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

[Alastor15243]

9 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I am going to disagree with this idea for one simple reason; there are more than two nations in Fates. Fate's world building is so terrible that it can be hard to tell at times, but those other nations do not get the same treatment. The army of Mokushu, or the wind tribe use the same classes as Hoshido, the rebels of Cheve or the Ice Tribe use Nohrian classes, etc. . Looking at some outliers as well, the one unit of Izumo, and the Fire tribe we see are both of Hoshidan classes, not to mention the guardians of the Rainbow Sage being of classes that cross regions...

Yeah, but I said more successful. It's got problems, but it took the concept further than any other game in the series.

[Axie]

11 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

As someone that has never used Camilla outside her join chapter on Lunatic Conquest, I disagree with the idea that Camilla is irreplaceable in the gameplay.

well, you can also finish sacred stones without seth, but that doesn't make his contributions replaceable by another unit in the slightest. i guess the "without gimping your team" after "replaceable" was implied and not that clear lol. camilla just makes your life so much easier always. 

[Benice]

To be honest, I don't really dislike Fates' story at all. I think it has a lot of problems, but I just choose to not question it and enjoy the rather bumpy ride alongside the nice gameplay. I probably won't be defending it here, but I guess I just feel that it's not as bad as people give it credit for. Most of the time.

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, Benice said:

To be honest, I don't really dislike Fates' story at all. I think it has a lot of problems, but I just choose to not question it and enjoy the rather bumpy ride alongside the nice gameplay. I probably won't be defending it here, but I guess I just feel that it's not as bad as people give it credit for. Most of the time.

Well, "bash, bash, bash!" can lead to that feeling I'd think. Similarly, "praise, praise, praise!" can result in the contrary, a feeling, mild or strong, to rebuke the encomia bestowed on the game. Are the games least spoken about, the ones most inoffensive?

Edited January 12, 2021 by Interdimensional Observer

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

15 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Are the games least spoken about, the ones most inoffensive?

More likely that they are the least played, especially when considering JP exclusives and other limitations brought about by ROM availability.

 

I seem to remember something about a recent thread defending Fates, solely because it was talked down so much. 

[Axie]

oh i still LOVE the fates games, or at least birthright and conquest (revelation is... fine). gameplay trumps storyline and fates has such good gameplay, i could withstand an even worse storyline for it. but it is indeed a pretty terrible and indefensible storyline lol.

in fact, i don't think there is a single fire emblem game with truly bad gameplay, so none of the games are bad. maybe the original first game, but product of its time, and it has a remake, so it doesn't have to count anymore.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Axie said:

in fact, i don't think there is a single fire emblem game with truly bad gameplay, so none of the games are bad. maybe the original first game, but product of its time, and it has a remake, so it doesn't have to count anymore.

I disagree, because Binding Blade and the Jugdral games exist.

[Alastor15243]

Revelation Day 2: Chapter 3

Aw man, Elise is adorable. She's coming with Dakota to talk to Garon, presumably in the hopes that her cuteness will make it harder for Garon to be mad. She's completely wrong, but I just love the effort.

And then we have Garon's smiling portrait, which is just... the most ridiculous thing. But yeah, presumably he was talking with the Great Ceiling Dragon Anankos. Which of course begs the question about what Xander and the others felt when their father just openly started worshipping some completely unknown dragon other than the dusk dragon, having a statue in his honor built and affixed to the damned ceiling of the throne room.

So yeah, we're off to investigate some “abandoned fort” on the border with Felicia, Gunter and Hans.

...I'm sorry, has anyone here seen Bad Lip Reading? Gang Fight?

“Hey Gunter! Hey Hans!”

I literally just noticed that.

The game insists that lightning strikes all who fly across, but the map designers didn't get the memo, because there are flying reinforcements on this map.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Dakota: Hans, what are you doing?! We had no reason to engage these troops!

Hans: Pfft.

I'm sorry, I'm just... that's making me laugh uncontrollably for some reason.

But also, this is patently absurd. Garon already said we were at war with Hoshido. How can we have a border treaty with a country we are actively at war with?

But yeah. So we take out the two myrmidons since Dakota's just barely strong enough to one-shot them with a Gunter pair-up, and then we let Hans suicide into the obstacle on the other side of the bridge. After that, you're given a few options for how to proceed. I decide to take the middle route, opening up the northern dragon vein. With that...

...Nope, I remember why I never take that path. Far as I can tell, it's impossible to avoid being attacked by like three or four archers at once if you take that route. And given I have nobody who's both sturdy and has 1-2 range... yeah, we're taking the southern bridge and fighting the main force.

Finally a really good level up! Corrin got strength, speed, luck, defense and resistance! Awesome. I was starting to get really, really worried, since in Revelation, well... Corrin kinda carries the whole early game.

Honestly, this map isn't so great. While it doesn't waste too much time due to swift interface speed, there are a lot of little things about this map that make it annoying, like the large number of enemies compared to your forces, the fact that you have to wait on a fort to heal Felicia, and also just the risk of changing your mind about a path because it turns out to be a bad idea. Like... I'm reminded of my memories with the rest of Revelation.

Ah yes, and the infamous “We've got trouble!” voice clip plays. Honestly, it's... I find Felicia weirdly endearing. I don't find “We've got trouble!” to be any dumber than... the rest of the shit with this story.

But this was prompted by the first reinforcement spawn of the game, and... they aren't ambush spawns! They're triggered by getting in range of the enemies near the castle, like the shit FE12 pulled... but they aren't ambush spawns! So you actually have a chance to process them and respond! Yeah, this is another thing that makes Birthright and Conquest amazing. This game can throw some nasty reinforcements at you, but you always have a chance to respond even if you've never played this game before. But these pegasus knights really weren't that tough, and didn't pose a threat to anyone but Felicia. Who was thankfully able to flee.

HP, strength, skill, speed, defense and resistance! Woo! Boy am I glad we don't have to deal with a bad avatar today.

Anyway, after clearing the enemies around the abandoned fort, I go to kill the enemies up north, just for the extra xp, because... yeah, I have no idea how dumb Rev Lunatic gets.

Ah yes. Felicia gets a decent level up, three stats, mag, speed and... I think the third was res? Anyway, one thing that annoys me about the game is that it does nothing to tell you that Jakob and Felicia have 20 extra levels. Not that they generally last that long with me (I have never had a Jakob or Felicia who didn't drop off by level 20, if they even got that far), but it would've been nice to know that they weren't designed to be borderline unusable with terrible stats for their level and no super growth rates to compensate.

Oh yeah, so, seeing iffy hit rates reminds me: this game uses a hybrid RN system. It's 1 RN when below 50%, but above that it uses this weighted 2 RN system that's kinda like one and a half RN.

Level 7, HP, strength, skill, speed and defense. I'm loving this.

...Oh yeah, also, this is a seize chapter, because Fates actually has those. Weirdly though, anyone can seize, which... honestly, with that change, the only real difference between “seize” and “kill boss” is that you don't have to avoid killing the boss before getting all the treasure or something like that.

...Well, killing all the enemies took me 40 turns. Those 40 turns went by faster than that sounds, but... yeah, holy shit. In fairness, that was kinda self-inflicted. I didn't have to kill those enemies on the northern fort.

Seeing Elise laugh while watching Camilla slaughter people is... do I even need to say it? This game's tone is utterly fucked, but I feel like I'm preaching to the theocracy here.

And so Gunter gets hit twice, and that somehow causes the bridge to collapse from under him, but only the specific part he was standing on. No other part, horizontally or vertically, is affected. And this fills Dakota with a righteous fury that causes him to use his dragon powers for the first time.

Ah yes. Corrin's dragon powers. Honestly, the half-shifting he does with dragon fang (the stuff he uses in smash, for those of you who haven't played this) is way cooler than what he actually winds up doing with his full dragon form. The dragon form in this game is...

...Okay, actually, roughly half the weapons in this game have annoying and utterly inexplicable limitations. In the dragonstone's case, it can't double attack. It's also not 1-2 range. I could live with 1-2 range but no doubling, or doubling but no 1-2 range, but giving it neither just makes it almost completely pointless. Almost. It does have its uses: tanking, weakening enemies for other units to take down, tanking while weakening enemies for other units to take down... also, it has high might and does magic damage so it can be useful for dual strikes, and it has no weapon triangle, which is a rarity in this game because the new weapon triangle adds in ranged weapons to it.

A lot of people find that hybrid weapon triangle difficult to memorize, but if you've played Awakening, all you have to remember is that grandmasters (swords and tomes) beat warriors (bows and axes). Remember that, and the rest is easy.

Ah yes, and... I don't think it's ever explained why Ganglari does this, but it suddenly glows and propels itself up in the air and off the bridge, sending Dakota plummeting to his death since he's holding it. And of course the animation of Dakota flying through the air like a man being dragged by the leash of his absurdly energetic flying dog is nothing short of hilarious.

Which is when we introduce Lilith, who reveals her true form as a space fish and saves Dakota's life.

Ah yes, because here's another character who does something better than Byleth: When Corrin needs a Dragon to bend the fabric of time and space to keep him from dying in the super-early-game, it's not because he couldn't handle some random small-time bandit, but because his sword literally came alive and plunged him off a cliff out of nowhere.

Why no, incidentally, I won't ever let Byleth live that down. This fucker is supposed to be the long-time student of one of the greatest warriors the world has ever seen, he's three years older than Lucina and Ike, and yet he needed divine intervention to survive a fight with a bandit in the prologue!

Also there's the question of why Lilith, who knows full well the bottomless canyon isn't lethal, would feel the need to save Corrin from falling that badly... when letting him fall and then saving him could have probably helped a lot.

So, Lilith looks super dumb with her dragon form's 3d model, flying around while still holding onto that ball...

...but her theme is amazing, and her portrait is super cute.

But then she reminds him about that “strange bird” he rescued, that it was her... and I'm like “She doesn't even have fucking wings! She doesn't have any avian features at all! How could Corrin mistake this thing for a bird!?"

Apparently using the power she used makes it impossible for her to go back to her human form, which... really? Just flying super fast? That's it? She never, ever used that much power before in her whole life, even while serving Anankos?

But anyway yeah this is how they justify the My Castle feature. Your own private pocket dimension provided to you courtesy of Lilith, where you get to build your own castle, with shops and buildings and statues, and use it in battles with invaders or other teams.

I love this in gameplay, though it has some obvious hiccups in-story, since it's never explained what the limitations are. Though at least the game never lets you do anything with it during gameplay that would've saved you in-story. If it were like how Three Houses handles Divine Pulse, and it let you retreat to My Castle at any time, even during battles, then it would be even more stupid. But yeah, it has some hiccups. But it has its advantages too. It lets you justify having a consistent base system while still going on a journey across the country.

Because, of course, it would be patently ridiculous for a story revolving around a campaign of war across the continent to even attempt to do something as ludicrous as having you hike all the way back across the country after every single battle, right?

...Let's move on.

Dakota: And my mind is racing! I have so many questions about this world...

Lilith: All in good time.

Now, I know that she technically explains more about My Castle later, but... I can't help but read that as Lilith actively trying to avoid exposition about what the fuck is going on with the time castle, because the writers neither know nor care. Also, the idea that they're short for time in a realm where time doesn't fucking move in the real world while you're in it is laughable.

So, when Corrin returns, it's at the same place where he entered it (which works for the main story, but does nothing to explain paralogues, especially since not all of them take place in pocket dimensions), but he comes out... facing away from the cliff behind him. And then he's attacked from behind... while still facing away from the cliff.

Was Rinkah just casually hanging from the cliff in the hopes that somebody would magically appear, ripe for an ambush!?

 

Day 2 Bonus: Chapter 4

Okay, so “Valley Settlement” is confirmed to be a location in the Flame Tribe's territory. That's literally all of the Flame Tribe territory we ever get to see, the inside of that house... unless the game's trying to tell me that the faceless attack happens literally in that same area and that all of those villagers were flame tribe.

And then Mikoto shows up, and her voice lines are absolutely terribly emoted. I have never heard a more unconvincing “I am so happy” in my life.

I really like the music that plays during this scene though. The melody on that Japanese wind instrument I don't know the name of is really nice. In general I prefer the music of Nohr to that of Hoshido, but Hoshido still has some nice songs.

But yeah, then we're told about the invasion of faceless to the north, and how Sakura and Hinoka are in danger, and... what can I say? News travels fast without any explanation and I hate it.

The village has a goddess icon and I immediately take it and use it on Dakota.

This map's populated by faceless, which are big, hulking frankenstein meat machines in bondage gear. They look absolutely ridiculous and I love it. In terms of gameplay, they tend to be popular candidates for being given weird skills in all three routes, even the ones that aren't fans of giving enemies skills other than those of their class. This tends to make them rather interesting opponents. Here, they're our first introduction to seal skills, which are really dangerous if you can't one-round an enemy, because they're from a set of skills in this game that activate after battle if you're still alive, and these ones reduce a stat by six, only recovering by 1 each turn. Like with shuriken though, the debuffs don't stack.

...Not unless you have a certain enemy-only skill.

So I've had Kaze and Rinkah handle most of this, rushing off ahead to kill as many of these faceless as possible so Kaze can get some much-needed levels for next map.

Oh sweet, I got lucky! Hinoka got a crit against an enemy with a seal ability and thus avoided getting... I think her strength sealed, which would've been disastrous. Still, the faceless are creeping up on Sakura, and it's up to Ryoma to get to her in time, since I can't afford to be as trailblazing on Lunatic as I can on hard. Curiously, something I did with my movement choices caused Ryoma to go west instead of north, something I've never seen him do before.

...He chose not to make it in time because he considered the slightly closer faceless to the east more worth his time. Of course.

Kaze's first level up is skill, luck and res. Well, at least the res is important for next chapter.

And sadly I just barely failed to make it in time to save Sakura. Fortunately that has literally no gameplay or story impact, and she's fine, she just runs off.

Anyway, I talked to Hinoka to get the concoction, and Ryoma's fortunately not interested in beating the map for me by fighting the guys on the central mountain, so I'll handle it myself with Kaze. Like I said, he needs all the levels he can get for next chapter.

Kaze's second level is HP, speed and res. More res is definitely appreciated, and speed is to be expected, but... some strength maybe?

But the boss has both seal strength and seal defense, and I can't one round him, so I have to be careful about not having Kaze fight until the final blow, because with -6 strength he literally can't attack.

Sadly the boss kill didn't net Kaze a level. Oh well. That's it for this map. 19 turns. Yeah, that's something I didn't notice about these starting chapters... they tend to take plenty of turns.

Oh man, hearing Hinoka cry just reminds me of how off-putting I found Hinoka's voice when I first played. A lot of the voice acting in this game is just... yeah, it's not on Awakening's level.

So Hinoka brings up Mikoto's magical pacifism barrier that prevents anything but mindless meat-machines from having the will to fight upon crossing into Hoshidan territory, and...

...Does it literally only work on people with Nohr blood? Because Corrin's just fine.

And what the fuck was going on with Chapter 3? What's the point of guarding the border from outside the limits of the barrier? Wouldn't it have been safer to set up the border guard somewhere safer than the bottomless canyon? Minimize the number of skirmishes they have with Nohr? What's the point of guarding the bottomless canyon? What strategic value does it have?

...I don't know why I even ask these questions. There isn't an answer to any of them.

Anyway, Mikoto shows Dakota his old room, including what looks like a little toy car except it's a mini mechanist mount instead.

Then Dakota is invited to “explore the castle, or stroll the grounds outside”, and... in the words of HCBailly... “Remember that for later, viewers.” That is going to be very important to one of the dumbest instances of “they didn't give a shit”ery this game has to offer. And it happens early in Revelation.

Because while he was “strolling the castle grounds”... he runs into Azura at a pool.

I actually weirdly like this scene here with Azura and Dakota talking, and Dakota asking what she'd do if given the option to go back to her birth family. He's trying to decide what to do about his own situation, so he's asking what Azura, who's in the opposite situation, would have done. 'Course there's the issue of the blatant one-sided morality contrast between Hoshido and Nohr coming up again that keeps it from being too interesting.

 

Day 2 Bonus Bonus: Chapter 5

And this is where the Hoshidan throne is introduced, and its mystical powers to cause anyone who sits on it to “regain their true form and mind”. Now, as terribly as it's used in this game, I actually like the premise here, and how it's introduced.

See, they introduce it because of the latter power, but the payoff for this plot point is actually about the former. They introduce it with a red herring that makes it less obvious what it's going to be used for, but still properly introduces it as a plot point. And also, it makes sense for a throne to have these powers. Making sure that the person running the country isn't brainwashed or a shapeshifting impostor is a valuable thing for a throne to do, especially since the story demonstrates that both of these things can happen.

...Of course I wish they said something like that to demonstrate why it had this power, because...

...Well we'll get to that when we play Conquest.

Also, the throne is comically gargantuan. Like, you could probably lie back on the seat and only be danging off the edge from the knees down.

But of course we're interrupted before Dakota can decide whether or not to sit on it, and...

...ah yes.

Takumi.

Takumi.

All the time.

You put the fire on me.

Yes, the man, the meme, the legend. He goes by many names.

Tacomeme.

He who must be blamed.

Pineapple head.

Bitchface.

Whatever you call him, he is... something else, lemme tell ya.

But he doesn't say much yet, just a “Hmph” at the idea of leading us around town.

And then we're shown a lovely, idyllic town full of shops and people with masks on their heads they aren't wearing.

...And then Takumi speaks up and hoooooooly shit is he an ass. Distrust of Dakota is understandable, but apparently he doesn't think Azura's “earned the privilege” of referring to him by name, and wooooow.

Also, this conversation:

Dakota: You know, I'm very close with a girl in Nohr who's about your age.

Sakura: (Blushing) Is she your girlfriend?

I... I... wow.

Anyway, so, here's something I noticed with the cutscene. While they do their best to conceal the avatar's face... they still don't do anything to hide the avatar's outfit and build, and... it's clearly not the female outfit. There is no alternate version of the cutscene for a female avatar. They change the voice and all, but not the outfit. No thigh windows on the clothes or anything. I guess they were lazy and figured the thigh window would be more conspicuous with a male avatar than the lack of it would be with a female one?

But yeah, then an invisible soldier shows up, force-pulls Ganglari out of Dakota's hands, and makes it blow up, killing dozens of innocent people who fall flail around goofily in slow motion as they're knocked back by the purple explosion.

...And then Mikoto dies shielding him from the explosion, and Dakota turns into a dragon. And the game over music plays, and it's a great song, but... it's just never used in a scene I give a shit about. But anyway, Dakota's gone semi-mad. He obeys our commands, we can control him and everything, but he can't pair up. He's ridiculously powerful though, so he's instrumental to beating this map, as is Kaze. And Sakura. And Azura. And honestly Rinkah too given the pair-up bonuses she gives to Kaze that allow him to do much of any damage at all. Basically you need everyone here.

Anyway, we're fighting a bunch of mercenaries and dark mages while Ryoma fights a pseudo-rigged battle with the mystery swordmaster who's... fine, I won't talk about this right now because it's in the middle of the gameplay part and IntOb doesn't want to be spoiled and I can't imagine how hard it's going to be reading around this shit already without me randomly talking about story spoilers in the middle of gameplay. But yeah, I've never seen Ryoma win, but I've also never seen him lose during the first few turns either. He seems rigged to make some pretty unlikely dodges for the first few turns, and after that he's on his own.

Dakota gains almost no experience in his dragon form, so keep that in mind.

Kaze gets yet another point of res, which is pretty encouraging for how he'll perform down south. We'll have to see though. He needs Azura's help to kill one enemy a turn, but the enemies aren't coming that rapidly so we only need to rely on Dakota a little.

Oh yeah, so, I didn't talk about Sakura or Azura. Azura's a singer, and she's probably one of the best in the series because of her absurdly high availability. No refresher unit in the entire series is available for as much of the game as she is. Sakura's a shrine maiden, which is the Hoshidified version of the cleric class, which isn't in this game. She's got a rod (the Hoshidan counterpart to the staff) called a bloom festal. Rods are special in that while they're a bit weaker, they can heal at 1-2 range, which is insanely useful and made me really want to hold on to it for Conquest during my first run. Unfortunately I soon learned that no matter who you trade it to, it vanishes from your inventory if you side with Nohr.

Oh yeah! Speaking of support units, here's another cool change this game makes: it makes the exp support units gain scale with the level of the unit they use their ability on! So it no longer takes fucking forever to level up your healers and refreshers! Their exp gain keeps pace with the rest of the army's!

Anyway, I charge the southern area by sending in Kaze to tank the three mages (not the mercenary duo) and he survives thanks to his high res, the HP tonic you get this map, Sakura's “-2 damage taken by allies within 2 spaces” personal skill (oh yeah, that's a thing in this game, and all the royals have really useful ones), and the fact that two of the three attacks got dual guarded because when you double and counterattack everything, you only get hit by every other enemy attack thanks to the dual guard system. But yeah, this prompts some reinforcements to appear in the corners of the map. They can be scary if you don't know about them, but I put Corrin in the northeast corner to secure everyone's escape as Kaze runs away from the dark mages while countering them.

At level 8, Kaze finally gains his first point of strength. Yeah, either he's terrible, or I've just had terrible luck with him, because I've never seen this guy one-round anything without a crit. And keep in mind this is him with a pair-up partner giving him four more strength. Still, he's instrumental for this chapter. He's the only source of 1-2 range combat you have, which is pivotal for taking out all of these southern mages.

Azura gets her first level up: strength, speed and defense. The strength and speed are expected, but the defense is welcome. But she is likely never going to see combat, because she is possibly the most fragile unit in the entire history of Fire Emblem, especially when taking dual strikes into account. She has absolutely terrible HP and defense bases and growths, so a single round of combat is likely to get her slaughtered.

Oh hey, I think I forgot to mention this. I know I came close to talking about it when I mentioned the weird and wonky weapon traits, but... yeah, so, this game has infinite weapon durability. Not infinite staff durability, but infinite weapon durability at least. And unfortunately, the things they do to “compensate” for this are... probably my biggest complaints with Fates' balance.

Basically, almost every weapon in the game has some weird gimmick or drawback to it, and the drawbacks only get more ridiculous the higher rank the weapon is. Personally, given how ridiculously slow weapon ranks are to level up in this game, I don't think this was remotely necessary, but that's what the game decided to do. And it makes a huge number of the weapons in the game... kinda pointless, especially in light of... okay I'll save that for when we actually get to mess around with My Castle.

The boss is really powerful, but he's no match for Dakota in dragon form. He finishes with a crit, and... yeah, this game didn't bother giving Dakota crit lines for his feral dragon form. Not even an agonized scream. Not even just recycling the one from the cutscene where Mikoto dies. It looks so stupid.

But yeah, then, after the battle, there's another cutscene as Azura tries to bring Dakota back to sanity with her music. This results in her being pinned to the ground with a dragon claw at her neck, leading to the really clickbait-y moment from the trailer:

Azura: Kill me if you want... but... do it as yourself.

Also, for the longest time I thought the avatar's dragon form had hooves. But no, they just knuckle-walk like an ape most of the time.

...Man, that's three cutscenes in a single chapter. Kinda crazy how frontloaded they are. After the prologue it's just the introductions of enemy family members (or the little sisters in Revelation) and the ending scenes I think. Oh yeah, plus some rev stuff.

Man, Garon's voice actor is really good though. Makes Garon actually seem cool in this cutscene. Pity outside of cutscenes he's absolutely ridiculous.

So yeah, um... Mikoto foresaw her own death and told Yukimura about it.

This...

...this isn't the last time this nonsense is gonna be brought up, and it's absolutely hilarious when it comes up again.

Ah yes, and the destroyed Dawn Dragon statue apparently had the Yato inside it. The Fates avatar's legendary sword.

...Which Dakota just gets.

In Chapter 5.

For free.

It just flies right into his hand less than a minute after we learn that it even exists. It's not at its full ultimate power, but still, it's ridiculous how sudden this is.

Yeah, then Kaze comes in to say that Nohr's invaded, and... uh...

...The timing of this is absolutely ridiculous. First off, Xander and company would have to be told that the barrier would go down in advance, meaning they'd have to know about the plot to assassinate Mikoto, which they don't seem to.

And then in the time it took for this hectic town square battle to happen... in the time between Mikoto's death and now... a chain of people just crossed the entire continent in some fashion.

Lemme clarify.

In order for Kaze to, immediately after this fight, bring news that Nohrians have invaded Hoshido... messengers who saw the Nohrians invade must have made it from some point along the Nohrians' journey to Castle Shirasagi during that battle. Nohrians got some distance, and then like an unintentional relay race, the Hoshidan messengers went the rest of the way.

Meaning that the entire width of Hoshido can be flown over in a span of time that, at the absolute most charitable, can be highballed at an hour.

Assuming that, like unit movement ranges imply, pegasi can fly at a comparable speed to the top speed of a horse, that means that Hoshido is roughly thirty miles wide. Charitably, you can put it as 60-70 miles long.

Remember when I said that Tellius was fucking tiny because some ballpark estimates of Crimea's size based on travel time put Crimea at the size of Israel?

This country, a third to half of the damned visible continent of Fateslandia, is the size of Brunei.

Israel is about four times larger than Brunei.

And remember, that's being charitable! That's assuming that pegasi don't need to rest and can fly for an hour at the top speed of a horse, which a horse can't keep up for much time at all. If they're slower than my assumption of 30 miles per hour, then Hoshido is even fucking smaller.

That is what they are implying with this ridiculous nonsense with message speed.

Do you see why I say that Fire Emblem should just introduce magic walkie talkies already?

So yeah, in this game, something vaguely like dragon degeneration is described, except it's that Dakota needs to hold onto a dragonstone in order to avoid turning into a feral dragon again if he loses control of his emotions in the heat of battle. With it he can transform and keep his mind, after Azura uses her magic to attune it to him.

...You can, of course, remove the dragonstone from your inventory with literally no consequences.

And of course there's absolutely no explanation for how Azura knows this. Even knowing what she knows... like, there's never any news of there being anyone like Dakota that could possibly give these dragonstones a reason to exist.

Edited April 5 by Alastor15243

[Alastor15243]

Day 2 Bonus Bonus Bonus: Chapter 6

...Alright, fuck it. Let's finish up the prologue today. Here's the big choice.

...Yeah, “Little prince”. That's Xander's nickname for male Dakota.

...That's more evidence for the “Female version was made first” theory. “Little Princess” just sounds way more like an actual thing Xander would call someone. “Little Prince” just feels... off.

But then there's the big dramatic cutscene where both sides are calling out to Dakota like people standing on either side of a disputed puppy trying to be the one he decides to go home with.

“Refuse to choose a side”.

Let's do this.

...In spite of how dumb this story is...

...My stomach is always in knots at this moment for some reason. The moment where you choose your side.

So yeah, after Dakota declares that he refuses to fight against or abandon either of them... Ryoma and Xander just go “fuck it” and start fighting each other.

“Thorn in You” plays, which is this game's version of “Don't Speak Her Name”, but this version is the furthest the song ever gets from being emotional. It's a great song, but... when you're not actually fighting any of your family members it loses a lot of its tragic bite.

And of course...

Hi, Felicia.

She shows up again after we got split up at the bottomless canyon and is here to help us. The only help we have besides Azura.

...We have five turns to kill two bosses.

On hard mode there are wyvern riders here, but now there aren't. It's all land units. I think it's to force us to bring the fight to them.

Alright, so, first off, Corrin is gonna be paired up with Felicia, because her personal skill gives her great damage and defense buffs to the avatar and only the avatar when they're supporting each other either in guard stance or attack stance. We'll be tackling the Nohr side first, which requires crossing the river. Since there doesn't seem to be any terrain data on SF to tell me which classes can walk on water, I used the “separate” command to figure it out myself without committing to placing either Dakota or Felicia in front before I knew. Turns out Felicia can't walk on water. So Dakota it is. But by dropping him into the water, I managed to save a turn, so we'll take out the Nohrian commander by the end of turn 2.

We should have just barely enough time left, even if the Hoshidan forces don't move on their own. But... this is still gonna be really, really tight.

...Alright, the Hosidans do move. That makes this much easier. We can take out the Hoshidan commander on turn 3 player phase before tackling Nohr (gotta kill the boss to save Azura from being swarmed), and have a song from Azura to give us enough time to reach the other side of the river with dropping tactics, and I think we'll have one extra turn in case Dakota misses somewhere.

Yeah, once you kill the boss, the enemies from that faction all stop moving. So Azura can sing for Dakota with impunity despite all the enemies that will be around her after she does this.

...Yep, I managed it by the end of turn 4. Thank goodness. It'd be an embarrassing end to this run if I ran out of time on this tiny map. And Dakota got strength, speed and defense. He hasn't gotten much magic, which is... worrying, but I can work with this.

Anyway, both big brothers, completely oblivious to the fact that Dakota equally sabotaged both invasion forces, are convinced that Dakota has specifically betrayed them, and... the level of obliviousness and stupidity in this conversation reminds me of this scene I remember seeing of this dad mourning the death of his child, while the kid's like “Dad, I'm right here!” and the dad's like “Not now, I'm too busy mourning you!”.

It's really, really dumb. In fact, I think the Hoshidan side is even more hostile to you on the neutral route than they are in the Nohr route, which is... patently ridiculous. Like Yukimura is especially venomous.

But yeah, both of these guys refusing to listen to Dakota and talking over him, happening one after the other, is just ridiculous to behold, and I can't stop chuckling to myself typing this.

So yeah, Dakota has absolutely no plan for how he's going to stop this war or avoid family death, he just... has decided he's doing to refuse to choose a side. And as the Revelation version of the title screen plays... I'm wondering how Azura's going to bring up the fact that she actually knows the truth about what's going on and has an actual plan for what he can do moving forward.

So the same scene happens here that happens after Chapter 6 in every route, where Lilith's true form is introduced to the servant, and...

...Dakota talks about “[showing her] something before [they] catch up to the others”.

What “others”!? You aren't affiliated with anyone who isn't coming with you to My Castle! Azura isn't in this scene, but she's still coming! And even if you don't count her, she's just one person! She can't be what Dakota's referring to as “the others”! Did they really not notice this? Why am I even asking this question, of course they didn't notice it! This is Fates!

I don't even know why they chose to recycle this scene in its entirety without any dialogue changes. Surely it would've taken less time to just change the dialogue than to try and phrase something awkwardly enough that it could apply to all routes if you blurred your eyes a bit?

Right, so, here's the tutorial for My Castle. I'll build one of the armories, and then do some shit before finishing up...

...because this is when we're gonna bring in some audience participation!

...sort of.

There, that's the image I used in Dakota's War Journal to broadcast my castle address. I uh... kinda can't take a more up-to-date picture anymore thanks to Miiverse going down.

If you have Fates, Please visit me! There's a lot of stuff in this game that you can only get and achieve by visiting and being visited by other players, and just like old times with Dakota's War Journal, I'd love it if those people were my readers!

...Also, I'm still holding out hope that one day I can get the Visitation Seal and, dare I even dream, the Battle Seal. I'm so close to the former. These days I have no idea how much longer online functionality is even going to be a thing for 3DS games, given they've stopped production of the handheld system, and unfortunately the loss of online functionality is going to be devastating to Fates, for reasons I'll get into some other time. The fact that there are items in my favorite Fire Emblem game I'll probably never get to see... is kinda depressing. If by some miracle I managed to max out my VP and BP at 9999 each by the time 3DS online functionality goes down forever... words would not be able to describe my joy.

...No, fuck that. Fuck just saying I'd “really appreciate it”. If that actually happens... if I actually have such awesome readers that I cap my battle points at any time for as long as this whole-series marathon lasts, including the Kaga Saga and the spinoffs I might do... I'll do something crazy. Something stupid. I'll playlog fucking anything you guys want. It doesn't have to be even tangentially related to Fire Emblem. It doesn't even have to be a strategy game. If I wake up one morning to find I have 9999 battle points, then the second I am done with the mainline marathon... I am taking suggestions, I am making a poll, and I am doing whatever comes out on top. If you want me to playlog Final Fantasy Tactics, or GhebFE, or “Barbie's Magical Pegasus Adventure” or some shit like that... I'll do it. I'll do it for you guys.

Hell, if I even hit benchmarks on that journey, like multiples of 1,000, then for each one of those 1000 BP I get, after I've beaten at least one of these games... I'll take one of my endgame teams and devote a whole day to just fighting the teams of my readers. That's a promise. You can hold me to that.

...But anyway... tomorrow we start Revelation proper, and hooooo boy do they have a map that gives a good idea of what the rest of this fucking game is going to be like.

Stay safe, everyone!

Edited January 13, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

18 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I hard disagree on Savage Blow - more often than not, it doesn't change anything because it doesn't hit enough enemies to actually make a difference. Trample is good, but level 15 skill, comes really late, etc etc. And by that point, I can't be bothered to pick it up anyway because Malig Knight is just another in the proud tradition of shitty hybrid classes IS doesn't look like they're willing to ditch any time soon.

Here's the thing, though - I would argue that Malig Knight would still be a pretty good class, even without tome access. Like, cut out the tomes, and you've still got "Wyvern Rider, but better". Wyvern Lord may give her better stats (aside from Res and Magic), sure, but her bases outside those areas are fairly strong to begin with.  She'd get Lances, but you'll have to raise her rank up from a paltry E. And I don't see Lances doing much for her (save for cavalry-effectiveness, and WTA against Katana and Spirit users) beyond what she can draw from Axes.

Bottom-line, class-change her to Wyvern Lord if you want, but I'd hardly call her a priority-reclass.

18 hours ago, Jotari said:

Isn:t gettina single level at Level 15 (or two if you didn:t get the level 5 skill) all you need to get a skill in this game? Since reclassing doesn:t lower your level. You can just jump in and out of the class for a single chapter (or less if you want to carry heart seals in your inventory into battle).

That's true. If Heart Seals are not a limited resource to you, you can swap back and forth at will to get the associated boosts.

18 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Fates world building is so poor that I could not even tell you if any of those nations are supposed to be minor or major countries. For all we know the Wind tribe and Fire tribe could be the Britain and France to Hosido's WWI era Serbia. Alternatively to use a Fire Emblem example, we don't know if Hoshido is like the Lycian alliance in FE6, a minor nation fighting for its life against a larger one, with the tribes being akin to Etruria, as the world building is so poor that we do not even know how large, or important ANY of these nations are. Plus I wasn't claiming it was a world building flaw to have them share classes, only that Fates didn't distinguish its nation via class, as the nations that are in the geographic vicinity share those class lines.

In Conquest, we spend a day conquering the Wind Tribe, so it's surely not too big. Same for Mokushu, at least. If a state can be visited and conquered/saved in a day (like Cheve, the Ice Tribe, and the Beast Tribes), it's probably smaller potatoes than nations like Hoshido or Nohr (whom we engage with much more often, and are denoted for their military strength). The game doesn't spell this out for us, granted - instead, it shows the nations as Corrin experiences them, and asks the player to interpret as they go.

Anyway, my point was that the class sets represent two cultural blocs, each associated with one of the game's focal nations (Nohr and Hoshido). Other nations exist either within one bloc (Mokushu is culturally like Hoshido), between the two (Nestra, maybe?), or outside the dynamic (Valla being its own world).

[Etrurian emperor]

49 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

In Conquest, we spend a day conquering the Wind Tribe, so it's surely not too big.

Oh nothing of the sort. The Wind Tribe isn't conquered at all. Fuuga and Nohr just have a friendly sparring contest to see if Corrin really is worthy of wielding the sword of the creator. And that kinda puts Fuuga into a bad light. 

Nohr lured his best friend into an ambush and murdered him, they send faceless after his citizens and murdered the woman who's both the love of his life and the mother of his child. In response to this Fuuga decides to be completely chill towards Nohr and just lets them pass his lands to overthrow the nation of the friend they murdered if they pass a test. Its one of those instances where the story and worldbuilding only leave one way for a character to react, but the plot then goes for the exact opposite reaction just because it makes Corrin look better.  

[Samz707]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Anyway, both big brothers, completely oblivious to the fact that Dakota equally sabotaged both invasion forces, are convinced that Dakota has specifically betrayed them, and... the level of obliviousness and stupidity in this conversation reminds me of this scene I remember seeing of this dad mourning the death of his child, while the kid's like “Dad, I'm right here!” and the dad's like “Not now, I'm too busy mourning you!”.

...No, fuck that. Fuck just saying I'd “really appreciate it”. If that actually happens... if I actually have such awesome readers that I cap my battle points at any time for as long as this whole-game marathon lasts, including the Kaga Saga and the spinoffs I might do... I'll do something crazy. Something stupid. I'll playlog fucking anything you guys want. It doesn't have to be even tangentially related to Fire Emblem. It doesn't even have to be a strategy game. If I wake up one morning to find I have 9999 battle points, then the second I am done with the mainline marathon... I am taking suggestions, I am making a poll, and I am doing whatever comes out on top. If you want me to playlog Final Fantasy Tactics, or GhebFE, or “Barbie's Magical Pegasus Adventure” or some shit like that... I'll do it. I'll do it for you guys.

Clearly you should play Mystery of the Druids, the best point and click adventure game ever!

I guess if you want a more sincere suggestion (even if I can't help out with battlepoints.), Codename:STEAM? if only because it's weird, obscure and you can get FE characters from Amiibos so it's actually still slightly related to FE, very very loosely and was even being made by IS at the same time as Fates so it seems like a decent-ish fit.

Admittingly I'm biased and kinda like that game so disregard it if you want.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Ah yes, and... I don't think it's ever explained why Ganglari does this, but it suddenly glows and propels itself up in the air and off the bridge, sending Dakota plummeting to his death since he's holding it. And of course the animation of Byleth flying through the air like a man being dragged by the leash of his absurdly energetic flying dog is nothing short of hilarious.

Which is when we introduce Lilith, who reveals her true form as a space fish and saves Dakota's life.

Ah yes, because here's another character who does something better than Byleth: When Corrin needs a Dragon to bend the fabric of time and space to keep him from dying in the super-early-game, it's not because he couldn't handle some random small-time bandit, but because his sword literally came alive and plunged him off a cliff out of nowhere.

Why no, incidentally, I won't ever let Byleth live that down. This fucker is supposed to be the long-time student of one of the greatest warriors the world has ever seen, he's three years older than Lucina and Ike, and yet he needed divine intervention to survive a fight with a bandit in the prologue!

Also there's the question of why Lilith, who knows full well the bottomless canyon isn't lethal, would feel the need to save Corrin from falling that badly... when letting him fall and then saving him could have probably helped a lot.

So, Lilith looks super dumb with her dragon form's 3d model, flying around while still holding onto that ball...

...but her theme is amazing, and her portrait is super cute.

But then she reminds him about that “strange bird” he rescued, that it was her... and I'm like “She doesn't even have fucking wings! She doesn't have any avian features at all! How could Corrin mistake this thing for a bird!?

Apparently using the power she used makes it impossible for her to go back to her human form, which... really? Just flying super fast? That's it? She never, ever used that much power before in her whole life, even while serving Anankos?

But anyway yeah this is how they justify the My Castle feature. Your own private pocket

...And then Mikoto dies shielding him from the explosion, and Dakota turns into a dragon. And the game over music plays, and it's a great song, but... it's just never used in a scene I give a shit about. But anyway, Dakota's gone semi-mad. He obeys our commands, we can control him and everything, but he can't pair up. He's ridiculously powerful though, so he's instrumental to beating this map, as is Kaze. And Sakura. And Azura. And honestly Rinkah too given the pair-up bonuses she gives to Kaze that allow him to do much of any damage at all. Basically you need everyone here.

So yeah, in this game, something vaguely like dragon degeneration is described, except it's that Dakota needs to hold onto a dragonstone in order to avoid turning into a feral dragon again if he loses control of his emotions in the heat of battle. With it he can transform and keep his mind, after Azura uses her magic to attune it to him.

...You can, of course, remove the dragonstone from your inventory with literally no consequences.

 

I...what? I'm so confused right now.

This would definitely have been a scene I hated if I had played Fates, like at least Byleth's sword doesn't randomly nearly kill him for no good reason so honestly I think this is worse in terms of contrivance, like both scenes are dumb but "sword randomly tries to kill you and never does it again" would definitely have pissed me off more in the moment.

I guess Corrin has the intelligence of post-brain-trauma Emmeryn.

Reminds me of Awakening where the generic "Hooded Robin" model/artwork is just clearly Male Robin.

I guess the idea of Corrin randomly turning into a neutral berserker dragon like if a friendly unit die, took a non-lethal but heavy amount of damage  or something that you couldn't control would have been too good of an idea for a strategy game, so removing a dragonstone from Corrin's inventory would be a real risk to consider. 

Edited January 13, 2021 by Samz707

[Benice]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

If you have Fates, Please visit me

I'll see if I can get that going!

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'll playlog fucking anything you guys want.

You know what time it is?

Spoiler

 

It's Yakuza 0 time.

Or at least time for me to request it.

[Alastor15243]

17 minutes ago, Benice said:

You know what time it is?

  Reveal hidden contents

 

It's Yakuza 0 time.

Or at least time for me to request it.

Hey, that's totally on the table!

[Venger_06]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...That's more evidence for the “Female version was made first” theory. “Little Princess” just sounds way more like an actual thing Xander would call someone. “Little Prince” just feels... off.

In a proof-of-concept image from December 2012, when the game was simply known as "Fire Emblem 3DS II", only the male protagonist is referenced. Although the female design was created by February, male Corrin x Azura is heavily pushed within the game. This implies, to me at least, that they developed the game with Corrin and Azura as male and female protagonists in mind. I myself believe that male Corrin looks cooler as Nohr Noble, and female Corrin looks cooler as Hoshido Noble.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...My stomach is always in knots at this moment for some reason. The moment where you choose your side.

If you were in Corrin's situation, what would you choose? Future revelations be damned.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

If you have Fates, Please visit me! There's a lot of stuff in this game that you can only get and achieve by visiting and being visited by other players, and just like old times with Dakota's War Journal, I'd love it if those people were my readers!

How does it work? I just put my weakest team to face you and lose infinitely? If that's all, it's easy. I'll want you to playlog a Pokémon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon nuzlocke (without Exp. Share, of course).

[Alastor15243]

8 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

How does it work? I just put my weakest team to face you and lose infinitely? If that's all, it's easy. I'll want you to playlog a Pokémon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon nuzlocke (without Exp. Share, of course).

Yeah, I get points every time someone battles me. You could probably also just curb-stomp me in a turn or two with a strong team. Of course you can only fight a specific person once a day so yeah, having multiple weak teams to fight would be great.

 

8 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

In a proof-of-concept image from December 2012, when the game was simply known as "Fire Emblem 3DS II", only the male protagonist is referenced. Although the female design was created by February, male Corrin x Azura is heavily pushed within the game. This implies, to me at least, that they developed the game with Corrin and Azura as male and female protagonists in mind. I myself believe that male Corrin looks cooler as Nohr Noble, and female Corrin looks cooler as Hoshido Noble.

Interesting info!

Edited January 13, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Venger_06]

6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

You could probably also just curb-stomp me in a turn or two with a strong team.

That would be a lot of work. I prefer to charge like a madman.

6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Interesting info!

Also, Garon was always supposed to be evil, so the choice is really about family vs justice.

[Axie]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ah yes. Felicia gets a decent level up, three stats, mag, speed and... I think the third was res? Anyway, one thing that annoys me about the game is that it does nothing to tell you that Jakob and Felicia have 20 extra levels. Not that they generally last that long with me (I have never had a Jakob or Felicia who didn't drop off by level 20, if they even got that far), but it would've been nice to know that they weren't designed to be borderline unusable with terrible stats for their level and no super growth rates to compensate.

this entire decision is imo one of the few gameplay hiccups by fates, btw. why make butler/maid a promoted class... if that's the base class of only jakob/felicia (and flora but lol)... and then make jakob/felicia basically unpromoted units in promoted bodies because of their class? it's so weird. they could have

a) made butler/maid the unpromoted nohrian dagger class, and then give it a dagger/staff promotion it shares with troubadour and another exclusive one (dagger/tome?), and then we just have to deal with chapters 7 and 8 of revelation being sans healer

or b) made butler/maid the sole unpromoted nohrian staff class (and also remember to give us an unpromoted dagger class...? seriously we don't have one) and then give elise another class entirely

i'd be fine with either just not this confusing shitshow lol

[Sunwoo]

I honestly felt that Fates was written with a male avatar in mind for Hoshido, and a female one in mind for Nohr. I get what you're saying about how a lot of the dialogue choice feels like it was meant for female Corrin, but ... I mean. It's Fire Emblem. The female option honestly just feels like a sexy side option for male players and less for actual female players who want to play as a girl. Plus, basically all the promotional material places m!Corrin with Hoshido and f!Corrin with Nohr and almost all of the Cipher cards with the Fates royals does the same.

Anyway, I don't think the entire script was written with a female avatar in mind. She just happened to end up way more popular than her male counterpart because she rides high on looking pretty to guys and allowing girls to project themselves onto her.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Axie said:

this entire decision is imo one of the few gameplay hiccups by fates, btw. why make butler/maid a promoted class... if that's the base class of only jakob/felicia (and flora but lol)... and then make jakob/felicia basically unpromoted units in promoted bodies because of their class? it's so weird. they could have

a) made butler/maid the unpromoted nohrian dagger class, and then give it a dagger/staff promotion it shares with troubadour and another exclusive one (dagger/tome?), and then we just have to deal with chapters 7 and 8 of revelation being sans healer

or b) made butler/maid the sole unpromoted nohrian staff class (and also remember to give us an unpromoted dagger class...? seriously we don't have one) and then give elise another class entirely

i'd be fine with either just not this confusing shitshow lol

One thing I would've liked is if the class were called something else (even if it looked identical), because "maid"... I feel weird about "promoting" Dakota's little sister into a literal maid to use the best staff, okay? It feels weird to reclass royalty to a class that explicitly suggests servitude. One idea I had was "bodyguard", though that's got similar problems to a lesser degree.

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

One thing I would've liked is if the class were called something else (even if it looked identical), because "maid"... I feel weird about "promoting" Dakota's little sister into a literal maid to use the best staff, okay? It feels weird to reclass royalty to a class that explicitly suggests servitude. One idea I had was "bodyguard", though that's got similar problems to a lesser degree.

You'd have to change the weapon type, but what about this?

As the name suggests, they murder via martial arts, and they carry some healing and support magic, albeit not as much as you'd think.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

You'd have to change the weapon type, but what about this?

As the name suggests, they murder via martial arts, and they carry some healing and support magic, albeit not as much as you'd think.

Haha, what's that from?

[Sunwoo]

That has such an Etrian Odyssey aesthetic to it.

[Shadow Mir]

12 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Haha, what's that from?

7th Dragon. I don't think any games with that name were released overseas, though...

19 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

One thing I would've liked is if the class were called something else (even if it looked identical), because "maid"... I feel weird about "promoting" Dakota's little sister into a literal maid to use the best staff, okay? It feels weird to reclass royalty to a class that explicitly suggests servitude. One idea I had was "bodyguard", though that's got similar problems to a lesser degree.

At the same time, Elise does tend to wander outside the castle dressed as a commoner girl, or so I read (this was how she met Effie, for one, and two, this is how you meet her late in Birthright). While we're talking about it, for how much of a pain it is to get S staves, you'd expect the thing to actually be usable, but noooo, it's slapped with a bunch of restrictions that pretty much make it pointless to use. Even the "full heal to everyone" staves of the past were more usable than this.

Edited January 13, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[eclipse]

3 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

7th Dragon. I don't think any games with that name were released overseas, though...

One of them was for the 3DS, but I'm not sure if they have Godhand (which looks like a cool class BTW).

Now, if I have to randomly show up in this topic (and you're on Fates, so I'm going to keep an extra-close eye on it), I'm gonna throw in a game suggestion - Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles!  It's e-shop only, and on the Switch.

. . .you thought I'd say SRW?  I'm not that crazy!

Edited January 13, 2021 by eclipse