Jotari Posted May 1 Share Posted May 1 (edited) 1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said: 0 Dollar footlong, because you didn't pay for this game. I actually have paid for a copy of New Mystery. Because I was under the impression original DS titles didn't have region locking only to be cucked by the fact that New Mystery has online features or something and thus is region locked. Stupid DSI. 1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said: This chapter is neither of those thing, and is therefore the only good gaiden map in this game. Hey, I liked the Legion gaiden. Especially on Normal Mode where it's a whole map based around the arena concept of "How long can I gamble on grinding using this before I lose someone". On Maniac it became more of a desperate rush to the top right Legion and hope the rng made him the real one (it is randomized, right?). But in fairness to be I was doing a challenge run on Maniac so the normal mode vibe might be more easily felt if you're not stuck using the newly recruited Dice and Malice (Horace will still be there dying like wet tissue paper though). 1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said: Now let me talk about the REAL reason this chapter is amazing, past the map design. This chapter respects Wrys. Many units in FE12 are simply thrown in for the sake of "Everyone is here!". But my guy the one who cannot fight gets his own chapter, and it's actually good! Tell me that's a coincidence! To top it off, he even re-recruits himself with his iconic catchphrase: "Rebellions are like seeds". The assassins are going out of their way to murder this particular old man, while people like Athena are simply thrown at you at the start of 13x, and Ceasar and Radd are simply there because mercenary moment, although Ceasar is a bit interesting to me. To Oblivion with Malicia. Wrys is where it's at! You find Caesar interesting? Well let me direct you to this fangame in which he stars Okay, I'll take a break from shilling Pyrathi this time. Instead I'll shill this thread Because it's about that very concept and you're right. Wrys getting a moment to himself is good. Shame New Mystery barely bothers to do so beyond that. Edited May 1 by Jotari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint Rubenio Posted May 1 Share Posted May 1 11 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: To top it off, he even re-recruits himself with his iconic catchphrase: "Rebellions are like seeds". My favorite part of FE12 is when Wrys says "that wasn't even my best trap," unsheathes his levin sword and defeats Hardin singlehanded. Anyway, yeah, this map's always a fun time. If only the rest of them could've been more like this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted May 1 Share Posted May 1 58 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said: My favorite part of FE12 is when Wrys says "that wasn't even my best trap," unsheathes his levin sword and defeats Hardin singlehanded. Anyway, yeah, this map's always a fun time. If only the rest of them could've been more like this. Honestly I feel like Riev doesn't even do anything at all. He basically stands around looking menacing and then you fight him twice near the end where it's a moment of "Oh yeah, that guy's still alive." Like, correct me if I'm wrong, but he actually has zero connection to Lyon's experiments or corruption and stuff. That's all Knoll's territory. Lyon just got corrupt all on his own and Riev basically just showed up afterwards to do the Demon King's bidding, being lucky enough to be the one crazy satanist worshipper who happens to be alive at the same time his god is actually returning by sheer happenstance. Not saying it be necessarily better if Riev was the man behind it all, it's good that Lyon is corrupted via his own ambition and naivety rather than some obviously untrustworthy guy telling him to do something obviously shady. But it does leave Riev largely without a role or purpose in the plot other than to be basically Xemcel (I do wish Xemcel got to stand around looking menacing earlier in Shadow Dragon though). Riev is by far the best bonus unit though. A staffs+slayer+defense better than Moulder = a monster's worst nightmare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint Rubenio Posted May 1 Share Posted May 1 1 hour ago, Jotari said: Honestly I feel like Riev doesn't even do anything at all. He basically stands around looking menacing and then you fight him twice near the end where it's a moment of "Oh yeah, that guy's still alive." Like, correct me if I'm wrong, but he actually has zero connection to Lyon's experiments or corruption and stuff. That's all Knoll's territory. Lyon just got corrupt all on his own and Riev basically just showed up afterwards to do the Demon King's bidding, being lucky enough to be the one crazy satanist worshipper who happens to be alive at the same time his god is actually returning by sheer happenstance. Not saying it be necessarily better if Riev was the man behind it all, it's good that Lyon is corrupted via his own ambition and naivety rather than some obviously untrustworthy guy telling him to do something obviously shady. But it does leave Riev largely without a role or purpose in the plot other than to be basically Xemcel (I do wish Xemcel got to stand around looking menacing earlier in Shadow Dragon though). Riev is by far the best bonus unit though. A staffs+slayer+defense better than Moulder = a monster's worst nightmare. Aptly put, just uh... wrong thread lmao Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted May 1 Share Posted May 1 5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said: Aptly put, just uh... wrong thread lmao That's what happens when I post after my bed time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaky Jones Posted May 10 Author Share Posted May 10 Replies: Spoiler On 4/30/2024 at 9:38 PM, Jotari said: I actually have paid for a copy of New Mystery. Because I was under the impression original DS titles didn't have region locking only to be cucked by the fact that New Mystery has online features or something and thus is region locked. Stupid DSI. So now you're obligated to become a collector. Congrats. On 4/30/2024 at 9:38 PM, Jotari said: Hey, I liked the Legion gaiden. Especially on Normal Mode where it's a whole map based around the arena concept of "How long can I gamble on grinding using this before I lose someone". On Maniac it became more of a desperate rush to the top right Legion and hope the rng made him the real one (it is randomized, right?). But in fairness to be I was doing a challenge run on Maniac so the normal mode vibe might be more easily felt if you're not stuck using the newly recruited Dice and Malice (Horace will still be there dying like wet tissue paper though You can actually find out which legion is the right one through an exploit in unit cycling. Use the L button to cycle through regular bad guys, and whichever boss it lands on first is the one selected. This will reset each time you restart the chapter though, so if you die, don't just assume it's the same. That said, that doesn't mean the chapter is fun. Gambling for xp isn't good map design, or even map design at all. It's literal admitted RNG, in which ambush berserkers with crit can just kill you even if you are prepared and just trying to beat it quickly in an ironman setting is hectic when you physically cannot do anything about reinforcements that WILL be in your range. It's just stupid no matter how you look at it. Of course, this post is with maniac and lunatic only in mind. It's possibly fair in normal, as I assume the Legion's aren't ambush, but that would make them too easy to abuse for xp, but I guess normal mode players aren't looking for balanced gameplay. On 4/30/2024 at 9:38 PM, Jotari said: You find Caesar interesting? Well let me direct you to this fangame in which he stars Okay, I'll take a break from shilling Pyrathi this time. Instead I'll shill this thread Because it's about that very concept and you're right. Wrys getting a moment to himself is good. Shame New Mystery barely bothers to do so beyond that. Ya know, I respect how often you're willing to shill things you've made. One day I'll find the time to play your thing, but damn is that catalogue getting full. Ruben will start a war against America if I don't start Berwick soon, and I fear Biden accidentally sending a nuke to his own country instead of Spain. On 5/1/2024 at 7:47 AM, Saint Rubenio said: My favorite part of FE12 is when Wrys says "that wasn't even my best trap," unsheathes his levin sword and defeats Hardin singlehanded. Gharnef trembles and stammers as the Darksphere shatters into a thousand pieces, completely useless against the man with no hair. "No! Not into the pit! It buuuuurrrrnns!" On 5/1/2024 at 7:47 AM, Saint Rubenio said: Anyway, yeah, this map's always a fun time. If only the rest of them could've been more like this. Why didn't you do anything about this Ruben? On 5/1/2024 at 8:57 AM, Jotari said: Honestly I feel like Riev doesn't even do anything at all. He basically stands around looking menacing and then you fight him twice near the end where it's a moment of "Oh yeah, that guy's still alive." Like, correct me if I'm wrong, but he actually has zero connection to Lyon's experiments or corruption and stuff. That's all Knoll's territory. Lyon just got corrupt all on his own and Riev basically just showed up afterwards to do the Demon King's bidding, being lucky enough to be the one crazy satanist worshipper who happens to be alive at the same time his god is actually returning by sheer happenstance. Not saying it be necessarily better if Riev was the man behind it all, it's good that Lyon is corrupted via his own ambition and naivety rather than some obviously untrustworthy guy telling him to do something obviously shady. But it does leave Riev largely without a role or purpose in the plot other than to be basically Xemcel (I do wish Xemcel got to stand around looking menacing earlier in Shadow Dragon though). Yeah that's my favorite part of chapter 3x. Can't believe I forgot to mention that. On 5/1/2024 at 10:36 AM, Saint Rubenio said: Aptly put, just uh... wrong thread lmao How could you do this to me Ruben? You're awful. I will never recover. On 5/1/2024 at 3:49 PM, Jotari said: That's what happens when I post after my bed time. It happens to the best of us. Chapter 4: Yumina vs Yuliya Spoiler 50% Joy 50% Sorrow (Walk Emblem) Note: 2 pirates are added from Normal to Hard mode (1 west, 1 east) Reinforcements are significantly increased between Hard mode and Maniac mode (4 to 11) You obtain 3 units at the start of the map on the opposite side of the map, with 1 recruitable enemy unit nearby and a unit you enter a village to recruit: New Units: Yubello (Jubelo): 18 HP 1 MAG 1 SKL 6 SPD 5 LCK 3 DEF 3 RES [D rank Tomes] Yubello, as a result of FE12 class bases clashing with FE3 bases, has a magic base stat of negative 2 Class base is 3 magic. Yubello has 1 as a mage. In the original FE3, Linde and Merric only have a 20% magic growth, while Yubello has 50%. In FE12, Merric and Linde have been given a 40% magic growth, but Yubello was left at 50% Yubello's bases are exactly the same as his FE3 counterpart, with the only difference in growth rates being a +10% increase in skill. speed, defense, and luck (17% for RES) Yumina (Yuliya): 16 HP 2 MAG 1 SKL 7 SPD 9 LCK 2 DEF 5 RES [D rank Staves] In FE3, Yumina was the only unit capable of using the rescue staff. This has been changed so anybody capable of wielding staves can use it, requiring the bare minimum of an E rank in staves. Saint Rubenio really likes this unit for unknown reasons. Ogma: 27 HP 14 SKL 13 SPD 5 LCK 8 DEF 0 RES [C rank Swords] Levels and growth rates are carried over from the prologue Sirius: 28 HP 12 STR 1 MAG 14 SKL 13 SPD 4 LCK 11 DEF 6 RES [A rank Lances, B rank swords] Talk with Ogma to recruit him He is often considered one of the best units in the entire game, with his low luck even considered a greater benefit than a bane due to how it can manipulate the enemy AI Is a mysterious figure whose identity is still a New Mystery to the fandom to this day Castor: 24 HP 7 SKL 10 SPD 4 LCK 6 DEF 0 RES [C rank bows] Enter village to recruit Even if one don't want to use him, recruiting him gives you a rare hunter slot available for reclassing Enemy Stats: Maniac: Pirate: 25 Might Pirate 24 Might Hunter: 16 - 17 Might Devil Thief: 26 - (27) Might Steel Thief: 17 - (18) MIght Average Might: 26 and 17 might Units such as untrained Bord and Cord can survive against brigands with 2 spare HP, however will die if reclasses to certain other classes, such as Hunter Cord Hunters are relatively weak and shouldn't pose any significant threat to your units if not sharing range with a brigand. Their strength stat barely changes between difficulties, unlike fighters who gain +3 strength per difficulty increase (except for the jump to lunatic). Average Speed: 10 and 14 Cavalier Palla at base will have 14 speed, allowing her to double most non thief enemies (certain hunters may spawn with 11 spd) and she can make short work of brigands if given the lady sword. Matthis barely has enough speed to not get doubled. Bord DOES get doubled at base. If using him, pirate is recommended at first. The +2 speed bonus is practically mandatory to make Bord viable at first. Lunatic: Hand Axe Pirate: 24 - 25 Might SIlver Axe Pirate 29 - 30 Might Hunter: 21 - (22) Might Devil Thief: 28 - 29 Might Silv Thief: 23 - 24 Might Average Might: 30 Might and 24 Might Although 29 is more of an average amongst enemies, I always go into this chapter with the 30 threshold in mind. It's an intimidating number that will destroy units like Matthis, Bord, and Cord if not moderately trained with decent HP growths. Hunters likely kill most units in combination with brigands other than Kris, but units such as cav Palla can survive 2 hunter strikes as a cavalier. Hunters kill an untrained Linde in one shot. Even at the lower RNG rolls, a hunter and a brigand will be enough to kill Sirius, so he is not viable for choking the point on lunatic. Average Speed: 11 and 16 There is a 50% chance that brigands will have 10 speed, which is identical to what they had back in ch1, only now Marth should be much more likely to have reached doubling threshold, if you had trained him earlier. 10 speed is enough for base cav Palla to double and 1RKO the brigands with the lady sword. Personal suggestion for those unfortunate enough to use Catria is to have her leveled enough to double as cav (16/17 as peg, 14/15 as cav), which is relatively easy given her incredibly high speed growth, and have her double with the lady sword while Palla remains as a flier to use her silver lance while having high reach, helping immensely on the sand terrain and reaching the eastern zone where the Grust royals are trapped in time. As hunters can spawn with 12 speed, her 16 base speed will let her double them as well. If not using either, it is recommended that you bring them anyways on lunatic simply to let Catria plug one of the starting forts as a flier quickly while Palla works on aggro'ing the eastern brigands before they launch their assault on Ogma balls. At this point, enemies will start becoming noticeably faster each chapter, so units such as Matthis will need extensive feeding to catch up with their measly speed of 7, as many units should either have 10+ speed by now or be Palla and Catria, who are naturally speedy. General Arran can still avoid being doubled by most enemies, but not for long. Bord has 6 speed as a fighter. He has 8 as a pirate. This reclass will allow him to avoid being doubled by pirates, although there is a good chance he will die in one hit anyways. Reinforcements: Maniac: Turn 3, 5, & 7: One hunter from the center of the western forts Two barbarians from the left and right of the western forts Turn 5 & 7: One pirate from the east fort Lunatic: Turn 2, 3, & 4: One hunter from the center of the western forts Two barbarians from the left and right of the western forts Turn 3 & 4: One pirate from the east fort Review: By now, if you are not planning on using unconventional units such as Matthis and Bord, you should have a team of relatively fast units by now. Palla and Catria are generally very fast and won't have trouble reaching the doubling threshold even on the highest difficulty. Marth is the most dependent on RNG, but he generally should double brigands if you were giving him decent kills in prologue 8 and a few dracos eariler. Units like Draug and even invested Lukes can also quickly reach 16+ speed by now. I mention this because if you ARE using someone like Matthis, you are already getting doubled and it's only getting faster from here, as you likely only obtained him at the end of chapter 3, and using him in a fast paced chapter like 3x is extremely unviable. Spoiler Most of the time at least In many other cases though, it's not the biggest worry anymore like in the first 2 chapters with the 7th platoon. At this point, you've received many competent units that you can replace them with, so they will no longer be mentioned with upcoming chapter stats in mind, as you realistically would only be having 2 or so of them that you've given a lot of xp to. Many enemies in chapter 2 and 3 had 11 speed, and it's mostly the same here. These past few chapters are your chance to get growths that will allow you to outgrow the enemy while their stats remain relatively unchanged. However, after this chapter, enemies will start getting stronger and fast each chapter, so train units wisely. As for the actual chapter itself, the first turn is quite challenging. Although it looks like nothing more that 5 enemies generally parked around forts, the sand surrounding them makes their ranges just spread out enough so that you can take them out without overlapping with too many of them if played just right. Moreover, it makes reaching the forts themselves to block its own challenge. This is especially apparent on lunatic, where they spawn as early as turn 2, and you will not have time to fend them off, as you need to race the other side of the map at lightning speed if you wish to save the Grustians and Scar Face. This map is often used as an example of good ambush design, as its one of very few times in the series where a cutscene explicitly warns you that they will attempt to ambush you soon. Of course, you could argue that you won't know of the turn 2 change on lunatic and will still be surprised, but at least you die very early on, so almost no progress is lost, and for what it's worth, the tactics of designing your starting turn and move-set around defeating the enemy and plugging the forts while having spare units give chase east is very fun and challenging to me, so I think it's a sacrifice worth making. Here is one of my many runs of this chapter in which I hyper fixate over a single turn in a DS game and why it's the best thing in an early game, combining pretty well with chapter 3x. This one came from a no Kris run, and after a shard trade with Bord, Ryan deals just enough damage to finish off a brigand. You can see from these screenshots that the northern brigand and hunter out of visibility have a very peculiar range in which you have a chance to attack the lower brigands with 2 range. If you can't 1RKO them, and you probably can't, you'll need someone to go and finish them off, which can be difficult depending on your team. Ryan here is in range of the hunter above, who is luckily weak, so you aren't necessarily forced into having tanky units that can survive a 30 and reach this part of the map on turn 1. r The western brigand however DOES share range with a heavy hitting north brigand, so if you attack from 1 range, you will need a reliable tank such as General Arran if you cannot use someone like Kris to survive. Your ability to approach these enemies on turn 1 hinges on your preparation deployment, something I always appreciate requiring careful planning in your FE. You'll need just the right balance of mounted units far enough to make it far northeast while having your foot units close enough to contribute to the fight in sand land. It's especially fun when you have shards to consider and trade strats that can make or break your strategy such as the Bord+Ryan combo shown here. Keep in mind that there is a thief down below at the start of the map, so you will also need to dedicate at least 2 units to kill them. I often have Bord and Cord work together on them, but sometimes I use mage Matthis, or curate Matthis but that's irrelevant. Turn 1 is incredibly tight and every move matters, especially on lunatic. The main difference between maniac and lunatic here is the leniency of how much time you have to plug the forts and rush right. Whether you enjoy being pushed to your limit to plan perfectly and pull off just the right move-sets to guarantee safety or desire a bit of a breather in between battles will likely determine the difficulty you'll gratitude towards, but both provide competent challenges that are more interesting to work around than the standard FE map. In this particular run, I actually decided to not use any fliers for once. This led to me being unable to plug all 3 points by the end of turn 2, but luckily you can still survive if just one is left open, assuming the nearby units aren't your more fragile ones. In this situation, my moderately trained Bord had a shard and I knew would barely survive by 1 HP. They will keep spawning until turn 4's end, so do keep that in mind if fighting them. It should be obvious by now, but the main challenge in reaching the forts is the fact that they are surrounded by sand. Combine this with the 2 turn limit on lunatic, and you really need to count your tiles to ensure that you can plug the holes in time, something that's really difficult to do if you're heavily reliant on cavs, who happened to be the best classes for Palla and Catria combat wise. Similarly, once you're past this part, you'll need to run a marathon straight to Oghma mountains, as the platoon of enemies will all rush the funny children the moment the eastern reinforcement brigand spawn. In other words, on lunatic, you have only 3 turns to get their attention. This is....really annoying on your first run or 2, as you might not expect them to ambush clearly underleveled units so fast, and any old plans to have Sirius tank like in lower difficulties simply won't work, so it's very common to get multiple death resets here. That said, once you've gotten it in your head that there's a strict time limit and that Sirius can only be good outside of his base class not under babysitting duty, it can be quite fun dealing with said enemies. One annoyance worth noting: On maniac, you might end up dying to the turn 7 eastern ambush spawning brigand, as he can be rather unexpected. Once you see the turn 5 one spawn, you may assume the fort served its purpose of aggro'ing the squad. Given that you have more time to send your army on maniac, it's very possible to rout the majority of them between turn 5 and 7, so heading east only to be insta killed by a sudden spawn feels extremely random and cheap. On hard, reinforcement spawns happen all at once in turn 6. Only maniac adds repeating waves. I consider them to be unnecessary and only serve as jump scares and cheap deaths. Lunatic reinforcements happen the same number of times as maniac, but are placed together, happening on turn 3 and 4, so it's incredibly unlikely this will actually impact you, and the added enemy is mostly there to be an extra threat to the now mobile wave headed your way, while the western plugged zone is at least consistent now and you know to leave after 3 turns instead of fearing they'll spawn later. Often times, I use Palla with a silver lance to gain 1 brigand's attention, causing the remaining brigands to give chase (except occasionally one). At this point, you will have to retreat and fend off the oncoming wave while ensuring you don't let the sand prevent you from outrunning the bandits. It's something I've enjoyed quite a lot in recent runs specifically. It sounds simple as a premise, but pulling it off can be rather complicated. It's not completely unfair or reliant on stat bloat either, as I have done this while feeding kills to peg Linde. The extreme might of brgands essentially guarantees that you physically cannot have anyone tank them through vuln chugging, not even Kris. That said, there was 1 or 2 runs where I did simply rescue Kris north with Yumina and have him actually tank the enemies, but this requires a Kris that has more or less already capped this early into the game AND that you're using rainbow potions. It's an extremely unreliable strategy overall, but it is somewhat feasible for Kris abusers in maniac, and the rainbow potion does help Sirius tank a fair bit on maniac, but this thread isn't about cheating. That's for Caedas. Yumina is expected to rescue Ogma back to her once talking to Sirius, as he will be sliced into a thousand balls on maniac and above, but there is always the option to rescue other units to her, although it's mostly for the best that you conserve rescue uses for now. Unfortunately, once you finish all that, you are left with the saddest part of the map. Genealogy reference. I won't bother showing as example, because it's plainly obvious from the map layout itself. It's long. It's really big. There will be a lot of walking. Just walking. Especially for Mr No Pants. If you didn't already make Marth head down due to needing him in combat, you have to walk Marth allll the way back to the beginning to enter the bottom village, just so he can walk aaallll the way north east on the opposite side of the map, past multiple sand tiles, just so he can re-recruit the man who's outdone by a reclassed Cord in Shadw Dragon. Then he can go back down through MORE sand, just to seize the throne. You will spend several turns after routing most the of map with Marth running around the place. This is the main flaw with the design of a rush map built around sand while placing villages for the lord to run about, almost completely irrelevant to the map design itself. In other words, it's a great map with some cheap shots and way too much walking, because chapter 3 didn't have enough of that, and this sadly won't be the last time either. This is also known as a Kaga moment. Rating: 7.5/10 Spoiler It's a good map for sure, and it comes close to being a great map, but those first few maniac/lunatic runs of reinforcement deaths combined with the mind numbing degree of walk emblem afterwards really brings it down. Unfortunate. It has some of the best moments of early game FE12. I find this chapter to be much better on lunatic than on maniac, despite the seemingly less forgiving ambush spawns. Maniac ones being spread apart by an extra turn only serves to throw off players and when you're playing lunatic, you're likely aware of the maniac reinforcements and least and will eventually learn the pattern that many reinforcements on lunatic are maniac reinforcements, but done 1 turn earlier. There will be exceptions however, as we'll soon discuss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted May 10 Share Posted May 10 (edited) 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: So now you're obligated to become a collector. Congrats. Nah, gave it to my coworker's son. When I asked her a month or two later she said he found it too difficult. I wonder if normal mode is extremely challenging for a child or if he jumped into Lunatic right away 🤔 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: with his low luck even considered a greater benefit than a bane due to how it can manipulate the enemy AI That's interesting. You will go into detail about how that works, right? 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: There will be a lot of walking. Just walking. Especially for Mr No Pants. If you didn't already make Marth head down due to needing him in combat, you have to walk Marth allll the way back to the beginning to enter the bottom village, just so he can walk aaallll the way north east on the opposite side of the map, past multiple sand tiles, just so he can re-recruit the man who's outdone by a reclassed Cord in Shadw Dragon Yeah, that's basically what I remember from this chapter. Desperately needing Marth for combat in the first handful of turns but him being busy recruitment Castor. If they were going to do a Genealogy reference, why not give me the pursuit ring or something from that really suspicious peninsula that is absolutely irrelevant? And what is Castor even doing in that village? He's from Talys, just work him into the plot by having him be working for Ogma. Then we get a long range chip option on the right side. Also you never mentioned it, but what a Ghebtastic boss design. Edited May 10 by Jotari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
X-Naut Posted May 11 Share Posted May 11 So I skipped over 3x because I'm rather indifferent about it, it's the one gaiden chapter that is okay-ish for me, and all I really have to say is it's probably the clearest sign of how much FE12 manipulates enemy stats with armors matching archers for speed. Your call whether you like it or not, I'm just telling it like it is. Continuing on my redaction in Chapter 3, this is another map where I don't like the changes from the original. Sirius would auto-recruit himself, and while it is complete overkill in FE3 it would be a lot more appreciated here because of how unfair that corner is. Thankfully the enemy density was also halved, but when each enemy has the strength of ten it's less of a comfort. You can always burn a Rescue charge or two to bring Marth and a better fighter up but that it doesn't feel good having to use such a rare and limited staff, although in Marth's case it does shorten the map. (Seconding everyone who thinks Marth should start in range of Shaver on turn 1.) And I'll go one further on Jotari's point about making Castor more available: move Barst to joining here with Ogma instead of plopping him in the very next chapter. It'd give him a better entry point, give that squad another front-liner and maybe encourage people to use him more. Closing thoughts, I got two questions for you, Shaky: 1) What do you think about Drill Grounds and its unique leveling formula? Slightly relevant since you get it here. 2) More intended for earlier, what would you say to this change: Pegasus Knight class gets +2 Speed base and it's taken out of the playable pegs' personal bases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted May 12 Share Posted May 12 10 hours ago, X-Naut said: And I'll go one further on Jotari's point about making Castor more available: move Barst to joining here with Ogma instead of plopping him in the very next chapter. It'd give him a better entry point, give that squad another front-liner and maybe encourage people to use him more. It would be a bit excessive to have all three of the axe bros with Ogma here on this chapter, but they all should have been connected to him narratively. They're in this part of the world because they're helping Ogma out. Not because they decided to travel to the complete other side of the continent to help Marth with a conflict Marth didn't even know he would be fighting. So, yeah, putting one of them here instead of the complete randomness of their other join times makes perfect sense. But the other two should mention Ogma when they join too. Hell maybe one of them should join in Chapter 1. You don't get any natural axe users with the starting brigade and it's already in close proximity to Ogma. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaky Jones Posted May 12 Author Share Posted May 12 This post won't be about chapter 5, but rather a shrine to Wrys who I've yet to include in any display whatsoever, as well as bits of elaboration on replies and other things about FE12 in general. Chapter 5 might take some time due to how immense the changes from maniac to lunatic are. I've highlighted replies that will have particularly informative answers, at least to the best of my abilities. Replies: Spoiler On 5/10/2024 at 4:05 AM, Jotari said: Nah, gave it to my coworker's son. When I asked her a month or two later she said he found it too difficult. I wonder if normal mode is extremely challenging for a child or if he jumped into Lunatic right away 🤔 I know a guy who jumped straight into lunatic. I have no idea why, they weren't even that experienced with FE. On 5/10/2024 at 4:05 AM, Jotari said: That's interesting. You will go into detail about how that works, right? I believe I briefly touched this during the prologue, but given that it has been months since those posts, and something like that should be frequently brought up to bring everyone reading up to speed, I do apologize for saving myself 45 seconds of explaining it and giving Jotari a panic attack. Plus, there's a lot to say about Sirius and how enemy luck will average out throughout the game, so let's discuss that now (I will be frequently bringing up Sirius base stat reclass thresholds in the next few posts similar to how I bring up Pirate Draug bases or General Arran bases while they last). Throughout the next several chapters, enemies will have an average of 6 crit. Sirius has 4 luck. This means that the majority of enemies will have a 2% chance to land a critical hit on him for the majority of the first half of the game. This is often considered to be a good thing, as enemies who have a chance to land a critical strike will calculate the damage input as if the critical was guaranteed. While this could be benecial on many difficulties, lunatic players will find this especially useful, as enemies who deal 3x damage are almost certain to kill anybody in one hit, meaning they will always attack Sirius over anyone else (with exception to being in range of other OHKO targets with worse avoid and such). For example, if you had Marth in range of 2 enemies who kill him if they both strike at him and land their attacks, but Sirius was in range of one OR both of them, that enemy (or those enemies) will instead attack Sirius, applying damage more as "[12*3=36]+[12*3=36]" instead of "12+12=24", which would not be enough to actually kill him. In many situations you might find yourself in, he can more or less serve as a free bail out to any unit who happens to be surrounded by enemies who 2+RKO them, provided he does not die in 2 hits himself, something that isn't terribly difficult to accomplish with his solid stats and stellar growths. Worst case scenario, you can hand him an angelic robe, and he'll be good for a while. One particularly useful situation crit abusing the AI works is with ballistaes, especially in chapter 19. If units would be attacked while within ballistae range, you can bait the ballistae's attention (who will ALWAYS go first) with a unit who has slightly below their crit chance (I believe it's 10 or 11 but don't quote me on that), and then any paladins or such who would ruin your nosferatu plan will be too preoccupied with their gambling addiction to attack the unit they should obviously be attacking, provided your Sage Norne doesn't get naturally OHKO'd by it of course (although they might still target the low luck unit depending on avoid rates, or at least I assume avoid is the factor based off experience). Of course, there's the obvious downside of "but what if they land the crit?". Well then, unlucky. Probably don't try this strat in an ironman. It's more of something you use liberally when in a pickle, although I believe is abused a lot in ltc's or 0% runs. Besides. this is the game with save circles that serve as checkpoints given in the middle of the map, so it's not an immediate death sentence to resort to this tactic, and the odds are pretty low for a long time. From what I recall, enemies retain 6 crit until the middle of the Anri's Way arc, in which you'll see it become 7, but be careful with dragons, as they'll usually have more, particularly ice dragons, although you can use a shard that increases luck by 2 to have 6 against the 7s if you hadn't gotten growths for it yet. By the time you reach chapter 15, aka the Archanea arc, enemies will now have 10 crit (9 in maniac I believe). By then, Sirius has hopefully gained a few luck growths, and preferably a goddess icon booster. Based off the average team, Sirius will likely need it the most but you should give them to Bord and Matthis. The goal is to try having him 1 or 2 luck points below what the enemy's critical rate it, which isn't too hard, but is of course, somewhat RNG based. Happy Johto? On 5/10/2024 at 4:05 AM, Jotari said: Yeah, that's basically what I remember from this chapter. Desperately needing Marth for combat in the first handful of turns but him being busy recruitment Castor. If they were going to do a Genealogy reference, why not give me the pursuit ring or something from that really suspicious peninsula that is absolutely irrelevant? And what is Castor even doing in that village? He's from Talys, just work him into the plot by having him be working for Ogma. Then we get a long range chip option on the right side. While that would probably be completely useless against the million overpowered brigands on maniac and lunatic, it would help against the thief and the occasional one or two that might still run up depending on unit ranges, and it especially helps the tedium of Marth running all over the place, so I approve of this. It's a good chapter, then it decided to be the worst game and ruins itself. On 5/10/2024 at 4:05 AM, Jotari said: Also you never mentioned it, but what a Ghebtastic boss design. I actually really like Gail for his design alone, but decided to not mention it because that last bit of the stage is mostly a nothing burger in the game anyways, and I was honestly too tired to include another paragraph of "here's 3 enemies you probably trivialize with Kris and Sirius" and then reference Gheb FE and get boo'd. Just look at him. Hell yeah. I wonder what he looks like in Myster- Of course he does. Of course he does! Why wouldn't he look like that!? I'm so stupid! Damn you Kaga..... 7 hours ago, X-Naut said: So I skipped over 3x because I'm rather indifferent about it, it's the one gaiden chapter that is okay-ish for me, and all I really have to say is it's probably the clearest sign of how much FE12 manipulates enemy stats with armors matching archers for speed. Your call whether you like it or not, I'm just telling it like it is. I like the stats, which is obvious coming from me who just nerded out over the stat threshold said stats demand being much more smooth than "2 speed but 15 defense" and non slayers do nothing. You can still kill with regulars if you're strong enough, and archers basically are armors in Archanea anyways with their high DEF and low move. While 2 speed would really help hammer Bord, it'd screw over everyone else, and even Marth wouldn't do anything with his rapier with extreme forging, and then you'd more or less be forcing Linde aura gaming as mandatory to fight armors in the next few chapters. It's odd for sure, but I personally approve. Besides, we know 3x gets praise only because it has the funny bald man and for not being any other x chapter this damned game has. 7 hours ago, X-Naut said: Continuing on my redaction in Chapter 3, this is another map where I don't like the changes from the original. Sirius would auto-recruit himself, and while it is complete overkill in FE3 it would be a lot more appreciated here because of how unfair that corner is. Thankfully the enemy density was also halved, but when each enemy has the strength of ten it's less of a comfort. You can always burn a Rescue charge or two to bring Marth and a better fighter up but that it doesn't feel good having to use such a rare and limited staff, although in Marth's case it does shorten the map. (Seconding everyone who thinks Marth should start in range of Shaver on turn 1.) Yeah, they should've had him auto recruit, because that would save you a rescue use and still retain the rescue mission aspect and rush element FE12 provides, but instead they settled for a mandatory rescue staff tutorial, as if maniac/lunatic players need that. Maybe they consider that a high difficulty balance, similar to other games giving you less ammo/item uses per difficulty increase, by forcing you to have 1 less rescue, or 1 less Ogma. 7 hours ago, X-Naut said: And I'll go one further on Jotari's point about making Castor more available: move Barst to joining here with Ogma instead of plopping him in the very next chapter. It'd give him a better entry point, give that squad another front-liner and maybe encourage people to use him more. Don't plenty of people use Barst? I'm relatively indifferent about this decision. I can't see it making me any happier or sadder. A part of me likes recruiting him with Bord/Cord in ch5 and having an extra axe against the dracos, but I could see him here with Ogma being cool narratively and of course, it gives you a bit more to work with in the case of enemies actually attacking them. Lord knows they need help with that 1 magic having ass lad. 7 hours ago, X-Naut said: Closing thoughts, I got two questions for you, Shaky: 7 hours ago, X-Naut said: 1) What do you think about Drill Grounds and its unique leveling formula? Slightly relevant since you get it here. Better to cover it here because I can see chapter 5 being long enough as a post: Given that this game is essentially the start of modernization of FE while also being one of the most hardcore FE games in terms of simple but extremely demanding gameplay, drill grounds is unsurprisingly the middle ground of grinding in FE while being a limited resource itself. Most FE games after this simply have free grinding whenever, at least on lower difficulties, and games that aren't Sacred Stones and Gaiden will garner fans that think they're gods because they don't give their bad units 2 level ups to be somewhat bearable. With Drill Grounds, you can give units level ups they might need for level ups to fulfill certain benchmarks for an upcoming chapter, something that I find myself using many times throughout my many runs of this game. Because it's something you can partake in during the prep screen, you can hypothetically reset and rig these battles to always end with you receiving the desired growth. Personally, I wouldn't even call it cheating here because it's a service you're paying for, and if I'm forking over 800 gold to get +1 speed to double that fighter, then I deserve that damn speed. It's a 60% growth! As X-Naut points out, it has a unique leveling formula, one which seemingly makes it more difficult to rig certain level ups to proc, almost favoring certain averages for given units. Now, I unfortunately don't know the exact formula, nor do I desire to search it up extensively, as it's clearly not something the game expects the player to think about, and it doesn't cause any certain rigs. It's still possible to get someone like Arran to get STR+SPD+DEF if you are incredibly patient, but it's more complicated than hoping he rolls a growth for all of his natural percentages. The specifics of Drill Grounds are odd to talk about, as it can be annoying to rely on it only to become addicted to "I just want strength and speed" and that take away from the natural experience of obtaining growths throughout the map, but that's mostly on the player anyways, and FE11 players could've easily been abusing the checkpoints to rig an upcoming growth of Bord to actually get speed, so it's not an issue only brought to existence by Drill Grounds. You can also abuse it by using dragons like Bantu or Tiki and the game will go easy on them due to using their base stats as a frame of reference for giving them opponents to fight, ignoring the massive stone bonuses, basically turning every battle into a cakewalk. Combine this with the mechanic where the more battles you do in a row, the more xp each fight rewards you with, you can reach multiple easy levels for your manaketes for a somewhat cheap price. This tactic is much harder to pull off on lunatic however, as that difficulty prevents you from obtaining HP in between rounds. That said, I like using the Drill Grounds and consider it to be mostly inoffensive. As bloody hilarious as it is to say to elitists, I really do mean it when I say "if you don't like it, don't use it". It's not like Kris. It's pretty easy to ignore it and use your money on anything else, but for those that have money to spare, and consider the potential to catch up a unit for 500 gold over a forge that could provide slight benefit, but in a way avaiable to everyone of a certain weapon type, your options increase significantly, and I like that financial responsibility, as I need to make sure I have thousands saved for Arran's statboosters. Besides, you have no idea how often I need just that 1 extra speed to make my life 5 times easier.... 14 hours ago, X-Naut said: 2) More intended for earlier, what would you say to this change: Pegasus Knight class gets +2 Speed base and it's taken out of the playable pegs' personal bases. So you want enemy pegs to peg harder? Who does this help? Reclassed Athena? Peg Linde? Female Kris? Because Kris really needs more buffs, surely. This sounds more like an unnecessary nerf to the main peg trio, and while I do hate how OP they are, it feels cruel to drastically nerf them outside of their class, especially given that you probably will inevitably class them out of that class multiple times. I mean I've already listed multiple times where cav Palla and Catria help mitigate a lot of the early game troubles, and punishing them for not staying as a peg that gives them lance disadvantages sounds annoying. It's weird because as I said, I hate Palla and Catria because they feel game breaking and put the cool dude units to shame as far as first impressions go, but man do you need those in the early game. I can't pretend I didn't desperately need lady sword Catria in my first few runs of this game. Hmmm....well now I'm indifferent the more I think about it. They'd be garbage at other classes, but I suppose nobody's really making them archers, just snipers, which they'll probably cap speed anyways by then, but I could see that being a problem in mid-lategame lunatic, and their draco speed caps will really hurt them in the long run, which I suppose can make Palla a mini jeigan.... You know what, maybe I'll get back to you on that. I'm simultaneously disappointed by the punishment of reclassing, something I love doing, but also gladdened at the idea of making Palla and Catria slightly closer to bad to give Cord a chance to shine, but at the cost of most players getting filtered in ch3x because holy shit that lady sword cav user is damn near mandatory, and no one using cav Cecile on lunatic. 4 hours ago, Jotari said: t would be a bit excessive to have all three of the axe bros with Ogma here on this chapter, but they all should have been connected to him narratively. They're in this part of the world because they're helping Ogma out. Not because they decided to travel to the complete other side of the continent to help Marth with a conflict Marth didn't even know he would be fighting. So, yeah, putting one of them here instead of the complete randomness of their other join times makes perfect sense. But the other two should mention Ogma when they join too. Hell maybe one of them should join in Chapter 1. You don't get any natural axe users with the starting brigade and it's already in close proximity to Ogma. I can't see a chapter 1 axe boy really working. It's supposed to be the iconic Altra squad of 1 combined with 7th platoon, so the Bord Cord duo that the uneducated normies likely never used will be very off putting, and giving them Barst on chapter 1 will simply cause exactly why no one gives said 2 axe men a chance in FE11. Besides, chapter 2 is full of trees, and Cord's a woodcutter. It's heaven for him. Wrys Appreciation Post: Spoiler Wrys: 16 HP 3 MAG 6 SKL 7 SPD 3 LCK 3 DEF 7 RES [E rank staves] "Here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna use my heal staff. I'm gonna heal your wounded. And you're going to be glad you took me with you. No half vulnerary heals." Note: His stats will likely be a tad higher, as he retains his stats from the prologue, and he has almost certainly level up up at least once through healing. Wrys has the highest RES growth in the entire game at 50%, with only Malicia, Yumina, Etzel, and Katarina (plus 4 Kaga'd bishops if you include them) coming in close with 40% Everyone loses 10% RES growth upon promoting. He has 2 more base RES than Malicia and Yumina He cannot fight, but his staff can heal your wounded He is bald He is married to Luke Wrys is not a vulnerary Berserker Wrys is a well known concept among many old school FE fans, shown through a famous FE cipher artwork of him The picture: Spoiler Berserker Wrys is canon The proof: Spoiler Old Is Gold: FE12 does many things right and many things wrong, and Wrys is the embodiment of a world where humanity was not held back by sin, which is where the bad design comes in, to remind us of what happens when we don't take Wrys with us. We'll be very upset we didn't. There's nothing I can actually say here about him however. Just look at him. This is peak. He is the first healer in the series, and somehow, he still remains the best. It's over. If you want an unironic discussion about his value as a unit, here's an obvious use for him. He is by far the best RES tank in the game. He is the ONLY res tank in the game. You might get lucky with Malica or Yumina, but Wrys is almost always reliably tank in the REs department, which combined with the fast XP growth of healers, lets him quickly reach RES stats reaching 20 by the first 10 chapters. Particularly, his high res can be a major boon in chapter 9, and he can generally prove useful against strong early lunatic bolgonone mages in chapter 7, 8, 10, and against any siege tome user. He is a unit I often consider most useful on lunatic due to how many units can die in a single hit to magic, or at best tank with only 5 HP remaining. With Wrys, he can still tank against 4 of them, something that no one else can really say. Units like Katarina and Etzel show up too late as prepromotes with not enough base res to provide much there, so Wrys certainly has his uses, something that's much harder to argue for in FE11, where people mostly just care about C rank base warp abuse, because who actually wants to play the game? There's one thing that me and Ruben have been saying for years at this point. FE12 is the only game in the series that respects Wrys. Think about it. In FE1, Kaga gives you Wrys, or Riff as some would say, only to throw Lena the warp lady at you 2 chapters later, followed by Wendell who is arguably the single best unit in the entire game, rendering Riff completely pointless as a healer. If you wanted to try training Riff anyways, good luck because you cannot gain healing xp. At all. You have to dodge your way to leveling up. You are clearly not meant to use this unit past the first few chapters. If you believe that was just Kaga finding his footing, and Wrys being shafted was simply a mistake that won't be repeated, think again because in FE3 Book 1... He's a fucking vulnerary Kaga, what the actual fuck? What did he do!? What, you just gave up? Don't even try to make him work! Just let the player lick their wounds with the help of a drug until the guys you actually put lore or desire to brainwash show up. And now we don't even get in him book 2 either! He was basically retconned! How dare you!? FE11 decided to be faithful to FE1 and brig back Wrys, but instead of prevent him from gaining XP, her gets more of it. This is much better than FE1, but sadly people are boring and would rather use the warp woman. You probably won't use Wendell as a healer though. Everyone reclasses him. At the very least, Wrys as a mage isn't too shabby. But FE12 is the only game where he is not only crucial to your survival in the prologue, ensuring the player WILL make good use out of him for a while, but he is the FIRST person you get from the gaidens and he get an entire chapter dedicated to saving just him. As I said multiple times, it recreates the iconic quote of his that warms the hearts of old school fans, something that I will always give an absurd amount of credit for. It just feels like genuine love for Archanea, even if it's mostly there for laughs. It's way more thought and care put in than anything Kaga did with him. And as a unit, Id' argue he's at his best here. This is on lunatic. He is a deity. A saint. A Rubenio, if you will. Who needs to painstakingly sponge 7 swarm uses while eating all the world's supply of vulns. Be the vuln man himself. All in all, I love Wrys, and Wrys is done so well in FE12, and as such, FE12 is objectively the best in the series. I don't even have to continue this thread. Goodbye. Rating: 12/10 Spoiler Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted May 12 Share Posted May 12 30 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said: I know a guy who jumped straight into lunatic. I have no idea why, they weren't even that experienced with FE. To be fair to him, I usually jump into any new game I play on the hardest available difficulty with the arrogance of Mongolian Kahn. I'm an experienced gamer, I've been doing this shit almost thirty years. No new game is going to kick my ass! Unless it's a game from Treasure, then I know better. Point is, Fire Emblem isn't an easy series. Permadeath is very punishing for very minor mistakes, and I expect many new players would struggle even with the reputable easier titles in the series. There probably is a correlation between the series' success and the introduction of casual mode. Experienced Fire Emblem players who knows how to avoid the pitfalls and which stats to focus on might find a lot of Fire Emblem games pretty easy, but that stuff is not intuitive to noobs. There are a lot of games where arrogance in one's general gaming skills will not be punished, but Fire Emblem is not one of them. You have to learn how to Fire Emblem well. That's why I try to urge newer players to play Genealogy early. Because that game is way more intense and fun when you're bad at Fire Emblem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
X-Naut Posted May 12 Share Posted May 12 (edited) @Shaky Jones With regards to my questions... Spoiler 1) Drill Grounds: The formula for Drill Grounds is based on a unit's growth rate total. For example, a unit with 335 total will gain three points guaranteed with a 35% chance of a fourth. Sort of like FE10 Bonus EXP but with more flexibility like you said and is not always a fixed number. Also worth noting that capped stats' growths are still included but those stats can be rolled for and amount to nothing... yeah, not a fan of these phantom procs/missed procs. It's an interesting concept for random but regulated growth and I wouldn't mind seeing a Fire Emblem game that uses it as the standard rather than relegating it to a niche base arena. Of course, the cast could be better designed around it... units like Catria having close to or over 100 total growth more than fellow "growth units" doesn't leave a good taste, and you probably wouldn't want growth totals swinging 30-50 points across some reclasses. While I won't call it a perfect solution, I think following FE10's principle of picking a hundreds bracket and trying to fit every unit, or at least every "normal growth unit" to it is a good start. Jagens, Ests and other atypical units can be exceptions. 2) Peg Knights: Yes, that's the idea, make Peg Knight more accessible as a reclass option while curbing the power of the base pegs reclassing into other classes. It's somewhat of a reversal of the change from FE1 to 3, where Pegasus Knight's base speed was lowered from 11 to 7 but the characters' bases weren't changed. This led to playable pegs being pretty spoiled in base speed relative to other units... there were a few other beneficiaries of this like mages and armors, and archers actually lost 1 personal Str/Def because the class was buffed (tbf though, the class was too lowballed to begin with). Cavaliers also had Speed/Def nerfs that got reversed on the DSFE, so it even outs. And IMO this really only affects Palla and Catria. Caeda's so fast she'll probably make up the difference and Est joins so late you're coddling her anyway. Catria will likely outgrow it too eventually (not much you can do without nerfing those growths) but it does hamper some of her early reclass thresholds. Palla is the most affected but is so good everywhere else, and 14 Speed as a Dracoknight is still serviceable through the earlygame. EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot. What enemy peg knights? 😛 Edited May 12 by X-Naut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint Rubenio Posted May 13 Share Posted May 13 On 5/12/2024 at 8:56 AM, Shaky Jones said: In FE1, Kaga gives you Wrys, or Riff as some would say, only to throw Lena the warp lady at you 2 chapters later, followed by Wendell who is arguably the single best unit in the entire game, rendering Riff completely pointless as a healer. If you wanted to try training Riff anyways, good luck because you cannot gain healing xp. At all. You have to dodge your way to leveling up. You are clearly not meant to use this unit past the first few chapters. Or you can be based and give him all the favoritism. There I shilled like you asked Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSage861 Posted May 24 Share Posted May 24 On 4/30/2024 at 9:38 PM, Jotari said: I actually have paid for a copy of New Mystery. Because I was under the impression original DS titles didn't have region locking only to be cucked by the fact that New Mystery has online features or something and thus is region locked. Stupid DSI. Pretty sure all DSI games are region locked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaky Jones Posted May 25 Author Share Posted May 25 (edited) Replies: Spoiler On 5/12/2024 at 12:32 AM, Jotari said: To be fair to him, I usually jump into any new game I play on the hardest available difficulty with the arrogance of Mongolian Kahn. I'm an experienced gamer, I've been doing this shit almost thirty years. No new game is going to kick my ass! Unless it's a game from Treasure, then I know better. If FE12 was just easy normal hard, sure. That said, you'd be a lunatic to think you can do lunatic blind. It tells you that it's the hardest difficulty the series can provide, and that's arguably not an exaggeration. And this is for a franchise known to be one of Nintendo's harder and less forgiving games. I'll play Star Wars III on hard mode blind, but if game has multiple hard modes, I know I ain't jumping straight to the top. Closest I had to that was Mass Effect 3 on Insanity, but that's the 3rd game in the series, so I can just be confident there. Just play maniac. It's hard, but manageable. On 5/12/2024 at 12:32 AM, Jotari said: Point is, Fire Emblem isn't an easy series. Permadeath is very punishing for very minor mistakes, and I expect many new players would struggle even with the reputable easier titles in the series. There probably is a correlation between the series' success and the introduction of casual mode. Experienced Fire Emblem players who knows how to avoid the pitfalls and which stats to focus on might find a lot of Fire Emblem games pretty easy, but that stuff is not intuitive to noobs. There are a lot of games where arrogance in one's general gaming skills will not be punished, but Fire Emblem is not one of them. You have to learn how to Fire Emblem well. That's why I try to urge newer players to play Genealogy early. Because that game is way more intense and fun when you're bad at Fire Emblem. I'd never tell anyone to do FE4 early. The only reason to play FE4 is to play FE5, and that's not a game you should start with. On 5/12/2024 at 6:36 AM, X-Naut said: 1) Drill Grounds: The formula for Drill Grounds is based on a unit's growth rate total. For example, a unit with 335 total will gain three points guaranteed with a 35% chance of a fourth. Sort of like FE10 Bonus EXP but with more flexibility like you said and is not always a fixed number. Also worth noting that capped stats' growths are still included but those stats can be rolled for and amount to nothing... yeah, not a fan of these phantom procs/missed procs. Even with this information, I'm probably not going to think about this ever. On 5/12/2024 at 6:36 AM, X-Naut said: It's an interesting concept for random but regulated growth and I wouldn't mind seeing a Fire Emblem game that uses it as the standard rather than relegating it to a niche base arena. Of course, the cast could be better designed around it... units like Catria having close to or over 100 total growth more than fellow "growth units" doesn't leave a good taste, and you probably wouldn't want growth totals swinging 30-50 points across some reclasses. While I won't call it a perfect solution, I think following FE10's principle of picking a hundreds bracket and trying to fit every unit, or at least every "normal growth unit" to it is a good start. Jagens, Ests and other atypical units can be exceptions. I just wish you could choose a level growth at the cost of more money. On 5/12/2024 at 6:36 AM, X-Naut said: 2) Peg Knights: Yes, that's the idea, make Peg Knight more accessible as a reclass option while curbing the power of the base pegs reclassing into other classes. It's somewhat of a reversal of the change from FE1 to 3, where Pegasus Knight's base speed was lowered from 11 to 7 but the characters' bases weren't changed. This led to playable pegs being pretty spoiled in base speed relative to other units... there were a few other beneficiaries of this like mages and armors, and archers actually lost 1 personal Str/Def because the class was buffed (tbf though, the class was too lowballed to begin with). Cavaliers also had Speed/Def nerfs that got reversed on the DSFE, so it even outs. And IMO this really only affects Palla and Catria. Caeda's so fast she'll probably make up the difference and Est joins so late you're coddling her anyway. Catria will likely outgrow it too eventually (not much you can do without nerfing those growths) but it does hamper some of her early reclass thresholds. Palla is the most affected but is so good everywhere else, and 14 Speed as a Dracoknight is still serviceable through the earlygame. Yeah you know what? Fuck Palla and Catria. Sorry to the lunatic players that rely on cav Catria and Palla with ladyblade to make the earlygame work. X-Naut just made your life that much harder. Now you HAVE to use Cecile, and good luck with her surviving a single hit. Maybe now you casuals will give Cord a chance. At least Catria will have 9 speed so she doesn't get doubled by dracos in ch3 and Palla can't be bad. Then again, she'll only have 12 as a cav, which will no longer be enough to 1rko the archer in ch3x unless you get a lucky speed proc (archer has 9, she'd have 12), and having at least one failsafe rush unit for that chapter is pretty vital, unless you trust that she'll level a speed growth in ch3 or let maybe only give the peg class one speed instead of 2, giving Catria 10 as a cav. Either way, Est really cannot afford to be nerfed out of her class, so you'd probably just let her keep the +2 (or 1) peg bonus with no repercussion for reclassing because she broke all her limbs in between Gaiden and here. On 5/12/2024 at 6:36 AM, X-Naut said: EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot. What enemy peg knights? 😛 Now how will I harm women? On 5/13/2024 at 3:18 PM, Saint Rubenio said: Or you can be based and give him all the favoritism. There's the shilling. I'm sure Kaga would've wanted this. You can prove that by using him in FE3. Chapter 5: This Is The Hardest Chapter in The Game Spoiler The difficulty spike of FE12 from maniac to lunatic is known to be significantly lower than that of hard to maniac, although lunatic is also considered its own level of merciless compared to most if not all other difficulties in the series including FE12's maniac mode. This is due to many lunatic exclusive changes made to this game, whether it's due to changes in individual chapters, or mechanics and rewards in the game as a whole (or hidden features such as all enemies gaining +10 hit to make dodge tanking basically impossible). This is been brought up a few times throughout this thread, but I remind everyone now because this chapter is a completely different experience between these 2 difficulties. So much so that I have to split this review into 2 different parts. I will give the chapter 2 different perspectives and commentaries, as well as 2 different scores, as bringing them up as one feels like a disservice to the chapter based on how drastically different it plays out, and FE12 is not a game where everyone who discusses it naturally plays on the highest difficulty such as with FE6 or even FE11. Chapter 5 on maniac mode is challenging, but simple and lax enough where the player can afford to train some weaker units while generally taking their time. Chapter 5 on lunatic mode is like giving birth while on a speeding ambulance. Maniac Mode: Spoiler Note: The sniper close to the boss is only present on maniac mode and upwards. Jeorge and his snipers will not attack your army unless you initiate combat with them. There is a secret shop in this chapter. The first one only sells master seals. The location of Anna's crack house is between the armory and the shop. Julian has just enough HP to survive the elfire mages by 1 HP. This allows him to safely recruit Rickard even on maniac mode. New Units: Barst (The Inferior Axe Trio Member): 26 HP 12 STR 10 SKL 11 SPD 6 LCK 7 DEF 0 RES [D rank Axes] Barst can be recruited either through Ogma, Bord, or Cord. With the 3rd member of the iconic axe trio, the player can now utilize the first triangle attack of the game. It can be particularly useful on lunatic mode, especially when it comes to landing shaky hit on promoted enemies or bosses with weapons such as unforged steel axes or hammers, as triangle attacks will always rig the attack to land alongside ensuring the critical hit. Caeda (Do You Guys Say "Sheedah", "Seeda" or "Ka-Ae-Da"?): 19 HP 6 STR 7 SKL 15 SPD 13 LCK 7 DEF 6 RES [D rank Lances] She joins during the prep screen, so the player is able to reclass her immedietely. She retains her growths from the prolouge as well as her iconic wing spear from FE11 Although not as useful as the one in the Shadow Dragon remake due to the significantly lower number of armors and cavaliers, the next few chapters will feature several of them, so her wing spear will be extremely useful for her join time, and by the time said enemies stop appearing for a while, she's likely gained enough levels to ensure that her speed will let her consistently double, remaining a good unit with steel weapons and the lady sword to patch up her poor STR. Reinforcements: Turn 8: A single thief in the forests northwest of the castle, 2 tiles west and south from the sniper They will head towards the village to destroy it. You generally have ample time to rescue it. Stats: Knight: Steel Lance: 20 - [21] Might Javelin: 14 - [15] Might Sniper: [24] - 25 Might Cavalier: Steel Lance: 21 - 22 Might Silver Sword: 25 - 26 Might Javelin: 15 - 16 Might Mage: 18 - 19 Might Thief: 17 - [18] Might Dracoknight: Silver Lance: 24 - 25 Might Silver Axe: 24 - 25 Might Average Speed: 10 Snipers are fast with their 13 speed, but most of them are optional battles not meant to be fought. Armor knights will usually have 7 speed, meaning Barst will be able to double them at base Average Might: 21 and 25 [19 MAG] Multiples enemies in this map use silver weapons, meaning the difference in might is not too different between maniac and lunatic, although said increases will often be enough to OHKO Caeda, while she barely scrapes by silver attacks on maniac at base. Linde will still survive the steel enemies at base, while the silver users will OHKO her. If Caeda is hit by a 26 Might Silver Sword Cav, she will survive due to WTA reducing the enemy's might by at least 2, although if for whatever reason the player decided to unequip her, she will die. If reclassed to a cavalier, her increased defense will guarantee her survival. Review: There isn't too much to say about this chapter overall. It's generally a simple map in which you mostly rush to kill the thief who tries to leave with a master seal while cavaliers try to halt your advance. As long as you don't actively cause misery upon Jeorge and his npc coworkers he is socially distant from, they will not pose a threat. Keep in mind though that there is an obtainable physic held by the bishop guarded by the snipers, so as you play the stage, he will heal all units whose HP reaches under 50%, something you wish to avoid for the maximum amount of uses to have for yourself. Other than that, the only other part of the map is fighting the few enemies protecting the boss and rushing your best unit against the ballistae men to then clear the map. There is an optional path you can take using the lower bridges, but as it's in range of multiple ballistae and armors, it's unviable to attempt, especially given that you have to rush upwards anyways to save the village holding a hammerne from the reinforcement thief, something that you have plenty of time to obtain provided you take the northern path. The dracos are honestly mostly just there for xp assuming you have at least 1 bow unit or decent mage user, as they don't pose too much of a threat on their own given you can choose to aggro each of them separately (at least from what I remember). It's a serviceable map with not much going for it other than slightly faster enemies and some promoted units that help you get more xp for later on, similar to chapter 3 in a way, but with moderately less walking. Moderately, not significantly. There is unfortunately still some degree of Walk Emblem here. A lot of it is justifiable, at least in the first half, especially on lunatic, but most of the western zone past the top bridge tile is empty with little going for it. Other than having Marth wait on the throne and test your might killing as many snipers as you can before leaving the map, as well as ensuring you kill the bishop for his physic. The main criticism from the map itself is how pointless the small island of 3 forts feels. You're going to go to north for the village. It's the damn Hammerne. What is there to be done south? There's no reinforcements down there. Perhaps I'd remove the path down there and add reinforcements that would then move and make it harder to reach the boss and his group of ballistae, as to incentivize reaching hom while it's still relatively empty (remove armors near boss and have armors appear on a certain turn like 12 or so who then try to run towards you. Do this every other turn for about 3 waves and then on turn 16 when the 3rd one shows up, Jeorge begins to move. Narratively, I'm not too sure how this would work. Perhaps he is worried that he looks too suspicious and will get his men executed for treason. Gameplay wise though, it would help cause this potential pincer attack that prevents the player from waiting on the armor reinforcements to get themselves killed fighting your Kris and mostly wasting your time standing near the boss on their slow way to reach you, while a fast player could kill the boss before they even appear. It also helps justify the somewhat lacking number of enemies on the west side, as you having to rush them makes it less viable to bait dracos one by one or bring every unit and fully heal them before provoking the sniper cavalier squad. This would make it nearly impossible to kill the bishop though, so I would move him where the southern save circle is, where the new threat is running directly to where the armors are spawning from. I'd move the 2nd save circle to a few tiles below the hammerne village. It's close to the other circle, but it wouldn't be the first time DSFE puts checkpoints close to one another and the first one is practically unusable on lunatic anyways. As for the enemies themselves, they can be a nice change of pace from the repetitive stats of the last few chapters, and you have Sirius now to alleviate the difficulty of the game with his A rank lances dealing huge blows to cavaliers for easy finishers while tanking hits pretty well as a dracoknight, significantly reducing the might of the hard hitting silver sword cavaliers. Plenty of mounts will let Caeda stand out, which I consider to be worthy of some praise, and this chapter marks the beginning of enemy mages since the prologue, so the player will learn just how bad they have it in a game where having res means you are in the 1% and everyone else in the roster wants you dead. Lunatic Mode: Spoiler Note: List of Lunatic Only Changes: Jeorge and his snipers will immediately move upon being in any of their ranges. An extra sniper has been added to his ranks, increasing the range of the firing squad and making it impossible to cross the mountain safely as any basic infantry unit. Rickard is moved up by 1 tile, meaning Julian cannot reach him on turn 1. If he leaves this chapter, he will appear again in chapter 6, so you could choose to ignore his recruitment process. However, he will still be an inconvenience by parking in a vital spot in the mountains that the player could've used in during turn 2 when the cavaliers approach. An extra dracoknight has been added to small squad in the middle of the mountains in the west. Furthermore, the AI of these dracos will cause ALL of them to become aggressive the moment you provoke one of them, mostly likely being the new 4th one The 4th wyvern and the newly added sniper create a connected shared range in which you cannot progress upwards while avoiding their ranges. The moment you run far up enough to avoid the snipers, you will provoke the dracos. One of the generic thieves has been moved to the center, closer to his escape point. There is a secret shop in this chapter. The first one only sells master seals As recruiting Rickard is made much harder, it is difficult to obtain the member's card needed for this shop, although it's unlikely the player will be in urgent need of master seals this early in the game. The location of Anna's crack house is between the armory and the shop. New units: Barst (The Inferior Axe Trio Member): 26 HP 12 STR 10 SKL 11 SPD 6 LCK 7 DEF 0 RES [D rank Axes] Barst can be recruited either through Ogma, Bord, or Cord. With the 3rd member of the iconic axe trio, the player can now utilize the first triangle attack of the game. It can be particularly useful on lunatic mode, especially when it comes to landing shaky hit on promoted enemies or bosses with weapons such as unforged steel axes or hammers, as triangle attacks will always rig the attack to land alongside ensuring the critical hit. Caeda (Do You Guys Say "Sheedah", "Seeda" or "Ka-Ae-Da"?): 19 HP 6 STR 7 SKL 15 SPD 13 LCK 7 DEF 6 RES [D rank Lances] She joins during the prep screen, so the player is able to reclass her immedietely. She retains her growths from the prolouge as well as her iconic wing spear from FE11 Although not as useful as the one in the Shadow Dragon remake due to the significantly lower number of armors and cavaliers, the next few chapters will feature several of them, so her wing spear will be extremely useful for her join time, and by the time said enemies stop appearing for a while, she's likely gained enough levels to ensure that her speed will let her consistently double, remaining a good unit with steel weapons and the lady sword to patch up her poor STR. Reinforcements: Turn 8: A single thief in the forests northwest of the castle, 2 tiles west and south from the sniper They will head towards the village to destroy it. You generally have ample time to rescue it. Stats: Knight: Silver Lance: 26 - [27] Might Javelin (Forged): 20 - [21] Might Sniper: 25 - 26 Might Cavalier: Silver Lance: 27 - 28 Might Silver Sword: 27 - 28 Might Javelin: 21 - 22 Might Mage: 23 - [24] Might Thief: 23 - 24 Might Dracoknight: Silver Lance: [26] - 27 Might Silver Axe: [25] - 26 Might Average Speed: 11 and 14 Caeda at base can still double basic enemies, however she will likely die from a counterattack. Sirius cannot double, but can do so if he is given a speed buff, either through speed potion, rainbow potion, or a speedwing purchased from the armory if you've already beaten lunatic once prior. Reclassed Sirius can double, but Sirius is much better as a mount for this chapter. Barst barely avoids being doubled by dracos and snipers. Speed has become noticeably faster than previous ones for many unit types Cavs have gone from 9 average to 11 Dracos have gone from 11 to 14 Units such as Bord and Matthis will need multiple speed growths to not be mutilated by enemies if hoping to contribute to the battlefield Pirate Bord barely avoids being doubled by basic 11 speed enemies Average Might: 27 [23 MAG] Might is not much different from previous chapters overall Flier Caeda at base will be OHKO'd by all physical attacks except for silver sword cavaliers who roll the lower end of 27 Might due to WTA, as well as javelin armors. If reclassed, her added DEF will make her survive most attacks, but she will lose 2 speed, meaning she will need to have gotten 2 speed growths throughout the prologue in order to double the non promoted enemies, assuming the cavaliers don't roll the higher speed stat from rng. Review: Everytime I play this chapter, I gain 7 grey hairs. For those who haven't played lunatic, you have no idea how difficult this chapter can be, and I hate that saying. It's TTYD season and I hear more than enough of that phrase because I am apparently foreign to the concept of nostalgia. In this context though, chapter 5 has consistently been the hardest part of the early game and often most of the game. In fact, when I played reverse lunatic, I counted every single reset I had to do for my deathless run. I ended up with 20. For some games, this would be an embarrassing number, but I was pleasantly surprised with my own total. For a game as unforgiving as New Mystery, I was expecting a lot more, but compared to to my first maniac run, it's nothing. I was used to this game by now. I knew what to do, and some of these come from the obligatory crit rigging for certain bosses I'll get into when we get there, not dying. That said, half of those attempts were from this chapter alone. I don't remember exactly how many attempts this chapter gave me in my first regular lunatic run, but I'm pretty sure it was also around 10, maybe more. Chapter 2 and 3 are mostly the same past silvers. Chapter 4 requires you to be a lot faster, but the way you play is generally the same, at least if you naturally play fast. If you can beat this chapter in maniac, you can absolutely beat them in lunatic. This though? There are 3 major changes that completely change how the first few turns go, and by extent the bulk of the map's content. The first sentence perfectly exemplifies the amount of time I spent beating this map Kris-less. I'm glad I posted my progress here, because I unfortunately deleted my screenshots from this run despite keeping so many FE12 units and these being the ones I was most proud to show off pulling off. It's imperative that you kill the cavaliers instantly if you wish to obtain the master seal, which is pretty useful given how long it takes to get them for a while. It's not worth paying at the secret shop over, but even if you want to, it's incredibly unlikely here because of RIckard, that piece of shit who decides to park on the one spot that could help you target cavs while covered by mountain tiles outside of sniper and draco range. Whether you're trying to recruit him or not, he is a pain. It's generally better to not bother, as you need every good unit you can deploy for this chapter, but if you really want to, it's doable. I did it myself, and I never want to attempt that ever again. T The worst part is when you try to block him like here so he can't escape, but then he'll just attack you and get himself killed! For no reason! Why does he do this? He does zero damage! And most units OHKO him. It doesn't help that everytime I've had to reset from this, he always targeted Sirius. I could put anyone else next to him, but he'll always attack Sirius, and pisses me off. There's so many things to micro manage, and you essentially have to waste a unit's turn unequipping JUST so he doesn't get himself killed, because even if you're not trying to recruit, you still want him alive, but he doesn't even let THAT be easy! And when i park there, it's not even for the intention of blocking him. It's just the only spot I can afford to be in that lets me chip cavs without aggro'ing the snipers and dying. The main point this screenshot is meant to highlight though is that the cav above would kill cav Caeda, so I have to run another unit to block them, protecting her from death and both Sirius and I believe Ryan do survive 2 hits from the upper cavs. I used to have multiple more screenshots from many runs of this chapter, but they generally showcase that you have to hug the walls just to BARELY scrape by, and with the cavs being as fast and bulky as they are, it's rather difficult to kill them fast when you have such a limited fighting space compared to maniac. Remember, this is the early game where you don't have physic and on turn 1, you have to deal with bolganone mages that will eat most of your health, something you don't have time to heal for turns 2 and 3. This chapter will likely make you forge weapons to 1RKO. You need to REALLY consider your positioning, as you have very few tiles to work with, and where you are on turn 1 will heavily affect how far you can reach on turn 2, something that will make or break the run, as 2 cavs will always be out of range so the enemies you do reach need to be disposed in a w ay that don't leave you too exposed against their silvers. This is why draco Sirius is EXTREMELY useful, as his 13 DEF 28 HP gives him enough HP to survive 2 silver sword cavs due to the WTA and A rank bonus. In fact, if they roll the 27 Might roll and you give Sirius the Tauros shard, he can actually survive 3 hits even on lunatic. He is a really beefy unit with stellar weapon ranks in a chapter where you are desperate for good mounts. It's not as easy as silver lance Palla, as taking any counter damage means you're as good as dead when the cavs hit you on enemy phase, and it's really hard to form a wall when you can only hug the left side of the mountain wall. And then by turn 3, the thief already makes his getaway. Luckily, Sirius can reach him and OHKO him with a silver lance (and potentially a shard if rng roll), so if you rushed Sirius, that part isn't technically hard. However, the thief is placed in a spot where you will aggro the dracos. You can't try attacking him from east, as that would provoke Jeorge's men, so you're essentially forced to aggro the dracos on a specific turn, rather than at your own leisure. Even if you were ignoring the thief, you can't be too slow given the hammerne village being a thing, and in this version, the snipers cover 7 tiles vertically at the east zone, meaning you can't even send units who aren't mounted to the 2nd half of the stage. Sooner or later, the newly added 4th draco will now cause the rest of the dracos to fly east, giving your team another problem to deal with. Now it admittedly isn't the hardest thing to deal with if you retreat properly, but it can be overwhelming to the unprepared or easily distressed. You need to make sure that none of your lower moving units were on the higher tiles of the east mountain corners, as they then won't be able to outrun the dracos, but if you try retreating everyone immediately after killing the remaining cavs, they'll simply go after whoever killed the thief or generally aggro'd the new draco, typically Kris or Sirius. It's about baitng them to head southeast to the bulk majority of your infantry units, who will wait for when they're close enough, then go all out while your mounted units make their way west to deal with the sniper cav squad, with cavalier Kris most likely being your unit you throw to the boss to beat up. After that, there really isn't much to say. This becomes really boring for your infantry squad afterwards though, as they can't move north due to the snipers, and it's borderline impossible to take the southern path on lunatic without waiting 50 bloody turns for every ballistae use to run out, and yes, I did do that for my ironman. It was incredibly boring. And I lost SIrius. Not because of the overwhelming difficulty of the first 3 turns. No, I first try'd that after spending 90 minutes in the prep screen planning everything out. I just forgot to give Sirius a vulnerary that he needs to survive the new draco that can kill him relatively fast without consistent healing, something I forgot to mention about the rush strat, as he likely won't be able to 1RKO the draco, but Sirius can't afford to fly down, as he'll clash with the oncoming triple flier squad and be overwhelmed. It's its own mini puzzle where you consider how many heals to use, what shards to give him beforehand, and when to use what weapon type because going for high damage too early will only lead to the bishop healing said draco. At the very least, the small 4 unit squad at the bottom left of the map is made a little more interesting when you have less units to work with, and I often barely make it out of killing most of them by end of player phase, sometimes needing to kill the cavs in a way that trap the sniper who will OHKO my fliers. It's fun and engaging, unlike the remainder of the stage that is now Marth walking a lot because he now has to take the slow way all the way to the hammerne village and then allll the way back because he wasn't allowed to naturally progress through the normal route. Don't worry, you still can purposely provoke the Jeorge squad at the end and try to get as much xp as possible before leaving. It's tradition. However, I consider getting the physic on lunatic to be borderline impossible, given you can't really afford to get in close, and you're not going to be able to rout them to have time to. It is still possible, but don't count on obtaining this one on lunatic runs. It might sound like I hate this chapter on lunatic, but I actually think it's made to be much better overall. When I'm not losing my mind, I'm enjoying the new experience and extreme challenge that the map forces me to work around. They turned a map previously used in one way and gave it a completely new purpose, almost like a complete redesign, or as I should say, a remake. This does come with it's own problems though, and I would be lying if I said I didn't think this could be a bit much, mostly because of Rickard of all things. That 1 tile moved Rickard is such a dirty trick, but at least I can use that argument to prove that lunatic mode is more than just stat bloat emblem. It's a clearly well crafted difficulty given how this chapter exemplifies the meticulous crafts and edits they'll go through to throw off players that thought they know how to play the map. I often have to forge like with Ryan's iron lance in my no Kris run, or a thunder for Cecile in my ironman run, using pegs with javs and wing spear to try killing cavs while avoiding as much opportunities to be countered as possible. It's genuinely fun and exactly the kind of challenge I expect from lunatic mode being labeled as the hardest in the series. Sometimes though, I just wanna get the chapter over with, I'll admit that. I mainly like killing dracos and snipers with Bord and fighter Wrys. It's extremely annoying on reverse lunatic though where you try to use wing spear Caeda, but they go first and literally instantly kill you, so she's effectively worthless. I really hated that experience. Too bad my recommendation to fix doesn't exactly work on lunatic, since if I blocked the way to the south path, how would Marth be able to run up. I honestly do respect the gimmick of locking zones so that you have to trigger the dracos to avoid the snipers, but it is silly that Marth just kinda HAS to wait until the mounts finish the stage before he's allowed to progress. Maybe there's certain tiles the draco and sniper could be moved where 7 move units are enough to get by the snipers in the mountain zone while not just skipping the draco trigger. This will not be the only time this happens, but do not expect this to happen often. Many times, the changes are different enough to add a twist to experienced players who've accustomed to FE12's maps, but if you can beat these maps in maniac, you can assuredly beat them in lunatic with a few tweaks in your strategy or slightly better focus during gameplay. Saying that about chapter 5 would lead to a beatdown. Your beatdown. By me. Rating: Spoiler Maniac: 5.5/10 Spoiler It's....okay. I don't dislike it. It can be fun at times. I like seeing Jeorge serve as an enemy of Altea forced to serve under Hardin while clearly trying to avoid us. The cavaliers and mages can be a somewhat fun tussle. But it's otherwise a pretty long and boring map with not much happening. Lunatic: 7/10 Spoiler It's so brutal, but I prefer cruel engagement over being completely bored. Other than getting enraged by Rickard ruining my plans, it's really fun and rewarding seeing my planning finally work out and ensuring I can take out the most amount of enemies taking the least amount of counter damage under a time limit while having restricted movement (not sand restrict). Sometimes it does feel reliant on having good levels on your units, and the southern bridge's pointlessness followed by the inability to even reach the boss from the south path without waiting for your mounts to clear the rest of the chapter can be pretty boring, but I mainly want to give the chapter a high amount of praise simply for being creative with how it added difficulty. There's something so respectable about the cruelty of the devs and what they're willing to do to end me. Not counting the obligatory silver additions (which I'd argue play an important role into the fear element of positioning your units for enemy phase cavs and choosing who fights the bolgamages), this feels like the kind of change you'd see from Conquest Hard to Lunatic. I respect it. I hate what this chapter has done to my mental health, but I respect it. That's the tl;dr. Also I like Toras. C'mon, he's got like, the most memorable battle quote. Dude knows his math, Nobody knows math. Especially not FE fans. Then again, this chapter has the hammerne staff, which is locked to Malicia for no good reason. What if I wanna use Wrys!? [Edit: The score was originally 7.4, but I forgot about the annoyance of turn 1 mages simply choosing to run towards you in a way that still leave them in sniper range. If that happens, you basically lost. That and I should probably dock a few sub-points for feeling forced to rig cavs to have thuer lower speed at you might be desperate to reach the speed threshold for this specific chapter and reacing 16 SPS is quite difficult.] Edited May 25 by Shaky Jones Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted May 25 Share Posted May 25 25 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said: If FE12 was just easy normal hard, sure. That said, you'd be a lunatic to think you can do lunatic blind. It tells you that it's the hardest difficulty the series can provide, and that's arguably not an exaggeration. And this is for a franchise known to be one of Nintendo's harder and less forgiving games. I'll play Star Wars III on hard mode blind, but if game has multiple hard modes, I know I ain't jumping straight to the top. Closest I had to that was Mass Effect 3 on Insanity, but that's the 3rd game in the series, so I can just be confident there. Oh, I know that, because I'm a Fire Emblem fan and I know the reputation New Mystery has. I'm more saying that 19/20 times if an experienced gamer goes for a higher difficulty on a game they have no experience with, such arrogance won't be punished. New Mystery of the Emblem specifically, and also Fire Emblem as a series more broadly, is the 1/20 exception. 31 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said: Other than that, the only other part of the map is fighting the few enemies protecting the boss and rushing your best unit against the ballistae men to then clear the map. There is an optional path you can take using the lower bridges, but as it's in range of multiple ballistae and armors, it's unviable to attempt, especially given that you have to rush upwards anyways to save the village holding a hammerne from the reinforcement thief, something that you have plenty of time to obtain provided you take the northern path. Oh wow, you don't take the lower bridge? I just Kris tanked those ballistae and sent fliers up to deal with the thief. It was pretty straight forward in Maniac. Though it did result in a few boring turns of Marth walking at the end. Speaking of the Hammerne village, the guy who gives it to you is the same guy as Shadow Dragon, Lena's Grandfather. Which makes the completely different surroundings very confusing to me. 41 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said: If Rickard leaves this chapter, he will appear again in chapter 6, Oh cool, I didn't know that. He has a minor Cath thing going on there. I like it, multiple opportunities to recruit a character that is. I'm playing Tear Ring Saga now and recruitment conditions are so precise and easy to fuck up, it feels like you need to consult a guide every time there's a conversation (and there are a lot of conversations). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint Rubenio Posted May 25 Share Posted May 25 1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said: Then again, this chapter has the hammerne staff, which is locked to Malicia for no good reason. What if I wanna use Wrys!? I will never forgive Maeda for this. I mean, technically Kaga did it, but Kaga also removed Wrys. Which was worse. Stupid fucking Kaga. I will never forgive Kaga for this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aircalipoor Posted May 25 Share Posted May 25 Chapter 5 is hard, but I never found it outstandishly so. As usual, optimize the first turns for the mages, cavaliers and thieves. For the Dracos, you can already use a save point. Too lazy to look up how the cool kids do it, but a decade a go, my MyUnitless approach was this: I could have a very good Caeda, but I see no reason not to favor her during the prologue. Watching the first 2-3 minutes, it doesn't seem too stressful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted May 26 Share Posted May 26 6 hours ago, Aircalipoor said: Chapter 5 is hard, but I never found it outstandishly so. As usual, optimize the first turns for the mages, cavaliers and thieves. For the Dracos, you can already use a save point. Too lazy to look up how the cool kids do it, but a decade a go, my MyUnitless approach was this: I could have a very good Caeda, but I see no reason not to favor her during the prologue. Watching the first 2-3 minutes, it doesn't seem too stressful. Ah, 144p, my old enemy. So you took the lower route too. That's basically how I handled it on my Maniac playthrough. Only with more Kris dominance. I'm surprised Shakey recommended going all the way around. It probably is more secure, but just way less fun. Plus, you will have to deal with the double ballistae cover at some point anyway. They seemed to always go for the same unit in your video, but I think you can put a weaker unit in range of the non boss ballista to make them target separate units. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaky Jones Posted June 18 Author Share Posted June 18 Sorry about the wait fellas. Have a gaiden chapter while you wait another month. Replies: Spoiler On 5/25/2024 at 1:35 AM, Jotari said: Speaking of the Hammerne village, the guy who gives it to you is the same guy as Shadow Dragon, Lena's Grandfather. Which makes the completely different surroundings very confusing to me. Fuck Lena's grandfather. Let me use Hammer Wrys. How does this even matter!? It's not like it's bloodline based! It's just that Malicia just so happened to be an apprentice. How fortunate for Marth. But what about my fortune!? By that logic, it's a matter of being skilled enough to use it. Aka, weapon rank. I woulda been fine if it was B rank, but E for Malicia and Lena. Then it could make sense both in gameplay and whatever garbage this is. I hate Malicia. @Saint Rubenio, tell us your thoughts on Malicia. On 5/25/2024 at 2:15 AM, Saint Rubenio said: I will never forgive Maeda for this. I mean, technically Kaga did it, but Kaga also removed Wrys. Which was worse. Stupid fucking Kaga. I will never forgive Kaga for this. Get angrier. Get louder. And while you're at it, do tell me your 2 cents on Lang. He's funny or something, yeah? On 5/25/2024 at 1:35 AM, Jotari said: Oh cool, I didn't know that. He has a minor Cath thing going on there. I like it, multiple opportunities to recruit a character that is. I'm playing Tear Ring Saga now and recruitment conditions are so precise and easy to fuck up, it feels like you need to consult a guide every time there's a conversation (and there are a lot of conversations). I suppose the downside is that now you have to a waste a slot in ch6 bringing Rickard, but given there's chests there and ch6 is much more forgiving than ch5, I'd say it's the much better choice. On 5/25/2024 at 1:35 AM, Jotari said: Oh wow, you don't take the lower bridge? I just Kris tanked those ballistae and sent fliers up to deal with the thief. It was pretty straight forward in Maniac. Though it did result in a few boring turns of Marth walking at the end. On 5/25/2024 at 12:11 PM, Aircalipoor said: Chapter 5 is hard, but I never found it outstandishly so. As usual, optimize the first turns for the mages, cavaliers and thieves. For the Dracos, you can already use a save point. It's always a crazy feeling when I'm certain that the map is played 1 way, but then FE12 fans reveal they do things completely differently. It shouldn't be surprising, but given how FE12 fans are the most oppressed group in society, we don't get to communicate our gameplay styles to one another. I can feel Gharnef's presence to give the dark sphere any moment. In fairness, this is why I emphasized that even if you do prefer to take the southern path, you're ultimately not saving much time, as you're going to send Marth up regardless for the village. It's tedious, but you're not NOT going to do it. That's why for me at least, I just go north everytime. It's not worth the trouble of going south when I know the north path is inevitable. And is it really that common for Kris to tank it? In almost every run, my Krises can and will die if I had him try to take the southern path on his own. On maniac, maybe it's doable, but it's been a good while since I played maniac, and given how simple the map is on maniac, I don't see the appeal of going south when my team can easily just go north and not deal with ballistaes. It just seems like the obvious path. Are people that desperate to not walk the mountains? Again, you HAVE to send Marth there anyways. I just don't see it. On 5/25/2024 at 12:11 PM, Aircalipoor said: I could have a very good Caeda, but I see no reason not to favor her during the prologue. Watching the first 2-3 minutes, it doesn't seem too stressful. I'm grateful for the video, as it perfectly visualizes everything I stated about the first few turns regarding the importance of hugging the wall and effectively using your high move units to effectively kill the cavs and reach the thieves quickly Well about as perfectly as a 2009 video does anyways. Anyways, I'm not a fan of how busted Caeda is here. Sure she's a good prologue unit, but i've never in any of my 16+ runs had her reach anything near those numbers the SECOND I got her back. It wouldn't be fair to analyze these maps under the guize that the player should just have blessed units. What if they didn't? The closest is Kris, which is why I mainly use Kris as an example of someone who could take on the south path, but he never can for me, not on lunatic. Generally, I don't want to make assumptions out of teams except for maybe the standard "Sirius good" or just relying on Palla's solid bases. Oh yeah, about the whole "this is the hardest chapter in the game", I mainly wrote that for "content" where I exaggerate my feelings towards a chapter to hopefully add spice or something to the post because i certainly die way more often here than most other chapters. It's really about your first run on lunatic. Nowadays, I can ironman it, but back then, I swear I'd make one misstep and it's all joever. I also wrote it for a running joke wher I'l repeat the title for any chapter I struggled at all with but you'll all forget this by then So many times I'd lose my fliers or feel that I just can't do anything because I can't reach the cavaliers. This was mainly from how my starting positions were. And then there's taking mage damage on turn 1, potentially making it impossible for someone like Palla to continue fighting afterwards. Heck, in the video, Palla got a lucky dodge. That doesn't happen in lunatic. I never dodge! I digress. In general, I just wanted to say that I do believe the the north path is clearly the "dev intended" path and while it is boring, I feel that neither pathway is a good one given how flat the design falls after the first few turns on lunatic. I don't enjoy relying on ballistae AI manipulation so early in the game with very few decent healers and hardly any tanks. You think my fighter Wrys or curate Matthis is going to survive that? I don't think either path is fun and hoping that I have a capped Caeda and that the ballistaes don't 2rko the rest of my team (they do) doesn't seem like the best way to rank a map. Although that said, I still ranked the map rather high. Maybe I should lower it....I mean I do really like how the first few turns are, but they did exhaust me quite a bit at first. Maybe I'll come back to this. Oh yeah. Sorry if the actual post this time is scuffed or potentially missing something. It's been a long time and I'm most likely rusty when it comes to Shaking my Jone. I spent far too long making this from how often I lost focus. I just want to get to chapter 8 already. Chapter 6: Imagine If Lang Had Lang's Theme From Edgeworth Ace Attorney Spoiler Also known as "Why is 90% of my army swordies?" in Old Mystery. But since then the Alteans have realized that there's no reason to respect the villain's home abode and put away your horses to not stain their mattress. Chapter Info: Spoiler Note: The enemy sniper and hero above are only present in lunatic mode. There is only 1 mage near the 2 chests to the right of the starting position on normal mode. If Rickard was not recruited back in chapter 5, he will appear next to the chest at the bottom right corner of the map. He will make no attempt to pilfer any treasures (stationary). He's depressed about being ignored. You receive 2 new units on the beginning of turn 3. Another unit can be recruited through either Caeda or Ogma New Units: Frey: 26 HP 11 STR 8 SKL 10 SPD 6 LCK 10 DEF 0 RES [C rank Lances, D rank Swords] His bases are serviceable, but there is very little worthy of note aside from his exceptional speed growth. Joins turn 3 Norne: 20 HP 8 STR 6 SKL 9 SPD 6 LCK 7 DEF 0 RES [C rank Bows] Norne's bases would be similar to that of Castor's if she was able to reclass into a hunter, although her HP and DEF would be noticeably worse with the trade off of being 2 levels lower than him and having a 10% speed growth buff (although there's a -5% STR growth). Frey's base growths surpass Norne's in every category. His bases as an archer would beat Norne's in every stat other than speed and the bow rank. Joins turn 3 Samto (Samuel): 20 HP 6 STR 10 SKL 11 SPD 3 LCK 7 DEF 0 RES He can be recruited with either Ogma or Caeda. He initially appears as Navarre. Even if Samto gained 3 full level ups, his STR, SKL, and SPD would still not surpass that of Navarre's who you get the very next non gaiden chapter. Samto's growths are noticeably worse than Navarre's in every category other than speed and defense, in which they are tied. Reinforcements: Turn 4: One Knight, one Archer, and 2 Soldiers Maniac spawns generally use steels, while lunatic ones will use specific forged weapons such as killer lances and longbows. Turn 5: 2 soldiers Turn 6: One Knight, one Archer, and 2 Soldiers Same pattern as previous 4 unit wave Turn 7: One Knight and one Archer Lunatic: All waves appear 1 turn earlier (Turn 3-6) Enemy Stats: Maniac: Knight: Steel: 23 - (24) Might Javelin: 17 - (18) Might Mage: 19 - (20) Might Soldier: Steel: 20 - 21 Might Javelin: 14 - 15 Might Archer: 19 Might Bishop: 19 - 20 Might Average Speed: 9 and 11 Enemies in the lower and upper area have slightly different levels, and their stats vary by almost 1 (hence bunching them as one unit type in the might department, as they can potentially share the same STR) Some mages can have 12 speed, allowing them to double and 1RKO General Arran (for those trying to deploy tanks to block the southern reinforcements) Sirius can easily 1RKO armors with his 13 SPD, either using his silver lance (+ STR shards) or an armorslayer Average Might: 20 and 24 Sirius will be able to tank at least 2 hits with his decent base DEF and serviceable earlygame HP as a paladin (pure water will allow him to reliably tank mages as well), although reclassing him as a general can allow him to tank the southern reinforcements with relative ease if you wish to rely on choke point strats, as none of them use effective weaponry or magic. Lunatic: Lvl 8 Knight: Ridersbane+: 29 Might Javelin+: 24 Might Silver: 30 Might Lvl 5 Knight: Killer Lance+: (29) - 30 Might Javelin+: (23) - 24 Might Silver: (29) - 30 Might Lvl 8 Mage: 24 - (25) Might Lvl 5 Mage: 23 - 24 Might Soldier: Silver: 26 - (27) Might Javelin+: 20 - (21) Might Archer: 24 - (25) Might Lvl 1 Bishop: 24 Might Lvl 3 Bishop: 24- 25 Might Hero: (31) - 32 Might Sniper: 28 - (29) Might Average Speed: 10 & (12) - 13 While many enemies lean towards 12 SPD, it's possible for a majority of them to roll 13 SPD. This will not be enough to double units like Barst or even General Sirius (he has 10 as a General), but it will mean units such as an untrained Palla will be unable to double This information is irrelevant. Everybody is using Palla, unfortunately. Sirius at base as a hero will have 17 speed, allowing him to double everybody in the map while retaining his high sword rank. General Arran will be doubled by most enemies at this point, although Swordmaster Arran will have 17 speed, allowing him to still double with a steel sword, often capable of 1RKO'ing mages (unless they high roll both DEF and HP) Average Might: 25 & 29 General Sirius is still capable of tanking if you desire it, although General Arran will struggle as prepromote by now. If Kris is promoted by now, he can easily steamroll the chapter as a General, given there is no rush incentive or armorslayer user unless you count mages, even though most classes have 0 res. As one of the ambush armors use a forged killer lance, being able to potentially tank a lunatic critical strike can be a very useful tool, something which is practically impossible to achieve this early on outside of the immense DEF base of the General class. Base Palla as a cavalier will barely survive an attack against a mage, while Caeda dies (reclassing to cavalier would mainly benefit Caeda for DEF to not be OHKO'd by armors + ladysword vs non armors) Review: Spoiler Pros: Armors provide perfect opportunity for Caeda to utilize her wing spear's effectiveness. Being given a choice between 2 units gives the player a little more flexibility on who they can use for the chapter when it comes to recruiting everybody as opposed to many other chapters that may enforce units you might not be training. On Lunatic, the player must be prepared for when they open the door with threatening prepromotes almost serving as minibosses that add to the weight of importance that this chapter possesses given that you are finally taking down General Lang after multiple chapters of being old and senile. Cancer joke. The initial save point in the beginning serves as a way to give the player their own timing of when they wish to grant themselves a checkpoint, almost like a one use divine pulse, but it could be risky if you hold off on saving until the reinforcements have reached the central zone. The reinforcements on lunatic force the player to quickly rout the first wave of enemies to the west while making sure they have time to patch up their wounds a and prepare their forces to engage with the long wave of enemies that's about to hit them from below. Although the enemies on lunatic are designed to prevent you from choke pointing, it is still possible for those well prepared using the right reclassed units and baiting out certain enemies like the longbow user while often trading shards and vulneraries to consistently keep your chokepointers alive as you push on to kill the waves. Alternatively, you can wait them out and attempt to split their forces and enemy phase them slowly to the best of your abilities, but will likely need to go on a full assault once the ambushes stop before they completely corner you. Cons: The reinforcements are generally known to be rather tedious, often slowing the map down far more than elevating the need to play fast or even cautious, at least past the aforementioned pro on lunatic (fast play for turn 2, slow for overall map pacing). Chests are not properly utilized as a means to incentivize any fast play or split them in any meaningful way, as they are generally free past the swarm bishop user being able to snipe you when you open some of them, even if he likely won't kill you. They are mostly just "there" and cause the player to waste time traveling east with Marth or whichever thief you deploy to obtain them. Turn 1 and 2 provide a fair bit of a fight with enemies coming in from the left, but is overall rather simple and there is nothing that attacks you from the right as long as you don't go out of your way to enter their range, and the map provides no real incentive to deal with the east area at a reasonable pace aside from potentially killing the physic user early on so they don't heal anyone. There will likely be a large portion of nothing but walking once you've dealt with the reinforcements, especially if you are one of few people who decide to camp in the bottom right corner of the map to chokepoint the enemies when they arrive. Regardless, a good chunk of this map will be empty as you traverse the lower half for a fair number of turns. The map can be very barren and dull, primarily in lower difficulties where the prepromotes on top are not present and the map is simply 90% armors and mages. The throne room can also be seen as nothing but Choke Point Emblem™️, given how many armors and mages will try to swarm you, only to have 2 thin halls readily available for your Kris to Kris. On Lunatic, If you only open one door from one side of the map to reach the throne room, whichever prepromote you did not kill will then serve as an additional challenge when you aggro the center armors, essentially only punishing you for not wasting your time opening both doors. General Lang is a very underwhelming boss for being one of the few enemies that the player will actually remember from this game. That is, they are somewhat important to the beginning of Marth's story, serving as the main villain of this particular "arc". His defense is noticeably worse than his FE3 counterpart (13+2 vs 19), and he has nothing but a javelin, a weapon which is incredibly weak in might, thereby severely dampening the threat he possesses as a boss. A bit of a new format. I'll hopefully get better at formulating real points when the maps try harder to be maps. Commentary: I have a personal bias for this map purely from the fact that I always see this chapter as the "end of arc" stage of the early game, something that always excites me in games. I have a particular fondness over Lang as a cartoonishly evil pretentious villain who's both pathetic and somewhat imposing with how he abuses his power and clearly frustrates your army during the first few chapters. It's meant to be satisfying when you can finally put him down and it's impossible NOT to associate him with the greatest line stated in the series: Perhaps it's just me, but I can't help but like the "early general boss" archetype. People like Lang, Tirado, Legance, etc. Their presence and design, generally causing misfortune to the player and/or their nation to a moderate extent while not looking like stupidly over the top anime boys or grey people, feels like a realistic sense of what an opposing force would be for a medieval era game like Fire Emblem. None of this should really be a major factor when the thread is primarily discussing the maps of FE12, especially coming from someone who hates the glorification of story importance in video games, especially that of a strategy rpg. That said, I'm biased for FE12, and I'm biased for Lang. I like him. He's old. He's a piece of crap. There is nothing special about him in particular, and for whatever reason, I like that. Also this is the guy who tries to convince you he's begging for mercy during the boss dialogue before going "Haha, you fell for it loseeer!". This is the 2nd time FE12 does this in the span of 3 bloody chapters! That's hilarious. That said, this map is very underwhelming. Reinforcements, while they can be somewhat fun to deal with on lunatic where it's not so simple to just tank with with the 3 range bow user and killer lance armors, feel very poorly implemented and often feel like they cause the map to drag on. For a map of this design where you start in the center and there's 2 pathways north, you'd expect to be dealing with enemies from both the left and the right with occasional reinforcements coming from both sides while the MAIN waves show up a couple of turns later, potentially when the player is making their way to the chests and doors. It's likely more complicated than that for ways to fix the map, but there should be more of a natural progression as far as enemy waves go, and you really could've done more with the chests, like having a thief start off stealing the bottom right chest and then running south, and by the time they start making their way to the bottom area to escape, reinforcements arrive and it's now difficult for those who were just waiting for them to make their way right into your silver lance. Turn 1 is very simple. You just have 2 select units enemy phase the armors with your effective weaponry. Even though 10 defense isn't too high for armor standards, it can still be difficult to 1RKO them due to their high HP and slower units like Bord often being unable to double with their hammer. Otherwise, there isn't much to discuss, as there is no real reason to split your army or do anything else other than just wanting to be efficient. These pictures do not all come from the same run so expect some sudden changes in positioning. Generally, they're split between the no Kris lunatic run and the maniac ironman with a few potential exceptions depending on how far back I dig for these posts. When it comes to me though, you can bet I'm Bord'ing this chapter most of the time. This chapter gets a few points for hammer time, but then loses them when you spend 15 turns just walking. In many of my first few lunatic runs, I tried to get Kris as close to lvl 20 by now so he can be a General and steamroll the reinforcements with General Sirius. For the no Kris run, my main was Ryan, who was not ready to promote, but I chose to push through anyways, and it worked relatively well. It was somewhat fun, so I wouldn't strictly say the reinforcements are a bad feature, but once the 4 turns are over, there is very little to do until you're at the throne room. While I don't exactly remember how this chapter from years ago played out, I believe what happened is that the currently alive soldier 2 ranged Ryan while the armor attacked Sirius due to critical RNG telling him this was the best decision. The idea was that the longbow user would attack the fighter who would block everyone else from targeting Ryan, although I believe the longbow guy went for Sirius due to his bad LCK, only dealing like 4 damage. The 4th soldier who spawned with these 3 attacked and got 1RKO'd, but the armor already went for Sirius (if both he and the archer landed a crit, he would've died, but at least you have the checkpoint for that). Admittedly, the biggest flaw with attempting to be THIS aggressive with the reinforcements is the punishment of a single miss, or if you're just playing on reverse lunatic. Killer Armors make this strat difficult to acheive and you're likely just better off letting them come to you, however it should be doable with the right 2 rangers, provided you keep a good track on who shows up when, primarily the longbow spawns. It's about finding out ways to kill the enemy while blocked who will show up at the end of the turn. Here, another armor and archer will spawn after the turn is over. Ryan and Sirius block where the new unit will appear, and he and Bord will block the armor from hitting anyone else. This leads to the archer and the armor to spawn separate enough to where nobody except Ryan and Sirius could be hit twice. Luckily, the last wave does not spawn with their gimmick weapons (armor only has silver lance). It's an overall risky, but persona favorite way to fend them off. It is annoying in the sense that you have to know which tiles they spawn in each turn by memory, and the killer lance armor guy can be really annoying, so I will assume most people do not and will not attempt to play the chapter this way anytime soon, unless I'm misinformed and it's the only way. I'm apparently an idiot when it comes to chapter 5. For maniac, this is much easier, but probably the best way I can fight this way without worrying too much about my recklessness. And you can always just general Kris solo. Like you can completely trivialize this if we're including avatar bias into the review. I weep. FE12 could've been a well balanced game. Don't you dare bring up the Wolfguard. This is another way you can fight these enemies. The main reason there's an emphasis on these guys is that they are more or less the map itself. They're the challenge. Before and after this is tiny bits of flavor, but nothing impactful. Nothing else is really worth delving into imo. Here, it's about trying to kill them before they place someone like Wrys into a corner on top where he can't outrun them, and you'll need to be careful when it comes to the armor units (Cecile can kill here, but the soldier can reach her and there is a 2nd jav soldier below, not shown by picture). It's not quite as strategically challenging, but I've had my fair share of close calls when it came to enemies nearly reaching my healer or sharing a few ranges when I rush in for the kill. Unfortunately, I don't have nearly as many examples as with the previous strat. It's generally self explanatory with the main interesting moment being which hallways the AI goes for as you retreat, and of course whichever enemies overlap with the killer armor, as they're usually the #1 priority. And after you deal with the lower area, the most interesting thing that happens is fighting the prepromotes, which even then isn't too bad if you simply swarm them with your 5+ units and then it's more walking to the center throne room where you just choke point it. In some situations, this is easier said than done, as it's pretty hard to tank mage hits, but with the right AI manipulation or even just getting lucky with how they surround each other, you can easily have them blocking each other from combo'ing and you can steamroll right through them from 2 range. Really, this map's problems are that most enemies feel more like a drag than an engaging challenge like in previous maps. I'm not really sure how else to stretch this out to sound smart about a crappy game other than just saying the map is...boring, because that's what it is. It's a boring map. Although it's not the biggest issue by any means, I'm always personally disappointed when I remember how easy Lang is. His HP might be high on Lunatic, but on a difficulty where enemies are using silver weapons, a javelin just isn't going to cut it man. You're embarrassing yourself! Why is his defense lower? You have the wing spear now! You have reclassing! Hell, you can just use Bord's hammer combined with an axe trio triangle attack and you dun did it. You beat the game! War's over. Cord owns Grust now. I say give him a spear at least. I remember DM'ing someone about fixing boss stats, but I'd take forever digging through what I said for Lang. At the very least, give him a spear so that he does something on lower difficulties and give him some more defense. I know I never really discuss bosses here because of how much of a nothing burger they are in this game, but come on. At least try for my guy. At least Lang gave us this iconic meme: Spoiler Yes I made this. You may now give me my reddit gold shitpostemblem. Rating: 5/10 Spoiler Although the odd bias in me would make me rank this slightly closer to 6, this map is objectively mid. It's not awful to any degree, unless you REALLY hate those reinforcements, but it gets so boring. It's definitely less dull than in FE3 where you had to walk your slow forced infantry asses left and right in old SNES janky fashion, but I can definitely feel the FE3 jank of slowness in this map, if that makes any sense. It's never I map I like, but I don't have any disdain for it either. It's just the map of all time, and all I look foward to is chucking at Lang's blatant copy of the patented Pirate Gheb strat. That and Hammer Triangle Attacking him. Super boring in most difficulties. Too easy to chokepoint. Very boring enemy combat overall. Lack of creative reinforcement usage or chest rush incentive. Somewhat interesting additions in lunatic. Overall, this map is best described as: New Midstery. Chapter 6x: If You Like This Map, Please PM Me Spoiler And Tell Me Where It All Went Wrong In Your Life What the fuck am I looking at? Chapter Info: Spoiler Note: In order to obtain this gaiden chapter, you must either recruit Rickard and fight off the urge to murder him for his behavior in FE3, or complete the previous chapter under a certain turnframe: N: 20 turns H: 24 turns M: 28 turns L: 32 turns L': 36 turns You can obtain 2 new units by not defeating them in combat here. You cannot recruit them by talking to them with anybody. Wendell is now playable. You won. New Units: Wendell: 26 HP 3 STR 8 MAG 5 SKL 13 SPD 4 LCK 5 DEF 6 RES [B rank Tomes, D rank Staves] Wendell is often considered to be one of the best units in most previous entries. Despite his stats being relatively similar to his Shadow Dragon counterpart, and being the same as FE3 B2 (-2 STR, +3 MAG), he is by far at his worst in FE12. This isn't to say that he is objectively a poor unit by any means. He will always serve as a decent staff bot for a moderate chunk of the game with serviceable base speed and he possesses a great tome rank. However, due to FE12's emphasis on growth rates with it's rapidly scaling enemies, Wendell's prepromote status beginning at lvl 7 hurts his combat utility far more than in the previous Archanean installments (FE1 has no magic, so high speed = good mage, FE3 & FE11 values bases significantly more than growths with B2 allowing for easy growth modifiers to any unit of choice). His biggest flaw past his high base level is the fact that he now competes with Eztel, who will join only a few chapters later with identical ranks and much better magic, as well as more defense, only losing out on 1 point of speed. Until then, he a decent filler unit for those who either have yet to have established a full army or require an additional healer for the upcoming chapters. Or because he's old. Wendell is still one of the best units in the game: Spoiler This is why Gotoh sent him on his own to collect the shards. You can't hate on Gotoh anymore Jotari. He won. Caesar: 26 HP 8 STR 11 SKL 11 SPD 6 LCK 8 DEF 0 RES [C rank Swords] End of chapter recruit (normally mentioned next chapter post, but this gaiden chapter could be skipped). Caesar still gains a +10% MAG growth as a mage Caesar's growths as a myrmidon are nearly identical to that of Radd's, although he trades 10% of his STR (loses) for 5% SKL. He also has 20% less luck growth, but Radd only has 1 base luck to begin with. Radd: 22 HP 5 STR 10 SKL 13 SPD 1 LCK 5 DEF 0 RES [C rank Swords] Shaky Jones doesn't get the Radd memes. Enemy Stats: Maniac: Fighter: Steel: 26 Might Hand Axe: 20 Might Archer: 19 Might Knight: 23 Might Average Speed: 11 The archers have 10 and the armor has 9, but most of the map consists of fighters, so they are the main factor for average speed to take into consideration. Wendell can double the armor at base, although there are better units when it comes to OHKO'ing the knight, given how you'd prefer each unit to 1RKO whomever they battle. Average Might: 19 and 26 If you are aiming to play through the map without rescue-skipping, generals will be vital toy our success. As such, General Sirius is a solid choice for tanking the fighters, and he will take virtually no damage from the archers. Lunatic: Fighter: Silver: 32 Might Hand Axe+: 26 Might Archer: 24 - (25) Might Knight: (29) - 30 Might Average Speed: 11 - 12 It's possible for every enemy in the map (non recruitable or boss) to have 11 speed, although fighters will likely have 12. Legion's speed of 17 is the primary concern, as you will most likely want to seize the throne on turn 1, meaning you will need a unit with 21+ speed if you wish to 1RKO him or at least deal decent damage. Decent candidates are Draco Kris and sages such as Malicia, Linde, or even Cecile, although they would need to have gotten a substantially large amount of levels by now. Average Might: 25 and 32 Just rescue skip the map. You're donion rings Review: Spoiler Pros: Ceasar is presented to be slightly interesting and actually has some semblance of character while serving as a reasonable opposition due to being a mercenary who will do whatever for money that is now revealed to fund an important family cause. Insert Radd joke here Do you guys call him Legion or Roro? Cons: What the fuck am I looking at? Commentary: Hey, you know how we managed to make a well constructed, compact but carefully crafted mini map that carefully utilized choke points and the introduction of ambush spawns to guide the player into adapting towards the style of strategy that is expected for our remake back in prologue 7? ME NEITHER! IT'S RESCUE SEIZE TIME!!! What happened!? What is this map!? Look at it! This is like Mario Maker! Just cram in a bunch of reds with the player having a damn square as their line of defense. You have nothing! This is the worst looking defend zone ever! How much time did they spend designing this? 2 seconds? I bet anyone reading this could make a better map in 10 minutes! Nobody actually plays this map. Not on high difficulties. Lunatic enemies were NOT designed to be people that swarm you. Not immediately by the half dozen! They often attempt to do so, but are aggro'd in ways that you can rout them before they're able to overwhelm you as long as you play your cards right. Here, you're just thrown in a minefield and told "good luck". The map is literally JUST chokepoints. That's the entire map, because that's game design. Even if you CAN survive them all, you don't want to, because by even trying to play the map, you'll kill the new recruits, Caesar and Radd. In order to recruit them, you need to beat the map without killing them, BUT THEY'RE STUPID! Given how weak they are, you WILL kill them if you have a weapon equipped. This map was literally made to be skipped. The best way to play it is to not play at all. I mean what else was the intention. You're in a tiny square. There's multiple enemies already surrounding you. There's 2 units to the sides that you're not allowed to fight with no way to back away from them, and the sezie point is fuckin 5 tiles away from Marth. I have only "played" this map once. It was on a maniac ironman run. Normally, you want to have units able to quickly rout the boss while you have a healer rescue Marth up a few tiles so he can reach the gate on turn 1. I wasn't able to do that this run. No one could reliably kill Legion. Not in an ironman at least. Yeah, of course they died. What did you expect? Admittedly, playing it was a tiny bit .....fun. But only barely, for like 2 actions. It's mostly just garbage. There's nothing unique about it other than how you'd expect chokepoint swap starts to work in an FE game. This is usually what makes or breaks a defend map in FE, but in here it's the most simple barebones way possible because there's so little to do other than just having 3 units who don't eat total shit while chugging vulns. People in Caesar's side don't have 2 range, provided you can bait the northern archers, so it's not too bad to have a not so frail unit plug the hole as long as you're moving around. You're better off never trying to move down, because then the enemies will immediately swarm you from there and you'll now 4 points to choke out of 7 people. It was almost a good time for 1 turn when I use vulns, heal while out of archer range, and try taking advantage of one side of the map while holding off the other, but it's a lot more hectic than engaging when you have the breathing space of a 3 Houses comments section and the game punishes me attempting to actually play the game by having Caesar decide his sister isn't worth shit. Newsflash Casaer. You're not getting your money if you're DEAD! At least Caesar is shown in this game to be interested in tactics and he's possibly one of few Archanean characters who canonically knows how to read. In that sense, you could see this ambush as his own tactic against you. It's called "bullshit emblem", where we just have 10 silver users kill you dead because the map was not designed around enemies being Super Mutants. Like what if you didn't have rescue. Yeah, you'd be a terrible player when it comes to conserving resources. But for some players, this chapter could legitimately be a softlock. This was a maniac run and I almost lost Wrys and even Palla. Kris just had to accept that he's taking archer damage (although I believe they missed). I have no idea how you could beat this on lunatic without rescue skipping unless you just happened to have multiple 20+ DEF units. And of course, this is assuming you're fine with losing 2 units. Yes, they're shit. But guess what? I like Caesar! He's cool. I enjoy using him. I really like that FE12 did more with him. Not much more, but at least he has something to define himself with, meanwhile Radd is mostly just the energetic guy, and Ymir.....he's there. Don't get me started on what they did to my boy Horace. It's so dumb that it's borderline impossible to play this map and recruit them. Any possible praise I could give it, or enjoyment I might somehow obtain, is almost certainly just a result of playing a game I lover overall. It's just FE12 or FE in general. Nothing about this specific map deserves any praise! It's shit! Rating: 2.6/10 Spoiler Why isn't it a 2 or a 1? Well if you're just reading this bit, I mean come on, the review's pretty damn short. Just read it you bozo. As I said, I had like, 1 or 2 moments of what is almost joy when not skipping it, and I suppose I do slightly enjoy the process of killing the northern enemies in a way that allow me to ensure that when my healer rescues Marth, they are spawned upwards and not some other crappy direction, and when we're talking bad maps, at least it's bad in the sense that it's too easily skippable and feels like it's demanding that you do so. I hate arguments where you forgive a map or a game with terrible maps under the premise that you can warpskip it. That doesn't mean the map works. That's you completely skipping the game, which says a lot about the quality of said game/map. That said, if we're talking specific numbers, better a crappy map you can skip than a crappy map you're forced to trudge though, at least in certain circumstances. It's hard to get into without going on long tangents with specific examples like Hunting By Daybreak or Cog of Destiny. At the very least, it's safe to say that this chapter isn't the worst in the game. It's only the 2nd worst. Fuck this map. What were they thinking!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 (edited) 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: Fuck Lena's grandfather. Let me use Hammer Wrys. How does this even matter!? It's not like it's bloodline based! It's just that Malicia just so happened to be an apprentice. How fortunate for Marth. But what about my fortune!? By that logic, it's a matter of being skilled enough to use it. Aka, weapon rank. I woulda been fine if it was B rank, but E for Malicia and Lena. Then it could make sense both in gameplay and whatever garbage this is. Maybe it is blood line best and Lena's Grandfather had a little extra marital fun with Marisha's grandmother while abroad and now he needs to make an excuse for it. Alternately, any staff user Lena builds a support rank with can learn to use it (also give characters more than one support each). 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: And while you're at it, do tell me your 2 cents on Lang. He's funny or something, yeah? Genuinely might be the best villain in the game. He's at least the only one not running on the coat tails of his Shadow Dragon appearance (well, maybe Arlen too) and he still managed to have more presence and an actual arc than even Hardin. 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: Are people that desperate to not walk the mountains? Again, you HAVE to send Marth there anyways. I just don't see it. After the nonsense that is chapter 3, yes, very much so. As far as Kris tanking goes, while they can't exactly Leroy Jenkins it, baiting the ballistae with weaker units they'd prioritize and then aggroing the other enemies to move out of the ballistae range so the only threats are the boss and other ballista is straight forward enough. 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: about the whole "this is the hardest chapter in the game", I mainly wrote that for "content" where I exaggerate my feelings towards a chapter to hopefully add spice or something to the post because i certainly die way more often here than most other chapters. It's really about your first run on lunatic. Nowadays, I can ironman it, but back then, I swear I'd make one misstep and it's all joever. If number of resets is the criteria for hardest chapter in the game, then on any higher difficulty first time playthrough I'd say one if the prologue chapters would easily take the cake for me. It only takes about five minutes to do one of them but I certainly had to play those five minutes over and over and over and over again to find the one combination of positioning that has a 70% chance if victory. 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: I digress. In general, I just wanted to say that I do believe the the north path is clearly the "dev intended" Well, the game wasn't exclusively built for lunatic. Hell the chapter wasn't even built for this game! The north south choice is straight from Old Mystery. So it's less dev intention and more dev experimentation. 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: This information is irrelevant. Everybody is using Palla, unfortunately Not me in my Maniac playthrough! Because it was my "use everybody challenge" I was stuck using the likes of Yubello and Castor by this chapter. At least Sigurd was still in my line up. 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: On Lunatic, If you only open one door from one side of the map to reach the throne room, whichever prepromote you did not kill will then serve as an additional challenge when you aggro the center armors, essentially only punishing you for not wasting your time opening both doors. I actually like that design choice. At least in theory. 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: General Lang is a very underwhelming boss for being one of the few enemies that the player will actually remember from this game. True, but I'm not sure that's necessarily a con. Bear in mind 1)It suits his character 2)The boss area is still challenging with the units he has flanking him (also in character for him) 3) All Fire Emblem bosses are underwhelming and sucked before Engage (except Murdock and Ashera, this is fact). 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: In many of my first few lunatic runs, I tried to get Kris as close to lvl 20 by now so he can be a General and steamroll the reinforcements with General Sirius. This brings up an interesting question. When is the best time to promote (and who is the best to promote) in New Mystery? Most games would encourage early promotion, but for New Mystery's end game really are required to have max stats in relevant areas and the end game probably is more challenging than the mid game. So is 20 recommended for promotion? On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the game is quite liberal with stat boosters so maybe just getting those promotion bonuses sooner is better and any holes in the stats of units you're bringing to end game can be filled with speed wings. 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: This is why Gotoh sent him on his own to collect the shards. You can't hate on Gotoh anymore Jotari. He won Hey, if you go back and take a look at my Gotoh rant, I'm sure you'll find that I ended it by saying I like him as a character because he has a cool hat. I'm a whinger, not a hater. 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: Do you guys call him Legion or Roro I'm a maverick, so I call him Rollo 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: Newsflash Casaer. You're not getting your money if you're DEAD! Honestly, I'd be fine with it as a map if Caesar and Radd just started at the bottom of the map and only aggrod on the third turn or something, so there was incentive to both defend and scramble for the seize point. But, yeah, having them start literally right beside you and inevitably die on enemy phase 1 just kills the map of any credit it deserves. Still better than Dandelion though, as at least here you need to put some thought and effort into how you're going to warp skip it. 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: Like what if you didn't have rescue I didn't have Rescue by the time we hit Khadein in my Maniac playthrough, and that was a bitch if a time getting through without losing Merric or Arlen. 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: I like Caesar! He's cool. I enjoy using him. I really like that FE12 did more with him. In today's episode of not-shilling-my-own-work, here's the fan art I made for Caesar's sister for her brief appearance in the one fan game, whom I named Iulia after Julius's Caesar's sister For reasons I can't quite articulate, I feel like they wanted us to imagine her as a cute little sick girl, but Caesar's a grown ass man, so his sister is also grown and grown up sick people can be just as sympathetic as little sick girls (you hear me Ace Attorney Dual Destinies with your comically young Athena canon age just because you wanted a single CG of her looking like a depressed little girl instead of a depressed mid teen). 3 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: Why isn't it a 2 or a 1? What is a 1/10 map for you? Edited June 18 by Jotari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint Rubenio Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 7 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: I hate Malicia. @Saint Rubenio, tell us your thoughts on Malicia. Why can't I give the funny bald man hammerne, Maeda? What exactly is so important about the hammerne lock to Malicia's character? It's literally not mentioned after hammerne is obtained! They removed the rescue exclusivity from Yumina, so not removing this as well feels very odd. In the original I kinda get it, it's supposed to be so you don't just throw them both to the bench after Pope Windell joins. But here it's not just the two of them as staffbots, there's also Wrys, and Katarina, and Frost, and anyone that gets reclassed, so it just feels stupid that this one healer gets all the favoritism points. Just let anyone use hammerne. What's the harm? 7 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: And while you're at it, do tell me your 2 cents on Lang. He's funny or something, yeah? Jotari said most of what I'd say, and you talked about his battle quote later, so uh... Not much left for me to talk about. He's called Lang, which is one letter off of Lung, and he has cancer. He really is funny! I'm going to Hell. 7 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: Cancer joke. Giving characters with growths the boss kill for a satisfying level vs Giving the boss kill to Arran for a cruel joke. 7 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: Perhaps it's just me, but I can't help but like the "early general boss" archetype. People like Lang, Tirado, Legance, etc. Their presence and design, generally causing misfortune to the player and/or their nation to a moderate extent while not looking like stupidly over the top anime boys or grey people, feels like a realistic sense of what an opposing force would be for a medieval era game like Fire Emblem. None of this should really be a major factor when the thread is primarily discussing the maps of FE12, especially coming from someone who hates the glorification of story importance in video games, especially that of a strategy rpg. That said, I'm biased for FE12, and I'm biased for Lang. I like him. He's old. He's a piece of crap. There is nothing special about him in particular, and for whatever reason, I like that. I think the kicker is that Lang enjoys a lot more screentime than other "end of arc general" bossmen in the series. Tirado's a pretty cool schemer that's implied to be working against Valter behind his back, but you only really see him twice. The whole mess with Ostia's rebellion is pretty neat for Legance, but you only see him twice. Lang, on the other hand, has a presence throughout all of the first six chapters. He's present in chapter 1, is the whole reason you go to chapter 2, allows Jagen to say his line in chapter 3, is again the whole reason chapter 4 happens and then he's the foe you're going after in chapters 5 and 6. He feels like the main villain for the first bit of the game in a way that, really, no other villain in the game manages. Even Hardin, after his brilliant introduction in chapter 8, just sort of goes back to his house and sits on a chair while Marth wastes two or three weeks hiking through deserts, volcanoes and glaciars for the sake of that senile bastard, Gotoh. 7 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: Don't you dare bring up the Wolfguard. Longbow chip. My favorite niche. 7 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: I remember DM'ing someone about fixing boss stats, but I'd take forever digging through what I said for Lang. At the very least, give him a spear so that he does something on lower difficulties and give him some more defense. I'm not sure if I'm that person but as someone who has plenty personal experience with your hatred of javelins on enemies, yeah agreed. Lang needed a spear. 7 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: This is why Gotoh sent him on his own to collect the shards. You can't hate on Gotoh anymore Jotari. He won. He got captured by Lang because of Gotoh, though. It's Gotoh's fault. Everything is always Gotoh's fault. 7 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: Do you guys call him Legion or Roro? I was super weirded out when I tried using the "updated" patch (outdated by 5 years instead of 10) and he was suddenly talking like Gollum. Stupid fucking Heroes. 7 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: Don't get me started on what they did to my boy Horace. We'll probably talk more about him when we get to his Gaiden, but it really is amazing how FE12 managed to make a character worse than he was in FE11, writing-wise. I mean, he's basically the only one, but damn. Impressive. Anyway, 6x. I still have occasional nightmares of this map in my lunatic run. Absolute garbage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 10 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said: We'll probably talk more about him when we get to his Gaiden, but it really is amazing how FE12 managed to make a character worse than he was in FE11, writing-wise. I mean, he's basically the only one, but damn. Impressive. Well, Ymir wasn't much to sneeze at characterwise in Shadow Dragon, but he definitely suffers from the "I'm here too" syndrome in New Mystery. Man, I can't even remember what his convos with Kris were about even though I definitely got them because I fielded him until end game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
X-Naut Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 I skipped commenting on 5 and it's convenient that you wrapped 6 and 6x together, because I wanted to bundle the same general complaint: it's the first set of chapters that highlights how the game bullies you over full recruitment, and I don't like that. I can't even call it constructive difficulty, it feels more like petty bullying - you have the Rickard inconveniencing in Chapter 5, which is at least redeemable by giving up a deployment slot in 6. But then you have Norne getting caught quickly because the soldiers outrun her, and you already made my peace for me about Radd and Caesar in 6x. It makes the cast imbalance problem feel worse too when they're mostly going on the bench. Anyway, individual chapter comments. I think Jeorge's squad would have been more constructive if they moved out after a certain turn rather than being hair-trigger aggro. He'd still be a threat and an incentive to hustle, but without strangling your early mobility and turning the narrative into a blatant lie. That map would still be plenty hectic. I've never had issues collecting the Physic because I usually bite the bullet, fight them anyway and box Jeorge in, but when you're ironmanning I can see why you'd avoid them. That +5 crit bonus bites... Despite the Norne problem and contrary to what you say, I actually like how Chapter 6 plays out when you don't turtle it. The tight map geometry and reinforcements make it feel like an auto-scroller, which is pretty rare for the series and makes the Lang confrontation more climactic. My other gripe is the Lunatic-only promoted enemies being flush up against the hallways, which is obnoxious when they're the bulkiest enemies short of him. Both issues could be resolved with minor positioning changes. Also, give Lang a Spear already. Dock some Strength if that'd make him too strong. This is just a flavor complaint. Fun fact, unlike Tomahawks there are no unforged Spears on Lunatic! It jumps from forged Javs to forged Spears due to the midgame lance gap. I'll use 6x to say I don't enjoy "1/2-turn this or die" maps in general and call it a night. At least it's largely restricted to the gaidens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaky Jones Posted June 19 Author Share Posted June 19 So...... Eustace Winner amirte? I mention Edgeworth once in this thread, and then this happens. What should I reference next? Just Replies: Spoiler On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: Maybe it is blood line best and Lena's Grandfather had a little extra marital fun with Marisha's grandmother while abroad and now he needs to make an excuse for it. I would've been a much happier person in life had you never said this. On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: Genuinely might be the best villain in the game. He's at least the only one not running on the coat tails of his Shadow Dragon appearance (well, maybe Arlen too) and he still managed to have more presence and an actual arc than even Hardin. On 6/18/2024 at 2:50 AM, Saint Rubenio said: I think the kicker is that Lang enjoys a lot more screentime than other "end of arc general" bossmen in the series. Tirado's a pretty cool schemer that's implied to be working against Valter behind his back, but you only really see him twice. The whole mess with Ostia's rebellion is pretty neat for Legance, but you only see him twice. Lang, on the other hand, has a presence throughout all of the first six chapters. He's present in chapter 1, is the whole reason you go to chapter 2, allows Jagen to say his line in chapter 3, is again the whole reason chapter 4 happens and then he's the foe you're going after in chapters 5 and 6. He feels like the main villain for the first bit of the game in a way that, really, no other villain in the game manages. So it's not just me being weird again. When your internet personality is liking obscure units, it's easy to forget your own degree of irony. I believe Ruben recently mentioned to me that Lang has the major upside of appearing in every chapter up to his death compared to other Arc 1 General villains such as Legance or Tirado who only make brief appearances, or even major villains like Hardin in this game. Lang personally taunts you for quite a bit and the player gets the world's greatest line from Jeigan ever, so the stakes feel much more personal and gratifying when you finally take him down, and he's a classic slimebag who's evil in the silliest of ways that I always appreciate. On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: After the nonsense that is chapter 3, yes, very much so. I suppose I almost always take the shorter path in 3, so I can often bring myself to wait a little for 5. On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: As far as Kris tanking goes, while they can't exactly Leroy Jenkins it, baiting the ballistae with weaker units they'd prioritize and then aggroing the other enemies to move out of the ballistae range so the only threats are the boss and other ballista is straight forward enough I dunno. It always just seems to risky to me because while I know that ballistaes go first, it's pretty rare that I can have someone tank 2 ballistaes and then i'd have to defeat all the armors afterwards while still in said range. I feel like by the time i gain the confidence to try and do the math for how to not die, I'm better off just taking the north path. At least for lunatic, I really do think the new devs intend that you take the north one. Besides, if I just went for the boss afterwards, then the other enemies (+sniper) will attack Kris, and there's no way Kris is living through all that. I don't see it. On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: If number of resets is the criteria for hardest chapter in the game, then on any higher difficulty first time playthrough I'd say one if the prologue chapters would easily take the cake for me. It only takes about five minutes to do one of them but I certainly had to play those five minutes over and over and over and over again to find the one combination of positioning that has a 70% chance if victory. I've said my piece of the prologue and how I don't think they're as bad as people make it out to be, but if someone wants to say P3 is the hardest chapter, I don't blame them. That said, you haven't seen chapter 19. On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: Well, the game wasn't exclusively built for lunatic. Hell the chapter wasn't even built for this game! The north south choice is straight from Old Mystery. So it's less dev intention and more dev experimentation. We're taking it off Kaga's hands to make a real game. I say same difference. FE12 rarely feels built for lower difficulties given how much effort seems specifically built for the higher difficulties. Most of these map changes and stat differences don't mean much on lower modes, and there's plenty of enemies and ambush spawns that are changes specifically on maniac and above (even the AI I believe), and half the reason for this thread is to simultaneously appreciate and criticize the ways the devs tried to tweak maps of FE3 into functioning as its own unique experience on said difficulties. That's what I believe anyways. And then there's moments where something is bad because the general design from FE3 holds it back or it's a gaiden exclusive to FE12 and you wonder "what were you guys on!?". Sure, the lower path probably works on lower difficulties, but I reckon that when they made all the changes specifically for lunatic, they thought "yeah no, the lower path is a death sentence". Even if not, I'd still say that my previous idea backed up by X naut about making Jeorge's boys move at a certain point would add more to the map. If you want the lower path being a better choice, because there's no actual reason to take it other than just wanting to save 2 minutes, there's more of a need. Do you go the lower path for less turns, or the north path because it's safer and easier to kill the thief headed for the village then? Of course, my initial idea was to lock the south path completely and make reinforcements appear from the 3 forts who would slowly make their way to you as you play so you'd have to find the right timing for rushing the boss while heaving a steady stream of armors fight you as you progress through the long mountain, and then after a while if you take TOO long, Jeorge will move and pincer you from behind. On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: Not me in my Maniac playthrough! Because it was my "use everybody challenge" I was stuck using the likes of Yubello and Castor by this chapter. At least Sigurd was still in my line up. Keep using them. Even in regular runs. On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: I actually like that design choice. At least in theory. In theory moments like that are great. In execution, I just feel like I either walk my ass to both doors to kill the lone tanky prepromotes or just deal with them with the Lang squad for no real reason other than my laziness. This map really needed some incentive to play better. I mean there is a time limit, but only if you killed Rickard. On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: True, but I'm not sure that's necessarily a con. Bear in mind 1)It suits his character 2)The boss area is still challenging with the units he has flanking him (also in character for him) 3) All Fire Emblem bosses are underwhelming and sucked before Engage (except Murdock and Ashera, this is fact). 1). True. I don't want him really strong. I just don't believe nerfing his DEF from the og version was a good idea. That and he should be least be armed with a stronger weapon. Then, he'd be a notable mini challenge who'd cap off as a decent end to this arc while serving as a satisfying kill both gameplay wise and personally speaking for the player following the narrative direction of his Langness. He wouldn't be hard because he's skilled. He's hard because he was given good armor and weaponry by the big ol empire. 2). I'm not a fan of how you can just choke point them. I could try rushing them, but I'm just adding trouble for no real gain, other than losing 30 xp on Bord. 3). Don't forget Dheginsea! Jotari, he's your damn profile! On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: This brings up an interesting question. When is the best time to promote (and who is the best to promote) in New Mystery? Most games would encourage early promotion, but for New Mystery's end game really are required to have max stats in relevant areas and the end game probably is more challenging than the mid game. So is 20 recommended for promotion? On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the game is quite liberal with stat boosters so maybe just getting those promotion bonuses sooner is better and any holes in the stats of units you're bringing to end game can be filled with speed wings. It's whenever you cap a good stat. if your Luke reached 20 STR and 17 SPD by lvl 16, promote them then, unless you know you can do just fine as is and want to bank more SPD while under a different class with high SPD growth (such as archer, who's low bases could lower his STR and give him more procs whule unpromoted). Otherwise, later is generally better. For the earlygame though, some promoted base stats and weapon ranks are quite handy. This is what makes units like Arran and Sirius really good carries for the earlygame. As you said, stat boosters are somewhat common. It's how I'm able to use so many shitty prepromotes on lunatic. Assuming you're not doing that (you should, Frost gaming ftw), you can afford a few early promos if you're desperate, as long as you're willing to give them the necessary stat boosters to not quickly fall off by the Archanea arc. Luckily, the Anri's way arc is full of dragons, which will give even your early promo units tons of xp, so you're not completely screwed out of level gains if you promoted by lvl 13 or so. That said, definitely DON'T try to early promote the bulk majority of your team whenever you can. It's not worth it. This isn't SD. If you need prepromote utility, use Sirius. Use Jeorge and Minerva too. If you need super early usages, then just rely on Kris. Kris will naturally get a lot of xp anyways. He can afford the minor penalty down the road. This is why the closest to a challenge I had with this department was my no Kris run, where I didn't promote anyone until ch7. Ryan and Wrys. And Wendel of course. As I'll get into, chapter 7 feels like you really need a good draco if you want all the rewards. That's why I always selelct at least one favorite unit to need the most kills in the earlygame. If you can, they can be promoted by ch6 for General utility and they can be a draco for 6x when it comes to killing Legion/Roro. In my ironman, I had mage/cleric Cecile promote by 6x and damn she was crazy. She already had like 22 SPD and 15 MAG. Didn't help me tank wise, but easy 1RKO'er. On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: Hey, if you go back and take a look at my Gotoh rant, I'm sure you'll find that I ended it by saying I like him as a character because he has a cool hat. I'm a whinger, not a hater. Why can't you feel this way Ruben? On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: I'm a maverick, so I call him Rollo Okay so I'll exclusively call him Legion when quoting you. On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: Honestly, I'd be fine with it as a map if Caesar and Radd just started at the bottom of the map and only aggrod on the third turn or something, so there was incentive to both defend and scramble for the seize point. But, yeah, having them start literally right beside you and inevitably die on enemy phase 1 just kills the map of any credit it deserves. Still better than Dandelion though, as at least here you need to put some thought and effort into how you're going to warp skip it. The map would still suck, but at least it would have structure. Them getting killed turn 1 is so dumb. On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: I didn't have Rescue by the time we hit Khadein in my Maniac playthrough, and that was a bitch if a time getting through without losing Merric or Arlen I remember hoarding rescue so much in my first run of FE12. It sucks whenever Elrean just crits you. Good game. On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: In today's episode of not-shilling-my-own-work, here's the fan art I made for Caesar's sister for her brief appearance in the one fan game, whom I named Iulia after Julius's Caesar's sister Does she cough on people and they receive poison status? Jokes aside, it's cool that this exists. Archenea fan creation is always appreciated. So much Elibe love. Not enough classic Bantu land. Especially for someone like Caesar. It does pay liking characters who aren't just Marth, Caeda, and Minerva. Lulia sounds like an FE4 name. Like, that would be a Kaga character. What were the romans on? You're never conquering the Mojave at this rate. On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: (you hear me Ace Attorney Dual Destinies with your comically young Athena canon age just because you wanted a single CG of her looking like a depressed little girl instead of a depressed mid teen). I did not consider this. Should I? I don't think I'd be doing myself any favors finding more reasons to not be a big fan of DD. I'm too busy thinking about Eustace Winner. On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Jotari said: What is a 1/10 map for you? On 6/18/2024 at 2:50 AM, Saint Rubenio said: Just let anyone use hammerne. What's the harm? I blame the liberals. On 6/18/2024 at 2:50 AM, Saint Rubenio said: Jotari said most of what I'd say, and you talked about his battle quote later, so uh... Not much left for me to talk about. He's called Lang, which is one letter off of Lung, and he has cancer. He really is funny! I'm going to Hell. Ruben you already were going to Hell. And after you release Dark Stones, you'll make enough enemies who'll agree with me. On 6/18/2024 at 2:50 AM, Saint Rubenio said: Giving characters with growths the boss kill for a satisfying level vs Giving the boss kill to Arran for a cruel joke. Me when Alfred is a reference to Arran from the hit game "It's You Kris! You're The New Mystery Of The Emblem!". On 6/18/2024 at 2:50 AM, Saint Rubenio said: Even Hardin, after his brilliant introduction in chapter 8, just sort of goes back to his house and sits on a chair while Marth wastes two or three weeks hiking through deserts, volcanoes and glaciars for the sake of that senile bastard, Gotoh. Ruben. Be like Jotari. Tell me your thoughts on his hat. On 6/18/2024 at 2:50 AM, Saint Rubenio said: I'm not sure if I'm that person but as someone who has plenty personal experience with your hatred of javelins on enemies, yeah agreed. Lang needed a spear. 16 hours ago, X-Naut said: Also, give Lang a Spear already. The world is with me. At last. On 6/18/2024 at 2:50 AM, Saint Rubenio said: He got captured by Lang because of Gotoh, though. It's Gotoh's fault. Everything is always Gotoh's fault. Did you see Warrior Wendel? He just wanted easy transportation to meet Marth sooner to speed up the collecting process. On 6/18/2024 at 2:50 AM, Saint Rubenio said: was super weirded out when I tried using the "updated" patch (outdated by 5 years instead of 10) and he was suddenly talking like Gollum. Stupid fucking Heroes I don't even know what translation my DS cartridge uses. But speaking of translations Ruben.... Aren't you guys all excited that we finally get the best AA game to the west? I feel like a real winner. Oh wait, Ruben's from Spain. Sucks to suck. America W. On 6/18/2024 at 2:50 AM, Saint Rubenio said: We'll probably talk more about him when we get to his Gaiden, but it really is amazing how FE12 managed to make a character worse than he was in FE11, writing-wise. I mean, he's basically the only one, but damn. Impressive. On 6/18/2024 at 3:02 AM, Jotari said: Well, Ymir wasn't much to sneeze at characterwise in Shadow Dragon, but he definitely suffers from the "I'm here too" syndrome in New Mystery. Man, I can't even remember what his convos with Kris were about even though I definitely got them because I fielded him until end game. What about the Mario bros from BSFE? They even make a cameo in the first game! They don't say much, but at least they're the "we fought and will die so the princess may live to save the world". In FE12, they just pop up completely out of nowhere and go "howdy!" and then have extremely mid supports. C'mon! We're right on the cusp of taking down Hardin and rescuing Nyna by the time I'm getting your late supports. You could've been so much more! Talk to each other! I know we're comparing this to Horace, but dammit! On 6/18/2024 at 2:50 AM, Saint Rubenio said: Anyway, 6x. I still have occasional nightmares of this map in my lunatic run. Absolute garbage. You actually beat it without rescue skip? Allow me to be your FE therapist. I promise to limit myself to bullying you 3 times at most. 16 hours ago, X-Naut said: I skipped commenting on 5 and it's convenient that you wrapped 6 and 6x together, because I wanted to bundle the same general complaint: it's the first set of chapters that highlights how the game bullies you over full recruitment, and I don't like that. I can't even call it constructive difficulty, it feels more like petty bullying - you have the Rickard inconveniencing in Chapter 5, which is at least redeemable by giving up a deployment slot in 6. But then you have Norne getting caught quickly because the soldiers outrun her, and you already made my peace for me about Radd and Caesar in 6x. It makes the cast imbalance problem feel worse too when they're mostly going on the bench. FE12 is THE game where recruiting everyone is a hassle that you only do for the sake of recruiting everyone. In that regard, it's more of a ranked run challenge, similar to tryna be overly perfect in FE7 ranked runs, except the player is being punished because they don't want to feel like they're bad at the game (they are). Petty is the funniest way to describe it, and you know what? I agree. I mean, I actually like how Norne's presence makes it less simple to just outrun them and it justifies my plug strats or careful retreat strats more, but Caesar and Radd are.....what the fuck FE12? 16 hours ago, X-Naut said: Anyway, individual chapter comments. I think Jeorge's squad would have been more constructive if they moved out after a certain turn rather than being hair-trigger aggro. He'd still be a threat and an incentive to hustle, but without strangling your early mobility and turning the narrative into a blatant lie. That map would still be plenty hectic. I've never had issues collecting the Physic because I usually bite the bullet, fight them anyway and box Jeorge in, but when you're ironmanning I can see why you'd avoid them. That +5 crit bonus bites... Imagine there was no aggro past turn limit and Gordin was just poking them with a stick like "Jeorge?.....Jeooorge? You... you uh...we good? Blink if we're chill. Ahhh, classic Jeor- oh SHI-" I've collected the physic before on lunatic with surrounding strats, but it's often not worth the hassle for me. Like how often do I NEED the physic. I'm a hoarder. I'm going to have more than I need. That's just me though. 16 hours ago, X-Naut said: That +5 crit bonus bites... This will be really annoying down the line.... and don't get me started on reverse lunatic thoron boys 16 hours ago, X-Naut said: Despite the Norne problem and contrary to what you say, I actually like how Chapter 6 plays out when you don't turtle it. The tight map geometry and reinforcements make it feel like an auto-scroller, which is pretty rare for the series and makes the Lang confrontation more climactic. My other gripe is the Lunatic-only promoted enemies being flush up against the hallways, which is obnoxious when they're the bulkiest enemies short of him. Both issues could be resolved with minor positioning changes This is what I was trying to allude to. I'm still learning how to not sound like chatgbt, but generally, chapter 6 feels like it could be a great chapter, but you're given no reason to not turtle and while the prepromotes are cool in a sense when it comes to challenging foes that add to the climactic feel of chapter 6, they're not really utilized well either. The positions are somewhat underwhelming here overall, and it's pretty easy to trivialize the map past the lower reinforcements. 16 hours ago, X-Naut said: Dock some Strength if that'd make him too strong. This is just a flavor complaint. Fun fact, unlike Tomahawks there are no unforged Spears on Lunatic! It jumps from forged Javs to forged Spears due to the midgame lance gap. Meanwhile steel swords just go to forged levin swords. A shame the player doesn't get at least 1 spear in the lategame. They could've given you one like how you get a longbow near the end. Oh well. I guess you get the gradivus by then. 16 hours ago, X-Naut said: I'll use 6x to say I don't enjoy "1/2-turn this or die" maps in general and call it a night. At least it's largely restricted to the gaidens. Maps that incentive efficient play are often contenders for "good maps". Maps that incentivize beating it in one turn are "fucking bullshit" because it's telling you to not play it at all. Some chapters fall in a gray area, like Eternal Stairway from CQ or chapter 26 of Engage, but I'm personally not a fan of them. Too many void curses too early on in the map and I'm not a fan of 50 enemies I'm just meant to trudge through to reach a finish line. And then there's this chapter which doesn't even try that. Just run. -1 rescue. Screw you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.