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

[Alastor15243]

Oh boy am I gonna have shit to say about that big Act 2 argument. And a really funny idea occurred to me when I saw it being quoted.

[Eltosian Kadath]

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

My point is, he doesn't face any penalties for "not thinking things through". Like, it's theoretically possible he would (in playthroughs where Mathilda and Delthea die), but neither of those are canonically guaranteed.

Even if Mathilda and Delthea do not die, to prevent that you, acting as Alm, had to play in a more restrictive ways that made the map more difficult than it otherwise would have as a consequence of his recklessness.

 

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

Even getting stuck on Necrodragon Mountain, which could have been portrayed as due to recklessness, is just a needed step on his way to fight Rudolf.

I will note that there is a villager just before the Necrodragon Mountain that tries to warn him of its dangers (or spitefully wishes for their demise on Dragonblight mountain
 if Zeke dies)...

 

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

And nobody in-game is suggesting any serious alternatives to "just rushing in", in most cases beyond Lukas in Act I.

Celica does, in their big argument...

 

[Alastor15243]

Shadows of Valentia Day 9: Botes

Alright, we've got a bit of story and exploration to do to start off today, and then... we'll be coming across the gimmick of Act 2. Because every act has a new gimmick that the lion's share of Celica's maps will revolve around, and Act 2 has the tamest one. So it only gets worse from here on out. Back in Gaiden, Celica's maps barely felt like they were even play tested, their gimmicks were so tedious. And I don't remember them doing anything to make the maps any less shit here. In fact, they actually made one of the desert maps even worse with their addition of extra bows to the archers in a desert map, thereby punishing the use of the one unit type that has a chance in hell of getting across the sand tiles in a timely fashion.

But more on that later.

So right after we leave the cemetery, the zombies come back. Given how little exp they give, that's... discomforting if we ever need to go back to the priory. But anyway, we're at the port town now.

We talk to two people who give us exposition about the pirates and Saber, so basically stuff we need to know to proceed.

I found two sacks of flour and a dried shieldfish at the entrance. And yeah, so, this town is absolutely crawling with cats, and since it's a fishing town, the cats are clearly going to town. Great, and now I have the mental image of a town with half-eaten fish everywhere, and my skin's fucking crawling. Moving on.

Oh shit. I didn't realize, there's lines for if you don't have anything highlighted when you click on the scenery. Celica's talking about the pier in general.

Yet again the question of how quickly news travels comes up. As far as I can tell, nothing happens here that requires news to travel ludicrously fast, but the fact that people know about what's been going on before the start of Alm's Act 1 did make me think about that.

So basically we try to get a ship from an old man, and... while he says it like he expects her to fight the pirates before getting a boat, basically he's asking us to take out the pirates-

…

...This guy apparently hasn't heard the news that the king is dead. Odd.

...There's a dried shieldfish at the tavern, but I always feel bad about taking it, because there's a cat looking over it and clearly planning to snack on it. Yeah, I don't think I'll take it.

...Which is hilarious, considering I just robbed the tavern owners blind of all the food and alcohol I could find, but yeah.

Ah yes, and a young woman tells Celica about the blessed sword on the island further on. The one with the necrodragon. Which she conspicuously refers to in singular. Yeah, apparently they don't update the dialogue for hard mode, where there's 2.

The barkeep says if we give him three mana herbs he can make some kind of medicine. Yeah, that's for a sidequest that I'm not sure if I'm gonna do. This game might take a while even if I focus on constantly moving forward.

Anyway, time to talk to Saber. I love this conversation. Mostly because I have this bizarre soft spot for when sweet and polite princess-types talk really respectfully to crass lower-class types. Like the whole “Lord Ike” thing I mentioned with Ike and Elincia. It's kind of an extension for this weird thing I have where I like it when people with vastly different styles of speaking have positive interactions with each other. I don't know if I could properly put it into words without a concrete example, and I can't think of a good one right now unfortunately.

Anyway, Celica offers to pay Saber with a fancy dagger she has, and Saber apparently has an eye for treasure so good that he instantly knows it's worth way more than the price of the trip she's asking for and scams her out of it by pretending it isn't, but that he'll be nice and do it for that anyway.

Despite the fact that we can instantly re-equip it to someone else.

Which we won't. Because it's good on him.

It's kinda funny that they do the sound effects for Celica walking off and then have Saber talk to himself without her there, but they don't cut away from the CG where she's still there. They don't even make her fade out, which I know they could do, because I just turned on 3D to check, and yes, she's an entirely separate element of the image that could be singled out for removal. If she weren't programmed as such in this scene, they wouldn't have been able to make her a separate element for the purposes of perspective layering here.

The tone of Mae's “aaaaaaand?” when Celica was listing things she was anxious and curious about and trailed off gave me “is it a booooooooy?” vibes. Like she knew full well Celica was about to mention Alm.

Hmmm. So Celica just has a feeling that Alm isn't in Ram Village anymore. Is this implied to be happening at the exact same time as Alm's version of this scene, with the CG of him wondering about Celica?

And then we get a scene of Jedah talking to Duma where Jedah makes it clear he has plans for Celica. Okay. Moving on.

We sail into some pirates and they say “not a step further, ye scurvy dogs!”. The use of the word “step” is surely inappropriate for people who are traveling on a boat, no?

And while Saber's perfectly happy to overcharge Celica, he's certainly not about to do that overpriced job halfway, which is oddly likable.

Oh wow. What a fascinating and intense map concept. Two boats connected by a single narrow plank making for a ludicrously-easily-defensible bottleneck.

This is really the sort of map where they're basically depending on you speedrunning it in order to make it remotely interesting.

I have Saber stand in front while everyone else supplies support through healing and magic to gain supplementary experience and kills.

I got Boey his first level through chip exp and, amazingly, he got both speed and defense (along with skill) for his first level up. Not sure how much that's gonna do to save him, but I sure as hell ain't complaining.

Really, these enemies are kinda ridiculously low-level considering where my characters are at. Both in terms of not being dangerous, and in terms of barely giving any exp. Getting even a single level of exp feels like pulling teeth here. It's like they think my army's still mostly villagers. The pirates here seem to have identical stats to the enemies in Act 1.

And of course, Celica gets a single stat for her first level. Thank goodness it's at least attack. Here's hoping I don't somehow fail to get two speed procs by the time the necrodragons show up.

For a second I thought the boss wouldn't move from his heal tile, but I was swiftly disabused of that notion when he attacked Mae. Who thankfully was more than tough enough to take the hit.

Since I got so little commentary out of that and it was so mindless, fuck it, let's do a second boat map today.

...Ah yes. So this one mixes things up by adding a second plank, more enemies, an archer, and a mercenary. A mercenary who seems completely identical to the one from right after the thief shrine, down to the droppable leather shield. Wow.

Mae gets her first level up, HP, attack and speed. Awesome. Yeah, they really buffed her growths in this game. She used to be like Tobin: high base speed but a terrible growth.

After an initial scare with inadvertently sending too many of the pirates the wrong way, I manage to recover pretty well (though the archer was unsuccessfully baited out), and Celica gets Hp, skill, speed, luck and defense. An excellent and much-appreciated level up.

Oh man, the characters' reactions to being made to eat raw wheat flower are hilarious. But the situation demands it.

...Water is one of Boey's favorite “foods”. He even expresses grateful shock at being allowed to have some. That's, uh... disturbing.

...And of course the entire map goes to hell because of a single unlucky 2% mercenary crit (that the game provides damned near no recourse for at this stage of the game) against Saber when he was holding the bridge at full health, and I lose my awesome Celica level up because my choices are use the turnwheel or restart, and we all know the former isn't an option for me. Because even if I didn't refuse on principle to humor this game's asinine band-aid over the 29-year-old rot eating away at this game's mechanics... the second I acknowledge the turnwheel as a legitimate way to play this game, I also have to stop pretending there's any difficulty to this game whatsoever. And that would do waaaaaaay more harm than good to this game's score. Trust me, nobody wants me to take the turnwheel into account when grading this game.

...But with that, I think we just barely don't have enough time to try this map again and still get this part out on time. Sorry about that. Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to do a makeup day. But for now...

...stay safe, everyone.

[Venger_06]

13 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Done and done.

Thanks! I'll need some time to send it back to you though; for some reason, it takes some time for the accessories to reach me.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Teehee the Sixth

[Acacia Sgt]

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

Fernand visits Mathilda, before Alm launches his attack, and tells her "hey you're being executed tomorrow". Alm's invasion may have  hastened it, but definitely didn't trigger it.

He doesn't. This is what he says:

Fernand: What is done is done. …Desaix intends to put you to death. It won’t be long now.

Not tomorrow, but "won't be long now". Later he says tomorrow he is departing to Rigel, but not about Mathilda's execution.

So yes, whatever day it was, Desaix changes it to "right now" when he sees the Deliverance approaching. I mean, when you consider the calendar (which, btw, makes no sense that it jumps to the next season for Act 2 when it's suppose to happen concurrently with Act 1; unless it was a programming thing where they couldn't make it to not move for this one time, or their plan to make the war last one year, with four Acts for four seasons, but two happen concurrently and they couldn't find or make it jump with in-game events, or something), she has been Desaix's prisoner for almost half a year. They really took their time when it came to executing her.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Shadow Mir]

In case you're wondering, Alastor, crit evade in this game is half the luck stat.

[Ottservia]

1 hour ago, Acacia Sgt said:

He doesn't. This is what he says:

Fernand: What is done is done. …Desaix intends to put you to death. It won’t be long now.

Not tomorrow, but "won't be long now". Later he says tomorrow he is departing to Rigel, but not about Mathilda's execution.

So yes, whatever day it was, Desaix changes it to "right now" when he sees the Deliverance approaching. I mean, when you consider the calendar (which, btw, makes no sense that it jumps to the next season for Act 2 when it's suppose to happen concurrently with Act 1; unless it was a programming thing where they couldn't make it to not move for this one time, or their plan to make the war last one year, with four Acts for four seasons, but two happen concurrently and they couldn't find or make it jump with in-game events, or something), she has been Desaix's prisoner for almost half a year. They really took their time when it came to executing her.

I hate to be that guy but you also have to factor translation into it as well. I don’t know the original Japanese script but knowing how Japanese to English typically works I bet you could translate it either way. It’s a fair point regardless though.

[Acacia Sgt]

6 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I hate to be that guy but you also have to factor translation into it as well. I don’t know the original Japanese script but knowing how Japanese to English typically works I bet you could translate it either way. It’s a fair point regardless though.

Well, I found the relevant line here:

https://www.pegasusknight.com/wiki/fe15/?会話集/章別会話/3章+解放戦争+アルム軍#xf9c7124

[フェルナン]
なんでもない。
くだらないことさ。
……ドゼーはもうじき
お前を処刑するつもりだ。

Translated on DeepL Translate gives me:

[Fernand]
It's nothing.
It's just nonsense.
...... Doze is going to execute you soon.
Doze is going to execute you soon.

Yeah, that translator repeats the line, but it's clear it's the portion localized as …Desaix intends to put you to death. It won’t be long now. So... also just as a "soon". No mention of an actual time.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Ottservia]

1 minute ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Well, I found the relevant line here:

https://www.pegasusknight.com/wiki/fe15/?会話集/章別会話/3章+解放戦争+アルム軍#xf9c7124

[フェルナン]
なんでもない。
くだらないことさ。
……ドゼーはもうじき
お前を処刑するつもりだ。

Translated on DeepL Translate gives me:

[Fernand]
It's nothing.
It's just nonsense.
...... Doze is going to execute you soon.

So... also just as a "soon". No mention of an actual time.

Well alright then I will concede the point. Fair enough.

[Acacia Sgt]

Hmm, now knowing where the entire Japanese script can be looked up... I wonder how certain scenes originally went now... might be worth doing an examination.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Jotari]

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway, Celica offers to pay Saber with a fancy dagger she has, and Saber apparently has an eye for treasure so good that he instantly knows it's worth way more than the price of the trip she's asking for and scams her out of it by pretending it isn't, but that he'll be nice and do it for that anyway.

Despite the fact that we can instantly re-equip it to someone else.

I would have really liked if they'd done some gameplay story integration there and kept the Golden Dagger locked on Sabre until such a point in the story where he respect Celica more and hands it back to her as a show that he's no longer doing any of this for money. Because this is Celica's personal weapon that only she can use when upgraded. It's a very shameless break in story and gameplay to just make it a regular item in the party.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Water is one of Boey's favorite “foods”. He even expresses grateful shock at being allowed to have some. That's, uh... disturbing.

Characters in this game have layers man, layers XD

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...And of course the entire map goes to hell because of a single unlucky 2% mercenary crit (that the game provides damned near no recourse for at this stage of the game) against Saber when he was holding the bridge at full health, and I lose my awesome Celica level up because my choices are use the turnwheel or restart, and we all know the former isn't an option for me. Because even if I didn't refuse on principle to humor this game's asinine band-aid over the 29-year-old rot eating away at this game's mechanics... the second I acknowledge the turnwheel as a legitimate way to play this game, I also have to stop pretending there's any difficulty to this game whatsoever. And that would do waaaaaaay more harm than good to this game's score. Trust me, nobody wants me to take the turnwheel into account when grading this game.

This game doesn't seed all level ups at the start of the game like Fates? Honestly they have far more reason to do something like that than Fates given the turnwheel's existence. I certainly hope it's not abusable to rig better level ups, especially in conjunction with bonus exp putting your untis at 99exp when entering a map.

[Ottservia]

12 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Hmm, now knowing where the entire Japanese script can be looked up... I wonder how certain scenes originally went now... might be worth doing an examination.

I don’t know much about SoV localization changes but I do remember vaguely hearing that a lot of mysoginistic dialogue was cut out on Celica’s route so there’s that.

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

This game doesn't seed all level ups at the start of the game like Fates? Honestly they have far more reason to do something like that than Fates given the turnwheel's existence. I certainly hope it's not abusable to rig better level ups, especially in conjunction with bonus exp putting your untis at 99exp when entering a map.

Pretty sure the answer to that is no. Especially since Fates only did it on Lunatic. But I guess we'll know next time I play.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Acacia Sgt]

11 minutes ago, Jotari said:

This game doesn't seed all level ups at the start of the game like Fates? Honestly they have far more reason to do something like that than Fates given the turnwheel's existence. I certainly hope it's not abusable to rig better level ups, especially in conjunction with bonus exp putting your untis at 99exp when entering a map.

It's set when you start a map, but doing anything that makes you leave the map and going back in rerolls it.

It's a common exploit actually. Start a map, check the level ups, Turnwheel, get the ones you want, then leave the map. Repeat the process until satisfied.

[Venger_06]

For those of you who have access to the original Gaiden script, I have a question. I read that Alm, during his discussion with Celica, calls the Rigelians "barbarous" (やばんな). Is this true?

[Jotari]

6 minutes ago, Teehee the Sixth said:

For those of you who have access to the original Gaiden script, I have a question. I read that Alm, during his discussion with Celica, calls the Rigelians "barbarous" (やばんな). Is this true?

Yes, he certainly uses that word. This is the full context.

「だめだよ。やばんなリゲルのもとでは
　　ソフィアのたみは　いきてゆけない▼

The Gaiden fan translation renders it as Ridel's barbarous rule though, so it might be referring to their actions more than them as people.

In Shadows of Valentia this line is changed to him talking about how it doesn't matter whether Rudolf is a good person or not. So conveys the same connotations of "we have no choice" but like almost all of Alm's dialogue, is changed to be less scathing.

[Acacia Sgt]

Trying to isolate it, I'm getting やばんなリゲル as Barbarian Rigel. So yep.

It's important to note やばんな is attached to Rigel, and before the possessive の.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Venger_06]

26 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Yes, he certainly uses that word. This is the full context.

「だめだよ。やばんなリゲルのもとでは
　　ソフィアのたみは　いきてゆけない▼

The Gaiden fan translation renders it as Ridel's barbarous rule though, so it might be referring to their actions more than them as people.

23 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Trying to isolate it, I'm getting やばんなリゲル as Barbarian Rigel. So yep.

It's important to note やばんな is attached to Rigel, and before the possessive の.

"Under the barbarian Riguel" according to Google. Anyway, thanks.

[Seazas]

Considering Gaiden turned it into a conversation about Rudolf than the actual people or Rigel as a whole; the clear intent is the same. 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

6 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

He doesn't. This is what he says:

Fernand: What is done is done. …Desaix intends to put you to death. It won’t be long now.

Not tomorrow, but "won't be long now". Later he says tomorrow he is departing to Rigel, but not about Mathilda's execution.

Okay, my bad. I had misremembered a specific timeframe. That said, "not long now" or "soon" don't exactly fill me with confidence. In the time it took Alm and company to concoct a scheme to get Mathilda (say, disguising themselves as soldiers of Rigel, and promising Desaix a reward from the Emperor), Mathilda could have been killed. Desaix has no incentive to keep her alive, so rushing in is the best strategy to ensure her survival. It helps, of course, that Desaix let her keep her armor, horse, and weapon while imprisoned. He's not a monster, after all.

6 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

So yes, whatever day it was, Desaix changes it to "right now" when he sees the Deliverance approaching. I mean, when you consider the calendar (which, btw, makes no sense that it jumps to the next season for Act 2 when it's suppose to happen concurrently with Act 1; unless it was a programming thing where they couldn't make it to not move for this one time, or their plan to make the war last one year, with four Acts for four seasons, but two happen concurrently and they couldn't find or make it jump with in-game events, or something), she has been Desaix's prisoner for almost half a year. They really took their time when it came to executing her.

I'm pretty sure Act 2 is supposed to be simultaneous with Act 1, though. Maybe the "season" name used in Act 2 is just a different name for the same season from Act 1? Like, mainland vs. island tradition? That's the only way this makes sense.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Ah yes. So this one mixes things up by adding a second plank, more enemies, an archer, and a mercenary. A mercenary who seems completely identical to the one from right after the thief shrine, down to the droppable leather shield. Wow.

The legend of Leather Shield Mercenary gets around.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway, Celica offers to pay Saber with a fancy dagger she has, and Saber apparently has an eye for treasure so good that he instantly knows it's worth way more than the price of the trip she's asking for and scams her out of it by pretending it isn't, but that he'll be nice and do it for that anyway.

Despite the fact that we can instantly re-equip it to someone else.

Which we won't. Because it's good on him.

Kinda funny that the Dagger can be forged into something else... that Saber literally can't use. Poor guy. I never go for Beloved Zofia, though - I prefer Celica with a Ring or the Ladyblade.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

The barkeep says if we give him three mana herbs he can make some kind of medicine. Yeah, that's for a sidequest that I'm not sure if I'm gonna do. This game might take a while even if I focus on constantly moving forward.

I wouldn't say the Medicinal Syrup is worth the trouble, honestly. It's a good healing item in a game with more food than your bag has room for.

[Acacia Sgt]

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

Okay, my bad. I had misremembered a specific timeframe. That said, "not long now" or "soon" don't exactly fill me with confidence. In the time it took Alm and company to concoct a scheme to get Mathilda (say, disguising themselves as soldiers of Rigel, and promising Desaix a reward from the Emperor), Mathilda could have been killed. Desaix has no incentive to keep her alive, so rushing in is the best strategy to ensure her survival. It helps, of course, that Desaix let her keep her armor, horse, and weapon while imprisoned. He's not a monster, after all.

I'm pretty sure Act 2 is supposed to be simultaneous with Act 1, though. Maybe the "season" name used in Act 2 is just a different name for the same season from Act 1? Like, mainland vs. island tradition? That's the only way this makes sense.

It's likely Desaix was already thinking Mathilda's use as a hostage was done, since he did jumped quickly to executing her instead of trying one last time to leverage her life. But still, doens't change the fact Desaix did thought that the moment the Deliverance arrived bows blazing, heh.

Yeah, that was my point. No, it's clear the four seasons are meant to be, well, the four seasons. The game's ending actually takes place in the same season Act 2 supposedly takes place, so it's not a mainland vs island thing (while Acts 5 and 6 takes place in the same one as Act 1, the implication being that there was a full season's worth of time between the descent to reach Duma and the coronation... enough for, say, a trip to Archanea and back, mhm). Specially since it's the one calendar the continent has, which also has the one language.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Punished Dayni]

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

The barkeep says if we give him three mana herbs he can make some kind of medicine. Yeah, that's for a sidequest that I'm not sure if I'm gonna do. This game might take a while even if I focus on constantly moving forward.

This is one of the repeatable quests.

It's also not something I'd say is pressing to complete barring a different quest (*sigh), but no hard time limit there.

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Hmmm. So Celica just has a feeling that Alm isn't in Ram Village anymore. Is this implied to be happening at the exact same time as Alm's version of this scene, with the CG of him wondering about Celica?

I wouldn't be surprised.

It could have had some sort of tie in to the Turnwheel if Alm's wasn't before he gets it.

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

We sail into some pirates and they say “not a step further, ye scurvy dogs!”. The use of the word “step” is surely inappropriate for people who are traveling on a boat, no?

The only way it makes sense if they've already lined the ship up to board and he's asking Celica's ship to not take any action.

Which I could arguably believe as part of some ruse to lure the pirates to come aboard and attack, which judging by some of the layouts mightn't be the brightest bunch. This does not explain Kant, R.. And the boat after to a lesser extent, so take it as tired ramblings.

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...And of course the entire map goes to hell because of a single unlucky 2% mercenary crit (that the game provides damned near no recourse for at this stage of the game) against Saber when he was holding the bridge at full health, and I lose my awesome Celica level up because my choices are use the turnwheel or restart, and we all know the former isn't an option for me.

And that's the floodgates opening I hear. SoV bad end confirmed

[Jotari]

I never considered the whole calendar being different for Act 1 and Act 2. They actually could have made a good narrative transition by showing the days move backwards in the calendar at the start of Act 2.

12 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Okay, my bad. I had misremembered a specific timeframe. That said, "not long now" or "soon" don't exactly fill me with confidence. In the time it took Alm and company to concoct a scheme to get Mathilda (say, disguising themselves as soldiers of Rigel, and promising Desaix a reward from the Emperor), Mathilda could have been killed. Desaix has no incentive to keep her alive, so rushing in is the best strategy to ensure her survival. It helps, of course, that Desaix let her keep her armor, horse, and weapon while imprisoned. He's not a monster, after all.

Are Alm and co privy to the exact time frame of Desaix's execution schedule? And if they are, isn't there cause to believe that's a trap? I find this all a bit moot in general since the story never pushes this idea one way or another as particularly savvy or reckless on Alm's part. The manga does, wherein it's a trap and Kliff ends up getting killed in the battle, but as far as both Shadows of Valentia and Gaiden are concerned it's just "Mathilda is in trouble, we've got to rescue Mathilda". I can't recall any scenes that either praise or critisize the method in which they go about it.

Going back to the calendar thing, it could have been a bit fun if they sentenced Mathilda to death on a specific day, hence if you retreat too much or go back to promote too much, Mathilda could be dead before you even reach Desaix's fortress. That would be a good way of actually utilizing the calendar as an actual thing that exists.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Jotari

[Eltosian Kadath]

On 6/4/2021 at 8:06 AM, Alastor15243 said:

 

Alright, we've got a bit of story and exploration to do to start off today, and then... we'll be coming across the gimmick of Act 2. Because every act has a new gimmick that the lion's share of Celica's maps will revolve around, and Act 2 has the tamest one.

Despite complaints about boat maps, I think Celica's party composition works well with those map types. The tighter space makes it easier to protect the squish mages that make up the bulk of her army, and the range of magic give them plenty of opportunity to attack.

 

On 6/4/2021 at 10:53 AM, Acacia Sgt said:

It's set when you start a map, but doing anything that makes you leave the map and going back in rerolls it.

It's a common exploit actually. Start a map, check the level ups, Turnwheel, get the ones you want, then leave the map. Repeat the process until satisfied.

Shame the leave map function ruined that, but at least you can't turnwheel to cheese levelups...

 

On 6/5/2021 at 2:55 AM, Jotari said:

Are Alm and co privy to the exact time frame of Desaix's execution schedule? And if they are, isn't there cause to believe that's a trap?

There is a villager that spreads the same vague Mathilda will be executed soon story (which he says an enemy soldier told him) to Clive. It could have been intentionally leaked to bait a trap.

 

On 6/5/2021 at 2:55 AM, Jotari said:

I can't recall any scenes that either praise or critisize the method in which they go about it.

Other than the talk Clive has after Mathilda's death...

[Etrurian emperor]

Personally I've always preferred Celica's route over that of Alm. And its precisely because of the gimmicks that her route offers. With Alm you've a couple of good maps but primarily its just squire fields. I especially like her first act. I actually really like the boat maps because there's a new gimmick with each one. Boats with choke points, boats with zombies, boats with your mages and the enemy mages shooting at each other. I think it works really well with Celica's particular army composition. 

With Celica I can most easily remember most stages but with Alm most stages just blend together.