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

[lenticular]

20 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Apparently Aimee and Ilyana weren't even told what they were “arrested” for, and now they await “the general's pleasure”.

...That can't not mean what it sounds like, can it?

So now Begnion is just randomly arresting women off the street to be raped by the general of this... prison, I think?

That generally just means that there's no specific sentence or prison term and that you're in there until the general decides to let you out, or in this case, until he decides to throw you in the labour camps, or whatever. I presume it's a comment on the lack of a fair trial or any sort of due process, rather than anything else. The IRL equivalent phrase would be "at her majesty's pleasure" or "at the governor's pleasure" or similar. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Her_Majesty's_pleasure)

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, lenticular said:

That generally just means that there's no specific sentence or prison term and that you're in there until the general decides to let you out, or in this case, until he decides to throw you in the labour camps, or whatever. I presume it's a comment on the lack of a fair trial or any sort of due process, rather than anything else. The IRL equivalent phrase would be "at her majesty's pleasure" or "at the governor's pleasure" or similar. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Her_Majesty's_pleasure)

Fair enough, thanks for the info. Though that does raise the question of why exactly they were arrested.

Edited July 29, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Icelerate]

51 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

And now we get the merchants all talking about how Begnion's occupation is worse than Ashnard's rule of Crimea, and... yeah. It pretty much is. And that is not a good thing, writers. This is not how you make a sequel better than the original.

Why would Begnion's occupation of Daein being worse than Daein's occupation of Crimea be a bad thing from a writing perspective? 

  

51 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

So, we find Micaiah in a cell, saying “I hope the others escaped...”

Don't see how what you did particularly helped them escape, given you didn't even warn them.

Micaiah already told them to meet up at Kunu Swamp which would allow them to escape to Kunu Swamp in three marks' time. She also let Yune escape and distracted the Begnion forces. 

Spoiler

Micaiah:
“Let’s rendezvous at Kunu Swamp in three marks’ time.”

 

Edited July 29, 2020 by Icelerate

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Why would Begnion's occupation of Daein being worse than Daein's occupation of Crimea be a bad thing from a writing perspective? 

It wouldn't be inherently, the issue is that the way they did it makes Begnion's occupation force way more cartoonish in its evil than Daein ever was. I was basically saying "just because Begnion's occupation army is more evil doesn't mean it's a better and more interesting enemy. That's not how you write villains."

Edited July 29, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Icelerate]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

It wouldn't be inherently, the issue is that the way they did it makes Begnion's occupation force way more cartoonish in its evil than Daein ever was. I was basically saying "just because Begnion's occupation army is more evil doesn't mean it's a better and more interesting enemy. That's not how you write villains."

Sure I'm not saying they are necessarily better just because they are more evil but a villain being more evil doesn't make them worse by default. 

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Icelerate said:

Sure I'm not saying they are necessarily better just because they are more evil but a villain being more evil doesn't make them worse by default. 

Yeah, I get that, that's why I'm clarifying that's not what I meant.

[Icelerate]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

But they also talk about a rumor of an orphan prince of Daein hiding in the desert, trying to raise an army. And they just overtly mention the parallels between this story and Path of Radiance's, and... like...

...Okay, was this really the best idea you had to open up your grand sequel? By telling virtually the same story in a drastically more rushed and less elegant fashion?

I wouldn't say it is virtually the same story considering Ike has to go out of his way to secure Begnion's support after escaping Crimea. He also invades Daein first and then Crimea. The actual liberation of Crimea is more rushed than the liberation of Daein. 

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

That generally just means that there's no specific sentence or prison term and that you're in there until the general decides to let you out, or in this case, until he decides to throw you in the labour camps, or whatever. I presume it's a comment on the lack of a fair trial or any sort of due process, rather than anything else. The IRL equivalent phrase would be "at her majesty's pleasure" or "at the governor's pleasure" or similar. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Her_Majesty's_pleasure)

Yeah but then why was it just the two women of the convoy that were rounded up. I think the implication stands. Though maybe Aimee was being sardonic with the term.

[Icelerate]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Yeah but then why was it just the two women of the convoy that were rounded up. I think the implication stands. Though maybe Aimee was being sardonic with the term.

Kurth was also rounded up but he's no girl. 

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Kurth was also rounded up but he's no girl. 

Was he with the merchants at the time? And if so, that does bring us back to the initial question of why they'd round up these specific characters (and not the able bodied men that are supposedly meant to be in prison camps).

[Icelerate]

11 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Was he with the merchants at the time? And if so, that does bring us back to the initial question of why they'd round up these specific characters (and not the able bodied men that are supposedly meant to be in prison camps).

Maybe they arrested him because he was of fighting age. The other merchants probably ran away. 

Do you think we are taking all able bodied men too literally? 

[Alastor15243]

2 hours ago, Icelerate said:

Micaiah already told them to meet up at Kunu Swamp which would allow them to escape to Kunu Swamp in three marks' time. She also let Yune escape and distracted the Begnion forces. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Micaiah:
“Let’s rendezvous at Kunu Swamp in three marks’ time.”

 

She told everyone to split up in different directions, stay in the general area, and search for Laura for the next three marks, however long a mark is supposed to be, whether it's an hour or something else, and then meet up at Kunu Swamp. That's not letting them get away, they're still in the area, and they will be for quite a while.

And then we're given literally no explanation whatsoever for how Sothe and the others knew where Micaiah and Laura were. If it was indeed thanks to Yune, they never say.

[Icelerate]

16 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

She told everyone to split up in different directions, stay in the general area, and search for Laura for the next three marks, however long a mark is supposed to be, whether it's an hour or something else, and then meet up at Kunu Swamp. That's not letting them get away, they're still in the area, and they will be for quite a while.

And then we're given literally no explanation whatsoever for how Sothe and the others knew where Micaiah and Laura were. If it was indeed thanks to Yune, they never say.

By the time Micaiah is in the prison, a long time has passed so your assertion that they still shouldn't have gotten away is flawed. 

The length of the script in chapter 1-2 is awful and barely explains what happens unfortunately as you pointed out in your post but considering Yune has shown to be able to guide the other members of the DB prior as well as the fact that when Sothe rescues Micaiah, Yune is with Sothe means Yune was able to find the DB. If she found the DB, it follows she guided them to where Micaiah and Laura were held as she has all the reason to do so as well as the capability to do so. I do think the later chapters in the story do a better job in explaining things properly until chapter 3-11 but I'm not going to talk about that until the time comes. 

The normal script cut corners unfortunately. Read my conversation with Kirokan if you are curious. Here is a small snippet of the conversation. 

Spoiler

I was looking through the chapter, and wow! The extended script has more dialogue with more of the characters contributing.
 

 

Edited July 29, 2020 by Icelerate

[Alastor15243]

5 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

By the time Micaiah is in the prison, a long time has passed so your assertion that they still shouldn't have gotten away is flawed.

What do you mean? Just because a lot of time has passed doesn't mean that they had time to get away from Jarod. They were in the area for at least an hour, not even a quarter of a mile away from where Micaiah was captured when she was captured. If Jarod had searched the area, they may very well have been caught, and Micaiah had no reason to assume Jarod wouldn't search. Her instructions would have left them sitting ducks if not for Jarod's decision.

...Also, come to think of it, I have no idea why Jarod left such an important and apparently valuable prisoner in this random prison he wasn't guarding rather than taking her back to Nevassa to be executed or presented to Numida to bolster his own glory or whatever.

Edited July 29, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Icelerate]

23 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

What do you mean? Just because a lot of time has passed doesn't mean that they had time to get away from Jarod. They were in the area for at least an hour, not even a quarter of a mile away from where Micaiah was captured when she was captured. If Jarod had searched the area, they may very well have been caught, and Micaiah had no reason to assume Jarod wouldn't search. Her instructions would have left them sitting ducks if not for Jarod's decision.

...Also, come to think of it, I have no idea why Jarod left such an important and apparently valuable prisoner in this random prison he wasn't guarding rather than taking her back to Nevassa to be executed or presented to Numida to bolster his own glory or whatever.

By the time she is in prison, Micaiah has already witnessed Jarod's decision to withdraw to the castle which would increase the chances of them escaping. 

Spoiler

Jarod:
“Enough of this! Back to the castle. As long as we have these two, the others don’t matter.”

 Even still, she wasn't 100% sure and was relying on hope. 

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, and now we get Ilyana's (in)famous line:

Ilyana: I can fight... I'm...very angry... The food here... It was terrible, and...they gave us hardly any... I...will have vengeance.

...Weirdly, the game seems to have this thing where there are only spaces between ellipses and the next word if it's a drawn-out sentence-ender rather than just a mid-sentence pause.

Also:

Micaiah: This girl takes her food pretty seriously. Interesting.

Ilyana mentioning food in this scene to this degree makes a lot of sense because it is to be expected they hardly gave her any as well as it being terrible. I don't see it as a bastardization of her character when in the first place she was this one dimensional even in PoR. 

  

On 7/11/2020 at 6:28 AM, Jotari said:

So basically he was the most obvious war mongerer on the continent. Fun to imagine who Sephiran would have chosen if Ashnard didn't exist though. My guess would be Tibarn. A Phoenics Begnion conflict wouldn't be out of the question.

Why not the Begnion Senate?

Edited July 29, 2020 by Icelerate

[Alastor15243]

4 hours ago, Icelerate said:

By the time she is in prison, Micaiah has already witnessed Jarod's decision to withdraw to the castle which would increase the chances of them escaping. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Jarod:
“Enough of this! Back to the castle. As long as we have these two, the others don’t matter.”

 Even still, she wasn't 100% sure and was relying on hope.

I am extremely confused by your arguments, because the bolded part is what I've been arguing is the problem. It's made completely unclear by the narrative how getting herself captured without telling Sothe accomplished anything. Her plan was a stupid gamble that could very easily have gotten literally the entire Dawn Brigade captured along with her, because she didn't tell anyone her plan or even warn anyone of the danger and ran headlong into what she knew was a trap.

Also, wait, does that line from Jarod mean that that prison was in Nevassa? That didn't look anything like Nevassa.

As for Ilyana, she didn't mention food nearly this much in Path of Radiance, and she had several non-support-conversation scenes.

 

Incidentally, has anyone else noticed the site freezing up and struggling to load properly on mobile? It is for me, seemingly no matter what mobile browser I use.

Edited July 29, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Icelerate]

18 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I am extremely confused by your arguments, because the bolded part is what I've been arguing is the problem. It's made completely unclear by the narrative how getting herself captured without telling Sothe accomplished anything. Her plan was a stupid gamble that could very easily have gotten literally the entire Dawn Brigade captured along with her, because she didn't tell anyone her plan or even warn anyone of the danger and ran headlong into what she knew was a trap.

Also, wait, does that line from Jarod mean that that prison was in Nevassa? That didn't look anything like Nevassa.

As for Ilyana, she didn't mention food nearly this much in Path of Radiance, and she had several non-support-conversation scenes.

 

Incidentally, has anyone else noticed the site freezing up and struggling to load properly on mobile? It is for me, seemingly no matter what mobile browser I use.

As of now, Micaiah's plans have been reckless gambles. As for why she didn't tell Sothe, he would never have allowed her to go after Laura if he knew Laura had gotten captured. At least that's what I think. Unfortunately, the game doesn't explicitly say this. A character making a bad decision =/= bad writing. 

No, that line probably means Jarod returned to Nevassa. Though that does beg the question why he didn't take her to Nevassa directly. If you get access to the long Japanese script translations of part one, do tell me because I'm just as confused as you. 

In PoR, Ilyana had access to plenty of food unlike in the prison. In part 3, for example, Ilyana barely talks about food. 

Same for me. I wonder what's the problem with this website on mobile. 

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Icelerate said:

As of now, Micaiah's plans have been reckless gambles. As for why she didn't tell Sothe, he would never have allowed her to go after Laura if he knew Laura had gotten captured. At least that's what I think. Unfortunately, the game doesn't explicitly say this. A character making a bad decision =/= bad writing.

A character making a bad decision is not bad writing, but a character making a bad decision and not being depicted as having made a bad decision, a la Corrin, definitely is. Micaiah's plan inexplicably works out for completely unexplained reasons without so much as a single word of protest from any of her allies, as if it were some brilliant gambit she meant to do all along.

3 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

In PoR, Ilyana had access to plenty of food unlike in the prison. In part 3, for example, Ilyana barely talks about food. 

I remember her part in Part 3 distinctly differently, so I guess I'll have to wait and see.

5 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

If you get access to the long Japanese script translations of part one, do tell me because I'm just as confused as you. 

I'll let you know if I do.

[Jotari]

10 hours ago, Icelerate said:

Maybe they arrested him because he was of fighting age. The other merchants probably ran away. 

Do you think we are taking all able bodied men too literally? 

Probably, but I think we can also just as easily make a claim that the narrator is bias against Begnion. Still my original question was whether or not Kurt was rounded up with the convoy stands. If he was rounded up separately then it's quite possible they convoy was raided specifically for the women. While if he was making use of it when the round up happened then it leans more towards random arrests rather than rapey time.

[Jotari]

10 hours ago, Icelerate said:

By the time she is in prison, Micaiah has already witnessed Jarod's decision to withdraw to the castle which would increase the chances of them escaping. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Jarod:
“Enough of this! Back to the castle. As long as we have these two, the others don’t matter.”

 Even still, she wasn't 100% sure and was relying on hope. 

 

Ilyana mentioning food in this scene to this degree makes a lot of sense because it is to be expected they hardly gave her any as well as it being terrible. I don't see it as a bastardization of her character when in the first place she was this one dimensional even in PoR. 

  

Why not the Begnion Senate?

Well he did use them too. That's why two years later he showed up and got voted prime minister. In fact manipulating them is the gun that eventually succeeded in releasing Ashera, even if it seems like he barely actually did anything to cause the war in Radiant Dawn beyond maybe killing a messenger.

Apologies for the double post. Is Serenes really sucking for anyone else right now? It won't let me edit any posts and takes ages to load pages.

[Alastor15243]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Probably, but I think we can also just as easily make a claim that the narrator is bias against Begnion. Still my original question was whether or not Kurt was rounded up with the convoy stands. If he was rounded up separately then it's quite possible they convoy was raided specifically for the women. While if he was making use of it when the round up happened then it leans more towards random arrests rather than rapey time.

Well, the merchants are met up with near the prison, not arrested, so either the Dawn Brigade rescued them separately and never mentioned it, or the men were indeed left alone.

In fairness, the law probably shouldn't apply to non-Daein people, like traveling merchants, and they did say "all Daein men of fighting age".

But that does seem to confirm the women were singled out for arrest, and... yeah, that does have those implications.

And yes, Serenes is sucking for me too. It won't even load on mobile apparently.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

Apologies for the double post. Is Serenes really sucking for anyone else right now? It won't let me edit any posts and takes ages to load pages.

It's been cutting up for me since Arceus knows when, too. Laptop or mobile, it takes a long time to load pages.

[Alastor15243]

Radiant Dawn Day 4: Chapter 1-4

Alright, time to go into the desert, and the first of multiple chapters with hidden treasures. This time they aren't just limited to desert maps, they appear basically everywhere. In fact, I apparently missed a coin last chapter. But from now on I've got the maps pulled up on my computer and will be consulting them thoroughly.

...Well that's obnoxious. There's just a brief establishing shot of a desert ruin with no dialogue whatsoever, and then it just cuts straight to base. Hopefully these four info conversations will help flesh things out.

Apparently also there's just... a town, in immediate proximity to this desert ruin. Is this a flashback? Is that something that these info conversations can be now?

But anyway, in this desert town, we find Meg, who is Brom's daughter, and also garbage. She's a grossly underleveled sword armor who is completely outclassed by Aran in any role she could conceivably have. That said, she is an amusing character. Basically, in a PoR support conversation I didn't get, Brom told Zihark he'd hook him up with one of his daughters, and... now Meg is traveling to the desert because he heard Zihark was there (he is), and she's absolutely convinced that she and Zihark are gonna get married and live happily ever after, something that obviously isn't going to happen. But the info conversation about it is very funny.

...However... yet again... I have questions.

She says she “left Crimea all on [her] own”. Did Brom know about that? Did he really let his daughter go all on her own into a country run by a brutal occupation army? Does everyone outside of Daein not know how fucked up Daein is right now, not just the apostle? Because Brom doesn't seem to be worried about Meg from what we see of him in Part 2...

...Guess I'll reserve judgment until I see that info conversation.

Aimee and Muston talk about the shop, and Aimee mentions some “key connections” that she's “recently made”. And apparently in Chapter 8 this involves getting her hands on, in an active war zone, a type of plant she didn't know existed until five chapters prior.

Aaaaanyway...

...Ah yes, this is the three star conversation that isn't really three star because they got rid of the extra cost to forging that this was negating.

This conversation is fairly funny. Apparently Sothe and Jorge don't get along that well, and after the two get into an argument, Sothe says he'll listen to the updated spiel (he already told Micaiah the original one) if Daniel does all the talking.

Jorge then immediately starts talking.

Also, this is when it reveals that coins now have a purpose other than being sold for one gold. You can use them to make a randomized bonus to any forges you buy.

So anyway, I go to the bargains, check out the stats of the ellight tome, and yet again the series makes the flagrantly idiotic claim that only “those dedicated to serve good” can wield light magic, despite literally every game with light magic except Genealogy and maybe Thracia having a light magic user who was a piece of shit.

On the plus side, healing staves seem to explicitly tell you exactly how much they heal, which is awesome.

Anyway, I go to buy some stuff, and yeah, the base menu is a bit different in this game. For one thing, the shop has been split up into a separate menu from items, albeit one conveniently placed right next to it. Honestly, I think this is a bit better. Simply removes extra button presses you had to do before when buying shit, since no matter who you sent into the shop, it always asked you who you were giving the item to. So it makes sense to not have to select somebody to send in.

The other thing they added was a huge library of characters and terms, presumably to help anyone who didn't play PoR, or anyone who is just generally confused.

I'll have to check that out later, then.

I spent a good deal of money at the shop, getting an iron axe for Nolan and a bronze knife for Sothe (1-2 range knives! Yay!) and then almost entirely clearing out the bargains section of everything but the ellight tome (pity, it's the only one Micaiah's blessed strength stat makes a lick of difference on). I imagine we'll start coming into more money soon, especially since we're about to fight in a massive treasure room and I remember a conversation about selling some treasures in the next chapter. No sense being stingy when there's useful shit to buy.

Beyond that, I think that's all I can do here. Time to head out.

Alright, yeah, I'm starting to get why a lot of people would find Micaiah's powers obnoxious. Honestly, it seems to just be an excuse for lazy writing, as she simply has magical powers that beckon her to go wherever the plot demands, rather than trying to create an organic series of events to tie everything together like other games do (or try to).

But now we get the scene where Sothe talks to Micaiah about the laguz and Ike. Sothe concludes the ruins must have been built by laguz because of how big they are (I mean, really? Dude, did you not live most of your life in a massive castle city made by beorc?), and then Micaiah talks about how much Sothe has changed and grown, and how he doesn't use the term “sub-human” anymore. And this is, I think, the first time we hear of the phrases “Children of Wisdom” and “Children of Strength”, but really all that matters is whether or not the goddess calls them that, so it's kind of worthless for my purposes. But yes, this is the first time I think that this comes up. But anyway, Sothe talks about how much he learned while training under commander Ike, and Micaiah instantly gets annoyed, and Micaiah says “Sothe, sometimes, every other thing you say is like an ode to Ike”. Well, we certainly haven't haven't seen that firsthand. Closest thing we got was him saying “To be fair, Crimea didn't have the resources to rule another country” at the beginning of Chapter 1.

Micaiah: I know you fought beside him. I know you owe him your life. And I know you want to be just like him... But to the people of Daein, he's the man who crushed us three years ago. Some would even call him our archenemy. If we hadn't lost the war to that man, Daein wouldn't be in the mess it's in now. You know that.

I'm not sure what Micaiah's trying to say here. Is she saying that Ike shouldn't have won the war? Or that he needs to be more sensitive to the fact that the Daein people are bitter that their psychopath of a king lost to him? Or just that he needs to be more careful about who he praises Ike around? Her annoyance at Sothe praising Ike seems to be less sheer annoyance at him overdoing it and more an issue of exactly who he's praising.

I liked this scene before, but... now I'm kind of confused about what the point is, or what Micaiah's trying to say. If Micaiah actually wishes Ike lost the war, that would be an interesting aspect to her character, but... it feels like they wanted to have a “we're on the other side of the story now” speech without really having a point to it. How does Micaiah feel about Ashnard? From what I remember, we never find out.

...Anyway...

...Oh hey! Look!

It's literally the only villainous laguz characters in the entire Tellius canon now that Naesala's been confirmed a victim of hostage-taking all along!

The laguz desert bandits! The first and only time in the franchise where the classic gonk bandit duo has ever not been human!

...They also seem to be by far the least entertaining, going by their rather bland dialogue. Shame.

But then Micaiah gives the signal, which is a massive flash of light magic, and...

...Instantly everyone's assembled and we're at the prep menu with no dialogue from any of the Dawn Brigade who, may I remind you, are all required to still be alive and could have easily had so much more dialogue in scenes like this than they've been given.

Man, I can't believe I didn't notice before how frequently scenes are rushed in this game.

...I forgot how incredibly ominous and intense the standard prep music is. For a second I thought the game accidentally played the endgame prep theme, but no, that's a different song. The normal one really is just this hardcore.

One thing that annoys me about this game is that movement isn't on this first unit info page. It could have easily gone in the bottom right corner of the top part, right across from weapon range.

This game also doesn't let you see your unit's movement range illuminated in blue from the prep menu, meaning that as far as I can tell... this game has made virtually no usability improvements over Path of Radiance, and is probably going lower due to the shit that Hard Mode pulls being a tie-breaker.

Thankfully... we'll be entering a seven game usability golden age right after this.

Oh, the divine glory of the post-GBA handheld era. Never again will a new Fire Emblem game feel the warm embrace of your two-screened bosom. So tragic. So sad. To reach that zenith of usability... and know it will never happen again. Every game's interface from here on out will be a pale shadow of your majesty.

...Anyway, we're fighting a bunch of laguz, which means massive training opportunities, since they're treated as having their level plus 20 when fought transformed. I'm pretty sure this game does that, where they're worth less experience when fought untransformed. At any rate, their stats are kind of comically terrible compared to early-game laguz in Path of Radiance, so it's not even difficult. I'll be focusing on Nolan and Aran, with Micaiah and Laura providing support and Sothe chipping in with his new beastkiller dagger in emergencies. Also, he'll be on the lookout for some nice treasure.

...I'll have to mess around with Path of Radiance to work out why I never complained about this in that game, but here, I find that the unit labels when you “mouse over” enemies are frequently getting in the way of me seeing where they can move.

...Apparently thieves do not have a 100% chance of getting treasures. That's... annoying.

Aran didn't get strength, but he got luck and res in addition to skill and defense! Nice! The res is lucky for him.

One of the laguz untransformed just as I was trying to set up a kill for Nolan, so now that he can't attack, I'm gonna let him run away so I can kill him later when he's strong and full of juicy exp. Gonna have to keep an eye on him though, so he doesn't take me by surprise when he transforms back.

Got the buried coin, so that's taken care of.

Man am I glad I chose not to attack with Nolan on my turn. He critted, and if that tiger he fought had died from that crit, he'd have just been attacked by a second one and killed.

Micaiah got HP and defense, which is... amazing news for me. And Nolan gets a fantastic level up: everything but magic!

Okay, so the laguz aren't worth that much exp. And in fact, after killing that untransformed one with Ilyana to check, I honestly can't tell if there's a difference between transformed and untransformed... lemme check online...

...Apparently they are indeed supposed to give more exp... I guess it's not enough to be noticed with Sothe since he's promoted? But it still feels like he's getting less exp from someone of his level than he should.

I wound up having to use Meg to plug a gap for a turn, and she looks so goofy while fighting, especially with that helmet.

Okay, yeah, even with unpromoted units fighting transformed laguz, I'm not getting as much exp from this as I was hoping for. Oh well, I'll still get whatever I can.

Shit, it looks like the bosses move. That's... unfortunate. Only when approached though, so I should still have time to get the treasures.

Aran's been shockingly strength-screwed, being two entire points behind with a seventy five percent growth. He's also behind on speed, but way ahead in luck, which is... okay, I guess, but...

Okay, now that I actually have access to bonus experience, I'll explain what I've been going on about.

Basically, bonus experience level ups always give you exactly three stat points, unless you literally don't have three stats left capable of gaining points. So if you've got really lopsided growths, cap your good stats early and then give nothing but bonus experience levels to a unit... then they'll suddenly just constantly gain their remaining stats in comparatively massive quantities, allowing you to round out their weaknesses with ease.

Alright. Aran finally got some strength again.

Nolan beat Pain, so that just leaves Agony left.

...Making sure I got all the treasure while feeding the kills into Aran turned out to be a little bit annoying, but I managed it in the end. I lured Agony away with Aran from the north so Sothe could rush in from the south and grab the remaining chest and buried treasure. In hindsight, I probably should have fought Agony first, since Pain just had a treasure chest on his end.

But thankfully, despite Agony being strong and fast enough to double Aran, Micaiah's got enough HP to sacrifice him back up to full, so there's no loss to the exp train.

I managed to get the beastfoe scroll buried treasure on my first try, and that's going to be an insanely useful skill in part 3, since it basically lets a unit treat all of their weapons like laguzslayers. The chest also had 3000 gold. Appreciated, but it's not all of the gold we'll be getting. Good thing too, or it would be amazingly silly to have a treasure trove like this and not... get... any... trea...sure... from... it...

...Okay, two things I realized simultaneously. First, I just realized that you find exactly one coin on this map that is fucking full of gold coin pieces everywhere on the ground, and second...

...I just noticed the wolf statues by the wall.

So... wait... does that mean that these were ruins made by wolf laguz?

...Are we actually literally in Hatari now? That doesn't make sense. But if we aren't... that would mean that there used to be wolf laguz in Tellius proper before the flood... and now they're all gone.

What happened to them? Was I actually right that they were wiped out? By who?

You can't just worldbuild something that implies a fucking genocide and then not elaborate, game! Especially when the other genocide in your lore was a big fucking deal.

...Moving on...

...The battle is over, and now we find Rafiel, Volug and Nailah, and Yune's adorably perched on Rafiel's shoulder like Rafiel's some kind of disney princess.

...While I have my misgivings with Micaiah's powers at the moment, I do like the subtle foreshadowing here that these are heron powers she has. Notice how Rafiel was brought to this place in a very similar way to how Micaiah was.

This conversation feels... a little rushed. We barely know anything about Rafiel before revealing he's Reyson's brother and have him react to learning his family is still alive, which kind of cheapens the emotional moment.

Yeah, so this conversation with Nailah and Volug, the wolf laguz, confirms that this place is beyond where anyone has crossed the desert before and lived. Meaning that it's not part of Hatari. Meaning the most likely answer is that yes, there were wolf laguz in Tellius originally.

Curious. So the voice calling out to Rafiel from across the desert started three years ago.

...So why did it only start calling out to Micaiah now?

...Wow, gotta say, it's kinda rude of Nailah to tell Rafiel he's talking too much and to basically shut up when he's just learned his family is still alive.

And now... it sounds like they're just going to take a total detour and escort these three to Crimea instead of looking for the prince like they went to the desert for. Unless Sothe's “It will take a bit longer” means “you'll have to travel with us until we win the war”...

...Of course, as I know, they don't take that detour, so... are these guy actually willing to just travel with them and waste a lot of time on their trip to help total strangers?

Ah yes, but of course, we get everyone's favorite lines:

Nailah: We would be grateful. By all means, let's travel together. But why go to Crimea? Why not travel directly to Gallia?

Sothe: Entering Gallia by yourselves would be nearly impossible. The man you need to get you into Gallia actually resides in Crimea. That man, Ike, is in contact with King Caineghis and his advisors. There's no doubt in my mind that he's the man you need.

Micaiah: Right. Lord Ike, “hero” of the Crimean Liberation, leader of the Greil Mercenaries, and father of Sothe's children...

Aaaand the chapter ends. Excellent punchline, but... okay, this seems to be implying that despite Gallia helping out so damned much with the Crimean rebuilding efforts, it still wouldn't be safe for Nailah and company to travel through Crimea to Gallia without Ike's help. And... yeah, that sounds weird.

This whole chapter has been weird.

This whole game has been weird.

...But that's all for today! Tomorrow, we'll be reuniting with some very well-known, very well-invested-in friends!

Stay safe, everyone!

[Shadow Mir]

19 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

So anyway, I go to the bargains, check out the stats of the ellight tome, and yet again the series makes the flagrantly idiotic claim that only “those dedicated to serve good” can wield light magic, despite literally every game with light magic except Genealogy and maybe Thracia having a light magic user who was a piece of shit.

With this game in particular having one of the worst of them, might I add. And maybe more.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Sunwoo]

Hey, no one said you have to be good yourself to be dedicated to serving good 😛