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

[Acacia Sgt]

7 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

You're shitting me.

Nope. They've already been compiled here:

https://serenesforest.net/engage/characters/other-data/

Aside from the special cases, like Alear's, they all look fine... except for Vander and Saphir. Who don't look 45 and 35 respectively. It's like it was an initial draft list, but then Vander and Saphir were designed older or were changed to be older, but the list wasn't updated. Since the ages only matter for the Young and Old modifiers in meal bonuses, I guess it wasn't a big deal.

7 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, speedtaker is a tempting inheritance for her now that I've got her accuracy sorted out via engraving. It'll be some time before she can afford it though.

And that's where the Silver Skirmishes come in handy, heh. Gonna admit I used SP on other skills on her without actually considering stuff like Speedtaker. Thus the need of the skirmishes.

7 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Counterpoint: Brodia only went to war with Elusia, and while Brodia was apparently reluctant to agree to a peace treaty, they did agree to it, and there's no implication I could see that they had any martial conflict in the past.

I guess it depends on just how long the one conflict we see has lasted. Or did you mean "only just" there?

In Chapter 4, Alfred does tell Alear that Morion was ambitious and wanted to expand Brodia's territory. Queen Ève was stated to have poured considerable time and effort to get that non-aggression treaty. So it seems that, having been convinced to it, it left Morion with only one other venue of expansion: Elusia. Yes, they eventually got talked to stop, but by that point Elusia likely wanted revenge, not just for the war to end. In a way, some kind of resentment is understandable. Brodia was constantly attacking Elusia. Meanwhile, Firene and Solm just... let it happen. They don't tell Morion to knock it off, at least until Elusia finally ended up attacking everybody else too, at which point it was too late. Hyacinth was already recurring to bring back the Fell Dragon.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

So, how exactly did Griss get the news that their warships failed to stop my forces? Presumably those ships are still stuck in that neck of the ocean forever to be repurposed as the staging ground for skirmishes, so while we may have taken prisoners, nobody should have been able to retreat. Except by air I suppose. Did some of the wyverns escape to report back then, I guess? Guess that quashes the theory that word couldn’t get out about Ivy being alive.

Well remember when Pepsiman beat Ivy in chapter (I think) 9? It seems his policy for taking prisoners of war is to let them just them walk off,  even when they're super high value.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Marni and Mauvier seem to be the basic “bitches”, if you’ll pardon the pun, of the Four Hounds. Whenever I’m fighting two of the Hounds, it’s always Marni and Mauvier, and then Zephia if I’m fighting three, and Griss only when I’m fighting all four. It’s weird how Griss is the one I’ve fought the least despite Zephia ostensibly being the leader.

From what I recall, I think you actually end up fighting all of them an equal number of times.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Griss: Ugh, Mauvier. He’s way too attached to that other Veyle.

And yet he has the fewest lines with Veyle of any of the Four Hounds, I believe.

Why show when you can tell, I guess.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Wait, what the fuck is Saphir doing here? Just suddenly, out of nowhere, on the docks, right outside our boat, facing the enemy? Wasn’t she supposed to be watching Brodia castle?

Imagine Mavier and Marni didn't show up and the party just ditched here there XD It's eeally quite silly she's there by herself. It's like they desgined this character to be important and show up in the early game, but then completely forgot about her until the game was finished and just shoved her into a place where it made some semblance of sense where she'd be. Though even then having her show up in the prior shio chapter to bale the heroes out and suggest Brodia is contributing forces and that this war is more than a group of royals and retainers just walking around picking individual fights.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…There appears to be an invisible goddamned wall at the back of the boat, which combined with some barrels is keeping us from having the people in the middle proceed in any direction other than south.

I thought it was like a raised upper section of the ship. You know like a pre modern bridge.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Seriously, this is why I continuously laugh at the franchise’s attempts to make us sympathize with the worshippers of Dragon Satan. It’s always so shallow, and no effort is made to humanize them in regards to what the hell their “faith” means to them and what they think they believe in.

 

Spoiler

Wait until they actually start trying to humanize dragon satan XD

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…GOLDMARY DOESN’T SUPPORT WITH BUNET!?

…Oh that huuuuuurts. Especially since I got excited to see supports that don’t exist twice in a row.

Further fuel to my theory that doing support system in a completely satisfying way is impossoble.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I thought it was like a raised upper section of the ship. You know like a pre modern bridge.

Sorry, I misspoke. Back of the boat as in the side of the boat that's at the back of the map. Half of the boat is just inaccessible due to being off the edge of the map. And since the upper stairs of the boat have crates in the way, the upper deployment slots are completely cut off from the middle and lower ones.

 

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

This is usually why people recommend to keep Lyn on her. Or at least, enough to get her to inherit Speedtaker.

Do Emblems effect growths? If not, then there is absolutely no reason to keep Lyn on Ivy, at least on Maddening. Bond fragment her to lv5 for speed taker and then gice Lyn to someone who can actually deal more than 5 damage with Astra Storm.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Do Emblems effect growths? If not, then there is absolutely no reason to keep Lyn on Ivy, at least on Maddening. Bond fragment her to lv5 for speed taker and then gice Lyn to someone who can actually deal more than 5 damage with Astra Storm.

If they did affect growths, it would probably be my favorite implementation of that sort of system, given that you can't swap them mid-battle, so there's absolutely no pressure to do so and min-max your stat gains. Granted, it would make the dearth of good magic Emblems more frustrating...

[Jotari]

33 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Sorry, I misspoke. Back of the boat as in the side of the boat that's at the back of the map. Half of the boat is just inaccessible due to being off the edge of the map. And since the upper stairs of the boat have crates in the way, the upper deployment slots are completely cut off from the middle and lower ones.

 

Oh yeah, that. There's a specific reason for that. It's that small so the dragons can pick off your units if you try to just turtle the map down there. The dragons range is just long enough toncover every square.

[Acacia Sgt]

18 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Do Emblems effect growths? If not, then there is absolutely no reason to keep Lyn on Ivy, at least on Maddening. Bond fragment her to lv5 for speed taker and then gice Lyn to someone who can actually deal more than 5 damage with Astra Storm.

Other than not having the SP to inherit Speedtaker, Ivy is one of the characters who make better use of Lyn to not keep it on her for a while. The boost to Dex and Spd is ideal on her.

Personally, I've found even she makes good use of Astra Storm. I've never felt the need to use it outside stopping Thieves from reaching chests, who are frail enough to get one-shot most of the time anyway. Most maps have at least one flier who also gets easily one-shot with it, thus triggering Speedtaker right off the bat.

But I'll admit I don't play on Maddening.

[Alastor15243]

6 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Personally, I've found even she makes good use of Astra Storm. I've never felt the need to use it outside stopping Thieves from reaching chests, who are frail enough to get one-shot most of the time anyway. Most maps have at least one flier who also gets easily one-shot with it, thus triggering Speedtaker right off the bat.

Even if all of that is true... twenty range if you give her to an archer or thief! Twenty!

[Acacia Sgt]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

Even if all of that is true... twenty range if you give her to an archer or thief! Twenty!

Which I've rarely made use of. I may have done a lot of turtling through my playthrough, but I did not lagged that behind to suddenly need to snipe a Thief or a boss from that far away.

[Sunwoo]

Oh, I'm late to this discussion but could someone tell me whether the story actually explains whether Elusia worshipped the Fell Dragon before Brodia's repeated attacks or after it? Honestly, it probably wouldn't matter either way with the quality of the story, but I'm hearing some things about how "Elusia only turned to worshipping the Fell Dragon in self-defense because Lumera did nothing to stop Brodia's repeated invasions," but the source I'm hearing for it is not a good one. So I was wondering if it's ever established in the game.

[Acacia Sgt]

10 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Oh, I'm late to this discussion but could someone tell me whether the story actually explains whether Elusia worshipped the Fell Dragon before Brodia's repeated attacks or after it? Honestly, it probably wouldn't matter either way with the quality of the story, but I'm hearing some things about how "Elusia only turned to worshipping the Fell Dragon in self-defense because Lumera did nothing to stop Brodia's repeated invasions," but the source I'm hearing for it is not a good one. So I was wondering if it's ever established in the game.

No, they were definitely worshipping the Fell Dragon for far longer than that. The attacks were mostly happening because of Morion, with no indication any of his recent predecessors started it. Also it can't be that recent as otherwise it'd clash with Ivy's backstory.

Now, I do believe the attacks did drove Hyacinth to okay the plan to bring back Sombron, but I don't think there's anything confirming or denying that.

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Other than not having the SP to inherit Speedtaker, Ivy is one of the characters who make better use of Lyn to not keep it on her for a while. The boost to Dex and Spd is ideal on her.

Personally, I've found even she makes good use of Astra Storm. I've never felt the need to use it outside stopping Thieves from reaching chests, who are frail enough to get one-shot most of the time anyway. Most maps have at least one flier who also gets easily one-shot with it, thus triggering Speedtaker right off the bat.

But I'll admit I don't play on Maddening.

Ya, I imagine Hard makes a massive difference here. On maddening she deals basically nothing with Astra Storm. I would also expect that speed thresholds are not nearly as cut throat on Hard as they are on Maddening. Like I said when Lyn first showed up in this playthrough, she'll appreciated Speed Taker, but so will basically anyone, as it's probably the best skill on the game.

[Alastor15243]

Engage Day 27: Lyn and Byleth Paralogues

Alright, it’s been a while, let’s do some paralogues. Maybe more than one if we can manage. But for now, let’s start with Lyn’s.

Okay, I realized I hadn’t quite finished up my Somniel maintenance, so I’m finishing that up real quick, and I can’t help but notice that the item shop has shields on the wall. Were they originally planning on bringing shields back, or at least the concept of equippable items? I mean, Thyrsus feels kind of out of place in a game that doesn’t have them.

Needless to say the paralogue I’m most scared shitless of doing is Corrin’s, as it means by necessity that Yunaka won’t have Corrin with her. I’m gonna wait until I really outclass that one before I do it. Let’s see, what’s the recommended level incidentally…?

…If I recall correctly, that’s one level below what they said Eirika’s was! NO FUCKING THANKS!

Lyn’s it is!

…And they’ve decided it is pronounced Sa-kay!? That’s how I pronounced it as a kid, but everyone fucking insisted to me it was Sa-kah due to the Japanese version! I personally think Sa-kay sounds better, so I’m a happy camper, though I wonder how other people who went by the Japanese pronunciation feel about this.

…God damn, hearing Lyn talk about the brutal slaughter of her people is incredibly irritating, because she seems to have the tone of a kid’s show narrator talking about how Caillou was bummed that everybody was too busy to pay attention to him.

It’s not even that Wendee Lee is a bad actress! I’ve seen some of the stuff she’s been in, and she knows how to emote, certainly at least better than she’s doing here. It just seems like her interpretation of the character is terrible. And if she doesn’t change it, then her performance in a hypothetical FE7 remake is likely to bring the whole thing disgustingly, depressingly down.

…They don’t mention a trial this time! They just go into it like they know the drill, which is nice. Personally I’d say better to make the first time seem a little too aware than make the other 11 a little too oblivious.

…Oh shit.

OH SHIT.

From the appearance on the map I thought we were doing “Prologue: A Girl from the Plains”.

We’re not.

We’re doing the fucking Sacae gaiden from the Binding Fuckmothering Blade.

Complete with separating our army between three different spots.

They’ve also recreated… for the most part… the enemy makeup of that map. Cool touch, but it feels a bit weird, for two reasons:

1: It’s kinda sad that the aesthetics of the bow knight and magic using classes don’t remotely fit with the Sacaean aesthetics. If they gave different classes different looks in different countries, or made more classes native to distinct countries, I imagine making bow knights Solmic (makes sense, given that Fogado is their representative among the main cast) would make the aesthetics work more here.

2: Those wyverns are the Sacae traitors’ Bernian… Bernic… Bernese…? …allies. So it feels weird having Lyn allied with them.

3: Just generally using a map from Binding Blade instead of Blazing Blade feels so weird to me. This is supposed to be FE7’s time for representation, not a second go of 6.

Gameplaywise I love this, it looks like it’ll be fun (though probably easier than it should have been). But beyond that, I question the choice.

…This is gonna be a curb stomp battle. I just looked at their stats. Holy shit, the scariest part of this is probably how sub-Marianian my guard is right now with how pathetic their stats are.

…Shit, right, I should put Roy on someone.

Fuck it, let’s just slap Roy on Alcryst for now.

…Oh wow, they really did not design the space swapping animation for when spaces are far apart. It looks so weird seeing them move in seeming slow motion orbit.

Unless they announce a gimmick post-deployment, it looks like there’s no need to fish through the various tents for Lyn. She’s right out there, and the bosses are just for gold. Thank goodness for that.

Okay, so, before I start, something’s been bugging me: I don’t like how “swap spaces” is called “swap spaces”. Because it’s also the only option that lets you get a good look at the map, so it should have been called something like “view map”. I dunno, the fact that it’s called “swap spaces” just doesn’t really sit well with me.

Alright, I think I’m ready for this. Let’s go.

…Okay, so the tents have reinforcements, and we need to attack them to stop the reinforcements. Fair enough. Better than the original gimmick, to be sure.

Okay, I’d say I like this map theme. It’s far from the best music that FE7 has to offer, but it fits Lyn perfectly, so it’s fair enough.

I barely even feel like discussing strategy. I really should have done this sooner, and I’m probably better served spending my time today breezing through this rather than taking the time to write and edit anything about what I’m doing. If anything interesting happens, I promise I’ll let you know. And honestly this is making me think that I should do the rest of the paralogues now rather than later, so they don’t all eventually get this boring by the time I have the nerve to do them. Losing Merrin sucked, but it was probably more interesting to read about than this.

Yeah, I basically just rushed in and kicked their asses, killing the bosses (you don’t have to visit or anything) and making my way towards Lyn.

I beat all the ger bosses in 6 turns. No reinforcements spawned by the time I killed the last one. Now for Lyn. She might actually be a bit complicated due to the fact that she’s anti-cavalry and my cavalry are the ones that got there first.

Interestingly, Lyn doesn’t have her third weapon, which I’m assuming is either Mulagir or Sol Katti. I’m hoping Mulagir, since that’d be better for Alcryst. Well, we’ll find out what it is after we win.

And now Lyn’s active, and her attack range has expanded to include both her movement range and Astra Storm, which I’m really grateful the attack range before wasn’t lying about when it didn’t take it into account. That would have suuuuucked.

But yeah, she went down pretty quick once the forces just a turn behind caught up. Kagetsu, Yunaka and Rosado made quick work of her.

INTERESTINGLY, when Lyn’s talking about the friends that helped her grow beyond the person she’d been just from growing up on the plains, she explicitly refers to Eliwood and Hector, not the tactician. That’s interesting and encouraging, because I’ve seen fairly strong arguments that Awakening and Heroes were trying to lean her into kind of… obsessing over the avatar, as it were, and having each new avatar remind her of them.

Not even finding out that Pepsiman woke up with no idea how he got where he was, surrounded by unfamiliar people, springs up memories of the tactician like it did for her with Robin in Awakening.

So, I looked inside some of these huts, and… aren’t these things supposed to be for nomads? They seem… incredibly well furnished with heavy, hard-to-pack-up wooden furniture and a huge fuck-off metal oven-stove thing. Sooooomething tells me this isn’t 100% historically accurate to the nomadic lifestyle.

Alright, what new stuff have we unlocked with Lyn?

Woooo! Mulagir! Excellent! And Alcryst’s just bulky enough to carry it without consequences and enjoy the full 5 speed boost! Looking forward to getting my hands on that!

…Once I do, Alcryst’s silver bow will be completely pointless, since it has the same might. Hmmm… I should keep that in mind and see if anyone else can use a weapon to buff their special, and switch the bond to that.

…I’ve decided to give Roy to Ivy for now. Roy’s surprisingly mage-friendly. Rise Above boosts your level, which works just as well for mages as for warriors, and Hold Out is great for anyone you expect to be in danger of dying from a screw-up. Which works great for fragile fliers who may or may not have very recently been literally one speedwing short of a corpse on the road.

She’ll probably get Celica once I get her, though.

Okay, I just wanna say, I think I’ve concluded that the music in this game is from real instrument recordings. But if it isn’t, holy shit, props to whoever composed this for including the little metallic slides across the acoustic guitar strings in the Somniel theme.

And we’ve got some supports, okay, let’s check these out…

Framme and Kagetsu’s C.

…Framme sounds like a child reading aloud when she’s writing her letter to her parents. It’s weird.

But hey yeah! Both Kagetsu and Framme have family at home! And when Kagetsu says that not all parents are like Framme’s, worrying about her when they don’t hear from her, that makes me think his relationship with his family is more strained.

And yep, Kagetsu says he hasn’t gotten any letters from home. Because he ran away from home and didn’t say where he was going. And evidently they haven’t heard of him becoming an Elusian retainer, so that pretty solidly confirms he’s not from Elusia. And yeah, “Pale Sands” does hint at Solm. And there are some very conspicuously pale sands at the top border between Solm and Elusia. But I dunno, something tells me Kagetsu would be from a place where Sakura trees would feel natural.

Anyway, Framme tells Kagetsu he should write to his family, and Kagetsu is very frightened of the idea.

Ivy and Hortensia’s B.

Ooh! More on the story of their moms!

So Hortensia doesn’t really remember her mom. Interesting.

…Uh-huh. So it was another “concubine wars” situation, where Hyacinth had a harem of other women? But this time even while the queen was still alive?

…But apparently Hortensia’s mom managed to win even the queen over?

Hortensia is really touched to hear about how her mom did this for her, and I have to ask why this sort of discussion never happened before, in all this time.

Hortensia and Goldmary’s C.

Ooh! I wonder how Goldmary is around her princess!

…I feel like I’m missing context here that will clarify this, but from the sound of things, Hortensia is jealous about the amount of attention Goldmary gets from men.

What I found funny is that when Goldmary said “I’m sorry if my natural charisma is in any way an inconvenience to you”, she said it exactly the way she would if it were a disdainful humble-brag, but I weirdly got the impression from context that it was genuine. Though it seems like Hortensia has been asking her to turn down these advances or something, from how they’re talking about it, and I’m curious if further supports will elaborate on the “if so” and the “why”.

Okay, let’s see if we can rattle off another absurdly overdue easy paralogue.

OH MY FUCKING GOD, GOLDMARY’S FIGHTING CLANNE IN THE ARENA AND I JUST NOTICED THAT CLANNE’S HORSE IS WEARING A FUCKING WIZARD HAT THAT IS ADORABLE!

Also, it occurred to me during arena training that the following exchange could happen if Clanne beats Bunet:

Bunet: Defeat has left a bitter taste in my mouth…

Clanne: Yum! The lingering taste of victory!

Clanne has nosferatu now, and I imagine he could do some pretty terrifying things with it provided his accuracy stays good.

Alright, next paralogue, next paralogue…

I just did Seadall and Lucina’s bond conversation when a notification reminded me, and I wonder if we’ll eventually get any references to Inigo from them.

Micaiah’s is around Eirika’s level…

Byleth’s is a few levels lower…

…as is Sigurd’s…

…Leif’s is around Eirika’s level again…

…Alright, so, Byleth or Sigurd should be my next destination. I’ll go with Byleth, because Byleth isn’t all that major of a player in my army and doesn’t radically change how one of my best units plays.

…But I’m more curious about Sigurd’s so let’s check out this one first.

…And they just… outright spoil the big tragic ending of the first half of Genealogy. Woooooooooow. I guess they figured Heroes already spoiled enough? I’d figure they’d try to be a little more vague about it in the hopes of planning ahead to the next remake.

Well in fairness, all they say is what happened to Deirdre, but Sigurd says he’ll say more about the plot of his game after the trial.

PFFFFFFFF

Part of me was actually expecting this to be an entire Genealogy map.

In hindsight, I don’t fucking know why. Even the prologue would have been psychotically massive for this game.

But this seems to be a segment of Chapter 10.

Which means this battle theme might be Light and Dark!

…Oh shit, this game has siege tomes after all! They’re 3-7, so not as crazy as the usual 3-10, but having those be infinite use is gonna be crazy if I can find a way to make them. I’m assuming that if I upgrade elthunder enough I get bolting? Actually hold on lemme check-

…No, that doesn’t work. Stops at thoron, which I temporarily forgot exists and I already had. Either there’s some trick to getting alternate forge paths I haven’t figured out, like you need to get it to a specific forge level before cross-forging it, or these things are enemy-only. Which would be a shame.

Alright, time for Byleth’s.

So, Byleth’s toeing the party line regarding the mythology of the Church of Seiros, indicating that this isn’t Crimson Flower Byleth. Weird, because that’s the only way his adventures can be past tense and he still has dark green hair. What’s the timeline here?

…Okay, so there are weird pink crystals where the crest stones were in the original game. And there are still some thieves lurking about. I wonder what the gimmick is gonna be here, because clearly they’re planning something related to the original “stop them from stealing the crest stones” thing.

One thing I miss from 3H regarding the interface is the ability to turn the camera 360 degrees. I always found the layout of this map uncomfortable and annoying for reasons I can’t describe, and turned the camera around so that my army was at the bottom and moving up.

…Yet again Byleth is in the place of his enemies on this map. He’s standing where Edelgard stood during this original battle, which is more than a little weird.

…Vajra-Mushti looks very, very different in his inventory than it did in mine. Wonder why.

…Hmmmm… the Sword of the Creator is a sword that increases in power with the user’s magic, and yet still targets defense? That might actually be another reason to slap this on a mystic. But I don’t have any of those on my team at the moment, so…

…Oof, someone has to get the boot from the team due to the deployment limit of 9. …Of course. This is a Three Houses map, after all. Let’s see…

…These enemies honestly don’t seem so tough. Alright, I’ll just drop Goldmary, Rosado and Seadall. I’ll also slap Leif on Pepsiman for now.

I gave the dracoshield to Kagetsu because it would just barely make him immune to the strongest daggers on this map at 29 defense after the meal and other bonuses. Plus, he’s one of my two units who most needs to rely on their defense stats, and Louis has plenty to work with.

Alright, let’s begin.

…Okay, so I need to protect the crystals. Unfortunately the game doesn’t tell me how much HP they have, and I can’t even select destroy to see how much HP they have myself. So it’s sort of a defense map, where I have to go on the offensive to secure the things I’m supposed to protect. Cool, I like that! Alright, so, first off, I have Clanne, Ivy and Louis fuck up the three enemies below me (Louis makes it via engaging), and then I have Alcryst use Pepsiman’s personal boost to snipe a western swordmaster from behind my crystals while Kagetsu takes out one of the berserkers on the east side (and also notice that that wasn’t a stiletto thief with abnormally high attack, it was a swordmaster. Fuck. Well Kagetsu’s still a good user of that dracoshield).

Okay so those crystals have plenty of health. Good. So I have a chance in hell of a perfect score. Lessee here…

…Yeah, honestly, this map seems pretty comically straightforward. Most of the enemies who moved at the start are now dead, and I took out both of the dragons before Louis even had time to exhaust his engage. Louis completely liquefies those fuckers with a brave lance. There is nothing more terrifying than being slower than Louis, and those dragons died in the full grip of that terror.

Louis then proceeded to help out with the second wave on the stairs and then canter back onto an energy tile, meaning he’s good to go again next turn without ever having to stop fighting!

Man, Sigurd really completes Louis. He’s what’s keeping Louis relevant in the late-game, and Louis’s really good at taking advantage of it. They just mesh so well.

FUCK!

WARP STAVES!

I KEEP FORGETTING ABOUT THEM!

AND BYLETH GODDESS DANCES!

…But they didn’t attack Hortensia despite having a clean shot at her? Either one of them could have one-rounded her!

…Lucky me. Wow, I thought for sure I was going to lose her. Right, time to finish this before he can pull any more tricks like that.

Okay, looks like these… generic enemies… have revival stones? I’m guessing they’re making a beeline towards the crystals. Which means I need to kill them fast or I don’t get the reward. I could also rush Byleth, but they have money, and I need money.

I took the wyvern out with Hortensia and Alcryst, leaving just the general and the halberdier.

And they just had one of the priests warp the other so he could in turn warp the halberdier. This fight is frankly getting chaotic, and I need out of it now.

Okay, everyone but Byleth is down without any of the crystals being destroyed. That was tense, with my forces scattered the way they were all over the map. I didn’t expect to suddenly be going on the defensive like that when I thought I had him cornered. Well played.

Now I’ve paralyzed Byleth with Yunaka, so things should go smoothly.

…Byleth’s conversation with Pepsiman is so cringey. It’s basically Byleth saying power can be used for good or evil depending on the heart of the wielder, and Pepsiman reacts like this is some grand revelation he’s just learning.

And hilariously, as if a reference to Three Houses’s incredibly awkward placement of side objective rewards, a text box just pops up saying what I earned for defending all the crystals: a talisman and an elixir. Well, that talisman’s going on Louis for sure!

Okay, terrifying surprises aside, I actually really liked this map. It was shockingly lenient with how it took advantage of warp staves, but without keeping them from being terrifying. But yeah, I have to start paying attention to everything in a staff user’s inventory, even if it’s green.

Alright, I think I’ll leave it there for now. I’ve got stuff to do today that I need to start heading out for.

Alastor, signing off!

Edited February 19, 2023 by Alastor15243

[Acacia Sgt]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, I realized I hadn’t quite finished up my Somniel maintenance, so I’m finishing that up real quick, and I can’t help but notice that the item shop has shields on the wall. Were they originally planning on bringing shields back, or at least the concept of equippable items? I mean, Thyrsus feels kind of out of place in a game that doesn’t have them.

I doubt it? There are certainly "equipment" items, but all seem to come from Byleth. Like Rafail Gem and Aegis Shield. The shields could just be for decoration. Since I don't think there was any indication of such items from the trailers and stuff.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

…And they’ve decided it is pronounced Sa-kay!? That’s how I pronounced it as a kid, but everyone fucking insisted to me it was Sa-kah due to the Japanese version! I personally think Sa-kay sounds better, so I’m a happy camper, though I wonder how other people who went by the Japanese pronunciation feel about this.

It is indeed Sa-kah in Japan, since it's an actual place:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saka

However, it seems that in Greek and Latin it is indeed Sacae and pronounced Sa-kay.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

…God damn, hearing Lyn talk about the brutal slaughter of her people is incredibly irritating, because she seems to have the tone of a kid’s show narrator talking about how Caillou was bummed that everybody was too busy to pay attention to him.

It’s not even that Wendee Lee is a bad actress! I’ve seen some of the stuff she’s been in, and she knows how to emote, certainly at least better than she’s doing here. It just seems like her interpretation of the character is terrible. And if she doesn’t change it, then her performance in a hypothetical FE7 remake is likely to bring the whole thing disgustingly, depressingly down.

To be fair, for the Emblems in particular it kinda fits. We don't know how long they've been Emblems, but it has been a long time. At least a thousand years. So perhaps just the passage of time alone have dulled the emotions since... well, it was just so long ago, it no longer carries the emotional punch as before.

Not to mention, I'm pretty sure it has already been mentioned the Emblems are not the actual heroes. They're more like the Einherjar Cards from Awakening/Fates. So that too factors they wouldn't feel as personal-investment since it didn't happened to they in specific. They have the memories and feelings and can't avoid see them as their own, but it's just not the same.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

1: It’s kinda sad that the aesthetics of the bow knight and magic using classes don’t remotely fit with the Sacaean aesthetics. If they gave different classes different looks in different countries, or made more classes native to distinct countries, I imagine making bow knights Solmic (makes sense, given that Fogado is their representative among the main cast) would make the aesthetics work more here.

Solmic cavalry, Fogado included, should've come riding camels.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

2: Those wyverns are the Sacae traitors’ Bernian… Bernic… Bernese…? …allies. So it feels weird having Lyn allied with them.

They're fabrications anyway. Even if not, as I mentioned above, Emblem Lyn wouldn't have the same feelings towards them as the real Lyn would. Not to mention, Emblem Lyn is her Blazing Blade self. Not yet to have personal beef with Bern. The Emblems just take for granted the areas morphed into places they know, so they just roll with it.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

3: Just generally using a map from Binding Blade instead of Blazing Blade feels so weird to me. This is supposed to be FE7’s time for representation, not a second go of 6.

Gameplaywise I love this, it looks like it’ll be fun (though probably easier than it should have been). But beyond that, I question the choice.

Because IS has been pushing Lyn to associate more and more with bows. Heck, she should've had geen given Mulagir from the start in Blazing Blade. It's the Legendary Weapon of her people (well, half of it, but we know Lyn favors her Sacae side).The Sol Katti is just... weirdly out of place and comes pretty much out of nowhere.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Okay, so the tents have reinforcements, and we need to attack them to stop the reinforcements. Fair enough. Better than the original gimmick, to be sure.

Well, since in the original you had to seize the yurts and...

...

...

OMG, I only just realized Engage has no Seize maps! And I have finished it already! XD LOL

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I beat all the ger bosses in 6 turns. No reinforcements spawned by the time I killed the last one. Now for Lyn. She might actually be a bit complicated due to the fact that she’s anti-cavalry and my cavalry are the ones that got there first.

Fun fact, this was the only Paralogue I had to retry. Because I failed to beat the mini-bosses in time, so I had to deal with four reinforcement groups... plus Lyn. And since I did the Paralogue when it unlocked and my team was underleveled... yeah.

Second try I just dropped any turtling pretenses and quickly rushed to stop the reinforcements, hahaha.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Interestingly, Lyn doesn’t have her third weapon, which I’m assuming is either Mulagir or Sol Katti. I’m hoping Mulagir, since that’d be better for Alcryst. Well, we’ll find out what it is after we win.

It's Mulagir, if the map itself hadn't clued you in already.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

INTERESTINGLY, when Lyn’s talking about the friends that helped her grow beyond the person she’d been just from growing up on the plains, she explicitly refers to Eliwood and Hector, not the tactician. That’s interesting and encouraging, because I’ve seen fairly strong arguments that Awakening and Heroes were trying to lean her into kind of… obsessing over the avatar, as it were, and having each new avatar remind her of them.

Not even finding out that Pepsiman woke up with no idea how he got where he was, surrounded by unfamiliar people, springs up memories of the tactician like it did for her with Robin in Awakening.

They probably wanted to avoid stablishing any hard-canon about them, like name or gender. I mean, we know the canon name is Mark, but still...

The avatar thing was more regarding the player anyway. Alear doesn't really feel as one, so there was no need to do it again with them. I'd guess.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

So, I looked inside some of these huts, and… aren’t these things supposed to be for nomads? They seem… incredibly well furnished with heavy, hard-to-pack-up wooden furniture and a huge fuck-off metal oven-stove thing. Sooooomething tells me this isn’t 100% historically accurate to the nomadic lifestyle.

To be fair, even back in Blazing Blade, Lyn's own hut looked like more a permanent thing than a nomad's:

Then again, perhaps Lyn while alone couldn't just do the nomad thing so she decided to actually settle down permanently?

Still, like I said, the areas are not naturally occurring, so the yurts/gers/huts having that kind of furniture is not meant to be reflected in reality anyway.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Once I do, Alcryst’s silver bow will be completely pointless, since it has the same might. Hmmm… I should keep that in mind and see if anyone else can use a weapon to buff their special, and switch the bond to that.

I mean, you still have to account for when the Engage gauge is recharging.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Framme sounds like a child reading aloud when she’s writing her letter to her parents. It’s weird.

Is that a child's thing to do? Since I tend to sometimes read aloud when I write my fanfics and I'm close to turning 30. Not often, but occasionally.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

And yep, Kagetsu says he hasn’t gotten any letters from home. Because he ran away from home and didn’t say where he was going. And evidently they haven’t heard of him becoming an Elusian retainer, so that pretty solidly confirms he’s not from Elusia. And yeah, “Pale Sands” does hint at Solm. And there are some very conspicuously pale sands at the top border between Solm and Elusia. But I dunno, something tells me Kagetsu would be from a place where Sakura trees would feel natural.

I mean, even Japan has a "desert":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottori_Sand_Dunes

So it's not implausible if Pale Sands can have that and green areas for, say, Sakura Trees.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Uh-huh. So it was another “concubine wars” situation, where Hyacinth had a harem of other women? But this time even while the queen was still alive?

Wasn't that also the thing with Garon? The Concubine Wars only happened because after the Queen's death they saw the opportunity to become the First Wife themselves... but the competition was huge...

Not like it matters, since it's clear Elusia's situation is different. No mention of there being other children outside Ivy and Hortensia, for starters.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

What I found funny is that when Goldmary said “I’m sorry if my natural charisma is in any way an inconvenience to you”, she said it exactly the way she would if it were a disdainful humble-brag, but I weirdly got the impression from context that it was genuine. Though it seems like Hortensia has been asking her to turn down these advances or something, from how they’re talking about it, and I’m curious if further supports will elaborate on the “if so” and the “why”.

Definitely at least in the Japanese version, perhaps. Goldmary's whole thing was toned down in localization, from what I gather.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

…And they just… outright spoil the bit tragic ending of the first half of Genealogy. Woooooooooow. I guess they figured Heroes already spoiled enough? I’d figure they’d try to be a little more vague about it in the hopes of planning ahead to the next remake.

Well in fairness, all they say is what happened to Deirdre, but Sigurd says he’ll say more about the plot of his game after the trial.

To be fair, Sigurd dying was known even before the game came out.

Ads for the game already spoiled the fact we'd control two generations worth of characters. The box art features Seliph:

And even the game manual states how Seliph inherits his father's will. So Sigurd dying, or at least stop being playable, was never meant to be a spoiler.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Part of me was actually expecting this to be an entire Genealogy map.

In hindsight, I don’t fucking know why. Even the prologue would have been psychotically massive for this game.

That would've been interesting if they had, heh.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

But this seems to be a segment of Chapter 10.

It is indeed. Sigurd is defending Chalphy where Arvis would normally be.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

…No, that doesn’t work. Stops at thoron, which I temporarily forgot exists and I already had. Either there’s some trick to getting alternate forge paths I haven’t figured out, like you need to get it to a specific forge level before cross-forging it, or these things are enemy-only. Which would be a shame.

I feel they might. Because Soren comes with Bolting. So... siege tome obtained through DLC? Sounds about right.

Oh yeah, since you're not doing it right now. BIG WARNING FOR LATER:

Sigurd's paralogue has a hidden item. It's in the area where Seliph obtained Tyrfing. The little cape east of Chalphy. It's in a specific square, I think the farthest east one of the beach tiles. Definitely on the northeastern beach area for sure. So keep that in mind, since you're never told it's there... other than the fact the area had relevancy due to Tyrfing.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

So, Byleth’s toeing the party line regarding the mythology of the Church of Seiros, indicating that this isn’t Crimson Flower Byleth. Weird, because that’s the only way his adventures can be past tense and he still has dark green hair. What’s the timeline here?

Game never tells, as it were.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Okay, so I need to protect the crystals. Unfortunately the game doesn’t tell me how much HP they have, and I can’t even select destroy to see how much HP they have myself. So it’s sort of a defense map, where I have to go on the offensive to secure the things I’m supposed to protect. Cool, I like that! Alright, so, first off, I have Clanne, Ivy and Louis fuck up the three enemies below me (Louis makes it via engaging), and then I have Alcryst use Pepsiman’s personal boost to snipe a western swordmaster from behind my crystals while Kagetsu takes out one of the berserkers on the east side (and also notice that that wasn’t a stiletto thief with abnormally high attack, it was a swordmaster. Fuck. Well Kagetsu’s still a good user of that dracoshield).

Okay so those crystals have plenty of health. Good. So I have a chance in hell of a perfect score. Lessee here…

It was a challenge alright. I came close to losing one crystal... but I managed to save them all!

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

…But they didn’t attack Hortensia despite having a clean shot at her? Either one of them could have one-rounded her!

The enemies will always prioritize the crystals. They never attack you on Enemy Phase unless you're blocking the crystals. Because they won't go for another crystal when you do that. It seems the enemies have a hardcoded order, so if you block them from reaching the crystal they are suppose to attack, they will attack you to clear the way.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, looks like these… generic enemies… have revival stones? I’m guessing they’re making a beeline towards the crystals. Which means I need to kill them fast or I don’t get the reward. I could also rush Byleth, but they have money, and I need money.

In the Paralogues at least, when the generic enemies have Revival Crystals, it's because they tend to be a stand-in for a character. Either from the original map or because they're related to the Emblem character. In this case, the Wyvern Knight, Halberdier, and General. As in... Claude, Dimitri, and Edelgard.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

And hilariously, as if a reference to Three Houses’s incredibly awkward placement of side objective rewards, a text box just pops up saying what I earned for defending all the crystals: a talisman and an elixir. Well, that talisman’s going on Louis for sure!

Elixir is if you saved them all. Talisman you can allow to lose some crystals, but I don't know if there's a threshold or you just need to save at least one. So... it's not that critical to save them all, thankfully.

Unless your OCD can't stand coming back to see crystals missing, since I'm pretty sure they stay gone for skirmishes I think. RIP me with the Chapter 13 house I couldn't save. It will remain charred and half-destroyed forever.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

[Alastor15243]

37 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Solmic cavalry, Fogado included, should've come riding camels.

That sure would've been a sight. I wonder how cool camels would've managed to be, it seems suspect.

40 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

To be fair, even back in Blazing Blade, Lyn's own hut looked like more a permanent thing than a nomad's:

Then again, perhaps Lyn while alone couldn't just do the nomad thing so she decided to actually settle down permanently?

That sounds plausible. Still, nice catch.

41 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I mean, you still have to account for when the Engage gauge is recharging.

Well yes, but Alcryst's super-heavy Ike-engraved silver bow has exactly two functions right now:

1: Being Alcryst's strongest bow when using Astra Storm.

2: Maybe letting Alcryst do chip damage to generals.

Mulagir completely obsoletes the first and primary purpose (since Astra Storm can only be used while Mulagir is available), which is making me think maybe I should give someone else a super strong, super heavy weapon for use with specials.

43 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Is that a child's thing to do? Since I tend to sometimes read aloud when I write my fanfics and I'm close to turning 30. Not often, but occasionally.

The specific tone and way she read it out sounded like a child learning to read. Also the grammar was a bit basic and simplistic.

45 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Oh yeah, since you're not doing it right now. BIG WARNING FOR LATER:

Sigurd's paralogue has a hidden item. It's in the area where Seliph obtained Tyrfing. The little cape east of Chalphy. It's in a specific square, I think the farthest east one of the beach tiles. Definitely on the northeastern beach area for sure. So keep that in mind, since you're never told it's there... other than the fact the area had relevancy due to Tyrfing.

...Oh shit, did any of the others I already beat have hidden items?

 

45 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Elixir is if you saved them all. Talisman you can allow to lose some crystals, but I don't know if there's a threshold or you just need to save at least one. So... it's not that critical to save them all, thankfully.

Weird. I would've bet anything that the talisman would've been the harder one to get.

[Acacia Sgt]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

That sure would've been a sight. I wonder how cool camels would've managed to be, it seems suspect.

Yeah. Even if not for the generic classes, Fogado uses custom classes, so he at least could've been a camel rider.

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Well yes, but Alcryst's super-heavy Ike-engraved silver bow has exactly two functions right now:

1: Being Alcryst's strongest bow when using Astra Storm.

2: Maybe letting Alcryst do chip damage to generals.

Mulagir completely obsoletes the first and primary purpose (since Astra Storm can only be used while Mulagir is available), which is making me think maybe I should give someone else a super strong, super heavy weapon for use with specials.

Oh, so you're not using him for regular attacks? But yeah, sounds better to move the Engraving now then.

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

The specific tone and way she read it out sounded like a child learning to read. Also the grammar was a bit basic and simplistic.

Ah, I see.

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Oh shit, did any of the others I already beat have hidden items?

Best I know, no, it's just the Sigurd one who has it.

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Weird. I would've bet anything that the talisman would've been the harder one to get.

I guess they wanted to be lenient with it.

[Alastor15243]

13 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Oh, so you're not using him for regular attacks? But yeah, sounds better to move the Engraving now then.

Oh no, he's pretty great for other things, it's just that's the only thing I use that silver bow for. I use the longbow for regular attacks.

[Sunwoo]

14 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

No, they were definitely worshipping the Fell Dragon for far longer than that. The attacks were mostly happening because of Morion, with no indication any of his recent predecessors started it. Also it can't be that recent as otherwise it'd clash with Ivy's backstory.

Now, I do believe the attacks did drove Hyacinth to okay the plan to bring back Sombron, but I don't think there's anything confirming or denying that.

Lol, honestly that makes more sense than whatever insane headcanon certain other sites are trying to pass off as fact.

This game.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…And they’ve decided it is pronounced Sa-kay!? That’s how I pronounced it as a kid, but everyone fucking insisted to me it was Sa-kah due to the Japanese version! I personally think Sa-kay sounds better, so I’m a happy camper, though I wonder how other people who went by the Japanese pronunciation feel about this.

It is nice to get vocalized lines for a lot of these questionable pronunciations, but I wouldn't take them as gospel too much, given Micaiah says Yune as one syllable rhyming with ruin at one point (which is pretty much exactly how you'd expect someone to pronounce it by just reading the word).

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

3: Just generally using a map from Binding Blade instead of Blazing Blade feels so weird to me. This is supposed to be FE7’s time for representation, not a second go of 6.

Yeah, it's particularly hilarious and discussed in the "Let's talk about Paralogues" thread I made. Which I'd encourage you to post in, as it's actually designed for people to guess what the upcoming maps are.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I barely even feel like discussing strategy. I really should have done this sooner, and I’m probably better served spending my time today breezing through this rather than taking the time to write and edit anything about what I’m doing. If anything interesting happens, I promise I’ll let you know. And honestly this is making me think that I should do the rest of the paralogues now rather than later, so they don’t all eventually get this boring by the time I have the nerve to do them. Losing Merrin sucked, but it was probably more interesting to read about than this.

Indeed, I am an awful person who hopes all your digital friends die.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

INTERESTINGLY, when Lyn’s talking about the friends that helped her grow beyond the person she’d been just from growing up on the plains, she explicitly refers to Eliwood and Hector, not the tactician. That’s interesting and encouraging, because I’ve seen fairly strong arguments that Awakening and Heroes were trying to lean her into kind of… obsessing over the avatar, as it were, and having each new avatar remind her of them.

Not even finding out that Pepsiman woke up with no idea how he got where he was, surrounded by unfamiliar people, springs up memories of the tactician like it did for her with Robin in Awakening.

It's entirely possible t hey just forgot about Mark's existence given how minor they are. XD Well, no, probably not, as this game shows a lot of care for its fan service.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, I just wanna say, I think I’ve concluded that the music in this game is from real instrument recordings. But if it isn’t, holy shit, props to whoever composed this for including the little metallic slides across the acoustic guitar strings in the Somniel theme.

Not something I've ever thought to check, but if a game uses a real orchestra, wouldn't they have to credit them in the credits? It's not like game companies carry around orchestras in house, that's something you probably have to hire freelance for a project.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Alright, next paralogue, next paralogue…

Micaiah’s is around Eirika’s level…

Byleth’s is a few levels lower…

…as is Sigurd’s…

…Leif’s is around Eirika’s level again…

…Alright, so, Byleth or Sigurd should be my next destination. I’ll go with Byleth, because Byleth isn’t all that major of a player in my army and doesn’t radically change how one of my best units plays.

…But I’m more curious about Sigurd’s so let’s check out this one first.

You don't mention him, but you should have Roy now too, and I'd rate his paralogue as the easiest of the bunch and thus one you're probably better off doing early.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, looks like these… generic enemies… have revival stones? I’m guessing they’re making a beeline towards the crystals. Which means I need to kill them fast or I don’t get the reward. I could also rush Byleth, but they have money, and I need money.

These generic enemies that just so happen to be a Wyvern Lord, and Armoured Knight and a Halberdier (hint hint). The paralogues do this quite frequently.

6 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Solmic cavalry, Fogado included, should've come riding camels.

Oh yes, absolutely yes. That should have been his personal class. What even is a Cupido? Is it meant to be like the Helenestic fairy god love guy? If so, he should be flying.

6 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I mean, even Japan has a "desert":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottori_Sand_Dunes

So it's not implausible if Pale Sands can have that and green areas for, say, Sakura Trees.

Tottori isn't a desert. It's just a big beach. You turn that camera around from all those shorts of camels and this is what you get

That's the actual city of Tottori, perfectly normal Japanese landscape.

6 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Sigurd's paralogue has a hidden item. It's in the area where Seliph obtained Tyrfing. The little cape east of Chalphy. It's in a specific square, I think the farthest east one of the beach tiles. Definitely on the northeastern beach area for sure. So keep that in mind, since you're never told it's there... other than the fact the area had relevancy due to Tyrfing.

WHAT! That's so freaking cool! I didn't get it and I should feel bad about that, but I'm too busy being overwhelmed by the fanservice. What is it?

 

[Acacia Sgt]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Tottori isn't a desert. It's just a big beach. You turn that camera around from all those shorts of camels and this is what you get

That's the actual city of Tottori, perfectly normal Japanese landscape.

The word was in quotation marks for a reason.

And that's my point. Pale Sands could be sandy in one place, then you turn around and there's greenery.

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

WHAT! That's so freaking cool! I didn't get it and I should feel bad about that, but I'm too busy being overwhelmed by the fanservice. What is it?

A Goddess Icon.

[lenticular]

12 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Fun fact, this was the only Paralogue I had to retry. Because I failed to beat the mini-bosses in time, so I had to deal with four reinforcement groups... plus Lyn. And since I did the Paralogue when it unlocked and my team was underleveled... yeah.

Second try I just dropped any turtling pretenses and quickly rushed to stop the reinforcements, hahaha.

It was the only one I had to retry as well. I tried it when it first unlocked, was horribly underleveled, and got destroyed. Then I went away, did some more story missions, and came back when I'd leveled up a bit, at which point I waltzed through it no problem. And it kinda feels like the map design lends itself to that sort of experience. It felt very swingy. If you're struggling with the map then it will swamp you with reinforcements that you probably can't handle. But if you're having an easy time of things, then there's no reinforcements and the map stays easy. The middle ground of "fun, challenging, but doable" seems like a fairly narrow window.

[joeygreedy]

Hey, so I just binged a lot of your playlogs over the past week, and I noticed you said you don't have many bond fragments, did you go to the Achievements tab within the Donation board in the Somniel to claim the Bond Fragments? I had about 40k saved up last time before I realized that was how you claimed them. They never tell you this, but yeah.

Also, the flea market sells ingots, but you have to buy them 1 at a time...

 

Oh, I just want to say, whoever made Kagatsu's bases were high on something, but at least if you lose half your team in Chapter 11 you get 3 really solid replacements for the inevitable Maddening Ironman. 

[Alastor15243]

2 hours ago, joeygreedy said:

Hey, so I just binged a lot of your playlogs over the past week, and I noticed you said you don't have many bond fragments, did you go to the Achievements tab within the Donation board in the Somniel to claim the Bond Fragments? I had about 40k saved up last time before I realized that was how you claimed them. They never tell you this, but yeah.

...

Thank you very much, and noted.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 2/19/2023 at 1:06 PM, Alastor15243 said:

And hilariously, as if a reference to Three Houses’s incredibly awkward placement of side objective rewards, a text box just pops up saying what I earned for defending all the crystals: a talisman and an elixir. Well, that talisman’s going on Louis for sure!

Huh. I let, like, two or three of them get broken, and I got the same reward. Seems like a very weaksauce prize for defending all of them.

In any case, I do think this map was done far better than 3H's own version. In that one, all you need is Stride, your Dancer, and a Wyvern Rider with a Hammer. Congrats, you've won on turn one. And even if you're playing it more "conventionally", it's not particularly hard to stop any enemies with Crest Stones from fleeing.

On 2/19/2023 at 1:06 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Man, Sigurd really completes Louis. He’s what’s keeping Louis relevant in the late-game, and Louis’s really good at taking advantage of it. They just mesh so well.

While I still think Sigurd is great on anyone, he does go especially well on a high-Strength Lance-user. I just got the Silver Greatlance, and I'm itching to Override with it.

On 2/19/2023 at 1:06 PM, Alastor15243 said:

But they didn’t attack Hortensia despite having a clean shot at her? Either one of them could have one-rounded her!

Thankfully, they seem to prioritize cracking the Crystals. Which, as you mentioned, not showing the HP of breakable objects is a pretty frustrating UI oversight.

On 2/19/2023 at 1:06 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Clanne: Yum! The lingering taste of victory!

I love me some Clanne, but this line makes me uncomfortable every time. "Lingering" is just an inherently unappetizing word.

On 2/19/2023 at 1:06 PM, Alastor15243 said:

They don’t mention a trial this time! They just go into it like they know the drill, which is nice. Personally I’d say better to make the first time seem a little too aware than make the other 11 a little too oblivious.

Pretty sure you can play this as your first one. I mean, I did. You get the Lyn and Lucina Rings (and, by extension, their Paralogues) at the same time, after all.

On 2/19/2023 at 1:06 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, so, before I start, something’s been bugging me: I don’t like how “swap spaces” is called “swap spaces”. Because it’s also the only option that lets you get a good look at the map, so it should have been called something like “view map”. I dunno, the fact that it’s called “swap spaces” just doesn’t really sit well with me.

Yeah, I hate pressing B on the menu, and being asked "Return to World Map?" I'm like "no, I want this menu out of the way, so I can just look at the map." Personally think that seeing the map layout should be the "default" state of the preps screen.

On 2/19/2023 at 1:06 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Once I do, Alcryst’s silver bow will be completely pointless, since it has the same might. Hmmm… I should keep that in mind and see if anyone else can use a weapon to buff their special, and switch the bond to that.

One option would be the Radiant Bow, as that could make an Astral Barrage which outdamages Mulagir against low-Res enemies. A Greataxe (with Ike's Great Aether) or Thunder-family tome could be other good options.

On 2/19/2023 at 1:06 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, I realized I hadn’t quite finished up my Somniel maintenance, so I’m finishing that up real quick, and I can’t help but notice that the item shop has shields on the wall. Were they originally planning on bringing shields back, or at least the concept of equippable items? I mean, Thyrsus feels kind of out of place in a game that doesn’t have them.

I'm guessing they're just there as decorations. We do have the Dracoshield back as a booster, after all - as opposed to the Giant Shell in 3H.

9 hours ago, joeygreedy said:

Also, the flea market sells ingots, but you have to buy them 1 at a time...

I've gotten to the point where there are 240 Steel Ingots for sale... and I can only buy them 1 at a time. Really wondering who they're expecting to mash the A button here.

 

[Alastor15243]

Engage Day 28: Roy’s Paralogue

Okay! So! Apparently there’s a veritable trove of bond fragments I’ve been obliviously sitting on! Let’s see this…

…

…I just went from 1,497 bond fragments… to 21,932. The act of collecting them was initially exhausting as all fuck until I noticed the “collect all” option and promptly did that to preserve my sanity against that goddamned jingle.

Okay then! LET’S USE SOME OF THIS SHIT.

So I did an arena battle with Ivy, let it run in the background while I looked online for something, then heard:

Byleth: I’m not setting a very good example.

Ivy: Lucky, I suppose.

PFFFFFF

…Okay, “Lost and Found” is a pretty cute call-back skill idea. I hated the game and I can still acknowledge that it’s cute that Byleth can find items and build support points by chance when ending turns next to an ally.

Kagetsu lost a battle with Ike, but he fought valiantly, getting two crits in. And since he didn’t need to win, he now has Ragnell!

But that’s just peanuts. He was nearly there anyway. Let’s see what else I can do with this bounty.

…Hey! Let’s get some of those supports with Ivy and Corrin! If nothing else, I’ll get the option to buff her max HP later.

So apparently it’s entirely fine to attack in melee with the Wakizashi in the arena.

Ivy: It must be terribly boring to follow a surly one like me around. You have my apologies.

Corrin: On the contrary, I’m very entertained. I enjoy seeing all the subtle ways you express yourself.

REALLY?

No talk of the conflict of having to fight your homeland!?

That is such a depressing missed opportunity!

But anyway, let’s get Alcryst Mulagir, and then have Kagetsu and Ike max out their bond.

Kagetsu asks Ike about the mercenaries he had under his command, feeling they must’ve been very strong. I find it weirdly endearing that the people he mentions (by class and talent, not by name) as being particularly talented are Soren and Shinon, the two hardest-to-get-along-with of his group.

And this conversation is actually four lines long, not just two! Nice! Sounds like Kagetsu’s about to get a story of Titania.

Oh yeah! Notification just reminded me of an idle thought I set a reminder to talk about:

I wonder how they’ll keep bosses interesting when we have all the Emblems. They’ve really been relying on a lot of Emblems being in the enemy’s possession to spice up boss fights, so I wonder what’ll happen when I get all twelve, which I imagine is gonna happen a good bit before the endgame.

Kagetsu now has a defense of 31 between his maxed out Emblem and the newly-obtained defense+4. Kickass. He also has Resolve+, meaning it’ll get up to 38, which is Louis’s defense.

…I accidentally clicked to fast-travel to the same room I was in, and thankfully, while the game didn’t prevent this, it also didn’t unload and re-load the room or anything, so no loading screen.

I got Framme her tome proficiency through Micaiah, and Micaiah made weird fucking sounds when Framme repeatedly punched her.

But hearing Framme and Micaiah’s bond reminds me:

Micaiah is another character where I can’t imagine this voice actress actually saying any of Micaiah’s lines from the original game. This Micaiah is insufferably saccharine. Meanwhile the Micaiah of Radiant Dawn had a lot of heavy shit to say, not to mention a lot of cold snark. She has a lot more in common with Soren than her depiction here would remotely suggest.

Emblem Ike is honestly psychotically strong whenever anyone fights him in the arena, and I don’t see how anyone could defeat him with a physical attack.

…Alright, I’ve worked my way through just about 10,000 of that windfall of bond fragments, so I’ll keep that remaining bit-more-than-half for when I get the remaining Emblems in case I get any sudden ideas.

Now to feed Lilith, grab items, and then look for Roy’s paralogue, which completely slipped my notice during the initial investigation.

…The level recommendation for Roy’s is actually the highest of all of the ones I’ve seen, but it’s apparently one of the easiest?

Alright, let’s see what we’re dealing with then.

“Binding Grounds”…

…Is this what they renamed the Shrine of Seals to after they decided Sword of Seals wasn’t a good name?

Hell, I didn’t think that was a bad name even back in Melee when I thought it was referring to the animal! I mean hell, why not? Marth had a dolphin slash!

…Please let this be the FE7 version of the shrine approach. Lyn’s was from FE6, it’s only fair!

I like Roy’s VA’s acting here recounting the battle. It actually makes me believe he was there.

Pepsiman: Battle you? But why?

UGGGGGHHHHH

…Anyway, no, it’s not the FE7 one, it’s the FE6 one. And it’s kind of hilarious seeing the scale difference here. Not just in the fact that the map has gone from 32x36 to 24x26, but in that the huge, fuck-off mountains the GBA games were famous for are now just boulders barely ten feet high. I guess that’s what happens when you take a map made with no sense of map-to-unit scale in mind and then try to put it in a game that does try to make things seem proportionate.

…Roy’s level 40.

He has 30 speed, and until Yunaka debuffs him literally nobody in my army has the speed to double him.

…Now, Jotari, you said you would, and I quote, “rate this paralogue as the easiest of the bunch”…

…But you also said you were, and I quote, “an awful person who hopes all of [my] digital friends die”.

And given this is also based on one of the most infamously challenging maps in all of Fire Emblem…

…I have a feeling you might be trying to trick me into fucking myself up by committing to a challenge that has really powerful enemies and nasty reinforcements.

Well I’m not falling for it, Jotari.

I am not gullibly walking into this challenge for your sick and twisted amusement.

I am deliberately walking into this challenge for your sick and twisted amusement.

Because I am a let’s player. And let’s players do not turn a blind eye to entertaining challenges.

Even if it’s a trap. Even if it’s strategically unwise.

Let’s do this.

First, off, CHECK THE FUCKMOTHERING STAFF USERS.

Happily, it seems there aren’t any. Good to know.

…HMMMMM…

A bunch of wyvern knights with exactly 17 speed, all of them wielding axes?

When Kagetsu just got Ragnell, which he has 22 speed with?

SOUNDS LIKE A SIGN TO ME.

…But that reminds me I forgot to make a meal. And yeah, something boosting speed and defense would be wise.

Okay, so I made veal rolls, and I don’t know what black magic fuckery Timerra’s doing to the meat I give her to retroactively make it harvested specifically from baby cows, but the results are passable.

Saphir is apparently afraid of heights. I’m sure some deranged asshole has made her a wyvern knight specifically after hearing this, but I won’t be doing that, no sir.

…Mostly because I’m not using her, but still.

…Also, I decided against giving Louis the talisman. In hindsight that was probably a mistake with the previous ones, and Kagetsu would probably get more mileage out of the talismans now. So he will.

Ivy gets the goddess icon, Hortensia gets the seraph robe. Alright, that sounds about right. Now then, let’s get back to assessing the map.

I can pretty easily take out the mages below between Clanne, Ivy and Alcryst (the lattermost with Seadall’s dance to boost him the rest of the way over). Kagetsu will take the wyverns on the right side and utterly annihilate them with Ragnell (which is inferior to his ultra-forged silver dagger in every way, hilariously enough, except for that whopping +5 defense, but fuck it, that 5 defense is awesome and also fucking Ragnell), and then after that, he’ll use his earth-shattering defensive powers to press the advantage against the generals and snipers. No backup units anywhere that I can see, because Bern didn’t know about the Engage meta. But if he needs help, I’ll have some healers tailing him.

Meanwhile, if the southern group gets into trouble, they’ve got Yunaka. Nuff said.

Now to press on with this, stay vigilant, and keep my options open in case reinforcements send everything to hell.

Begin.

Okay, as expected, Roy’s music is “Beneath a New Light”, though I’m not a particular fan of the way they covered it. Though let’s see the battle music first before I judge any further.

Yeah I’m not a fan of how they did the chord progressions here. They aren’t anything like the original, in a somewhat unsettling way. Honestly, most of these trial themes feel like they were written by someone who wasn’t really a huge fan of the original songs and wanted to do something weird and experimental with them, only sounding as much like the original songs as they had to. Kind of a disappointment in general, which is a shame, given how much I like the music in this game and the series in general.

One thing I’ve noticed… remember how I said the Vajra-Mushti looked weird in Byleth’s inventory? That’s because for some reason, all of an Emblem’s weapons are monochrome when they’re on the Emblems and not on you. Not sure why.

Pepsiman: Is that the sound of huge wings? It sounds like wyverns!

I KNEW IT!

I KNEW THERE WOULD BE REINFORCEMENTS!

Goddammit, and they say “advance with caution”. They’re proximity-based again probably. Hopefully not full-out same-turn tripwire, but the game has done that on at least one occasion, so my faith is a bit shaken.

…Oh thank goodness, they’re end-of-turn. Awesome. Alright, that should be no problem.

For some reason, these snipers have more defense than the wyvern knights. Don’t know why, but while Yunaka couldn’t take out any of the enemies she baited in, there’s more than enough player-phase muscle in her group to finish the job.

…Oh shit.

I just had Alcryst use Astra Storm… and realized that Luna procced on individual attacks.

So you can’t crit on it, but you can proc skills. Damn, that could make Alcryst devastating. And it also means I shouldn’t necessarily “not bother” Astra Storming a high-defense target just because it says it’ll do no damage. If I’m desperate, then I should keep in mind that there’s a chance it’ll do something.

…More reinforcements showed up, and they were in more awkward positions this time, but thankfully Rosado managed to block off one of the ones closer to my start point, allowing Framme a single space to reach unharmed that didn’t involve backing herself into a corner.

Honestly, canter is insanely handy. It lets you do things like, say, kill a wyvern rider with your archer while still letting him move to a slightly out-of-the-way energy tile to refill his engage meter. Or reposition your glass cannons for a goddess dance.

…I only needed to do the former this turn though.

Aaaaaand all the remaining fliers charged once I got in range of the wyrm. Alright, no big deal, Kagetsu’s got his engage back and Yunaka is Yunaka, and those are the only ones in too deep to retreat.

A Mulagir Astra Storm completely unmakes the wyrm, and then all of the wyverns completely ignore the supremely untouchable Yunaka for the far more DPS-stable Kagetsu they do a piddling 1 damage to.

Unfortunately, I probably would have been happier using the Astra Storm on the meteor mage at the bottom of the map. But fuck it, let’s just press on while Kagetsu still has his engage.

Weirdly, if you have basic resolve equipped and also equip Ike while high enough bond that he grants you Resolve+, then despite the original redundant skill being greyed out, you get +5 from “effect” and then +2 from “emblem”, as if it’s applying the greyed out skill first.

Alright, I entered the shrine’s attack range… and weirdly, only Roy moved out to challenge me. Well, thankfully there aren’t too many of the wyvern knight reinforcements. I’ll have my army head down to catch up with Kagetsu and Yunaka while they soften Roy up for us.

Incidentally, so, I finally worked out through experimentation (and actually using it) what the hell the deal with Call Doubles is. Basically, they stay put there until your engage ends… but they chain attack with you for all of the rest of your attacks in that engage, wherever they happen to be. That’s pretty badass, and really turns Alcryst into a DPS menace.

Alright, I’m laying on the hurt on Roy. He’s paralyzed, debuffed, poisoned, all the wyverns are dead, and hey, I can even position a goddess dance to take out the gold-toting meteor mage in the shrine!

Oh cool! Alcryst gets a conversation with Roy!

…Alcryst predictably questions why Roy’s deigning to fight him due to his self-esteem issues, and Roy assures him he’s a worthy opponent… which would make this absolutely comical if this conversation happened on enemy phase and proceeded to result in a dead-for-real Alcryst.

Disappointingly, Lyn has nothing to say to Roy.

But anyway, that was the final blow.

Honestly, I’m getting the feeling you were telling the truth when you were saying this map was easy, Jotari.

…So Pepsiman reminds Roy of Idunn. Which is apparently pronounced Ee-dune, emphasis on the first syllable. I figured it was more like Idunn, emphasis on the second.

I imagine Pepsiman has to be quite confused as to why he’s being compared to a traumatized and corrupted divine dragon. Though yes, in fairness, the heterochromia is a thing.

…Goddamn it, Pepsiman’s exaggerated bend-over when asking whether Roy spared or killed Idunn is absolutely absurd. He seems honestly childish here. And also, Roy says he’ll tell him after the war is over. So is the good ending not necessarily canon then, and they’re weaseling their way out of confirming?

…I’ve gotta wonder if anyone lives in this un-visitable house, and what their opinion is about the weird shit Emblem chaos magic did to their lawn.

…Well, alright, I think that’s my entry for the day. Tomorrow I think I’ll try yet another paralogue. Probably Micaiah’s, because I know for certain that Clanne still stands a lot to gain by bonding more with her. Especially increased staff rank.

Alastor, signing off!

Edited February 20, 2023 by Alastor15243