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

[Axie]

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Man, the total failure of drama here is hilarious. Xander and Ryoma are just basically telling us how awful it is that we have to fight Azura's mother, and I'm like “we barely know jack shit about her and she barely even exists as a character”.

yes! revelation is supposed to be the true route, the happy ending, the epic recruitment of all the royals and yet it's so PLAIN. there's never any tension at any point. there's never any doubt corrin will succeed at uniting xander and ryoma, and the valla half is just a slog where the game tries to emotionally manipulate you into hating anankos through dead characters you've never even seen. there's nothing at stake. even the betrayal is random, stupid and nothing comes out of it.

the fates triples are all the worst storylines of fire emblem by far (even awakening doesn't come close imo) but i have a very hard time deciding which is worse. birthright has the easiest job and mangles it entirely, conquest was doomed from conception and still manages to not get past the lowest bar, and revelation feels like an afterthought when it's supposed to be the big deal.

at least the gameplay is iconic, even if revelation tries so very hard to make it bad lol.

Edited February 4, 2021 by Axie

[Jotari]

 

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...I keep forgetting how many rallies I have on the little sisters. Adding +4 to basically every stat is really powerful and handy. If only they had replicate...

Anyway, I haven't even touched a dragon vein yet. It's way more fun to cheese the shit out of this map by abusing my fliers to isolate everyone.

...Yeah, rallies are pretty overwhelmingly strong when you know how to use them. I kinda get why they were nerfed in Three Houses, but... single-target rallies just aren't nearly as interesting or fun, and they further disincentivize player-phase combat by rewarding you for reducing your available unit pool by making one unit stronger instead of multiple. That's almost never worth it except when doing enemy phase or fighting a boss. If they wanted to nerf rallies, they should've nerfed the bonuses, not the range.

 

How many rallies do you have on Elise and Sakura? I remember you specifying you got Rally Magic on Sakura and then did you...go Wyvern lord with her through a partner seal? I find Percy to be the unit that most leans towards rallies amoung the cast since he can get Rally Strength from Arthur, has rally Defense from his own default class and can then get another from his mother. There's also the Grandmaster DLC class which can give you (slightly nerfed) Rally Spectrum for more stacking. I've always wanted to, but have yet to make any efforts to actually do so, make an ultimate Rallybot Laslow since he's the only character that comes with a rally for their personal skill and hence has the potential for the strongest rally in the game. Though I think the only rally he can get naturally is from Bow Knight so it'd require quite a bit of logbook abuse to get him five full rallies.

Regarding balancing rallies, I think they should be kept OP with both the range and the stat boosts, but it should be a dedicated flag-waving class with limited combat potential like a dancer. Rally bots are just pure fun, might as well have an intentional character designed around that aspect to balance it rather than letting it be free and wild.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

How many rallies do you have on Elise and Sakura? I remember you specifying you got Rally Magic on Sakura and then did you...go Wyvern lord with her through a partner seal?

Sakura has luck, magic and speed, Elise has defense and resistance. Unless I'm forgetting something, that only leaves strength and skill.

 

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I've always wanted to, but have yet to make any efforts to actually do so, make an ultimate Rallybot Laslow since he's the only character that comes with a rally for their personal skill and hence has the potential for the strongest rally in the game. Though I think the only rally he can get naturally is from Bow Knight so it'd require quite a bit of logbook abuse to get him five full rallies.

Oh I have done this repeatedly. It's great. Strength from Keaton, speed from Azura, then he gets replicate so that he can rally in two places at once, and then you get two children with replicate in the late game.

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Sakura has luck, magic and speed, Elise has defense and resistance. Unless I'm forgetting something, that only leaves strength and skill.

 

Oh I have done this repeatedly. It's great. Strength from Keaton, speed from Azura, then he gets replicate so that he can rally in two places at once, and then you get two children with replicate in the late game.

Replicate is such a ridiculously fun skill. There's so many crazy things you can do with it. I hope they bring it back in a future game.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Replicate is such a ridiculously fun skill. There's so many crazy things you can do with it. I hope they bring it back in a future game.

Seconded. It's one of my favorite skills in Fire Emblem history.

[Shadow Mir]

32 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh I have done this repeatedly. It's great. Strength from Keaton, speed from Azura, then he gets replicate so that he can rally in two places at once, and then you get two children with replicate in the late game.

I... don't think this is nearly as great as you're advertising, because I find maps where splitting up is a good idea are almost nonexistent, especially by the time Replicate is relevant.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I... don't think this is nearly as great as you're advertising, because I find maps where splitting up is a good idea are almost nonexistent, especially by the time Replicate is relevant.

When rallies only reach 2 spaces, you don't need to split up your army for a replicated rallybot to be useful.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

When rallies only reach 2 spaces, you don't need to split up your army for a replicated rallybot to be useful.

Then what in Anankos's name is the point of Replicate on a rallybot? Because if you're moving as one big group, then Replicate is just fluff. And I didn't even get into the impracticality of marrying off Laslow to Azura, who has no fast supports with anyone that's not Corrin...

Edited February 5, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

Then what in Anankos's name is the point of Replicate on a rallybot? Because if you're moving as one big group, then Replicate is just fluff.

See the text you just quoted for your answer. Getting all of your units within range for a rally can be pretty stifling on your formation options. Being able to do the rally from two difference spaces makes it much easier to get your whole army rallied up reliably and on demand.

[Shadow Mir]

7 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

See the text you just quoted for your answer. Getting all of your units within range for a rally can be pretty stifling on your formation options. Being able to do the rally from two difference spaces makes it much easier to get your whole army rallied up reliably and on demand.

Okay, let's put it this way; as rallies affect a two space radius, I can affect up to 12 units at once. Of course, not all of them will have something to do in any given turn... which means having my whole army boosted by rallies isn't as much of a game-changer as you think it is.

Edited February 5, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Okay, let's put it this way; as rallies affect a two space radius, I can affect up to 12 units at once. Of course, not all of them will have something to do in any given turn... which means having my whole army boosted by rallies isn't as much of a game-changer as you think it is.

Today I was commanding a flying battalion of four units, rallying Sakura included, and I still found myself wishing occasionally that I had a second Sakura to rally with, because it can just be that limiting to make sure that none of your fighters are ever more than 4 spaces away from each other. Having a second rally bot just widens your formation options drastically and makes things much more flexible in many different ways.

[Venger_06]

TIL that rallies are useful.

[Alastor15243]

25 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

TIL that rallies are useful.

Didn't think much of them before?

[Venger_06]

10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Didn't think much of them before?

Yep. The fact that characters who have rallies are doing other things like healing doesn't help.

[Shadow Mir]

12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Today I was commanding a flying battalion of four units, rallying Sakura included, and I still found myself wishing occasionally that I had a second Sakura to rally with, because it can just be that limiting to make sure that none of your fighters are ever more than 4 spaces away from each other. Having a second rally bot just widens your formation options drastically and makes things much more flexible in many different ways.

Seems what I said went completely over your head - what use is rallying everyone when some characters are likely not going to see combat on any given turn? This sounds a hell of a lot more like OCD than something that's actually practical...

Edited February 5, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

Seems what I said went completely over your head - what use is rallying everyone when some characters are likely not going to see combat on that turn? This sounds a hell of a lot more like OCD than something that's actually practical...

No, what I said went over your head. I had just three units I wanted to rally up to fight, and even then I found having just one rally bot restrictive to formations sometimes.

[Shadow Mir]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

No, what I said went over your head. I had just three units I wanted to rally up to fight, and even then I found having just one rally bot restrictive to formations sometimes.

Maybe it's because I don't use them obsessively. but I never really found that to be an issue. There's still the fact that Replicate is a level 15 skill, too, so this is likely something you only get to do for a few chapters at most.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

Maybe it's because I don't use them obsessively. but I never really found that to be an issue. There's still the fact that Replicate is a level 15 skill, too, so this is likely something you only get to do for a few chapters at most.

So? It's a nice added bonus on top of a unit who was already useful before he got it.

[Alastor15243]

Revelation Day 20: Chapter 24

Everyone gets a battle flag today!

Alright, with that done, let's get going!

...Oh no.

It's this map.

The one with Mikoto.

Oh man, the failed attempt at drama here is so dumb, I love it. Dakota's attempts at angst about whether or not to trust his mother are so ridiculous. For extra bonus points, do this with female Dakota and have her in one of the numerous cavalry classes that have assless outfits. This scene can get so ridiculous.

But yeah, uh... this mission...

...I hate it. It's this game's attempt at a stealth mission. These unpromoted guards are patrolling around, and if they spot you, I think by you ending a turn in their range, they call reinforcements you have to fight. If you do this perfectly stealthily, you get some bonuses.

...Sure. We're not ironmanning anymore. Let's try it.

It'll be like the poor man's Invisible Inc... except you can buy Invisible Inc for literally the same price as Revelation.

...Yeah, this uh...

...look, uh...

...Turn-based stealth is a genius idea, okay? Invisible Inc made that obvious.

But you have to build the whole game around it.

One-off stealth missions in general are obscenely risky, because when the mode revolves almost entirely around mechanics that aren't likely to ever be used again... the odds that the mechanics are actually going to be well-polished will plummet. And stealth games kinda require huge amounts of well-designed systems to make them actually fun, shit you can't just cobble together for a one-off, especially in a turn-based strategy game.

In Invisible Inc, when I want to sneak past guards, I can hide behind cover, spend movement points to get told exactly what path the guards are going to take, distract guards by making noise or opening doors or just wandering in their peripheral vision, and countless other things to deal with the procedurally generated threats the game throws at me.

Here... I have to either spend multiple turns watching their full movement cycle to know where they'll be, or just trust that they won't randomly reverse direction and spawn a ton of enemies that my soloing ass can't realistically fight.

...And a guard from the previous room just wandered close enough to the door to be in movement range of me as I was looping around a pillar to avoid the ninja guard, and my mission failed. Fuck. Alright, trying again, because the number of enemies they throw at you is absolutely pathetic, and I am not in the mood to do this mission the conventional way when it's gonna be that childishly easy and not worth the effort.

Oh yeah, also, this doesn't really matter for ironmannability because the game doesn't even tell you it's a stealth mission, and thus put the idea into your head that you should low-man, until deployment's already done... but if you read that, restarted with one or two units, and then got to the end... you're gonna get fucked over when it turns out Mikoto's lying to you after all about which of the two big colored doors you're supposed to go through at the end, causing your units to get damaged and reinforcements to show up that are probably too much for one unit to handle.

...Christ, I lost again. It's a breeze until the last chamber, where it just gets so frustrating keeping track of where everyone moves.

...What makes it doubly annoying is that they don't always move their full movement every turn.

...Okay, it worked. By changing the stage of phase 2 where I opened the door to phase 3, I managed to time the guard cycles so I could retreat back into phase 2 right when the guard patrols of phase 3 started getting ridiculous when the two ninjas intersect. I should be good to go from here.

Oh god that was so close. But I made it. I managed to get past the guard and get behind him so I can grab the treasure and go through the third blue door.

...And I was immediately rewarded by a horde of promoted enemies in immediate range of the door killing Kagero.

...And then Dakota.

...Well, that's trash. I'm not keen on doing this with enough units to handle that final room and protect Kagero, especially since the space you need to unlock the door from can be attacked from across the enemy room's wall.

I don't have time for this today. I'm just gonna steamroll it.

Yeah, this map is an absolute joke if you deliberately fuck up the stealth mission. Really disappointing since the actual stealth mission isn't fun.

Not-so-fun fact: Turns out that lunge happens after post-battle skills like savage blow, so you can't lunge yourself into the center of a group of enemies to savage blow the whole lot of them. Pity. That would've been handy.

I totally forgot I wanted to partner seal Xander into bow knight. Fuck. Let's see if I have a spare one lying around...

...Nope. Fuck. Well, no sense restarting over that, so I'll just try to keep him out of combat for the ending stages of this.

And with the help of my army, that final room is a joke, and Mikoto goes down to two mighty attacks from Dakota's Gigirant axe.

And we get the pursuer, yet another S rank weapon we don't have any users of!

Alright, quick story and support recap, and then we're out of here, lots to do, lots to do!

Yep, and Gunter tells me that the vault's been cleaned out because we alerted the guards. Pity, but that just was not worth the hassle.

And then there's a big dramatic scene with all of the Hoshidan royals and Dakota crowded around the dying Mikoto while “Warmth is Gone” plays (a hilariously ironic song name given that infamous scene it's used for in Birthright).

Man, with all of these 3D models so close up, seeing Ryoma's 3D head behind Mikoto's 2D portrait is kinda jarring.

And then Mikoto randomly drops that Arete is her older sister... and that Azura and Dakota are cousins...

...but fails to mention that important little fact that Anankos is Dakota's fucking father.

More importantly, support time!

And we get Dakota and Elise's A rank!

...It's ridiculously corny, but also still fairly cute. Elise breaks down and reveals that it's not just physical limitations that concern her, but emotional ones, how she keeps freezing up out of fear and squeamishness. But Dakota assures her that that's because of her loving and kind spirit, her best quality. Aw.

...Huh. Xander and Mozu got a support. Let's see what they talk about.

...That was ridiculously short. Yet another filler “setup” support where Mozu just flat-out tells Xander that she thinks his face is scary and asks him to leave. The punchline that she realizes she just insulted the prince of Nohr is pretty funny, but...

...Anyway, while I'm thinking about Xander, time to reclass him to bow knight so he can learn shurikenbreaker finally!

Done! Now for Hisame and Velouria part 2!

...It's just Hisame asking Velouria where she found the amber stone so he can find more, since they're valuable. It's kinda dumb, but I do like the part where Velouria's like “Sure, as long as I can keep the ones with bugs inside of them.” and Hisame's like “It's a deal!”

...And I guess that's it for this week! And... wow, tomorrow's gonna be the last week! Finally!

...I may have to stall with some paralogues to get this game done exactly on Friday.

...We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Stay safe, everyone!

[Interdimensional Observer]

15 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

And then Mikoto randomly drops that Arete is her older sister... and that Azura and Dakota are cousins...

I skip over story usually, both ingame and in your Fates analysis so far, but I caught notice of this line. And I just wanted to say, the Fates art book said they're "like sisters", not specifically genetically-related sisters.

I would not be surprised if you thought this smelled so much like a retcon that the odor could be detected from a twenty thousand miles away. Although at least the fragrance is merely peculiar, and not rancid like a fondue of sweat and expired limburger cheese.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I skip over story usually, both ingame and in your Fates analysis so far, but I caught notice of this line. And I just wanted to say, the Fates art book said they're "like sisters", not specifically genetically-related sisters.

I would not be surprised if you thought this smelled so much like a retcon that the odor could be detected from a twenty thousand miles away. Although at least the fragrance is merely peculiar, and not rancid like a fondue of sweat and expired limburger cheese.

Yep. It's a retcon. Has to be. Mikoto gives her being Arete's younger sister as the reason why Dakota is Vallite royalty.

[Acacia Sgt]

I mean, the Anankos connection is going to make Corrin royalty anyway.

What does the Japanese script says on the matter? Do remember the language employs referring to people you're close with, or out of politeness, as family. Like how the elderly are referred to as grandparents even if such relation doesn't exist. The Japanese script may have done the same with Mikoto and Arete, and that tidbit of Mikoto added in the English script.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I mean, the Anankos connection is going to make Corrin royalty anyway.

What does the Japanese script says on the matter? Do remember the language employs referring to people you're close with, or out of politeness, as family. Like how the elderly are referred to as grandparents even if such relation doesn't exist. The Japanese script may have done the same with Mikoto and Arete, and that tidbit of Mikoto added in the English script.

His relation to Anankos wouldn't have made him a member of the "Vallite Royal Family" though.

[Acacia Sgt]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

His relation to Anankos wouldn't have made him a member of the "Vallite Royal Family" though.

The current royal family descend from Anankos, don't they?

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Acacia Sgt said:

The current royal family descend from Anankos, don't they?

There is no royal family, just Anankos, Corrin and I guess Lilith. But also... Mikoto has dragon blood.