of lines that are like the “that’s a sharp outfit, Chan” line from Avatar the Last Airbender, except without any awkwardness or hesitation. And somehow, in its own way, that’s pretty awesome. And then she tried to butter him up with his question asking skills in order to distract him from actually pressing for the answer… and he presses for the answer anyway, seemingly oblivious to her attempts to dodge it. Honestly, I think I unironically like Yunaka as a character. And Alfred’s a pretty great foil for her here. Louis: Show animals love, and they become fond of you. That’s why I’ll keep petting this little one. …He’s standing in front of a chicken. Oh man, Louis, never change. …Alright, I think I’m good to try this next chapter now. …Wooooow, this next map is really deep into Elusian territory. Are we really getting in this far without incident? There’s a fucking border wall between us and there! …Elusia has a donation level, which pretty heavily implies they’ll join our side entirely at some point. But probably not for a while. …Which means we won’t be able to adopt anything in the after-battle for a while. Christ, they’re probably going to mock us by filling the next after-battle field with high-quality, industrial-strength geese. …Oh shit. Thanks for the warning, game. Apparently we can’t go back to the Somniel after this battle. We’ve got a series of battles in a row. Alright, lessee… Let’s stock up on healing supplies and the like then. I buy all the antitoxins, as well as all the torches and another illume staff, because those are definitely things I don’t want to get caught with my pants down about. Also I get myself up to 5 of each type of tonic just in case, as well as a bunch more healing staves, also just in case. Alright, I think I’m good now. Oooh, Hortensia again! Maybe we’ll be getting Lucina! Oh shit, Hortensia’s got out-of-date news regarding Ivy. She doesn’t even know if she survived the initial castle siege! That’s… curious. Is Lord Sombron genderless? Hortensia mentions how her father’s been acting different since Lord Sombron was released, and then refers to that again as “since they came into the picture”. Genderless, or is she talking about Sombron and someone else associated with them? Or… does this again imply something that can change with player customization choices? …But that would imply that Pepsiman isn’t the son of Sombron… …but Sombron himself. …I woooooonder… …Nah, it was option two, as Rosado immediately clarifies. She’s counting the girl I suspect is Veyle and some others. Christ, the conclusions you can jump to when you stop to reflect on every line. Goldmary: King Hyacinth… has asked you to join him at the altar. …Oh dear. Given the topics I brought up before regarding royal blood and that ritual… thaaaaaaaat doesn’t bode well. …And a black ring with a purple gem? …I don’t think black and purple is… okay it might be Byleth’s. I’m pretty sure the “Crest of Flames” is associated with purple, and Byleth is of course associated with black. But if it isn’t Byleth’s… I think that might be something really nasty. Like an evil Emblem or something, like of a villain. …Marth senses Sombron’s presence in the Cathedral. Thaaaaaaaaat isn’t good. Something’s telling me that ring ain’t Byleth’s. Wow, Marth’s really emphatic that we should run the fuck away if Sombron’s revived. It seems to be indicating how powerful he is, but I think it’s actually implying again that he knows something he’s hiding from us. I got a reminder from the loading screen that you can lower difficulty in your bedroom at the Somniel. …Which makes me wonder if they considered that during this “can’t enter the Somniel” gauntlet. I’ve heard one of these chapters is pretty infamously hard. Either 10 or 11, can’t remember which. I’m not the type to reduce difficulty mid-campaign, but this sounds like one of the places where the people who do want to do that would really want to do that. So, Hyacinth accuses them of murdering Ivy, Hortensia buys it, and we completely ignore the comment, of course. Jesus I hate this sort of forced miscommunication bullshit. So, as I was spoiled, King Morion is not just dead, but Corrupted. I wonder if the verb would be capitalized too? So, we delay in fleeing, but the sheer distance between us and the doors that close make it clear we had no chance of escaping at this point at all. …But shit, we get more dramatic prep music! Awesome! I love when games do this. …Oh. So that explains why Hyacinth was fighting unarmed. Because he’s a qi adept, not a mage. …And Lyn apparently gives him, among other things, 4 defense and 9 HP. Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that those buffs aren’t going to be anything like what we get from her? …Oh no, it was Byleth that Hortensia got! Okay! Interesting! PFFFFFFFF Byleth has the ability to use divine pulse to save scum missed hits! It doesn’t say exactly what the formula is, just that its base is 30% and increases with high luck. Oh, and Byleth’s big special attack is apparently a rally that changes in type depending on what type of unit he’s on. …Now I’m really curious what that does for Pepsiman. Could it be like rally spectrum? …Okay, I am really, really, super nervous about that big, suspiciously understaffed cathedral room beyond the doors. Everyone’s been hemming and hawing about what happens in either this or the next chapter, again, can’t remember when, and always with respect to the game’s ambush spawn policy. Here’s hoping it isn’t anything too awful. But hey, no deaths so far. …Items in the convoy aren’t bundled together when they have an identical number of uses. I have 5 of each tonic, and I can see all five of each of them in a row on the convoy screen. That’s… not good. …Okay, since we’re about to go into a pretty major battle, and since holding off on promotion has bitten me in the ass before when trying to ironman certain games, I’m going to roll the dice with Diamant’s future and early promote him. Axe access even outside of engagement will be really handy. Ideally though I wanna make him a hero with lance access, so he can have full weapon triangle advantage when engaged. That’ll be insanely useful. Then again, later Leif is going to give him the master lance, so… …Okay, yet again, way better class change sequence than Three Houses. Good to know. Also, he can wield my forged hand axe with no speed penalty! Also good to know! Alright, that’s going on him. Unfortunately I can’t afford to bring Jade into this battle, which is a shame, but I’ll see about next time. …Alright, I think this is the most prep I can manage for now. Let’s go. Okay, yeah, so here’s the magical artillery, and I am far more willing to believe that a magic artillery can amplify whatever tome is used with it to long range rather than a ballista apparently letting you use normal bows. Either way though, way better gameplaywise. This music is pretty badass, incidentally. Anyone know what the map theme of this chapter is called? I’d love to search this up after the fact but don’t want to get spoiled on anything with irresponsible YouTube searches. And I notice that the game says you have to defeat Hyacinth and Corrupted Morion… but it doesn’t say anything about having to defeat Hortensia. Could it be that I can only recruit her if I ignore her here and go right past her? …If she starts using the freeze staff on me or decides to start moving, I’m going to assume the game doesn’t expect me to do something so annoying, but otherwise I might give it a shot. I’ve got Yunaka taking care of the left flank. Her insane dodgetanking potential lets me deal with Rosado’s terrifying killer axe. Louis will deal with the opposite flank until it’s a bit more manageable, then I’ll start sending everyone else in. For now, they’re just getting out of the way of that magic turret. …It seems this map music is like final boss music, in that it doesn’t change between map and battle. That sure as hell explains why it goes so hard on the map. Rosado’s more worked up about us making Hortensia sad, and not the more concrete thing of allegedly killing Hortensia’s sister. Ahhh, incoming thief. Got it. Alright, gotta take care of that with minimum necessary force to keep my options open. Unfortunately Goldmary is really tough for men to hit thanks to her personal skill, so I had to have Diamant engage and use the unmissable Quadruple Hit to ensure she dies and doesn’t do anything terrifying next turn. …Okay, so thankfully the retainers don’t die when you kill them. …Okay, so all three of this Elusian trio have droppable items, and two of them didn’t die for real when I killed them. I now suspect I’m being outrageously paranoid thinking that killing Hortensia in this situation will kill her off for real. This cavalier has a 19% hit and 3% crit rate on Yunaka, and though I’ve decided not to be so paranoid as to assume I have to clear this without beating Hortensia… yeah, I’m using Lodestar Rush on this fucker. I screwed up and accidentally left Louis in range of the siege tome, which mean the mage stopped running towards us to attack us directly. Damn it, hopefully getting out of the way will reverse it. …Yep, he’s down. Now Yunaka’s gonna stand on a pillar and try to bait in this battalion with her insane avoid. Oh fuck. I got frozen, and for a second I thought I was fucked, because I thought that might have entirely negated her evasion. It thankfully does not. This axe armor still has 0 hit on her. Oh thank goodness. But next turn miiiight get messy. …Okay I seriously need to get Yunaka some luck boosts. Holy shit, everyone has a terrifyingly existent crit rate on her. AND HORTENSIA CAN MOVE NOW. …Okay, okay, so, let’s see… Hortensia isn’t a mystical unit, so she can’t cut through Yunaka’s avoid like butter. But she does have a mulligan skill I don’t fully comprehend the success rate of, and a crit rate on her. I don’t like those odds. So looks like it’s time to see if people have been telling me the truth about how awesome Micaiah is. …HOLY FUCK YOU GUYS WEREN’T KIDDING! I just had Yunaka, Alcryst and Céline all blitz on some of Hortensia’s minions, and then Clanne engaged and rewarped them all to safety in one fell swoop! …Unfortunately Hortensia then freezes Pepsiman, forcing me to confront her with scattered forces. Christ, I hope this isn’t ugly. And now we tell Hortensia that Ivy’s alive. And ironically, since we didn’t take Ivy prisoner, we can’t prove we didn’t kill her. That’s… actually a pretty interesting case of being kindhearted biting you in the ass. My life flashed before my eyes. Lúin is fucking terrifying. Especially the whole anti-dragon part. If Hortensia got a crit, it would’ve been game over. Let’s see what we can do now. …Really not much. I don’t see any way to kill her before she can attack again. Thankfully, we do have one option remaining: using a second rewarp charge with Clanne to get everyone out to the other side, and rally everyone together for one devastating turn. …And yeah, I’m going with that option. But first, let’s do as much damage to her as we can with this free turn. It’ll make next turn easier. Hortensia: You took my sister from me! I’ll never forgive you! Yunaka using Lodestar Rush: Forgive me. PFFFFFFFFFFF Shit, forgot to use Roy’s! …Oh. Oh no. Hortensia froze Alcryst. Who’s in her attack range now. Thankfully, I can just barely save him with my first use of obstruct! Awesome! Alright, time to get Louis onto an engage tile so we can wreck this girl next turn. And Louis unlocks immunity to freeze! Yeah, that suddenly sounds more worthwhile! Yunaka finishes her off. Unfortunately, this appears to not be one of those games where you get the uses on an item restored when you take it from an enemy who used some of it. I only have one use left of this freeze staff. Highly unfortunate, but at least I got the thing at all. The chests had an elfire and a dracoshield. The elfire is probably going to Clanne, but I’m not sure who to give the dracoshield to just yet. Probably Yunaka though. So canter doesn’t work on breaking walls, probably because it uses the command “destroy” rather than “attack”. …Oh shit, the music got even more intense! Alright, so, Hyacinth is not fucking around. He’s got a scary bow attack that makes me really glad I didn’t deploy Chloé. Thankfully, again, the game tells me exactly how much damage I have to worry about. And in most cases it’s not much damage at all. …Speaking of exact words on descriptions, I notice that the game explicitly specifies that weapon advantage breaks are the only ones that armored units are immune to. Hmmmm… which means that Hyacinth’s Lyn attack can break him. Assuming it isn’t like other attacks and thus can break even if it does no damage. Cuz I don’t think Louis can be hurt by this thing. Alright, I gave Yunaka the dracoshield. Her defense is surprisingly good for a thief, it’s entirely workable. So I’m gonna work with it. Alright, we’ve got Corrupted Morion charging us, and a healer is chain-guarding. Okay, so Pepsiman has a pretty good line that I think would have worked better if it were shorter. Pepsiman: King Morion. You said you wanted to duel when we made it back to the castle… Remember? I wish we could have crossed swords as friends. It should’ve ended there. He goes on, which I think lessens the impact: Pepsiman: But now… we must face each other as enemies. That was already implied by the circumstances. No need to say it. …Honestly… the fact that Morion is twitching and lolling his head in his idle animation almost identically to an Awakening entombed should make me laugh. Especially given the entombed are mostly associated in my mind with that goofy grinding map, EXPonential Growth. But it doesn’t. It’s actually kind of unsettling seeing someone who used to be alive and friendly and human now twitching and flopping like some badly-stringed marionette. Diamant: Was I a good son? I should have asked you that sooner. That’s yet another line that I think would’ve hit harder if it ended the conversation. Okay, he’s down. Unfortunately I kind of messed up my own path forward by using Roy’s special to mass-attack the enemies and break the chain guard, setting the hallway on fire. Time to see how much that complicates things now that Morion’s dead. …Curious. Apparently the downside to the shielding art is that it doesn’t have a brave effect. Good to know. More importantly, holy shit I forgot Hyacinth can make four more of himself. Marth says “We don’t know what they’re capable of”, and yeah, you got that right. Their nature is not properly explained. They say they have 5 mov, but the game only highlights the square they’re on in blue and the squares immediately around them in red. The game just says they can make chain attacks with him. Plus side, flames only last a turn, so they’re no longer in my way. I am very, very grateful that I learned beforehand that specials can’t crit. Now that he’s wasted it after I made sure nobody would die, I can more safely approach him so that everyone can fight him. Wounded Anna: I refuse to cry! Like so much about this version of Anna, I can’t tell whether I love or hate this line. Alright, Anna hand axed the healer, so no more chain guard, plus a free chain attack set up against Corrupted Morion at the very outset! Now to bring in Diamant for similar reasons. Quadruple hit! I poisoned him with a short knife, and then finished the first bar off with Alfred. Thanks to the double chain attacks I’ve got stacked, Alfred’s pathetic damage output was enough. As for the second health bar, Louis took a huge chunk out of it with his javelin. Now I’m poised to have both Clanne and Alcryst take 3-range potshots heavily augmented by double chain attacks. Honestly, it’s a shame that backup only shines when killing bosses, but holy shit do they shine then. Alright, now let’s have Alcryst get the kill (or more likely Anna or Diamant’s chain attacks before it). Nope! Alcryst managed it! One of the chain attacks missed! …And now Hyacinth has completely changed his attitude. Right, what they said about him changing radically since Sombron came back. You know, from the regular well-adjusted person who already thought bringing Sombron back was a good idea. But yeah, anyway, stage clear! Hyacinth begs for mercy, but we’re having none of it. However, hood girl shows up again! Alright, time to pay attention for signs that this is Veyle. Oh shit. Lord Sombron has freaky dragon feet! That’s kinda cool. But yeah, looks like Sombron’s gonna be all evil for the sake of it and eat Hyacinth. “Only sovereign blood will quell my hunger. You understand.” There’s still sovereign blood among us though! Unless you literally need the royal ceremony to happen for Diamant to be declared king now that his father’s dead. Does he literally need specifically the king of Elusia? …Lyn’s ring just dropped. Either Hyacinth took it off as one last act of defiance against Sombron… or Sombron spat it out because it’s no good inside of him. Hortensia: AH! FATHER! I wish I could show you this line, because it is a terrible read. Comically so. Okay, so hood girl doesn’t have those weirdly defined lips on her model, just in that cutscene. So the fact that Veyle doesn’t have them on her model doesn’t disprove the Veyle theory. Neither one does on their model, so there’s no difference there. …And I say this literally exactly before Hortensia lunges at hood girl and unmasks her as Veyle. Looks like I was right all this time! Not that it was hard to guess. And she’s Sombron’s daughter, which pretty much confirms the follow-up theory that she’s related to Pepsiman. It’s curious that she doesn’t have any red in her hair though. Just in her eyes. Pepsiman: How could you deceive us like this? Veyle: Deceive you? We’ve never even spoken before. ALTERNATE PERSONALITY! ALTERNATE PERSONALITY! HOLY SHIT I AM ON A ROLL WITH MY PREDICTIONS! Not that this game’s very good at making them hard to guess, but still! Ooh! Zephia’s a mage dragon! That explains the pointy ears! … … … … Has anyone seen Jello Apocalypse’s Fire Emblem video? Where he describes the big bad’s four generals as “The Fun Crazy One, the Boring One, the One that Dies Offscreen, and the Noble one”? The two middle ones aren’t a perfect fit, but just from their opening lines it becomes plain that the other two are literally in those positions in the lineup. Fun Crazy One on the far left, Noble One on the far right. What the fuck. …Veyle… Veyle just stole our draconic time crystal while we were distracted, and used it to steal all of our Emblem Rings. …That is… …That is the first intelligent in-story use of the rewind system’s time manipulation basis that the entire series has ever seen, and it was done by the fucking enemy. BRA FUCKING VO VEYLE. But also I seriously hope we don’t lose them for long. That’s fucking terrifying. Also, I have to ask: uh… does this mean the crystal’s always had the power to stop fucking time? Veyle: Amazing you didn’t notice. You must not be very bright. Oh christ, if only she said that to Byleth I think she might have become my favorite character. Pepsiman hasn’t really established himself as the titanic dumbass that Corrin and Byleth were. …Okay, this cutscene, watching Sombron corrupt the Emblems one by one, is actually making my stomach sink. Which is probably a point in the writing’s favor, in fairness. DOES THIS MEAN I GET TO SEE WHAT CORRUPTION DOES TO ROY? …I don’t think his hair color changes at all, hilariously enough. …A dark version of the series main theme is playing right now. Okay that’s brilliant. …We’re in… a super dark place. PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS WHEN PEPSIMAN FINALLY TURNS INTO A DRAGON TO SAVE THE DAY. …Did… did she just give the Emblems to random fucking corrupted? No, Veyle, you were being so clever! Also, I’m assuming we also can’t rewind right now. I wonder if this is part of what makes the chapter so infamous? WELL NOT FOR ME, FUCKERS! Oh wow, Emblem powers have evil names when on the enemy units. “Rise Above” becomes “Sink Below”. It’s also weaker, I notice, but also obviously can be used indefinitely. …I wonder how the game’s gonna convey how Veyle has the time crystal. I hope it doesn’t mean that she actually rewinds time to undo my successes. Also, it looks like I can’t change who I have deployed. …This is… this looks like it’s gonna be a challenge. But I’m not tackling it today. A bit too late for that. I’ll deal with it tomorrow. I’m honestly really looking forward to seeing how this map works. Alastor, signing off.

While I don't think it would be fair to judge swordmasters in Fates by what Ryoma can do, given the whole reason he's good is because of his psycho-powerful sword, I do struggle to think of a better class for Ryoma to be than swordmaster, which might count for something.

That... sounds like insane amounts of fun. Next indoor map I get, I'm going to have Clanne bring in an infiltration squad! I mean, being royalty seems to tangibly give you better reclassing options here.

Engage Day 11: Chapter 9 Hey everyone! I’m back after that mid-week break, and I’m ready to roll! Let’s begin! Got a few assorted notes that occurred to me over the hiatus: Right, so, one of them was that, even though it rips my soul to suggest a game should be more like Three Houses, I’m starting to think that unit type proficiency should have been a thing in this game, not just weapon type. It feels weird being able to freely change between classes that use the weapon type you’re using. It might’ve made reclassing more interesting. It also would’ve meant potentially getting Hector instead of Lyn to have an armor emblem, which would’ve been interesting. But who would’ve taught flying…? …If we go by the Micaiah logic, then Marth would be a good candidate. Technically also Lyn due to her close friendship with Florina. And literally every single one of Corrin’s siblings except Leo can innately reclass to some sort of flier as well, so she’d be a shoe-in. But then, I say “it might’ve made reclassing more interesting”… honestly, the class list in this game is pretty bitch-basic. Even most of the personal classes are just redecorated versions of existing classes we’ve seen hundreds of times. The wolf rider class is pretty much the only one that’s new, not counting Griffons. And let us say I do not appreciate that with the exception of apparently Pepsiman’s reclass, all of the fist classes are scrawny mages. I hope something happens that expands the class list, because while the game’s good so far, reclassing doesn’t look nearly as fun as it could be. Moving on… I also wrote down, and I quote: “Reject Anna, embrace axe armor?”. A fair point. I don’t particularly care for this iteration of Anna anyway. Just because Jade isn’t as good as Louis doesn’t mean she isn’t better than Anna. Oh also: “ENGRAVE” Right! All those engravings I can do! Gotta get on that! … …What’s going on with Roy’s? I picked a random slim lance to see what this would do to it, and while Leif’s is a pretty cool attack, accuracy and avoid boost in exchange for one more weight… …Roy’s increases might by 2… in exchange for adding eight more weight and a thirty avoid debuff. Meanwhile Micaiah reduces the weapon’s attack but adds 20 dodge and 40 avoid, as well as making it 1 lighter. That I think is going on Yunaka. But like seriously, what the fuck? Is Roy’s just a joke on him being the Emblem of Binding? That his engraving literally binds you? Is there some secret benefit to it? Does the game really think that suddenly going from +1 to +2 might on an Emblem engraving is such a batshit insane power step that this has to happen for it to be justified? I suppose applying it to a smashing weapon has few downsides, though, but still, seriously… I gave it to Louis’s iron greatlance. Then I gave Yunaka a Micaiah-engraved steel sword and a Leif-engraved iron dagger. I wanna test to see if engaging lets you use any weapon of that Emblem’s type, or just the specific ones bound to them. If it’s the latter, then I’ll give the sword to someone else, but Yunaka with a sword with 40 avoid sounds fucking terrifying. Alright, enough prep! Time to go! Yet again, WHY THE FUCK do I have to do this ridiculous song and dance of skipping a cutscene and loading the next, over and over and over? But yeah, I don’t think anything about this map is excessively complicated. I’m gonna open up with engaging right out the gate with Yunaka and Louis to simplify this first wave, and after that, we’ll improvise. Oh yeah, also, I like how the prep screen lets you cursor over characters to see who has talks. Really makes planning how to recruit allies easier. So I know that both Diamant and Pepsiman can recruit Jade. …Okay, so the music thinks we’re still in Brodia. Interesting… …Alas, it would appear that engaging does not, in fact, let you use the weapon type the Emblem gives you, just the weapons. Oh shit, Yunaka’s rapier crit is pretty badass! …And Anna continues her streak of getting good levels! Okay, actually, I think I’m gonna keep giving her a chance. Given that it’s confirmed to be utterly useless on Yunaka, I gave the Micaiah-engraved steel sword to Diamant. The lieutenants are charging, which is cool. I’m gonna weigh my options with how to handle them, keeping in mind this is Yunaka and Louis’s last turn of engagement. …Right, shit, forgot what Ivy said in the cutscene. They went to the forts, and summoned corrupted reinforcements. Who did not move that turn. Excellent. But Zelkov, being a thief, is gonna be just about impossible to take out on that fort. I’ll have to see if I can get him to leave it. …That was simple. They just fucking leave their forts when baited. Good deal. Kagetsu was shockingly tough, however. I had to use Leif and Diamant’s Quadruple Hit in order to do significant damage to him, which hilariously left him so wounded a chain attack or a 3-damage hit from Alfred could finish him off. Personally I would’ve preferred to see Diamant’s conversation with Jade, but he activated his engage, the clock is ticking, and Pepsiman’s close enough to do it now. Oh nice! I didn’t notice before, but the game tells you how many turns of engagement are left with a little number by the Emblem portrait! ….FUCK. Okay, I screwed up royally. I miscalculated terrain navigation, exposed Framme to take advantage of brawling, and put myself in a situation where my two remaining northern units can’t attack the same enemy. This means I’ll have two lance armors alive at the end of the turn rather than one, and… …and Anna can just barely survive if she dives in to shield Framme. And Framme can take one hit from the one who can reach her. …Wow, lucky me. Thank goodness for Great Sacrifice. …Wow, that was a full level up from using Great Sacrifice. That… that’s amazing. Oh, and I found an elsurge! Awesome! Oh, and Jade can still talk with Diamant! Alright, let’s see what their dynamic is like. …Okay, she seems pretty no-nonsense. Knowing this game, I was kind of expecting there to be something about her to subvert that, like maybe she’s single-mindedly obsessed with the prince, or oblivious to social conventions, or comically literal-minded, or goes completely ridiculous when a certain topic of discussion comes up. Is she actually just the tough, serious knight lady she appears to be? Honestly, now I’m curious to check out her supports. So with Micaiah’s engagement, rewarp’s range has doubled. Good to know! But weirdly the staff range still has the “affect adjacent squares” cross that Micaiah gives to healing staves. Either that’s a glitch, or they’re implying I can group-rewarp somehow. Alright, Louis is baiting in the boss. She’s stronger with her magic than last time, but Louis can still take it. Especially with a chain guard and Pepsiman supporting. So Louis can do a shitton of damage with his engage special attack, so I’ll have him open up the next HP bar. …Nope, wait, probably wise to do it now, given the chain guarding healer nearby. He killed three enemies at once, counting Ivy’s first HP bar. Attacks that don’t do damage apparently can’t break, but that’s where poison comes in! One dose and suddenly everything does at least a little damage! Let’s see if we can kill some of these other enemies too while we’re at it. …Well that’s curious. Either this is exclusive to Roy’s form or something… or only the blue part of Pepsiman’s hair changes when he engages. I’ll have to pay more attention to that… In hindsight, perhaps giving the +evasion sword to the guy who has a personal that reduces his evade was a bad call. Or maybe not, since it only applies on player phase. But yeah, he finishes off the boss after my remaining units finish off the axe armors, and we’re done here. Kinda sad that they gave us an objectively inferior rematch with her immediately, but I’m hoping this means she joins us now. Now then… …I just realized there’s this big fuckoff leaf-shaped bit of… whatever it’s made out of… in that thing in front of Ivy’s face. And since I can’t see one of her eyes through it, that means it’s definitely obstructing her vision big time. …Okay, so Ivy just fucking outright admits that Pepsiman’s “[her] deity”. Which means that simultaneously: 1: People in Elusia know about Pepsiman the dark dragon descendant 2: Nobody in Elusia knows about Pepsiman the son of Lumera. Yeah, the “adopted” twist is screaming louder and louder every minute. But she just says “could I ask you to forget that?” after she says it… and Pepsiman says “yes”, like fucking what!? …Okay, so Sombron can temporarily regain his powers through a ritual sacrificing sovereign blood. Question: If King Hyacinth is so willing to leave his daughter for dead, why even bother capturing King Morion when he could sacrifice Ivy instead? She’s royal, right? Sure, she’s not literally on the throne, but that doesn’t change your blood. And even if it did, just do a farcical ceremony to make her the queen and then kill her. …Wow, that was a morbid suggestion from me. But I am curious what the rules of this ritual are. So Ivy isn’t joining us yet, unfortunately. I thought not. Bit too early to be getting promoted retainers as allies. …Why is the game’s tutorial slide system only now introducing Emblem Leif to me? Does this mean that arbitrarily now I can access his amiibo stuff? Let’s finish up here and see. …Chloé gave me 50 bond fragments… while complimenting my growth rather than her own. …As did Yunaka. I got a bunny! …Alright, let’s check the amiibo gazebo. …No wait, story. …Okay, if the game’s just going to act like I’m advancing on with the story whenever I depart from a story location, it probably shouldn’t ask me whether I want to go to the map or the Somniel until after I leave and see this story bit. Oh look, little sister! Veyle says she doesn’t know how she got here. Which certainly supports my theory that hooded cloak girl is her evil split personality identity. …Oh wow. The music’s getting creepy and weird after she sees a ring. …Thankfully we manage to snap her out of it before she does anything weird. Alright, let’s zip through these bond conversations. Sigurd saying he has something to learn from Louis about kindness seems weird, since excessive kindness is probably Sigurd’s fatal flaw. …Céline and Celica’s support is almost literally just “I can’t even think of what to talk to you about” and “That’s okay, we have time”. These conversations are already just two lines long. …The game teases me with the prospect of Yunaka pressuring Marth into saying “Zappy” and does not deliver. For shame. …Yes, apparently only now has the game registered that Leif is in my possession. I have to assume this is an oversight that suggests the game originally had you get Leif from Ivy in the second battle, but the story was swapped around for some reason. Anyway, his song is “Let’s Go, Leif!”, not “In Search of Victory ~ Leif”, which is a shame, since the latter is one of my favorite map themes. …I’m gonna call it here and pick things up tomorrow. Looks like next map we’ll be heading into Elusia! Alastor, signing off!

You must have really underused the avatar then.

Neither. It's when you don't reload saves to fix mistakes. And no rewinds either.

I insist on doing a blind ironman of every new game that comes out since Fates. I succeeded in all cases except Echoes, though Three Houses made me kinda wish I hadn't. As I've said elsewhere, when the game is good a blind ironman is an unforgettable, magical experience. When it's bad, it lets you know exactly how much the devs hate you.

I'm saying storytelling hasn't been a strong suit of the series since the Tellius games, so sacrificing what makes the games unique to improve what it has sucked at for nearly twenty years feels like a pointless and massive gamble.

In fairness, as has occurred to me since Monday, she doesn't exactly have fierce competition when it comes to axe users at the moment. ...Which reminds me that I haven't engraved any weapons since getting Celica. Fair enough, but standing by and watching the evil king put the ring on (to say nothing of why the fuck the evil king didn't have it on in the first place) was pretty absurd. ...Speaking of, full disclosure: Youtube thumbnail spoiled a bit of King Morion's fate, unfortunately.

The problem I have with this is that we haven't had a story I thought would be made better or even good without permadeath in about two decades. Until the series starts demonstrating any competence with storytelling again, there's no earthly way I'd consider a radical gameplay overhaul worthwhile even if you were right that the story would be improved.

Not that I noticed. You'll note I said "usually". I had her in mind with that qualifier. Excellent point. Makes me feel even more confident about making him wear Lief for now.

Christ, imagine if you had to put down your own slain units.

Oh I made sure quite early on to get enough for everyone in my army, or at least everyone I'm fielding, don't worry. Will do. If I knew what the fuck the slaying formula was (I need to buckle down and try to work that out at some point soon), I'd have a better idea how batshit insane having an armor slayer tome would be. I know for certain I'd be terrified to put Louis near it. Or hell, just make all of the non-flier enemies Corrupted, rather than some of them, and have them summoned on-site.

Engage Day 10: Chapter 8 I’m not even gonna bother typing what chapter I do today until I actually know. For all I know there could be another paralogue. Oh, I just found the Arena! Let’s check this out… …Why do I feel like I’m about to fight Dark Link? …Ah, I see, so I can spend bond fragments to give characters a more advanced bond with their emblem? Well aside from gambling for better bond rings, which eventually will be worthless once I have more emblems, I don’t know of any other uses for bond fragments, so fuck it, sure. Let’s get Louis up to snuff with Micaiah. …Oh wow, this is really more efficient than actually having them fight together. Though Louis still had to beat Micaiah in a match, which probably wouldn’t have gone well if she had Thani instead of Shine. But with that, Louis can now inherit res +2 and +3! For a total of five extra res! …No wait, I unlocked them, but I can’t inherit them until level 5. Alright. Let’s try one more level then. Damn it, she’s just barely strong enough to wreck him. …But they still bond ranked up? …That’s… interesting. Is there any incentive to win at all? But yeah, now let’s get Louis’s res up. It unfortunately took nearly all of the SP he had saved up, but he has both now, and those are going to be the most important skills he can get for a whiiiiile. Alright, so, Louis is using Sigurd now. Now what to do with Micaiah…? Probably Clanne. Because I wanna re-check Alfred’s class list a bit… Right, so Alcryst has his own personal class… …Yeah what the fuck? I completely failed a spot check! Alfred has his own personal class too! One he already qualifies for! So no emblem training necessary for him. I just need some other way to justify his existence. …Apparently… you cannot equip res+2 and res+3 at the same time. Hell, I don’t even have res+2 anymore. Did that expenditure become pointless, or did I not notice you have to buy res+2 before res+3 becomes purchasable? Lemme check… …Unfortunately I don’t have the resources to check. It’s frustrating how little SP I’m getting from battles. I don’t think anyone’s managed to crack 1000 points yet. …Let’s just move onto the next battle then. Right, Brodia castle. So really? Is this gonna be a thing? Are we always gonna start each new area with a “save the country” arc that only takes two battles? …Well okay, game. I notice a colosseum. I wonder if we’re gonna get a repeat of Awakening’s arena battle. …Oh, so the castle isn’t under attack at the moment. And we get to meet Diamant! Nice! Which means we get his Emblem! Diamant seems… curiously overprotective of his father. Nagging him and almost scolding him for taking risks. Oh wow, the delivery of “humble as… ever… son… hehehe…” was pretty great. Really gives the sense that he feels bad about his son’s self-esteem issues and is doing his best to counteract them, but he really doesn’t know what to do. Interestingly… when I see King Morion, and they’re talking about the disparity between how he is here and his reputation on the battlefield and his invasions of Elusia… I’m reminded of what Garon probably could have been if they had made any effort to make the conflict between Nohr and Hoshido even remotely morally gray. Actually have Garon be a human being and loving father with understandable reasons for instigating conflict, but who instigates conflict nonetheless. …Not that I expect this story to delivery anything interesting in that front either, but like, the characterization proximity is nice. Man, this game’s use of tiny-eyed shock never ceases to tickle me. Diamant: There was… a person in there? …Ohp! And here’s the conflict. Elusian wyvern rider, huh? Could it be the evil sorceress? Oh, it’s not the sorceress, it’s… someone new! Oh, I’ve seen thumbnails of her! So this is Ivy, huh? Nice character design, gotta say. …Weirdly, Morion obeys Diamant’s order to go back in the castle (not without some snark). What was that they said about him being a terror in war? Okay, so let’s get into battle… …Jeeeesus. We don’t really get to deploy any extra units here. We don’t have extra room for the new recruits! I’ve really gotta start getting picky about who I use. Oh, this’ll be a tough choice… …Okay, so Diamant has a personal skill that’s cool in concept but probably underpowered due to the disadvantages. But still, being able to increase hit by 15 has gotta have its uses. …Roy also seems to have some interesting skills. The one I’m by far the most curious about is the one that increases his level by 5. Is that… are they saying he gets 5 level ups worth of stats to go with it, or is there some intrinsic benefit to being a higher level that I’m not aware of? But what’s really cool is they finally fucking fixed miracle! They actually made it into something genuinely interesting and reliable! Roy has an ability that basically says that as long as you have more than 30% of your max HP when combat starts, that combat cannot kill you. You’re guaranteed to keep at least 1 HP. The entire round of combat, incidentally, not just any individual hit. That’s badass. …Ooh, looks like we’re getting introduced to ballistae here! I wonder what their rules are? …The boss looks tricky. I’ve heard scary things about what Leif can do from the promo stuff, and it seems to be entirely warranted. Genealogy-boss-style automatic weapon switching, a defense buff for WTA… I’ll have to be careful. But for a moment I forgot what ring she had and thought she had an Emblem of Michalis or something. Slapping bright red hair on lords that almost never have it is kinda jarring. I wonder what they would’ve done if they had to write a corrupted Roy into the story. …Oh shit. …OH SHIT. IT’S A DEFENSE MAP, BABY! YEAAAAAAAAAH! I WAS HOPING WE’D GET ONE OF THESE! We still need to defeat Ivy to win, but letting enemies get to the castle is a lose condition, awesome! That explains the ballista! Okay, I’ve decided to drop Jean. It’s a shame, but I’m just not interested enough in him to keep him in the party. Clanne with Micaiah will take his place as the second of my two healers until he can promote and I can give staff utility to someone else. And in his stead… I bring in Alcryst! Yeah, why not? I still wanna see how this game treats archers in terms of balance in the long-term, so why not pick the lord one? Plus, y’know, ballista. Man, it feels weird not having an Emblem on Pepsiman, the guy whose entire deal is being better at using Emblems. But there just seems to be a better fit for all the ones I have. I think as soon as this battle is over, I’m giving him Roy and seeing how that works out. Main issue here is I’m not sure how aggressive the enemies are going to get. So I need to make a good mix of heading off enemies coming at me and not baiting in enemies who would have initially left me alone. Also, I just realized Pepsiman is fairly underleveled. I should start training him more, and I’ll try to get on that this batt- …I just remembered the main point of the arena I kinda glossed over. BRB. …Alright, so that was pretty cool. Pepsiman won all three fights and gained two levels. Excellent. Alright, back to the fight. …Y’know, maybe it would be nice to have a “skip all” button? Having to skip each individual cutscene and cinematic of the story intro and then wait for the next one I don’t want to watch to load got pretty damned annoying. Alright, let’s get this show on the road. …I was wondering when Diamant’s retainers were gonna show up. We’ve got a male cav named Amber (my condolences), who is… profoundly annoying. Like, his voice reminds me of fucking Benji-kun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ikGvLUbOuU He just sounds so profoundly infantile, and I really just kinda… don’t want to use him or interact with him in any way. At least once I’m not forced to deploy him. …Anyway he’s another lance cav, which feels like a waste, and now I’m wondering where the second retainer is. Will they show up mid-battle? Also, my mistake: upon listening to the Brodian chapter themes more (a lot more), I’ve realized it’s not just the battle version that switches awkwardly to 4/4 at one point. The map version does too, which is more than a little annoying, but it’s not the battle version’s fault. …So I was right, Rise Above doesn’t just raise your level by 5, it gives you 5 more levels worth of stats. At least according to the tutorial slide. Alright, that sounds awesome. I’ll definitely be seeing what Pepsiman can get out of this next chapter. But for now, it’s Diamant’s. …Okay, so, bad news and good news: bad news is that a lot more enemies are rushing the gates at once than I’m what you might call comfortable with. Good news: holy shit, Yunaka’s knife attack animations while engaged with Marth are metal as fuck. This woman moves like she’s had levitation powers her entire goddamned career. It’s beautiful. And I’m getting to use the ballista, and… so it just empowers your basic weapons to be long-range attacks with an accuracy buff? I mean, that’s super from a usability perspective, it fixes something I’ve complained about for ages. But also, in-universe, the actual fuck? So, I just had Amber give his steel greatlance to Louis so he could engage, gallop in, and one-shot a pegasus knight his javelin was just barely too weak to kill. And in doing so, I discovered that when the enemy doubles, they get both of their attacks before you when you use a heavy weapon like this. I mean, that makes sense. How are they gonna do the second attack if you hit and they’re smashed an entire tile away? Gotta let them get it in first or the second attack would make no sense. The ballista animation is only slightly better than it was in Three Houses. It does zoom in for the shot, but it zooms out again for the actual impact. Granted, said zoom-out is way more fluid and impactful than the embarrassing moon-gravity bullshit Three Houses had. Thankfully, I just barely had enough manpower to take out all the enemies rushing us, and mostly cushion Alcryst from the incoming warriors breaking down the walls. Lodestar Rush really helped. Unfortunately I can’t see how much HP the walls have left. Unless I’m missing something, the game doesn’t tell me. …Curiously the enemy doesn’t get both of their attacks first if they go first against a smashing weapon. Mechanically I suppose that isn’t necessary, since smashing weapons don’t smash on enemy phase, but it’s… weird, in a way I can’t properly describe. …So, heavy weapons are excellent for people with Emblems, because all of their drawbacks are negated while using them for special attacks. The enemy can’t counter, and by the looks of things, you can’t miss either. It seems chain attacks can’t break. Good to know. Excellent! Chain guard does defend against poison! Also good to know! Oh shit. Ivy’s on the move now. She’s fast, so I’ve gotta get as many units as possible in attacking range of her at once. Which is tricky, since I don’t know where she’ll land, and also my army is split up. I baited her in with Louis, and given she has 12/28 HP now and only one resurrection stone… I think she’s fucked. …Not quite as fucked as I perhaps hoped due to her pack of defensive skills. But between Warp Ragnarok, Louis’s javelin, and Alcryst’s ballista, we have more than enough to win. Yunaka gets the kill. Ivy: Gh… No… the ring… Wait, are we getting Leif!? …We did! Though apparently it’s tainted at the moment. Either this is gonna be cutscene magic or we need to do a quest to unlock it or something. Optional or story. Though I’m reminded of a scene from the Scarlet Pimpernel musical when the titular protagonist convinces the enemy, while in disguise, that he found the Scarlet Pimpernel, showing the ring the man was wearing as proof. The villain is excited for a second… and then immediately demands how the fuck he managed to get a ring off of someone who escaped on a horse. …Okay, so it wound up just being cutscene magic, like I said. And hilariously simplistic cutscene magic, too. We’ve got Leif. But I have to wonder why he’s the “Emblem of Genealogy”. …Oh! Ivy didn’t get away! She’s still here! Surrounded! That explains so fucking much of how we got that ring! …And then she flew away on her horse. Somehow. The simplistic story scenes make it impossible to fathom what is going on here. Alright, so the king of Elusia is at the border, demanding to speak with King Morion. And King Morion finally demands an explanation for Diamant’s absurd treatment of him. And we get it. Diamant’s got hangups and fears about his father dying now that the Fell Dragon is back and all of his bottled fear about being groomed to be prepared for his father’s death and succeed the throne is coming to the surface. …This feels like a really dumb and rushed emotional arc for Diamant. I really don’t like this. It could’ve been better if it were longer than a single chapter in length. And honestly I suspect it means they’re rushing character development because Morion is going to die. Oh my god. The soul-escaping gasp Alcryst lets out at the idea of him succeeding the throne in the event of Diamant and Morion’s death is… it’s hilarious. Morion: If we step into fear, we step out of Brodia. Cool line, but you’re the country that spends the most time “stepping out of” your country, what with your invasions of Elusia and all. Morion mentions a tournament with their strongest warriors that will be done in celebration of their victory. Well, I saw the arena. Checks out. Morion: I wanna see you transform into a mighty dragon! Whoosh! Roar! FINALLY. FUCKING FINALLY SOMEONE BRINGS IT UP THAT ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM THAT NOBODY HAS TALKED ABOUT EVEN ONCE. EIGHT FUCKING CHAPTERS INTO THE GAME, SOMEONE MENTIONS THAT PEPSIMAN SHOULD BE ABLE TO TURN INTO A DRAGON! And Pepsiman reacts to this awkwardly like it’s literally only just now occurred to him that he should be able to turn into a dragon, and I’m like do you literally go into sleep mode when other human beings aren’t around you? How have you not had time to think about this until now? And we just got 30,000 gold. That is a huge amount of money. It ties for FE7 Battle Preparations. I think only FE9’s ludicrous 70k payout is higher. Alright, I’m back from work, and fuck it. Since you’re gonna have a three-day-long drought and I have more time today than I expected, sure! Let’s have another update. …Uh… one of the knight NPCs just prayed. To me. In person. That was, uh… profoundly awkward, even though the prayer was entirely reasonable. Boucheron tells me he learned a lot from the fight at the castle. Which he didn’t participate in. In a dialogue line he’s less likely to use the more he actually participates. …I’m sorry, but that design decision to have generic bond fragment quotes be a thing that override normal dialogue was beyond asinine. Chloé: It’s not much of a fairy tale if the knight sits on the sidelines all the time, I’m just saying… (10 Bond Fragments) …Do… do characters start to complain if you don’t deploy them enough? Is that what the game’s doing here? I don’t know whether I love or despise that. …Helllloooooo… who’s this lady? She looks significantly older than Fire Emblem usually allows playable female characters to be. …Saphir? That’s a Brodian name to be sure, but her skin is dark, which isn’t the case with any other Brodian I’ve seen. Granted, I’ve seen a handful of dark-skinned NPCs here and there in Firene (including our very own shopkeeper), but the game hasn’t made it clear if that’s just ‘cuz, or if there’s some sort of worldbuilding behind that. I believe the fourth nation is predominantly darker-skinned, so I’m wondering if her family immigrated from there long enough ago to embrace Brodian naming customs, or if this is just a setting where they’re implying that these countries have just kinda had a minority of dark-skinned people since basically forever ago. She definitely looks either playable or like she’s gonna die, so I’m hoping I get her story. Okay, so, back to the Somniel. Yeah, I feel bad about neglecting the arena until now. This is a pretty handy location. I tried to train up Anna but tragically she only won against Jean. Lapis and Alcryst wiped the floor with her, resulting in minimal gain. But shouldn’t they logically be getting victory exp? So here’s something that’s just kinda occurred to me gradually… I’m pretty damned sure Diamante was one of the people I saw in that opening cutscene in the prologue. So that pretty much eliminates that whole thing being a distant flashback. It was the future. So I wonder what the fuck the story was behind it. Lilith is lying flat on her back, asleep with her tummy in the air. I want to pet her so badly, why doesn’t the game let me pet her when we’re out and about!? Alright, so, I’m giving Roy to Pepsiman. He’s long overdue for getting an Emblem back, and this is right up his alley. Swords, fire attacks, what’s not to love? …What the actual fuck. Leif gives proficiency with damned near everything. Whoever uses Leif enough could basically promote into whatever the fuck they please. I’m giving it to Diamant for now, but I’m going to think on that. Lessee… what’s Diamant’s promotion look like? So he gets axes and sol when he promotes? Noted. Duuuuuuly noted. I wonder when the hell I’ll start getting second seals. Apparently now! WOO! The shop updated! We’ve got infinite tonics, we’ve got some more staves, and we’ve got a couple of master and second seals! …We’ve got… ….We’ve got rewarp. Rewarp is back. Rewarp is back. Rewarp is heavily nerfed, but it’s fucking back! …And to my immense dismay, there appears to be no way to buy items in bulk. We’re back to Awakening in regards to tonic buying. …No game should ever let you hear a voice line in such rapid succession that it begins to feel artificial and synthetic. Even Three Houses, for all the “this one ye-I thank you” memes, let you buy items in bulk! Okay, so, the armory has new items. Including a fist art that gives you +5 defense, which is pretty cool. But what’s curious is that wind is both weaker and slightly less accurate than fire, for the same weight. Only advantage is the flier-slaying properties. I stopped by the Amiibo Gazebo, and Roy’s song is Beneath a New Light, the original, not the Heroes tweak. Leif’s is… fingers crossed… wait for it… …Not here. I just have the Micaiah one I forgot to get available. Why isn’t Leif here? Leif doesn’t have an outfit either! What gives? …Oh that’s nice! There’s a little section on the map fast travel menu that tells you if anything’s changed! That’s pretty coo- …Oh. …Oh no. Oh sweet mother of mercy of fuck. God help us all. Fishing is back. …Okay, there’s a cap on 3 times, that’s somewhat encouraging… …Lilith is helping me, that’s adorable… …Okay, this is acceptable. I won’t be doing it much, but it doesn’t feel like something I need to do much. Just if I want some fish for cooking. There also feels like significantly less min-max pressure, what with it not being a crucial source of some professor rank exp equivalent. Oh, I have a support with Alcryst? Let’s see… …Jesus Christ he’s groveling to a wolf. …He mentions the inconvenience him being eaten would be to his colleagues who would spend says looking for him without avail, and I’m sitting here wondering if he thinks Pepsiman wouldn’t fucking tell people what happened to him. …And… it worked. The wolf left. I do like that they actually showed him groveling on the ground though. Three Houses would never even attempt a pose that close to the ground. I can’t get over how Alcryst and Pepsiman have just about the same fucking shade of blue hair. Alright, what other supports do we have? Clanne and Louis C? …Louis has a line in this support that sounds… like an AI deepfake. Louis: My apologies. I thought I heard someone mention my prince’s name. The inflection feels choppy, like it’s heavily edited from multiple takes to the degree that it barely sounds like a human being anymore. It’s a mildly interesting support concept, but it feels like a Fates-style “one single support artificially chopped into three parts” setup here, with Louis agreeing to help Clanne rehearse for his meeting with Prince Alfred later, and then… it just ends. Alfred and Yunaka’s C. Yunaka is kinda shocked nobody’s been doing more thorough background checks on her and is actually kind of uncomfortable with how trusting everyone is. And Alfred uses this as an opportunity to chat with Yunaka and get to know her better. Yunaka: Think about it, chum! I could be an enemy spy! Alfred: Mmmm, probably not though. I trust you! Honestly, this is a pretty charming line read. “Maybe I shouldn’t look this gift knife in the serrated bevel” …Okay that’s a good line too. Anna and Lapis’s C. Apparently Lapis crafts things as a hobby and Anna’s little Ferengi gremlin ears hear profit in the wind. Yet again it’s an “intro to a story” conversation that’s more a tease of what’s to come, which is a bit frustrating. I’m looking at Anna’s class changing options, and I’m noticing that she has better overall stats when reclassed to basically any other type of unit but backup. I’ll keep that in mind, and also, I don’t like it. Alright, I remembered to cook this time, and now we have +2lck/+1def/+1res next battle. Speaking of… I’m not sure I’ll have time to do it… but let’s at least see what next chapter is about… …Oh wow, it’s just sunk in that we’re actually going to Elusia. Some part of me assumed that would be last, and we’d be backtracking to the “Queendom of Freedom” first. …So Morion didn’t take the ring to the big offscreen fight up ahead. …Oh, not so offscreen after all. Wow, this is actually a fairly elaborate war scene. More than I expected to be sure. …The fact that we haven’t been allowed to participate in this battle is just screaming even louder that Morion is going to die. …The Elusian king… is fighting unarmed. …And despite refusing based on honor to wear an Emblem ring himself… Morion just fucking stands there when he has the king dead to rights and lets this fucker put on his corrupted ring. …Oh shit. …Not that I didn’t see this coming a fucking mile away, but the specific fact that Lyn dealt the finishing blow is pretty harsh. What other FE lord can say they’ve orphaned another FE lord? …Y’know, assuming their mom is dead and not just irrelevant. …Okay, so… he’s still alive apparently? Just heavily incapacitated and we’re trying to save him? Uh, okay. Something tells me we won’t succeed though. His death sounds pretty important to the un-thwartable stage 1 of the bad guys’ plans if the king’s words are anything to go by. …Ivy’s just kinda… dead inside, apparently having accepted that her father expects her to die to cover their retreat. Oof. I hope this means we recruit her when we win! …Oh hey, another armor knight! With a good deal less defense and a bit more res. And a personal that gives her 2 more res when she waits. Interesting, but personally I prefer Louis a lot. …Yeah I’m not completing and editing this in the time I have left, sorry. I’ll leave this here and jump right into it on Friday. Alastor, signing off!

I ain't complainin'. Replicate kicks ass for rally bots.