Jotari

I don't think the selections I've picked are out of design with the banners so to speak. And things wouldn't of course need to be strict on base design. As I said, Valentine's Day Greil is what I present as the template for the idea. That is Base Greil Design, but, at the same time, it's not quite exactly. He has the same palette, but it's less militerized, not at quite armour, though with the colour and style to be reminiscent of that. They also added tassels and give him a flower to hold, and, of course, he has a silly seasonal weapon in the form of his axe. It's close enough to base Greil as to be similar to anyone else getting into Heroes and having slight modifications to his outfit for artistic consistency. That's the sweet spot I'm really going for. Of course there should be visual unity in the banner as a whole. Like, I'm not saying we should just stick something that obviously doesn't look designed in the middle of a banner where everyone else is on theme. But I went for choices where characters in their default outfit already fit the design. Like, the pirates and the ninjas are already dressed as pirates and ninja. A little could be done to play into the over the top stereotype those banners went for, but you wouldn't have to change much. Likewise, I chose Legion, Marla and Hestia for a Halloween banner because they already look like they're playing Halloween dress up in their original design. All the tribal or national representation banners use characters who are already from that culture that the banner itself is taking design elements from. And then other characters don't even have a proper outfit to begin with, like Azmur, Kurth and Musar, they just have mugs with barely any of their clothes seen, so a fancied up garb of what it looks like they could be wearing is fair game.

I was saying the other day on the new heroes thread the other day how I wish seasonals would go for more obscure characters to include a wider range of characters in the series. I cite Greil, who himself isn't really a minor or obscure character, but whose position puts him in an awkward spot for regular banners, as an example of what I mean. Basically a character using their default design, but getting put in the game as a seasonal unit. Well, here is my list of other characters I feel should have, or should get that treatment. I acknowledge that catering towards these obscure niche picks is probably not the best fiscal idea when you can just throw a Fates or Fodlan character in a bikini and make big bucks. Ninja Omozu, the generic Fates boss who isn't capturable, and thus no one remembers he exists. You fight him in the prologue. He doesn't even have the honor of being the first Ninja enemy or boss you fight, that's Kaze, but he needs some love, dammnit. Halloween Legion. Yes, we already got him in the game, but if he was put in on a Halloween banner we could open up his GHB spot to someone else. Marla and Hestia, they already look like Witches, and Shadows of Valentia's situation for GHB units is already in dire straits compared to its remaining playable cast. Scion of the Twelve (that one banner with Duo Seliph-Leif) Musar, the Mage Knight who attacks from the north in Chapter 9 of Genealogy of the Holy War. He has Holy Blood. Much more interesting than Scion Lewyn, he has a horsie. Pirates Gazzak, first boss in the series. That counts for something in my book. Fargus. Yes, another character who we did end up getting as a GHB who could have open up a GHB slot if introduced here Seeker, the actual bird laguz pirate who was shafted twice by Tibran and Naesala Wedding Chrom's Maiden, for this one though I think she could wear a dress instead of her default garb Children Amy. Make it clear she got transported in with the child versions of Ike and Mist etc by accident and isn't from the same time frame as them. Valentines Binding Blade Eliwood and Hector, specifically on the Valentine's Day banner where Eliwood And Hector are hanging out with Roy and Lillina. Said banner would have worked much better without the time travel Funke, dude literally carries around a freaking rose, so of course he can go on a Valentine's day banner Plegia Chalard, the Plegian Mage chasing Nowi in the desert, on a banner about Plegian mages in the desert Khadein Yoder, the Khadein boss too minor to ever even be considered for GHB Arcadia The Elder of Arcadia. There is no character too minor for me to stan for Flame Tribe Capturable boss Kumagera, I don't think he's ever expressly identified as Flame Tribe, but what else am I meant to be interpret Oni Chiften as if not something to do with Rinkah's culture? Ice Tribe Kilma, Felicia and Flora's father. This banner hasn't happened yet, but I doubt they'll include him and talk of that was one of the inspirations for this thread New Years Daichi, I don't know if I'm right, but he looks like he's meant to be donning some kind of Kabuki or stage play outfit, and while that's not a direct tie to New Year's, the New Year's banner is the thinly veiled Japanese culture banner Picnic Senno, the Merchant boss. If you've ever actually been to Cherry Blossom viewing in Japan you'd know there's just a whole bunch of people trying to sell shit everywhere, so Senno would fit in perfectly Dancers Layla, the character most known for being on CYL over someone like Kotaro despite her appearing in just one scene. I don't think she should be on a regular banner, but performing arts was a seasonal back in the day and she'd be perfect there. Fancy Ball (Masquerade) Kurth and/or his father Azmur. These banners are all about the courtly ball, so having the prince or heir hosting the ball (probably as a Duo unit) would fit, and despite being very important characters in universe, we'll almost certainly never see them any other way. Really there's a bunch of Jugdral NPCs I'd like to put here, like Byron, Lahna, Eve/Eva/Alva, but I'll restrain myself to just these two Mostyn, Shiida's father. I think these actual banners were pretty Jugdral focused, but I feel an exception could be made for him (and Hardin's Brother) The other seasonal banners I think they've done are Hot Springs, Wind Tribe, Spring, Summer and Winter, none of which I have any ideas for. Panne and Yarne could certainly be on the Spring Banner, but I tried to limit things to enemy and npcs rather than proper playable characters who all have a chance to get in on New Heroes banners. If there was a minor Taguel boss I would put them on the Spring Banner in a Heartbeat. Winter's aestetic is a bit too specialized, no regular Fire Emblem character looks like that, and I can't think of anyone who is in beach/bath wear by default for the summer or hot springs banner. And finally, I can't think of anyone aside from Fuga or Hayato that seems Wind Tribe affiliated.

What would be hilarious about that is Lex still wouldn't be able to pass it down to anyone since none of his children can use axes. Natsu is Japanese for summer, so if that I were a typo they'd be the Cross Summers, which sounds like some kind of 0verflow game. I got the lovers to fight without using any glitches. Took me way longer than it should have to pull off. Yeah, Diarmuid is playable in Chapter 6, remember? Or is he so bland one forgets even that. As for Nana, she got lost at some point and ended up in Leinster. We have discussed this, and I agree. Give us middle aged Adean. She's already seemingly reunites with her kids in Isaach as is, they just don't let us actually see middle aged Adean because middle aged women don't exist.

I think Langbolt's disgust towards André is because he killed his own father. Langbolt killed his own prince after all, so he's definitely not against some political assassination, but killing a family member seems to be beyond the pale for him (though he absolutely will knock the stuffing out of Lex if you have the two fight, at least his quote is more shock and shaming rather than an openly explicit intention to kill). So, yeah, this. Actually it's more like 17 years old minimum, given well, it's a 17 year time skip and all the parents die before the time skip. Of course not all the parents do actually die and some kids like Coirpre seem definitely like they're designed to be younger than 17. But that seems more the exception to the rule. At the very least we know the Larcei, Scathach, Lana, Lestor, Diarmuid and Nana are all 17+ since they all fled to Isaach with Seliph (even if you can get their parents to hook up after taking Lubeck, I think). The other characters you might be able to fiddle their ages a bit, but the possibility of a sun 17 age varies with the father. Like, Tinne seems like she could be under 17, but the population Tailtyu-Lewyn pairing would require Lewyn fucking Tailtyu while she's a prisoner of the Frieges and not... actually helping her, to get a sub 17 age for Tinne. Words cannot describe how much I love this. Solid A+ editing job.

Go to the animation id, like what's pictured above and hit editor. That. Will let you see the animation being played out like it would in the game. When dealing with full animations it's much easier to use the script method I told you before, but for changing just one or two frames the editor is easier. Find the melee dodge animation in the editor and change what needs to be changed to the images of the hand axe dodge.

Actually yeah, that could have worked really well. Would have given Orgahil more interesting gameplay and developed it slightly better as an actual place for the world building. Because as is it's basically just pirate island. Lewyn mentions going there in Thracia, which I think was meant to be a "soz guys I'm busy with [random name drop]" but it comes across more as a big fat "why? There is nothing of relevance there." Although, speculating now, perhaps that's exactly the reason. Maybe he raised Julia in Orgahil because there is nothing of worth there and he has to go there during Thracia so he could pick her up and bring her to Isaach. Still, pirate island doesn't seem like the best place to raise a young lady, especially if you're away inciting rebellions half the time. Well I only suggested the citizen to merge the ideas. The principle thing is to give the player something to do during that section. If we have the civilians on Orgahil then we can have her flee with her small retinue of knights. Who look just like Eve, Eva and Alva only with green hair! You're so lucky I'm on mobile right now and not at my computer. Otherwise I'd be swiftly editing that femme fatale picture above so Wendell is stepping on Manli's face.

No. Bring back the Chameleon class. It's loads of fun.

You got to it before me. Fatewakening Trio, bad. Whitewings Cameo, good. And I've tried to talk about this topic before, when Fates was new, and the poor handling of Owain, Ingo and Severa kind of neutered a lot of people's interest in the idea. But I think the basic idea of one character from the previous continuity cameoing in the next continuity is a fun idea. Power Rangers did that for years with some of the most celebrated episodes. Absolutely. I'd much rather they do it by "which character is most sensible" to cameo rather than "which character is most popular". I'd even go as far as to say no lords, ever for something like this. Doesn't matter that Ike vanishes off into the sunset, don't bring him back in an ordinary mainline game. Characters that I do think would work well for cameos. *Tatiana in Archanea, or rather, Tatiana in Mystery of the Emblem. It'd be nice if she was a power couple with Sirius coming over to help him. Especially if she brought some of the weirdness of Gaiden's gameplay with her and acted unique among the cast. I'd neglect to not also mention Luthier, who specifically has an ending saying he went to Archanea and even shows up in Khadein during the Shadow Dragon manga (which only makes marginal sense, but still cool he was there). *Caspar and Lindhart have a paired ending where they visit new continents, I believe. Even though neither of them are my favourite characters in Three Houses, I would like to see them again, and Caspar in particular needs to keep Brawling as a thing in this series. *Lifis is a wonderfully scummy character who has an ending where he vanishes (after apparently organizing the complete eradication of his own former underlings), so I'd be pretty pleased to see him pop up somewhere else. And, much like Tatiana, especially if he can bring some of Thracia's weirdness to his gameplay. *Deen (Gaiden Deen) He had a reference to a southern continent in his original Gaiden ending. I want a follow up to that. I don't care that it's been 30 years and that the remake removed the line. I don't even like Deen, but give me the Southern Continent! *L'Arachel. I'm not her biggest fan, but she is a wonderfully quirky high energy character. And yes, she would have responsibilities, being Queen of her country, but she's also the kind of queen to pull a Nailah and just go on a crazy quest. Speaking of which... *Nailah and or Volug. Cameoing is basically what they're doing in Radiant Dawn already. They're just sort of there. It's as if they are characters from a different game just showing up in Radiant Dawn. So I think we could utilize them again, either for the same purpose, just showing up randomly (and bringing Laguz transformation mechanics with them) or by showing their actual lives in their actual setting with Hatari or any other countries we could retcon to exist out east. *Sophia has one of those stereotypical disappeared mysteriously for no reason endings, and because she in particular is slower aging, we could see her show up with time having moved a lot or a little relative to her. That leads me on to my next point. *Any of the child characters only, now they're old because timeline. You know the way we get references in Pokemon to suggest the different regions aren't happening at the same time? Because of the original time skip in Gen II? Yeah, well, that, but with Fire Emblem. Have someone like Ricken or Larum show up somewhere, only now they're proper adults who look and act varying degrees of the same or different. The opposite idea has some potential too, someone like Niime showing up somewhere with a young design, but you run into a bit more continuity snarls if a character apparently had this other world or intercontinental adventure in their youth that they just never mention in their original game, so it'd probably only suit a character sufficiently mysterious about their background, like idk Volke or something if he were so much older that showing off a young version of him would be a novelty. *Any of the Genealogy substitute units. These guys just don't have their own identities. I just made a thread talking about giving them more original backstories, but just plain using them again in a different context would serves to give them an independent existence. Especially considering, as, mostly commoners, they don't have the same ties to the setting that their noble counterparts do.

Yes. Invincible good. But mid season break is not good 😞 Glad it's back on now.

I reckon Daccar ordering the civilians to be killed has a lot less to do with making him evil and a lot more to do with introducing the mechanic of rescuing civilians for exp. It's the only time it shows up in the first gen, but it happens again in the second gen, so they probably wanted to squeeze it in somewhere, and this makes about as much sense as anywhere else. Rescuing your own civilians in the prologue would make the most sense narratively, but that would concentrate exp onto the starter squad in a weird way. The only other opportunity would be when Macbeth sicks the bandits on his own people, but the primary reason for that was to introduce Lewyn, which wouldn't work if there was just a bunch of auto levels for him and Sylvia to rescue. So we get this, people in a civil war inexplicably massacring their own citizens. As for using Lahna as a hostage, it seems consistent that in both gameplay and story, Sigurd retook the capital really quickly. So Daccar just plain didn't have the chance to use her as a hostage. The layout of the map also wanted to make sure you got Forseti before finishing it, so we needed Lahna to both be in peril, but also quickly rescued from peril before the chapter ended. Honestly, the best thing they could have done would have been to put Lahna on the field with civilians, fleeing Silesse castle, with enemies pursuing her while Pamela and Mahnya have their showdown, just so you have something to do while the glorified cutscene plays out. That is not an overflow glitch I was aware of. So it would be trivially easy to put Julius to sleep? In the games, yes, but in the wonderful world of Fire Emblem manga, we had Manali debut just before the release of Genealogy. She's a minion of Gharnef who tries to kill Wendell and gets a face full of Merric's newly mastered Excalibur. And because all of this happens in Khadein before Merric reunites with Marth, I declare it headcanon that it happened in the games too and put her in Pyrathi Warlords.

A Sigurd solo would probably take more turns, but it will also be quicker to do in real time. Because a Sigurd solo inevitably involves a huge crowd of enemies ganging up on him that takes tonnes of turns to get through. Tonnes of mindless turns with the turbo button firmly pressed. Which means it actually takes very little real time to do, even if the turn count is really high. A Sigurdless playthrough on the other hand would be fewer turns but a lot longer spent on each turn as every unit's action needs to be considered.

1. Always check to see if there's a patch for what you want to do. If there is, great, if there isn't, continue 2.Export the Melee Axe animation as "Battle Animation There is a Comment". Call the resulting text file MeleeAxe or something. 3.Export the Ranged Axe animation to the same folder under "Battle Animation There is a Comment". Call the resulting text file RangedAxe or something. 4.You should now have a folder with all the frames of both hand axe animations. Open both the text files. This is the instruction for the game to compile the images into an animation. There are different sections for hits, misses, dodges and criticals, all at ranged and melee. Copy the ranged animation scripts from the ranged axe text file into the meele text file or vice versa, so you have a text file that mixes the two. 5.Import the text file to an animation ID in FEBuilder and viola, you should have an animation that looks one way when attacking at range, and another way when attacking at melee.

I was playing paragon mode mind you. That probably needs to be stressed more (but I also insisted on not early promoting which was a laughably stupid idea,so it probably balances out). A Sigurdless playthrough genuinely sounds more difficult than a Sigurd solo.

Chapter 23, 24 and 25 We open with Saias helping Ced rescue civilians. Which is kind of a weird plot development. I mean, Saias was an enemy fighting against us last chapter. Sure, throughout the game he hasn't been depicted as a bad guy, he helped Mareeta after all, but why the sudden turn around from fighting against us to fighting with us? What prompted this from him? If rescuing the civilians was his priority, then why waste his time fighting against the liberation army trying to help them? Ced is also way too trusting in this scene. Saias very well could have just taken the all important sword and civilains and just handed them back to Raydrik. But, I suppose he was in a pretty tight spot. We then see Raydrik talking to none other than Although this time I won't increase the tally, because I'll assume it's the same character as the very first blue cloak man we saw talking to Raydrik back at the start of the game. I'm not sure why they had blue cloak collar man talk to Raydrik here though, as he's immediately replaced by the boss of this chapter 1 Really, conservation of characters should have come into play here. Faden should have been the person Raydrik was talking to at the start of the game. Use your characters, people. Having generics actually doesn't make your world more filled out and lived in if your named characters are given so little to do that they might as well be generics themselves. As for Faden, he has a unique face, and that's about all I can say about him. Real shame he wasn't characterized at the start of the game in the Munster arc. This chapter is a bit busy to do anything interesting with him now. 4 We also have our lopt bishop boss of this chapter. He'll get merc'd by Ced pretty quickly, but before then he'll have plenty of time to use silence on me in an irritating way. Several enemies here also carry sleep, we are at peak staff to staff combat now and I'm fighting with both hands tied behind my back. Overall I really like this chapter. The layout puts some ridges in to make the chapter work, but otherwise it's a very faithful recreation of this area form Genealogy of the Holy War. And best of all, it has 2 THE SAME BOSS FROM GENEALOGY! THE SAME BOSS FROM GENEALOGY! They ignored Ishatar as a boss, they ignored Faval completely, they ignored the three mage sisters and Tine is barely mentioned. They never gave Ishtore or Liza the time of day, Bloom gets a single scene with less than a handful of lines. Every boss from Chapter 7 and 8 of Genealogy if ignored, dismissed, disrespect except Coulter. He stands above all other bossmen as one appearing in two games under the same circumstances. ANd most gloriouslu of all, this means giving him a completely different face to what he had in Genealogy XD Like, seriously, there isn't even half an attempt to make him look the same. Though, to be fair, it is the most overused boss face in Genealogy. Maybe this was meant to be an original design for him, but then they went and made Zaom have the same face. Oh, also Altena is here too, but much like Genealogy, she won't engage us...and she's not even holding her Holy Weapon. What the hell? I guess that's why the Dragonpike is said to be Dean and Altena only...still though...why? Her having Gae Bolg here is plot relevant, it's part of what allows Finn to recognize her. In light of all this, it's kind of surprising they even let Ced have Forseti in this game when he could have been a father-ambigious-Ced (or even Hawk). I mean, they seem really reluctant to show off any Holy Weapons otherwise. They never let Bloom or Ishtar use Mjolnir against us. We never see Faval at all. Travant never takes the field with Gungnir, nor do they utilize Julius for anything other than a cameo. Shannan and Balmung never appear in the game at all, and here, even when it would just be flavour and she wouldn't need to actively use it all. These weapons are in the code. They glitch the game if tried to use because they're unfinished, but they're there. It wouldn't be hard at all to have them, and here most of all there is no excuse. It's plot relevant and gameplay irrelevant. Just do it! Maybe they're afraid the player could capture or steal holy weapons, so they only gave us one on a playable character, but surely there would have been ways to prevent that, and capturing Altena here, in particular, would have vastly more plot complications than repossessing her Holy Weapon. Ahem. Holy weapon erasure aside, I do like this chapter. It gets so chaotic with four different forces all vying for control in a way that makes sense for the plot. And all the while Seliph is up in Connacht fighting Bloom. So much is happening, it feels like a real war, unlike the protagonist centric battles of other Fire Emblem games. Here, Leif is clearly just one actor of a multi layered conflict where everyone has their own story. We get a scene where Alphand reveals he's lost his tome and needs to find it. This is a gag repeated from Genealogy, which would have been perfect if it were the same boss, but alas that happened in Yied. Having it happen to two completely unrelated Lopt Sect members makes it feel a tad contrived, but the scene itself is well written by the translator. It doesn't take him very long to find it and when he has it, he's pretty dangerous, so I have to put Saias in his vicinity to trigger Ced's appearance, if I wait too long he'd be able to kill my sleeping Deen, who is entirely defenseless. Oh wait, Altena straight up leaves the map instead of hovering on the mountains like she does in Genealogy. All the more reason for her to have used Gae Bolg. On a related note, I kind of wish the Thracians here were green units like in Tara (or some other colour so as not to interfere with the green=ally who can't attack me perception). This is even more of a three way battle than Tara was and by all rights the Thracians should attack the remaining empire soldiers too. I don't know how, but a Thracian managed to capture Xavier, stealing my only Master Axe. The Thracian has a con of 13 while Xavier has a con of 15. Xavier was asleep, but that shouldn't matter, I thought. Otherwise you could capture those Baron bosses with 20 con like Cohen and Raydrik. I thought Leif getting the Blagi Sword, a weapon that specifically only works with holy blood users, undermined Leif's arc of feeling inferior of not having holy blood. "Oh no, I'm so useless because I don't have major holy blood." "Fear not! Yes, you aren't able to wield a holy weapon, but you're still have divine and better than those peasents because you can wield this! An unrelated sacred relic tailored towards beating this enemy that conveniently you can use!" And while that's true, the Blaggi Sword is probably better off not being a thing, Ced's convo with Leif is pretty awesome and a good reason for his turn around...Faval and Ishatar still should have been characters in this game beyond cutscene cameos though. And then Saias leaves for...reasons. I don't really get why. It's possible to have him stay if you kill Alphand and seize the same turn before Ced shows up. In which case Ced doens't join for...again, reasons. So it's essentially a Samson-Arran choice, only you have to do some LTC one turn speed run to get the weaker of the two characters. Given that, to get Illos, Miranda has to randomly be dead, I can only suspect there was some kind of technical limit to the number of units you could have in your army, hence why they made it so you could only have one of the two, but it's a bit weird and doesn't make much sense. If it were a technical limit, then having Saias stick around if you have at least one dead or unrecruted ally would...well it wouldn't let thins make much more sense narratively, but it would make things feel less random, especially if we give someone a line about Leif not being at full strength and needing the reinforcement. Now we're in the second last chapter, as I won't be doing CHapter 24x since it relies on the Kia staff, which I won't use. I suppose I could still get the staff and go to the chapter and just not save Eyvel, but I'm afraid of both this chapter and the following chapter, so I'm going to try and finish off Raydrik quickly. The Bragi Sword is a bit of a funny weapon. It's meant to be useable by people with Holy Blood, so Leif, Nana, Diarmuid and Fergus can all use it. But Eyvel, Galzus and Mareeta can't. Eyvel has her weird situation, but Galzus and Mareeta should 100% be able to use it according to the lore. I would also personally like Miranda to be able to use it too, so Leif's family isn't the only one with Holy Blood in Norht Thracia. So I'll chalk her lack of using it to an oversight along with Mareeta and Galzus. 1 Looks like I'm going up against Berserk staffs again. *gulp*. First order of Business is to ensure Lara and Mareeta end up with Leif in the south by manipulating my deployment order. I'm hoping I can do this in about three turns, and without losing anyone. I also have 10 blizzard uses from the two tomes I managed to steal before, so hopefully Asvel can disable the berserk staffer. Well...shit. I genuinely wasn't expecting the enemy with the restore staff to actually heal the sleeping enemyh with the berserk staff. Looks like I'll have to put both of them to sleep...And I goto a game over because Galzus was able to one round my 20 defense 20 speed Leif. A second go around. I blizzard both the restore staff user and berserk staff user. Lure Galzus in, this time remember not to give Leif a broken weapon. Olwen, bolstered with a Pure Water, tanks all the dark mages in her area. I then position Conomour to csteal the berserk sword using the sleep sword. Mareeta recruits Galzus and together with Ced and Asvel, they take out the other mercenaries. Leif then heads up alone to Raydrik and takes him out. Simple. Had to do a few resets due to the enemy getting lucky with Fenrir a few times. But overall it was relatively simple. 1 Alright, here we go. All out. All Pure Waters and Vulneraries on the units. All siege tomes here. Everyone with a door key. I'm going to try and do this with no save states at all, though I will be willing to let people die, and I will be resetting the first few turns if need be. Things start off poor. My absolute first priority is to neutralize Canis due to her Berserk staff, but I only have Conomor, Linoan and Sara. Linoan and Sara have maxed magic, but they still aren't exactly my A team. It seems I can't do it without Conomor dying. He can put Canis to sleep, but then he has WTDagainst the master lance knights, one of which can one round him. Well, since he'll die anyway, I might as well Berserk he instead of sleep her. This is weird. First round Berserked Canis used Berserk on her fello Deadlord. But now, she insists on using Berserk on Osian even though she's Berserked. I did read that getting enemies to Berserk each other does depend on unit placement somewhat, so maybe I'm killing or leaving alive the wrong untis. But, berserking the enemies isn't critical, so I'll just put her to sleep instead. Okay, I need Conomor to hit Canis with the sleep sword at 40% accuracy on turn 1, and is frustrating to reset every time he misses. So no save states with the exception of hitting Canis on turn 1.z Well, it was a bit of a blood bath, but I did it in the end. Ronan, Lifis, Karin, Dalsin, Linoan, Conomor didn't make it. Ronan, Lifis and Karin in particular where very useful in this playthrough, yes, seriously, Ronan too. His magic growth didn't end up helping him endure enemy staves, but his movement stars and fortunate movment level up mad ehim quite versatile. And because I was giving him favouatism, he had Luna and Adept to help him kill, though he didn't entirely need them once he hit a high enough weapon rank to use the Brave Bow. I could certainly do the endgame without any losses, but it would require manipulating placement order so I could get Ced or Galzus near Canis to ensure I can one turn her. Total Turns: 893 Surviving Units: 40 Overall Rank: E...which is pretty shameful, and I definitely could have done better even with the challenge restrictions if I wasn't so focused on minmaxing. Ultimately, Thracia without staves is entirely doable and not as troubling as I thought. It mainly just invovles different strategies as opposed to warping in an OP unit and storming the enemy castle solo. I'm not done yet, I have a save file at the route split and I'm going to briefly check A route just to see if any more boss portraits are used there to complete my catalogue.

Yes, our very first duo was a banner unit, and it's all been downhill since then. If anything I'd say Archanea has more potential for special hero types than Valentia. Aside from Marth and Nyna, there's also Minerva, Hardin, Gotoh, Xane (could work particularly well for him, though they probably won't do something like that for a base unit outside of Engage), Michalis, Camus, Linde etc. There's a lot more independently important Archanea characters than Valentia characters, which tends a bit more to be the Alm and Celica show. The one asset (general use, not asset hero) that SoV has is The over classes, which they don't seem interested in using.

Touche on Gharnef, though Camus never actually dies. And while Gharnef might not have any dragon blood directly, he probably does have a very high understanding of how dragons and their powers work given that's what magic is derived from in the setting. The official explanation for his survival is that he managed to put his soul in the Dark Sphere artificially before death. So it was less "Gah, you killed me, but I will endure" and more a prearranged Horcrux.

So we open up to Cohen finally appearing. 4 And he proceeds to espouse a whole bunch of last minute backstory to Saias that Saias already knows. This is just so hilariously poorly done as far as conventional writing goes, yet I love it so much. I have to say though, Saias misses a lot of presence he has in the game in not appearing in the B route. And then Reinhardt gets his second of three whole scenes in the game 1 Here we go. 19 leadership stars, sleep, berserk, silence, I'm going up against it all. Victory only needs Leif to seize the Throne. That means I have to be careful to get him over the bridge! And...Cohen immediately uses Berserk on Homer, procs a movement star (yeah, bosses who can randomly attack twice, joy) and then uses it on Leif...I was sure enemies didn't target Leif with status effects. But here we go, Turn 1 failure, Berserked Leif. Looks like i"m going to have to rescue Leif for the first few turns to ensure he doesn't get hit with any of the status staves. I got a Pure Water with a pretty unique looking soldier. The first few chapters took quite a few resets to survive. Between Berserk, Sleep and Silence, a full 9 of my units are put out of commission, and I have to manipulate things so they are 9 that I choose. My initial plan all game has been to train up a bunch of magic user, but as I said before, that just mean Cohen targeted Leif. And Saias 18 magic is pretty hard for most characters to avoid without chugging all my pure waters (which on retrospect is probably a better use for them than the hypothetical power boost they could give me in endgame). So to get around Berserk I had to deploy several bulky units with no weapons for Cohen to target. Once staff spam is survived, I need to spend d a bunch of turns removing the ammo from the Ballista near the castle. Not even my jacked Karin movement can out range it. Then I need to ferry units safely into the range of Cohen's blizzard without Karin getting hit. All the while defending against the reinforcements who move towards my very impaired army. Finally after turn 40, Cohen warps Saias away and with his 10 leadership stars going I can finally hit things with some reliability. Cohen warps Saias away against his consent, and much like I praised Raydrik having a warp stave when he warped Galzus in a cutscene at the start of the game, I would have liked it if Cohen had a warp staff here for the same reasons. This turn count is ridiculous though. Why as high as 40 turns to mill through before Saias leaves? It should be, like 10. Took an age, but by dipping Karin in and out of their range, I managed to kill enough of Reinhardt's mage knights to drop her in his expected range and get the Blessed Sword. Then I baited them away, killed Cohen with Leif and seize on the next turn, leaving Reinhardt alive. Honestly, the bridge gambit the enemy pulls here is to their own disadvantage, as it means once you aggro them, they can't get the bulk of your army. This chapter really should have had something like a turn limit to force you to move faster and engage Reinhardt and not just cheese it by taking advantage of the fact that they've isolated themselves. A turn limit (with Saias leaving much earlier) would make it far more intense, if you're not just warp skipping it, of course.

Duos are only available for seasonal I'm afraid. I wish they'd broken that taboo and give us Marla and Hestia as a Duo, that would have made them a lot more noteworthy.

Neither! Throw us the curve ball; make them BS Saga representatives with designs inspired by their BS palette. Banner 1: GHB: Banner 2: GHB: Banner 3: GHB: Banner 4: GHB: Palla didn't get a BS Portrait, so no special version for her. Instead we get Nyna and Minerva (possibly Hardin too).

Well, true, obviously true, but that's kind of the issue. It was blatantly transparent. I didn't think of he CYL GHB, but, yeah, you're totally right, it should have been Desaix. Especially since Shadows of Valentia has so few playable characters left and so many bosses that deserve to be in, Desaix, Slayde, Grieth, Nuibaba, Rudolf and Jeddah are all pretty major villains, especially the last two.

I didn't mention Ishtar when I went over the script as those references felt less literally, like people are merely praising her thunder powers. Which, as I understand, in Hellenistic religious tradition it be very blasphemous to refer to someone as a god who is not a god. Half of those ancient Greek stories are about punishing uppity savants who think they're comparable to gods. Oh yeah, and Edelgard's class is actually feminine in Japan. Emperor is our localization of Kaizerin, though as far as localizations go it does seem appropriate for her to use a male term, especially with the flame emperor disguse (I assume they use a male term there in Japan but I haven't checked). What's funny though is that Sanaki actually uses a male term for her class, Kaizer, which was localized as Empress. So in Japan Sanaki uses a male term while Edelgard uses the female, and in English it's reversed. My final bit of trivia here is that Alvis and Hardin do not in fact share the same class as Edelgard, that is only a result of Emperor being the same translation for all of them, but the Japanese terms are different (though honestly, given the obvious German inspirations in Adrestia, maybe they should have just went with Kaizer like Japan). He's not referred directly to as a god, so this might be me just headcanoning a bit, but it does seem like Sigurd himself is in the early stages of becoming a god, or at least some kind of folk hero, given how much people are suffering under the Empire and how good Sigurd's reputation became, ironically because he'd been declared a traitor (people think Sigurd had the whole empire figured out and was the first to try and stop it, which is funny because it's not actually true and only arises from the propaganda against him backfiring). Some cults if Sigurd praying for his protection seem very like they could have popped up around Jugdral.

Oh, and we literally see Sigurd and Deirdre go force ghost. Which now that I think about it, is perfectly consistent with what we see in Archanea with Medeus, and later Naga, having the ability to persist in some form after death. That wasn't just random ghost for feels, it's Sigurd and Deirdre utilizing a pre established power of their dragon blood. Kaga you magnificent bastard.

I did pore over script In the prologue the villagers talk about the Chalphys claiming descendent from Balder the god of light and Jungbys being descended from Ullr the god of archery, both of those are Crusaders (unless the dragons have the same names by coincidence). Fee later says the Sileesian royal family claims direct lineage from the Wind God Forseti, which is interesting because the crusader is Ced and the dragon is Forseti. I assume both the dragons and the crusaders are seen as gods, but by saying they are literal descendants of Forseti suggests the people kind of understand the blood pact...but then we get this quote in Chapter 4 Villager: “Silesia’s Royal Family’s power is ‘Wind’ as is bestowed by Holsety, the God of Wind. The Velthomer’s power is ‘Fire’ as is bestowed upon them by Fala, the God of Fire. And the Freege’s power is ‘Thunder’ as is bestowed by Tordo, the God of Thunder.” Where Forseti is mentioned in the same breath as Fjalar and Trud, and we know for a fact that Fjalar is the Crusader while Salamander is the Dragon...So it seems like all of the Crusaders are gods, except Ced. Maybe because the Forseti tome ends up possessing you the people of Silesse have a different view over the position of crusader and dragon, or maybe the original Ced just started calling himself Forseti later in life as a result of the possession. The fact that they're all mentioned together though excludes the possibility that this is a translation creativity, the crusaders and one of the dragons are mentioned together with the same term. Chapter 5, Alvis again calls himself a descendant of Fire God Fjalar. Chapter 9, Finn says Altenna received the God Noba's lineage. In the endgame only the dragons are referred to as gods giving their powers to the crusaders. And Salamander is also called the god of fire. So, yeah, the Crusaders are consistently referred to with the term god, at least on the translation Serenes provides, even being gods of a specific aspect. And this is so ingrained that the dragon Forseti is mentioned in the same context as two of the crusaders. So, yeah, weird as it might be from our cultural perspective, they genuinely view these people they know are humans and had lives that died only a few dozen years ago as divine in nature, much like how the Romans deified their emperors and raised them to the status of gods. And now that I think on it, the very Christian idea of a Saint possibly might have arisen from this practice in Rome. And given that these crusaders did literally receive the power of beings thought of as gods, it's not entirely untrue that they have a divine aspect to them. We even get the implication that Bragi and Claud can influence the world from beyond the grave. And, uh, yeah, that, the developers notes outright saying it.

Yeah, I'm not going to pore over the text of both games to see how many times (would be nice if Fire Emblem scripts were organized into a single document instead of divided by chapter >.>), but people are obviously praying to Blagi (though I suppose you could pray to a saint) and Saphy refers to War God Heim guiding her at one point.

Chapter 20, 21 and 21x In this chapter we first get to see Reinhardt in all two of his scenes in the game. He's talking to Barath 1 Barath is interesting for two reasons. The first is, as I said in the previous chapter, because he has identical stats to Wolf, which is either really lazy or suggests something else. The second is that he has a unique face. Which is odd for a character of such low importance. I do hope he appears in a Genealogy remake instead of that one Commander, I might have said the same thing last chapter about Wolf, but really, either of them will do. We get a good sense of the timeline here. Ishotre is already dead and Mergen taken. That means during this chapter Seliph is already fighting Tine and the three mage sisters, possibly even ousting Bloom himself. That's kind of obvious from the ending of the chapter, but I do like the perspective Reinhardt brings here. Bloom is upset that his son's dead, because of course he would be. I like Bloom, I even wrote a fanfic about him once. I wrote the entire thing but only ever found the motivation to post half of it. I should finish editing it some day and complete it. Oh wow, Cohen also fought Seliph at this point. That's not something we see in Genealogy, but now I really hope we do. I'm very sure you don't fight a generic baron at that point. Let me check. Hmm. Well there is a Steel Axe General Commander, but that's a far cry from Cohen who is primarily a mage Baron who's psychical back up is a Master Lance. Oh, look who's making an unexpected return 3 This guy says "Uh...Y-yes, sir?" and "Ah, at once sir", which is still more dialogue than Dvorak, the boss with this portrait, actually gets. August says if they fall here they have no where to run...no mention of that church from Genealogy Finn urges Leif to flee to. August also note how we're giving Seliph time to take Ulster by distracting Bloom's forces, and I just love that as a narrative plot point. If this was the same story as Genealogy flicking back and forth between the two scenes would run the risk of being a bit forced and artifical I feel, but with Genealogy already an established story and these events already happening elsewhere, it just makes the world feel larger and keep a central focus on these people, right here, doing what they can. Oh wow, an enemy with unlock. Isn't that exclusive to Tina? Are these two random mages related to her like that one Berserker with a Pugi in the forest who must be Osian's cousin or something? That was far easier than I remember. I guess power levelling Leif last chapter unbalanced my exp a bit. I remembered this chapter being pretty desperate hold out, but I was able to overwhelm the enemy pretty easily and was only at risk to ambush reinforcements that could crowd around one person. Now, this chapter. This chapter. The Liberation Wars. I have a lot to say about the bosses of this chapter. 3 This is Seimetol, yet another Thracian mercenary. He uses Rumei's portrait, but he's not as memorable as Rumei. The previous two chapters adapted Chapter 7 of Genealogy, while the remaining chapters adapt (most of) Chapter 8. There were Thracians in involved in Chapter 8 of Genealogy, hell the chapter is named after them, but they only involve themselves after Bloom is dead. In fact, it's specifically a plot point that Travant isn't helping Bloom and wants him and Seliph's forces to exhaust each other so Thracia can take over. So...why the hell did they put Seimetol here? Was it purely just to have a wyvern enemy? Okay, fine, but let's make something of it. Let's have Seimetol be confident he is going to get back up from Trvant and then lament that it never comes, so we can show this plot point of Trvant abandoning the empire from the ground level (pun not intended). 4 And this is Fraus. This is the fourth and final time we see his face, it' s been a while. We fought him all the way back in Chapter 9 when he was the Thracian accidentally attacking Dorias and Selphina. Here he's a Friege mage who guards the castle. He has dialogue, but it's so basic he might as well not have any. But I don't care about that. I hate him not for what he is, but for what he is not. Which is Ishtar. He is not Ishtar. And he should be Ishtar. Because in Genealogy Leif's forces fight Ishtar. That's what happens. Ishtar is sent to take back Leinster castle along with Faval and the thre mage sisters. And all five of them should have been present in this chapter. Not only would this maintain continuity with Genealogy, but it would actually be better for Leif's character arc. Because at this point Leif is feeling inferior after his massive fuck up and he projects it onto him not having major holy blood. Well showing the goddess of Thunder tearing apart the battlefield, and Faval with his holy weapon would have served to further reinforce Leif's doubts. Seeing Julius warp in and save Ishtar would have been more impactful for selling Julius' presence than the weird way they did decide to handle him. But, okay, things are different in Thracia 776. Leif naturally conquers Connacht in Genealogy while in Thracia 776 he's heading straight for Munster. Fair enough, this doesn't match the flow of battle of Genealogy, there's kind of a crosscross happening. You could argue Leif rides down to Ulster and starts from there, even though in this map we start in the North West, but fine. If we accept that putting Ishtar or even the three mage sisters (who should have shown up at least somewhere in this game) here is impossible for these mundane weapons...then where are Muhammad and Ovo? Simply put, in Chapter 8 of Holy War you face 9 named bosses, and Thracia 776 decided to use just 1 of them. 3 We meet yet another random bishop using Cohen's face, this time the one that promote Linoan. What's funny about this one is that Cohen was already mentioned last chapter and is going to be fought next chapter (give or take a Paralogue). Usually these NPC and boss faces are spread out quite a bit so you only vaguely recognize them, but this is two consecutive chapters in which the reused portrait could genuinely lead to some confusion. Dang. I did almost the entire level and was approaching Fraus at the castle when he put Leif to sleep with his blizzard tome. Leif can get hit by status effects, the enemy just won't target him with status staves. And what this means...game over. I can't use a restore staff, so I can't seize with Leif. Reset. That chapter seemed easy at first, but a lot of cavalier reinforcements from the east can quickly overwhelm you. Most enemies are pretty weak though, and some high defense units they won't even bother attacking, so it's not that hard over all, but probably more tricky that the previous defense chapter in which you are meant to be overwhelmed and pushed you your limit. And because I intentional got a unit captured in the the previous chapter, we're going to go to the Gaiden, where Leif risks everything for the sake of...Shannam. What!? Homer has E rank wind magic, which means he can't use any of the wind tomes I just bought...how is he meant to get D rank magic to use wind if he can't use wind? Maybe if I promote him he'll get some wexp, but this is stupid one way or the other. 1 And we get met with a fresh face. His name is Zaom, and he does not have a unique design. He shares it with the later boss Coulter, who is interesting for a few reasons. Zaom is also talking to this guy. I'm going to show some restraint and now count this as a new character. Given the proximity of time and distance and that the assault on Leinster did end with a retreat, let's say he's the same guy Barath was talking to and that he managed to survive and make it here. We're at the point where they're fully expecting you to be warp skipping chapters, because this chapter is just ridiculous played conventionally. You have very few units (or at least units with weapons) and the enemy themself spams warp like to crowd you. The enemies aren't super strong, but they vary between physical and magic means they can kill you if you don't heal often. Zaom potentially putting people to sleep with Blizzard is also pretty lethal. On turn 30 the Wilkenrozen show up to force you to get out of the level. They're represented by this face 3 Who, sadly, is not a boss...And then Julius shows up with Ishtar to have a casual conversation in the prison. WHY WASN'T JUILIUS AN ENEMY UNIT! IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO TERRIFYING TO HAVE HIM SHOW UP WITH UNBEATABLE STATS! YOU'VE PUT HIM RIGHT THERE! USE HIM IN GAMEPLAY! Imagine you somehow played Thracia without without Genealogy, this red head kid is just going to feel so random, but put him here in gameplay and he'll have so much more presence. *sigh* Next chapter is Reinhart. I won't complain about minor bosses there. Or again. The rest is great. But this section frustrates me in how little they pay attention to continuity.