Thoughts on Birthright's penultimate chapter

[IfAwakened]

OBVIOUS SPOILERS FROM BIRTHRIGHT

I honestly found Chapter 26 pretty lackluster. It was the worst chapter in the game in my opinion. And no, by worst, I don't mean hard. I mean kinda anti-climactic. All you need to do is strike down Xander, and you win. I could have ended it on turn 2, but I had to end it on turn 3 because other wise my main character would have died. I might have even ended it on the first turn if I had gotten a critical hit.

The addition of your army fighting outside seemed odd as well. It really felt like just another shot at grinding for EXP. Even if I could have ended it on the very first turn, I would have preferred that it would just be you and Xander, alone. Like how Chapter 1 was, where you fought Xander on the roof. It would have been a nice call back. Hell, it would probably speak to the player a lot more personally as well. That was how it was supposed to be: a duel to the death, how Xander wanted it.

Even if you got a critical hit and finished Xander in one round, it would make sense, since they talk about "show me your true strength, don't hold back, you let me win, ETC"

Also, if your main character sucked, then... the game wants you to fight Xander anyway. Adding more than you and Xander just bloated the whole chapter in my opinion. You still need to win against him.

This is the most minor gripe about the chapter; the music. They could have let the music from the cutscene prior play, like how it played during the preperations menu, but then when you start playing, it changed? What?

I'm assuming that the Japanese version of the conversation is better, but only slightly. This is coming from a personal level on how this whole chapter operates. I just didn't like it at all.

Does anyone else feel this way? Or am I alone on this?

[Refa]

If your main character can't beat Xander, then it can be literally impossible (at best, you'd have to grind more). That's bad game design.

[Thor Odinson]

From a gameplay perspective it's very easy, but

[spoiler=xander character spoilers]

From a character perspective, he's basically suicidal at that point, which reflects in his poor stats.

So it's more so that it's just suffering and sad

letting the rest of your army there provides a failsafe in case your corn's awful.

[Avalanche]

If your main character can't beat Xander, then it can be literally impossible (at best, you'd have to grind more). That's bad game design.

You'd need to have actively never used Corrin (The guy/gal you need to bring to every Chapter and Paralogue) ever or have been absolutely abused by the RNG to have them not be able to at least compete with Xander. With Tonics, Food and the Noble Yato, you need a minimum of 14 Speed to double him on every difficulty, most Corrin's have that midway through Tier 1. Plus, I'm pretty sure you can lure Xander into fighting your other units. Thor can probably confirm, but I'd be shocked if base Ryoma couldn't compete with Xander.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Avalanche

[Dark Holy Elf]

Birthright 26 is a total non-factor for gameplay.

I still liked it though; in fact, I thought it was one of the game's better moments. The gameplay in it serves the narrative, that Xander has lost all the will to fight after the chapter's opening cutscene, but also doesn't want to go on living, so he deliberately loses, and his stats reflect that.

If you want your duel, well, nobody forces you to open the door and stop it from being a duel. The game gave you the option of doing so in case you didn't use Corrin (or used him/her only as a pairup bait, etc.). Not too likely perhaps but it's still good game design.