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

[Acacia Sgt]

I think I remember that in some interview Kaga revealed he wanted "legacy" stuff in FE. So basically every game would have a Falchion, a Gradivus, etc. I think even the Whitewings were meant to show up all the time too. That's why they all show up in Gaiden with no indication the weapons were the same ones from Archanea. SoV decided to make both Gradivus one and the same, and give an explanation for why there is a second Kingsfang.

[Etrurian emperor]

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

In case of emergency, the Gradivus can be used as a flotation device.

Granted, it has some steep competition with Rudolf's harebrained scheme, and Garon's... actually, just about every plan anyone has in Fates.

I dunno. Rufolf's plan worked out. He and Garon are probably titans of intellect when compared to ol' Michalis. 

[Acacia Sgt]

I mean, Gradivus can be used to restore your HP. Maybe that's how Camus made it over in one piece. lol

[Alastor15243]

9 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I mean, Gradivus can be used to restore your HP. Maybe that's how Camus made it over in one piece. lol

More likely he was just left on 1 HP because environmental damage can't kill you.

[Acacia Sgt]

Well, there's plenty of Dagons on the sea...

[Alastor15243]

Shadows of Valentia Day 42: More Duma Temple

Okay, let's try that symbol puzzle again.

...Okay, so, the sign says “The true path lies in the divine symbol”. Apparently the brand symbol isn't it, because that's what I picked last time and got Gradivus.

…

...No wait, what?

The brand mark doesn't have curves at the side parts?

...Ohhhhhhhhh.

I never realized this, but I was misremembering Celica's brand shape from the prologue CG and thinking they were both the same, never realizing that the one Alm was showing off right next to hers was slightly different. Celica's has side-curves, Alm's is just a four pointed star. So Gradivus is hidden behind Celica's brand, and the real path forward is Alm's brand?

...Seems like it. Alright. Now to deal with this branching maze.

There's a portal in the middle of a 3x3 grid of circular rooms, but it just takes you back to the four portal puzzle. And there's another portal puzzle where the puzzle is “read the fucking sign”, and then we show up in an area where we need Celica's turnwheel to proceed.

...Is it ever explained how Celica's priory got its hands on both of these things, or why they're needed to unlock the door to their goddess's rival god?

...So, basically, they say “yes, we know logically Falchion shouldn't be there anymore, but there's bound to be other stuff in there we can use...

...and then Alm's plot sense tingles and he goes inside.

...Frankly, the fact that this isn't believed to be the trial to get Falchion when he goes in... kinda takes away the weight of this battle a bit, doesn't it? This is basically a gauntlet of enemies Alm has to solo personally in order to get his legendary weapon. But now he's just... endangering his life on a psychic hunch.

...Not to mention the fact that it shouldn't be down here, and Rudolf should still have it, because how the fuck did Mila's corpse get in Duma's lair when she was fought and defeated in her own fucking temple?

...Also, in here, two things I notice:

1: The place amusingly devolves back to Gaiden dungeon design. Small square rooms you walk across, experiencing a fixed battle each time. Only real difference functionally is that you can see the enemy group in the middle of the room.

2: For here, the player phase theme is replaced with the enemy phase theme, allowing me to listen to it long enough to confirm that it does in fact “get good”. Gee, if only this game let this stuff play during enemy phase battles so we actually had enough time to hear it get that far!

...It does so here! Wow! Nice! Pity this couldn't be all the time!

But anyway, I do the obvious strategy and send Alm straight for the healing sigil in the center of the room to defend against the huge number of powerful enemies.

...The sigils are still called “supplies” for some reason.

Ah yes, the ground shifts every few turns, but no worries. Alm's plenty strong enough to handle these guys, especially with a convoy full of several-month-old fruit.

...This is the weirdest depiction of a “lich” I've ever seen. It's just a discolored skeleton with a big spiky club. Liches are traditionally the ultimate ascendance of a powerful necromancer.

...It's interesting to think they made entirely new types of Terror for this area that are, I'm pretty sure, never fought again. I can only assume they'll make some re-appearance in Thabes, because otherwise this seems like a hilarious waste.

At any rate, Alm's not fast enough to double these assorted “goyles”, so this will probably be a bit tedious.

...Yeah, that was pretty mindless. But then, it's hard to make a compelling challenge in a strategy rpg when you only have one unit.

...No, wait, isn't that what roguelikes technically are? They sure as hell manage. But then, in those cases there's a hell of a lot more that your one guy can do, isn't there?

Alm's fatigued, but one whole garlic later he's feeling fit as a fiddle.

And now for necrodragons and white dragons. ...Oh, and a sorcerer. How the fuck did he get back here? Is he royal?

...It feels kinda weird that they still do the “???” thing, you know, the “this guy's HP is too high for the HP bar to comprehend!” thing... when this game doesn't use the series's typical slowly-increasing-in-size HP bar. It's not a bar where you can see the individual hit points on it, it's just a perpetually-same-sized white bar representing your HP percentage! And yet they still act like having 60 or so HP is too high for the game to show!

...And Falchion is indeed back here.

Why did Jedah place it here? Reverse psychology? Placing it in the last place where Alm and co would still expect it to be?

...And then there's the cutscene where Celica shows up.

...So no, it wasn't reverse psychology. He knew Alm would come here.

...And it goes from cutscene... to portrait scene again for the actual fight itself...

...So Jedah's here too. I guess the holy blood gate is only on the door, and anyone who can teleport past it can stay inside? But then wouldn't our warp magic have gotten us through?

Okay, now it goes back to cutscene. With Celica begging Alm to kill her... somehow... despite supposedly not having her soul...

Then Mila tells Alm to grab Falchion, and she unlocks it for him.

...Causing it to glow with a light that causes to Jedah to fly backwards and disappear. Gee, wish it could do that in gameplay.

...And yeah, a repeat of the scene from the beginning of the game, with Celica stabbed clean through and Alm crying out her name. Except now with music and also longer.

...But then she's magically brought back to life, and given back her soul.

...Even Mila calls them “Alm” and “Anthiese”. So I have to assume that Alm really is Alm's proper name, and his full name is out of order. Either that or Celica internally sees herself as “Celica” while Alm still identifies with the name Alm, and not his actual first name Albein.

…

…

…

…

…

…

Okay, so, Mila makes it clear that Naga made the Falchions specifically to give humans the power to destroy the dragons when they went mad. So yes, Mila and Duma did indeed know full well, just as Jedah implied, that their eventual fate would be to go mad, given that Naga gave them the Kingsfang for that specific and explicit purpose.

But Mila somehow has the power to seal Falchion away. How, exactly? From whence did she gain this power? And if it's not a power she gained, just a natural ability of dragons, why didn't Medeus or any of the countless manaketes use this power on Marth's Falchion in Shadow Dragon?

But yeah, so... they don't explain why they insisted on ruling over a land as gods despite knowing they would eventually go mad and risk destroying everything. Honestly, in that mindset... isn't... Mila's philosophy...

...Okay, they act like there are equal flaws in Mila and Duma's philosophy of how to be gods... but... prior to insanity... Duma's was objectively morally superior in every way. Mila provided for her people's every need, knowing full well that she couldn't keep that up forever, while Duma prepared his people for the day they'd have to live without him.

Mila: Perhaps men have long been walking on their own without our aid. Perhaps I simply refused to see it.

Uh...

Mila... I think your crazy is still showing.

This is, like, completely irreconcilable with the backstory of Mystery of the Emblem. Dragons never ruled over humanity as gods, or made their crops grow, or anything like that, or we would have heard sooooooooo fucking much about that from Xane and Gotoh in their anti-human rants. Humans were just these little ants who happened to live in the same world as them, ants that started mistreating the giants among them out of fear when the laws of nature forced them to either be crazy or weak. How could this belief of hers that humans need gods to survive a single fucking conversation with Naga? Hell, how could it have survived her own fucking pre-Valentian life of not ruling over the Archanean people as gods?

Mila: And alas, Duma was no different.

No, I'm pretty sure this makes it clear he was significantly different, and knew that humanity could be strong when not coddled.

Ugh, and here's the “I need you, Celica” speech that was quoted earlier in this thread, and... ugh, moving on...

...God damn it, it sucks that Falchion is an objectively inferior sword to the fully forged royal sword. 15 less crit, 20 less hit, and no double lion. Damn it.

Alright, and the other path down there just opened that “can't be unlocked from this side” door from earlier, so... since I don't have any reason to re-visit the shrine...

...Here we go.

Let's finish up Shadows of Valentia... and bring forth the beginning of the end.

Oh, interesting, that turnwheel door is that old piece of artwork from the trailer showing Mila and Duma!

...Okay.

...I'm going in.

So we reunite with Celica's army, and... I wonder where Celica's gonna start on the map. Because the thing in the original game was she started with her own army because that's where she was, fighting for her life alongside them. But here she's with Alm, so I wonder if they changed it so she'd be with his army instead...?

And Celica doesn't even slightly apologize to anyone for the mess she put them in. She only apologized to Alm, like the writers actually didn't notice that she owes her friends a way bigger apology.

Celica: [Surviving without the gods] is possible! We've come all this way to prove it!

What's this “we” bullshit, Celica? You've only walked down half a fucking hallway in the time you've spent believing that!

...Yep, they kept Celica with her own army.

Okay, so, thankfully there's a prep screen so I can give Gradivus to Kamui right away. And hoooooly shit is he gonna make good use of it. He has 31 attack speed with the damned thing, and 39 attack. Nothing on this entire map is safe from him doubling them.

Ah yes, and yeah, this game has all of Duma's most elite followers, though this time with actual names rather than weirdly-named superclasses. And different names as well! Oh yeah, and then Gharn in the middle! And knowing that he used to be a Gharnef reference, all I can do looking at his face is think “It is I, the Gharn, from the Fire Embull!”.

Also, this game lets you freely reposition your army, so you can put some of Celica's guys with Alm's group and vice versa. I selected to put Kliff, Tobin, Zeke and Tatiana with Celica's group, closer to the action, and had the pegasisters and Sonya move back to Alm's group.

Alright.

Let's. Fucking. Go.

...Seeing the quick scene with Duma coming to life in all his necrotic horror, I have to finally just say this: It's hilarious how completely different Mila and Duma look. Are they really related? Are they really the same species?

But yeah.

HERE COMES TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, BABY! ONE OF THE BEST FINAL MAP THEMES EVER!

And here's something I wish came back, like, ever:

Everyone has a cool line when you click on them, talking directly to Duma, and really, I wish more game did this. Honestly, when it comes to a big climactic final boss, everyone should have something to say to it. Bare minimum a unique boss conversation. It's just such a cool feature to have. One of my favorites, fittingly enough, comes from Kliff:

Kliff: It's all strength and power to you. If you're that desperate for a show of force, I'll be happy to oblige!

...Celica doesn't have one though. And neither does Alm. Probably because theirs are said right after each other when you fight Duma directly.

So, first thing we do is take out these ridiculous eyeball things. We've got Kliff, and four turbocharged dread-fighter-loop units to do that with, so no sweat. After that... it'll be time to take on Jedah, take out Jedah... and make out way to Duma.

Also, Gray took out the two dread fighters and gold knight up north, so we don't have to worry about those. All of my other heavy hitters are to the east though, where things are actually happening.

Alright, same plan as before, the pegasisters fly in to make Jedah waste his immunity, then have Atlas go in for the kill. This time with fire instead of saggitae because without the dracoshield and with his proto-distant-counter ring, Jedah can't survive getting hit by fire, and Atlas can't survive using saggitae.

Satisfyingly, Atlas SPLITS JEDAH LIKE FIREWOOD!

A lot of people have said how funny it is that Jedah gives a long-winded dying speech while his model is face-down in the toxic water, but luckily for him he's on dry land when he dies this time.

Anyway, with fortify-anew-fortify, the brutally wounded pegasisters are back in ship shape to survive the warping witches.

Ah, so Hestia just randomly talks about her sister Sonya when fighting Kliff, before promptly dying to a hunter's volley.

And Hestia's acting like she chose to give her soul to Duma while Sonya chose otherwise, but... wasn't Sonya abandoned by Jedah, long before the soul giving event was on the table? This feels weird...

Also, it's crazy how long start-of-turn healing can go on between multiple fixed-regen sources. Duma's upheaval really made me notice. It took soooooo long for all the +5s to be done.

Both Hestia and Gharn are down thanks to Leon, Kliff, and a bunch of white magic support including anew, rescue and fortify.

Marla dies too, and I can't help but notice how ridiculous Leon's “blow kiss” victory animation is when he holds that pose indefinitely for a boss quote.

Yeah, I am so glad I got Atlas rescue. Having a rescue user who isn't our anew user is so handy here. Not that I'm close to struggling, it's just helping deal with a lot of what would otherwise be tedium.

And now there's nobody left but Duma, and it's time to finish him off. I'm bringing several of my big juggernauts over too though, to take care of the summons that neither Alm nor Celica is well-equipped to enemy-phase, and also to lay on some damage to him before Alm delivers the finishing blow.

...It's kinda crazy how similar Duma's horns look to Grima's.

90 damage from two consecutive Saber crits and he still has “???” HP. Holy shit. At least the post-damage HP bar on the model shows I'm about halfway there.

...Oculus... appears to be mistranslated. It says it “halts enemy movement”, but what they really mean is that it halts enemy attacks like with Jedah. Of course I knew that was a thing, but I assumed that it was from something else, and that oculus the weapon just inflicted a freeze status effect.

Anyway, since there's nothing more my heavy-hitters can do to soften Duma up, Alm fights with Celica at his side, and gets what I think is an auto-crit. Alm gives a speech of striking Duma down in justice for all the evil he's wrought, Celica gives a speech of striking Duma down in mercy for his madness, the peace he's earned after all he's done for them. They're... quite weird to hear back to back.

And Alm throws his shield to the side... and impales the fucker right in the skull.

...Uh, speaking of... man, Duma is a wreck. Seriously, is it ever explained why Mila was in so much better shape than him, physically and mentally? He's fucking rotting!

And after a timeskip to 402...

...Alm's... hanging out in Zofia... when his coronation is imminent. If they're not having that coronation happen in Zofia, then that is beyond stupid, considering it takes a fucking day to travel between two connected locations.

...Ah, so the capital is in Zofia now. Curious. Isn't... uh... so, what exactly is Rigel Castle gonna be used for from now on, then? I mean it isn't just neglected and forgotten, given that Walhart rules from it later...

But yeah, yet again we have a female royal who cedes rulership to a male (or potentially male) character, as we've seen countless times in the series. Granted, she's demonstrated she'd be a pretty shitty ruler, so like with Camilla I'm not saying this was a bad call on her part, it's just... an annoying pattern.

Speaking of which though, I realized something rather amusing I really wish I noticed all the way back when I played Radiant Dawn: that Micaiah's story in Radiant Dawn gender-inverts so many annoying plot points in Fire Emblem. If you think about it, Pelleas is basically Celica and Eirika gender-flipped. A naive, kind-hearted, overly-trusting idiot, tricked by an obvious villain into doing something that the hero has to fight tooth and nail to set right, who winds up standing aside and letting the main character take charge in the end. I can't believe I didn't fucking notice that before.

Celica: They say that where divine dragons sleep, sacred trees take root and grow.

Ah yes. The Mila Tree. So either Duma isn't a divine dragon, hence why there's no Duma Tree, but instead a Duma Volcano...

...Which would imply they aren't actually siblings...

...Or Mila and Duma were buried together, and either due to historical revisionism or some other nonsense, the tree was only named after Mila while people bullshitted that Duma was some horrible demon and falsely claimed he was buried in a volcano.

...Or Duma's “mountaintop grave” actually just coincidentally happened to be a dormant volcano, and no amount of divine dragon corpse fertilizer can counteract fucking lava.

Also, how does Celica know that divine dragon corpses do this when information from the mainland about dragons is supposed to be so scarce, and why have we never seen any others!? Where's the Naga Tree?

Woooooow, the ending narrator is amazingly cynical about the inevitability of this age not lasting and how however crazy gods are, men are crazier. I guess that's because Awakening decided to have “Valm” fall to shit again, so... fair enough...? But it's still hilariously jarring to see that juxtaposed with the happy celebratory ending CG of Alm and Celica on the balcony with cheering citizens below.

Anyway...

[Alastor15243]

Results

Oh god these are going really fast and I can't pause. Okay, I'll try.

Ram Woods Battle: Power 228, Turns 4.

Fleecer's Forest Battle: Power 311, Turns 4.

Storming of Ram Valley: Power 503, Turns 18.

Aaaaaand fuck, sorry, I lost it from there. It's going too fast for me to memorize, close, write down and open continuously. Especially since stuff that disappears from the bottom screen has a delay appearing on the top screen, forcing me to waste even more time. And given that I'm pretty damned sure I wasn't asked to save before this epilogue... there's no way I can go back to re-do this without re-doing the fight. And I'm noooooooooot in the mood to do that today.

Oh and instead of saying “Heroes:”, they declare the MVP by saying “X and the others paved the way to victory with their great deeds”.

Oh, also, if someone dies, there's no report like that, they just say who died. I kinda like this, but hoooooly shit is this too much to read at the speed this is moving. I'd be frankly amazed if anyone could read fast enough to comfortably take all of this shit in.

But yeah, the MVPs are the usual suspects. Lots of Celica in the beginning, then lots of Kliff and the mercenary trio.

Ah yes. And now for the credits song, “Heritors of Arcadia”. I really like this song, even if the English lyrics just barely fail to pass my standards of rhythmic quality. But let's see... Maybe I can at least do unit stats...

Mycen: 0B 0W. Never used him. His stats just didn't seem appealing at the time compared to Gaiden, and that's probably because while in Echoes everyone's growths were drastically improved, Mycen's bases stayed literally exactly the same. That 11 speed just wasn't nearly as acceptable, and that 22 attack and 18 defense just didn't have nearly as much “worth it” factor anymore.

...He was apparently made Alm's chancellor. Frankly, I'd personally have some trust issues with some guy who lied to me and manipulated me into killing my own father “for my own good”, but to each their own I guess.

Oh, and according to Mycen's ending, Alm doesn't call himself “King Rudolf II”, but “King Alm I”. Or at least historians do. Bit presumptuous I'd think for Alm to call himself “the first” before there's a second. If he did though... Jesus, that's one hell of a power play in the “what are we naming our kids” argument. And also that'd be implicitly saying that it would be the first male child who would become his successor as well. Well, okay, no, not necessarily, Alm I and Alm II wouldn't have to be consecutive... still though.

Jesse: 1B 0W. He just baaaarely came too late to be worth using, honestly. I've managed it before, mind. I once did an “all mercenaries” run and had both him and Deen added to my army comfortably.

Ah yes, that mercenary kingdom in the deserts of...

...Well, judging by Awakening's map, Owain and Gerome's paralogues are in what used to be that desert kingdom, and there's... literally no sign of it anymore. Neither the desert nor the kingdom. Seems like an odd thing to bring up when we never learn anything about it.

Nomah: 2B 1W. I mean, he was a healer, on a route where those are hard to come by for a while, but still... that was about all I used him for.

Nomah apparently united the Mila and Duma faithful. Which they mention passingly, like that wouldn't be the most interesting and unbelievable fucking thing you could possibly talk about in regards to his life.

Forsyth: 4B 1W. I stopped deploying him when he became witch fodder. No further comment.

Python: 8B 1W. Yeah, he just didn't hold a candle to Kliff (though I think my favoritism very slightly won out over his terrible initial luck with growths). If Kliff weren't in the army I probably would've trained him just like Leon and he'd have done well with hunter's volley, but... well, Kliff wound up being more useful than even three Pythons would be.

Valbar: 40B 2W. Really, Echoes is one of the worst games for knights (though enemy knights can be annoying as hell, I'll grant). Even worse than Gaiden, indirectly, due to nerfed warp range. I don't have much of value to say about him. I will grant, whether it's due to just having fewer witches or him having better stats, I never found myself worrying about him getting killed due to fielding him for Leon support points though.

Delthea: 8B 3W. Yeah, again, her decision to seal away her magic comes completely out of left field, and I don't get how that would be any benefit to her as opposed to just not using it. But I find it amusing that she did actually wind up with the dreamy, dashing noble for a husband she wanted, according to what her ending implies with where she met him, “at court”.

Zeke: 12B 5W. If I had only played this game and none of the others, I'd find it frankly ridiculous that this historian knows shit about what Zeke remembered of his past life that it's explicitly said he didn't talk about in order to not emotionally burden his wife. Of course, the reason the historians know, I have to assume, is because they gathered it from what he went off to Archanea to do later, though... that implies historians know who Sirius really is. And... his Mystery endings suggest nothing of the sort.

Lukas: 21B 7W. Great at the beginning to soften up enemies for my villagers... and then never useful again.

Interestingly, I think his ending implies he's asexual, or at least aromantic. It certainly makes a point to say he never marries.

Silque: 26B 7W. Silque and Genny found themselves in a rather awkward position of being the only sisters in my army who had only physic or a movement spell, when Tatiana and Faye had both. Still, warp is damned useful, so I can't really complain, even if most of the time I found Faye way more useful than her.

Tatiana: 11B 9W. While she showed up late, she was by fucking far the most useful sister I had at the whole “healing” thing by the end of the game. Infinite fortify is just amazing, and she's a lot of fun to use.

Genny: 28B 10W. Yeah, again, Genny only really had one useful spell, but given she was the best healer that Celica's army had... yeah, she pulled her weight. Maybe I should've gotten the Cypher characters to give her a hand? ...Nah, especially since that'd involve buying DLC for a game I have very little current intention of playing again.

...Genny apparently literally never introduced any of her friends to her husband. Which seems like an amazingly dumb way to narratively hide who she eventually married.

Conrad: 21B 14W. He was too little, too late. I mostly fielded him out of some weird sense of obligation, and he was swiftly on the chopping block when I realized whoever I brought to Duma Tower was who I'd be stuck with for the final battle.

The game also makes a point of saying that Conrad didn't get married either. Huh.

Luthier: 45B 24W. He was... alright. He joined at a part of the game where mages were on their last legs, but I still managed to get some use out of him slaying armors alongside Tobin.

...It says he journeyed across the sea in order to get better with his magic. A red-haired mage with an inferiority complex... could he possibly have some relation to Ricken?

Boey: 78B 26W. I mostly used him because he was there, at a time where I didn't have many alternatives. He and Mae didn't exactly have much staying power. Truth be told, none of the mages did, which probably explains why the only ones I brought to the endgame had either a utility spell, dread fighter loop stats, or both.

Mae: 55B 28W. See above. I do find their ending dialogue about constantly bickering with each other but feeling incredibly happy together to be weirdly adorable, incidentally.

Clive: 74B 32W. Laaaaaame, Clive's stupid blond bowl cut is obscuring the white text for his battle stats!

Mathilda: 62B 37W. Oh, right, I have to actually talk about these two. I think I made my opinions on them clear in the actual playlog, but I'll repeat: Cavalry just don't have the stats or combat arts to compete with... basically anyone, really. They have absolutely no methods whatsoever of one-rounding without dread fighter loop stats and Gradivus. And setting off on your own isn't really going to end well most of the time, especially without 1-2 or 1-5 range. They were just kinda there as filler units, and I rarely found myself saying “Christ am I glad to have them”.

...Fuck her ending though. For all that talk about her being Clive's equal, while Clive becomes the first captain of the One Kingdom's Brotherhood of Knights (note the gendered name there, incidentally)... she instead decides to quit being a soldier and “support her husband behind the scenes instead”. I'm not saying that it's impossible that any woman would decide to do that, or that it's automatically sexist to write that a woman decides to do that, it's just... really, can you look at basically any of her dialogue and tell me that sounds like something she'd do? It comes from just as far out of left field as Delthea sealing her magic!

Sonya: 69B 38W. That's... actually a pretty interesting ending for her. Apparently she set out and strove to find a cure for witches. Which I can't help but assume had something to do with hearing that Celica was saved.

...Rather darkly, though, the game insinuates she ultimately became a witch herself, taking over what was once Nuibaba's abode. Which makes no sense, because who's left for people to offer their souls to?

Oh right, gameplay. I mostly trained her out of idle curiosity about rewarp, but... eh, I mean, she had excalibur, she was passable in random battle situations, which was mostly what she found herself in. But I can't help but wonder what I could have managed if I didn't try to train her.

Faye: 74B 38W. Overall, start to finish, in terms of total contribution, there is no fucking contest here: Faye was the greatest and most useful white magic user in the entire run. Not only was she the best at actual combat due to her Alm support, but having both physic and rescue for such a huge portion of the game made her utility shoot leagues beyond all of her competition until Tatiana showed up, and even then, Faye made the difference in way more battles total, and having anew made sure that she kept up with Tatiana fairly well in the endgame. I may despise her character, but she is one of the best healers in the entire franchise.

...Speaking of her character... she wound up settling for some guy who apparently “claimed he did not mind her pining for the king”, which... okay, prevailing theories: dude was either bi and shared in her enthusiasm for Alm... or a cuck and got off on it.

...There's this moment during the music that's playing here, the acoustic guitar music I mean, where it feels like it's about to play the Fire Emblem theme, but it only gets three notes out before suddenly going back to its original melody.

Est: 80B 39W.

Catria: 106B 50W.

Palla: 124B 59W.

There was this point, right after their promotion, when they were really useful... but it just didn't last. They lacked the speed and raw power to truly contribute to the endgame when it at times took all three of them to take down a single foe. Though they did come in clutch in taking out Jedah on both occasions, and they were at least constantly in the top ten units worth fielding on Celica's side, I'll give them that.

Tobin: 101B, 61W. Tobin apparently got himself a castle. Nice. Yeah, so, overall, I'd say Tobin was my most useful mage, in terms of overall contribution and not counting Atlas as one. He managed to do pretty well with excalibur, and got physic just in time to keep a good niche when his stats failed him. All in all, can't complain.

Clair: 141B 82W. Total disappointment. Like with the pegasisters, she peaked at her promotion, and never really found a good niche with which to contribute afterwards. Certainly didn't help that Alm's route was crawling with archers, and also, nobody, not even pegasus knights, had enough resistance for fighting magic users without a bow to be a good idea, so... really, she had no real point to her. Shame.

They paint Gray's courtship of her... not very romantically, more like wearing her down, but at least she never stopped being a knight.

Leon: 218B 102W. Wow. Wow, looks like I managed to get a lot of use out of him, even before hunter's volley! Yeah, he was pretty good, even if he only beat Kliff in strength.

Shame that the ending never says anything about him getting married. Not even that he could never get over Valbar, they just say nothing about his love life. Would've been nice for them to say he eventually found a husband. But at least he was happy.

Kamui: 223B 112W. While he was the least useful of Celica's three swordsmen (that I used), he was still a consistent mainstay of her army, and for good reason. A mercenary is a mercenary, and there's not much you can do to make them bad, especially if they join early.

Gray: 246B 123W. While he was never quite as useful as Kliff... what can I say? A mercenary is a mercenary, like I said.

Saber: 264B 131W. An absolute menace, and damned useful both before and after the loop. He wound up being my tankiest unit by far.

Atlas: 283B 194W. Probably my second most useful unit by the end of the game, right behind Kliff. Easily my biggest “fuck you” button in terms of single-target DPS, combining saggitae with the mage ring and insane speed. Even before then, mercenary suited him insanely well, and his one big growth rate ensured he always had a valuable niche.

Kliff: 428B 254W. As if you expected anything else. Making Kliff a bow user, despite the initial abundance of hiccups, was the best decision I ever made in that game, and I'm immensely grateful to have been convinced to do that. Having a high-res archer to deal with those fucking mages got me out of so many jams, and he managed to contribute even around all of my looped dread fighters. MVP. Big time.

...Incidentally, apparently no matter what you do with Kliff, his son always winds up being a mage. Huh.

Celica: 156B 114W.

“In marrying Alm, Celica became the first queen of the One Kingdom of Valentia”...

…“In marrying Alm”.

...I just don't like how they phrase it like that, acting like it's the only reason she had any claim to the throne of the united continent at all, just chucking her entire royal birthright to half the continent in the garbage.

...She was also apparently believed to be the reincarnation of Mila... who was still alive when she was born. And everyone knows this. Do they not understand how reincarnation works?

Alm: 253B 123W. “Saint-King” is... a really weird nickname to give someone beloved for his work “casting off the gods' oppressive yoke”.

Anyway, as for the two of them, ultimately I think Alm only saw much use most of the time because of double lion (though that made him consistently insanely useful), while Celica was mostly an early-game crutch until my mercenaries got moving, and then she found herself having less and less utility. She never had none, though.

...And with that... it's done. We get a brief shot of the Mila Tree... and it says “The End”.

...We've finished Shadows of Valentia.

...Tomorrow I'll write up my ranking. But for now... it's over.

Stay safe, everyone.

...I really hope I didn't make a mistake here, because for some reason the forum won't let me post it without giving me the "we won't let you edit this" captcha screen I usually only get when something's ten pages long or has a video link.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Frankly, the fact that this isn't believed to be the trial to get Falchion when he goes in... kinda takes away the weight of this battle a bit, doesn't it? This is basically a gauntlet of enemies Alm has to solo personally in order to get his legendary weapon. But now he's just... endangering his life on a psychic hunch.

 

Meh, his stats are so good there's not much risk to his life.

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...Not to mention the fact that it shouldn't be down here, and Rudolf should still have it, because how the fuck did Mila's corpse get in Duma's lair when she was fought and defeated in her own fucking temple?

 

They brought it there. That's said in the game.

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...It's interesting to think they made entirely new types of Terror for this area that are, I'm pretty sure, never fought again. I can only assume they'll make some re-appearance in Thabes, because otherwise this seems like a hilarious waste.

 

I can't remember if Liches are in Gaiden, but the White Dragons certainly are. It's knd of bizzare that they add enemies in this one area, given that, by design, these upgraded terrors can't be so powerful that they'll actually make this fight difficult. Because difficult can very quickly become impossible in a situation like this.

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And now for necrodragons and white dragons. ...Oh, and a sorcerer. How the fuck did he get back here? Is he royal?

The sorcerer is Alm's mother! Alternatively, the sorcerer is Rigel IV, Rudolf's cousin who was originally meant to take the throne before being disinherited for lacking a brand. Or, there's just some other way in because Jeddah obviously managed a back entrance.

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...It feels kinda weird that they still do the “???” thing, you know, the “this guy's HP is too high for the HP bar to comprehend!” thing... when this game doesn't use the series's typical slowly-increasing-in-size HP bar. It's not a bar where you can see the individual hit points on it, it's just a perpetually-same-sized white bar representing your HP percentage! And yet they still act like having 60 or so HP is too high for the game to show!

...And Falchion is indeed back here.

Why did Jedah place it here? Reverse psychology? Placing it in the last place where Alm and co would still expect it to be?

...And then there's the cutscene where Celica shows up.

...So no, it wasn't reverse psychology. He knew Alm would come here.

...And it goes from cutscene... to portrait scene again for the actual fight itself...

...So Jedah's here too. I guess the holy blood gate is only on the door, and anyone who can teleport past it can stay inside? But then wouldn't our warp magic have gotten us through?

Okay, now it goes back to cutscene. With Celica begging Alm to kill her... somehow... despite supposedly not having her soul...

 

Obligatory posting of this video because I wish it had been done this way.

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Then Mila tells Alm to grab Falchion, and she unlocks it for him.

...Causing it to glow with a light that causes to Jedah to fly backwards and disappear. Gee, wish it could do that in gameplay.

...And yeah, a repeat of the scene from the beginning of the game, with Celica stabbed clean through and Alm crying out her name. Except now with music and also longer.

 

Alm: "Shit, did Mila say trust in Falchion or thrust in Falchion:" (o.0)

Quote

Okay, so, Mila makes it clear that Naga made the Falchions specifically to give humans the power to destroy the dragons when they went mad. So yes, Mila and Duma did indeed know full well, just as Jedah implied, that their eventual fate would be to go mad, given that Naga gave them the Kingsfang for that specific and explicit purpose.

But Mila somehow has the power to seal Falchion away. How, exactly? From whence did she gain this power? And if it's not a power she gained, just a natural ability of dragons, why didn't Medeus or any of the countless manaketes use this power on Marth's Falchion in Shadow Dragon?

That's...a really good question. Maybe it's a Divine Dragon perk only?

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This is, like, completely irreconcilable with the backstory of Mystery of the Emblem. Dragons never ruled over humanity as gods, or made their crops grow, or anything like that, or we would have heard sooooooooo fucking much about that from Xane and Gotoh in their anti-human rants. Humans were just these little ants who happened to live in the same world as them, ants that started mistreating the giants among them out of fear when the laws of nature forced them to either be crazy or weak. How could this belief of hers that humans need gods to survive a single fucking conversation with Naga? Hell, how could it have survived her own fucking pre-Valentian life of not ruling over the Archanean people as gods?

 

They call Naga a god the whole time in Mystery of the Emblem. Even in Awakening she's still seen as a god and has to clarify she's not. It seems humans just can't not worship the super powerful entities that hang around their land, despite Naga's personal insistance they stop doing that.

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Celica: [Surviving without the gods] is possible! We've come all this way to prove it!

What's this “we” bullshit, Celica? You've only walked down half a fucking hallway in the time you've spent believing that!

 

Well wasn't an unbeliever at the time, but the facts do show that she made it all this way without the help of any gods (eh, aside from the whole getting stabbed and brought back to life thing five minutes ago, that was divine intervention, but like, all the fighting in the deserts and swamps was mortal struggle).

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Ah yes, and yeah, this game has all of Duma's most elite followers, though this time with actual names rather than weirdly-named superclasses. And different names as well! Oh yeah, and then Gharn in the middle! And knowing that he used to be a Gharnef reference, all I can do looking at his face is think “It is I, the Gharn, from the Fire Embull!”.

 

He still is a Gharnef reference. It's just more explicit in the Japanese. His name is

ガネフ

While Gharnef's name is

ガーネフ

So you don't have to read Japanese to say it's the exact same name. The extra ー isn't even a proper letter, it's a voewl extentder. Romanized the two names are Ganefu and Gaanefu XD So more properly, "It is I, Gharn, from Fiure Eemblem." Unless your quote is a reference I'm missing.

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Also, this game lets you freely reposition your army, so you can put some of Celica's guys with Alm's group and vice versa. I selected to put Kliff, Tobin, Zeke and Tatiana with Celica's group, closer to the action, and had the pegasisters and Sonya move back to Alm's group.

 

Oh it does. Can you just deselect party members from Alm's army and put all of Celica's party there like we were wondering before about wether you need to bring the same army to the tower and the final battle? I kind of don't like that you can swap party members like that, at least before part 6. I like the whole idea that you're saving Celica's army and unifying in the middle. I even wish they would have found a better way to more natually place Celica with her army while still having the witch!Celica stuff, but that might have been asking too much.

Quote

HERE COMES TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, BABY! ONE OF THE BEST FINAL MAP THEMES EVER!

Amen to that.

Quote

 

And here's something I wish came back, like, ever:

Everyone has a cool line when you click on them, talking directly to Duma, and really, I wish more game did this. Honestly, when it comes to a big climactic final boss, everyone should have something to say to it. Bare minimum a unique boss conversation. It's just such a cool feature to have. One of my favorites, fittingly enough, comes from Kliff:

 

That's a pretty standard tradition in the series, no? Shadows of Valentia just mixed it up a bit by making it be when you first select the unit, instead of the traditional mechanic of having them all say a line before the battle starts.

Quote

 

And Hestia's acting like she chose to give her soul to Duma while Sonya chose otherwise, but... wasn't Sonya abandoned by Jedah, long before the soul giving event was on the table? This feels weird...

 

 

Was she? I thought Sonya was the one who ran away? Why would Jedah throw away a perfeclty fine soul snack for Duma?

Quote

 

Also, it's crazy how long start-of-turn healing can go on between multiple fixed-regen sources. Duma's upheaval really made me notice. It took soooooo long for all the +5s to be done.

Both Hestia and Gharn are down thanks to Leon, Kliff, and a bunch of white magic support including anew, rescue and fortify.

Marla dies too, and I can't help but notice how ridiculous Leon's “blow kiss” victory animation is when he holds that pose indefinitely for a boss quote.

Yeah, I am so glad I got Atlas rescue. Having a rescue user who isn't our anew user is so handy here. Not that I'm close to struggling, it's just helping deal with a lot of what would otherwise be tedium.

And now there's nobody left but Duma, and it's time to finish him off. I'm bringing several of my big juggernauts over too though, to take care of the summons that neither Alm nor Celica is well-equipped to enemy-phase, and also to lay on some damage to him before Alm delivers the finishing blow.

...It's kinda crazy how similar Duma's horns look to Grima's.

90 damage from two consecutive Saber crits and he still has “???” HP. Holy shit. At least the post-damage HP bar on the model shows I'm about halfway there.

...Oculus... appears to be mistranslated. It says it “halts enemy movement”, but what they really mean is that it halts enemy attacks like with Jedah. Of course I knew that was a thing, but I assumed that it was from something else, and that oculus the weapon just inflicted a freeze status effect.

Anyway, since there's nothing more my heavy-hitters can do to soften Duma up, Alm fights with Celica at his side, and gets what I think is an auto-crit. Alm gives a speech of striking Duma down in justice for all the evil he's wrought, Celica gives a speech of striking Duma down in mercy for his madness, the peace he's earned after all he's done for them. They're... quite weird to hear back to back.

And Alm throws his shield to the side... and impales the fucker right in the skull.

 

Also obligatory reference to the fact that Conquerer Alm doens't do this, making the Overclass objectively worse XD

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...Uh, speaking of... man, Duma is a wreck. Seriously, is it ever explained why Mila was in so much better shape than him, physically and mentally? He's fucking rotting!

 

Soul cocane addiction I bet. He just got a taste for munching on virgigns at some point.

Quote

But yeah, yet again we have a female royal who cedes rulership to a male (or potentially male) character, as we've seen countless times in the series. Granted, she's demonstrated she'd be a pretty shitty ruler, so like with Camilla I'm not saying this was a bad call on her part, it's just... an annoying pattern.

 

Renning is the true hero for averaging out abdication between sexes in the series.

Quote

 

Speaking of which though, I realized something rather amusing I really wish I noticed all the way back when I played Radiant Dawn: that Micaiah's story in Radiant Dawn gender-inverts so many annoying plot points in Fire Emblem. If you think about it, Pelleas is basically Celica and Eirika gender-flipped. A naive, kind-hearted, overly-trusting idiot, tricked by an obvious villain into doing something that the hero has to fight tooth and nail to set right, who winds up standing aside and letting the main character take charge in the end. I can't believe I didn't fucking notice that before.

 

Feels a bit more intentional in Pellesa's case though.

Quote

 

Celica: They say that where divine dragons sleep, sacred trees take root and grow.

 

I wonder where this (true) myth comes from? It's not like there's a tonne of giant trees hanging around Archanea as a result of the Earth Dragon war.

Quote

Also, how does Celica know that divine dragon corpses do this when information from the mainland about dragons is supposed to be so scarce, and why have we never seen any others!? Where's the Naga Tree?

 

Ah, I see you've mentioned this too. Well at least for Naga specifically, we know she died in Thabes. So maybe the desert enviroment wasn't all that great for giant tree growth.

Quote

 

Woooooow, the ending narrator is amazingly cynical about the inevitability of this age not lasting and how however crazy gods are, men are crazier. I guess that's because Awakening decided to have “Valm” fall to shit again, so... fair enough...? But it's still hilariously jarring to see that juxtaposed with the happy celebratory ending CG of Alm and Celica on the balcony with cheering citizens below.

Nope, that's loyalty towards Gaiden rearing it's head again. It's pretty cynical there too, but I think it fits the dreary tone of Gaiden a bit better.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Rather darkly, though, the game insinuates she ultimately became a witch herself, taking over what was once Nuibaba's abode. Which makes no sense, because who's left for people to offer their souls to?

 

 

Medusa? I don't think we actually dealt with her, or it, or whatever Medusa is, by fighting Nibaba. Especially since not!Gharnef uses the same spell in the final battle. Though personally I never interpreted Sonya's ending to suggest she literally became a witch. For some reason I read it as her setting up there and playing the witch trope for...reasons.

Edited July 22, 2021 by Jotari

[Acacia Sgt]

Mila most likely sealed Falchion because Falchion sealed her up.

Think of it this way. Mila was shoved into a room... then she locks the room from the inside. But there's still a window she can peek through, hence how she knew she had to unlock the room for Alm.

... this is too much to answer through at once... don't know if I can bother with it.

[Alastor15243]

6 minutes ago, Jotari said:

They brought it there. That's said in the game.

And I just realized I forgot the main thing in making my now-invalid point: why didn't Rudolf take Falchion back out and keep it to give to Alm if he wanted him to use it?

7 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I can't remember if Liches are in Gaiden, but the White Dragons certainly are. It's knd of bizzare that they add enemies in this one area, given that, by design, these upgraded terrors can't be so powerful that they'll actually make this fight difficult. Because difficult can very quickly become impossible in a situation like this.

Oh I didn't mean "entirely new" like that, I mean that with the exception of the white dragons, they don't show up earlier in the game, or even after in the main story (again, maybe Thabes).

9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

"It is I, Gharn, from Fiure Eemblem." Unless your quote is a reference I'm missing.

It is indeed.

 

10 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Oh it does. Can you just deselect party members from Alm's army and put all of Celica's party there like we were wondering before about wether you need to bring the same army to the tower and the final battle?

I... did not even think to check. But it does let you take items from people you left behind, I know that much when I took Delthea's mage ring.

12 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That's a pretty standard tradition in the series, no? Shadows of Valentia just mixed it up a bit by making it be when you first select the unit, instead of the traditional mechanic of having them all say a line before the battle starts.

...Excellent point, and yet it feels significantly different, more like a boss fight quote than that.

14 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Soul cocane addiction I bet. He just got a taste for munching on virgigns at some point.

I spent way too much time (even though it was only a few seconds) working out how to pronounce that typo and realizing that if you pronounce the "gn" like in Filet Mignon, it's pronounced "Virginians".

16 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Nope, that's loyalty towards Gaiden rearing it's head again. It's pretty cynical there too, but I think it fits the dreary tone of Gaiden a bit better.

Oh! And here I stand with egg on my face! Thanks for letting me know!

[Samz707]

So not doing the DLC? (Unless I missed it.)

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

So not doing the DLC? (Unless I missed it.)

I'd have to buy it and I'm really not in the mood to. Thabes...? I mean if people want me to, but something tells me there's more demand to move on to...

...to Three Houses.

[Acacia Sgt]

I'd want to see Thebes, personally.

---

The tree thing feels more like a myth that found its mark once but that's about it. Mila is explicitly stated to be connected with the earth itself thanks to her powers being geared towards it, and we can see that in-game as well. It's likely the myth was born from Mila's connection to the ground thus the Valentians came to the wrong conclusion that it was a property of all Divine Dragons.

Edited July 22, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Acacia Sgt said:

I'd want to see Thebes, personally.

---

The tree thing feels more like a myth that found its mark once but that's about it. Mila is explicitly stated to be connected with the earth itself, and we can see that in-game as well. It's likely the myth was born from Mila's connection to the ground thus the Valentians came to the wrong conclusion that it was a property of all Divine Dragons.

But... the myth existed before the Mila Tree did.

Edited July 22, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Acacia Sgt]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

But... the myth existed before the Mila Tree did.

Exactly, a myth. They don't need to see a tree springing from the grave of a divine dragon to start thinking that's what happens.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Acacia Sgt said:

Exactly, a myth. They don't need to see a tree springing from the grave of a divine dragon to start thinking that's what happens.

Yeah, but they need a shitton of luck and/or plot contrivance to be correct, even just once.

[Acacia Sgt]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, but they need a shitton of luck and/or plot contrivance to be correct, even just once.

This game was made after Awakening gave us the tree. It is plot contrivance / a call forward/ a nod from our perspective that the myth exists so that it can get proven right in-universe.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Acacia Sgt said:

This game was made after Awakening gave us the tree. It is plot contrivance / a call forward/ a nod from our perspective that the myth exists so that it can get proven right in-universe.

Yeah but that doesn't mean it couldn't make sense.

...Okay, yes it does in the grand scheme of things because trying to bridge canon between 1-3 and Awakening is both painful and impossible, but this particular one didn't have to be nonsense.

Edited July 22, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Acacia Sgt]

4 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah but that doesn't mean it couldn't make sense.

Myths on principle don't for the most part. There's always varying degrees of facts and interpretations that give birth to myth and legend. In this case, Mila's connection with the earth has likely give countless interpretations over millennia.

Edited July 23, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Acacia Sgt said:

Myths on principle don't for the most part. There's always varying degrees of facts and interpretations that give birth to myth and legend. In this case, Mila's connection with the earth has likely give countless interpretations over millennia.

It's not the myth, it's the myth being exactly right in at least one instance when it had no actual basis in reality or fact that feels amazingly contrived.

[Acacia Sgt]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

It's not the myth, it's the myth being exactly right in at least one instance when it had no actual basis in reality or fact that feels amazingly contrived.

Again, this is a nod that Awakening stablished the tree's existence in the first place. And a myth being exactly what it is ain't new in fiction.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Acacia Sgt said:

Again, this is a nod that Awakening stablished the tree's existence in the first place. And a myth being exactly what it is ain't new in fiction.

It's almost never characterized as dumb luck though. When an in-universe fictional world someone wrote turns out to be real in-universe, for example, it's always because the act of making the fiction made it real, or because the creator was unknowingly channeling real events from another world (or even the same one, in one notable case in Supernatural). It's almost never that by some amazing coincidence, some guy independently came up with a story that perfectly mimics an already existing world and people.

[Acacia Sgt]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

It's almost never characterized as dumb luck though. When an in-universe fictional world someone wrote turns out to be real in-universe, for example, it's always because the act of making the fiction made it real, or because the creator was unknowingly channeling real events from another world (or even the same one, in one notable case in Supernatural). It's almost never that by some amazing coincidence, some guy independently came up with a story that perfectly mimics an already existing world and people.

It's because they decided to incorporate the real world chronology here.

They made Awakening and invented the tree, along that it came from Mila's corpse (and Demon's Ingle for Duma, but that's an aside). From this action, when making SoV they made up the myth based on their own action of creating the tree in the first place, as a nod. In this case, Awakening is the thing being channeled here to create the myth in SoV.

Doesn't have to be considered a good execution, but it's a sensible execution.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Acacia Sgt said:

It's because they decided to incorporate the real world chronology here.

They made Awakening and invented the tree, along that it came from Mila's corpse (and Demon's Ingle for Duma, but that's an aside). From this action, when making SoV they made up the myth based on their own action of creating the tree in the first place, as a nod. In this case, Awakening is the thing being channeled here to create the myth in SoV.

Doesn't have to be considered a good execution, but it's a sensible execution.

...No. No it isn't. This myth has no reason to exist at all except for cynical out-of-story reasons. It's like saying "they made the character do this out of character action because it was necessary to make the plot happen".

No it wasn't. They need to come up with better ways for the plot to happen.

[Acacia Sgt]

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...No. No it isn't. This myth has no reason to exist at all except for cynical out-of-story reasons. It's like saying "they made the character do this out of character action because it was necessary to make the plot happen".

No it wasn't. They need to come up with better ways for the plot to happen.

Like I said, it's not a good execution. The existence of the myth is quite most likely because they preconceived it as true in Awakening already, and it being a myth to explain why it only retroactively became true in this specific case because it was already proven that's not the case in the Archanean games. It's a wink from the developers, like how Act 6 does with Grima. Since from an out-of-universe view, it is the developers who also created the myth, as it is.

Edited July 23, 2021 by Acacia Sgt