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

[Seazas]

31 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Ah yes. I think I recall that being a thing I kept on getting wrong a dozen times over.

Well...it's kind of been in three games already with the turn rewind feature they added to Shadow Dragon on the NES.

All that being said, I find the Retreat option in Gaiden and Shadows of Valentia to be far more broken than the turnwheel. As it is, effectively, a full map heal that also saves your game that you can initiate whenever you want (well outside the first handful of chapters). The only cost for retreating half way through a map is the meagre amount of time it takes to traverse an empty battlefield back to where you were engaging the enemy before hand. Hell I think it even gets rid of all the terrors summoned previously too.

Ah, so that's the part of the game with that imagery in it.

I mean...doesn't that already happen in Genealogy?

You actually use that feature? Beyond just knowing it's a thing, I've never once saw it as necessary to give Mila an offering for this as stamina is such a non issue in the game. And on the very rare times it does pop up, giving them the boat load of useless food I've hoarded solves the issue instantly. I didn't even know this feature recharges the Turnwheel, but even knowing that, given how short the dungeons are, I don't think I'll ever find the need to make use of it.

 

Yeah, this is pretty much my view. I don't have much issue with the turnwheel in concept. But they're way too generous with its use in the games its featured in so far. If there was only one to three uses of the turnwheel per chapter instead of like a dozen, then that decision to try and end the map early would be a lot more weighted. Or, better yet, if there were only a dozen or so uses of it permitted throughout the entire game. Turnwheel as a bandaid for bad luck or a single poor mistake makes sense to me. But such liberal use of the turnwheel makes it so only something like Foreign Land and Sky actually ever puts me at rick of losing a map.

Seems you didn't hear me the first two times. Perhaps you'll pay attention the third time.

God I wish you read my edited version of that post. It conveyed what I was trying to say a lot better lol.

1 hour ago, Seazas said:

Listen Jotari, just listen for a second. I don't care if you don't like Alm, that doesn't matter to me anymore. Just STOP being apart of the small few that push a narrative of Gaiden Alm being this different extremely flawed guy. I'm sick of that crclejerk that's been going on for YEARS and it's another case of blaming Echoes for something it isn't at fault by. Kaga always gave Alm just about everything with Celica not getting the same treatment, Alm always had a rational super kind personality. 

That rebellious spirit you mentioned is nice as a concept, it never existed in Gaiden though. 

This version of Alm you prefer just doesn't exist, come on man.

Awakening never cared for Gaiden, it didn't bother to dig into what it tried to do nor was it overly fond of the game. It didn't even acknowledge Alm and Celica's legacy properly and never answered where the Valentian Falchion went. Awakening's depiction of Alm is just wrong.

Your opinions are your opinions, but don't spread things that literally aren't true. Gaiden Alm and Echoes Alm are the same fucking character, please stop continuing the outdated circlejerk that entirely stems from Awakening and one awkwardly translated Gaiden line.

[Samz707]

Yeah Retreat is broken and probably shouldn't have existed.

It works in say, Jagged Alliance 2 because enemy reinforcements will come to backup that Sector and healing after battle is very slowly overtime, as opposed to no reinforcements/instant healing like Echoes.

[Eltosian Kadath]

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...FUCK.

I COULD'VE GIVEN KLIFF THE BOSS KILL BECAUSE THAT INSTANTLY ENDS THE MAP.

Its so easy to forget that Echoes does have boss kill objectives, after how rout focused it feels.

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

These are not the hallmarks of a casual mode analogue the game wasn't balanced around. These are the hallmarks of a special attack that the game was balanced around. The only reason the turnwheel would have limited uses at all is if whoever came up with that idea genuinely believed that giving it limited uses would be sufficient to make it a balanced mechanic. As crazy as it is to believe, all the signs point to the fact that the developers of this game genuinely saw the turnwheel as something that didn't break the game in half. I maintained this interpretation of the devs' decisions in the days where SoV was the newest game, and 3H has resoundingly, and tragically, vindicated me on this.

Odd as this sounds I do think the number of turnwheel uses is balanced, if you go out of your way to avoid all optional encounters you can. When I stubbornly ended up doing that it felt like the right number, and scaled just about right to let me swing the disparity in unit quality between me and the enemy while playing fast...

 

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

 

Eh, unless your comment about grinding was unrelated to the retreat, if so then fair enough, but is it really grinding if it's unavoidable? Or is it just more of the actual game being played? I never exactly grind when playing Shadows of Valentia, but I don't think I ever feel like my units are over powered compared to the enemy, nor under powered against them, by just going through shrines in a pretty standard way (occasionally with a second visit here or there for promotions). What does make my units feel broken in Shadows of Valentia are ridiculously good combat skills like Hunter's Volley and Tigerstance.

A lot of the grinding can be avoided with careful movements. Most Dungeons only have 1 mandatory encounter in them to fully explore them (Obvious exception for Duma's tower which has 1 per floor). Act 1, that would be Brigand Boss for the thief shrine, and one of the Bone Walker encounters (it blocks a doorway, and passing through that doorway triggers the battle) in the Deliverance Fortress. Additionally you can reduce enemy's spawning on the over-world by rushing the spawn points, saving any side objectives for after enemies stop spawning for the act (I think you can reset to RNG abuse the map spawns a little, but I am not an expert on that topic). When I went for Blitzkreig on hard I didn't bother counting turns, and out of a bit of paranoia started going out of my way to do this; I ended up having two non mandatory dungeon encounters overall. Especially in Duma's tower the Gargoyle encounters on the second floor are incredibly frustrating to avoid due to their positioning, aggro range, and the terrain, and after I finally hit the point that some of Celica's units would actually hit their final promotion (ignoring DLC), but only if I could pass by them again to reach the statue on the first floor I caved, I had resetted enough trying to maneuver past those bastards already...

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Seazas said:

God I wish you read my edited version of that post. It conveyed what I was trying to say a lot better lol.

Your opinions are your opinions, but don't spread things that literally aren't true. Gaiden Alm and Echoes Alm are the same fucking character, please stop continuing the outdated circlejerk that entirely stems from Awakening and one awkwardly translated Gaiden line.

I'm not reading your comments at all, edited or otherwise. Just giving a light skim to see if you actually are ready to conduct conversations in an adult manner. You've proven that you are completely incapable of doing so with your repeated insistence on trying to bring it up despite me responding every time with a quote about how I'm not going to engage. So since simply telling you I am not interested clearly isn't working, ignoring you completely is the only option that remains. And don't think I'm doing this because I am incapable of defending my viewpoint. I am incredibly capable of that. I've analyzed and compared every  line of dialogue has in the original game to Shadows of Valentia's Japanese script and invariably every line is either altered, omitted or changes the context.

There's just no point at all actually discussing it with you as I know you'll just ignore everything I say and strawman me while offering nothing of substance of your own. I like myself a good ol internet argument, but not like that. It's boring and it's repetitive. Maybe my viewpoint is incorrect, but you're outright childish style of arguing certainly won't bear any fruitful discourse on the subject. And honestly I just don't give a toss about what you think right now. You can respond to this post with whatever half formed rant or proclamation of victory you want. I really don't care. I'm just going to ignore you completely from her on out. If that makes you think you've "won" then good for you. I'll see you in ten years when maybe you've grown up enough to actually have an intellectual discussion about video games.

EDIT: If anyone else wants to talk about Alm's change in characterization then I'm all ears. I have built up a, frankly, embarrassing amount of evidence to support my stance. It's not just the original game, I've gone through the manga too.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Jotari

[Seazas]

19 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I'm not reading your comments at all, edited or otherwise. Just giving a light skim to see if you actually are ready to conduct conversations in an adult manner. You've proven that you are completely incapable of doing so with your repeated insistence on trying to bring it up despite me responding every time with a quote about how I'm not going to engage. So since simply telling you I am not interested clearly isn't working, ignoring you completely is the only option that remains. And don't think I'm doing this because I am incapable of defending my viewpoint. I am incredibly capable of that. I've analyzed and compared every  line of dialogue has in the original game to Shadows of Valentia's Japanese script and invariably every line is either altered, omitted or changes the context.

There's just no point at all actually discussing it with you as I know you'll just ignore everything I say and strawman me while offering nothing of substance of your own. I like myself a good ol internet argument, but not like that. It's boring and it's repetitive. Maybe my viewpoint is incorrect, but you're outright childish style of arguing certainly won't bear any fruitful discourse on the subject. And honestly I just don't give a toss about what you think right now. You can respond to this post with whatever half formed rant or proclamation of victory you want. I really don't care. I'm just going to ignore you completely from her on out. If that makes you think you've "won" then good for you. I'll see you in ten years when maybe you've grown up enough to actually have an intellectual discussion about video games.

You accuse me of ignoring what you say while you claimed I made no actual argument, ever. If I didn't read what you say I wouldn't have said nearly as much. Do you not get the irony of that? I may have been more rude than I would've liked but it doesn't erase the fact that you're making false and slanderous claims, some out of blind salt. I brought up examples from the text and original stuff numerous times in our discussions, I guess it just doesn't count because you didn't agree with it. 

If you analyzed the script you would understand that Echoes Alm WASN'T MADE A SAINT, that's an indisputable fact. They share the same trials and actions. With similar personalities down to Kaga putting Alm in the right and Celica in the wrong. Literally nothing changed about Alm's talk with Celica. They get along with Celica accusing him of something that isn't true and Alm is on the defensive in that argument. And you may have analyzed it, but you don't remember everything. You spread misinformation on Alm "having a confrontation with Mycen" in the original within this thread.

"You're just too childish so I'll just ignore any legitimate points you may have made". Ok Jotari.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Seazas

[Alastor15243]

Shadows of Valentia Day 4: Trying Out the New Toys

Let's get right into it. Fighting the first battle after getting our promotions.

Shit I hope Kliff's defense picks up soon.

Oh yeah, I left a reminder to myself to bring up something real quick before I forget:

It's kinda hilarious that we simultaneously have two conflicting instances of bad game design in the game. You'd think that a game that tries to sell you needlessly expensive extra promotion tiers would not also be in the business of keeping in an absolutely broken old mechanic like the dread fighter loop in the game that almost completely invalidates the need to even touch those classes for a good chunk of the cast. It's almost admirable that the developers' desire to keep the game as much like the original won out over the desire to make as much money as possible.

We get the preparation screen, but there's not much I need to do besides swap some minor positions around and give everyone items. After that, it's good to go.

Ah yes, and Tobin and Kliff have a support. I do believe this is the first one we get!

...Kliff doesn't remotely seem to be in the mood to talk during battle right now. I can't remember how this evolves. It's a reeeaaalllly short conversation though. If we got something this short in Fates or even New Mystery I think I'd still be flabbergasted, because this would be bad even for them. Still, the voice acting was nice.

Anyway, usual plan, I'm gonna have Alm intercept the mercenary on the mountains while Faye heals Alm and tries to get in chip damage with nosferatu. I've got Lukas on standby if we need to change things up, and everyone else is facing the other enemies.

...Enemies seem to like going for maximum damage instead of avoiding counterattacks. The archer attacked Kliff instead of Gray, and I can only assume that's the reason. Because despite tying for the best growth... he has damned near the worst defense in the army, only ahead of Silque.

Yeah, uh, compared to Conquest, the strategy here barely feels worthy of discussion. It's not boring, it just... doesn't have nearly as many moments that feel worth the trouble of writing down, because they're swiftly over.

Ah yes, Tobin and Gray have a support now.

...And it's almost immediately over without any explanation of why Tobin's mad. I wonder what this is about. This can't be about Tobin fighting a losing battle with Gray for Clair's heart, because they haven't met her yet. Haven't even heard about her yet. So what is this gonna be revealed to be about?

But seriously, this is really disappointing so far. What the fuck even are these conversations? I love how they're acted and how the lines are written, but the actual subject matter is so anemic it's kinda pathetic.

I've been retreating a good deal to avoid getting swarmed by the enemies, and if I retreat any more, then Alm and Lukas will be involved (I've already got Faye involved to help heal). Shouldn't be too much of a problem, but Alm's kinda busy.

Okay, yeah, I just realized: Echoes definitely isn't going in the same usability tier as the other 3DS games. I just realized that the bottom screen is a lot less useful than I thought. While the problem with several other games is that they don't show crit avoid... this game doesn't even show hit, avoid or crit! If I don't know the formulas I'm basically flying blind unless I can player-phase the enemies to test the waters!

Apparently 8 luck isn't enough to fully resist the crit rate of 11 skill. The mercenary has a crit rate of 1.

Oh dear. Let's hope that doesn't do anything nasty.

Kliff levels up. Still no defense. In fact, he got nothing of value but HP, skill and luck.

Game, please don't make me regret making him an archer.

Kliff levels up again.

Luck.

Okay. This is another thing that I think might have contributed to me stopping playing. Because something similar happened to me last time. The game seems to have a nasty tendency to screw me with terrible level ups for every character I like.

Ah yes. And now I've unlocked Faye's C support with Alm, and... um... yeah.

Faye basically... uh... displays a frankly unhealthy obsession with impressing Alm, making it clear that he's literally the only reason she's doing any of this.

It kinda baffles me that this is the type of character they chose to add to Alm's side of the game. Seriously, while she's adorable, and I love her character design, and her voice actress does a great job making her as endearing as possible... she's still such a psychotically shallow character that she borders on yandere. And even if she isn't technically a yandere, she is beyond creepy. Half the shit she says would be blatantly worthy of a restraining order if someone less visually appealing or less feminine said them. And what confuses me most of all is that this isn't because they're bad at coming up with new character personalities. Most of the characters were so flat to begin with that nearly all of the personalities they came up with were new anyway. And yet the one they gave to the new character is so one-dimensional you could slice steel with it.

...And she gets speed, luck and res for her level up from killing the mercenary with nosferatu. Of course she does.

Silque also gets attack and speed.

So it seems only Kliff, my favorite character we have so far, is getting singled out for terrible, terrible level ups. He's getting lucksauce level ups when luck is his worst fucking growth.

And Faye gets her support with Silque, and yet again she demonstrates she has a one fucking track mind, and that's riding the Alm train. Silque tries to strike up a friendship and Faye flat-out says she's not interested in that because she'd rather spend time around Alm.

Tobin gets an HPsauce level. Okay, so it's not just Kliff I guess.

Well, we win, and Alm just straight up insults Clive's leadership in the process of consoling Lukas for Clair's capture, something I didn't remember before. Then he rallies everyone to retake the outpost and save Clair with a rather lame speech, all told, but Gray, the only one convinced, blatantly just wants to save Clair because that would impress a girl.

Alright, let's do this next mission.

We've just gotta take this small outpost. Doing this will get us a bow, which will be nice to have for Kliff... except it nerfs his speed into the ground. That normally wouldn't be a problem, but Kliff's speed is still a measly five, when it should be much higher right now. It's his best growth, but he's procced luck more than he's procced it.

I notice that the text box kinda vibrates a bit sometimes when a character says two lines right after another, like it's doing the animation for the box retreating back under the screen but then jerks right back up again for the next line, like it thinks two separate people are talking. A glitch maybe from poorly-scripted lines?

Mages at least seem to be able to walk through forests without any movement penalty. Huh. Interesting. Maybe other promoted classes can too?

Kliff got another single-stat level, but at least it was attack. Still, this is, like, eight consecutive levels and not a single point of defense, at a 40 to 35% growth. Honestly, at this point, if I weren't playlogging, this would warrant restarting the whole game. This is part of why I hate low-growth games. It makes the odds way more likely that a unit will get ludicrously stat screwed.

Faye got attack, skill, speed and luck. What the actual fuck, Faye is a monster.

Kliff got his second support with Tobin.

...It was almost exactly the same, just acknowledging that this is the second time it's happened.

Hoooooooly fuck. I can't imagine I'd see a support chain lazier than the shit in New Mystery. But here we are I guess.

I'm feeling I should've given that last speed fountain use to Tobin. His base speed just isn't as good as I was hoping without excalibur, and while I thought he got that at level 3, apparently not.

Gray got an HPsauce level, but he doesn't care. The mercenary tree base classes are so ridiculous he could fail to get a single level up for the rest of the game (which is impossible because you always get at least one stat) and he'd still be useful. No, it's only the one who is completely relying on his growths to make him good... whose growths are failing him catastrophically.

Incidentally, no, it only seems to be mages who can move through forests unmolested.

Honestly, having to go and fight these two singular stationary enemies hidden on heal tiles behind walls in a roundabout way like this is pretty annoying.

And Kliff is officially speed screwed enough that he's no longer doubling everything. That smidgen of speed luck he got at the beginning only got him this far. Christ.

Ah yes, and now we get combat arts. They're locked to the specific item you're holding and have to be mastered before you can use them, and they cost HP. Also, unless they have a brave effect, they can't double. I find their utility... hit or miss. But they do have their utility. Especially some of the later ones.

Alright, we have the outpost. Which means now we get Clair.

...It's.. uh... kinda interesting how Alm just... gradually started giving orders around here. I can't pinpoint the exact moment it's happened, but Alm following his instincts and ignoring Lukas's orders at the beginning eventually evolved to giving the orders. I'm, uh... not sure I find this compelling or natural, but it's definitely... interesting to note.

Alright, I searched around and found some wine and water and an iron lance. There are blatantly other weapons on the rack, but that's the only one I can take.

And in the next room, we get the “lightning sword”. And yeah, this is just as broken in the early game as it was before. Fixed, magical damage at 1-2 range. Really handy. Also a rusted sword. I forget what this can be forged into. I also don't remember when we get our first smithy.

Yep, and now we run into Clair, locked in the dungeon.

...And thus begins a trend in this game of CG shots of pretty women in cages on their knees. I know we get at least one more of these, and it's kinda funny. Like what the fuck would she even be doing there, kneeling on a floor she just said was filthy?

I love the tone of Alm's voice when he's asked “From where do you hail” and he says “Uh... I 'hail' from a little place called Ram Village”.

And Clair is so sheltered that not only does she only know about villages in an academic sense, but only vaguely.

“That's one of those places with all the cows and the barns and the fields, yes?”

She's pretty funny here, I will admit.

She's like some mix between one of those adorably naive but kindhearted Disney princess parodies... and Maribelle. There's an unmistakable sense of arrogance there that clashes a bit with her wide-eyed, excited curiosity about the lives of villagers, and Alm quite clearly doesn't have the slightest clue how to react to this.

...She looks and sounds disappointed that Alm isn't smeared with cow shit. Lady, what kinds of kinks do you have!?

Clair: The peasant must forgive his lady for this gauche breach of etiquette.

Alm: It's alright. The peasant – whose name is Alm – will get over it.

Yeah, the writing of this game has this unmistakable sense of wit and charm to it that I absolutely love. Both to the lines and to the voice direction. A charm that Three Houses proved to be sorely lacking.

Tobin: Woof! She's going to be a handful.

Gray: Yeah, I uh... *cough*... That's what I'm hoping.

I have multiple interpretations of what dirty thing he specifically meant by that, and I wish I knew which one it was.

Alright, I think I'll leave it here for now. We'll try out Clair (who I've never taken the time to make good) tomorrow. And hope that Kliff's massive, psychotic stat drought eventually ends.

Stay safe, everyone.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Acacia Sgt]

Kinda look like the game has a beef with you there, with those level up spreads, hah.

I think Kliff's new characterization is that he's not that much of a talker, and somewhat withdrawn, hence that lackluster support chain. I mean, his design is also a bit different from the other villagers, plus that he's suppose to be a mage and thus bookish and not as outgoing. Barring that little bit of armor, he looks more like a city boy that moved to the country. But well, that's my not-being-an-expert-in-this-sort-of-things assessment, and the support could've still be written better I suppose.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Jotari]

47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Shadows of Valentia Day 4: Trying Out the New Toys

Let's get right into it. Fighting the first battle after getting our promotions.

Shit I hope Kliff's defense picks up soon.

Oh yeah, I left a reminder to myself to bring up something real quick before I forget:

It's kinda hilarious that we simultaneously have two conflicting instances of bad game design in the game. You'd think that a game that tries to sell you needlessly expensive extra promotion tiers would not also be in the business of keeping in an absolutely broken old mechanic like the dread fighter loop in the game that almost completely invalidates the need to even touch those classes for a good chunk of the cast. It's almost admirable that the developers' desire to keep the game as much like the original won out over the desire to make as much money as possible.

 

It's worst than that as, I'm pretty sure you have to actually be at max level in the final promoted class to get into an overclass. Meaning you'll never actually use them for anything except Thabes, where they're already way too powerful. It's pretty frustrating, as I like the idea and functionality of the Overclasses a lot. But they're very much there to look at and almost nothing else (and they don't even do a particularly great job of doing that as Conqeuer sadly overwrites Alm's unique Duma killing animation). I really wish they were something you could use from the start of the game just to make use of the cool designs and skills they give you.

And Draed Fighter loop should just not exist. Or if it has to exist, make it apply to every end game class so you can freely reclass any one to anything with enough grinding. There wouldn't be a massive point in actually doing so, but it's at least feel more fair and would have more potnetial fun for leading to weird class changes. Which you can do with Pitchforks, but their pretty limited.

47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Ah yes, and Tobin and Kliff have a support. I do believe this is the first one we get!

...Kliff doesn't remotely seem to be in the mood to talk during battle right now. I can't remember how this evolves. It's a reeeaaalllly short conversation though. If we got something this short in Fates or even New Mystery I think I'd still be flabbergasted, because this would be bad even for them. Still, the voice acting was nice.

 

Yeah...Shadows of Valentia is a pretty good demonstration of how reducing the number of supports is no guarantee when it comes to increasing their quality. From what I recall, pretty much all of them are like this. They're only a bit of a step up from Radiant Dawn supports. Almost feels like the included them because they were obligated to. Which is weird because the unique base conversations every character gets are usually way better. Shadows of Valentia was a game of odd priorities.

 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Kliff doesn't remotely seem to be in the mood to talk during battle right now. I can't remember how this evolves. It's a reeeaaalllly short conversation though. If we got something this short in Fates or even New Mystery I think I'd still be flabbergasted, because this would be bad even for them. Still, the voice acting was nice.

Echoes moment.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

But seriously, this is really disappointing so far. What the fuck even are these conversations? I love how they're acted and how the lines are written, but the actual subject matter is so anemic it's kinda pathetic.

I enjoy a lot about how Echoes does supports (time locks, mix of innate and growth supports, unique boosts, that voice acting), but the actual content of them is... generally lacking. Maybe they wrote shorter conversations so they didn't have to pay the voice cast as much?

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Apparently 8 luck isn't enough to fully resist the crit rate of 11 skill. The mercenary has a crit rate of 1.

The attacking unit's Luck also affects their crit rate in Echoes. So that might have put him over.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

..It's.. uh... kinda interesting how Alm just... gradually started giving orders around here. I can't pinpoint the exact moment it's happened, but Alm following his instincts and ignoring Lukas's orders at the beginning eventually evolved to giving the orders. I'm, uh... not sure I find this compelling or natural, but it's definitely... interesting to note.

It's a special power that comes from having a unique class.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Incidentally, no, it only seems to be mages who can move through forests unmolested.

Normal FE: Mages can glide over the sand, but suffer the usual move penalties in forests.

Echoes: Sand screws everybody, but at least your mages have the power to command trees to get out of the way.

[Jotari]

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

I enjoy a lot about how Echoes does supports (time locks, mix of innate and growth supports, unique boosts, that voice acting), but the actual content of them is... generally lacking. Maybe they wrote shorter conversations so they didn't have to pay the voice cast as much?

If that were a major concern they could just not have made the supports voice acted. People probably would have been disappointed, but they'd eagerly lap up longer supports more than shorter voiced supports I think. While Shadows of Valentia certainly has a lot more comprehensive voice acting than previous titles, it's not like they went to the trouble of voicing all the NPC quest givers who tell you to collect ten rats and stuff.

[Acacia Sgt]

I find it curious those are silent. I'd take it it was the same in the Japanese version. Else it'd be weird if those are voiced but not elsewhere.

[Seazas]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Shadows of Valentia Day 4: Trying Out the New Toys

Let's get right into it. Fighting the first battle after getting our promotions.

Shit I hope Kliff's defense picks up soon.

Oh yeah, I left a reminder to myself to bring up something real quick before I forget:

It's kinda hilarious that we simultaneously have two conflicting instances of bad game design in the game. You'd think that a game that tries to sell you needlessly expensive extra promotion tiers would not also be in the business of keeping in an absolutely broken old mechanic like the dread fighter loop in the game that almost completely invalidates the need to even touch those classes for a good chunk of the cast. It's almost admirable that the developers' desire to keep the game as much like the original won out over the desire to make as much money as possible.

We get the preparation screen, but there's not much I need to do besides swap some minor positions around and give everyone items. After that, it's good to go.

Ah yes, and Tobin and Kliff have a support. I do believe this is the first one we get!

...Kliff doesn't remotely seem to be in the mood to talk during battle right now. I can't remember how this evolves. It's a reeeaaalllly short conversation though. If we got something this short in Fates or even New Mystery I think I'd still be flabbergasted, because this would be bad even for them. Still, the voice acting was nice.

Anyway, usual plan, I'm gonna have Alm intercept the mercenary on the mountains while Faye heals Alm and tries to get in chip damage with nosferatu. I've got Lukas on standby if we need to change things up, and everyone else is facing the other enemies.

...Enemies seem to like going for maximum damage instead of avoiding counterattacks. The archer attacked Kliff instead of Gray, and I can only assume that's the reason. Because despite tying for the best growth... he has damned near the worst defense in the army, only ahead of Silque.

Yeah, uh, compared to Conquest, the strategy here barely feels worthy of discussion. It's not boring, it just... doesn't have nearly as many moments that feel worth the trouble of writing down, because they're swiftly over.

Ah yes, Tobin and Gray have a support now.

...And it's almost immediately over without any explanation of why Tobin's mad. I wonder what this is about. This can't be about Tobin fighting a losing battle with Gray for Clair's heart, because they haven't met her yet. Haven't even heard about her yet. So what is this gonna be revealed to be about?

But seriously, this is really disappointing so far. What the fuck even are these conversations? I love how they're acted and how the lines are written, but the actual subject matter is so anemic it's kinda pathetic.

I've been retreating a good deal to avoid getting swarmed by the enemies, and if I retreat any more, then Alm and Lukas will be involved (I've already got Faye involved to help heal). Shouldn't be too much of a problem, but Alm's kinda busy.

Okay, yeah, I just realized: Echoes definitely isn't going in the same usability tier as the other 3DS games. I just realized that the bottom screen is a lot less useful than I thought. While the problem with several other games is that they don't show crit avoid... this game doesn't even show hit, avoid or crit! If I don't know the formulas I'm basically flying blind unless I can player-phase the enemies to test the waters!

Apparently 8 luck isn't enough to fully resist the crit rate of 11 skill. The mercenary has a crit rate of 1.

Oh dear. Let's hope that doesn't do anything nasty.

Kliff levels up. Still no defense. In fact, he got nothing of value but HP, skill and luck.

Game, please don't make me regret making him an archer.

Kliff levels up again.

Luck.

Okay. This is another thing that I think might have contributed to me stopping playing. Because something similar happened to me last time. The game seems to have a nasty tendency to screw me with terrible level ups for every character I like.

Ah yes. And now I've unlocked Faye's C support with Alm, and... um... yeah.

Faye basically... uh... displays a frankly unhealthy obsession with impressing Alm, making it clear that he's literally the only reason she's doing any of this.

It kinda baffles me that this is the type of character they chose to add to Alm's side of the game. Seriously, while she's adorable, and I love her character design, and her voice actress does a great job making her as endearing as possible... she's still such a psychotically shallow character that she borders on yandere. And even if she isn't technically a yandere, she is beyond creepy. Half the shit she says would be blatantly worthy of a restraining order if someone less visually appealing or less feminine said them. And what confuses me most of all is that this isn't because they're bad at coming up with new character personalities. Most of the characters were so flat to begin with that nearly all of the personalities they came up with were new anyway. And yet the one they gave to the new character is so one-dimensional you could slice steel with it.

...And she gets speed, luck and res for her level up from killing the mercenary with nosferatu. Of course she does.

Silque also gets attack and speed.

So it seems only Kliff, my favorite character we have so far, is getting singled out for terrible, terrible level ups. He's getting lucksauce level ups when luck is his worst fucking growth.

And Faye gets her support with Silque, and yet again she demonstrates she has a one fucking track mind, and that's riding the Alm train. Silque tries to strike up a friendship and Faye flat-out says she's not interested in that because she'd rather spend time around Alm.

Tobin gets an HPsauce level. Okay, so it's not just Kliff I guess.

Well, we win, and Alm just straight up insults Clive's leadership in the process of consoling Lukas for Clair's capture, something I didn't remember before. Then he rallies everyone to retake the outpost and save Clair with a rather lame speech, all told, but Gray, the only one convinced, blatantly just wants to save Clair because that would impress a girl.

Alright, let's do this next mission.

We've just gotta take this small outpost. Doing this will get us a bow, which will be nice to have for Kliff... except it nerfs his speed into the ground. That normally wouldn't be a problem, but Kliff's speed is still a measly five, when it should be much higher right now. It's his best growth, but he's procced luck more than he's procced it.

I notice that the text box kinda vibrates a bit sometimes when a character says two lines right after another, like it's doing the animation for the box retreating back under the screen but then jerks right back up again for the next line, like it thinks two separate people are talking. A glitch maybe from poorly-scripted lines?

Mages at least seem to be able to walk through forests without any movement penalty. Huh. Interesting. Maybe other promoted classes can too?

Kliff got another single-stat level, but at least it was attack. Still, this is, like, eight consecutive levels and not a single point of defense, at a 40 to 35% growth. Honestly, at this point, if I weren't playlogging, this would warrant restarting the whole game. This is part of why I hate low-growth games. It makes the odds way more likely that a unit will get ludicrously stat screwed.

Faye got attack, skill, speed and luck. What the actual fuck, Faye is a monster.

Kliff got his second support with Tobin.

...It was almost exactly the same, just acknowledging that this is the second time it's happened.

Hoooooooly fuck. I can't imagine I'd see a support chain lazier than the shit in New Mystery. But here we are I guess.

I'm feeling I should've given that last speed fountain use to Tobin. His base speed just isn't as good as I was hoping without excalibur, and while I thought he got that at level 3, apparently not.

Gray got an HPsauce level, but he doesn't care. The mercenary tree base classes are so ridiculous he could fail to get a single level up for the rest of the game (which is impossible because you always get at least one stat) and he'd still be useful. No, it's only the one who is completely relying on his growths to make him good... whose growths are failing him catastrophically.

Incidentally, no, it only seems to be mages who can move through forests unmolested.

Honestly, having to go and fight these two singular stationary enemies hidden on heal tiles behind walls in a roundabout way like this is pretty annoying.

And Kliff is officially speed screwed enough that he's no longer doubling everything. That smidgen of speed luck he got at the beginning only got him this far. Christ.

Ah yes, and now we get combat arts. They're locked to the specific item you're holding and have to be mastered before you can use them, and they cost HP. Also, unless they have a brave effect, they can't double. I find their utility... hit or miss. But they do have their utility. Especially some of the later ones.

Alright, we have the outpost. Which means now we get Clair.

...It's.. uh... kinda interesting how Alm just... gradually started giving orders around here. I can't pinpoint the exact moment it's happened, but Alm following his instincts and ignoring Lukas's orders at the beginning eventually evolved to giving the orders. I'm, uh... not sure I find this compelling or natural, but it's definitely... interesting to note.

Alright, I searched around and found some wine and water and an iron lance. There are blatantly other weapons on the rack, but that's the only one I can take.

And in the next room, we get the “lightning sword”. And yeah, this is just as broken in the early game as it was before. Fixed, magical damage at 1-2 range. Really handy. Also a rusted sword. I forget what this can be forged into. I also don't remember when we get our first smithy.

Yep, and now we run into Clair, locked in the dungeon.

...And thus begins a trend in this game of CG shots of pretty women in cages on their knees. I know we get at least one more of these, and it's kinda funny. Like what the fuck would she even be doing there, kneeling on a floor she just said was filthy?

I love the tone of Alm's voice when he's asked “From where do you hail” and he says “Uh... I 'hail' from a little place called Ram Village”.

And Clair is so sheltered that not only does she only know about villages in an academic sense, but only vaguely.

“That's one of those places with all the cows and the barns and the fields, yes?”

She's pretty funny here, I will admit.

She's like some mix between one of those adorably naive but kindhearted Disney princess parodies... and Maribelle. There's an unmistakable sense of arrogance there that clashes a bit with her wide-eyed, excited curiosity about the lives of villagers, and Alm quite clearly doesn't have the slightest clue how to react to this.

...She looks and sounds disappointed that Alm isn't smeared with cow shit. Lady, what kinds of kinks do you have!?

Clair: The peasant must forgive his lady for this gauche breach of etiquette.

Alm: It's alright. The peasant – whose name is Alm – will get over it.

Yeah, the writing of this game has this unmistakable sense of wit and charm to its writing that I absolutely love. Both to the lines and to the voice direction. A charm that Three Houses proved to be sorely lacking.

Tobin: Woof! She's going to be a handful.

Gray: Yeah, I uh... *cough*... That's what I'm hoping.

I have multiple interpretations of what dirty thing he specifically meant by that, and I wish I knew which one it was.

Alright, I think I'll leave it here for now. We'll try out Clair (who I've never taken the time to make good) tomorrow. And hope that Kliff's massive, psychotic stat drought eventually ends.

Stay safe, everyone.

The C Support is absolutely supposed to be related to Clair, it's just awkward as you got the support earlier than Clair's mentioned in the story.

[Samz707]

Faye was probably included since People really wanted to bang Camilla/Tharja.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Samz707

[Jotari]

42 minutes ago, Seazas said:

The C Support is absolutely supposed to be related to Clair, it's just awkward as you got the support earlier than Clair's mentioned in the story.

That is one pretty good thing about the support system in Three Houses. How it lets you unlock supports, but won't let you view them until the time is right in the story. Leonie not getting one of her supports until Jearlt is dead is a particularly good one I find. But then of course it does lead to some issues with unlocking Part 1 supports in Part 2, but in general concept it's a good idea. Though some of the seeds were sown here with the base convos only showing up after plot events related to them (and also somewhat in Path of Radiance with its support system that guarantees supports can't happen before a certain point in the series).

[Alastor15243]

7 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That is one pretty good thing about the support system in Three Houses. How it lets you unlock supports, but won't let you view them until the time is right in the story. Leonie not getting one of her supports until Jearlt is dead is a particularly good one I find. But then of course it does lead to some issues with unlocking Part 1 supports in Part 2, but in general concept it's a good idea. Though some of the seeds were sown here with the base convos only showing up after plot events related to them (and also somewhat in Path of Radiance with its support system that guarantees supports can't happen before a certain point in the series).

Can't really agree. The biggest reason being that the 5 year timeskip makes some story arcs ridiculous, like people took 5 years to get over arguments or finish simple tasks or finish conversations that have been haunting them the entire time.

[Jotari]

9 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Can't really agree. The biggest reason being that the 5 year timeskip makes some story arcs ridiculous, like people took 5 years to get over arguments or finish simple tasks or finish conversations that have been haunting them the entire time.

Yes, I did acknowledge how the time split sort of messes with things. But that was always kind of going to be a problem with the time split, unless you just remove arcs completely or force them all to be unlocked before the time skip (or lock off supports until after the time skip). So I see that as more the time skip issue than a staggering supports issue. What's the alternative really? If there were no lock on support pacing then the start of the game would be even more ridiculously front loaded with supports and the second half would lack them altogether due to the lack of recruitable units in part 2 (other issues inthemselves to be sure, but ones that would be exacerbated further with supports being free to access at any point).

Edited May 27, 2021 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

37 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Yes, I did acknowledge how the time split sort of messes with things. But that was always kind of going to be a problem with the time split, unless you just remove arcs completely or force them all to be unlocked before the time skip (or lock off supports until after the time skip). So I see that as more the time skip issue than a staggering supports issue. What's the alternative really? If there were no lock on support pacing then the start of the game would be even more ridiculously front loaded with supports and the second half would lack them altogether due to the lack of recruitable units in part 2 (other issues inthemselves to be sure, but ones that would be exacerbated further with supports being free to access at any point).

I'd have drastically cut back on the supports that are just part of a continuous story arc and made them all self-contained conversations. Given the timeskip making a lot of these continuous stories asinine in context and the sheer psychotic number of supports you're liable to unlock in a single playthrough making it hard to remember what happened in previous supports, I think they really needed to minimize how much support conversations connected to previous ones. Stop using them to tell a connected story and use them to tell a bunch of smaller stories between these two people as they get closer and friendlier.

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'd have drastically cut back on the supports that are just part of a continuous story arc and made them all self-contained conversations. Given the timeskip making a lot of these continuous stories asinine in context and the sheer psychotic number of supports you're liable to unlock in a single playthrough making it hard to remember what happened in previous supports, I think they really needed to minimize how much support conversations connected to previous ones. Stop using them to tell a connected story and use them to tell a bunch of smaller stories between these two people as they get closer and friendlier.

Indeed,  I think for Three Houses specifically that's what makes the most sense. But as a fix it doesn't really relate to time locked supports. My overall point is that your cited issues time lock supports created are more the fault of the general time skip aspect of the plot, and not the time specific supports. And fixing the issue would be pretty unrelated to time locked supports.

[Punished Dayni]

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Enemies seem to like going for maximum damage instead of avoiding counterattacks. The archer attacked Kliff instead of Gray, and I can only assume that's the reason.

I've heard talk about archers tending to target archers over other units.

I'd like to see definitive proof of this myself.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, the writing of this game has this unmistakable sense of wit and charm to its writing that I absolutely love. Both to the lines and to the voice direction.

8-4 and Cup of Tea doing the job.

[Alastor15243]

7 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Indeed,  I think for Three Houses specifically that's what makes the most sense. But as a fix it doesn't really relate to time locked supports. My overall point is that your cited issues time lock supports created are more the fault of the general time skip aspect of the plot, and not the time specific supports. And fixing the issue would be pretty unrelated to time locked supports.

I don't really have an issue with the concept of time-locked supports, it was more that I just don't think that Three Houses made good use of them. I agree that it would've been useful to hold Tobin and Gray's support conversation off for a few battles if it's going to be about Clair. But personally I think it should only be done for story purposes, especially in games where supports have significant gameplay benefits you'll likely want to get your hands on early. Like, just to give an example, I think Fates would have been significantly less fun if it tried to put time locks on its supports.

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't really have an issue with the concept of time-locked supports, it was more that I just don't think that Three Houses made good use of them. I agree that it would've been useful to hold Tobin and Gray's support conversation off for a few battles if it's going to be about Clair. But personally I think it should only be done for story purposes, especially in games where supports have significant gameplay benefits you'll likely want to get your hands on early. Like, just to give an example, I think Fates would have been significantly less fun if it tried to put time locks on its supports.

Oh yes, of course it should be done for story reasons. Just arbitrary locking off supports until later in the game would be silly, unless their gameplay benefits were just too powerful to have in early game.

[Seazas]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

That is one pretty good thing about the support system in Three Houses. How it lets you unlock supports, but won't let you view them until the time is right in the story. Leonie not getting one of her supports until Jearlt is dead is a particularly good one I find. But then of course it does lead to some issues with unlocking Part 1 supports in Part 2, but in general concept it's a good idea. Though some of the seeds were sown here with the base convos only showing up after plot events related to them (and also somewhat in Path of Radiance with its support system that guarantees supports can't happen before a certain point in the series).

Well yeah, it's easier for Three Houses because it didn't bear the burden of trying to fit them on the battlefield, y'know? Along with that, it had devs going all in on it while Echoes was always just "there"

[Jotari]

7 minutes ago, Seazas said:

Well yeah, it's easier for Three Houses because it didn't bear the burden of trying to fit them on the battlefield, y'know? Along with that, it had devs going all in on it while Echoes was always just "there"

I don't follow the logic. Putting a lock on supports would have no difference whether they were accessed from the battlefield or from the post battle menu.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't really have an issue with the concept of time-locked supports, it was more that I just don't think that Three Houses made good use of them. I agree that it would've been useful to hold Tobin and Gray's support conversation off for a few battles if it's going to be about Clair. But personally I think it should only be done for story purposes, especially in games where supports have significant gameplay benefits you'll likely want to get your hands on early. Like, just to give an example, I think Fates would have been significantly less fun if it tried to put time locks on its supports.

But if the supports are time-locked, then the game can be balanced around it. I.e. you're assumed not to have the boosts of an A support in the early game. If you spam "End Turn" to get an A-support by chapter 3, then the units in question could get a boost the developers never envisioned, thereby trivializing the difficulty. On the flip side, designing the difficulty around maxing out supports ASAP would push the player into tedious and non-strategic habits.

That said, Fateswakening are their own whole beast, by locking certain characters and chapters behind S-supports. In such a case, I could see players preferring not to be forced to wait through too much of the main story, before getting to use these units.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'd have drastically cut back on the supports that are just part of a continuous story arc and made them all self-contained conversations. Given the timeskip making a lot of these continuous stories asinine in context and the sheer psychotic number of supports you're liable to unlock in a single playthrough making it hard to remember what happened in previous supports, I think they really needed to minimize how much support conversations connected to previous ones. Stop using them to tell a connected story and use them to tell a bunch of smaller stories between these two people as they get closer and friendlier.

I like this conceptually, with the minor fear that "self-contained stories" would be longer than the episodic supports we have (which are already criticized for their length). Maybe "+" supports could be episodic - like, a C+ support naturally follows up on a C support, whereas the B support is a separate conversation? And if the C+ is missed (due to a time threshold), then you could just skip ahead to B, when enough support points are acquired.

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Leonie not getting one of her supports until Jearlt is dead is a particularly good one I find

So I like this conceptually, but it forever bugs me that, in the B-support, Leonie maintains a tactical ambiguity over whether Jeralt is alive or dead. It's as though they wrote the conversation not initially certain that it would be time-locked, or (less likely) they were toying with the idea of being able to keep Jeralt alive, and wanted the conversation to be consistent with that.

[Eltosian Kadath]

10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

It's kinda hilarious that we simultaneously have two conflicting instances of bad game design in the game. You'd think that a game that tries to sell you needlessly expensive extra promotion tiers would not also be in the business of keeping in an absolutely broken old mechanic like the dread fighter loop in the game that almost completely invalidates the need to even touch those classes for a good chunk of the cast. It's almost admirable that the developers' desire to keep the game as much like the original won out over the desire to make as much money as possible.

The people who make good games, and the people that mandate terrible monetization are rarely the same.

 

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

(and also somewhat in Path of Radiance with its support system that guarantees supports can't happen before a certain point in the series)

Although Path of Radiance also had split versions of one support which is different if a character was dead or alive, which would be another way to deal with the Leonie support. Path of Radiance had a far better thought out support system than Three Houses does...

 

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

Yes, I did acknowledge how the time split sort of messes with things. But that was always kind of going to be a problem with the time split, unless you just remove arcs completely or force them all to be unlocked before the time skip (or lock off supports until after the time skip). So I see that as more the time skip issue than a staggering supports issue. What's the alternative really? If there were no lock on support pacing then the start of the game would be even more ridiculously front loaded with supports and the second half would lack them altogether due to the lack of recruitable units in part 2 (other issues inthemselves to be sure, but ones that would be exacerbated further with supports being free to access at any point).

I feel like the way to deal with the time skip for supports would be to have a part 1 support chain that become bond supports in part 2, with a new part 2 focused support chain, with some support convos with some alternate lines based on certain bond support levels.