screenshot Ike's FE Megathread {15.5}

[Katie]

I think you should do Arden/Tailto because poor Arden needs a waifu and it gives you the niche Vantage/Wrath combo.

And do Lewyn/Bridget because I'm curious how their kids would turn out.

Edited May 29, 2016 by Matthewtheman

[Ansem]

I thought Travant was an okay guy. Looking forward to your analysis

[Psych]

I vote Holyn Brigid because wow useable Patty!

and Levin Tiltyu

also are you going to comment how the game seems to suggest Claude Tilityu based on them appearing together like previous pairings showing up and Tilityu vaguely flirting with him yet it's a horrible pairing? like it just seems counter to suggest it and confusing to new players

like aideen shows up with dew, and is obviously hinted towards jamka/midir/azel and ayra has the brave sword conversation with lex and holyn and lachesis speaks with beowulf and levin has sylvia and fury and like the game is obviously saying here's tilityu pair her with claude and no it's a horrible idea and arthur can't use the valkyrie staff so like wtf

[Baldrick]

Claude isn't really horrible for Tiltyu, just mediocre. It preserves the kids' magic growth, and Lex/Ardan/Fin aren't pairings a first-time player would be able to exploit.

It is interesting that the majority of one-sided relationships (Claude/Tiltyu, Levin/Sylvia, Midir/Briggid, Azel/Aideen) tend to be suboptimal.

[Psych]

No I mean, the game also suggests Azel Tilityu the very next chapter with a conversation between the two so it's a little strange they first suggest Claude.

Also I know Integrity probably isn't going to go back and replay the chapter but you could have killed Azel and revived him and I think it resets the love points? Or just killed Azel cause he sucks.

[Carrion]

Tiltyu x Levin cuz mounted holsety

[Integrity]

i forgot how much of a pointless slog the first half of chapter 4 is

good news: update forthcoming soonish, and i've finished my plotline notes for generation 1.

bad news: i have company next week so the delay to chapter 5 could be huge.

better news: updates will be way faster for gen 2 because it's a lot more fun and a lot lighter on plot if i recall!!

[DruidSorc64]

Arden and Briggid/Lewyn and Tailto are my votes.

[Integrity]

Chapter 4 is an unfun slog and I hope you all enjoy this update because I didn’t enjoy making it all that much. Fortunately, I have a lot to talk about, so the gameplay’s gonna take a backseat except for some really fun and good moments. Final pairing word: I can’t be assed to use Tiltyu, I’m not even walking her out of the house, and Briggid is getting Lewyn because that guy said “I don’t know how it will work” and I realized I don’t either. I’m tantalized.

I don’t really know if this is just me picking nits, a thing I think I promised I wouldn’t do in poor faith, but one thing I don’t like about the first generation is how it holds itself …this way. I’m really not sure how to describe it. It’s something between taking itself seriously and having nobody’s thoughts really progress. We’ve been hearing rumors that Sigurd is being conspired against in the capital for a few chapters now, he’s told us how Two Evil Dudes are in control of the court, how is it “unthinkable” that he’d he branded a traitor? Not only did we know all the pieces leading up to it, Sigurd had figured most of them out himself. We kind of see pieces of this with Eldigan, too; he continues to think Shagall will listen to him this time, without ever updating his thinking to reflect that Shagall has done exactly not that repeatedly. Similarly, this would have been unthinkable at the beginning of the game, but it sure as hell isn’t unthinkable now.

Nice, we’ll start off the update with a two hundred word editorial screed. Sets the tone nicely for chapter 4.

So we’re in Silesia now. Much like the real Silesia, this one is a snow-covered wasteland incapable of sustaining life. They’re officially neutral, which is a first for us – then again, I guess there’s got to be one neutral country.

Funny thing about Silesia though… if they’ve been neutral since their inception, who has proven that their defenses are impenetrable? Not their natural defenses, either, their mortal defenses explicitly. They’ve got a 0:0 w:l ratio for wars and are calling it a victory? Bastards.

It’s probably gotten old, but I still like taking pictures of this old trope. This isn’t as blatant as the previous few – hell, the one on top is almost even potentially heroic with less grease for his mane – but it’s pretty obvious that two out of three aren’t supposed to be beautiful and the third is very obviously so.

Anyway, Chapter 4 actually opens with one of the best conversations in the game. Rahna (Lewyn’s mom) arrives. She has precisely zero personality traits and the most generic sort-of dog-eyed portrait, but there’s some gems in the conversation.

Shoutout to Sigurd, he figures out precisely who’s been doing shit back home. It only took that guy trying to haul him off for arrest to do it, but I can still get behind a protagonist who figures shit out more or less on his own.

This one’s a fun one, but the payoff is in a bit. Just take note of it.

This introduces the plot to chapter 4, and it’s something I’m mixed about, tending towards dislike. Essentially, the old king of Silesia died and there was a succession crisis. His two brothers, each of whom have a castle and as many men as he did, both want the throne, and Lewyn, the rightful successor, does not and fucks off. Now he’s back.

Here’s the problem, though, and part of the payoff promised – we’ve been here a whole year, and this is just becoming a relevant issue. In fact, thanks to Video Games Story Timing, we’re only being warned about it right before it happens. Sigurd hasn’t even met the relatives, he’s just been squatting in this castle that Rahna had lying around, and nobody did anything about it until right now, where they reveal overwhelming power.

This is kind of compounded by the fact that Lewyn left a good number of years ago (four, actually), and the country has just been right on the verge of boiling for all that time? There isn’t a combination of factors that makes this make sense. If Maios and Daccar needed four years to build up, and Rahna knows they’re threats, why hasn’t she done anything to shore up her own armies or curb their build-up? If Maios and Daccar didn’t need to build up, and were raring to go, why didn’t either of them make a play for the throne when Lewyn left or, hell, right when Sigurd showed up dead on their doorstep? It’s implied that they needed the Beige Ritter (seriously?) to gun down the Silesian Pegasus Corps, but Daccar deploys a flying force of his own equal to Rahna’s.

The game just sort of glosses it over, but these are the touches that make me think that Genealogy’s story wasn’t particularly well thought-out, for as ambitious as it tries to be at times. This country was an awful boiling pot on the verge of rebellion for four years, and then it finally erupts while we’re here – even after everything stays basically stagnant for an entire year. We’ve seen this before with the anti-Granvallean sentiment among the peasantry, which is talked about in story and used as justification to move the plot forward despite every ruler being a tyrant and every peasant hailing our messianic arrival. There’s more of that here, by the way.

Let’s switch gears from plot to character. This is Lewyn’s big development chapter, with a good few Lewyn-specific things, and we’re going to hit them all up. It opens up really strong, with

There’s the payoff, finally – a stupid math error, faithfully maintained from the Japanese. Lewyn left two years ago, but Fury said he left two years ago explicitly two years ago, in chapter 2. I even had Specta sleuth out all the original Nihongo to make sure it was accurate. This is my nit I will pick.

Anyway, back to Lewyn. Lewyn, I’ve bitched, is too much of the laissez-faire kind of character. He doesn’t take this seriously at all; in fact, he doesn’t take anything seriously at all, until he very suddenly does and that is incredibly ham-fisted development. We’ll get to it.

Lewyn’s like a dumb teenager who never grew up, very much like Sylvia, except he gets a major role in the plot and he very suddenly “shows a mature side” for exactly two conversations, at which point it’s mostly gone and then we move on to his second generation character, which is another bag of worms. In this conversation, you can practically hear him taking his headset off and quitting League, mumbling “fine, mom” under his breath as he sighs overdramatically.

Mahnya also makes one of her four or so appearances here, and it’s tailor-fit to bring up my next thing: Fury. We’re right at the legendary Sylvia’s Jealousy, so I can finally talk about something I’ve been wanting to talk about for almost a month now! Let’s count up every single conversation Fury is involved in in the entire course of the first generation:

Ch2: Talks to Shagall about Lewyn.

Ch2: Is recruited by Lewyn, talks to Lewyn about Lewyn.

Ch2: Talks to Sigurd about Lewyn.

Ch4: Talks to Mahnya about Lewyn.

Ch4: Talks to Sylvia about Lewyn.

Ch4: Lewyn confesses his love to her.

Ch5: Talks to one of Lewyn, Ardan, or Noish. The middle one needs to be talked about, but for unrelated reasons.

Notice a pattern?

There’s a feminist test on the internet that’s touted by some people as a thing to aspire to, I don’t remember the name. It basically goes “do two of your female characters have a conversation about something that isn’t a man?” Bad nerds take that to mean “if this is true, inequality is dead, good job” but really it’s more like “if you failed this test, what the fuck?” Fury’s entire characterization centers around Lewyn. Her conversations with Noish and Ardan are super generic, revealing no traits except for Ardan’s …well, let’s enjoy that next time. Every conversation she’s involved in besides those two relates, directly, to Lewyn. Fury has no aspirations besides to serve Lewyn. She has no reason to be here except that Lewyn also is. She has no personality traits beyond female gruffness which is to say she’s a little disagreeable but easily flustered.

Sylvia’s Jealousy itself is also a conversation worth noting, but I don’t have much special commentary on it. I want to leave it here in its entirety to show you what two years of constant warring and occupation have done to Sylvia’s, a child’s, personality.

Sylvia: “Hey Fury, you don’t by any chance have a thing for Levin, do ya??”

Fury: “What? I don’t. He’s just… Prince Levin is an extremely important person to Silesia.”

Sylvia: “I seeee. So you don’t mind if him and I go out??”

Fury: “No, I don’t mind… (?)”

Sylvia: “Really?? You’re not pretendin’ t’not like him or somethin’ are ya?”

Fury: “Pretend? What ar-… why would I need to pretend??”

Sylvia: “I don’t know. Well, then I’m goin’ after him.”

Fury: “Umm… whomever is to be the next queen of Silesia needs to have a little grace and dignity like our own Queen Lahna.”

Sylvia: “So you’re sayin’ I’m no good somehow!? How rude!”

Fury: “No, I’m just…”

Sylvia: “Hmph, Fine! You just wait and see!”

Fury: “……”

Now that you’ve read it, I do have another comment to make following this chapter’s theme. I’ve commented before that Genealogy is really bad with time, and now recently that it just doesn’t feel well thought-through. Let’s examine the disconnect here: this conversation is perfectly placed, two chapters after Sylvia and Fury join. Maybe it could have gone a chapter earlier, but this is Lewyn’s chapter thematically, and you’ve only been playing with these units for, really, one whole chapter. That said, this conversation is horribly placed, two whole years after Sylvia and Fury join, and the two girls are just addressing the man between them for the very first time. It’s not the only time the story feels like a wrapper for the gameplay that doesn’t quite fit right.

I’ve now written more words about Fury than the entire game I’m playing does about her.

Just realized I never got Gae Bolg. Whoops. Pretty sure Altenna has it anyway.

We’re almost ready to start actually playing the chapter – not only is Maios massing for an attack as Rahna warns you about it, he’s actually got people in position right now to do it. I’ve bitched about Video Games Story Timing earlier with regards to the whole uprising, but this is a more glaring thing. Not only is the uprising just happening arbitrarily after we’ve been here a while, with nothing explored to kick it off besides the Beige Ritter (which could have happened at any point since Dad Jungby died), but the attack is actually in place and actively ready to happen when we’re warned about it for the first time.

Not that Video Games Story Timing is necessarily a bad thing – it’s better to play fun things than the waiting time in between, evidenced by Paradox games being so hard to recommend – just that Genealogy has a problem where things are Video Games Story Timed without even a handwave as to why. Things just happen to happen right when you take control again, even if they could have happened earlier and put the villains at a more advantageous position. Genealogy does have a good example of Video Games Story Timing in chapter 7, though, with Leif’s arrival, which I’ll stress to show that Video Games Story Timing isn’t bad, just bad in this context.

Let’s st-

Seriously? More talking the first turn after we sally forth. I still have a bunch of optional conversations I want to talk about but I’m trying to sprinkle them with some gameplay talk instead of frontloading, and all these guys are giving me is more talking.

Daccar’s plan, interesting, relies on waiting for his brother to lose and die before making his move. He doesn’t make his move while we’re tied up or anything, he wants for the northern conflict to be done before he strikes. Jeez, no wonder this dude isn’t king yet.

Let’s talk gameplay for a change. I’ve kind of glossed over these shitfuckers for a while now, but I think now, in the middle of what’s probably going to be the wordiest update, is the best part to talk about them. Basically, Genealogy likes to toss these guys on borders of where you’re going to have to go at some point, like north of the first castle you take in chapter 2 or blocking off Eldigan’s castle in chapter 3 when he’s still neutral. They’re just gates made of men, but typically there’s some reason for them to be there blocking your way; the country over there is neutral, even though you know they’ll declare war on you in a minute, etc. The problem with that is that this guy is guarding the only way in to the southern part of the country, friendly territory, and he’ll staunchly guard his post even as Silesia falls, at which point he vanishes. He has no logical reason to be there, unlike pretty much every instance of him, he’s just a big gameplay-story disconnect. If you could go south, you could maybe save Silesia, after all!

Generation 2 uses neutrals in precisely one map to block your progress before it transitions to just putting gates around that you unlock by seizing castles. I don’t know why, but I like it a hell of a lot better, despite it being mechanically identical.

This guy explains the magic weapon triangle to us. In chapter 4. We’re a third of the way through the game, and only now does somebody tell us this information. I know the magic weapon triangle is even less relevant than the actual one, but at least pretend, Genealogy. C’mon.

Anyway, first fight of the map is against the Wind Squad, with a guy who has a Sleep staff. While status effects are normally bad, I kinda like this one specifically because his AI can be cheesed. He prioritizes his Libro staff over his Sleep staff 100% of the time, so if you can leave somebody hurt but not dead, he won’t try to put you to sleep. It’s an artifact of AI performance, but I like that there’s a way to deal with him in the short-term besides murdering him or sucking up RNG dodges.

Dew snatches a kill. I am the best tactician.

The Flying Squad is set to fall on you while you’re dealing with them. Their timing and positioning is a little off.

So’s mine, but I don’t pay for it. Let’s do some conversations, since the next bunch of turns are walking. There’s a few that are really generic (Aideen gives Jamke a super bow, Aideen gives Midir the same bow in a nearly identical conversation, Azel gives Aideen a Rescue staff) but two are worth noting for opposite reasons, and one is just great.

I described Tiltyu as a palette swap of Sylvia last update, or some verbage to that effect. It’s true, she starts out that way, but she and Sylvia take opposite routes as the game progresses.

[spoiler=sylvia and claude, optionally] Sylvia: “Hello, Reverend Claude!”

Claude: “Hm? And who might you be?”

Sylvia: “I’m Sylvia.”

Claude: “Miss Sylvia? What seems to be the problem? Did you run across some bandits, perhaps?”

Sylvia: “…What?”

Claude: “Well, it’s just that… I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you’re in your underwear.”

Sylvia: “Huh!? Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a dancer before! This is my dancin’ outfit. It’s jus’ like you wearin’ a robe.”

Claude: “Is that so? But, you must be awfully cold.”

Sylvia: “Not at all. I’m burnin’ up in this. You see, my heart is on fire!”

Claude: “Dancing is that enjoyable, is it?”

Sylvia: “Yes! I want to do it for the rest of my life!!”

Claude: “Really? How do your parents feel about that?”

Sylvia: “I’m an orphan. This man took me in when I was real little, an’ raised me to be a dancer. But he was really mean! He would hit me when I didn’t even do anythin’. Anyway, I had enough, and I left him last year for good!”

Claude: “That’s horrible! I feel for you. You see, I have a younger sister. If she’s still alive, she’d be around your age.”

Sylvia: “You have a sister?”

Claude: “Yes. But she was abducted when she was just a baby. I’ve been searching for her all these years, but still no sign of her.”

Sylvia: “Ohhh! I bet your sister is real elegant an’ beautiful an’ all. Nothin’ like me.”

Claude: “That’s not true! I find you very attractive, and you have a grace all of your own.”

Sylvia: “Really!?”

Claude: “Of course. I’d never tell a lie.”

Sylvia: “Wow! No one’s ever said anythin’ so nice to me! Er.. I feel funny inside… You are… so kind!”

Sylvia stagnates. She shows absolutely no change from her original appearance in chapter 2 between this conversation and Sylvia’s Jealousy, and she’ll continue that trend in chapter 5, which will probably be two updates. You might expect me to make fun of the game for Claude just meeting Sylvia now, a year after last chapter, but Claude does leave for an unspecified amount of time between chapters. I know when to pick my battles!!

[spoiler=tiltyu and azel, optionally] Tiltyu: “Azel, wait up.”

Azel: “Tiltyu, what’s up?”

Tiltyu: “I need to ask you something.”

Azel: “Me?”

Tiltyu: “Is that okay? It’s just that… Well, I’ve known you all my life, right? And I’ve got no one else I can talk to about this.”

Azel: “Yeah, sure. What’s the problem?”

Tiltyu: “Well… it’s like… I’ve just been kinda followin’ Claude around, right? But I’m startin’ to wonder if it was such a good idea.”

Azel: “Why?”

Tiltyu: “I don’t know. It’s just that everyone acts kinda funny around me. And no one ever talks about my dad when I’m around.”

Azel: “Really? Yeah, that’d suck. But I think everyone likes you, Tiltyu. Everybody’s just not sure how to act around you. That’s all. Just be yourself! People’ll come around. You’ll see.”

Tiltyu: “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, I feel a bit spunkier now.”

Azel: “Hahaha! You’re too much, Tiltyu! Come find me anytime you need someone to talk to, okay?”

Tiltyu: “Will do! Thanks, Azel!”

Tiltyu shows some maturation from her first, horrible appearance. It’s actually been a year to her, and people have been treating her weird because her dad is Honestly Kinda Hitler, and it’s bringing her down. She acted like a total anime following Claude around because they’re in love love love, and she’s realizing that it might not have been great. She has a little bit of dimensionality, compared to Sylvia. She’s going to show even a little bit more maturation in her conversations in the next chapter.

Granted, she can’t be forgiven for chapter 3 in its entirety, but little victories are good.

The third conversation is Sigurd and Claude, revealing a plot point that really should have been in a cutscene instead. Remember how Claude is actually a prophet, can go suss out the truth of anything and won’t tell a lie, and he went to go find out who killed the king’s son?

Sigurd: “Claude… Geez, I’m sorry to get you involved in all this.”

Claude: “No, I’m just sorry I haven’t been of much help to you. I made it back to Grandbell and I had every intention of telling His Majesty the truth. But Leptor’s people kept me from the king… Now, I too have been branded a traitor.”

Sigurd: “Claude, I’ve had it with them! I tell you, I’m just about ready to storm Grandbell to expose those bastards!”

Claude: “Sir Sigurd, violent tactics never yield positive results. We have to stick this one out.”

Sigurd: “But Claude…”

Claude: “I know exactly how you feel. Unfortunately, I believe this one is in fate’s hands. …There is little we can do right now.”

Reptor kept him out of it. Claude isn’t a low-profile figure, either, the dude’s one of the biggest holy dudes on the continent. His entrance to the capital wouldn’t be silent, and it’s not like the king wasn’t expecting him to come back, but Reptor kept him from delivering his message while also intercepting every letter Rahna wrote. It ties back to the first generation villains having all of the narrative power, nothing else. Reptor and crew are comically able compared to Sigurd and his crew, who ultimately have no power to accomplish anything of worth. This could be turned into an interesting story, or perhaps a good moral, but Genealogy does absolutely nothing with it. Reptor had the power to get the king to declare the Pope a traitor and excommunicate him too.

Back to some mandatories, Maios pulls the stupid dumbest move in the game. Now, contrary to what I believed, a village that’s being actively burned down right next to the drawbridge does have some advice to give:

Villager: “The drawbridge over Thove River is under the control of Lord Maios. If it’s not down, and you don’t have a key, you’re not getting across. But I bet if you had someone handy along like a thief, you might be able get it down.”

This village should have been, I dunno, swapped with the guy who tells you about the magic weapon triangle, but at least you can get a hint that you need to run Dew across the map. Technically you can take the southern route if you don’t have Dew, but by my loose calculations that would take Sigurd something to the tune of fifteen or twenty turns to accomplish, starting from the village in the south. It’s insane, and it’s all the ruder for being the only time in the whole game a thief is used this way.

Jamke doesn’t give a fuck, though.

He’ll just shoot them clean across the river, no questions asked. God bless him.

You’ll probably notice I use most of my units for this attack, and significantly fewer for the last part of the map. I don’t have very good stamina for some of these maps, moving all my dudes so far gets so tiring.

Right, village elder time. The thread from the previous chapters, all of them, continues here. Remember how I bitched about monolithic factions in this game (except for one guy, in a lot of cases)? One hundred percent of the visible popular support is behind Rahna. Everybody who has a line who we don’t kill hates Maios and hates Daccar. They’re awful tyrants, just like everyone we’ve killed so far except Eldigan, and everybody hates them, but they keep on tyrantin’, and none of the rulers of the known world got there by appealing to their people, unless they’re now dead. This world has literally zero Gracchi.

Recall the beginning of this update (3860 words??? what the fuck) when I said the game’s voices never really update their thinking? Here’s another example of it. This could have been true in, say, chapter 0 or 1, when Sigurd is actually invading another nation for the first time and crushing it wholesale, but the villagers there welcomed him as a savior with open arms. So did the villagers of Agustria. So did the villagers of Agustria again. He’s been living peacefully here a year, he was obviously attacked first, and he’s expecting these villagers to see him as the aggressor – they would be the first villagers pictured to see him as such. There’s literally no reason for him to think they’d think this, the worst one could argue is he could be like “oh i didn’t know how you’d feel about me doing this.”

Nobody here heard about Sigurd burning Maios’ castle to the ground and hanging him in front of his people and went “wonder if his equally evil brother had anything to do with it”, I guess.

Andre shows up, the dopiest motherfucker in the entire game (or at least a contestant) alongside his Beige Ritter. Ritter, in case anyone doesn’t know, is German for knight or knights, the distinction is in the article. These guys are the Beige Knights. Seriously. Everybody was snapping up names like the Grey Knights or whatever and these guys grabbed Beige. I guess the original Jungby was actually my girlfriend.

Anyway, another pretty huge disconnect in the story and gameplay happens here. Mahnya flies out to intercept Daccar’s force of Pegasus Knights, and finds that the two are approximately equal forces. The scales are tipped by Andre showing his luscious? mug and murdering them horribly.

Thing is, though, apparently this is Silesia’s entire standing army, besides those useless fucks standing on our border, and this is one of Daccar’s three regiments. Two, if you don’t count Andre. This is what my comment on build-up was related to; Daccar is facing an absolute no-contest victory on his own here. One could argue that neither he nor Maios was willing to make a move for fear the other would smash them and steal the victory, but Daccar has the raw force here to overwhelm Silesia and march in before Maios could even react, let alone the fact that the game tells us they’re working together on this one. Nothing about this makes any logical sense, but it fits in the gameplay narrative fine.

This is kind of a thing with Genealogy’s story – it’s fine enough if you just glance at it and don’t really think about it, but it falls apart under scrutiny. It’s obvious that there’s nothing wrong with a story that just is there to tie things together loosely for the game’s sake – the XCOMs and such of the strategy world – but Genealogy’s story desperately wants you to take it seriously, and it doesn’t hold up if you do. It has a thin veneer of opacity stretched over it to make you think it’s a complex political proto-Game of Thrones, but beneath that there just isn’t substance.

Fury’s only mandatory line in a “conversation” that isn’t about Lewyn. Savor it.

Meanwhile, Azel is spending a bunch of time trekking from village to village eating gold to give Aideen next chapter.

Anyway, Daccar wins, Andre goes home. This Man In Rags is Donovan. He’s a war criminal.

He does war crime.

He is praised for his ability to do war crime.

You go, Donovan. You are expertly defined as a war criminal, and every one of your lines, as well as every line about you, is about the cool war crime you are going to do, are doing, or have done. You do you, man.

On the other hand, Daccar manages to be even eviler than all the petty lords we’ve eaten so far. He demands a genocide of all the Silesian civilians who escape Donovan taking Silesia, and literally everybody in the game we talk to who he isn’t directly paying hates him. One Harmodius, Jugdral. That’s all I ask for. Even a failed one.

Anyway, we get to cross the border.

Most of us! Genealogy says that unpromoted mounted units can’t cross these here mountains, end of story. Sorry! From this point forward, you might see some strangeness in my unit positioning. I originally left Midir to hold Maios’ castle, but Pamela’s squad all attacked him in melee and, while they had really shitty hit, there were a lot of them and Pamela herself hurt, so he died. I reloaded to like five turns previous and left Ayra there instead, but then I found out they all had javelins so Ayra died too. I reloaded back the same five turns and left Lex there instead. Each time, I sent fewer and fewer units across to Silesia as my disgust mounted. In the final run, I think I only had Claude, Jamke, Lewyn, Briggid, and Sigurd even cross the border.

I am a masterful tactician.

In an earlier run, Jamke deleted Donovan. He didn’t manage it in the successful run, though.

Everyone hates Daccar! Everyone! Only we, the heroes, can do anything about it. Also Sigurd asks his new mom for permission to kill the guy who murdered Mahnya and killed a bunch of her citizens in addition to her entire standing army.

For his part, Daccar gets more and more desperate as we close in. Poor guy. Now, amazingly, we can just

walk straight in and delete Daccar and never get Lewyn his promised character development. Getting Forseti, sure, we should be able to miss that, but Lewyn should at least hurry to Silesia to talk to his mom after the chapter if we don’t walk him over there. I didn’t, but that’s because I’m hardly using the dude and it’s not like Patty’s gonna have much fun with it. That said, I still want to cover it as our last major point for the night, and because I’m not quite to five thousand words.

Levin: “Mother! I’m so glad you weren’t hurt. I heard Silesia was overrun… I was so worried!”

Lahna: “Levin, I’m glad to see you. You’ve finally matured into a person who can keep his word. I think Sir Sigurd has had a good influence on you.”

Levin: “C’mon, give me a break. You’re treatin’ me like a kid or something. Sir Sigurd is NOT that much older than me, you know.”

Lahna: “Dear, Sir Sigurd is light-years ahead of you when it comes to responsibility. You still have much to learn from him. I need a prince who can put my mind at ease. Especially since Mahnya is no longer with us.”

Levin: “…That should’ve been me out there. Her death has really made me think, mum. Mother, I will protect you from here on out. I solemnly swear I will NEVER leave your side again.”

Lahna: “Levin… I never knew such endearing words could come out of your mouth. Well, that’s put me a bit at ease. But I want you to stay with Sir Sigurd. He needs your strength.”

Levin: “But what about you?”

Lahna: “I’ll be fine, Levin. You, as a descendant of the Wind Crusader, must guide the world onto the proper path. I believe the time has come for me to entrust you with the Sacred Wind Tome, Holsety. Here you go. It’s yours now.”

Levin: “So this is our family’s Book of Holsety! Eraagh… What power! Where’s this heat coming from?”

Lahna: “Levin, please remember the Wind Crusader flows like a cool breeze guiding all living beings to the path of peace. His way is never to be confused with violence.”

Levin: “Yes, I understand now. That is the only way I could hope to live my life.”

Lahna: “Hmm… You are without a doubt a child of the wind. Levin, you need to get going. Take care and use sound judgement out there.”

Levin: “But mother…”

Lahna: “Go! Please…”

Levin: “Okay. You take care.”

Lahna: “Levin…”

I’m gonna come out and just say it explicitly: I don’t like how this conversation is handled. Lewyn’s dialogue just jumps rigidly from Stupid Shit Lewyn Says (“Sir Sigurd is NOT that much older than me, mom.) to “I solemnly swear I will NEVER leave your side again.” He professes that he, the prince, should have died instead of the guard chick he had a crush on, because he had a crush on her. Granted, it’s a sobering moment, but handling it like Tiltyu’s conversation with Azel is great, where he’s intensely sober and regains himself while talking – or the opposite, where he goes in his usual way and sobers up as he realizes the gravity of what happened.

Here, he just ping-pongs back and forth; this comes right after Mahnya dies, even. C’mon, give me a break, he says, moments after his childhood friend and crush dies horribly. “Her death has really made me think,” he says about an event that happened like an hour ago. There’s no consistency to it, and this conversation made me realize a note I put in the Notes Log I have for this game: I never made a single note about Mahnya. That was her character. Rest in peace, you piece of cardboard woman. At least you weren’t your poor sister.

Meanwhile, Sigurd decides an invasion of Granvalle is the best idea. Hell, I agree. Lahna’s worried, but Sigurd’s all ready to go down there and fuck shit up. 불타오르네.

[Moblin Major General]

Wow. Grannvale must have better surveillance than the CIA if not even a coded message could get through to anyone at least remotely loyal to Asmur. I would argue that Sigurd could've tried to confide in Arvis, but...

[Katie]

Didn't you say you were gonna go over Lewyn and Fury's love confession talk scene?

[Integrity]

there really isn't anything to go over about it. i fully intended to, but i remembered it being longer than it is. it's just "man, mahnya died. i had a crush on her, i thought, but actually i had a crush on you, fury." credits roll

it's only worth bringing up as more ammunition to show off how fury is literally a character based solely around lewyn

[solrocknroll]

The test's called the Bechdel test. Yeah, a lot of characters in FE utterly fail the test.

[Jedi]

Hell hath no Fury like a Lewyn scorned.

I like the first part of this chapter, but the 2nd part is just a cluster of madness. Then again I just like snowy settings in games and stuff.

Edited June 8, 2016 by Jedi

[Soapbar]

I love the chick on the right all like "WOW, you guys are real scumbags way to go woo-hoo!"

like yes they are very corrupt individuals thanks for pointing that out game

[sirmola]

The test's called the Bechdel test. Yeah, a lot of characters in FE utterly fail the test.

The original formulation (which applies to entire movies. The movie passes if any two women talk about something besides a man at any point. This happens surprisingly infrequently. Variants exist for things other than movies):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dykes_to_Watch_Out_For_%28Bechdel_test_origin%29.jpg

And by the way, I really like how you only show us the minimum of gameplay. If the point is to talk about the interesting bits and story, and the target audience have already seen the game, than this approach is an excellent idea, and i am surprised that it is not done more often. FE4 especialy has a habit geting really long in the tooth when reading a full lp.

Edited June 9, 2016 by sirmola

[Integrity]

I love the chick on the right all like "WOW, you guys are real scumbags way to go woo-hoo!"

like yes they are very corrupt individuals thanks for pointing that out game

actually on reflection it looks kind of sarcastic but let me give you all of her lines

[spoiler=that conversation]Daccar: “Heh heh… Donovan’s working out real nice.”

Leimia: “Yeah, he’s a real animal! You guys are seriously corrupt, though! Tryin’ to seize an entire kingdom! Heehee!”

Daccar: “But YOU and assassins like yourself will kill anyone as long as there’s a paycheck involved. It’s no wonder they call you ‘Leimia the Wicked’. It sure suits you.”

Leimia: “Hehehe… I’ll take that as a compliment. So what’ll you have us do?”

Daccar: “For now I need you to watch the castle. Sigurd’s army just might try to attack us here.”

Leimia: “You gotta be kiddin’. That’s all? Well, you got it. Yo, everyone! We’ll be pickin’ off any stragglers who come this way. Stay near the castle.”

[spoiler=when you take silesia]Daccar: “Damn, it’s inevitable. Order Leimia to attack them. We can’t let them get near the castle.”

Leimia: “Why’s Daccar so damn freaked out? Okay, let’s go work up an appetite!”

her only other lines are fighting and dying

[Psych]

Honestly, I never realized that about Fury and it makes me kind of disappointed. It even flows over into Fee where she hardly talks about anything besides finding Sety or Levin for Fury and how she's too sick to do anything. She's a bit less obvious about it thought cause of her conversations with Arthur and her pegasus.

[Integrity]

oops, lewyn married sylvia by accident

i think i forgot to load state after triggering sylvia's jealousy

gg

[Moblin Major General]

Is Chapter 5 already over? If not, kill her.

[Integrity]

no

[Moblin Major General]

No as in, it's not over yet? Or no, you aren't going to kill off Sylvia?

[Integrity]

correct!

[Moblin Major General]

Here's to hoping Sylvia doesn't screw Ced over.

[Baldrick]

I'd be impressed if Sylvia did screw up Ced.