BrightBow

That wasn't too bad. Silken Knight Merida with an HP booster and a small shield did have just enough HP to survive Matagroth and was able to destroy his ass with the Thunder Sword. Maybe standard Merida can do this too, considering she can use actual medium shields. Chapter 5 was really fun. Lots of really good tweaks. Feels almost like a different map. Unfortunately I had to burn through pretty much the whole Doyenne, because Aslanne's squad and Nina are under a lot more pressure now. Kinda annoying having to fix it this early. Probably should have relied more on Aslanne's Critical Reprisal, to save up on weapon uses, even if Aslanne has little use for all that exp. Also Yaeri just learned a new command skill that has her deal a guaranteed critical hit. Not actually sure how useful that will be in practice, because just like Pulverize it prevents double attacking.

Oh wow, Matagroth is even sillier now. He carries a large shield for an effective 26 defense. Wearing down shields is also not really a feasible strategy. They just have way too much durability. And it's not depleted if the attack wouldn't have dealt any damage anyway. Still, I got plenty of new tools too. So maybe this will actually turn out to be easier than before.

Jean gets Pulverize now. Except unlike in Berwick Saga, it does not double attack. It triples it. Doesn't allow for a double attack. But it's not like many things will survive that first hit anyway. It's all pretty crazy, honestly.

Bonacel gets the Guard skill and now has build in effective damage against cavalry. Prody lost Good Neighbor and has a random chance to not lose weapon durability. Prody is definitely not doing so hot. Hopefully he was at least blessed with a different skill to replace Good Neighbor II. Guard is also a lot stronger here then in Berwick Saga, considering you get to move all your units at once.

That new skill and it's variations that Prody and others have seems to increase attack power by 50% under specific circumstances. Just gotta figure out what those circumstances are, I suppose. Still no clue on Jean's new skill. Also seems you can save whenever you want. But any time you load a mid-chapter save, it lowers your score on that save.

I wonder why the game drops a Rusted Axe on the first map now. It's gonna be a long time until it can be dropped in a lake. Maybe it can be dropped elsewhere now. Idk.

Oh cool, that's the unused alternate portrait he has.

Right out of the gate way more new stuff than I expected. Bonacel got Guard now. Prody has some weird skill with a flat 30% activation rate. They also both have another skill, whatever that one does. Troy gets a pref spear now if he talks to Zech. God knows he needed a buff, famously low tier as he is. And he has his pride flag which just like a real pride flag causes all nearby assholes to attack the wielder.

She also gives a massive support boost to Lea. Not quite as high as the one Barzelphen gets from Benette, but it's still insanely beefy.

But this whole affair is how you get resources. Not like there is a convenient "collect everything" button.

The addition of Delta to 30xx is pretty great. Finally someone with a Megaman Zero-like playstyle. Never been a huge fan of the way X4 and beyond handled X and Zero. One guy shots, the other slashes. That feels more like splitting a single moveset across multiple characters. Idk, I would rather have a single character with a deeper movepool.

How? Not like they ever remove their mouth from your crotch. In any case, considering a playable character to be "minor" doesn't make sense to me. Unless maybe it's something like a guest unit. Like Lea's grandmother, for example. Doesn't even get a name.

Yes, the site only lists the UK names. Interesting that they didn't simply keep the German number names for the English translation, though. Not like anyone complains about Frieren at the Funeral using simple German verbs as character names.

Now his lance shall rest. One might even say it would be "cringe". My boi Salamander is finally back! Huzzah! Although the way he describes him and Naga, it sounds more like Bantu and Tiki. Just a bit of dragon blood is all it takes to gain super powers? Did no one in Akaneia ever try that, between all the manakete the humans killed there? "Recently"? Could you not sense the "aura of Naga" in all the years taking care of her? And if you didn't know, what else was so special about her that back then you felt compelled to take care of her personally? Surely there was no lack of war orphans you encountered during your travels, who also were in dire need of a caretaker. Finally a whole army where everyone has Great Shield. Well, at least now his lance can rest. I suppose I do prefer the angry face over... well, other depictions of possession. I do like that he tabs a little into the Fala side of his heritage for the final battle. You would think that they have the Delta Attacke, but I can't say I've ever seen them try to set it up. Unlike the mage trio, they don't seem to prioritize attacking foes in melee. Well, not like her offensive stats had much room to grow in the first place. They are named after the numbers 1 to 12, but in German. Yeah, but what can you do? Axe users are more associated with speed than strength. If it helps, I believe I can faintly hear August scream "bullshit!" from the distance. Shadow Dragon reversed that and used the numbers 1 to 10 in Japanese instead. I suppose Ichi is not that bad of a name for a generic.

Weren't you supposed to have killed her ages ago? How hard can that be? 7 years ago. So it's not like Ishtar's boyfriend turning evil is a recent thing. Most certainly on another level than his brothers.

Man, with jumps like that, Celice could attack Berwick Saga wyvern with 0 range attacks. "Daddy screamed reeeeeeeeal good before he died." "Bless Levin" indeed. Crew Shanan and Oifey, I suppose. Although Oifey has it coming for his Arden erasure. You also had a really cool sword. Well, it's only a secret scene anyway. Deidre didn't even offer a golden axe or anything.

I would imagine that it only has that +5 res to protect Julius from status staffs. But of course as already stated, having more than 30 res means that status swords will work 100% of the time, so he is in fact very vulnerable to status. At least there is a basis in lore that everyone always sucks up to the avatar, no matter how heinous they are. Eh, Julius is perfectly killable here. Because unlike next map, he doesn't have Nihil yet. So crits can punch through his defenses just fine. In fact, Julius will drop the Leg Ring if it wasn't passed down. Ishtar would also drop her Life Ring. So funnily enough, under very specific circumstances you could actually have a bit of a Arran/Samson situation here. Funnily enough he has 3 less base strength compared to his NPC version. I guess that's what age does to you. Well, time for some revenging.

Let's not forget Travant.

Gotta push those cousin romances, I suppose. Although since their mothers were identical twin sisters, biologically it's less cousins and more half siblings. You guys didn't deserve Arden.

To be fair to her, if you talk 4 times to someone of the opposite gender, you are legally obligated to marry them and treat whatever heinous acts they commit as harmless quirky behavior. Kaga did it first. Although here the point of the amnesia seems more to be about keeping the resurrection of Lopto from overtaking the story until now. Doesn't exactly help that Julia is way more powerful than Deidre. I mean, Deidre cannot even change classes even if she does get to level 20. Julia is in a whole different league. It feels absurd that he can just take her without any meaningful resistance. But the worst part is that unlike Deidre, Manfroy doesn't actually need Julia for anything. He already has his dark god. If he can kidnap her, then he can also just kill her.

In order to be able to use Tornado, he also has Holsety blood. Or Holced blood, in order to be consistent with the official translation of Sety. Not sure how that fits into the lore.

I didn't even give you an exploding sword or anything. Don't think warrior codes have much to do with that. Pride, maybe. But above else I would say he is just done with life at this point. After decades he is still stuck in the Southern end of the peninsula. Not only that, his worst fear has finally become realized. The girl he raised for 17 years has finally found out that what he did to her biological parents and now looks at him with the eyes of her mother and sees in him nothing but a murderer. I would imagine he saw his two kids as a symbol of a united Thracia. Now they have instead cause a repeat of the tragedy of the Gae Borg and are if anything a symbol of it's ongoing divide. Point is, his reign was a complete failure. For all his plotting and scheming he has nothing to show for but the corpses of the good people who died in his wake. He is such a dumbass, it's impressive. I suppose we needed someone to keep leading the Thracian forces. If killing Trabant really did end the fighting, it would feel a lot more like the big climactic showdown with one of the hero killers from Gen 1 that the devs clearly don't want it to be. But this is just not a great way to do this.

Uhh, free new character. Glorious.

Definitely Arthur. It's ridiculously condescending of him to lie to his family because he decided that he is the only one who can bear the "horrible" truth that his father who everyone believed to be dead is actually still alive. And what, you think your mom doesn't on some level recognize when you lie in her face so brazenly? That's gonna turn into gaslighting very quickly, you know? Seriously, get your head out of your ass, Arthur. It's not good for your back.

I can't believe Altena did not do the thing she explicitly refused to do. Who could have seen that coming? I suppose with this kind of leadership skills I can see how Freege managed to snatch Northern Thracia away from Travant. Arione is a weird fellow. He probably thinks he is mending the issues between Altena and Travant, but if anything he is making them worse. Trying to convince Travant that Altena does not actually mean the things she explicitly says is just asking for more family trouble down the line. Idk, maybe he bumped his head falling from a dragon or something. Honestly, how dense can you be? Especially in the old translation, where Travant said that he gets the sense that Ethlyn speaks to Altena from the grave. Why do I have the feeling this was a really awkward line to translate? Oh don't you go all Arione on me, Oifey. Maybe this exchange is meant as a deliberate parallel to the Travant Trio. But if so, I can't say I find it particular meaningful. Look Fin, Celice already commented on the sad eyes of the female dragonknight. We can't have both of them doing the same Marth impression back to back. Technically Dragon Riders. Altena is the only Dragon Knight among them. The one time you get to see a female Forrester outside of Radney. I guess those are the civilians taking up arms themselves, mentioned in the prologue. Levin in 760 trying to get Briggid to tell him who the father of her kids is, just in case he needs to pass that information down decades later.