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

[Whirlwind]

17 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Interesting way of seeing things, but given that they were always intended to be three parts of a whole, I can't really say that not explaining the whole word should be a mark against an individual game's story. What's really important to ask is whether the stories they tell are compelling and make sense. And from what I remember, while none of them were compelling, Birthright's at least came closest to making sense.

Excluding the invisible soldiers yes birthright makes the most realistic sense but with conquest at least you know where they come from hence why I think conquest makes the most story related sense because revelations just says fuck it let’s jump off a cliff into a bottomless void where we may never return. 

[Jotari]

19 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Incidentally, there's only one save point on this map, and it's right at the start of the map. Now, I can't exactly try to infer anything from that save location, because I already know what it means: that you're supposed to come back to that area later in the map, meaning you should leave at the start. But I can't for the life of me say whether or not I'd figure that out without already knowing that's how the map works.

To be fair that's not something you'd be required to figure out. Naturally you're going to ignore the save point on the first few turns as you don't need it. When you do come back that way is when you've cleared a portion of the map for it to become useful. Doesn't really matter if a player has for knowledge of the map or not, they're bound to treat it the same. At least provided they're not stupid enough to use a save point on turn 1 when resetting would get the same result.

Edited December 4, 2020 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

To be fair that's not something you'd be required to figure out. Naturally you're going to ignore the save point on the first few turns as you don't need it. When you do come back that way is when you've cleared a portion of the map for it to become useful.

And also the game flat-out tells you where to go, albeit after the map starts.

[Whirlwind]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

And also the game flat-out tells you where to go, albeit after the map starts.

Well that’s no fun, why tell us when we can spend 50 turns trying to figure out what the fuck we are suppose to do 

[Shadow Mir]

A word of warning: The Wolfguard are recruitable in the next map (Roshea already was, but the other three are now. However, it's a chain where one recruits another, who must recruit another, and that one must recruit the last. Iirc, the order is Roshea > Vyland > Sedgar > Wolf).

[Ether]

In regards to the Mia thing, I was thinking of mentioning something but given circumstances it probably would have come across as biased. I was kind of used to your unit choices differing heavily from mine by that point anyway so it didn't seem especially worth pushing for. Mia especially is much better on hard mode because her performance basically doesn't change from normal but almost everyone else becomes leagues worse due to speed creep.

[Eltosian Kadath]

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

@Eltosian Kadath Quick question: When you first played the game blind, did you see every single trap coming using nothing but inferences from save point locations?

As I have said at least once in this thread I didn't cue into the importance of save point locations until chapter 12, although after that it did help in figuring out the reinforcement tricks to future maps, and what I didn't see coming in time to prevent, were far enough away that them being ambush was not the issue. To be fair I also wasn't playing ironman, and was perfectly willing to use the save points, so it wasn't as high stakes, and I was more willing to trust in the game, which makes it easier to see what the game is going for.

[Alastor15243]

2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

As I have said at least once in this thread I didn't cue into the importance of save point locations until chapter 12, although after that it did help in figuring out the reinforcement tricks to future maps, and what I didn't see coming in time to prevent, were far enough away that them being ambush was not the issue. To be fair I also wasn't playing ironman, and was perfectly willing to use the save points, so it wasn't as high stakes, and I was more willing to trust in the game, which makes it easier to see what the game is going for.

Alright, fair enough. I still don't think that's an adequate substitute for just not having nasty surprises the player is given no chance to react to though, especially since they don't even say in the game that that's something you're supposed to be on the lookout for.

[Venger_06]

On 12/4/2020 at 12:54 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Speaking of which, for those who didn't see it, a few posts up I talked about my concerns for how to tackle Awakening. If you guys could read that and give me your thoughts, that'd be much appreciated.

Play on lunatic or lunatic+ if you are insane. Get all children and do all paralogues (except the non canon ones). Don't bother with skirmishes: if you want to grind, use the DLC. S Support Lucina, it will give more meaning to the story. And most important of all, play Futures Past.

A bit off-topic here, but how is your Pokémon Diamond nuzlocke going? I'm busy with college exams, so it's hard to keep track of everything.

[Alastor15243]

14 minutes ago, ZeroSix_ said:

A bit off-topic here, but how is your Pokémon Diamond nuzlocke going? I'm busy with college exams, so it's hard to keep track of everything.

Haha, unfortunately I got bored of it due to all the crazy amounts of grinding. It became clear too late that it wasn't the best game to do a first nuzlocke on. I might try another one though, sometime.

[Venger_06]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Haha, unfortunately I got bored of it due to all the crazy amounts of grinding. It became clear too late that it wasn't the best game to do a first nuzlocke on. I might try another one though, sometime.

If it helps, there is nuzlocke difficulty ranking here.

[Whirlwind]

Pokémon nuzlockes are simple, you grind for 5 days straight tackle a gym leader then grind for another 5 days, rinse and repeat you eventually win 

[Venger_06]

2 hours ago, Whirlwind said:

Pokemon nuzlockes are simple, you grind for 5 days straight tackle a gym leader then grind for another 5 days, rinse and repeat you eventually win

In a nutshell, yes. That's why things like no xp gain is more of a genuine challenge.

[Eltosian Kadath]

2 hours ago, Whirlwind said:

Pokémon nuzlockes are simple, you grind for 5 days straight tackle a gym leader then grind for another 5 days, rinse and repeat you eventually win

If you want to keep grinding from trivializing the Nuzlocke, you could impose a never over-level the next Gym leader constraint.

[Alastor15243]

New Mystery Day 31: Chapter 19

So... this is called “The Final Battle”, and I am going to be really curious about the justification for this.

Oh my god, they say “Imperial Year 3”. The sheer ego you'd need to have to reset the calendar when you found your “empire”.

Anyway...

“How's Everyone” got me a pure sword and not much else. But apparently the Jeorge support bonus was enough to get me a conversation.

So Jeorge and Dakota discuss the absurdity of him having been assigned to defend a castle at Chiasmir Bridge, and says that when someone gets close to an archer, there's nothing they can do but “Pray to God”.

That... God? Not Naga? Not gods?

Actually, is the theology of Archanea, like... ever explained? In the originals, literally all high level magic users were bishops, but aside from people revering Naga as a deity, we don't have clue one what religion in Archanea is even like.

...But moving on, basically, Jeorge says that Hardin did that on purpose, to “execute” him. Which... says interesting things about what the Darksphere has done to his brain if he actually thought that would work when the enemy is Marth. He's clearly gotten a ridiculously warped perception of what Marth is like now.

...Jeorge just kinda offhandedly implies he was suicidal and then moves right the fuck on. Wow. Nice, game.

Anyway... the game gives us no hints about how to recruit the Wolfguard, but I was spoiled on the fact that there's a very specific order you need to recruit them in.

Looks like we're at max inventory again, so time to sell and use some stuff.

Oooh! Looks like I was wrong! Frost does come with a physic! Nice! These things are in much better supply here than in Shadow Dragon, and I always love it when games give you more opportunities to use your cool toys. That's honestly probably one of my favorite things about Binding Blade, the fact that there are so many things you can buy that are normally restricted to one or two you find in chests.

...I only see two of the Wolfguard, Sedgar and Wolf. Who, incidentally, are absolutely pathetic in this game, just like everyone else I've gotten since the snow map. But I know they aren't the ones I recruit first, so I have to assume the other two show up sometime after the map starts.

...I hope that doesn't involve one of them showing up in an ambush spawn. I need to get at least three of them (or two and keep Midia alive) in order to not have to rush to get the gaiden chapter.

I'm proooobably gonna have Dakota take care of that area up top, steel-swording the ballistae and generals so that whoever recruits Wolf (I'm not checking again, for blindness's sake) can safely enter that area.

And they better not put an ambush spawn there that Dakota somehow doesn't trigger.

Anyway, I decide to use the ludicrously-expensive drill grounds to give Belf that level he's super close to getting, and he gets strength and speed. Apparently with his skill capped, he has a sub-300% growth total.

...Yep, that's exactly it. Pity. But at least he got strength and speed. He's got 7 levels to get 2 more speed at a 60% growth rate. He'll be fine. So now if anything demands 30 speed, I'll have that for the endgame.

Noticing that Leiden is in the same boat, I have him go to the drill grounds too, and he gets strength, skill and speed, capping speed. I was hoping for defense, but that's a really low growth for him. And he's got a good enough base that between that, the Starsphere and his HP, he'll be fine. Oh, and I also gave him an arms scroll so he can use steel axes and hand axes. Important for his job this map: flying over to fight these warriors guarding the town.

...That's about all the prep I can really do. Let's go.

...Neither of the cav members of the Wolfguard show up turn one. Meaning that they're gonna be reinforcements later. Meaning I have to wait until they actually show up before I can proceed towards Sedgar's area, but I also have to get the fuck out of my starting location where they're probably gonna be.

Leiden's flown over to the village with a hand axe, a steel axe, Iote's Shield, the Starsphere, and the Lifesphere. He's going to secure the place and kill the thieves so that I don't have to risk the paladins and horsemen having linked AI, which sounds like something this game would do. Man, and it was so good in the beginning about telling you how to recruit these guys.

...Yumina got a pretty damned good level up. Everything but strength, speed and res.

And Leiden got skill and defense! Awesome! That defense is going to help a lot!

...Turn four and still no sign of the other two Wolfguard.

...This is gonna be a nightmare, isn't it?

I may have to just subdue Sedgar in melee and wait until the other two arrive. But we'll see what happens when I kill these thieves and aggro these paladins.

...Right at the end of turn 4, they show up, right from behind, just as I feared.

...And it's only Vyland.

Roshea doesn't show up, and he's the reasonable one I need to get first.

How... how...? Am I just gonna have to tank this guy's attacks until Roshea shows up? Where is...

…He's in the village, isn't he?

...Fuck, that's right, I think I remember that. Damn it.

...Okay, that makes things a bit easier. I'm gonna have an unequipped Dakota hold these four paladins off while Marth goes to get Roshea.

Okay, that very nearly went horribly wrong. My other guys couldn't quite get away from Vyland from the spot he picked to attack Dakota from, and I forgot about the Pachyderm ballistician. But as long as I keep the most fragile unit I have out of Vyland's range, the ballistician and Vyland will attack different units. And that means I can have Dakota kill off the other ones, since Vyland definitely isn't going for Dakota anymore. And since he managed a crit, I can safely make sure only Vyland can reach the fliers I'll be setting up to protect Marth and Merric, and not any of the other paladins.

...A huge buttload of reinforcements just showed up from the central fort, but I think I can get everyone safely into town in time to recruit Vyland and enemy-phase these guys with Dakota.

YES! I JUST BARELY DID IT BY A HAIR!

And just as I suspected, vaguely remembered, and hoped beyond all hope, Roshea was indeed in that village! Marth got him, so now Roshea can recruit Vyland, and Dakota can slaughter all the reinforcements coming in to attack us.

And it seems that Roshea explicitly says who he thinks he's likely to be able to persuade. I wonder if the rest of the chain will do that.

Yeah, that talk scene... was pretty lukewarm. I didn't really get the sense that this was the sort of talk that would convince somebody to betray the leader he's sworn his life to. He would've been far more conflicted and heartbroken about being forced to admit his liege is in the wrong. Here it's more like “Well... okay, if you're really, really sure”. And unfortunately Vyland doesn't say anything about who he thinks he can most likely convince. But of course I have to assume it's Sedgar.

The conversation between Vyland and Sedgar is way better than the one between Roshea and Vyland though. Feels a lot more like a conversation between people who hate that they have to defect, but... have to defect.

Alright. Final stretch. I gave Dakota the Starsphere and Lifesphere, and he's currently baiting in the two non-Wolf horsemen so that they can be killed by his hand axe and he can focus on killing the ballisticians and generals with a steel sword so Wolf won't get hurt. Then we'll bring Sedgar in. And Vyland and Roshea, just in case.

...And, yep... ambush spawns came out of the forts the second I got near enough to attack the Ballistae.

This is why I use Dakota.

...But hell, if I'd gotten unlucky here, even he wouldn't have been enough. I'm gonna have to retreat immediately after this turn. Dakota very nearly died. Which means beating this map on higher difficulties would require experimenting with proximity triggers to figure out how much danger I have to put myself in to survive... or just waiting until I get really lucky.

OH GOD. MORE AMBUSH SPAWNS!?

The layering could not possibly be more inconvenient. I just positioned all my units for a player-phase assault on the generals and mages behind Wolf, and these guys arrive and immediately layer up on those guys, making a player-phase assault suddenly suicide. But the cavalry are just going to get closer, because if I run, Wolf's just going to attack the weakest enemy he can fight, which would probably mean my 6-mov units rather than someone I can put at the edge of his range... unless I have a flier who can tank a silver bow without Iote's Shield.

...I'll check, but I think I may have to recruit with Sedgar and then use the rescue staff with a retreating mage.

...Yeah, only Leiden can tank an arrow shot from Wolf, and he's in a really inconvenient position that wouldn't compel Wolf to get that far towards us.

Fuck it, I'm using the rescue staff.

Oh man, this is... I mean it'd be cool if it had literally any buildup, but having Sedgar “remind” Wolf that Hardin told them to stop him if he ever went astray, when he never said anything of the sort in Shadow Dragon or in the Archanea Saga thing... it just feels really transparent that they're pulling this out of their ass to make Wolf recruitable. And yes, I just checked the script, there's no end-of-chapter conversation I missed because I didn't do that Archanea Saga episode deathless.

...And I know it's not the same species of bad writing, but I somehow can't help but be reminded of the infamous “In case of incest break glass” letter from Fates.

Okay, they're clear. Time to go back to killing those ballisticians with Dakota just in case the game decides to be a dick and send another wave of ambush spawns at me after a long wait.

Alright, boss down. After a few turns with no ambush spawn I decided to send in some more guys to give them the exp. Marth took out the boss after Belf brought him exactly down to the HP Marth could kill at.

And there are no post-boss reinforcements like that one map in Dark Dragon, so we're home free!

Okay, so Boah makes it sound like Gharnef just broke into the castle while Hardin was locked up in his room, “drinking his sorrows away”.

Oh right. Villainous teleportation. He can be literally anywhere at any time but chooses only to do it when it's theatrically convenient.

So Boah doesn't join us. The game doesn't pull anything out of its ass to have Boah playable like it did with everyone else. He just gives you his thoron and physic and dies.

...and with that, we're done for today.

Honestly, while it was kind of exciting to salvage that support chain that was nearly ruined by my excessive caution and memory lapse, that ambush spawn at the end was ridiculous. And now that enemies are catching up to Dakota and it's getting harder to facetank them with him, I'm hoping that's the last we've seen of the ones where ambush spawns show up in the middle of an area you're approaching.

Tomorrow...

...We finally face off against Dark Emperor Hardin.

Stay safe, everyone.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, Whirlwind said:

Pokémon nuzlockes are simple, you grind for 5 days straight tackle a gym leader then grind for another 5 days, rinse and repeat you eventually win 

One of the perennial problems with the series, IMO. I'd prefer the games have a hard EXP cliff - say, your Pokemon stops gaining EXP at 5 levels ahead of the target. So, my level 20 Quilava gets nothing from defeating a level 14 Pidgey. The Gen V games kind of did this, where EXP gain varies with relative level, but there was never a "hard cliff", so infinite levelling was still possible.

Alternatively, link it to how many badges you have. A level cap of 10 before the first gym, raised by 5 for each badge you get (so 50 pre-E4), and infinite levelling only possible in the post-game.

40 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

So Boah doesn't join us. The game doesn't pull anything out of its ass to have Boah playable like it did with everyone else. He just gives you his thoron and physic and dies.

He gets to join a very exclusive "no longer playable old man" club, with Jagen, Lorenz, and Gotoh. Probably someone else I'm forgetting, IDK.

 

44 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

So Jeorge and Dakota discuss the absurdity of him having been assigned to defend a castle at Chiasmir Bridge, and says that when someone gets close to an archer, there's nothing they can do but “Pray to God”.

That... God? Not Naga? Not gods?

This may be a "fanslation" thing. When I played FE6 (on an older translation patch), I remember an enemy Bishop referring to "God". Which I don't remember being a thing in Elibe, either. But yeah, Archanea's religion is super undercooked, especially viewed relative to settings like Tellius or Fódlan.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

He gets to join a very exclusive "no longer playable old man" club, with Jagen, Lorenz, and Gotoh. Probably someone else I'm forgetting, IDK.

Ah yes, forgot he wasn't the only one. Thanks for reminding me!

[Interdimensional Observer]

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

He gets to join a very exclusive "no longer playable old man" club, with Jagen, Lorenz, and Gotoh. Probably someone else I'm forgetting, IDK.

I just don't understand why they didn't make him playable in the almost unending unit carnivale that is FE12. He uses magic, he was nowhere near Hardin, he didn't oppose Hardin. And physiologically, he's a dragon, so he hasn't actually aged a year, probably not even a month, he can't say "I'm too old for this". And Marth has really proved humanity is worth having faith in having restored the Binding Shield on the true ending, Gotoh should've joined with Nagi, they could've had a great conversation together.

[Eltosian Kadath]

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

One of the perennial problems with the series, IMO. I'd prefer the games have a hard EXP cliff - say, your Pokemon stops gaining EXP at 5 levels ahead of the target. So, my level 20 Quilava gets nothing from defeating a level 14 Pidgey. The Gen V games kind of did this, where EXP gain varies with relative level, but there was never a "hard cliff", so infinite levelling was still possible.

I seem to remember Gen 5 having some steep EXP curving. Also I will point out that EXP curves like that make single pokemon challenges even more aggravating (and in the example you gave literally impossible in many cases).

 

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

This may be a "fanslation" thing. When I played FE6 (on an older translation patch), I remember an enemy Bishop referring to "God". Which I don't remember being a thing in Elibe, either. But yeah, Archanea's religion is super undercooked, especially viewed relative to settings like Tellius or Fódlan.

The Yoder and Saul support conversations are the greatest source of information on Elibian religion, and from them it is clear that St. Elmine was more like a prophet for some creator god, than a goddess herself.

[Jotari]

RIP Boah. The only character not popular enough to retcon his death away (well aside from Lorenz and Hardin, but their hands were pretty freaking tied by the plot in keeping those two dead).

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I just don't understand why they didn't make him playable in the almost unending unit carnivale that is FE12. He uses magic, he was nowhere near Hardin, he didn't oppose Hardin. And physiologically, he's a dragon, so he hasn't actually aged a year, probably not even a month, he can't say "I'm too old for this". And Marth has really proved humanity is worth having faith in having restored the Binding Shield on the true ending, Gotoh should've joined with Nagi, they could've had a great conversation together.

Yeah, there's no good reason for Gotoh. But in New Mystery's defense, Old Mystery did it first, not only by not having him playable in Book 2 despite being present and motivated to fight, but also by retconning away his playable appearance in Book 1 for some reason too.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Jotari

[Axie]

just started new mystery! soon enough i will be commenting on the current chapters like everyone else.

but i need to mention it right now, i don't get the indignation with katarina in the prologue. she claims to be a strategist. we never see strategists actually doing strategy in fire emblem, they just take credit for our player work. being upset at her being acknowledged in the prologue as useful is like being upset at mark or soren for the same reason lol. i am entirely fine with how that was written, and actually really enjoy katarina in general.

[Alastor15243]

29 minutes ago, Axie said:

but i need to mention it right now, i don't get the indignation with katarina in the prologue. she claims to be a strategist. we never see strategists actually doing strategy in fire emblem, they just take credit for our player work. being upset at her being acknowledged in the prologue as useful is like being upset at mark or soren for the same reason lol. i am entirely fine with how that was written, and actually really enjoy katarina in general.

Keep in mind the last strategist I got to see in action was Soren, who absolutely did do a ton of on-screen strategizing, mostly in Radiant Dawn but also in Path of Radiance as well. Hell, we saw Micaiah do on-screen strategizing. Meanwhile we get to see literally nothing of Katarina's contributions to the team aside from a brief instance of her acting like everyone's manager. And then she gets promoted to be a member of the royal guard, over everyone else but Dakota.

Given that this is the first time that there's a player avatar who is explicitly a different person than the alleged "strategist", and thus we can't even give her credit for the player's actions, and that the game completely neglected to let her even do the tutorial, it honestly just gives the impression to me that the broken Altean knight tryout system has blatant loopholes in it that let freeloaders coast on their better teammates. And that's to say nothing of the fact that Dakota eventually has all of his instructors fighting his battles with him after a single lesson, which catapults the Altean training program into full-throttle absurdity.

Also, she came to the knight tryouts. If it's supposed to be acceptable that strategists can try out at the knight tryouts and not fight, then that means the baseline expectation for trainee strategists is that they enable their completely randomized partner to fight like two people. And none of this is mentioned at all.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Alastor15243]

New Mystery Day 32: Chapter 20

So... couple of things.

First off, while I've heard horror stories about Hardin having capped 30 stats on Lunatic, thankfully on Hard he's just barely slow enough that Dakota with the Starsphere (or Belf without it) can double him.

Second, given the near disaster that happened yesterday, I've decided I do in fact need to use those two dracoshields to cap Dakota's defense after all, putting him at 25 defense and 60 HP.

...Man, I'm gonna miss not being able to just toss the Starsphere around. Locking it to Marth (not to mention apparently losing the effects of every other sphere in the process) is gonna be a dark day.

...But thanks to Wolf joining, I have one more dracoshield now... Hm...

...Y'know, I think it's finally time to start using the rest of these stat boosters. Since it sounds like Falchion's gonna be actually important this time, I need to make sure my Marth doesn't suck in the endgame. His stats right now, at level 19, are... pretty damned mediocre. He's at 39 HP, 16 strength, 18 skill, 15 speed, 19 luck, and 12 defense. Sadly, giving him my two speedwings still would only put him at comparable speed to the enemies here, meaning he'd need a speed potion and the Starsphere, and even then he still wouldn't double a lot of enemies.

...But he would if he got another speed level, so... I took him to the drill grounds, and he got strength, speed and defense.

...Yeah, I feel good about using my stat boosters on him to get him combat-ready. Mostly because there's gonna be another big stat booster hoard from a secret shop coming soon, and I can use that for any endgame stat-boosting needs.

But speaking of speed, we've reached the point where the dracoknight's speed cap is starting to bite them in the ass, because now we have enemies with 20 speed, just barely too fast for a dracoknight to ever double. Since we've got a hell of a lot of indoor maps in our future, I'm thinking I should probably have Leiden and maybe a few other dracoknights reclass to paladins so that they can gain a few more levels of speed. ...Yeah, just Leiden and Caeda. Palla and Minerva aren't anywhere near the speed cap, so they've got other problems.

...Speaking of other problems...

...The latest in a long line of this franchise doing weird shit with prisons and prisoners. The Archanean prison cell has apparently been repurposed as... a treasure room. Which seems like an oddly-backwards change for an evil dictator who's been confirmed to at least temporarily keep prisoners to make. Now we've got Hardin's own lackeys locked up in the prison cell, guarding a treasure or something.

Anyway, I used the drill grounds to get Caeda another level so that she could hit 24 speed in paladin and double these heroes. In the most un-Caedalike level I have ever seen, she didn't get speed, but did get strength and defense. She did manage to get speed (and strength again) when I sent her through a second time. I still think the drill grounds are ridiculously expensive, but I also have a ton of money from all the shit I sold to open up some damned convoy space again, and given that this is an indoor chapter, I'm almost assuredly about to get more. Anyway, now Caeda can double heroes as a paladin.

...Seeing how close Leiden was to a level, I did the same for him, and he got strength, speed and defense. Man, I'm getting lucky with the drill grounds today. I'm 3 for 4 in terms of getting what I asked for out of a level up, and 4 for 4 in terms of getting levels I appreciated.

Anyway, so that means now both Caeda and Leiden can double again. Hopefully that keeps up, but they're getting close to their new speed cap too, so... I dunno...

Also, I remembered that I have lady swords. I've given them to Caeda and Catria, who as a paladin and falcoknight respectively can actually use them.

...Man, my comments feel kinda disjointed today. Maybe because I didn't get much sleep last night?

...This map looks pretty straightforward. Certainly less scary than it was in my run of Book 2 when I didn't have access to the rescue staff anymore.

Alright, I'm just stalling at this point, time to do the talks and deploy.

So I've got the final supports from Belf, Leiden and Robert with Dakota, so that completes their support chains. Let's check them out.

Robert and Leiden had a rather nice chat, but one that didn't really feel like the capstone to a support chain. But fuck it, they gave me a speed bond to replace the one I used on Marth today!

Now for Leiden and Dakota...

I get another speed bond from their support (awesome), and Leiden talks a bit about Camus and how he felt when Camus “died”, and implies he'll be there to support Dakota should he lose his liege as well. It had promise, but it was ludicrously short as usual.

Now for Belf and Dakota.

I get a strength bond from that one, which is great, and... it was just a mildly cute conversation about Dakota improving his manners and Belf implying that even if he never gets the hang of it, his own natural kind heart is far more likely to be appreciated than manners.

Alright, Robert and Dakota get one now.

...It's just a skill bond, and... I can't help but feel something was lost in translation, because this conversation was kinda weird. It made it sound like spending time with horses made Dakota want peace more, just because horses didn't have weapons. He also mentioned it broke his heart seeing a horse injured, but... the way they phrased this conversation...

Ooh, Etzel and Dakota! Since I've been using him as a staff bot, I've been able to see more of him, so hopefully I'll get to see the end!

So Etzel's wife's name was... Ursula? Man, the name re-use is just gonna get more and more rampant from here on out, isn't it? I know there've been a ton of named characters in this franchise, but they can't have already exhausted the entire library of western human names, can they have?

...Maybe giving more characters last names would help. That's actually something I liked about Three Houses. Yes, there were things I liked about it.

...And the conversation says that the people of Archanea believe in Heaven. Huh. Okay.

...Alright, let's go.

[Alastor15243]

Day 32 Continued

I've got three rescue uses left, one with 2 uses and one with 1, after I rescued Midia. Frankly she's not even worth deploying, but it just feels wrong to let her die.

...Actually no, I probably should've let her squirm, for science. And by that I mean to see when exactly she starts getting attacked. But whatever, I already did it. I'll do my best to avoid using the rescue staff or warp staff anymore until the endgame.

Dakota took out the thief on turn two, and hopefully this will trigger the heroes to move so that they'll attack Marth, who will hopefully crit at least one. I wanna feed some more kills into him while that speed bond is in effect. Maybe get him over the doubling threshold on a more permanent basis.

The game is once again having enemies refuse to move at absurdly close distances, but after stat boosts, Marth is actually tough enough to take what the game's ready to dish out. So I have him rush in.

Oh thank goodness, the enemy AI prioritizes using the fortify I can't take over the one I can. So I have a little bit of elbow room when it comes to getting that fortify at full uses.

Marth's getting crazy amounts of experience from these promoted enemies, and he's getting enough crits to have good luck one-shotting them. And due to me barrier-ing Marth up, Dakota can sponge up the siege tome users so that Marth can enemy-phase these guys without fear!

...Oh yeah, by the way, Catria has Iote's Shield now, since she's the best flier I have left after reclassing Caeda and Leiden.

...I totally forgot that swordslayers were effective against heroes. Man, good thing Dakota's defense is utterly ridiculous, am I right?

Alright, not sure whether it was a ridiculously far-from-Hardin proximity trigger or I just took too long feeding these kills to Marth, but that conversation where Hardin talks about hating Marth even without the Darksphere happens, and the reinforcements spawn and the doors open. And, I assume, if Midia were still between those generals, she'd start dying.

…

DOUBLE-LAYERED AMBUSH SPAWNS. SERIOUSLY!? ON CONSECUTIVE TURNS!?

...Ugh. I had just positioned myself to player-phase assault them, and now I have to run away instead because the enemies behind them will slaughter me if I attempt any kind of player-phase assault. And if I retreat, they'll all catch up to me due to the inconvenient angle of the hallway and the fact that one of my units is a 6 mov mage...

...Okay, looks like I'll have to sacrifice Midia. She needs to block the path, minimize attacks on my main units, and give Dakota time to come back and bail them all out.

...THREE CONSECUTIVE TURNS OF FOUR-PALADIN AMBUSH SPAWNS!?

CHRIST!

Fuck it, they're all dying to Dakota, I don't even care anymore.

…Oh no.

Oh no.

Don't do this to me, game.

Don't end my ironman with Dakota.

Oh thank goodness, the others weren't close enough. Damn it, the worst part is that I could have calculated whether or not he'd survive. He just barely survived due to some good luck with not critting and therefore making a good wall to keep new attackers away, but that was a really amateur move on my part. I can't believe how complacent I've gotten about Dakota's stats, even after the scare last map. I don't know why it's been happening here. I never would've sent Wolf into a horde of enemies without checking if he could survive. What is it about his game or Dakota that made me get that careless?

...Well, at any rate, Dakota is still alive, and should be able to handle the rest as long as I thoroughly heal him up. And the reinforcements have finally stopped coming. Christ, that was a dick move. I'll be honest: Even now that I've got that enemy AI abuse thing in mind, I still couldn't see any way to safely player-phase that shit. At least not with the situation I had by the time I realized there was more than one consecutive wave. If I knew it was coming, in hindsight, I'd have had Dakota or Leiden constantly stand at the edge of those paladins' ranges while continuously running away from them while the rest of my army charged forward into the main area. But there was no way in hell I could do that by the time I realized it was a thing, so Midia had to die.

...Y'know, I honestly think it might actually be bad for the playthrough that this ironman has lasted this long. I'm starting to think I should've canceled the ironman the second I discovered the game's axe-wielding, Legion-shaped hateboner for blind play. Because if Marth had died there, or if I'd just given up, I wouldn't be stuck trying to play this game in a way that it aggressively does not want to be played. So much of this game's attitude about level design depends on trial and error to be fun. But you know what? The same was true about Thracia and Binding Blade, and that didn't keep me from enjoying a ton of aspects of their game design. Hell, those two along with Shadow Dragon are the only ones I've marathonned so far that I've got much interest at all in replaying any time soon, despite their abysmal ironmannability scores.

How much of that is because I didn't even try to play them in a way that I knew wouldn't be any fun at all? I gave those games shit for every garbage instance of fake trial-and-error difficulty, but in the end, I still wound up having fun playing them normally. Meanwhile this one just barely managed to keep from making me lose in 10x, and I've spent the entire playlog since then in a state of Three-Houses-tier stress over all the nonsense I have to deal with that I can't see coming. Which might put me in the awkward position of hating a game more for no other reason than that I've been more successful ironmanning it, like some weird variation of survivorship bias.

To be clear, I'm saying that might be the case. I don't actually know because I've wound up comparing apples to oranges, and I haven't seen the oranges for well over six months.

I guess I just have to settle for the fact that my attempt at lunatic made it pretty plain that I wouldn't enjoy this game's difficulty even if I were playing it normally. I just don't like this entire concept of breaking Fire Emblem maps down into multiple, bite-size challenges like it's an iPhone game. An extremely difficult iPhone game, but an iPhone game nonetheless. This game on Lunatic plays way, way more like Fire Emblem Heroes than I am remotely comfortable with.

...Fuck it, let's just keep going.

I managed to take out the last of the paladins coming from the entrance just as the southern reinforcements made it to me. Healing is extremely tight, so I'm going to be making use of one of my two fortifies. If only Merric had a little more weapon exp I would've been able to do it this turn, but if I've calculated right, Dakota should just barely survive anyway.

...After that though, we'll have work to do.

Yep, alright, I've got the fortify in Yumina's hands, and now all the people who have been taking damage I haven't had time to heal are finally healthy again.

...And I've done it! I just finished off those southern reinforcements, broke into the treasure room, and killed the final swarm bishop. Now all that's left is to grab all the treasure and clean up.

Wow, and I just realized that the first save point you get access to is really far into the level. I actually just got access to it now. I have to assume you're supposed to rush that first part to get to the save point before the reinforcements arrive or something.

...Oh right, so, the reason they added that treasure chest to the prison cell was apparently so that they had an excuse to put a brave axe in the game that wasn't there before. Nice to know I'll be able to get access to those, but... really? The fucking prison? Couldn't put it in the treasure room? There's plenty of room in there still!

Okay, so, we get our first glimpse of this new dark magic tome I've heard about, “glower”, which judging by the eye-based animation, they mean in the sense of “stare”. It negates resistance, which begs the question of why they didn't just go with “luna” or something. But anyway, the enemy is also called “Heretic”, not “Archanea”, so I have to assume that's what the game calls Gharnef's faction.

The two fortify users still remaining make me suspect the game really wants to make me fight this earth dragon I skipped last time. Fuck it, sure. I've got wyrmslayers, and it looks like they're supposed to work on them. I'll have Belf do it while Marth raids the treasury.

...I got a second again staff! I guess since it's so much weaker in this game, they felt okay giving me another! Well that's gonna be handy for the final battle, because I absolutely do not want to spend more than one turn on it.

I also got a brave lance, which is awesome.

And a master seal and brave sword! Awesome. Now, in the meantime, after slaying the dragon with Belf, I've had my army prepare to fight these southern guys by sending in an unarmed Dakota to bait them into moving. It was successful, and as a result I could feed the kills to my non-Dakota units.

Belf just capped speed, meaning we officially have a 30-speed unit if that's important for endgame.

Man, it's pretty awesome how great Belf and Leiden turned out. Robert not so much, but he's passable chip damage filler without much competition at this stage, and he provides supports for them, so that's okay. But yeah, really, I wish more late-game units wound up like Belf and Leiden. I wonder why they decided to make those two so good compared to basically everyone near and past their joining time?

...Also... I just realized... New Mystery retconned the outdoor courtyard back into an indoor room just like FE3 did, complete with that weird “pool” that now looks less like a pool and more like a pothole that got filled in by rainwater. I do not get why they felt the need to do that. I have to assume to preserve that “roof” over it, but like... was that really necessary? Couldn't they just keep it an outdoor area like Shadow Dragon did, rather than temporarily and partially inherit FE3's weird obsession with making damned near every map 100% indoors or 100% outdoors for its dismounting system that no longer exists?

...The generals that originally surrounded Midia have minor boss music. I wonder why.

Anyway... everyone's down. Now that save point in front of Hardin could just be because his stats are ludicrous on harder difficulties and fighting him is a challenge in and of itself...

...or fighting him could trigger an ambush spawn.

...So I'll keep everyone around the throne until I know which it is.

I'm having Dakota fight Hardin mostly to make sure Hardin wastes as few uses of Gradivus as possible before dying.

So now...

...Without further ado...

The song.

The absolutely amazing boss theme.

Dark. Emperor. Hardin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o10vXisPWqo

(Dark Lord! Har-din!)

Long live the eeeeemperor!

Long live the emperor of avarice and shame!

Hail the king of rage and broken dreams, yes hail the king of pawns in others' schemes!

(Oh Dark Lord! Har-din!)

Long live the emperor whose people doth spit upon his naaaaaaaaaaame!

Haaaail the Kiiiing!

 

At any rate, Dakota has a line against Hardin. Not very original, but still pretty badass.

Hardin: I've no quarrel with you. Bring Marth to me!

Dakota: Dark Emperor Hardin... Look nowhere else! I am your opponent!

And then alakablam, Hardin goes down in a single round when Dakota scores a crit. And he returns to normal, and this game thankfully had the decency to just get rid of the red eyes rather than completely revert him back to his Shadow Dragon appearance, clothing and all.

...The game then forces this dead silence after the Binding Shield is restored (what's the central indent for by the way? I didn't see a gem go in there, and there are only five of them). No background music, until you seize. ...But it's undone by the jingle of getting that last treasure chest in the “pool room”, which is kinda awkward, because it then goes right back to the peppy “near victory” music.

Anyway, Marth's got the Binding Shield now, and so he's the only one who can benefit from those stat boosts anymore. Thankfully however, due to the stat boosters and training I gave him today, he's good enough that it's not wasted on him. I'm glad I did that.

Weirdly, they didn't put Dakota in this scene with the four impostor maidens, despite him talking in it. That... that wasn't the case before, was it? Was Dakota never on the map on the bottom screen during any of these talk scenes? I could've sworn he was.

...And then Marth tells Jagen to “Take [him] straight to [Gotoh]”... but he doesn't budge an inch on the bottom screen, and Gotoh instead runs in to meet him.

…Anyway though... we get news of the assassins, since even with Midia dead I more than secured the gaiden chapter, and... apparently despite being told that the awakening of the earth dragons is imminent... Marth still considers stopping some bitch with an abusive orphanage to be higher priority. Yeah, this doesn't... really feel all that well-integrated into the plot. At all. Why does it even have to be our choice to seek Eremiah out? Last gaiden wasn't a choice on my army's part, they were just attacked by Katarina and her troops.

Anyway... last gaiden. The very last one.

Let's see what crazy trick the game has for me this time.

Stay safe, everyone.

Stay safer than Midia.

[Shadow Mir]

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Anyway though... we get news of the assassins, since even with Midia dead I more than secured the gaiden chapter, and... apparently despite being told that the awakening of the earth dragons is imminent... Marth still considers stopping some bitch with an abusive orphanage to be higher priority. Yeah, this doesn't... really feel all that well-integrated into the plot. At all. Why does it even have to be our choice to seek Eremiah out? Last gaiden wasn't a choice on my army's part, they were just attacked by Katarina and her troops.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around "why the hell would she have Clarisse killed?" because strong fighters aren't exactly dime a dozen.