Alastor plays and ranks the whole series! Mission Complete! ...For now.

Eltosian Kadath · December 11, 2020

17 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Look, for all I know, there's a proximity ambush trigger right by that village that's gonna send in wyverns right by my starting point.

Close, it spawns some from the lone fort when you get too near the village.

17 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But anyway, we've gotten to the village and secured it, and I'm feeding the thief kills to Marth. Ymir's sitting on the fort in the middle in case anything titanically nasty comes out of it, and we'll be talking to Michalis soon.

smart move.

I will also note there is a glitch which can occur here that makes it possible for the wyverns reinforcements to sack the village, but it is rather rare to see as they usually aggro someone with their massive movement range...

On 12/9/2020 at 11:09 PM, Jotari said:

Tomas actually looks like he could manage to be decent if you could bother to train him up from his bases (which you just might if you've lost a lot of untis).

Having the training grounds helps out with that sorta thing (although it is expensive).

On 12/9/2020 at 11:09 PM, Jotari said:

the endless parade of units is to its strength there.

I have heard that this game also has replacement units like FE11 as well, but I have never seen anyone loss enough units to actually get them...

Alastor15243 · December 11, 2020

New Mystery Day 35: Chapter 22

I find it hilarious that the CG is trying to depict the Dragon's Table as this terrifying, dark and stormy area... when we literally just saw it's surrounded by bright, sunny, grassy plains, just like literally everywhere else.

...So this translation calls it the Dragon's Altar. Was it called the same thing in Japanese that Awakening called the Dragon's Table? I mean I'd be extremely grateful if not, because there's no way in hell the one in Awakening is the same building, what with the geography of Awakening being literally unrecognizable, but the wiki calls both things the Dragon's Table and says the original Japanese name translates to Dragon's Altar for both, so... not overly confident.

…

PFFFFFFT.

And the scene opens up on dead fucking silence as Dakota and Marth simply stare at each other silently while Dakota has a fucking tiger head for a hat.

This is absolutely hilarious, don't get me wrong, but it also completely confirms my point about these costume changes being absolutely terribly timed.

Marth: …...

Marth: That's, uh, certainly one heck of a hat. A gift from Ymir, I presume?

Dakota: Yes. It keeps me warm. Although I'm worried that it'll stand out...

REALLY DAKOTA. YOU DON'T SAY.

Anyway, we're immediately at the prep menu, and the game has decided that that there is in fact no line they will not cross with the stupidity of the drill grounds, as there is apparently one, nay, possibly multiple, situated in the bad guy's evil lair.

Anyway, first off, I used all three dracoshields on Marth. I only lose the ironman if he or Dakota dies, so... obviously I want him to have the best chance of surviving those ridiculous ambush spawns. He's capped everything but magic, defense and res, and he's only 3 shy of capping defense at 22. And with the Binding Shield, he's just 1 shy of tying with Dakota for sheer raw physical bulk.

How's Everyone didn't get me much of value. I got Cecil's Sword, but uh... it's not very good. It looks like basically a 10-crit iron sword.

Okay, so, I gave Robert the 3 speedwings, and he's now at 27 speed. I'm debating giving him the three energy drops, but that would put him exactly at his cap, and I'm debating how necessary that is to make him useful. He's got the Parthia and the brave bow, and...

...And his crit looks really weird.

...Okay, so I had a sneaking suspicion of this, and looking it up seems to confirm it. It seems that once you hit 20 skill, it stops halving your skill to determine crit rate, and instead subtracts 10. Meaning that if you have 30 skill, your crit rate is 20, not 15. Interesting concept.

But anyway... Yeah, giving him the energy drops could make him more useful, but I could also give them to somebody else like Caeda or Catria to bring their attack power up to snuff. Choices, choices.

...Fuck it, I'll just have those two use dragonpikes. That's an option for them. It's not an option for Robert. But I won't use all the energy drops on Robert, since he still has room to grow.

I'm really annoyed the drill grounds make you use your own weapons, but don't let you pick your weapon before fighting like the one in Genealogy did. You have to leave, go to items, equip the weapon there, then do the drill grounds.

...Oh no wait I'm wrong, the game just assumes you're using the “evolved” combat type and has you switch weapons with y and x even if you don't have that set in the settings.

Anyway, a few levels and an energy drop later, and he's strong enough to one-round dragons with Parthia. Good. I'll give the second energy drop to Catria to shore up her offense in case I absolutely need her to fight something other than a dragon... I'll work out what to do with my angelic robes and spirit dust...

...Then I'll listen to talks and see if they say anything about deployment restrictions in here.

It looks like I just baaaarely got Minerva's A supports with Palla, Catria and Dakota. Good.

...Apparently wind feels different on a pegasus compared to a wyvern according to Minerva. Amusing that this conversation conveniently happened with the one flier I actually gave an elysian whip to. And I get a speed bond! Awesome! That means that in emergencies I can bring Robert to 30 speed even if his last four levels are all speed duds! Hell, if I get just one more, then I can give him speed bonds for the rest of the game!

...Or I could use them on Palla to keep her from being doubled. Let's see what the thresholds are for this map...

...She wouldn't be doubling anything, but giving her a speed bond would keep the 23 speed swordmasters from doubling her.

...Sadly, the Palla one gave me a luck bond, so, pardon the pun, no luck there.

But yeah, interestingly, that support said that Minerva's planning on basically renouncing the royal birthright of her family and letting someone else lead, because she doesn't feel she's fit for the job. It doesn't sound like that's for sexist reasons or anything though, since she says she feels she's way better at fighting than at leading, which doesn't exactly scream “I should be in the kitchen” or anything.

The Ymir one is... barely worth discussing.

And I get a defense bond from Minerva's and Dakota's, and...

...Ugh. I don't have anything to say about this support that wouldn't just be summarizing it. I have no new thoughts to add on it, so I'm got even going to discuss it.

...The 3 star conversation says nothing about making sure to bring the people close to the priestesses, so I assume that means I don't have to bring Julian to this map. Good. But I'm also wary of lingering too long by the entrance looting treasure, so I'm gonna use that master key I recently got instead to have someone else do it. Hell, I think I'm gonna use the master key and one of the three remaining uses of the thief staff. Might as well use that thing now, given there are barely any chests left, right? But I'll only use one use, because I remember there being some chests that are completely inaccessible by anything but the thief staff and warp, so...

...Damn it, I don't remember how many there are!

...Okay, but I think I can assume it probably isn't three. That feels like a weird number map-design-wise, given that the treasure is on isolated pillars. It's either one, two or four. If it's four I'm fucked regardless, but if it's one or two, using one thief staff use here should be fine.

...But no, if I'm getting one chest normally, then I can get both normally. Only getting one is only an advantage if I assume whoever I send is going to die. Marth's really tough now, he can handle some reinforcements.

...I hate not being able to see into these rooms. When the ability to re-locate a unit who's already moved is at an absolute premium (or at least is when you've lost Feena), not knowing what's on the other side of a door you unlock is a nightmare. But at least I'm not bringing any super-vulnerable thieves.

I used one angelic robe and all four spirit dusts on Merric to get him to max magic and nearly max HP. I thought about using them to bring Yumina's magic up to kinda Merric's level, but no, I have no idea how powerful Gharnef's going to be, and I only have 13 uses of starlight. Best to make them count. Plus, this way, I have expanded options for dealing with Medeus. I remember Merric using Excalibur was a surprisingly good option against Medeus in Shadow Dragon.

I used the remaining two angelic robes on Yumina, and all four talismans on Dakota, bringing his resistance up to a whopping 13, right on par with my mages. Ain't nothin' killing this fucker.

Also, just in case, I'm not bringing Minerva until the endgame. She's way too weak, and there's too much risk of her dying with almost no utility to apply here.

...Okay, let's go.

...Alright, so Gotoh shows up immediately with Nagi in tow. I wonder what his excuse is gonna be for not helping?

...Ah, good, they remembered that in the “canon” ending, Nagi and Marth never met. But he has the weirdest feeling that they have...

...And Gotoh just vanishes after the conversation without even trying to explain why he won't be coming. He just fucks off while Marth is talking with Nagi.

Ha.

Anyway, I get a very, very stern warning that I need to rush in quickly, or else the battle will start getting worse than I can handle. That has me extremely nervous about the timeframe, so I'm having Palla, my most mobile expendable unit, collect the chests after some of my other more mobile units take out the enemies guarding them. Everyone else is going to rush straight ahead.

...Alright, so Nagi's stats are... pretty shit. I mean she has a slayer weapon against dragons and the final boss, so no doubt I'll be using her for that, but I don't think I could make her useful for anything else even if I gave her all of those stat boosters I just used. At any rate, I already used them, so no point thinking about what-ifs.

...Well this is hilarious. Enemies apparently consider Dakota a more viable target than Marth now.

A bunch of enemies swarm me at once, and at first I thought I wouldn't be able to one-round the 23 speed swordmaster without putting Marth in a really precarious position... but then I realized that Merric's magic stat is so ridiculously high now that he can one-shot the swordmaster with starlight. It feels iffy using one of my 13 uses on a non-Gharnef enemy before Gharnef is dead, but this is an emergency. I really need these enemies dead.

...Honestly, now that I have a much stronger army, this sort of enemy layering isn't quite as annoying and a lot more interesting gameplaywise.

I completely failed to realize that that stuff around the chest was liquid, not carpet, and thus I failed to get the chest on turn 2 because I had to stand on the chest to kill the glower mage. Plus side, since that happened because I wanted to avoid using Robert, I can send Robert over to use his 28 speed against this crucial enemy dogpile up here.

Okay, credit where it's due, that starlight animation is really fucking cool.

Holy shit am I glad I made Robert a player phase badass. I just barely had enough firepower to take out all the charging enemies in one turn so Dakota could rush in and take out the meteor mage. I even needed Ymir! Or at least I would have if Etzel didn't make up for Ymir's miss with a lucky thoron crit. Even then I would have had Yumina as backup, but I'd have had to sacrifice a fortify opportunity.

…

TURN FUCKING THREE!?

THE AMBUSH SPAWN DRAGONS SHOW UP ON TURN FUCKING THREE!?

AND THEY'RE IN THE TREASURE ROOMS!?

WITH NO STAIRCASES OR ANYTHING, THEY JUST FUCKING MATERIALIZE!?

ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT I NEEDED PERFECT TWO-TURN PRECISION TO GET THOSE CHESTS AND RUN AWAY IN TIME!?

No, wait, that would've required two mounted chest openers! Did this game even give me a second key that can open chests?

...Well, anyway, thankfully the mage dragon couldn't one-round Palla or anything, and standing on the chest kept the fire dragon from spawning. So getting the chest on turn 3 isn't really that dangerous. But there's no way in hell I'm gonna be able to get that other chest without using the thief staff or being really, really stupid, so I'm gonna go for option 1, use the thief staff.

The chests had a wyrmslayer and dragonpike, incidentally. Nice, but I hope this doesn't cost me the Aum staff.

Anyway, Caeda, Catria, Belf and Leiden just made it out of the treasure hall of death, with Palla looking like she's just barely gonna be able to beat those incoming dragons on the opposite side to the central hallway.

Okay, I'm actually really digging this map. This feels like exactly the sort of thing that I've been clamoring for throughout this entire marathon: pressure to constantly move forward while fighting through complicated defenses or else be swallowed by a wave of powerful rear reinforcements. The location and nature of said reinforcements were a bit dickish, but getting past that, I'm really liking this. It's feeling intense even though I killed all the enemies by turn four and now I'm just rushing to the doors to face the final area.

I'm gonna finally use that dang unlock staff just so I don't have to waste a valuable open space in front of the door unlocking it, so I can rush into that room with my strongest and most mobile units immediately no matter what's hiding in there. In hindsight, it might have been smarter to unlock that thing two turns ago and open op the possibility of letting the stuff inside there come to us, but there's no point in dwelling on that now, because while hindsight is 2020...

2020 is almost over!

And now even more reinforcements are coming, from even closer places. We've really gotta rush this.

I'm disappointed that the enemy phase theme, once it ends with the build up and gets to that big part, suddenly gets rid of the higher notes and goes back to just low note strings, making it suddenly mellow instead of more intense like it could have been.

...What the...

...Wha...

Why...

...Why isn't Yumina's staff menu working?

Why isn't the unlock staff letting me unlock these doors!?

…

IT'S ONLY 1-2 RANGE!?

THEN WHAT'S THE FUCKING POINT OF IT!?

Alright, thankfully I still have one turn to spare before the enemies are upon us. I'll just move Yumina in a bit more, so that while she's still taking up fairly prime player-phase real estate, she's not taking up the best slot. Then we'll move in.

...And then ambush spawns show up from the hallways outside of the rooms.

They attack Catria. Catria has a dragonpike equipped. Depending on how strong this fire dragon behind the mage dragon is, Catria could very well die.

...Yep! Catria's dead!

Man, Catria just cannot catch a break, can she? That's the second time in a row that she's died in the final dungeon.

Okay, that ambush spawn was a complete piece of shit move, game.

...And this room is just as absurd as I remember it being in the original game. Hell, I think I'm gonna have to use a warp and again in order to...

...Or I could use silence.

...Yeah, I think I'm gonna use silence. Best to keep warp and again for the final battle.

SUCCESS! Man, I am so glad I remembered that thing existed. For all I know using a warp and again could have cost me the run!

Yeah, really, only the magic users are genuinely scary in that room. Marth and Dakota can wipe the floor with literally everything else, especially since the enemy layering is like 70% mage, so there are plenty of safe spots to take out physical attackers from now that the mages can't do shit. And now that we've actually gotten a foothold inside the room...

...let's see what we can do with that.

...Yep, player-phasing the boss is trivial with an extra turn to move forward unmolested. Glad I kept that silence staff around! Anyway, let's see what the second map is like. I think I'm gonna buckle down and do two just so I have as much free time as possible tomorrow to write up my ranking, which is no doubt going to take me all day, best-case-scenario.

Anyway, Dakota takes off the white tiger hat, I yet again question what the fuck the devs were thinking putting those things in the way they did, and we get to the save screen.

Alastor15243 · December 11, 2020

Day 35 Bonus: Chapter 23

“Gharnef – possibly the strongest sorcerer alive... or dead.”

I can't decide whether that's badass or unfittingly corny. I can read it literally either way.

...And now it's finally time for people to stroke Dakota's resistance stat-dick. Makes sense. Gotta give the player the longest possible time to reach good benchmarks for the hardest-to-increase stat in the game. Can't ever not praise the avatar, can we?

Also... looks like Dakota huffing all of those talismans has given Marth the mistaken impression that Dakota's a mage, because I'm apparently “our strongest hope of defeating Gharnef.”

Hahahahahaha, no. Merric, he's all yours.

Oh my god. There's a second set of drill grounds inside this temple.

That's it. That settles it. This has got to be some kind of elaborate money-laundering scheme for the Archanean mafia. Their existence in places where there would be absolutely no demand? Their ridiculous business model? Their ability to survive unmolested literally anywhere on the planet? Oh I'm on to you, buddy!

Holy shit am I glad I gave those spirit dusts to Merric. Gharnef has 21 res, and there are four fortify users hidden on those chest pillars. This would be an absolute pain if I didn't have a guy who could one-round him. I'd have to do some complicated shit involving silence abuse again.

Incidentally, looks like my logic paid off. There are in fact two chest pillars. I have enough uses of the thief staff to just barely get both the chests, including Aum.

...I really hope I can use the thief staff on a chest that's being stood on.

Also, I'm probably going to be using the silence staff some more to deal with these mages, namely the ones with glower. That is unless a better idea arises. Even then, there's gonna be no use for the silence staff after this chapter, so... might as well get some use out of it now.

As long as they don't add any ambush reinforcements to this map, we should be all clear with this. If they do, well... guess we'll just have to hurry with it. We've got plenty of units capable of kicking ass and taking names, so we should be good.

Pity about Catria though. She was the only fast flier I had left. But thankfully, I don't see any swordmasters here, so I think we're done with enemies that are hard to double. At least until we get to Medeus.

I'm actually kinda hoping he has something like 26 speed so that I can do some cool shit with my fast units.

...Speaking of, Robert hasn't gotten that lucky and now risks only having 29 speed when he gets his last level up. I've been using the drill grounds on him since there's not much else to spend the money from my ludicrous excess of equipment on, and while he's gotten fairly good levels... I mean, like I just said, level 19, 29 speed. It'll be a close one.

...Or it would be if I didn't have speed bonds.

These opening dragons should be pretty straightforward. I'll have Merric attack the western fire dragon so he can bait in the mage dragon, while I'll have some dragonslaying units advance into the eastern fire dragon's range but outside of the mage dragon's range, so we can then get these meteor mages dead by the beginning of turn three.

Speaking of three... woo! I managed to get Etzel and Dakota's third support with very little time to spare!

So Dakota calls Etzel out on being clearly suicidal and looking for an excuse to die on the battlefield. He's gentle about it, but he points out that Etzel's wife Ursula clearly died so that he could live, and it would be insulting her memory to waste that life.

...This was kinda nice, as far as FE12 supports go. Which isn't saying much, but still. I don't regret reading this, I suppose is what I'm trying to say.

And now Dakota gets a support with Nagi.

...Who seems to be aware that I, the player, exist, and am guiding Dakota along.

...Man, what's it gotta be like, being god, but knowing you're the god of a fictional world, a puppet under an even greater power?

...But that's all that really happens in that conversation. It ends really quickly, which is a shame, given what the game implies about her.

Okay, so, there's a talk with Medeus as this starts, and... I can't help but wonder... what exactly is Gharnef's deal? Is he trying to manipulate Medeus's revival for his own purposes like Nergal? Or is he just outright the Renfield to Medeus's Dracula? If the original Shadow Dragon explained his motivations for bringing Medeus back, this game has done absolutely nothing to remind me of them.

...The thief staff doesn't work on chests that are being stood on.

They specifically require you to use the warp staff to get these chests.

WHICH MEANS YOU DON'T EVEN GET THE AUM STAFF ON HIGHER DIFFICULTIES.

Well I mean the higher difficulties are borderline unplayable anyway without save points, so fair enough. The playstyle precludes you even have somebody to resurrect.

But I mean... that just shows the change in mindset even further, doesn't it? The original was one of the first games I felt even game close to being ironmannable, while this... I've clearly gotten this far through a pretty good deal of luck.

Damn it. I only have four warp uses left. I've been saving them specifically for the final boss, and now the game's telling me I can't get Sirius back for the “perfect” ending unless I use at least one of them.

But fuck it, I think I've gotta do it. And I don't even know what's in the other chest. It could also be amazing.

Anyway, the dragons and the meteor sorcerers were no big deal. I've got plenty of powerful fighters now. I actually managed to finish things off in the first area by turn two since I have so many powerful, mobile attackers.

Interestingly, Dakota is just barely able to one-round these sorcerers with a hand axe. Two more defense points and Dakota would fail without a crit.

Alright, the enemies are refusing to be baited in. I'm gonna have to rush in with Dakota and silence the mages so that he can slaughter the dragons and bring everyone closer in.

...NOPE! FUCK! They didn't want me to go deeper, they just wanted me to get into range of more than one enemy! I had Dakota step one tile in assuming it would be safe without checking what was actually in range of him!

...While at first I thought that meant I needed to dodge in order to keep Dakota from dying to double glowers and a mage dragon, I then remembered (just as he actually got that dodge) that the units I left in range of the two glowers would probably be more tempting targets than Dakota.

...NOPE! THEY AREN'T! FOR SOME REASON THESE GLOWER SORCERERS THINK THE GUY WITH 60 HP IS WEAKER THAN THE GUYS WHO DON'T HAVE 60 HP! LOOKS LIKE I CAN'T DEPEND ON THE AI AFTER ALL!

Thank fucking goodness Dakota dodged that first attack, that would've been embarrassing! I was just moving Dakota in for the assault, and nearly lost the whole ironman!

...That was embarrassing, and also frustrating that they'd change the AI rules that the game expects you to rely upon to win.

...Plus side, that let me easily break through the enemy ranks without even using a silence charge, and now I'm positioned to kill the meteor mages next turn and then use silence to rush the central keep.

Honestly, it's pretty cool that I've got the Sable Trio all wielding the three regalia. I wasn't even doing that on purpose! It just felt natural.

Alright, so, I'm in the central room. First off, Merric one-rounds Gharnef. Total slaughter.

...Gharnef... doesn't seem to care that he's dead. So either he really is just a servant of Medeus with no motives beyond that, or he just... hates the world and wants it to burn.

Whatever the case, the remaining four sorcerers in the throne room quickly fall to Dakota, Caeda, Belf and Leiden. Robert was unfortunately one space too far away to help after taking down that meteor sorcerer last turn.

Alright, I'm going with the eastern chest first, because I think that's where I remember the Aum staff being. I'm not gonna use the Aum staff now though, because it'd be better to have one of the priestesses revive Sirius next map and save a recruitment slot and potentially also a rescue charge.

As for whether or not to get the other treasure...

...Yeah, I think it's worth it. I've got a ton of again uses, which are basically as good as a warp staff use as long as the guy already there can still take a hit.

Don't fuck me on this, game.

...Well, I picked wrong. In both senses. I should've gone for the western chest and only the western chest, because the other one had the second hammerne staff I can't use. Not until it makes no difference, at least. If I had Lena here instead of on turn 1 next turn, maybe we could do something, but every action by those priestesses matters.

Fuck, let's just get the Aum staff and get moving.

OH SWEET THAT'S RIGHT! YUMINA CAN USE THE AUM STAFF!

I had just remembered that not everyone can use the Aum staff, and initially thought that meant the plan I'm going to describe below wouldn't work, but then I remembered that we actually do get characters capable of using it before those priestesses, and Yumina is one of them!

That means, depending on how far away the priestesses are, I can have Yumina, with a running start, revive Sirius and then have him fly the rest of the way to the priestesses, so I don't even need to use a warp staff use to start this chain!

...Well, that's a concern for...

...Fuck it, no, let's do this today. I've got nothing better to do. Might as well finish this up. It's a Friday.

Alastor15243 · December 11, 2020

Day 35 Bonus Bonus: Endgame

Man, this whole “We'll surely win, because a fortune teller told me I'll live to 100, and I'm not quite that old yet!” thing really shows the potential for humor in these deadpan faces allowing for earnest, naive stupidity. I wish they leaned into that more in ways that didn't break the dramatic pacing of scenes, or even just didn't try to tell a dramatic story and played these sorts of portraits completely for laughs.

But enough of that.

…

Okay.

Moment of truth.

Let's see what we've got to work with.

Two warps.

Three rescues.

Six agains.

One Aum.

Let's go.

...Okay, so, bad news: unless I can control what space I revive Sirius on, I can't actually get to Nyna in one turn.

...Okay, well, I can at least try. If it lets me select a space before going to the revival menu, then I'll know I can do it. If it doesn't, then probably not.

More bad news: Maria only has a c staff rank. I assumed all of these priestesses had A staves, but no, that doesn't seem to be the case. Thankfully rescue is E rank.

...Okay. So. If I'm gonna one-turn this, I've gotta get everything planned out from the very beginning.

I've got Merric, Minerva and Julian in my party. Sirius will join us with Aum.

...I've got a shitload of weapons I have no chance in hell of ever using, so I'm selling them to train up Nagi to the point that she can attack Medeus without being doubled, if that's remotely possible. She's utterly wiping the floor with the arena and has Tiki's dragonstone as a spare, so that's looking like it could happen with her growth rates.

...Yep, it totally happened. Nagi now has 81 attack power against Medeus, can't be doubled by him, and can almost tank two hits from him, which means that unless there's some obnoxious hidden dragonskin power the game's not telling me about...

...It should go like this:

I abuse starting positions to guarantee that Sirius is resurrected directly above Yumina from her starting location. Frost is immediately to the left of her, and Nagi is directly below Frost. Etzel, who is carrying the warp staff, an again staff, and both rescue staves, will move right above Frost, trade all those staves but the warp staff to the newly-resurrected Sirius, and warp Sirius over to where Medeus and the priestesses are.

Frost will then take the last use of the warp staff from Etzel and use it to warp Nagi over.

From there, Sirius will recruit Nyna, Nyna will take the staves and rescue Minerva, Minerva will recruit Maria, Maria will take the staves and rescue Julian, Julian will recruit Lena, Lena will take the last rescue staff charge and rescue Merric, Nagi will attack Medeus, then Merric will recruit Elice and then use his own again staff on Nagi. Nagi will then attack again, killing Medeus unless she misses.

...I should probably revise this so that I have more chances with Nagi vs Medeus. More mages on standby for healing and again staff uses specifically.

I only need a C staff user to use a warp staff, and I have a few of those as throwaway units. I'll replace Robert (sorry buddy) with Wendell reclassed to a bishop just like I replaced Caeda with Frost, and have Wendell do what was originally Etzel's job. Etzel will in turn hold on to the again staff, and Merric's job now will instead be to heal up Nagi with his ridiculous magic power of 30.

So, Yumina revives Sirius, Wendell warps Sirius after trading him the rescue and again staves, Frost takes the last warp and warps Nagi, Sirius recruits Nyna, Nyna takes the staves and rescues Minerva, Nagi attacks Medeus, Minerva recruits Maria, Maria takes the staves and rescues Julian, Julian recruits Lena, Lena takes the last rescue staff and rescues Merric, Merric recruits Elice and heals Nagi, Elice uses the again staff on Nagi, Nagi attacks again, and if she missed one of those 90% hit attacks, then Etzel will use his again staff on her for one last-ditch shot at doing this in one turn.

...Yeah.

...Yeah that sounds like it'll work. It only needs 2/3 90% hits to work, and this handy-dandy calculator I found a while back...

http://vassarstats.net/textbook/ch5apx.html

...tells me that this plan has a 97.2% chance of succeeding.

...Yeah, okay, I'll gamble the ironman on those odds. I don't have any better options, for one.

...Alright, let's see the talks and do this.

...It was just the people who can save them saying they want a chance to save them. I'm honestly wondering what Sirius would have said about this.

...Ah, yeah, Alright. Just looked it up. He doesn't give anything away, but he does ask to talk to her. He doesn't say anything that'd make Dakota think that would work, but I guess Dakota figures they have no other options.

Alright, after giving my laptop a chance to cool down after inexplicably attempting to melt itself to slag... let's do this.

According to the Aum menu, I've lost 10 units. Damn. I mean I know I lost a lot, but it didn't feel like that much. Also, it doesn't let me choose the space, so yeah, I need to warp Sirius, just as I assumed in my planning. Alright. Let's go.

...The music here is this weird church organ thing. Don't really like it.

But anyway, let's go.

Alright, I just revived Sirius, gave him the staves, warped him, and then warped Nagi with the last warp use. So far, everything's going exactly according to plan.

Weirdly, the game has the portrait completely flicker out and change when Nyna comes to her senses, rather than just changing her eyes. Oh well.

Ah, so that's where the “love theme” plays here. I just realized that as the conversation ended. Alright. Moving on with the plan.

Ah, all of them seem to use that music. Okay. Well, Minerva's recruiting Maria now.

Minerva lies to Maria and says Michalis is fine, though the way she says it makes me think the line might not actually change if Michalis is alive (because apparently you can save him). It feels like it can be read both as a lie and as the truth. Huh. Alright, well, next phase.

Nagi attacks Medeus.

…

...No.

Oh god please no.

Don't do this to me game.

Don't do this to me.

THE DIVINESTONE ISN'T EFFECTIVE AGAINST MEDEUS!?

WHAT!?

NO!

WHYYYYYYYYYY!?

...No, I can't give up just yet. Gotta focus. There might still... somehow... be a way out of this? Maybe?

Okay, so... if I can somehow... get Marth over to Medeus... and get him to attack a few times...

...No, first, gotta have Nagi make some use out of her being warped over, and have her attack and pray for a crit...

...I got a crit! HOLY FUCK I MIGHT STILL HAVE A CHANCE!

Okay, what to do now? Because I just thought about it some more, and... I can't actually afford to get Marth over there. I don't have any warp staff uses left and I have to use the last one on Merric. Because even if Elice wasn't another valuable staff resource here, Merric's still the only one who can “neutralize” Elice and perform another action, which I absolutely need to do.

...If I had him use starlight... he'd do 24 damage I think. Wait, let's just get him over here first before working that out.

...Awww... Lena proposes to Julian basically, in their talk. That's so cute.

BACK TO PANIC MODE.

Okay. So. Merric can, with a 91% chance, deal 24 damage to Medeus's remaining 34 HP. If I just use an again staff after talking to Elice and attacking Medeus, then either Nagi or Merric will be able to finish the job.

...I'll have Merric do it. He has a higher crit rate, especially with excalibur, and two normal excalibur shots will finish Medeus off.

Alright.

HERE GOES.

OH SHIT YES!

ELICE GIVES MERRIC A SUPPORT BONUS!

MERRIC CAN'T MISS!

I CAN'T LOSE!

AND HE CRITTED!

DIE, YOU DIVINESTONE-NOT-SUSCEPTIBLE PURPLE PIECE OF SHIT!

EXCALIBUR SLAYS THE DRAGON, BITCH!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

IIIII AM ALASTORRRRRRRRR, DESTROYER OF EEEEEVIIIIIIIIILLLLLL!

…

And guess what.

To top it all off.

Merric reaches A rank in tomes. Literally on that one last attack.

I totally forgot he wasn't at A rank yet.

Okay. No. Sorry. I'm not doing the epilogue today. I'm saving that for tomorrow. It's late, I'm tired, I wanna have dinner, and I don't wanna do all that campaign statistics shit tonight. Not after doing three chapters in a row.

Stay safe, everyone.

Stay safer than Catria, but more importantly...

STAY SAFER THAN MEDEUS.

Jotari · December 12, 2020

I hope you'll take a shot at those bonus maps, or at least the last Archanea saga map, before writing up the review. Or afterwards I guess since it's sort of a different game. But Archanea saga is a proper entry in the series, weird a beast as it is. Also in one of the DLC maps you get to play as Gharnef!

So I was going to mention this earlier when someone talked about Michalis's support, but the ending jumped up quickly. Basically I hate that they made it so Michalis can't save Maria even though he it's been his motivation all game. The excuse they use is stupid, he'd literally let Maria get eaten by a dragon if Minerva happens to die in one of the two previous maps. And honestly Michalis being added to the game kind of makes me hate how there's four specific units you have to bring to end game in a game has has like over seventy playable characters. I feel it ties your hand as I have a compulsion to actually train those units up instead of just deploying their level 1 asses in end game. They should have allowed multiple different units be able to rescue to Maidens. Like Nabarl or her replacement Hammering user could have been other options for Lena. Michalis or even the white wing sisters for Maria. Some of the Archanean characters for Nyna, or if they're considered too minor and unimportant, the sable trio acting in Camus's memory (those three rebelled and helped to save her too after all). Elice I'm not so sure except the obvious Marth, but then you don't have to bring any extra unit at all (though Marth is still one of the best options for taking down Medeus so it doesn't help to have Merric). Wait, speaking of that, despite last minute max statting Marth, did you ever end up even using Falchion?

Alastor15243 · December 12, 2020

7 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Wait, speaking of that, despite last minute max statting Marth, did you ever end up even using Falchion?

Nope. Wish I had, but I thought Nagi would just do way, WAY more damage. I don't regret getting him so strong though. It was a valuable precaution.

I agree there should have been more options to talk to each of the priestesses. It definitely felt weird being forced to bring all of those characters. It feels dumb that you can bring Lena's brother to the map and he won't accomplish anything.

As for the Archanea Saga episodes... I mean... Okay, I'll get back to it sometime, but I'm not really in a mood to do that stuff now. I'm dreading just the epilogue and write-up tomorrow, which I feel certain is gonna take me ages. But I promise that when I get back to it, I'll do all of them, including the ones I already did and the DLC ones.

Edited December 12, 2020 by Alastor15243

Jotari · December 12, 2020

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Nope. Wish I had, but I thought Nagi would just do way, WAY more damage. I don't regret getting him so strong though. It was a valuable precaution.

I agree there should have been more options to talk to each of the priestesses. It definitely felt weird being forced to bring all of those characters. It feels dumb that you can bring Lena's brother to the map and he won't accomplish anything.

As for the Archanea Saga episodes... I mean... Okay, I'll get back to it sometime, but I'm not really in a mood to do that stuff now. I'm dreading just the epilogue and write-up. But I promise that when I get back to it, I'll do all of them, including the ones I already did and the DLC ones.

I don't see any specific need to redo the ones you already did unless you actually want to do a separate write up for Archanea saga.

Shadow Mir · December 12, 2020

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

HERE GOES.

OH SHIT YES!

ELICE GIVES MERRIC A SUPPORT BONUS!

MERRIC CAN'T MISS!

I CAN'T LOSE!

AND HE CRITTED!

DIE, YOU DIVINESTONE-NOT-SUSCEPTIBLE PURPLE PIECE OF SHIT!

EXCALIBUR SLAYS THE DRAGON, BITCH!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

IIIII AM ALASTORRRRRRRRR, DESTROYER OF EEEEEVIIIIIIIIILLLLLL!

I know this is off topic, but... Where did you get the idea for the name Alastor from anyway? I can think of only two sources (Devil May Cry and Castlevania).

Alastor15243 · December 12, 2020

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I know this is off topic, but... Where did you get the idea for the name Alastor from anyway? I can think of only two sources (Devil May Cry and Castlevania).

It's also Mad Eye Moody's real first name in Harry Potter, and the name of a villain in Viewtiful Joe. I just heard it enough times to think it sounded cool, so I used it.

Shadow Mir · December 12, 2020

6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

It's also Mad Eye Moody's real first name in Harry Potter, and the name of a villain in Viewtiful Joe. I just heard it enough times to think it sounded cool, so I used it.

Isn't the Alastor from Viewtiful Joe the same one from Devil May Cry (or rather, the demon possessing the sword of the same name)?

Interdimensional Observer · December 12, 2020

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

THE DIVINESTONE ISN'T EFFECTIVE AGAINST MEDEUS!?

WHAT!?

NO!

WHYYYYYYYYYY!?

Although Medeus has the epithet "Shadow Dragon" in SD, he's only an Earth Dragon. Come Mystery, he has been reborn full of naught but rage and stronger than ever, hence his promotion to a real Shadow Dragon and hence he shed the weakness to the heavenly dragons he used to have.

Why is the tooth of a Divine Dragon still effective when a living one is not? I do not know, but if the opposite of Earth is Heaven and Divine = Heaven. But the opposite of Light is Dark, and Falchion is the Blade of Light while a Divine Dragon is not a Light Dragon? Maybe?😅

3 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Isn't the Alastor from Viewtiful Joe the same one from Devil May Cry (or rather, the demon possessing the sword of the same name)?

Correct.

The PS2 port of VJ declared Alastor is the spirit of Dante's sword. I timestamped it to right before their little talk.

This means VJ and DMC exist in the same world. And because Wonderful 101 has Wonderful Bayonetta and Wonder Pink mentions being on the phone with Sylvia once, it's four worlds that are one.

Edited December 12, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

Alastor15243 · December 12, 2020

17 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Isn't the Alastor from Viewtiful Joe the same one from Devil May Cry (or rather, the demon possessing the sword of the same name)?

I haven't played Devil May Cry, so I had no idea.

Axie · December 12, 2020

congrats on finishing new mystery! i was almost caught up with the thread so i think i might just follow awakening as it happens since the game is pretty fresh in my mind.

prepared to silently weep for new mystery's overall rating. my second favourite fire emblem and it sounds like it will be roasted harder than a christmas chicken. IT'S FINE I AM FINE.

Eltosian Kadath · December 12, 2020

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

HERE GOES.

OH SHIT YES!

ELICE GIVES MERRIC A SUPPORT BONUS!

MERRIC CAN'T MISS!

I CAN'T LOSE!

AND HE CRITTED!

DIE, YOU DIVINESTONE-NOT-SUSCEPTIBLE PURPLE PIECE OF SHIT!

EXCALIBUR SLAYS THE DRAGON, BITCH!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

IIIII AM ALASTORRRRRRRRR, DESTROYER OF EEEEEVIIIIIIIIILLLLLL!

Well that was a dramatic end to this successful ironman. Congrats! This will be an odd one for the ranking for sure.

Alastor15243 · December 12, 2020

New Mystery Day 36(???): Epilogue

Alright. Let's finish up here.

So yeah, I've uh... heard something about how the story ends that... I'm gonna have something to say about if it's true. But yeah, right now, everyone's just celebrating Marth's victory, saying their lines and all that. Looks like everyone still alive gets one.

…

...And it's really sinking in that despite 9 deaths, “everyone alive” is still a freakishly high number of people.

And now Gotoh shows up to congratulate Marth, and I'm still pissed off that there isn't even a reason why he didn't help this time.

And Tiki's all adorably happy about the fact that she doesn't have to be alone anymore!

Because the shield is going to stay intact forever!

And she isn't going to have to go to into a coma ever again!

Eeeeever agaaaaain.

Aha.

AHA.

YES.

AHAHAHA. HAHA. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

...Let's just move on.

Okay, so, Marth's just talking about the seven kingdoms being unified and everyone expecting Marth to become king, and... I mean this kinda comes out of left field. I mean I already knew that it happens, but I expected more buildup to Marth becoming the ruler of the entire free world.

Also, uh... I don't really see this as a happy turn of events, honestly. One world government under one king isn't exactly the most wholesome of outcomes.

But hey!

I can look on the bright side!

It apparently doesn't last at all!

...Weirdly, right after that set of everyone saying their victory lines... it goes and has everyone say stuff again, in more elaborate group conversations. I'm wondering if the Whitewings will have a conversation for Catria being dead, or if they'll just skip them entirely.

Hahahaha, get a load of Vyland telling Roshea to “never question [himself]” when he wonders if they did the right thing helping kill Hardin.

When refusing to question themselves was what got them into trouble in the first place.

Peak irony.

Ah yes, and now Dakota is talking to Marth.

Here it comes.

Marth: But, among the people, your deeds are being told as things I've done alone... That just will not do. Once we return to the castle, I'll...

Dakota: If you'll allow me, sire... I have no need for a name. I don't want stories to be told of me.

Marth: Dakota...?

Dakota: Sire. With this war now over, a hero will be needed. A hero called Prince Marth. There are still hostilities between people who have fought for so long. Those won't disappear easily. In order to have everyone's agreement, a king everyone recognizes – a godlike hero is needed. And that hero must be you, sire, and you alone.

Marth: But then, what you've done so far will be...

Dakota: Even if the world doesn't know, you do, sire, and that's enough for me. I shall stay by your side. I shall be your shadow.

Marth: Dakota... You're... ...Why, I wonder? Ever since we met, I felt a special connection with you. Fate sent you to me... I can't help but think that. Thank you, Dakota. Please stay with me. Dakota, you're my other half, my true friend...

...Okay.

A couple things here.

First off, the obvious: This is a transparent and needlessly excessive method of making sure future games have an excuse for never showing the avatar's name or face. It serves no other conceivable purpose. Which means that at bare minimum, the developers were already leaving open the possibility of making a sequel to Mystery.

Second: It doesn't make any sense at all.

You see, while I still find this whole “keep me out of the history books” thing really dumb, I'm not nearly as mad about it as I thought I would be when I heard about this plot point before playing the game. I was under the impression that the avatar was some kind of canon sue who was going to steal Marth's thunder and do all of his cool moments like they're goddamned Movie Hermione or something, only to then give Marth credit for everything in the end, retconning Marth into a huge loser whose every positive quality is a lie created by propaganda.

But it turned out the avatar of this game wasn't like that at all.

At least when it comes to cutscenes, Dakota has never once been characterized in even a single story scene as having any role in Marth's army more important than being part of the royal guard. Dakota is just another of Marth's soldiers. His mightiest soldier, to be sure, but a soldier nonetheless. He doesn't give orders in battle, he doesn't make inspiring speeches, he doesn't even have any big important cutscene moments. He's just there to protect Marth, and Marth still does literally everything he did in the original game.

In what sense are the people wrong to say Marth did this “alone”, other than in the sense of “he had a whole army of people willing to die for his cause to help him”? Why does Dakota specifically deserve unique credit for making all of this happen?

Ah, but we forget: Dakota's the player character. And I am the player. So we're supposed to assume that my contributions to Marth's victory are Dakota's contributions, no? Including, most importantly, my strategies?

Aye, there's the rub.

There's the rock and the hard place.

Because you see, that's left almost entirely up to the player's interpretation. And as people may remember, the way I interpreted it earlier in this marathon left me incredibly pissed off at the prologue and Katarina's “contribution” to the team.

But this added dilemma means that no matter how you interpret whose strategic mind the player's actions represent... something's going to be incredibly stupid either way.

Option A: Dakota isn't the one giving the orders in battle, I've been playing some weird fusion of either Dakota and Katarina or Dakota and Marth depending on whether we're talking before or after Katarina's betrayal, and Marth is being ridiculous thinking that Dakota is deserving of any unique credit for making this happen beyond his impressive efforts as a humble soldier...

...or Option B: Dakota is the one giving the orders in battle, I the player have been the representative purely of Dakota's orders and nobody else's, Katarina really was a completely useless freeloader who never contributed anything of strategic value in the prologue and made it through exclusively due to having a super-talented partner, and Marth really did idiotically consider that freeloader a shoo-in for a position in his royal guard.

I trust you see the problem. Either one of these options could be argued to be true... but not both. Not realistically. Not without a suspension-of-disbelief-shattering array of mental gymnastics.

Either Katarina really wasn't actually giving us any strategies, or this bizarre exchange makes basically no sense at all.

...Moving on...

Weirdly, during the ending text crawl, there's no gap between the screens. Text appears at the bottom of the top screen right as it vanishes from the top of the bottom screen.

Alright. Here are my results:

Prologue I: 3 turns.

Prologue II: 4 turns.

Prologue III: 6 turns.

Prologue IV: 4 turns.

Prologue V: 6 turns.

Prologue VI: 5 turns.

Prologue VII: 6 turns.

Prologue VIII: 14 turns.

Chapter 1: 9 turns.

Chapter 2: 9 turns.

Chapter 3: 29 turns.

Chapter 3x: 10 turns.

Chapter 4: 18 turns.

Chapter 5: 23 turns.

Chapter 6: 33 turns.

Chapter 6x: 1 turn.

Chapter 7: 8 turns.

Chapter 8: 5 turns.

Chapter 9: 14 turns.

Chapter 10: 18 turns.

Chapter 10x: 4 turns.

Chapter 11: 28 turns.

Chapter 12: 21 turns.

Chapter 13: 26 turns.

Chapter 13x: 13 turns.

Chapter 14: 30 turns.

Chapter 15: 34 turns.

Chapter 16: 28 turns.

Chapter 16x: 5 turns.

Chapter 17: 38 turns.

Chapter 18: 10 turns.

Chapter 19: 32 turns.

Chapter 20: 42 turns.

Chapter 20x: 23 turns.

Chapter 21: 33 turns.

Chapter 22: 10 turns.

Chapter 23: 9 turns.

Endgame: 1 turn.

I, uh...

I hope you'll excuse me if I... don't in fact list the battle statistics for every unit. Just the ones that saw significant use.

Luke: 51B 30W. Apparently Luke retired from the army and devoted his life to being a playboy. Thaaaaaat sounds like him. Pity I couldn't use him more, but he just wasn't that useful. And honestly I don't know if I ever intend to use him if and when I ever play again. Belf and Leiden are so much better than him and require absolutely no early-game combat investment, showing up instead at a point where it's much easier to feed kills to units and they already have utility from the get-go. Really, I feel like investing in other early units while I wait for Belf and Leiden to show up is a better strategy.

Rody: 20B 11W. He just got completely screwed. Apparently he's damned near objectively better than Luke, but that just didn't play out at all in his early level ups, and his bases weren't doing him any favors either.

Cecil: 28B 15W. Like Luke, she just kinda fell off. She never managed to break the threshold where she could do anything truly impressive, but then almost nobody but Dakota did before around Anri's Way.

Apparently Ryan joined something called... the “Temple Knights” in Altea? The fuck is that?

Arran: 36B 23W. Useful, but not nearly as useful as Jagen had been in Shadow Dragon. High weapon ranks and flight can only get you so far in this game.

Malicia: 2B 0W. Now, when I first saw this, and noticed the lack of the “1L”, I was like “What, this game doesn't even think losses are worth keeping track of anymore? Exhibit 57B in how reset-happy the intended playstyle is”... but then I replayed the endgame of Shadow Dragon just to check, and sure enough, Shadow Dragon doesn't do it either. I could've sworn it did, but I was wrong, and I'm glad I checked. I'd have looked like such an ass if I kept that complaint in without double-checking. Anyway... Rest in peace, Malicia. You were sorely, sorely missed. Especially that Hammerne utility.

Catria: 62B 33W. Yet another RIP. She was never a huge player in my strategies, never as useful in the early-game as Palla nor as useful in the late-game as Leiden, but still a valuable member of my air force nonetheless, and my air force was very valuable as a group.

Linde: 30B 18W. RIP. From shaping up to surpass Merric on my team... to being cut down like freshly-grown wheat. ...If wheat were cut down with a cursed battle axe. What a pity. What a pity.

Palla: 77B 46W. After her promotion in 6x, she was a strong contender for best unit in my army, possibly not even excluding Dakota. But holy shit were those good times not to last. Her speed just did not keep up with everyone, and eventually she stopped doubling, and with that... she basically became to the rest of my army what Arran once was to her.

Wrys: 3B 0W. RIP. Your death was not in vain, Wrys. ...But it was on purpose. You bought me valuable time to keep the important units alive in that hellish fog of war.

Yumina: 11B 3W. While I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have seen nearly as much action if I didn't spend most of the game mistakenly thinking the rescue staff was still locked to her, by the time I realized that, she was good enough at her job that I really didn't have any prime candidates to replace her with. And once I lost Malicia, she became more precious and crucial than ever.

Sirius: 13B 7W. He probably would have been more useful, and maybe might not have died, if I had given him some more early experience. But as things stood, he was just too slow, and that low speed was his undoing. Thankfully I was able to bring him back.

...Why is Castor's title “Sly Swindler”...?

Caeda: 72B 46W. Honestly I couldn't tell you which run I found Caeda more useful in. Her job was basically the same as it was before: using slayer weapons to take out dangerous foes with her high speed, and she pulled that off awesomely. Sadly, she just couldn't compare to Leiden though.

...But let's take a second to discuss her title. “Marth's Fiancee”. What? When are these names being given? Why is that her epithet instead of “Marth's Wife” or “Marth's Bride”, when her “where are they now” text is exclusively about her wedding to Marth?

Rickard: 1B 0W. Rest in peace, Rickard. Killed by my own stupidity.

Wendell: 6B 0W. Worth a mention for his instrumental role in my endgame plan. Things could have gone horribly wrong if I didn't have the extra options deploying him afforded me.

Caesar's ending has the history books apparently unsure whether he lived peacefully with his sister, or died in battle. Weird. How can they be unsure of that but also still be calling Caeda Marth's Fiancee? When are these being written!?

Feena: 2B 0W. Rest in peace. The third and final casualty of The Mask Laughs, and arguably the most devastating. I can't tell you the number of times having her in my army would have expanded my options.

Curious how Bantu's ending says he “discarded” his dragonstone, while it isn't even guaranteed that you got his dragonstone back.

Minerva: 14B 3W. About as useful as she was in Shadow Dragon... which isn't very. Just about everyone else who ever became a dracoknight was faster than her. Still, I'm glad I kept her alive.

...Apparently she worked at a convent after giving up on being queen? Not as a soldier defending the people, despite her saying she's a better fighter than leader? ...Huhhhh...

Etzel: 16B 9W. A filler staff bot, but I am exceedingly grateful that I put so much effort into making him one. I didn't wind up needing him, but that was only because Nagi and Merric both critted. He could've been my only hope in another timeline.

He “resumed his travels, as if looking for something he'd lost.” ...Man. Cool line, and pretty sad.

Merric: 72B 46W. THE FUCKING LEGEND HIMSELF. HOLY SHIT. SOMEONE GIVE THIS GUY A FUCKING MEDAL. 30 magic, 25 speed, A rank staves, this son of a bitch had it all by the end of the game, and holy shit did he use it. From the moment Linde died, he proved himself a crucial and totally worthy addition to my team, and cemented his status as my favorite mage in Fire Emblem history. You. Fucking. Rock. That speedwing to get him over the hump in Chapter 13? Totally worth it.

Hahahaha. The game says Dice and Malice both got crazy amounts of money from Marth for their role in the war. They contrast Dice gambling it all away with Malice building a weapon shop.

Jake and Anna apparently “dream of heading for a far-away continent one day”. Between that and the “keep me out of the history books” ass-covering, it's almost like they planned Awakening while they were making this game...

Robert: 77B 45W. Wow. He actually had a pretty good win record, on par with some of my best units. Did the buff he got in the endgame really change it that much? Regardless, I'm totally glad I did it. He was a huge help on player-phase. I just wish he could have been like that sooner. It's a shame that without a huge amount of help, he's a big liability.

Belf: 67B 52W. Man, I just love these guys. I love their designs, and I love their gameplay. Pity they're in a game I'm so... conflicted about.

Leiden: 99B 67W. The best of the three, but they all pulled their weight, no doubt about it. I'm almost glad I lost enough units to be tempted to deploy these guys.

Also, I love their titles. Grustian Peace, Grustian Peer, Grustian Pride.

Athena: 2B 0W. RIP I guess. You weren't worth 13x anyway, though maybe Iote's Shield was.

Xane: 3B 1W. Wow, I used him that little? I know I stopped bringing him towards the endgame, but that seems like I never once deployed him after his recruitment! Woooooow. Oh well. I had enough strong units that he didn't feel that useful.

Ah yes, I remember this. Est left Abel due to feeling completely worthless for being kidnapped and used to make Abel fight Marth. It's kind of sad how low her self-esteem is given how good she's capable of being. I saw someone online comment that Est doesn't believe in her potential like her fans do.

Astram's ending says he “finally tied the knot in his spare time”... though it doesn't say to Midia. So I guess we're just left to assume he pretty swiftly started dating somebody else and married her eventually.

Katarina: 1B 0W. Rest in peace, Katarina. That was just embarrassing.

Sheema apparently also declined the right to rule her country. I'd say I'm noticing a rather gendered pattern here, but in fairness, Merric apparently gave up on being a pontifex too, and neither Yumina nor Yubello wound up succeeding Grust.

Wolf is apparently suicidal, constantly throwing himself into battle. Shit. This game's done my man Wolf dirty.

Midia: 2B 0W. Rest in peace, Midia. Your sacrifice saved Etzel's life, and that saved the world.

Nagi: 22B 20W. ...It sounds like it's taking her drill grounds performance into her battle record. At any rate... ugh, what a disappointment. Granted, she still came in handy for player-phase combat, one-rounding dragons, but... I really wish I had known in advance how useless she'd be against Medeus. Still... that crit of hers definitely helped us salvage things.

Yeah, and her title is “Dragon King's Avatar”, which... kinda confirms things right there.

Nyna abdicated as well and left the world in Marth's hands before vanishing, probably to find “Sirius”.

Yyyyyyep. There's that pattern again.

Her title of “Eternal Princess” almost feels patronizing.

And... here's the big one...

Dakota: 432B 237W. ...Yeah. I uh... Yeah. For all of my gripes about his individual levels, the dude wound up amazing. He contributed literally nothing to the final battle, ironically enough, but until then I can't imagine how I would have functioned without him.

...So according to this, he didn't completely vanish from history. He was still revered as Altea's finest knight. So... what exactly is he giving Marth credit for...?

...Was it really option B? Was I really right about Katarina after all?

Marth: 86B 54W. After all that training, I'm kicking myself that I didn't send him to fight Medeus. If I had known Nagi would be so weak against him, I totally would have changed my plans. Honestly though, I wonder what you're even supposed to do to beat Medeus if you don't have Falchion?

Apparently I got a B in speed, a D in survival, and a B in tactics.

The game congratulates me and tells me reclass limits have been removed.

For men at least. ...Well I guess women still get the lady sword and nosferatu, right?

Anyway...

Boy am I glad I left that for today and didn't do it yesterday. The writeup for the epilogue alone took me three hours, and about 10 pages.

So then...

I guess I'll just post this...

...And get to work on the ranking.

Axie · December 12, 2020

option A in how that marth/avatar interaction happens is good to me? yes, the avatar isn't doing all the fighting or strategising alone, and it would be preposterous to assume so when the game explicitly tells you katarina was a strategist in the prologue, and jagen is also there afterwards, and marth isn't some helpless chump, but the avatar was a game changer (gameplay even supports this!), and marth would feel inappropriate not acknowledging this. it's an entirely fine exchange which fulfills all of its purposes well.

Alastor15243 · December 12, 2020

My Ranking

Difficulty: This game is, without a shadow of a doubt, the hardest game in the series so far, especially if you play on Lunatic. But the ways in which the higher difficulties are hard... are ways that I fundamentally disapprove of. This game pushed difficulty beyond what the core game formula was ever built to withstand, requiring multiple mid-battle save points just to preserve the player's sanity. Meanwhile Shadow Dragon H5 manages to be absolutely terrifying... but still completely realistic, even when ironmanning. So no, it's not beating Shadow Dragon in this category. New Mystery is harder... but it's not harder in a good way.

That being said... Lunatic isn't the only difficulty here, and there are games on this list that the more reasonable difficulties in this game compare favorably to. As a matter of fact, there's a hell of a lot of them. First off, ignoring for a moment the... extra content, playing New Mystery on Hard is a far more engaging and satisfyingly challenging experience than playing Mystery of the Emblem Book 2, by a damned country mile. Second... keep in mind that most of the games here have actually wound up boring me by the end in terms of difficulty, while this one decidedly did not. It did plenty of other things to me, but boredom was not one of them.

...I'm torn between third and fourth place. It definitely beats Radiant Dawn, but Thracia, for all its faults, did have some cool shit going on at times. But that's more “crazy fun factor” than actually engaging difficulty.

...Oh yeah, yeah, I just remembered all the nonsense I did in Thracia. New Mystery definitely beats it.

1: Shadow Dragon (1)

2: Binding Blade (2)

3: New Mystery (3)

4: Thracia 776 (4)

5: Radiant Dawn (5)

6: Blazing Blade (6)

7: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (7)

8: Genealogy of the Holy War (8)

9: Gaiden (9)

10: Sacred Stones (10)

11: Path of Radiance (11)

12: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (12)

13: Dark Dragon (13)

Ironmannability:

...Now.

...To be fair...

It isn't the worst game on the list.

It isn't impossible to resist crits, it actually has a prep menu where you can move your units' starting positions around, it doesn't have a cast small enough to fit in a kiddie pool, it doesn't have any outrageously unfair or unintuitive recruitment requirements, the gaidens don't hide a monty haul of badly-needed resources behind requirements you can't possibly know in advance, and neither of its fog of war chapters, for all of the absurdity of their limitations, ever required you to rush blindly forward like a madman in a race against time, or had victory tied to the survival of a green unit who always has a chance to die no matter how well you play, or had a staff user hiding in the dark who applied a nigh-inescapable, map-permanent status effect to whatever three non-magical schmucks they happened to want to target.

...No. As long as you aren't playing the highest difficulties, there are... unquestionably worse games on this list to do an ironman run of. Which can probably be evidenced by the fact that I just barely managed to scrape by in mine. I have to remind myself of this. This was by far my most painful ironman run... when you don't count all of the ones I failed.

I think I'll put it just below Radiant Dawn. Looking back, the idea of ironmanning Binding Blade or Blazing Blade blind is sounding just a tad more ridiculous than this.

Make no mistake though: the stuff this game does in the gaiden chapters is still completely inexcusable, and the developers clearly went out of their way to make this game significantly less realistic to ironman than the original. Words cannot express my disappointment that this game somehow managed to, in this regard, make a game worse than the game it was remaking. And that's to say nothing about how pathetic the prepromotes are. I would've been seriously hurting if more of my main guys died later in the game. Units with those stats just can't contribute anything like they could in Shadow Dragon.

1: Shadow Dragon (2)

2: Genealogy of the Holy War (10)

3: Path of Radiance (14)

4: Sacred Stones (14)

5: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (12)

6: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (18)

7: Radiant Dawn (12)

8: New Mystery (11)

9: Binding Blade (11)

10: Blazing Blade (16)

11: Dark Dragon (24)

12: Gaiden (21)

13: Thracia 776 (17)

Usability: I mean, there's really no need to even discuss this. Shadow Dragon had the best usability until now. One of its few flaws was that it didn't display dragonstone stat bonuses. New Mystery has basically the same system, except it does display said bonuses, and fixes some weird staff ordering bugs and the like. New Mystery wins.

1: New Mystery (12)

2: Shadow Dragon (4)

3: Genealogy of the Holy War (13)

4: Path of Radiance (18)

5: Blazing Blade (21)

6: Sacred Stones (20)

7: Binding Blade (18)

8: Radiant Dawn (20)

9: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (27) and Book 2 (21)

10: Thracia 776 (27)

11: Gaiden (32)

12: Dark Dragon (36)

Depth: I've gotta put this slightly above Shadow Dragon for simply making the inevitable improvements on the formula. The addition of a customizable avatar definitely mixes things up in interesting ways, as do those star shards, even if they don't last, and to a lesser extent the fact that units generally get better growths and stats to better differentiate themselves from each other. Along with the new rescue staff and dancer and tonics and bonds. Buuuuut... it's not really enough to set it above the GBA games, I feel. So it just goes above Shadow Dragon.

1: Genealogy of the Holy War (14)

2: Thracia 776 (29)

3: Radiant Dawn (23)

4: Path of Radiance (22)

5: Gaiden (37)

6: Sacred Stones (26)

7: Binding Blade (25)

8: Blazing Blade (29)

9: New Mystery (21)

10: Shadow Dragon (14)

11: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (38) and Book 2 (32)

12: Dark Dragon (48)

Balance: Oh dear, this shitshow of a list. I have second guesses about my placement of Shadow Dragon on this list. A lot of Shadow Dragon's gameplay revolves around exploiting the game's absurdly heavy focus on enemies with slayer weaknesses, which is literally the only reason it's so easy for units to contribute even with their terrible stats that weren't remotely adjusted to reflect how far in the game you get them. Unless your name is Sedgar or Wolf, weapon ranks (particularly in lances and staves) are way more important than stats or growth rates. And that's to say nothing of how completely worthless many classes are, something that was slightly fixed in New Mystery by the tweaking of class bases, though not enough to change which classes are the best.

...But I still don't know where to place it. This list is a complete mess, and I'm honestly not confident in my placement of anything. The entire affair is a continuous game of comparing rotten apples to oranges with razorblades in them. Every game has something incredibly stupid about it that it's difficult to compare one-to-one with the nonsense in any other game on this list. So frankly... I think I'm gonna put a pin in this for now. I wanna try and see if there's something else gameplay-related I can unveil as a new category when we get to Awakening, or maybe a way to re-assess and properly tier this garbage fire, and honestly, I'd like to see how significantly the complete, if possibly temporary, removal of this category alters the final results on this list.

Pacing: While it got better towards the end, this game did basically nothing to improve upon the ridiculous map design of the original game, aside from using the same speedy engine as Shadow Dragon. The Macedonian mountain trek, the icy wastelands, that ridiculous detour in Gra Keep, the desert map... and unlike Shadow Dragon, its reinforcements don't give you anything to do while you collect all of the terribly-placed treasure. Also, can I just point out that this game didn't add in a single new playable thief to the game? All of that running around for chests, and you still only have three chest openers aside from one master key and a thief staff! I ask you!

...I hesitate to put it below the Tellius games though. Using the same speedy engine as Shadow Dragon... having a skip button... those things are a big deal. So I guess I'll put it below Sacred Stones.

1: Shadow Dragon (15)

2: Blazing Blade (31)

3: Binding Blade (28)

4: Sacred Stones (30)

5: New Mystery (26)

6: Radiant Dawn (29)

7: Path of Radiance (29)

8: Thracia 776 (37)

9: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (47)

10: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (42)

11: Gaiden (48)

12: Dark Dragon (60)

13: Genealogy of the Holy War (27)

Writing: Honestly, it's kind of pathetic that I'm in a situation where I'm even debating whether or not this game deserves a higher ranking in writing than the original. For every support conversation I found interesting and worthwhile, there were like 10 that were nonsensical, stupid, boring, or completely pointless. And basically every addition this game made to the story was either neutral or detrimental to the whole. The prologue was either meh or infuriatingly stupid depending on the interpretation of what's going on with strategy in the army, the assassin subplot was a shameless excuse to throw in pointless filler characters without adding anything truly interesting, Eremiah is just a mess, oh, and let's not forget the game's ridiculous insistence on repeatedly punctuating what are supposed to be hugely dramatic moments in the story with idiotic shenanigans about some new hat Dakota's trying on.

Add in that I sadly have to judge it by the fan translation rather than the fantastic localization it should have gotten, and...

...Okay, I'll put it above Book 2, but not a single slot higher.

1: Path of Radiance (30)

2: Genealogy of the Holy War (29)

3: Blazing Blade (34)

4: Radiant Dawn (33)

5: Thracia 776 (42)

6: Binding Blade (34)

7: Sacred Stones (37)

8: Shadow Dragon (23)

9: New Mystery (35)

10: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (52)

11: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (58)

12: Dark Dragon (72)

13: Gaiden (61)

Music: Okay, New Mystery definitely beats Shadow Dragon here. While it ruined a few of my favorites in Book 2, it also added in more resounding hits than there were even songs in Book 2 that I tolerated. There are just so many great songs, like Before Battle, Tearing Shadows, Murderous Puppets, Those Who Dare To Change History, Dark Emperor Hardin...

...It's not my favorite though. Definitely better than the GBA games, but as for Path of Radiance and the SNES games... no, I don't think so. While it had a ton of hits, it also had a good deal of duds, while the soundtracks to the SNES games are insanely well-rounded with some really memorable hits, and Path of Radiance's soundtrack, while not always catchy, is nearly always beautiful.

1: Genealogy of the Holy War (30)

2: Thracia 776 (44)

3: Path of Radiance (33)

4: New Mystery (39)

5: Blazing Blade (39)

6: Sacred Stones (43)

7: Radiant Dawn (40)

8: Shadow Dragon (31)

9: Gaiden (70)

10: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (62)

11: Binding Blade (45)

12: Dark Dragon (84)

13: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (71)

Presentation: ...I think I was a bit too hard on the presentation of the DS games. It's definitely grown on me. While it still doesn't hold a candle to the sheer beauty of the GBA games... I think it at least beats the SNES ones. As for which one is better... well, New Mystery makes a greater effort to use CGs I suppose, and it adds that signature flash whenever you score a crit, and those wing dust effects... it's a ridiculously close call, barely worth even making a distinction on, but... I mean the distinction is there.

1: Radiant Dawn (41)

2: Path of Radiance (35)

3: Blazing Blade (42)

4: Sacred Stones (47)

5: Binding Blade (50)

6: New Mystery (45)

7: Shadow Dragon (38)

8: Thracia 776 (52)

9: Genealogy of the Holy War (39)

10: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (81) and Book 2 (72)

11: Gaiden (81)

12: Dark Dragon (96)

Replayability: This was a tricky one. A large part of Shadow Dragon's replayability score is in the sheer number of difficulty settings it has. New Mystery has almost as many, along with some clear bonuses if you beat the game on various difficulties, but... I also don't consider those difficulties to be worth playing and have no desire to ever play them, so... it doesn't really get the same high marks that Shadow Dragon got. I'll put it right below Gaiden. Reclassing is cool and all, but it's so free-form and fluid that there's little distinction between how a unit plays in one playthrough to another. You'll be reclassing them to the same classes for the same situations.

...Then again, Gaiden had an almost completely fixed cast, small enough that you always use the same units, so that reclassing was basically all the variety you got...

...Yeah, that was a bad comparison I just made with reclassing. I'll put it below Binding Blade. That's got a lot of parallels. Gaiden chapters, a good and bad ending... but Binding Blade also has two alternate routes, and gaiden chapters that are actually full proper chapters, so I'd say it's better.

1: Genealogy of the Holy War (40)

2: Sacred Stones (49)

3: Shadow Dragon (41)

4: Blazing Blade (46)

5: Binding Blade (55)

6: New Mystery (51)

7: Thracia 776 (59)

8: Gaiden (89)

9: Path of Radiance (44)

10: Radiant Dawn (51)

11: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (92)

12: Dark Dragon (108)

13: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (85)

Alright, then let's check out what the new ranking is...

OVERALL:

1: Genealogy of the Holy War (40)

2: Shadow Dragon (41)

3: Path of Radiance (44)

4: Blazing Blade (46)

5: Sacred Stones (49)

6/7: New Mystery (51)

6/7: Radiant Dawn (51)

8: Binding Blade (55)

9: Thracia 776 (59)

10: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (85)

11: Gaiden (89)

12: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (92)

13: Dark Dragon (108)

...Well. I asked for what the result would be if I took balance out... and apparently this is it. Suddenly Genealogy of the Holy War is the best game on the list again, beating out Shadow Dragon by a hair.

...I hate how little this list gels with my actual desire to play these games again.

But for now, that's what we've got.

And that means...

That on Monday...

...We're finally playing... the game.

That game.

The one that saved the franchise, or revived it as an unrecognizable zombie, whatever your take on it is, and introduced a huge number of new fans to the franchise.

Fire. Emblem. Awakening.

Ooooooh, it's gonna be such a trip getting back to this game.

Stay safe, everyone!

Sunwoo · December 12, 2020

@Alastor15243 I'll be honest, I think the only game that's actually good about not having women abandon the throne is the Tellius series. The rulers of all three beorc nations are women, with the guy Pelleas being the one to give up the throne to a more competent and beloved leader who also happens to be female. The Tellius laguz leaders are all male, but Nailah being the queen of Hatari shows that women aren't incapable of being laguz rulers and puts things at a 4-to-4 balance ... before Tibarn becomes king of all the bird tribes later.

Awakening and Fates take a step backwards compared to Tellius in terms of female rulers. Fates is especially bad in that Camilla gives up the throne to Leo, localized Hinoka says that if Takumi were alive she would've given up the throne to him because he would be a better leader than her (which honestly just goes to show how much Hinoka didn't give a fuck about Takumi, and just makes me wonder why they changed the Japanese version to make Hoshido's throne based on age instead of gender), and how Azura the rightful queen of Valla gives up the throne to Corrin, who is the player's avatar and is "special", and is still male 50% of the time. (Can't say much about 3H, I'm still playing it.)

Can't say that I expected the earlier games, even if they are remakes, to really be good about this at all.

Alastor15243 · December 12, 2020

57 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

@Alastor15243 I'll be honest, I think the only game that's actually good about not having women abandon the throne is the Tellius series. The rulers of all three beorc nations are women, with the guy Pelleas being the one to give up the throne to a more competent and beloved leader who also happens to be female. The Tellius laguz leaders are all male, but Nailah being the queen of Hatari shows that women aren't incapable of being laguz rulers and puts things at a 4-to-4 balance ... before Tibarn becomes king of all the bird tribes later.

Awakening and Fates take a step backwards compared to Tellius in terms of female rulers. Fates is especially bad in that Camilla gives up the throne to Leo, localized Hinoka says that if Takumi were alive she would've given up the throne to him because he would be a better leader than her (which honestly just goes to show how much Hinoka didn't give a fuck about Takumi, and just makes me wonder why they changed the Japanese version to make Hoshido's throne based on age instead of gender), and how Azura the rightful queen of Valla gives up the throne to Corrin, who is the player's avatar and is "special", and is still male 50% of the time. (Can't say much about 3H, I'm still playing it.)

Can't say that I expected the earlier games, even if they are remakes, to really be good about this at all.

True. I don't believe Three Houses has any examples of this, but then if I remember correctly, neither does Awakening. But I'll be getting a good refresher on that shortly!

Axie · December 13, 2020

oh, new mystery actually isn't as low as i expected it to be, but i guess not having the balance category helped it. that's the one category it could be very low and i wouldn't feel like it would be lowballed on. (as i definitely feel like it was in some, though the writing ranks are so different from what i would do that i am not sure what counts as a lowball for me there)

looking forward to the awakening playlog! we may not agree about writing much, but god it's gonna be fun to read a roast of awakening in your style. it's such a lovably roastable game. i'm unable to hate any of it, as clearly batshit as all of it is.

Edited December 13, 2020 by Axie

Alastor15243 · December 13, 2020

6 minutes ago, Axie said:

looking forward to the awakening playlog! we may not agree about writing much, but god it's gonna be fun to read a roast of awakening in your style. it's such a lovably roastable game. i'm unable to hate any of it, as clearly batshit as all of it is.

I've learned to "love" Fates' story in a similar way, and I'm looking forward to more critically examining Awakening in this marathon, since I haven't played the game in like 2 years, and I haven't paid attention to the story in... fuck, I'd say like four or five.

One thing this game is going to have going for it in the writing department is how effectively, and deliberately funny it is. It's got a lot of genuinely good writing in the support area in addition to all the nonsense.

And yeah, games rarely wind up as low on the list as it feels like they would be at the time. But of course... an issue is that I personally just do not agree with my own list. It's kind of become a running gag that while I stand by my rankings of each category, when I mash them all up into one combined averages list... those aren't actually the games I found myself having the most fun with a lot of the time. Like I have barely any desire to play Genealogy any time soon.

Edited December 13, 2020 by Alastor15243

Benice · December 13, 2020

4 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

And yeah, games rarely wind up as low on the list as it feels like they would be at the time. But of course... an issue is that I personally just do not agree with my own list. It's kind of become a running gag that while I stand by my rankings of each category, when I mash them all up into one combined averages list... those aren't actually the games I found myself having the most fun with.

Maybe have gameplay be 3x the amount of points?

Anyways, I'm still reading! I won't have much to say until Berwick Saga and roasting Three Houses, though.

Alastor15243 · December 13, 2020

6 minutes ago, Benice said:

Maybe have gameplay be 3x the amount of points?

Maybe. I could experiment with double for starters...

6 minutes ago, Benice said:

Anyways, I'm still reading! I won't have much to say until Berwick Saga and roasting Three Houses, though.

Sorry those are going to be taking so long! Hopefully you'll keep enjoying things in the meantime!

Axie · December 13, 2020

you really should just have a category to quantify how mentally demanding it was to critically review the game for a playlog because that definitely has not alligned with your opinion on the game's quality every single time. you have ranked PoR highly, and deservedly so, but i was surprised reading the playlog that it drained you enough that you needed a break. it's the second last game i'd guess one would need a break on (last is awakening, so let's see how you feel about it lol).

Alastor15243 · December 13, 2020

1 minute ago, Axie said:

you really should just have a category to quantify how mentally demanding it was to critically review the game for a playlog because that definitely has not alligned with your opinion on the game's quality every single time. you have ranked PoR highly, and deservedly so, but i was surprised reading the playlog that it drained you enough that you needed a break. it's the second last game i'd guess one would need a break on (last is awakening, so let's see how you feel about it lol).

Those games were so draining because there was just so much story to read, react to, and write responses to. It took a lot out of me, writing something like 10 page essays on a daily basis, complete with proofreading. It was good stuff, but it was a loooooooooot to deal with.

Alastor plays and ranks the whole series! Mission Complete! ...For now.

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