Alastor15243 Posted December 9, 2020 Author Share Posted December 9, 2020 (edited) 5 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said: 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. Yeah, I am... "eager" to figure out what Eremiah's deal is. And I hope losing Katarina hasn't cost me valuable cutscene dialogue. Edited December 9, 2020 by Alastor15243 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eltosian Kadath Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: 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. Fun fact, if you leave the Earth Dragon alive, when Marth gets the Shield of Seals, you will see it be banished by the Shield. 4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: 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? Just out of curiosity, does Robert look better in a class with better stats? 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. Anyway... last gaiden. The very last one. Let's see what crazy trick the game has for me this time. You are not going to like this...especially blind... 4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: 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. A lot of Fire Emblem maps have this sorta design, or feel to them. Now New Mystery makes this far more apparent by allowing you to save after certain sections, but its not really unique to New Mystery. I distinctly remember a lot of the Conquest maps having a similar feel to them (as a random example that comes to mind, take Conquest chapter 23, where I see about 5 distinct mini sections to it, the enemies directly west of the start, the enemies manning the ground ballista, Hinata's forces, Oboro's forces, and the last defenders of Takumi...) 4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: 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. Sorry you aren't enjoying this game. I feel a little bad that I suggested you get back to ironmanning it now. Hopefully you come back to it some day, when you can appreciate what it does better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted December 9, 2020 Author Share Posted December 9, 2020 14 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said: Fun fact, if you leave the Earth Dragon alive, when Marth gets the Shield of Seals, you will see it be banished by the Shield. Yep, I saw that in Book 2! 14 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said: You are not going to like this...especially blind... ...Christ. I'm scared already. I might be tempted to warp-skip this if it's possible, but... ugh. 15 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said: Sorry you aren't enjoying this game. I feel a little bad that I suggested you get back to ironmanning it now. Hopefully you come back to it some day, when you can appreciate what it does better. Maybe. There are definitely places it improves on Shadow Dragon, and there are characters I really enjoy using, that's for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: ...The generals that originally surrounded Midia have minor boss music. I wonder why. I guess it ups the direness of her situation when those units start attacking her. Speaking of which does anyone know when they do start laying into her? Is it in any way possible to save her without using warp and/or rescue? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eltosian Kadath Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, Jotari said: I guess it ups the direness of her situation when those units start attacking her. Speaking of which does anyone know when they do start laying into her? Is it in any way possible to save her without using warp and/or rescue? The trigger for them attacking Midia is one of your units crossing the yellow line in the image below I have seen a LTC pull it off by taking down Hardin and seizing on the turn they crossed the yellow line. Alternatively if you have access to the Longbow early using the online shop, you might be able to take down the Generals from range, and deal with it that way instead. Edited December 9, 2020 by Eltosian Kadath typo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted December 9, 2020 Author Share Posted December 9, 2020 30 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said: I have seen a LTC pull it off by taking down Hardin and seizing on the turn they crossed the yellow line. Alternatively if you have access to the Longbow early using the online shop, you might be able to take down the Generals from range, and deal with it that way instead Seems like dracoknights with hammers would be all it would take. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said: The trigger for them attacking Midia is one of your units crossing the yellow line in the image below I have seen a LTC pull it off by taking down Hardin and seizing on the turn they crossed the yellow line. Alternatively if you have access to the Longbow early using the online shop, you might be able to take down the Generals from range, and deal with it that way instead. Oh, that seems quite reasonable. I was thinking more it was the green line. 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: Seems like dracoknights with hammers would be all it would take. Despite looking similar (in every incarnation of the map), I'm pretty sure those pillars are solid walls and not the kind you can walk over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted December 9, 2020 Author Share Posted December 9, 2020 (edited) 4 minutes ago, Jotari said: Despite looking similar (in every incarnation of the map), I'm pretty sure those pillars are solid walls and not the kind you can walk over. They are, but not the single-pillar ones. Those are just rough terrain. Though that might mean one of them is off limits to a hammer dracoknight. But the one on the end? Totally fair game. Edited December 9, 2020 by Alastor15243 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted December 9, 2020 Author Share Posted December 9, 2020 New Mystery Day 33: Chapter 20x ...Oh god. Let's brace ourselves. What the fuck are we dealing with today? … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … OF COURSE IT'S FOG OF WAR. OF COURSE IT'S TWO SQUARE, NO THIEVES, NO TORCHES FOG OF WAR. HOLY SHIT. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS GAME!? ...It's also fairly big for a gaiden map, up there with 3x, though still comically tiny by Archanea map standards. But mercifully it's a network of narrow hallways, so shielding with Dakota should work. And even though that's nearly gotten him killed on two separate occasions over the last two chapters... ...What fucking other choice do I have when playing this blind? Oh, and this gaiden doesn't have a save tile either. That's obviously irrelevant for my purposes, but I want to point it out because that officially means that none of the gaiden chapters (and only one new chapter period) got a save tile. Which only further serves to increase my previously-mentioned suspicion that this is how long the designers of FE12 think a Fire Emblem chapter should be, and that they've been using the save tile system to break down all of the pre-existing chapters into subchapters of about that length, as if they see the map design of damned near every other game in the series like normal people see the map design of FE4. I have nobody to blame but myself. I may have bought FE11, but I also convinced at least several other people not to with that dumb video I made, meaning it was people like younger me who caused the people at Fire Emblem to be convinced something had to change radically about Fire Emblem if it were to survive. This was just one of their ideas. I hate it, but I reap what I sow. ...Let's roll the dice then, and see if I survive. ...I really, really hope this map doesn't have a ton of siege tomes. I've got Marth, Dakota, Merric, Yumina, Robert, Belf and Leiden. No point in not bringing my best. If anyone dies here, it's probably gonna be game over anyway. ...Okay, first off, I had Leiden do a weird loop to slightly expose the spaces in front of us and also expose those two dark squares in back. This revealed... no enemies. That honestly surprised me. I expected that those two dark squares right by my starting point in back would have hidden enemies, given this game's fetish for trial and error gimmicks. But then, maybe I shouldn't be surprised that this game didn't see any fun in putting enemies in spaces where I could safely and reasonably check. I did several similar increasing loop-arounds to expose more spaces and found nothing. Nothing left to do but have Dakota huff his pure sword, stand on a pillar, equip a hand axe... and wait. And of course there are snipers with longbows hiding behind the thick walls. Damn it. ...But no siege tomes apparently. At least, none that I'm in the range of. The two berserkers who attacked Dakota were swiftly dealt with, but I'm gonna wait it out to see if there are any enemies on the move before I do anything stupid like move forward. Alright, after inching towards it bit by bit, Dakota's jumped onto the next pillar. Time to wait and see what happens. ...Nothing. Still no enemies. JUST GET IT OVER WITH ALREADY, GAME! PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY! … … And yet when he moves forward to reach the bottleneck... he's stopped. By a berserker way, way closer than its movement range. Have units been moving in the dark and I haven't been able to even hear them, or does this guy just refuse to move until you get right up next to him? ...In case this is the start of a truly nasty dogpile, I have Marth and Belf move into the visible berserker's range so that at least that enemy doesn't damage Dakota. Statistically, these enemies are actually surprisingly bad. Dakota's actually pretty well-equipped to handle them. Really, this is more tedious than anything. ...Which has me terrified that it's just getting my guard down. Anyway, longbow AI apparently has an exception to attacking the weakest unit, because when I tried to use that AI exploit to keep that sniper right up against the wall so I could chip him to death with javelins, he instead backed away to attack a tougher enemy he could attack at 3-range without leaving himself vulnerable. It's weird how they make the AI do all of these little smart things, but still have so much of high-level gameplay revolve around the fact that enemies don't know how to prioritize kills properly. Yet again there's an immobile enemy just waiting in the dark for me to bump into him. This time it's a general. Does this game want me to tiptoe two spaces at a time? No, of course not, I'm being silly. It wants me to die so I can know where these things are next time. ...But that doesn't look like it's gonna happen. At least on hard, these guys can't do nearly enough damage to put a scratch on Dakota. Like I said, this is just gonna wind up being really, really tedious, unless there's like 5 swordslayer swordmasters hiding in the dark ready to jump Dakota all at once. Well, Eremiah has meteor. We'll have to deal with that... basically forever now. As we're tiptoeing through the dark. Okay, so, I got the first chest, and it had excalibur. I'm guessing the other one has an aura, given what happened in the final gaiden of the last game. I've also managed to take out a few more of these snipers, because apparently that treasure chamber had multiple and I accidentally had Merric take hits from two of them from behind two separate walls. ...Yep. The game just flat-out turns off footstep sound effects in Fog of War. Even once they walk out of the darkness. I just noticed. Why? ...Anyway, the immortal axe seems to heal more HP than a vulnerary, making it a very lucky find that I'm gonna keep on Dakota basically at all times now. Alright, Eremiah's down. I would've killed her with Dakota, but I just can't afford to leave the way forward unblocked by him. I'll check out if he had a boss conversation with her later. Now to get the last chest and get the fuck out of here. ...Yep, just like I thought, that second chest has Aura. Alright, seizing time. … … … … … … So. I uh... I just read Eremiah's... “Backstory”. I, uh... ...I can't paraphrase this without it sounding like I'm taking the piss. Time to quote it verbatim. Jagen: According to the villagers nearby... That woman called Eremiah used to be a kind bishop who looked after war orphans. But during the war, her orphanage was burned down and all the children killed... Ever since then... she changed. Marth: So she was yet another victim of the war? That does not erase her sins, but... 'tis truly a tragedy. … … … … … WHAT!? That is the dumbest, clumsiest, laziest attempt at “villainy by trauma” I can ever remember seeing. First off, a three sentence backstory given after a character's death is not enough to make all of their previous one-dimensional villainy interesting. And even if it were... ...I mean do I even have to say this!? How am I supposed to see any of that backstory in her behavior up to this point!? How did losing her children she loved dearly give her a taste for inhuman cruelty to children!? Is that supposed to be some kind of fucking coping mechanism? Her throwing away anyone the second they're “broken” was some effort to avoid getting attached and avoid getting hurt again!? But then why did she rebuild another orphanage for the explicit purpose of training assassins!? THERE IS SO MUCH MISSING HERE, AND WHAT LITTLE WE'RE GIVEN IS TOLD, NOT SHOWN! … … … … … … … … … … … ...So... even that was a lie. It turns out she changed because Gharnef... cast a spell on her. Basically some counterpart to Hardin where she was seduced by darkness in a moment of intense grief. … … … ...So it's even worse, because now she's not even a real character anymore, and we don't even get to add her to the tragically tiny list of genuinely evil female FE villains who weren't created or brainwashed by a man. ...Ugh. I'm sorry, this whole thing is just... so comically underdeveloped. This feels lazier than the stuff in Fates. Just... holy shit. In terms of gameplay and story, every new chapter the remake added just brought the average quality of the game down. And that's really saying something, because I didn't even like Book 2 that much! Like I said, this is like Game of Thrones. The dev team was good at adapting what was already there, but they have nothing but terrible ideas once they have to come up with their own material. Speaking of... ...This chapter was... annoying. I came into this almost certain that it was going to end the ironman after the scares with Dakota dying before, but the reduced enemy strength made this just... annoying. Not hard, just... annoying and tedious. And it was entirely because of that idiotic fog of war mechanic. Seriously, it would've been nice if at least Katarina could use the ability to see in the dark that all assassins apparently have. If I still had her, that would've been a cool touch. But no. They just went whole-hog with a fog of war mechanic that they used completely unchanged from a game mode where it was supposed to be double-blind. No visions boosts of any kind. Just everyone fumbling around in darkness and hoping they don't die. ...And that's all I've got left to say on the matter. I'm done for today. Stay safe, everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axie Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 20 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: 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. while all of this points are valid, it's also ultimately something i can easily put aside. while tellius putting its money where its mouth is with so much of the storytelling is mostly preferrable, this is a very palatable suspension of disbelief, specially when a) as you said yourself, it's gameplay motivated and i don't mind that taking priority at all, and b) katarina's sidestory is in my opinion so good and definitely worth a bit of prologue "but why?". so altea is happy recruiting strategists along with knights. not the most nonsensical thing i've ever seen. that is better than having katarina fight and then losing her and all the exp she got, though that wouldn't be the end of the world either (orson existed, after all). i guess i was surprised by you saying it was the worse plot point of the marathon so far, but then again i wasn't particularly bothered by most of the other ones you put on the same level, which were seth finding out something he already knew (just clumsy writing or maybe even clumsy localization for the fact they needed to expose the same information twice) and the time paradox in SS (we are not supposed to read the two routes as happening concurrently and exactly as they are shown, because, you know, most characters appear in both and that would be weird). if i had to explain it, how bad plot points are to me depend on how much they actually damage the main storyline or the worldbuilding (so much of BlaBla is worse than the three examples above lol. the black fang alone sinks that storyline below all games but awakening and fates, and then i think it fucks up further for me to prefer awakening too). the "serenes forest is the size of gallia" example you also gave also fits - i actually would chalk it as a map/story disconnect with no consequences for most of the two games, but then all the bird tribes move there in the ending of RD, so there's little way out of acknowledging that (burned and then restored by galldr) hole by then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted December 9, 2020 Author Share Posted December 9, 2020 (edited) 9 hours ago, Axie said: (we are not supposed to read the two routes as happening concurrently and exactly as they are shown, because, you know, most characters appear in both and that would be weird). That's not the time paradox I'm talking about, to be clear. It's Ephraim's gaiden, 5x, that's a time paradox, because it has to simultaneously happen before chapter 1 but after chapter 2, which is obviously impossible. I guess the reason the Katarina point pisses me off so much is because of all the tacticians in FE history, Katarina is the only one where we don't even see an inkling of her doing her job. Every single other one is either the player character or gives the lord at least some strategic advice in cutscenes, but with Katarina it's just... nothing. She doesn't even want to take up the leadership position of the team despite directing others being her only claim to value. And yet she's not only allowed to stay in the knight training course without taking part in any of the combat training, but also gets singled out as the second most valuable member of Dakota's team and a shoo-in for the royal guard. It really does by all appearances seem that she just slipped through Altea's broken training program and coasted on Dakota's ability, and actually judging by her talk with Clarisse, that's actually how she thinks it went down. Edit: It occurs to me upon re-reading that this sounds a bit too similar to what I initially argued. Sorry about that, I was trying to go into further detail but I think I wound up repeating a lot. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. That opening just really rubbed me the wrong way at the time. I'm not sure how I'd feel if I played it again, but uh... I'm not eager to play this game more than I have to right now. I'm really looking forward to moving on to Awakening. Edited December 10, 2020 by Alastor15243 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Mir Posted December 10, 2020 Share Posted December 10, 2020 16 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said: The trigger for them attacking Midia is one of your units crossing the yellow line in the image below I have seen a LTC pull it off by taking down Hardin and seizing on the turn they crossed the yellow line. Alternatively if you have access to the Longbow early using the online shop, you might be able to take down the Generals from range, and deal with it that way instead. ...am I the only one scratching my head at the fact that the prison now has a treasure chest? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted December 10, 2020 Author Share Posted December 10, 2020 Just now, Shadow Mir said: ...am I the only one scratching my head at the fact that the prison now has a treasure chest? You are not. I commented on that a good deal in the entry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Mir Posted December 10, 2020 Share Posted December 10, 2020 (edited) 2 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: You are not. I commented on that a good deal in the entry. Because no matter which way you slice it, it's weird as hell. Even more so that some of Hardin's goons are there too. Did they piss him off or something? Edited December 10, 2020 by Shadow Mir Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benice Posted December 10, 2020 Share Posted December 10, 2020 1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said: Because no matter which way you slice it, its weird as hell. Even more so that some of his goons are there too. Did they piss him off or something? They must have been the people who tried to look up Midia's skirt when she was captured. Hardin sent them to horny jail for such crimes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted December 10, 2020 Share Posted December 10, 2020 On 11/19/2020 at 7:54 AM, Jotari said: There is an answer as to what is up with Erimiah. Not a particularly satisfying one in my book though. Damn. I thought I'd said before that you wouldn't like Eremiya's explanation, instead I just said that I didn't like it. Wanted to say I called it. On another point, I would just like to bring attention to the fact that you probably wouldn't have gotten to experience the Sable trio as units if it wasn't for that near TPK earlier. So while the game does reject iron man with a lot of it's design in other ways, the endless parade of units is to its strength there. Not that they did a particularly great job of actually balancing the endless parade of units. I'm looking at everyone's averages right now and it seems Robert is designed to be just flat out worse than the other two who manage to naturally cap strength and skill. He's a little bit faster than them and that's it, and the stats he trails behind in he trails faaaar behind. Tomas actually looks like he could manage to be decent if you could bother to train him up from his bases (which you just might if you've lost a lot of untis). He caps strength and gets above 26 speed. Though it seems the Sniper strength cap is pretty low at 24. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted December 10, 2020 Author Share Posted December 10, 2020 New Mystery Day 34: Chapter 21 ...Christ, I'm gonna have to do a double today, aren't I? Either that or finish the game on Saturday, which I guess I can do. Aaaaaanyway... ...So apparently we're still warped to Dolhr by Archsage Gotoh. I wonder what he had to say about their decision to take out some corrupt orphanage before saving the free world from imminently-reviving satan dragons. Also, yet again, we're warped outside of the building we're headed for, and not directly in it. ...I apparently unlocked Elrean's support with Dakota via “How's Everyone”, and I got something called an energy drink... what does that do...? ...It's apparently a really good healing item. But it doesn't explicitly say how much HP it heals, which is... always annoying. Oh I am going to have some shit to say about vague descriptions when we get to Three Houses. But that won't be for a whiiiiile. ...So the intro says that the Wyvern Dale is home to nobody but wyverns and barbarians, so I'm gonna be very interested to learn what kind of people are living in those villages. ...wait a second... ...Wasn't there supposed to be some exposition about Macedon's founding at the beginning of this chapter? ...Nope, apparently I was mistaken, that doesn't happen here. I just checked a let's play of FE3 Book 2 Chapter 21, and it wasn't at the beginning. Guess I'll have to see what they do when I press start. We've officially reached the limits of Dakota and Catria's speed. We've got enemies here that 26 speed is just barely enough to double. We'll be counting on Belf soon for some things, and I've gotta keep that in mind. It'll be important to give him all the goddess icon stat boosters I'll be buying here, because his luck is just barely in the range that some really high-skill normal enemies can crit him. Caeda and Leiden also will no longer double everything even as paladins, though thankfully capping speed as a paladin means they'd automatically cap speed as a swordmaster too were I to reclass them. Pity their sword ranks aren't as good as Belf's. Not sure what I'll be doing with the other stat boosters just yet though. I'll work that out when I see the next map. But if I don't have any crucial weaknesses to patch up, one thing that would be tempting would be to stat-boost Robert up to good stats so that I can have a good Parthia user for endgame. ...The sad reality though is that it'd probably be more efficient to just use the two arms scrolls I'm assuming the secret shop sells on one of my other good units I reclass to sniper. It's a shame. I wish he were better so I could round out this fun little trio. I'm gonna have Etzel do the healing whenever possible, because I really want to get him up to at least B staves so I can have another “again” user. Obviously I'm going to get starlight no matter the cost, but if I can get to it without using warp, I will. Alright, let's do the talks, and then... I think we're ready to go. That was... I'm not sure what to make of that Elrean talk. He basically talked shit about Dakota as if he were trying to get a rise out of him, but since Dakota's all humble and stuff, he agreed that he needed further training (despite him being 20/20 and capping HP, strength, skill, speed, luck and defense). Elrean's disarmed by this and says some edgy shit like “I won't lose to someone like you” and wanders off. And the game makes extra sure to let me know there's something important in that village. I wonder why it didn't do that for Roshea, given that he's necessary for getting three other characters? But anyway, let's get this show on the road. ...Interesting that these guys are called the “Rock clan”, incidentally. Weird that all of these barbarian clans in radically different locations all use the same unimaginative naming scheme. Makes me think these are names that have been imposed on them by broader civilization. Buuuuuuut yeah let's just press start. ...Okay, so the game still does say that these wyverns are the mounts of Macedon. Aaaaand we get Ymir, who... holy shit, what is wrong with this game? Fifteen speed!? He gets doubled by damned near everything on this map! These wyverns are literally one attack point shy of one-rounding him! Seriously, they might as well have just stopped giving me units entirely after the Sable Trio, for all the good I can get out of them. Honestly, this is a problem with both Shadow Dragon and New Mystery, as my replay has very much reminded me. But the difference is that there's much more of a place for filler units to do things in Shadow Dragon, and also the general growth inflation and higher average endgame stats in New Mystery just makes it even more apparently how terrible most of these prepromotes are. ...Still though, to this game's credit, I do honestly prefer the style of units in this game to Shadow Dragon. Wolf and Sedgar are fun and all, but I like my endgame army in this game way more than the pathetic one I've got in my H5 ironman of Shadow Dragon. Then again, I'm only playing on hard mode this time. Maybe if I were still playing Shadow Dragon on a lower difficulty I wouldn't have so many disappointing units. Ah yes, and now we're getting some new map music, “Holy War”, and... okay, I don't like it, but in a refreshing change of pace, I do prefer it to the original. The original SNES version just sounded really, really lame, not like an endgame map theme at all. Here, they took the same melody, but added this sort of “Mars, Bringer of War” flare to it to make it sound way more intense. But anyway... Dakota dove in to attack the killer axe berserker immediately after Yumina barriered him up, so I can enemy-phase two of these wyverns with Marth and hopefully the last one furthest back will go after Dakota (or they'll just stay put like assholes and bring me to a standstill). Dakota's facing a meteor sorcerer and a killing edge swordmaster, but he'll be fine. I wound up using one of my two remaining speed bonds on Marth so that he can double again. Hopefully he'll gain a speed level up this map. He's 3 away from capping, and if he caps, he'll be slightly faster than Dakota and Catria. Now, like I said, I'm prepared to warp to get starlight, but I don't want to warp right away. First off because it would be wasteful if it turns out I don't have to, but also... ...Look, for all I know, there's a proximity ambush trigger right by that village that's gonna send in wyverns right by my starting point. Christ, I can't wait for Fates. Marth levels up from the first wyvern and gains speed, putting himself at 25 speed with the binding shield, and 27 speed with that speed bond. I think this guy's gonna be set shortly. ...He also apparently had a crit rate in the mid 20s agains those wyverns, and... I can't see anything that would've caused that. I'm having Ymir check out the houses so I can see that optional information without potentially screwing over anyone I need alive if there are ambush spawns behind me. ...The first house is just a generic warning about what lies ahead, while the second house says the roars from the temple have the locals saying “the Devil's been revived”, and... what? What's all this talk all of a sudden about people having a religion not based on the actual mighty beings who did battle just a few centuries ago!? ...Anyway, Dakota's really rushing ahead. I just can't afford to stop and let anyone else fight these guys. The thieves are really moving. At first I thought I could intercept them from behind with my fliers, but no dice, they're about to get into range of the wyvern, and by the time my fliers arrive they'll be even deeper. Which means most of the exp on this map has to be wasted on a guy who's already capped. But in fairness, most of my army's already pretty well off, and we've got the big stat booster trove to pick up too. ...And of course there might be ambush spawns, and if there are, odds are Dakota ain't gonna be the one fighting them. Marth leveled up again... and got nothing. In fairness he's got three capped stats, HP strength and skill, but still... damn it. ...No ambush spawns so far. Nothing but a single thief from that cave (which I just visited and got a talisman from. Probably going on Dakota, but I'll hold on to it for a bit, it's not gonna be useful today). Man, one downside of gameplay moving so quickly and smoothly in the DS games compared to past ones... is that there's basically no time at all to listen to the enemy phase themes. I can't even tell how good the new version of the final enemy phase theme is, because it barely has time to get past the intro they added! ...Is this village... off-center? Villages are supposed to be 3x2, at least visually. But this one seems to have been crammed into a 2x2 space, slightly off-center so that the village gates are more in one corner than the other so you know where to visit. ...Why? But anyway, we've gotten to the village and secured it, and I'm feeding the thief kills to Marth. Ymir's sitting on the fort in the middle in case anything titanically nasty comes out of it, and we'll be talking to Michalis soon. Marth made it to 24(26) speed, so he no longer needs that speed bond to double everything on this map. Just one more and he'll cap. And now we're talking to Michalis, just in case this game decides to be a dick and actually have him succumb to his wounds if we wait too long. That would be completely horrible, but then, so would half the shit in gaiden chapters, so I can't put it past these guys when I'm playing blind. That's one of the consequences of violating the player's trust like this. ...So, Michalis apparently just rushed straight into the Dragon's Table and stole Starlight from Gharnef. Pretty damned badass, but... it's kinda lame that it happened offscreen. But anyway, we've got Starlight now, and it's... significantly better than it was in Shadow Dragon apparently! And it helps that we don't have to trade much more useful items for it. But anyway, Merric's gonna be the one to fight Gharnef. I buffed his magic to 22 with two of my three spirit dusts, he capped speed ages ago... he's in pretty good shape to fight Gharnef I think. I cleaned out the secret shop's entire stat booster supply... save for the secret books. Because fuck them, and five of my best units have already capped skill anyway. We've got 5k left over to do some last-minute shopping for anything vitally important. Then it'll be time to take on the last few enemies. ...Y'know what? Just for the heck of it, let's try out the arena with Dakota. See what it's like with a max level, capped stat unit. ...Wow, Dakota didn't do too well! If he hadn't gotten a crit against that paladin, I'd probably have had to surrender or he'd die! Alright, interesting. So it's a real gamble even if you've got the best units you can possibly have. And Marth just capped speed against one of the wyverns, who don't seem to have linked AI. Which means this final stretch should be a breeze. I'll buy a few more silver weapons at the store (I'm waaaaaaaaay set for hand axes and javelins) and finish up then. Marth's now capped everything but magic, res and defense, and he's one level shy from capping his level too, meaning he's a pretty major candidate for using those dracoshields I just bought. Belf got defense on a level up, which is pretty encouraging. I'm feeding the last kills to Robert, because I'd really like to make him at least good on player-phase. Hunters have a speed cap of 30, which is... amazing, and given his good speed growth and his 8 levels left to grow... I could get him to 30 speed if I gave him all three speedwings and prayed to not get screwed. Even if he didn't gain a single speed level up from here on out, I'd still have another unit as fast as Dakota, which would be nice. ...Really, my army's shaped out to be pretty good. Nobody but Robert is in any real need of a lot of these stat boosters, so... why not? The dracoshields would be wasted on him though. I wanna give those to either Belf or Marth. Robert just got HP, strength, skill and speed. If I gave him the speedwings now, he'd have 27 speed, as fast as Marth, and faster than Dakota. Having a good nuke who can use the brave bow and Parthia... tempting, tempting, but again, I'll weigh my options. But I need to clear out some of my convoy now because I'm at 200 again and that means I won't actually get any bonus items from “How's Everyone” tomorrow unless I make a little bit of space. Robert's fighting the boss. He doesn't have anything to fear from a single glower user, and it'll give me a chance to use up some almost-broken mend staves in the convoy and let Etzel get closer to B staves (it's been slow going). And Etzel just barely managed to reach B staves by the time we finished off the boss. And for killing the boss, Robert got everything but magic, speed and resistance. Alright, I think I'll be boosting this guy. Seizing. Okay, so, Gotoh says resurrecting Medeus “requires the life force of a pure, maiden woman”. Nothing about noble blood though, which we've been left to assume due to all of the kidnapped staff users being of noble blood. But yeah, Gotoh just now realizes what Gharnef's planning with the maidens, and that the resurrection of Medeus is imminent. Didn't he make it sound like we were already in a huge hurry last time we saw him though? ...Yet again these stupid outfit-change scenes are added in at terribly inappropriate plot moments, and right after being told we barely have any time left before Gharnef dooms the world, we have Ymir shooting the shit with Dakota about his fashion sense and commenting that the fur he's wearing keeps him warm... while he's mostly shirtless. ...Fuck it, I'll try out the animal hat for a bit, I guess. It might be cool. But anyway, that's it for today. I think I may have to finish this on the weekend. Doing multiple chapters on a ranking day would probably drive me completely insane. So I'll catch up with you guys tomorrow. Stay safe, everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axie Posted December 11, 2020 Share Posted December 11, 2020 On 12/9/2020 at 1:50 PM, Alastor15243 said: That's not the time paradox I'm talking about, to be clear. It's Ephraim's gaiden, 5x, that's a time paradox, because it has to simultaneously happen before chapter 1 but after chapter 2, which is obviously impossible. oh, back when i was reading the playlog i played it off as "well, if you just removed moonstone from the script" which qualifies it as a minor writing issue for me, but looking at the script for 5x, that wouldn't even be necessary as long as you just assume ephraim didn't get news of current events instantly as people seem to in the rest of the game (or other fire emblem games lol). valter's dialogue with him definitely reads as "renais is already entirely dust", which is post chapter 2 and post his promotion. as for the new mystery prologue, i understand you not wanting to dissect it further now! agreeing to disagree is fine and people should do it more often. though i feel bad though that new mystery isn't entertaining you very much, it seems. definitely my second favourite in the franchise. but definitely not ironman friendly at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted December 11, 2020 Share Posted December 11, 2020 So...you didn't look at that recruitment guide to figure out how to save Michalis I take it. Eh, reviving him in the first place for this game was kind of stupid anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted December 11, 2020 Author Share Posted December 11, 2020 2 minutes ago, Jotari said: So...you didn't look at that recruitment guide to figure out how to save Michalis I take it. Eh, reviving him in the first place for this game was kind of stupid anyway. Shit, really? No, I generally don't check that thing so I can remain blind to see if I can figure this stuff out. I didn't even realize he became recruitable! Looking at it... it definitely falls under the category of "easter egg". There was no conceivable way I was gonna figure that out blind. I'm kinda pissed off that apparently he gets actually good bases though. I legitimately do not remotely understand what the devs were thinking with the stats of all of these late-game units. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Interdimensional Observer Posted December 11, 2020 Share Posted December 11, 2020 15 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: I'm kinda pissed off that apparently he gets actually good bases though. I legitimately do not remotely understand what the devs were thinking with the stats of all of these late-game units. You say "good bases", but you're playing Ironman and his Lck is 2.☠️ That and the kinda meh 19 Str should sink him for you. Michalis's survival is maybe a little too happy though. And his ending is slightly badly written, how do historians not know if he ruled Macedon again? The alternative historians say is that he left to conquer another continent. He does get an alright one-part conversation with Minerva, and he tells Kris in their one convo why he is unable to break the spell holding Maria captive, or rather, doesn't want to despite Maria being his beloved little sister. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted December 11, 2020 Author Share Posted December 11, 2020 4 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said: You say "good bases", but you're playing Ironman and his Lck is 2.☠️ That and the kinda meh 19 Str should sink him for you. Still, speed and defense in the 20s is a hell of a lot better than anything I've gotten before now. Anyway... I'm kind of amazed that I haven't died yet. I might actually succeed at this ironman. ...Or I could die in the final battle because my turn 1 gambit fails and Marth gets killed by those ridiculous earth dragons. ...Yeeeeeah, I'm thinking those dracoshields are going on Marth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted December 11, 2020 Share Posted December 11, 2020 44 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said: You say "good bases", but you're playing Ironman and his Lck is 2.☠️ That and the kinda meh 19 Str should sink him for you. Michalis's survival is maybe a little too happy though. And his ending is slightly badly written, how do historians not know if he ruled Macedon again? The alternative historians say is that he left to conquer another continent. He does get an alright one-part conversation with Minerva, and he tells Kris in their one convo why he is unable to break the spell holding Maria captive, or rather, doesn't want to despite Maria being his beloved little sister. The Macedonian invasion of Jugdral! Where's that story IS! A Michalis vs Alm showdown would also be acceptable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted December 11, 2020 Author Share Posted December 11, 2020 2 minutes ago, Jotari said: The Macedonian invasion of Jugdral! Where's that story IS! A Michalis vs Alm showdown would also be acceptable. Alm's inevitable victory would also explain how the fuck Valentia got wyverns all of a sudden. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted December 11, 2020 Share Posted December 11, 2020 33 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: Alm's inevitable victory would also explain how the fuck Valentia got wyverns all of a sudden. Ah, filling up plot holes with fan service. There is no greater joy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.