Alastor15243

Nope! Her line never turned black and Lodestar Rush never showed up in the corner of the screen to show how much damage she'd do! It happened once when I was approaching her and then never again. No prob.

Engage Day 21: Chapter 17 Alright, no sense in holding this off. This chapter clearly has some sort of anti-Emblem gimmick from the way people in the thread have been talking about it, so no sense doing more paralogues until I’m past it. Let’s prep. Hortensia clearly has no idea what she’s doing in the kitchen, but she still managed a B with her peach cake, adding a +2 res bonus for all women. Hortensia: I packed you a meal! With chaos! I mean love. PFFFFF Alright, time for supports. Pepsiman and Ivy’s C. Ahhhh, opening up with some good ol’ Pepsiman bread and butter: awkwardness at the weirdness of everyone around him. I’m surprised how they manage to make this endearing every time. But he asks Ivy to explain Elusia’s whole “worshipping the Fell Dragon” thing. …But she says no, she’s going to leave, and she drops yet another hint that she knows he’s a Fell Dragon. Which begs the question… how does she know and Zephia doesn’t? Was Hyacinth keeping secrets from Sombron? Or was Sombron keeping secrets from Zephia that he trusted Hyacinth for some reason? The former seems vastly more likely. Which begs so many questions of how the fuck this support is supposed to go if it happens post-reveal. Is it something Pepsiman himself never finds out in the main story or something? Pepsiman and Kagetsu’s C. Kagetsu: Since you appear human, I am curious – what are the differences between dragon and human? A very good question! But alas, Pepsiman is almost assuredly the worst person to ask that question. He is the most incurious individual about his fantastic heritage that I have ever seen. …But he does know some things, namely longer lifespan and superior strength and speed. PFFFFFFFFF Kagetsu already thinks they’re friends, but Pepsiman’s basically like “Uh, this is our C support man, we’ve barely spoken”. But of course they decide they are friends because this is a Fire Emblem game. Pepsiman: So I should get comfortable and brace for more questions. Got it. Maaaaaaaan they’re good at writing the awkwardness. Alcryst and Ivy’s C. …Huh… this is… what? Alcryst is just stone-cold unforgiving to Ivy. Steely, actually, in his interactions with her. No self-deprecation so far, no groveling, just eyes full of “fuck you and the wyvern you flew in on, your dad beat up my dad and killed him”. …Why he has almost the exact opposite attitude with Hortensia… beggars explanation. …He’s taken off guard when Ivy actually apologizes for her role in Morion’s death, and they talk about what they’ll need to do to move past this. …Okay, so, like… I liked this support. I also liked his support with Hortensia. I do not like that they both exist in the same reality with the same character with the same personality and motivations. They feel fundamentally contradictory to me. Merrin and Kagetsu’s C. So Kagetsu drops his riceball, and, uh… maybe this is the best time to ask this… …Where exactly is Kagetsu from? Like, every Fire Emblem game has an Asian-inspired country, or, bare minimum, a country that invented the katana and knows how to use it. Whether it’s the nomads of Sacae, or the swordmasters of Isaach, or the unseen Valmese land of Chon’sin that’s heavily implied to just be Ram Village under new management, the devs always find some way to justify putting Glorious Nippon Steel and the warriors who love it into the game, usually in the form of the killing edge or wo dao (which, fun fact, is Chinese for “Japanese sword”). Where is that place here? Because Kagetsu’s clearly from it, what with how blatantly Japanese he is. Clearly there’s some part of this world with a culture heavily based on Japan. Is it a part of Elusia? Or is he an immigrant still heavily attached to his home culture despite for a while being so loyal to his new country that he’d commit war crimes for it? If it’s the latter, I’m betting it’s Firene, because you just know they’d want it to be a place where cherry blossoms bloom majestically. I seriously doubt it’s a Brodian territory. Given Elusia’s animosity with Brodia I seriously doubt that he managed to become a high-ranking member of the Elusian royal guard while decked out from head to toe in Brodian swag. And maybe I could make a better guess as to the odds of it being Solmic if I had any idea how the fuck the ethnic demographics of Solm even work. Seriously, the rulers are black, the citizens are middle-eastern, and the retainers are white. What gives? But anyway, Kagetsu drops his rice ball, and Merrin offers him some candy. PFFFFFFFFFFFFF Merrin is completely taken aback that the reason Kagetsu needed energy was to challenge Princess Timerra to single combat. And Merrin… takes exception to that. Not sure why. Kagetsu clearly means it in good sporting fun, and Timerra… does not remotely strike me as the sort of person who would object to a fight. I guess she just has a complex about chivalry and protecting her liege even when she doesn’t need protecting. Which makes sense with the whole knight obsession thing. And she’s basically like “if you want to fight her, you have to get through me first!” and Kagetsu’s like “Oh hey! Sure! That sounds fun too!” …Except no, he backtracks and says he “would not feel right about repaying [her] so roughly”. So he backs down. “For now”. Finally, Kagetsu and Céline’s C. Oh yeah! I just realized another reason why I initially thought Céline was the crown child and not Alfred: her crown! Her fucking crown is so much swankier than Alfred’s, it’s hilarious. Alfred barely even has a crown, it’s more of a wreath! Meanwhile Céline has that fucking high-spired golden monolith with flowers over the head and butterflies on the sides! Hell, her crown is fancier than her fucking mom’s! …But yeah, Kagetsu invites her to tea, and when she says she just had tea, challenges her to mock combat, and she laughs about how most people wouldn’t do those things in such quick succession so casually to a princess. It’s short, but it gives me a more solidified impression of Kagetsu’s personality. Alright. Bullet, meet teeth. Let’s jump into Chapter 17. …And we’re clearly not using their teleportation powers to beat Elusia to the punch, and they seem to have set fire to Florra port. …Well, that was… curious. Has the game done that before? Done a panning shot of a map like that? Not in cutscene form, but clearly the same map we’ll be fighting on when the battle starts? …Uh… …Please don’t tell me that Zephia and Griss are about to try and frame us for setting fire to Florra port in front of Good Veyle. That would be so beyond idiotic and absurd. Especially when Firene’s crown prince is present. …No, seems not. Good. But Veyle insists they only just got to port when it was already on fire. And since this is Good Veyle, she isn’t lying. So did they send people ahead of them to do this? Pepsiman: You’re Sombron’s daughter. How can you not know what his forces are doing? A VERY GOOD QUESTION. Veyle: I’m… not sure. A VERY BAD ANSWER. …And Zephia and Griss flat-out tell Veyle that she’s the one who ordered the town burned. Guess she had a very quick “nap” on the ship and stayed evil just long enough to do that. Either that or they’re gaslighting her with lies… to convince her of something true… that they’ve been trying to keep from her before. It seems that the bad guys are just… emotionally torturing her with the reveal that she has an evil side… in front of the heroes that it would really benefit them not to vindicate Good Veyle in front of. …So it was Zephia who did the brainwashing to create Evil Veyle. Zephia: There you have it, Lady Veyle! I’d say the misunderstanding has been resolved. …Okay. As much as this scene is idiotic sadism for the sake of sadism that isn’t even the most practical way to be sadistic… I do like that line. How she kept her word in the worst possible way. And now we get a cutscene where Zephia puts Good Veyle to sleep. Evil Veyle: You know, seeing as how I don’t share memories with that pathetic little girl, I had no idea you and I were friends now. THEN HOW DO YOU KNOW IT NOW!? NOBODY SAID ANYTHING ABOUT IT SINCE YOU WOKE UP! Alright, cutscene ends, we’re on the map, and… Evil Veyle: Oh, that’s right. I have an exciting surprise for you. Here it comes. What’s up now? …Corrupted… Hyacinth…? Speaking in complete sentences? Evil Veyle apparently has a greater talent for bringing back the dead as zombie servants than even Sombron, according to her. Hence why this one looks so much more human. Particularly impressive since Sombron fucking digested him. So she can apparently resurrect the dead just like they used to be, “but at times that can be a hindrance, so [she] made some modifications”. Lemme guess, this is why Lumera had such a weird defeat quote for a friendly spar? Also, okay, really? Veyle can fucking resurrect the dead with zero consequences, and they haven’t been using this to have Marni and Griss actually genuinely repeatedly die? Like, okay, with Zephia maybe I’d believe she can’t completely resurrect a dragon, sure, and maybe I’d believe that having Mauvier get reanimated might have some consequences for when he’s recruited, especially if she got rid of his redeeming qualities, but surely, surely the story could have let Marni and Griss die repeatedly before now, no? …So, Veyle says all the Emblem Rings are here. All of them. Oh shit. Oh shit. Please tell me this is where we get all of the rings back! …So Marni has Roy. Hold on… does that mean that even the unrecruitable bosses have growth rates at least for use with Roy’s skill? …Griss has Celica and is… a sage? Seriously? If I expected anyone in the game to use arts, it would be this fucker. Then again, the ab window is on form for sages in this game, as I so uncomfortably learned. …Griss has bolganone, which looks absolutely devastating. Not to mention the whole “warp Ragnarok” thing. Mauvier has Micaiah, which is profoundly redundant given he could already use staves as a royal knight. And they didn’t even give him any truly scary staves to use with her powers, just recover. Zephia has Sigurd. Her reach is long, but thankfully Alcryst’s is longer. She has stalwart, so effectiveness is reduced, but reduced doesn’t mean negated. He should still do a decent amount of damage, and the point is to get her to start moving so we don’t have to get uncomfortably close to her before we can fight her. Hyacinth has Leif, and also the killer axe and master lance, along with a speed-bosting art. Which means he has WTA on everything but arts and axes. Incidentally… Heroes declared that the Master Sword has been officially localized as the Meisterschwert (German for the same). Understandable why they wouldn’t want people to think it was an LoZ reference, even though they could get away with it as a Nintendo Property. …So why isn’t this Master Lance called the Meisterlanze? Veyle has Marth… but curiously lacks that personal dagger I saw her have last time. The Misericorde I believe it was called? But she still has her personal tome. Oh shit! Micaiah’s advanced tome is nosferatu! Wow, that’s gonna make Clanne pretty impressive once she’s back on him! Yeah, I’ve decided I’m gonna reclass him to mage knight right after I get Micaiah back. Physic and rewarp are rank C, amazingly, so he’ll be more than good enough with staves. Alright, hopefully the only reason the DLC Emblems undermine this is that it keeps it from being a 6 on 6 Emblem battle. That is… a better reason for this comment being made than I was dreading. Alright. We’ve got two corrupted wyrms, and they’re close to each other, but the perimeter around them has tons of refill tiles, so I think Rosado can handle this. I’m going to avoid getting into their ranges before he’s ready to fight them, though. This should be a somewhat rough fight, but the good news is that I have one unit who can enemy-phase all the units half the time (Merrin + Ike), one who can enemy-phase half of the units all of the time (Louis), and another who can enemy-phase all of the units all of the time (Yunaka + Corrin). Plus, I have a pretty decent chunk of units who are good on player phase. I’m not too worried. Unless they throw a massive curve-ball at me after the start menu. Well, only one way to find out. …Ooh! New music! Ominous blaring horns and thunderous drums, okay, what’s next…? …Okay, this is pretty good at setting the tone but not particularly- OH SHIT, THAT CHORUS IS SO SAD. I GOT CHILLS WHEN VEYLE’S LEITMOTIF STARTED PLAYING. …Alright, let’s get moving. Alcryst will definitely be able to recharge his special by the time it’s time to face Zephia, so I had him come out the gate with an Astra storm on an archer guarding the first corrupted wyrm. Given that Rosado’s the one who’s going to be fighting them, yeaaaaah, best to get that out of the way. Speaking of which, I’ve confirmed that the effective damage formula is the same here as in other games. Triple weapon might. Which is unfortunate, given that the game doesn’t give you any way to look at raw weapon might inside battle. You have to just subtract strength from your total power if you wanna calculate how much damage enemy slayers will do. Probably the most annoying part of the interface in a game that makes a lot of improvements, I have to say. This honestly feels like a sidestep from the upper-tier games in a frustrating way. It had the right ideas to surpass Fates but made a couple of frustrating mistakes that hold it back. …And a lot of enemies are rushing me from the start! Noted! Griss is gonna warp Ragnarok us, but thankfully, only Seadall can’t take the hit. Just gotta make sure he’s not in range, and also that Griss doesn’t get the chance to end his turn on defensive terrain, which could be a paaaaain. …I’ve also noticed that broken units, despite not holding their weapon, still hold their hands out like they are. Which for two-handed weapons looks really odd. Griss: You hit me, I hit you! Let’s get this pain party started! It is simultaneously fitting and ironic that Griss has Celica as his Emblem. Celica has the closest thing so far I’ve seen to a counter skill… but it only works on the minions of his own side. Also, thankfully he’s using Seraphim and not bolganone. Bolganone would severely limit the number of units who could survive attacking him. …They’re running away when we beat them. Please tell me we nab their rings. …No mention of it. Guess we’ll have to wait until after the battle to see how many, if any, of these rings we manage to recover. …A lot of enemies, including a corrupted wyrm, are rushing us at once. And Yunaka can’t stem the enemies coming from the other direction without ending her turn adjacent to two backup units, so let’s, uh, not risk that. Instead, I’ll be using Pepsiman’s big dance to get enough moves to get all of these enemies dead by the end of player phase. …I wonder why the Goddess Dance has a water motif. Water’s Azura’s thing when it comes to dancers, no? I don’t remember the Goddess Dance being associated with water in Three Houses. But then, I tend to repress a lot of my memories from Three Houses. Query: Dragon veins dispel miasma. Do they also put out fires? Answer: Yes! They do! Awesome, good to know! Yunaka will be on bucket brigade while she, Louis, Clanne and Framme go up north and then west. The rest will go after Marni and Mauvier from the south, then we’ll regroup when we fight the second corrupted wyrm. I baited in Marni with Merrin using Great Aether and Urvan, and Mauvier is now on the move. Also, I learned that apparently you can still technically be broken while using Great Aether, but since Great Aether starts at the very, very start of your player phase, it doesn’t cancel the attack. I just barely managed to finish off Marni and her armor knights. Roy’s “don’t die” ability really complicated things and doubled the number of attacks I needed to use to finish the job. But by leaving the weak healer alive and using the hopelessly heavy silver bow on Marni while in range of a slow royal knight, I just barely managed to do it. Meanwhile, Yunaka will attract the attention of most of the other forces. Now to step on that refill tile with Rosado before the corrupted wyrm gets too close. Maybe Seadall can help. …Okay so Yunaka only managed to attract the attention of Mauvier. But that’s fine. Seadall managed to get Rosado to take out an enemy and step on a refill tile. Excellent. Now to finish off the rest. …Okay, so “night and day” seems to not cost you any of your other actions. Interesting. Good to experiment with that when I have the chance. Also, I noticed Mauvier seemed to make it plain in his battle dialogue that he’s loyal to Veyle. I suspect that’s how we’ll recruit him, through that. Though really, it would’ve been nice if we got a single scene before now between Good Veyle and Mauvier so we could see their dynamic. OH SHIT, EVERYONE’S CHARGING US! Okay, so, Merrin’s doing something pretty damned risky and ballsy, and running right up to the corrupted wyrm with her silver dagger and her last turn of Ike engagement. She hobbled the thing, meaning it’ll have to attack her from a range she can counter, and with all damage she takes halved and no backups nearby, she should be able to wreak havoc on these upcoming cavalry. Now I just have to get my army ready to make a shockingly, dazzlingly impressive player phase gambit. Meanwhile, Yunaka’s using her fog to keep Mauvier from attacking anyone but her. She’ll join the fight as soon as she and her allies can finish him off. Thankfully the only one who isn’t charging us right now is the absolute last one I’d want charging anybody: Zephia. Meaning we still have time to finish off these enemies before the hounds are upon us. …I totally forgot they were literally called hounds when I wrote that, I swear. Alright, thankfully I managed to get Hyacinth to pay attention to Yunaka. That way all my main southern group has to worry about is Veyle. I can have Yunaka retreat and fog up in order to keep Hyacinth from being able to ever use quad hit on her if that turns out to be lethally dangerous. But we’ll see how dangerous it is when we see the damage indicator. For now, he has to attack with the master lance if he wants to attack her. Key word being attack, not hit. Corrupted Hyacinth: I remember nothing... That look on your face – is it fear or hatred? Interestingly, this is a haiku that gave two of its middle verse’s syllables to its outer ones. Hyacinth doesn’t seem to be programmed to use Quad Hit. I’m not getting the warning message that it’s happening. …I just did something that seems like it will work, but also seems batshit suicidally insane. I just had Yunaka attract the attention of both Hyacinth and Veyle at once. Veyle: Ah, a new toy! I’m going to enjoy this. Can you defeat your old friend Marth? …Strangely fitting that she says this to Yunaka, who was Marth’s last partner. I used Alcryst’ special to finish off Veyle’s first health bar, and she goes ultra instinct, unlocking Mercurius. Thankfully, she hasn’t got shit on Yunaka, especially if she backs away to avoid getting Lodestar Rushed. …Weirdly, Veyle doesn’t seem inclined to use Lodestar Rush at all anymore. Despite the fact that she was ready to use it when I initially approached her with Yunaka, prompting me to take a step back to be safe. I’ve taken out both of the healers who were annoyedly physicing the bosses, so now it’s just a matter of time before Veyle and Hyacinth fall. And I’ll make sure that Zephia finds the main army a closer and more tempting target, because if she flies with her movement score near Yunaka’s group, no amount of fog will be able to hold the line. …It would seem that “adaptable” prioritizes being able to counterattack over WTA. Which makes sense in some circumstances, but makes it easier for me to do my job after Hyacinth charged in after us. …Meaning Ivy gets to have a chat with dear ol’ dad. Oh shit. This conversation goes hard. Ivy: Father. I’ve not seen you since we were at the Brodian border. That was our farewell. In this life, at least. Corrupted Hyacinth: It need not be. I can appeal to Lord Sombron – ask him to welcome you back as our ally. Ivy: No. You are… not you. I will not cling tearfully to my father’s shadow. But I am grateful for this. Grateful for the chance to thank you, say goodbye, and tell you that as Elusia’s queen… I will surpass you. Honestly, the saddest part of this game for me is that they set out right out of the gate with a premise full of cheesy nonsense… only to proceed to demonstrate that they could have made something much more. And now I’m sending poor Hortensia to fight her father too. She says she wants to follow the path of her father. Her real father. Before Sombron ruined him. And then she says goodbye, and that she loves him. Now let’s let Alcryst get the finishing blow on the man who killed his father. With the help of the Emblem he used to do it. …No dialogue? Really? Fuck, that would’ve been great. But anyway, Alcryst still levels from it, a pretty good one at that, and gets Luna, his class skill. Yunaka defeats Veyle, and now all that’s left is Zephia, who’s missed her opportunity to fuck us up by making us deal with three bosses at once. Anyway, I have Merrin engage and bait her in. Aaaand she’s down! …And judging by what the villains are saying, we only managed to recover Leif’s ring, since Hyacinth was the only one who actually died. Mauvier pointedly says he’ll take Marth’s ring. Which means that’s probably what we’re getting next. …Oh shit. Oh shit. I think Veyle’s turned good again, and is pretending to be Evil Veyle in order to order Zephia to give Sigurd to her. The camera is very conspicuously pointed away from Veyle so we can’t see her tell-tale color-changing eyes. Are we getting Marth and Sigurd back now? Yep! Well, at least Sigurd. …The backdrop’s still on the shore, despite the cutscene showing her throwing it from a boat. …Actually I’m not sure what it is. From the brief glimps of what I saw it looked like a raft that gave way to the water on one side… and to the roof of Peach’s castle on the other. Zephia slaps Veyle and voices her intentions of silencing Good Veyle forever. …Timerra’s… like… present in this conversation with the good guys for some reason… despite so far not saying a word. …Okay, she has one line. …Either this game has a really cool method of imposing an ending to the song on almost any point of it… or I timed the song perfectly to end right at this very slow, beautiful piano ending, before the dead silence that follows in the exploration. …Which would probably be more impactful if they gave some damned ocean ambiance. All I can hear, literally all I can hear, is the faint audible glowing of the “proceed” zone. It’s frankly eerie, and not the good kind of eerie. If this were meant to be, like, the world after Ashera turned everyone to stone? Sure, this kind of eerie would be chilling. But it just makes the area feel pathetically incomplete. …Okay, so the ocean sounds do show up when we get closer to the harbor. But there shouldn’t be dead silence around the exit. And the game lets us adopt cats that I suppose we’re supposed to assume belong to people who have died, and not survivors whose cats merely got lost in the chaos. Villager: All my prayers were for nothing. So much for gods… Oof. That kinda hit hard. Alright, exit scene time. …or not. Just straight to the world map this time? …Alright. Time for some cleanup then. And I’ve got something I know I want to do now. Merrin’s gonna take a trip to the arena to build up some bonds. First, train with Leif to level 6. …Then Ike to level 15. And with that… …Merrin can inherit build+4 and wield Ragnell with only a single point of penalty in speed! …Well no, she doesn’t have the SP yet. But she will. And she can at least get build+3, so only a 2 penalty. And now Sigurd’s going back where he belongs, on his old friend Louis, and Leif… Hmmm… Well Diamant has kinda fallen out of use, so who to put Leif on… …And here we run into a bit of a problem. We’ve sort of run out of physical units to put physical Emblems on. And Leif unfortunately doesn’t seem to provide any good benefits for mages. Lessee, who does that I might be overlooking? …Well for now I can always give Byleth to Clanne and then Leif to Pepsiman, but that’s just a quick fix, really. Two of the remaining four are still physical-focused (though Marth at least can be put on a mystical unit with pretty kickass results). And who the fuck am I gonna put on my dancer? The only one of them he stands to gain any real benefit from as far as I can tell is Sigurd, and that seems like a titanic waste. …Maybe something more sensible will come to me later, when I’m looking at all 12. Also I’m assuming 12 will remain the maximum deployment limit for the rest of the game. A big assumption. For now, Pepsiman gets Leif, Clanne gets Byleth. …Weirdly, Sigurd’s ring is fairly dirty, while Leif’s is mostly clean. Did the enemy just consistently maintain them at the same amount of dirt I left on them last time I had them? That is… spectacularly ridiculous to think about. Also, the firm polishing seems to consistently weird the Emblems out no matter how dirty they are when you use it. They all act like it’s overkill and that the ring isn’t dirty enough to warrant it. …No, it seems more like there are specific spots you’re supposed to clean… the game is just very bad at making it apparent what those spots are. …I thiiiiiiink that now I’m going to go on a paralogue spree. Just catch up on my backlog. Starting with Lyn, since Alcryst is at level 10 with that. Ivy is surprisingly high level for a pretty much exclusively player-phase unit. Lindwurm level 10. She’s somehow my highest level unit, in an army that includes Yunaka. Also, she got a near total level up and said “The Divine Dragon has blessed me”. …Which makes me think there could be an alternative, far more spoiler-irrelevant, explanation for all of her “my deity” and “worship” comments. I may have jumped the gun and drawn the wrong conclusion entirely from that. She could just straight up be a secret Divine Dragon worshipper. None of this “she somehow knows Pepsiman’s true identity when not even Zephia does” stuff, she’s just a secret Divine Dragon worshipper who’s kept this hidden from her Sombron-worshipping family. …Which could make the reveal quite amusing in that context. Rosado lost to Alcryst due to luna. I mean, awesome for him, but Rosado was the one I needed to win for the level up. …There’s a new thing at the training yard. A dragon wing icon? …Wyvern Ride? …Seems like a flying minigame. Alright, let’s check it out! LILITH IS HELPING! SHE’S SITTING ON A WYVERN’S HEAD! THAT’S ADORABLE! Okay, so it’s more of a rail shooter, which isn’t that fun, but on the plus side, I apparently got a SSS ranking on my first try. Lilith helped by exploding certain I’m assuming Lilith-only tiles for me. That got me 100 bond fragments, two elixirs and a vulnerary. Okay, cool. Let’s see what else… do the stories have anything new, incidentally? Some more physics, a fortify, warp and rescue, infinite obstruct staves, infinite reclassing and promotion at long last, pretty good haul, but I’m still short on cash to spend on it. Hopefully the cash I’ve seen periodically dropped in paralogues will somewhat ameliorate that. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something. I’ve got some supports too, so let’s get through those. Pepsiman and Alcryst’s B. …Alcryst… apparently continuously stands at the ready to bow in case he needs to apologize for something. …Sigh. …It’s kind of depressing how being so miserable can make you annoying. But like, seriously, why is he like this? Nobody is just “like this”. Like, Bernadetta was like this because she was physically and emotionally abused by her shit of a father and terrified of shaming herself or angering the people around her, to the point that she fled social interaction whenever possible just to minimize the chances of fucking up. That makes sense. But like, Morion gave no signs that he was remotely anything like Bernadetta’s father. In fact, from the brief glimpse we got, he seemed aware of and sad about his son’s low self-esteem, but utterly clueless how to fix it. So what the fuck happened to this guy? Merrin and Rosado’s C. Oh shit! Tomboy meets femboy! Let’s goooooooo- …Creepy ominous music is playing, like, bad guy music, which makes me certain I’m being set up for a bait and switch joke where they’re taking something utterly stupid completely seriously. Yeah, they’re talking about battling, so what’s their utterly stupid battle going to be about? PFFFFFFFFF Rosado: Cool versus cute! …They’re apparently going to go on a scavenger hunt, Rosado looking for the cutest thing he can find, Merrin the coolest thing she can find, and they’ll compare. I will say, part of me was hoping this was going to be about Rosado’s wyvern. Merrin would be a good avenue for that, what with her love of animals, and it would be nice to get some background on how Rosado wound up being a wyvern knight. I want that story. …Merrin did an explosion sound effect that wasn’t in the script before “blow your mind” and it was hysterical. Hortensia and Rosado’s C. So Rosado drew Hortensia while she was staring into space, and Hortensia thinks she looks boring, but Rosado likes it. …Yeah, I’m intrigued. I wonder where this is going. This could be interesting. Also, bonds. Pepsiman and Byleth’s B. …Pepsiman just wanted to call Byleth professor. Okay. …Ah yes, the Vajra-Mushti. I wonder if those still use a mix of physical and magical power. At least it targets the lower of def and res. Yunaka and Corrin’s B. …Yunaka’s just gaslighting the girl fighting literally right alongside her, trying to deny how scary she gets in combat. Rosado and Eirika’s C. Eirika compliments Rosado’s drawing ability, while Rosado’s all “Girl I like your face”, obladi, oblada, bond is done brah. Speaking of bonds, unless Maddening does something to more heavily punish dodgetanking, I think Corrin may be way too overpowered. Personally, I think dragon vein should have been while engaged only. That might have done some good to put a cap on how broken Yunaka can be with her. But then, Yunaka’s just as invincible on any defensive terrain; all this does is let her take it with her. I suppose coverts being way too easy to turn into dodgetanks is the real problem. Oh well, we’ll see how later chapters handle this. I find it hilarious that Goldmary in her swimsuit by the pool says she takes well to the water, when in her intro chapter she was complaining about how gross the rising tide was. …Okay, I think I’m done with the Somniel for now. Tomorrow I’m going to do my best to do Lyn’s paralogue. After that? Well, I’m gonna see if I’m ballsy enough to try Eirika’s, probably. Like I said. I. Need. Closure. Alastor, signing off.

Body ring. The con stat booster. I don't recall Fomortiis's chamber being visible in the original map. The fact that one-rounding enemies is still a pretty tricky feat probably has something to do with this.

I haven't noticed any accuracy issues from her. Matter of fact, I don't remember having her miss yet. Guess that didn't happen because I cut him off using Yunaka and her fog right at the turn in his little area and kept him occupied on her. Does Ike go last in the turn? I seem to remember that being the case but I'm not sure. If so, good design to make sure you aren't ambushed from that.

Nope! That can happen? Also, no, single minded didn't seem to activate.

9 turns. Well, Lucina was where she was in the original, and so was Eirika.

Engage Day 20: Lucina and Ike Paralogues Alright, apparently Lucina’s is the easiest of these, so let’s give this a look. But first! Moment of truth! What does Engage think the most iconic Sacred Stones song is!? …Shit, wait, gotta quit my Maddening run first. Yeah, like I said (kinda got lost in the chat), I’ve got a really positive impression of Maddening’s difficulty curve. The beginning is really manageable so far, to the point that I kinda wish in hindsight I picked it. And also, a few things I noticed: Lumera saying “Being your mother… becoming your mother…” as she was dying. I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on that and add it to the “Pepsiman is adopted” evidence list. The Céline, Louis and Chloé intro cinematic hints at Louis and Chloé’s personal skills, and also both of them have personal skills that are active when the three of them are together. Also, another thing I’m gonna be on the lookout for, something I set a reminder for myself to keep an eye out regarding: I don’t remember seeing Timerra in the last story scene. I… seriously hope that Timerra isn’t going to be cut out of the main plot. That would be profoundly weird given that every other country has a representative in the main cast. …PFFFFFF I love how the royal capitals are among the places that can just casually get overrun with Corrupted. I get it would be lame if those maps were singled out as places we never got to fight in again, but it’s pretty goofy storywise. Alright, as usual, let’s check out the chapter before evacuating to do Somniel stuff with a better idea of what we need. Oh! Is that the first time we’ve got confirmation of the pronunciation of “Ferox”? I figured it wasn’t “Ferrow” due to “Feroxi” making “Ferowi” sound outrageously dumb, but it’s good to have confirmation that the x is pronounced like an actual x. …Okay, so after some mostly-accurate (it’s all technically true, but they omitted the time travel element) lore recap about the significance of the location, we’re told we need to fight here to make our bond stronger. It seems that these things are magical locations tied to the Emblem Rings (I just recently realized both Emblem and Ring are capitalized in that context), hence why they look identical to places from the Emblems’ original settings. Though I do call bullshit on this, because Brodia was already confirmed in story to already have an arena. Is this not it? Ah! Six units! Just like the original map! Okay, what other curve balls are you throwing at us here? Okay, so obviously you can’t use Lucina in this map because she’s our opponent. She’s been unequipped from Merrin, which is fine since I won’t be bringing her anyway due to the tiny deployment list. But I wonder… once I leave… will she still be unequipped? That would be annoying. Alright, back to Somniel to do business. First! To the amiibo gazebo! …Okay, “The Final Battle” is a pretty fantastic song, I won’t knock their taste. Just not the one I would have picked. But I really hope their paralogue battle is Truth, Despair and Hope. I guess I’ll find out eventually. I just hope the moment of truth won’t give me despair. I’m making a peach cake with Panette for Rosado and Merrin. I got a C, and an additional 2 strength. Fantastic. …Lucina is still unequipped from Merrin. Shame. …Did Alcryst just fight Ike as a normal arena battle? I’ve never seen that happen with Emblems before. Alright, well, that was just barely enough to get him to level 19, so time to promote him. Oh hey, also, I experimented putting non-magic Emblems on Clanne on my Maddening file, and I found out that mystic bonuses often consist of adding their magic into their attacks. In fact, Lodestar Rush becomes a purely magical attack when a mage uses Marth! …So Gentility is just an objectively superior version of res+3 or def+3. In that it does both, and also has the option of being converted, for every unit holding it, into a damage boost. Alright, how expensive is it? That’d be nice to get on some of my units. …TWO THOUSAND SP. THE FUCK? I mean, it’s good, but is it that good? Alright, let’s set that aside for now. Let’s do this Lucina battle already. Oooh! It’s a cover of Destiny! Nice! I don’t like it as much as the original so far, but let’s see how the battle version sounds! Oh, not just that, also a cover of her theme too? …It’s a really disappointing that the enemy phase theme is just the arena lobby theme. Why? It’s not even a good map or battle theme! Why not just keep this original theme going? It sucks I can only hear the more actiony part on player phase. Especially since one of my best units, Yunaka, is an enemy-phase unit. I do appreciate I’m getting some money from this though. So Yunaka completely butchered Lucina’s first HP bar on enemy phase, so the second one was a cinch. Yeah, this was pretty trivially easy, but in fairness it’s been available for a while. And that was over super quick, but then, so was the map it was based on. PFFFF Zelkov says he should go looking for herbs… in an arena. Alright, let’s get out of here and hurry up to have time to do another of these paralogues. Oh shoot, I forgot to feed and pet Lilith last map! And as I feared, that reduces our relationship. But a single feeding is enough to mend it, so that’s good. Hm? New place opened up? Looks like a fortune teller. …And that’s exactly what it is, except they use a hyphen between fortune and teller. …Only available in the evening, huh? Well anyway, let’s do Yunaka’s bond with Corrin and then some supports. That bond was pretty uneventful. Alright, supports time! Pepsiman and Hortensia’s C. Hortensia seems to be struggling getting used to the fact that she’s no longer surrounded by people who can’t say “no” to her. She’s taken aback by Pepsiman’s lack of desire to sing her praises and his immunity to her fake crying. Pepsiman and Rosado’s C. I will say, I actually liked Pepsiman’s verbal description of Rosado’s drawing. And I’m surprised how endearing I find Rosado. He’s really nice. Louis and Ivy’s C. Louis exposits that he apparently has Resting Happy Face. …And now Louis is so captivated by the idea of perpetual downer Ivy smiling that he’s… completely ignoring her objections to his enthusiasm. Then she gives in and lets him try. Ivy: Very well, Louis of Firene. If your ambition is to make me smile, I invite you to do your best. She says. While smiling. Alcryst and Hortensia’s C. Oh. Oh this’ll be good. PFFFFFFFF Sad sack Alcryst wants lessons from the arrogant spoiled brat about how to be more confident. PFFFFF And Hortensia just bluntly declines. Apparently because she holds a grudge due to the whole “Brodia” thing. …And she’s taken off guard by the fact that Alcryst accepts this. Was she just saying that to rile him up as part of helping him, and is shocked it had the opposite result? Yes! That was exactly what she was trying to do! I guessed right! Hopefully I get more from these two, since I’ll be using them. If all else fails I can use those support activities. Ivy and Kagetsu’s C. Man, I love the annoyed tone in Ivy’s voice when she talks about Kagetsu’s uncanny ability to flawlessly predict the future… but only when it comes to useless, pointless bullshit like what they’re having for dinner that day. Honestly, Ivy’s voice actress in general is just on point. She’s really good at this role. …These two have a weird relationship though. But one I’m interested in seeing more of. Alright, time to cook. Oof. Seems Ivy is a bad cook. Either that or putting rare fish on steamed dango was a worse idea than I realized because I barely have an idea what steamed dango is. Rank E. And I can’t make the meal again, so it seems like it was a good call not to make Yunaka’s. Now then, let’s check out the benefits to getting Lucina’s paralogue done… Let’s grind her up some… OH SHIT. IT GOES ALL THE WAY UP TO LEVEL 20 NOW. Level 11 extends the engage time limit to 4 turns, which isn’t as fantastic for Lucina as it could be for some others… but 15 gets you the Parallel Falchion, doubled chance on dual assist at level 18… and a shortened engage meter at level 20. Okay, I should probably be doing these more. Now that I’m no longer desperate to have Pepsiman keep up with the rest of the army (he’s gotten way more action in lately), I’m mostly using training to top off people close to leveling. In this case, Kagetsu and Rosado. Oh, and Renais is pronounced “Renay”? Good to know. She probably said that in Heroes but I missed it. …Okay, fuck it. I’m gonna check out Eirika’s paralogue and do it if it seems manageable. I have a horrible fear that next chapter is going to take her away from me, and I need closure on what song they picked. So, she’s talking about this being a pivotal part of her confrontation with the Grado Empire, but I’m not recognizing it from the backdrop. Also, she wasn’t even there when the Grado Empire fell… hmmm… what are they talking about…? …Oh, that comment about Grado seems to have been a non-sequitur. This is the final battle, isn’t it? It looks like the final battle area. Yep, final battle location, more specifically the first part of it, the fight with Lyon. With us in the position of Lyon. …There are fabricated corrupted dragons, which thankfully are just regular dragons according to their slayer weaknesses. Good. It’d suck if we had to fight corrupted dragons while not having access to either Eirika or Celica. …Oh fuck. All of these enemies are strong enough to have their class skills. Which means all these backup enemies have brave assist. They do two chain attacks if they chain attack with full HP. …These are uh… Okay I think I’m gonna hold off on this a bit. Let’s try an easier one. Let’s try Ike’s! PFFFF I just realized that Pepsiman reacts to the word “trial” the Emblem uses like it’s the first time he’s hearing about the concept of an Emblem trial. In every single one of these. Oh shoot, this looks like it isn’t a defend map, it’s a “defeat Ike” map. It doesn’t even seem like getting the castle seized is a lose condition. At any rate though, I’m gonna try to keep the center area secure for the sake of my squishy units. Thankfully this map has a severe dearth of mages. Louis can take the bottom, Yunaka can take the left, and I’ll have Merrin with the assistance of my long-range units take the right side. …No, Yunaka’s gonna need a hand to be able to touch these armor knights. One sec. Okay, I gave her a strength tonic and also an energy drop. If she’s gonna be soloing enemies like every other fiber of her being lets her, she’ll need to be able to damage armor knights enough to at least poison them and get the ball rolling on their demise. And while I’m at it, Louis gets the talisman I forgot I got, Hortensia gets the spirit dust, and Louis also gets the secret book because accuracy is so damned important with him. He has to one-shot counter mages with his forged javelin if he wants to avoid getting doubled by them and getting rocked. Alright, “The Devoted” seems to be the main base for Ike’s theme, with some of “Eternal Bond” thrown in too. It’s curious how they’re being inconsistent here. After Lucina and Eirika I assumed the deal was going to be that we’d be put in the positions opposite the team the Emblem in question was- OOOH! THEY THREW IN A BIT OF “HIS FATHER’S SON”! ONLY A BIT BUT APPRECIATED! …Ahem. Anyway, I thought the deal would be that the Emblem would be where they were in the original fight, and we’d be where the opposing army was. But I guess that’s not a rule, just a coincidence. Anyway… proceeding. …I thought stairs maybe gave an avoid bonus I didn’t notice, but no. The deal is just that this berserker fighting Louis has a dexterity of one. Alright, this eastern flank is tougher than I expected and is rushing me with way more units than I can take out in one player phase. I think I’ll have to use goddess dance to take care of this with my main army. Hobble surprisingly came in clutch to make sure that a swordmaster Merrin couldn’t kill couldn’t reach any of my squishier allies. …I apparently just landed my 100th critical hit. Yunaka makes it closer to the top, and I have Alcryst use astra storm to take out the elthunder mage harassing Yunaka. Not a huge threat except I can’t attack him with Yunaka without sacrificing that terrain bonus, which could be tempting fate waaaaaaaay too much. So I went nuclear to be sure. …And I’ve killed 1000 individual enemies? Wow, that’s a lot! Ohp! Ike’s on the move! Alright, time to face Yunaka up against Ike. Let’s see if the spiritual successor to Sothe can finally defeat Sothe’s idol! Oooh! Infinite, no-exp enemies! They brought back void curse! Sweet! I hope they use this for something similar to Conquest Chapter 21 at some point! It’s kind of hilarious how invincible Yunaka is. I’m certain my hubris will get her killed eventually, but right now it’s ridiculous but fun. And she just learned pass! A backup unit was threatening to complicate things nastily, but Alcryst saved the day by longbowing him from safety thanks to the fog at the corner of a hallway junction slowing enemies down. Seems like that movement penalty is a benefit when the people you want sitting on it can conjure it themselves. …And upon realizing that Ike hasn’t been doing backup attacks all this time, I finally realize he’s classified as armored. …Incidentally, I’m torn on who to give Ike to now. Now that I know for a fact that he can pass down Ragnell… I mean, Louis can make great use of just about every other part of Ike’s kit… but fucking Ragnell. RAG. NELL. I want that on a sword fighter! Someone who can double with it! Merrin would be cool, but she’s also really good with Lucina. Hmm… who else… Well, I’ll think about it later. For now, Ike’s down. After Yunaka wore down his first health bar, Ivy finished him off. …Alright, let’s check out the spoils, clean things up, and finish off for today. …According to the arena, in a straight battle between Ivy and Clanne, Ivy appears to win. Noted. Merrin and Kagetsu fought twice, with Merrin losing first and winning the second. …Ragnell weighs 15. Can anyone wield that unencumbered? …No, nobody. Diamant and Louis come the closest, at 11 and 12 respectively. Merrin has 10, so she’s not far behind. But basically nobody can wield this awesome sword without getting majorly slowed down. That’s a shame. Maybe once we get Leif back and can inherit the build plus skills? Or maybe there’s a body ring equivalent I can find? If so, that’s definitely going on whoever I decide to give Ike to long-term. And personally? I had more fun with Merrin when she had Ike than when she had Lucina. …Yeah I’m gonna mess around with giving Ike to Merrin again. …Lucina, meanwhile, is going to Kagetsu. Lucina’s bonded shield ability has a 100% activation rate when units are the same type as the user (or 90% globally when Pepsiman uses it). And since Kagetsu’s constantly working with units of the same type, that seems to make sense. Especially since they’re the one unit type capable of going places that units who can do conventional chain guards absolutely can’t. …Alright, I think that does it for today. Tomorrow we’ll be tackling Chapter 17. Which hopefully isn’t going to be hell. Alastor, signing off.

Update on the Maddening file... EXTREMELY good impression of the difficulty. I avoided picking it on my first run because I didn't know what to expect and I traditionally do my blind ironmans on hard anyway, but honestly the usual nonsense pitfalls from early game max difficulty are entirely absent here. Much more along the lines of Conquest than Awakening or New Mystery or Three Houses. Honestly makes me somewhat upset I didn't choose it for this. But I'm probably going to avoid playing it further to avoid spoiling my hard ironman experience.

Mareeta?

Replaying the game a bit on that Maddening file... I can't help but be reminded of the claim that only divine dragons can enter the Somniel. So uh... ...Why aren't Lythos's rings kept there? Especially considering it already had a chamber for them. And how long has Elusia worshipped Sombron? Why were they still entrusted with a ring after that happened?

Sunrise Katana and Nohrian Blade would be a nice duo of weapons to give, but I also agree Corrin really should have been a magic teaching Emblem. Especially since we apparently still don't fucking have one. Engage Day 19: Chapter 16 Last chapter before Chapter 17, which I have heard has another gimmick that the DLC Emblems undermine. Which has me quite frightened. Honestly, if the game takes away my Emblems again, for longer than a single map, I think I’m going to be pissed. But that’s not for a few days. For now, time to secure the twins, and then see if I can do their paralogue. Anyway, I thankfully reminded myself to get that experience skill on Pepsiman since I got sidetracked last night, and I decided to bite the bullet and promote Pepsiman. Because promoting 5 exp away from a level is less of an infuriating waste than starting a map with an exp booster skill and only 5 exp left to gain. Further, now that I have way more bond fragments, time to put these engravings on, especially in case Chapter 17 does something stupid. Merrin’s silver dagger gets the Byleth boost, since she has the build to handle the increase to 9 weight, and the accuracy boost will be really handy, as will the dodge. Alcryst’s silver bow gets the Ike boost. Like I said, I only put the thing on him to power up his special. And when he uses that, he tends to be away from enemies anyway, so no risk of him getting fucked while holding it. Alright, let’s proceed. So Goldmary is a Sword and Lance hero… and doesn’t have a single weapon that doesn’t weigh her down. …And neither does Rosado. He’s got 21 speed but has weapons that weigh him down to 15 and 14. That won’t do, I’ve gotta get these two some better weapons, especially Rosado because he’s gonna be flying off with my air force and won’t have convoy access once he does so. …Was this a thing before that I somehow failed to notice, or new with the update? Characters with status staves in their inventory have their staff icon half-red to show the offensive staves they’re armed with as well. Interesting. Okay, so, rather blatantly, the first order of business is the hugeass dragon right in front of me. That defense/res ignoring fireball attack would literally kill Clanne if it weren’t for the fact that he’s promoted and got that seraph robe. And what bothers me is I notice that their slayer icons are “corrupted” and “fell dragon”. No “dragon”. So Byleth’s weapons, my wyrmslayer… unless “fell dragon” also counts as “dragon” somehow, those won’t work on this guy. If all else fails, I’ll rely on Merrin and Goldmary’s chain attacks (and the poison from the former) to eventually wear these guys down. Everyone but Hortensia and Framme can take a single hit from them, so I should be good since they only have the one health bar. If there’s one thing that recent chapters have taught me, it’s that no matter how invincible you are, chain attacks combined with numbers will humble you. Other than that… well there’s another dragon later, but I have more flexibility with my approach of that one. Of greater concern is the house on the pier. I’ll be sending my air force that way to try and secure it before the inevitable complications show up. But I’ll be saving Alcryst’s super for the event that I can’t secure it before the inevitable thief shows up to ransack it. Alright, let’s go. …A post-prep-screen curveball, introducing the gimmick of rising and falling water. Dick move, but I am happy my fliers get a better time to shine than I expected. Thankfully Rosado’s special is effective against corrupted, so between him and Ivy, the thing went down without anyone getting hurt. Oh thank goodness, I was just a little worried the tide would change on enemy phase. It does not. It happens between the end of enemy phase and the beginning of player phase. …Also, it seems that while you can equip new weapons on people by trading with them… you can’t do that when their equipped weapon is an engage weapon. Fuck. Guess Rosado’s getting broken this enemy-phase. But at least it’ll get me somewhere breaking through this enemy formation. …The sounds Hortensia makes while healing are hilarious. Especially the “rawr!” she does. …No wait, I forgot, he had a greatlance, which meant Rosado fucked the guy up with his rapier before the guy could do jack shit. Anyway, I can’t take out the newly-arrived bandit with Astra Storm, but I can take out the bow knight who’s providing covering fire for him and let my fliers catch up while the waters are up. Freezing the guy will probably help further. Don’t want him getting too deep into enemy-controlled territory. …It was an interesting choice to take the solar and lunar brace concepts, things originally entirely unrelated to the sol and luna skills, and make them related to the sol and luna skills. Though I hear Heroes already did some stuff with those things that were originally just promotion items, so maybe Engage is just copying Heroes. Reinforcements got the drop on Louis, so I had him engage and activate Great Aether to ensure his survival. I don’t want to gamble with backup units combined with mages fast enough to double. I wound up using Goddess Dance to get Ivy close enough to help back up the rest of my fliers facing some enemies too fast for them to double. …Okay, someone please tell me somebody made a meme replacing the satisfying booming magic sound effects with vine booms. That would be hilarious. Well that’s interesting. Apparently when the main attacker uses a smashing weapon, even chain attacks are brought to the back of the queue. The next dragon is coming up, but thankfully Rosado has a full charge on his engage after stepping on a tile. I’m glad I didn’t waste it ensuring a kill and went with the gamble on the 77% attack instead. …An enemy stepped onto the house tile and I nearly had a heart attack. Thankfully it wasn’t a bandit, just an enemy who just happened to move there on the way towards our army. …And Rosado just got a killer “everything but res and build” level up. …I’m tempted to check growth rates, but that would be deliberately reducing how blind I am. But I have half a mind to think they deliberately gave Rosado one of the lowest build growths in the game as a joke. Anyway, Yunaka’s been soloing the lower half of the map with the help of Corrin. It was slow going due to terrain and a freeze staff holy knight, but at no even remotest point was she in danger of dying. Yep. Definitely giving Corrin to Yunaka full time. So the villager said she saw the troops… but still didn’t lock up. Well, she gave us a recover staff, which is pretty nice. Given Hortensia is simultaneously our best and weakest staff user, she should get it. Yunaka approaches Mauvier, with full health just in case (she took some damage from chain attacks). Marnie will be in range soon. Honestly, I didn’t even realize they were on the map until I checked the victory conditions after some rear reinforcements showed up. Marni goes down like a chump to Ivy and then Clanne, and Mauvier will fall soon enough to Yunaka going on the defensive with her dragon vein. I have to say, I like the Four Hounds boss music, though mostly for the electronic bassline, which really goes hard. So… fog stacks with the terrain the fog has been put on. So if you use fog while already in defensive cover, Yunaka will get like 120 avoid from it. What the fuck. Yunaka is now invincible enough to make me complacent, which terrifies me. Mauvier says he’ll “withdraw for now”, but he says this while landlocked on a fucking island with Yunaka. How is he getting away? Anyway, time for post-battle. What’s next? Merrin… chides herself for her performance despite doing well enough to get bond fragments. Weird. But anyway, aside from getting some cats, a seagull and some ore, not much happens in the post-battle. Alright, what’s next? Oh dear, Veyle, Griss and Zephia. What’s happening here? Oh noooooo, Zephia’s pretending to be on Good Veyle’s side. Are they seriously gonna do something that’s gonna make Chapter 17 a repeat of Chapter 11? Seriously? Please, no. …How does Good Veyle believe that Zephia thinks the things Good Veyle was accused of are terrible? Does Good Veyle not realize those are actually things that were accomplished by someone in the name of the Elusian army? So… …So… Zephia tries to tell Veyle that she doesn’t have a sibling, that she’s Lord Sombron’s only child. Why does Sombron want this a secret? Wouldn’t it be devastating to the morale of the heroes’ army to reveal that Pepsiman is a Fell Dragon? …Ohhhhh. I see. Veyle has Pepsiman’s dragonstone. He gave it to her a thousand years ago when she was crying. Either this was a twisted manipulation, or a spark of kindness from him. Who knows? “If this stone is still intact, this means I’m still alive”, Pepsiman apparently said. …Lemme guess: Pepsiman’s gonna die, and that’s how Veyle’s gonna figure out he’s her brother? And then something will bring him back? …Zephia… seems genuinely shaken. So it seems she actually didn’t realize this brother was real. Is she putting the pieces together… as to who it must be? …Yep, Griss and Zephia both confirm they had no idea “another one of Lord Sombron’s children survived”. …Zephia… watched it happen. If she… if she actually met Pepsiman, like, even once, how could she not realize that it’s literally just him with half of his hair blue? So they’re planning on putting Good Veyle to sleep for good. Oooh, does that mean this is when we save and recruit her? I was spoiled on this from a YouTube thumbnail, but also, like, I saw her personal skill. I knew she’d be recruitable. Now… where’s the Twins’ paralogue? …Okay, it might be a little tough for us to tackle now. Promoted level 8? I’m assuming that measure is if we promoted at level 20. …But quite a few of them are probably fine for us now. So I should probably do them. Tomorrow, though. Not today. Today I’m spent. But yeah, Rosado’s definitely gonna be a major member of my team from now on. Perfect excuse to get a good wyvern rider, and I won’t lie I’m curious how the game will handle his supports. Will he be betting the twins? Not sure, but he did a pretty damned good job with them this map, I gotta say. Satisfied with his performance, for sure. Up there with Pepsiman with Marth and Céline with Celica. But I’ll look at what skills they teach and mull it over. Later. Alastor, signing off!

Oh shit right, forgot about her. Yeah she was fine. Well they ran off to get a ring to her, so I doubt it. Sheer luck got me two of them. I stopped getting new ones some point before Chapter 11 and haven't made them since. Mostly getting by with the ones I have.

Incidentally, I just started a new file to show the game off to a friend, on Maddening (with a female avatar named Colgette). Rewatching the scene again, I can confirm that at no point was Framme disarmed in that cutscene, just Clanne. She did just flat-out forget that she has kung fu powers to fight back with.

If only they kept up the Falchion's immunity to non-dragon melee attacks, that might explain a lot regarding the powers the Loptian Fang has.

Nope! Backed the hell out and slept to reshuffle. Maybe I should have done it but I didn't want to endanger the resources.

Day 18 Bonus: Maintenance Tragically, and possibly because I lost the last arena battle to Clanne, Pepsiman is now 5 exp shy of level 20 and I’ll have to waste 95 exp if I want to promote him now. It feels so gross, promoting him literally 5 exp away from level 20. But it also feels gross to make him incapable of leveling after gaining 5 exp next map for no real benefit. Oooof… rock and a hard place. So, I gave Corrin to Yunaka, and looking at Dreadful Aura makes me realize it’s just an objectively and drastically superior version of hobble. Also, yeah, I have to conclude the reason swords suck so much is because they’re trivially easy to learn. But was there really any reason to make the wakizashi suck? That’s not a sword that you just need a sword rank for, that’s a sword you need to be in your super mode for! Why couldn’t that be 1-2 range? Why is it only 2 range? …Whatever, it’s not like Yunaka’s even gonna use anything that isn’t her awesome steel dagger. Byleth’s back on Pepsiman. Eventually he’s gonna go on Framme once she’s a high priest. I think I’m gonna give Pepsiman Roy when we have him back. I have this sneaking hope that unlocking bond rank 15 gives you the weapons characters are known for. Which would mean that Pepsiman… would get to use the binding blade. And that would be crazy amounts of fun if true. I’m gonna fragment my way up to bond level 5 on Pepsiman and Byleth. I wanna buy that exp booster skill. Given there’s already incentive to have characters fight adjacent to Pepsiman, it seems a sure fit, and it’s a trivial amount of exp. …Okay, I have to look up what the fuck Blutgang does, because the attack was so devastating that Pepsiman was still crackling with evil static in his victory pose. …It doesn’t seem to inflict any sort of status effect. It’s just effective against dragons and cavalry. Was that all it was? Just a hardcore animation for effective damage? Ohp! I’ve got a lot of supports! Let’s get through them now! Clanne and Pepsiman’s A. …I sincerely hope the implication is that Clanne just greeted Pepsiman after waking him up in the morning. Because talking about Clanne getting lots of rest… while in Pepsiman’s bedroom… …Sorry, I kinda just had no idea what so say about that conversation. It’s not that I found it uneventful, I just… I have somewhat negative views about it that I struggle to put into words. But I suppose what I can say to simplify it is that it’s incredibly predictable from what came before, like basically anyone could have written it using the first two as a prompt. Pepsiman and Merrin’s C. This is… simultaneously endearing and profoundly uncomfortable. Merrin has a love for animals and “rare critters”, and just flat-out admits that she wants to learn more about the world’s only Divine Dragon. She really comes out the gate with her intentions in a shockingly blunt way. …It sounds like she’s planning to write the book equivalent of a nature documentary. Which is hilarious but also awkward as all fuck. Pepsiman and Seadall’s C. Seadall talks about his… I suppose “religious” beliefs that when people die, they become stars. So he feels he has a massive audience when he dances under the night sky. …Seadall seems to be profoundly limited by the nature of supports in this game. He’s supposed to be dancing, but all we see is him singing and bobbing his head to his own notes, while Pepsiman comments on how great the dancing we aren’t allowed to see is. Pepsiman and Diamant’s C. Pepsiman runs screaming for Diamant’s help with a Corrupted, and after Diamant delivers, he quite rightly asks him what’s up with that. It brings back his “issues” with the Corrupted, and they of course inevitably bring up excuses for why this has absolutely no gameplay effects, much like Lon’qu’s fear of women. He says as long as he can steel himself and see them coming, he’s good. Well hey, lucky him he’s in a game with no ambush spawns! …I… just noticed that single streak of brighter red in Diamant’s hair. Anyway, Pepsiman lets slip at the last moment of the conversation that he seems to think Diamant is perfect. Obviously if we wind up getting another (unlikely since Diamant’s been dropped), that’s going to be a topic of discussion. Pepsiman and Citrinne’s C. …It would appear that Citrinne’s gimmick is that she is, indeed, the privileged rich lady archetype, but the difference with her is that there seems to be far less arrogance about it from what I’ve seen, and far more “has absolutely no concept of the value of money and is therefore obscenely, uncomfortably overkill with regards to generosity and repaying favors”. This is… a bit awkward, but I do like the “spoiled sweet” trope, where a character is extremely oblivious and sheltered due to their upbringing, but is always approaching every social encounter with the purest intentions and kindness. …Oh dear. Pepsiman has told Citrinne that if she’s going to insist on a gift, he’d prefer one that money can’t buy. “Gifts that aren’t defined by how much they cost”. That is just vague enough that I am mathematically certain Citrinne is going to find some comically ridiculous way to interpret it, and I have no idea what the result will be. I almost want to see the B support just to see the result. Ooh, Clanne and Hortensia have a C! This could be interesting! …Okay, Hortensia’s over-the-top introduction and Clanne’s awkward response were pretty funny. …And Hortensia… seems to have gotten it into her head… that Clanne is the president of her fan club. What. How. Clanne: The fan club I’m the president of is… (fade to black) …Why the hell is there a fade to black? There were like three more words left to say! But anyway, Hortensia: What!? You’re the president of a fan club of your own liege!? That really just cuts to the core of what’s weird about it, doesn’t it? PFFFFFF Okay, so however Hortensia got the idea into her head that Clanne was the president of her fan club, she clearly wants a fan club, and is trying to order Clanne to make her one. And I love the performance of Clanne’s response of “I don’t work for you!” And it just fucking ends! Oh man, I can’t wait to see more of that. I have so many questions. Yunaka and Merrin’s B. Merrin is taking care of weapon maintenance… in front of the stables. So, Yunaka has a fucking weaponry nerdgasm seeing a fancy Solmic scimitar, and Merrin tries to bribe her into letting her monologue during training for it. …And Yunaka turns her down. And the conversation ends with her being frustrated at the price being too high to pay or something. I wonder how this will end. Yunaka and Seadall’s C. So apparently (and understandably, given her entire persona is by all appearances an elaborate performance), Yunaka’s really good at impressions. She does an impression of Corrin first, and I think she gets the voice too deep to really be considered correct. But her Ivy impression is spot-on. …And now Seadall wants her to “join [him] on stage”. Apparently he has a stage play and he needs an actor. Yunaka apparently has crippling stage fright or some other issue with performing in front of a huge crowd, but unlike with her support with Merrin, this time she is talked into doing the thing she doesn’t want to do. Looking forward to seeing more of this, honestly. Now then… Alcryst and Seadall’s C. …It’s… uh… quite weird for Alcryst to be envious of Seadall’s experience as a traveling performer because he “rarely [travels] outside of Brodia”… when, like, he’s been traveling all over the world ever since he joined. …Granted, Elusia wasn’t really all that fun… but he got to see Solm, and he’s about to see Firene! The second part seems fair though, him being an introvert who’s jealous of people who can “navigate foreign cultures with ease”. Seadall seems like a pretty chill and awesome dude, honestly. I like him. I’m glad he’s my dancer, which means I’ll undoubtedly be seeing more of him. Ivy and Hortensia’s C. …And Hortensia just drops the fact that she’s only Ivy’s half sister. Different moms, huh? Hortensia: [I’m glad you think I look like my mom, because] it’s only thanks to her I get to call you my sister in the first place. …Different dads? …No, she must have meant something else like that. They explicitly say “my mother” and “your mother” and all that. Curious. Well, Hortensia runs off before any clarification can happen. It’s weird to think they have different moms. They look more like each other than like their dad. …So, weirdly, I haven’t been thinking about supports in gameplay nearly as much as in other games. Neither in building them nor exploiting their gameplay effects. I’m not sure why that is. …Okay, remember when I praised the game for letting you choose what item to send to the convoy while buying items with a character? And how on another occasion I said I thought it was cool the game didn’t let you send your equipped weapon to the convoy when you get a new item in battle? Uh… …Do you see where I’m going with this? You can’t send your equipped weapon to the convoy even when you’re just fucking buying stuff. That is… an unfortunate oversight, but at least it’s just mildly annoying and not anything that involves gameplay. I forged my newly-purchased elwind into a mystery tome that turned out to be Excalibur, so I wound up giving that to Ivy (who can almost carry it with her 8 build compared to the weapon’s 10 weight), and giving the elwind to Hortensia instead. Alright, time to cook! Alright, we’ve got Yunaka this time and- …Oh heavens. Oh mercy. Oh Genealogy of the Holy Shit. So hey, I thought I’d give that whole “waking up event” thing another pass, y’know, just one shot hardly seems fair. Jean woke me up, apparently concerned about my health. Honestly Jean’s an interesting character, but every fiber of my being tells me he belongs in a Layton game, not in a Fire Emblem game. …Oh and hey, Etie’s on cooking duty! Fancy that! Alright, let’s give this a whirl! I got a passable str/spd/def boost, and res+1 for all women. That’s fine. Oh hey, Merrin’s here. Was she already, or did the meal bring her here? Merrin: There’s a critter nearby… I can sense it. A bird? A mouse? Come on out now… I won’t hurt you! … …Lilith is literally sleeping tummy-up two feet away from her. Can I get Merrin to interact with Lilith in any way? I really, really, really want to. …But anyway, yeah, I think that’s enough for this prep session. I’ll be able to jump right into the next chapter tomorrow morning. Until then! Alastor, signing off!

Make Oifey the POV character and narrator, and I think this might actually be a cool way to force this in if they felt they had to.

I'm just gonna leave this here:

I sincerely hope that the eventual Genealogy remake goes that route.

A little for Awakening, but from what I remember reception was lukewarm in chat and also they weren't that interesting to talk about.

Oh goodness do I know that feeling. Hope you wind up finishing the Fates entries at least eventually! Conquest was a fun time.

Yeah that's around my impression too. Yunaka not needing to depend on terrain or allies to reach full power will cover basically her only weakness, and her dagger's engraved with enough accuracy that boosting enemies too barely matters. Noted! Thanks for commenting! Hope you've been enjoying the playlog!

Engage Day 18: Chapter 16 Alright, once again, time to check out the next map and see what sorts of preparations will be necessary. Something just occurred to me… …Did Fogado and Timerra even get a scene with Seforia actually saying they’re going to be traveling with Pepsiman? I mean, it might be a deliberate continued part of the whole “these people do not give a single shit” joke, and if so, hilarious. Okay, just loaded in, and it seems that time does not, in fact, pass normally in the Somniel when you leave the game and come back in. Noted! So this isn’t like Fates. Honestly, I think my ideal image of the “home base” concept would be a fusion of the Somniel and My Castle. My Castle was absolutely perfect in terms of expedience and having everything basically within arm’s reach of you at all times. But it had some issues with resource management depending on online functionality and not really being balanced with any sense of proportion. Meanwhile the Somniel’s method of resource management, where you get things per battle with it generally not refreshing unless you grind, while also not demanding any ludicrously time-consuming chores in order to make the most of your between-battle boons like 3H did, is a much better system than Fates’ “you get one fruit and one ore, now either find the others at random or ore swap for them and then bet in the arena until you have more” system. So yeah, I actually like the Somniel decently enough, I just wish it were a little less time consuming. Being way, way, way better than Three Houses in this regard still isn’t that high of a bar to clear. But a passing grade, I’d say. Alright, checking out Chapter 16. So, Pepsiman remarks that now all of the rings are in the hands of either them or Sombron, which makes me wonder how the DLC talks about these rings. Honestly, since I’m probably gonna get the DLC anyway, maybe I should actually talk about this: Do you guys want me to do the DLC during this playthrough? Lemme know your thoughts on the matter and I’ll take them into consideration. Anyway… …This is interesting… the team is actually… discussing strategy for how to proceed. They talk about how they have to confront the enemy army directly if they expect to get any further with gathering all 12 Emblem rings, and when the prospect of invading Elusia is brought up, Ivy says that “would be a mistake” if they did it at this time. Why? “They have a clear advantage: seven emblems to our five.” …True… but the bad guys have only ever once actually deployed more than one ring at the same time, and that was after they stole all of ours. And they only managed to get those due to the draconic time crystal. Which can apparently stop time or some other bullshit that let Veyle steal all those rings in the first place, and Pepsiman really should be considering the practical applications of that thing for getting more rings. I genuinely do not get why these games insist on making these time powers canon. It can just be a game mechanic, you know. And as long as these powers are canon, and as long as the powers constitute actual, literal at-will time manipulation, no story you tell in these settings is ever going to make a lick of sense. Incidentally, has anyone here seen Madvocate’s video series “The Flash is Insufferably Inconsistent”? If not, I highly recommend watching it. It really goes into the sheer absurd bullshit writers have to come up with when heroes have powers that let them play havoc with the flow of time. …But of course, before they can actually work their way out of this dilemma and decide a strategy… fate decides a strategy for them. Vander comes in and reports a bunch of warships being spotted at the port of Solm, setting sail toward Firene. …Is… …Okay, seriously… Last chapter. Griss said he knew for a fact that they’d be heading to Firene next. So this is an obvious attempt to bait us into following. The problem… is that we have not only unfettered mastery over time… but also unfettered mastery over space. We can teleport to the Somniel and then back to any point we have ever visited. Which would include Firene. But why do I get the feeling that the game is never, ever going to acknowledge that now that it’s finished using the story to establish it as a gameplay mechanic? Two soldiers deserted the Elusian fleet, huh? Why do I have a feeling their names rhyme with Old Berry and Bravado? AND THEY TOOK AN EMBLEM RING!? I LOVE YOU TWO! Apparently they took the ring of the Azure Twins, the one the previous conversation explicitly reminded us exists. So we’re getting all of the rest of the rings before we get any of our old friends back. Nice approach, gameplaywise. Storywise too, except that this story is kind of unsalvageably cheesy. And yep, I guessed right, Goldmary and Rosado. Gotta ask: Why are they still in the armed forces when the princess they’re loyal to is with the enemy? Why would the enemy be so stupid to actually use them as anything but hostages? Marni: I thought those two were behaving themselves lately. WHAT ELDRITCH MADNESS COULD POSSIBLY POSSESS YOU TO THINK THAT. So, one curious thing I’ve noticed: it seems like the country with the second-largest population of dark-skinned people after Solm… is Elusia. I’ve noticed a high number of dark-skinned generics among their armies, something like 30 to 40%. Interesting. I wonder what the story is behind that. But who am I kidding? I seriously doubt I’ll get an answer. I wonder which of these two will actually be chosen for the ring this time. I hope they’re actually a good fit for it. I think one of the most annoying parts of this game for me is that literally none of the rings are actually initially put on someone I’d actually like to have use them, except Marth and Lucina on Pepsiman, and even then mostly because of how few options I had when I initially got them. …Unfortunately, the break they took to rest was long enough for the enemy to catch up to them, because they didn’t hide. Cue battle, I guess! …Was I seeing things, or were their unit circles yellow when Rosado and Goldmary flew over to us? …Rosado… seems to still be under the impression that Hortensia and the Divine Dragon are enemies. Okay, so at least some effort was made to keep them in the dark about reasons why they should join the Divine Dragon… but then why did they flee the Elusian army to give Hortensia a ring? What did they think Hortensia was doing away from the army if not joining Pepsiman? Rosado: Psst! If you’re being held against your will, blink three times. PFFFFFFFFFF Okay that was great. Though Hortensia is blinking an awful lot in that conversation. At least it’s not being done in rapid succession though. So Rosado gave Pepsiman the Eirika and Ephraim ring. Please tell me this means I get to choose who it goes on. …But probably not because that would require us to have it now, mid-cutscene, like the ultimate Yato for each route in Fates, and I’m not sure this game does that. …That… …Only Eirika showed up. I thought this was supposed to be the Emblem of the Azure Twins. …I notice that Pepsiman… does not bat a single eye to the reveal that Rosado is a “he”. Not one. Not even slightly. Maybe he’s just used to all the weird bullshit his allies subject him to by this point, so the concept of crossdressing seems entirely ordinary by comparison? At any rate it’s kind of endearing. …I wonder if Rosado gets to wear the female amiibo outfits… Anyway, Rosado gets the ring, and… …Wha… Wha…? …It seems like Eirika and Ephraim can be switched between… and they provide some kind of map-wide ally buff each, judging by these descriptions. That… that is crazy, but either we haven’t unlocked it yet, or it only shows up on allies and we don’t count yet since they’re green. Oh! That’s why they were yellow! They weren’t yet even slightly on our side narratively speaking! That’s a cute touch! Anyway, let’s see how many I can bring today… Ten, not counting Goldmary and Rosado. Alright, awesome! That means no cuts compared to yesterday! And I can bring Hortensia! …Provided I drop Seadall. Damn it. Okay, I’ll work something out. Back to base. First off, Emblem maintenance. I’ve decided that Pepsiman is getting Corrin, at least for this map. Since dragons get access to all the dragon veins, that gives me an idea of which of them are most worth using. And if I want to use a lot of them, great, I’ll keep it on him. If not? I’ll pick the one I find most useful and let a unit of that type use it. As for Byleth, I’m giving him to Clanne to try out this whole Thyrsus thing. I’m noticing I’m getting way, way more SP these days than I used to, which is awesome and fortunate. Merrin has more than enough to get resolve now, which means I can give her Lucina now and let Louis have Ike for a while. …On the other hand… Merrin just got to B with Ike… …Yeah, these Emblem weapons are waaaaaaaay too heavy for Merrin to be comfortable with. I will, indeed, be giving Ike to Louis, who not only could use those defensive skills in the long run, but can make way better use of those heavy weapons. Armored units apparently get an additional 5 defense from using Great Aether! That’s cool! Yunaka’s getting my S rank Arden ring for now, and Ivy my S rank Delthea ring that Clanne just left free. Hortensia’s getting Sanaki because that boosts magic. Alright, now let’s get Hortensia decked out. I gave her wind, surge, heal, physic and warp. That should be good for now. Now then, for meals… …Jean’s cooking today, and upon seeing his adorably dorky appearance I realize this is the first time I’ve ever seen him hanging around the Somniel. Where’s he been all this time? How is this the first time I’ve noticed him…? …I got a rank A dish. All of my younger units, which I’m expecting/hoping includes Clanne, Framme and Hortensia, got doubled bonuses and an additional point of res. Sweet! …Yep, it seems Clanne, Framme and Hortensia all qualify for the bonus! …As does Chloe… …And Etie… Not Boucheron… Not Vander, obviously… Lapis counts as younger… As does Citrinne… Amber doesn’t, nor Jade, nor Zelkov or Diamant, nor Alfred… but Fogado, Panette, Céline and Anna all do… And Timerra as well… this particular older sister doesn’t seem to be older enough… Pandreo, Bunet, Kagetsu, Ivy and Seadall are too old for the boost, but Merrin’s young enough… Alcryst is young enough, Yunaka is not… Louis is too old… …And, comically implausibly, the absolute last person I’d ever expect to be considered “young enough” for something… Pepsiman himself gets the boost. That is hilarious. What the fuck is this going on, exactly, with these bonuses? …If it weren’t for the fact that people have been visiting the sleeping Pepsiman for ages even in living memory, I’d suspect this was a hint to a twist that Pepsiman is way, way, way younger than people are saying he is. Alright, arena time. And while I remember, I’m putting the boots on Pepsiman to increase his mobility options while he stays in his pedestrian dragon class that’s such a huge part of what makes him good. So unfortunately Pepsiman stopped just shy of hitting level 19 with arena training. I was gonna slap a master seal on him to see if promotion was possible by actually using the item mid-map… and I discovered that seals don’t even appear to be conventional Fire Emblem items anymore. They’re storehouse items. So I guess that answers that question. Alright, I’ll promote him next map then. As I said I would, I reclassed Merrin from sword wolf knight to axe wolf knight. Thankfully, this did not cost her hobble even though it set her class level below 5. Good to know. That means I can loop Yunaka through thief eventually and she still won’t lose pass. …But upon reflection, a bit too late, I realize this may have ultimately been pointless. Daggers are just way too good of a weapon type to justify using much of anything else. And even the axes she can carry can only barely hold a candle to her silver dagger in attack power, and if I want to have them continue to keep up, I need to invest forges and engravings in an axe along with a silver dagger, and why the fuck would I spend resources doing that? Speaking of which, I finally figured out what that thing I could transform a steel dagger into was. It was just a silver dagger. Lame. But that explains why it was worse than my ultra-forged steel dagger in every way statistically. Figured I’d check though, in case it was a brave dagger or something else, and its effects would make up for it once I could see what they were. Okay, I think I’m pretty much ready to go, may buy some more staves, but first… I wanna check what skills Corrin gives later. …I have to wonder… is the reason why swords still seem to suck compared to axes and lances… because sword proficiency is just about inevitably the most bitch-basic weapon proficiency you can get from an Emblem? I literally don’t have a single fucking Emblem that won’t teach you how to use swords. Okay, now I’m a bit concerned. I just bought the remaining stock of three physics, only to suddenly realize I’ve lost nearly all of the money I got not even two chapters ago. Down to my last 11k. …And I still haven’t even donated to Solm, fuck, hold on- …I can already donate to Elusia? How? We have literally no diplomatic relations with Elusia! It’s under the control of a satanic cult! …Oh yeah, one sec, lemme check to see what the amiibo gazebo has to offer in terms of tunes now… The Devoted, End of All (Below) and Fodlan Winds. …Fuck it, you know what? That reminds me. Change of plans today. Time to do that obligatory sidequest battle and see what these things have to offer. Specifically if they have their own unique music or if it’s just the area music. …The fuck is that enemy sprite I see in the Tullah Desert? It looks like some sort of Final Fantasy Esque villain. Like, over-armored-Exdeath-era villain, not pretty-boy-Sephiroth-era villain. Is that what Corrupted general sprites look like? Only one way to find out! There appears to be a Gold Corrupted here. Wonder what that’s about. Day 18 Change Of Plans: Skirmish! Alright, let’s do this. These enemies are reasonably tough, but with the exception of the thieves they seem pretty slow. It would appear that yes, that thing I saw was what a Corrupted general looks like. Yeah this seems pretty straightforward. I’ll just get on with it and not waste any more time. …It seems that music is area-specific. Alright. Noted. …Words cannot conceivably express how badly I want either the amiibo theme or, preferably, the paralogue theme of the twins to be Truth, Despair and Hope. In fact, levels permitting, their paralogue will be the first one I do, and I’ll do it immediately after getting the twins in my army proper. Guess I’ll find out then. Aaaand every single enemy is charging us immediately! Okay! I do actually like this kind of sheer, simple mindless chaos sometimes. It’s surprisingly effective for how brainless an AI command it is. Ivy is a fucking menace, and it’s mind-boggling how crazy her magic stat is. I somehow didn’t notice before. She’s utterly obliterating most of these foes now that she’s fast enough to double them. Hortensia, meanwhile, has a magic stat of 14, an entire 10 less than her sister. Woooooow. Good thing she’s only competing with Ivy for her niche, and good thing she can use s rank staves. If only we could get some of those. Okay, these terrain options with Dragon Vein seem pretty damned cool. I have some guesses as to who gets which, but… I have to see if the covert one is the reference I think it is… …Okay, not quite. I was hoping the covert one would look like those glowing avoid tiles that Mikoto and Arete gave to Corrin and Azura from beyond the grave in the battle against Gunter. Would’ve been a cool detail. …Frustratingly, apparently fog has a terrain movement penalty, which completely fucks up my attempt to use it to buff Yunaka while she fights a thief. Thiiiiiis makes me think I might be tempted to just put Corrin on Yunaka, because using it to set up convenient terrain for her isn’t going to be nearly as handy if anyone but her actually erects it. …You know what just occurred to me? I wanna get Ivy some bonds with Corrin. I wanna see what they talk about. I’m assuming they’re going to make Revelation canon, but still I have to wonder if Corrin has anything to say to Ivy about how she turned her back on the evil empire she called home in the name of doing what’s right. Oh that’s interesting! I didn’t realize it until now, but yes, those stat boosts Emblems give… do apply automatically! They just aren’t listed as skills, just as stat boosts. I just thought higher bonds with Emblems gave better stat boosts, since they didn’t say anything about skill redundancy when equipping the stat boosters. Victory in 6 turns. Yeah, skirmishes in Fire Emblem aren’t exactly complicated, but a lot of the time they can be good lighthearted fun. And I have a pretty good impression of them by doing this one. Well done! …Panna Camel. …is that a pun on the Panama Canal? Anyway, apparently I have a pet camel now! Alright, I still have a bit of time left. Time to check out Ivy and Corrin’s conversation before I forget. I’ve got the bond fragments to spare now. …They say basically nothing at this point. …Well, the second I can afford to toss 1,500 damned bond fragments around, I think I’m gonna try that again. Alright, I guess that’s it for today. Sorry for the anticlimactic change of plans, but this is probably for the best. I’ve got a thing later today, so getting this over with quickly was my best chance to get something out in a timely fashion. Alastor, signing off!

Thankfully it wasn't a big deal. Also I misspoke, I meant a character I was trying to make heal someone else. I had other options due to my three healers now. Yeah, I would entirely believe they're accurate given the amount of time the user has taken to ready the strike. And they would be soooooo much better if they could do their damned job of knocking enemies off of particularly messy terrain. That is outrageous and I am sorely tempted.

Is that the one he has a custom outfit for then?