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

Alastor15243 · February 12, 2023

Engage Day 20: Lucina and Ike Paralogues

Alright, apparently Lucina’s is the easiest of these, so let’s give this a look. But first! Moment of truth! What does Engage think the most iconic Sacred Stones song is!?

…Shit, wait, gotta quit my Maddening run first. Yeah, like I said (kinda got lost in the chat), I’ve got a really positive impression of Maddening’s difficulty curve. The beginning is really manageable so far, to the point that I kinda wish in hindsight I picked it.

And also, a few things I noticed:

Lumera saying “Being your mother… becoming your mother…” as she was dying. I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on that and add it to the “Pepsiman is adopted” evidence list.

The Céline, Louis and Chloé intro cinematic hints at Louis and Chloé’s personal skills, and also both of them have personal skills that are active when the three of them are together.

Also, another thing I’m gonna be on the lookout for, something I set a reminder for myself to keep an eye out regarding:

I don’t remember seeing Timerra in the last story scene.

I… seriously hope that Timerra isn’t going to be cut out of the main plot. That would be profoundly weird given that every other country has a representative in the main cast.

…PFFFFFF

I love how the royal capitals are among the places that can just casually get overrun with Corrupted. I get it would be lame if those maps were singled out as places we never got to fight in again, but it’s pretty goofy storywise.

Alright, as usual, let’s check out the chapter before evacuating to do Somniel stuff with a better idea of what we need.

Oh! Is that the first time we’ve got confirmation of the pronunciation of “Ferox”? I figured it wasn’t “Ferrow” due to “Feroxi” making “Ferowi” sound outrageously dumb, but it’s good to have confirmation that the x is pronounced like an actual x.

…Okay, so after some mostly-accurate (it’s all technically true, but they omitted the time travel element) lore recap about the significance of the location, we’re told we need to fight here to make our bond stronger. It seems that these things are magical locations tied to the Emblem Rings (I just recently realized both Emblem and Ring are capitalized in that context), hence why they look identical to places from the Emblems’ original settings. Though I do call bullshit on this, because Brodia was already confirmed in story to already have an arena. Is this not it?

Ah! Six units! Just like the original map! Okay, what other curve balls are you throwing at us here?

Okay, so obviously you can’t use Lucina in this map because she’s our opponent. She’s been unequipped from Merrin, which is fine since I won’t be bringing her anyway due to the tiny deployment list. But I wonder… once I leave… will she still be unequipped? That would be annoying.

Alright, back to Somniel to do business.

First! To the amiibo gazebo!

…Okay, “The Final Battle” is a pretty fantastic song, I won’t knock their taste. Just not the one I would have picked. But I really hope their paralogue battle is Truth, Despair and Hope. I guess I’ll find out eventually. I just hope the moment of truth won’t give me despair.

I’m making a peach cake with Panette for Rosado and Merrin.

I got a C, and an additional 2 strength. Fantastic.

…Lucina is still unequipped from Merrin. Shame.

…Did Alcryst just fight Ike as a normal arena battle? I’ve never seen that happen with Emblems before.

Alright, well, that was just barely enough to get him to level 19, so time to promote him.

Oh hey, also, I experimented putting non-magic Emblems on Clanne on my Maddening file, and I found out that mystic bonuses often consist of adding their magic into their attacks. In fact, Lodestar Rush becomes a purely magical attack when a mage uses Marth!

…So Gentility is just an objectively superior version of res+3 or def+3. In that it does both, and also has the option of being converted, for every unit holding it, into a damage boost. Alright, how expensive is it? That’d be nice to get on some of my units.

…TWO THOUSAND SP. THE FUCK? I mean, it’s good, but is it that good?

Alright, let’s set that aside for now.

Let’s do this Lucina battle already.

Oooh! It’s a cover of Destiny! Nice! I don’t like it as much as the original so far, but let’s see how the battle version sounds!

Oh, not just that, also a cover of her theme too?

…It’s a really disappointing that the enemy phase theme is just the arena lobby theme. Why? It’s not even a good map or battle theme! Why not just keep this original theme going? It sucks I can only hear the more actiony part on player phase. Especially since one of my best units, Yunaka, is an enemy-phase unit.

I do appreciate I’m getting some money from this though.

So Yunaka completely butchered Lucina’s first HP bar on enemy phase, so the second one was a cinch. Yeah, this was pretty trivially easy, but in fairness it’s been available for a while.

And that was over super quick, but then, so was the map it was based on.

PFFFF

Zelkov says he should go looking for herbs… in an arena.

Alright, let’s get out of here and hurry up to have time to do another of these paralogues.

Oh shoot, I forgot to feed and pet Lilith last map! And as I feared, that reduces our relationship. But a single feeding is enough to mend it, so that’s good.

Hm? New place opened up? Looks like a fortune teller.

…And that’s exactly what it is, except they use a hyphen between fortune and teller.

…Only available in the evening, huh?

Well anyway, let’s do Yunaka’s bond with Corrin and then some supports.

That bond was pretty uneventful. Alright, supports time!

Pepsiman and Hortensia’s C.

Hortensia seems to be struggling getting used to the fact that she’s no longer surrounded by people who can’t say “no” to her. She’s taken aback by Pepsiman’s lack of desire to sing her praises and his immunity to her fake crying.

Pepsiman and Rosado’s C.

I will say, I actually liked Pepsiman’s verbal description of Rosado’s drawing.

And I’m surprised how endearing I find Rosado. He’s really nice.

Louis and Ivy’s C.

Louis exposits that he apparently has Resting Happy Face.

…And now Louis is so captivated by the idea of perpetual downer Ivy smiling that he’s… completely ignoring her objections to his enthusiasm.

Then she gives in and lets him try.

Ivy: Very well, Louis of Firene. If your ambition is to make me smile, I invite you to do your best.

She says.

While smiling.

Alcryst and Hortensia’s C.

Oh.

Oh this’ll be good.

PFFFFFFFF

Sad sack Alcryst wants lessons from the arrogant spoiled brat about how to be more confident.

PFFFFF

And Hortensia just bluntly declines. Apparently because she holds a grudge due to the whole “Brodia” thing.

…And she’s taken off guard by the fact that Alcryst accepts this. Was she just saying that to rile him up as part of helping him, and is shocked it had the opposite result?

Yes! That was exactly what she was trying to do! I guessed right!

Hopefully I get more from these two, since I’ll be using them. If all else fails I can use those support activities.

Ivy and Kagetsu’s C.

Man, I love the annoyed tone in Ivy’s voice when she talks about Kagetsu’s uncanny ability to flawlessly predict the future… but only when it comes to useless, pointless bullshit like what they’re having for dinner that day. Honestly, Ivy’s voice actress in general is just on point. She’s really good at this role.

…These two have a weird relationship though. But one I’m interested in seeing more of.

Alright, time to cook.

Oof. Seems Ivy is a bad cook. Either that or putting rare fish on steamed dango was a worse idea than I realized because I barely have an idea what steamed dango is. Rank E. And I can’t make the meal again, so it seems like it was a good call not to make Yunaka’s.

Now then, let’s check out the benefits to getting Lucina’s paralogue done…

Let’s grind her up some…

OH SHIT.

IT GOES ALL THE WAY UP TO LEVEL 20 NOW.

Level 11 extends the engage time limit to 4 turns, which isn’t as fantastic for Lucina as it could be for some others… but 15 gets you the Parallel Falchion, doubled chance on dual assist at level 18… and a shortened engage meter at level 20. Okay, I should probably be doing these more.

Now that I’m no longer desperate to have Pepsiman keep up with the rest of the army (he’s gotten way more action in lately), I’m mostly using training to top off people close to leveling. In this case, Kagetsu and Rosado.

Oh, and Renais is pronounced “Renay”? Good to know. She probably said that in Heroes but I missed it.

…Okay, fuck it. I’m gonna check out Eirika’s paralogue and do it if it seems manageable. I have a horrible fear that next chapter is going to take her away from me, and I need closure on what song they picked.

So, she’s talking about this being a pivotal part of her confrontation with the Grado Empire, but I’m not recognizing it from the backdrop. Also, she wasn’t even there when the Grado Empire fell… hmmm… what are they talking about…?

…Oh, that comment about Grado seems to have been a non-sequitur. This is the final battle, isn’t it? It looks like the final battle area.

Yep, final battle location, more specifically the first part of it, the fight with Lyon.

With us in the position of Lyon.

…There are fabricated corrupted dragons, which thankfully are just regular dragons according to their slayer weaknesses. Good. It’d suck if we had to fight corrupted dragons while not having access to either Eirika or Celica.

…Oh fuck.

All of these enemies are strong enough to have their class skills.

Which means all these backup enemies have brave assist. They do two chain attacks if they chain attack with full HP.

…These are uh… Okay I think I’m gonna hold off on this a bit. Let’s try an easier one.

Let’s try Ike’s!

PFFFF

I just realized that Pepsiman reacts to the word “trial” the Emblem uses like it’s the first time he’s hearing about the concept of an Emblem trial. In every single one of these.

Oh shoot, this looks like it isn’t a defend map, it’s a “defeat Ike” map. It doesn’t even seem like getting the castle seized is a lose condition.

At any rate though, I’m gonna try to keep the center area secure for the sake of my squishy units. Thankfully this map has a severe dearth of mages. Louis can take the bottom, Yunaka can take the left, and I’ll have Merrin with the assistance of my long-range units take the right side.

…No, Yunaka’s gonna need a hand to be able to touch these armor knights. One sec.

Okay, I gave her a strength tonic and also an energy drop. If she’s gonna be soloing enemies like every other fiber of her being lets her, she’ll need to be able to damage armor knights enough to at least poison them and get the ball rolling on their demise.

And while I’m at it, Louis gets the talisman I forgot I got, Hortensia gets the spirit dust, and Louis also gets the secret book because accuracy is so damned important with him. He has to one-shot counter mages with his forged javelin if he wants to avoid getting doubled by them and getting rocked.

Alright, “The Devoted” seems to be the main base for Ike’s theme, with some of “Eternal Bond” thrown in too.

It’s curious how they’re being inconsistent here. After Lucina and Eirika I assumed the deal was going to be that we’d be put in the positions opposite the team the Emblem in question was-

OOOH! THEY THREW IN A BIT OF “HIS FATHER’S SON”! ONLY A BIT BUT APPRECIATED!

…Ahem. Anyway, I thought the deal would be that the Emblem would be where they were in the original fight, and we’d be where the opposing army was. But I guess that’s not a rule, just a coincidence.

Anyway… proceeding.

…I thought stairs maybe gave an avoid bonus I didn’t notice, but no. The deal is just that this berserker fighting Louis has a dexterity of one.

Alright, this eastern flank is tougher than I expected and is rushing me with way more units than I can take out in one player phase. I think I’ll have to use goddess dance to take care of this with my main army.

Hobble surprisingly came in clutch to make sure that a swordmaster Merrin couldn’t kill couldn’t reach any of my squishier allies.

…I apparently just landed my 100^th critical hit.

Yunaka makes it closer to the top, and I have Alcryst use astra storm to take out the elthunder mage harassing Yunaka. Not a huge threat except I can’t attack him with Yunaka without sacrificing that terrain bonus, which could be tempting fate waaaaaaaay too much. So I went nuclear to be sure.

…And I’ve killed 1000 individual enemies? Wow, that’s a lot!

Ohp! Ike’s on the move! Alright, time to face Yunaka up against Ike. Let’s see if the spiritual successor to Sothe can finally defeat Sothe’s idol!

Oooh! Infinite, no-exp enemies! They brought back void curse! Sweet! I hope they use this for something similar to Conquest Chapter 21 at some point!

It’s kind of hilarious how invincible Yunaka is. I’m certain my hubris will get her killed eventually, but right now it’s ridiculous but fun.

And she just learned pass!

A backup unit was threatening to complicate things nastily, but Alcryst saved the day by longbowing him from safety thanks to the fog at the corner of a hallway junction slowing enemies down. Seems like that movement penalty is a benefit when the people you want sitting on it can conjure it themselves.

…And upon realizing that Ike hasn’t been doing backup attacks all this time, I finally realize he’s classified as armored.

…Incidentally, I’m torn on who to give Ike to now. Now that I know for a fact that he can pass down Ragnell… I mean, Louis can make great use of just about every other part of Ike’s kit… but fucking Ragnell. RAG. NELL. I want that on a sword fighter! Someone who can double with it!

Merrin would be cool, but she’s also really good with Lucina. Hmm… who else…

Well, I’ll think about it later. For now, Ike’s down. After Yunaka wore down his first health bar, Ivy finished him off.

…Alright, let’s check out the spoils, clean things up, and finish off for today.

…According to the arena, in a straight battle between Ivy and Clanne, Ivy appears to win. Noted.

Merrin and Kagetsu fought twice, with Merrin losing first and winning the second.

…Ragnell weighs 15. Can anyone wield that unencumbered?

…No, nobody. Diamant and Louis come the closest, at 11 and 12 respectively. Merrin has 10, so she’s not far behind. But basically nobody can wield this awesome sword without getting majorly slowed down. That’s a shame. Maybe once we get Leif back and can inherit the build plus skills? Or maybe there’s a body ring equivalent I can find? If so, that’s definitely going on whoever I decide to give Ike to long-term. And personally? I had more fun with Merrin when she had Ike than when she had Lucina.

…Yeah I’m gonna mess around with giving Ike to Merrin again.

…Lucina, meanwhile, is going to Kagetsu. Lucina’s bonded shield ability has a 100% activation rate when units are the same type as the user (or 90% globally when Pepsiman uses it). And since Kagetsu’s constantly working with units of the same type, that seems to make sense. Especially since they’re the one unit type capable of going places that units who can do conventional chain guards absolutely can’t.

…Alright, I think that does it for today.

Tomorrow we’ll be tackling Chapter 17.

Which hopefully isn’t going to be hell.

Alastor, signing off.

Acacia Sgt · February 12, 2023

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Lumera saying “Being your mother… becoming your mother…” as she was dying. I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on that and add it to the “Pepsiman is adopted” evidence list.

The power of hindsight.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I… seriously hope that Timerra isn’t going to be cut out of the main plot. That would be profoundly weird given that every other country has a representative in the main cast.

Sadly, of the four crown heirs, she is the one with the least focus.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I love how the royal capitals are among the places that can just casually get overrun with Corrupted. I get it would be lame if those maps were singled out as places we never got to fight in again, but it’s pretty goofy storywise.

Actually, those are not Corrupted. They're Training Skirmishes, which only spawn on the Kingdom capitals. Where you fight against the Kingdom's own troops. We saw glimpses of this in the trailers, when they showed up the Chaper 14 map but the party was fighting Solmic troops. I remember there was speculation over what that meant... well, turns out, it was because it was a Training Skirmish. Their gimmick is that Casual mode applies even if you're playing on Classic, you get an extra bit of bonus EXP once you've finished (kinda like in SoV, though it's a set amount that's the same for everybody you deployed), as well as money. I mentioned this before, but they do seem to give more money than the actual Gold Skirmishes.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Okay, so after some mostly-accurate (it’s all technically true, but they omitted the time travel element) lore recap about the significance of the location, we’re told we need to fight here to make our bond stronger. It seems that these things are magical locations tied to the Emblem Rings (I just recently realized both Emblem and Ring are capitalized in that context), hence why they look identical to places from the Emblems’ original settings. Though I do call bullshit on this, because Brodia was already confirmed in story to already have an arena. Is this not it?

Nope. The implication is that the areas don't normally looks like this. They morph into someplace familiar for the Emblems, which is their cue to figure out this is where they must impart their trials. Hence why you're fighting Lucina here and not, say, Byleth.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, so obviously you can’t use Lucina in this map because she’s our opponent. She’s been unequipped from Merrin, which is fine since I won’t be bringing her anyway due to the tiny deployment list. But I wonder… once I leave… will she still be unequipped? That would be annoying.

Yeah, you have to reequip. Even if you leave without actually doing the map.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Did Alcryst just fight Ike as a normal arena battle? I’ve never seen that happen with Emblems before.

It happens, yes.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

So Yunaka completely butchered Lucina’s first HP bar on enemy phase, so the second one was a cinch. Yeah, this was pretty trivially easy, but in fairness it’s been available for a while.

I'll admit. Since I did this when it first unlocked, and I was using everyone, I was way underleveled. I still managed, but it certainly made it challenging, heh. I had to turtle and let the enemies come to me. In fact, that's how it mostly was for most of the game. Underleveled, so had to rely on pacing carefully. Except for certain parts...

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Hm? New place opened up? Looks like a fortune teller.

…And that’s exactly what it is, except they use a hyphen between fortune and teller.

…Only available in the evening, huh?

Oh yeah, fortune telling is... well, it does tell you what it does, but through the dialogue, so it might feel a bit roundabout at first.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oof. Seems Ivy is a bad cook. Either that or putting rare fish on steamed dango was a worse idea than I realized because I barely have an idea what steamed dango is. Rank E. And I can’t make the meal again, so it seems like it was a good call not to make Yunaka’s.

Yeah, that's Ivy's bad rank, but only one. The flip side is that otherwise her other rank seems to be exclusively A. She actually has two. One is triggered if the people sharing the meal are Elusian, naturally, but the other... is an Alear-only boost. Which means it always has a chance to trigger as Alear always participate. So I guess it's the trade-off for balance.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

With us in the position of Lyon.

…There are fabricated corrupted dragons, which thankfully are just regular dragons according to their slayer weaknesses. Good. It’d suck if we had to fight corrupted dragons while not having access to either Eirika or Celica.

Player and Emblem positionings aside, the Paralogues are quite good in replicated even the enemy placements of the original chapters, making up for missing classes as possible. Those corrupted dragons? They're the Draco Zombies of the original.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

It’s curious how they’re being inconsistent here. After Lucina and Eirika I assumed the deal was going to be that we’d be put in the positions opposite the team the Emblem in question was-

Well, for Lucina we also began in the original player side. Yes, it's not consistent.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Incidentally, I’m torn on who to give Ike to now. Now that I know for a fact that he can pass down Ragnell… I mean, Louis can make great use of just about every other part of Ike’s kit… but fucking Ragnell. RAG. NELL. I want that on a sword fighter! Someone who can double with it!

I've found Diamant to be a good candidate for him.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Well, I’ll think about it later. For now, Ike’s down. After Yunaka wore down his first health bar, Ivy finished him off.

Wait... how long it took you to beat him? Did you not see the special gimmick that happens in this Paralogue?

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

…According to the arena, in a straight battle between Ivy and Clanne, Ivy appears to win. Noted.

Well, Ivy is a magic nuke. While Clanne... really has poor personal Mag growth.

Also, I'll admit I don't remember, but did Single-Minded triggered in the Arena?

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Ragnell weighs 15. Can anyone wield that unencumbered?

…No, nobody. Diamant and Louis come the closest, at 11 and 12 respectively. Merrin has 10, so she’s not far behind. But basically nobody can wield this awesome sword without getting majorly slowed down. That’s a shame. Maybe once we get Leif back and can inherit the build plus skills? Or maybe there’s a body ring equivalent I can find? If so, that’s definitely going on whoever I decide to give Ike to long-term. And personally? I had more fun with Merrin when she had Ike than when she had Lucina.

Don't worry too much. Build can grow in this game, just like in Thracia.

Edited February 12, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

Alastor15243 · February 12, 2023

22 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Wait... how long it took you to beat him? Did you not see the special gimmick that happens in this Paralogue?

9 turns.

22 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Well, for Lucina we also began in the original player side. Yes, it's not consistent.

Well, Lucina was where she was in the original, and so was Eirika.

Acacia Sgt · February 12, 2023

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

9 turns.

Ah, but did you see him destroy the fort single-handedly? XD

Alastor15243 · February 12, 2023

Just now, Acacia Sgt said:

Ah, but did you see him destroy the fort single-handedly? XD

Nope! That can happen? Also, no, single minded didn't seem to activate.

Acacia Sgt · February 12, 2023

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Nope! That can happen? Also, no, single minded didn't seem to activate.

Yes!

After he starts moving, he will go down to the north side of the fort... and destroy it. Thus it's a bit of a trap if you stay in the initial area, because then you're left exposed to the enemies suddenly rushing from the now exposed gap.

Ah, shame on that, then. It's good to mitigate her accuracy issues. Celica's Tome Precision is a better way, but not one you have access to for now.

Alastor15243 · February 12, 2023

4 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Yes!

After he starts moving, he will go down to the north side of the fort... and destroy it. Thus it's a bit of a trap if you stay in the initial area, because then you're left exposed to the enemies suddenly rushing from the now exposed gap.

Ah, shame on that, then. It's good to mitigate her accuracy issues. Celica's Tome Precision is a better way, but not one you have access to for now.

I haven't noticed any accuracy issues from her. Matter of fact, I don't remember having her miss yet.

Guess that didn't happen because I cut him off using Yunaka and her fog right at the turn in his little area and kept him occupied on her. Does Ike go last in the turn? I seem to remember that being the case but I'm not sure. If so, good design to make sure you aren't ambushed from that.

Acacia Sgt · February 12, 2023

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I haven't noticed any accuracy issues from her. Matter of fact, I don't remember having her miss yet.

Guess that didn't happen because I cut him off using Yunaka and her fog right at the turn in his little area and kept him occupied on her. Does Ike go last in the turn? I seem to remember that being the case but I'm not sure. If so, good design to make sure you aren't ambushed from that.

Well, maybe not now, but Lindwurm's Dex cap is 25, and Ivy carries a -2 to her personal Dex cap. So at 23, it feels quite low once you max levels.

Admittedly, I don't remember if he goes last or not.

Edited February 13, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

Jotari · February 13, 2023

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh hey, also, I experimented putting non-magic Emblems on Clanne on my Maddening file, and I found out that mystic bonuses often consist of adding their magic into their attacks. In fact, Lodestar Rush becomes a purely magical attack when a mage uses Marth!

Oh really. Huh. Well that makes the lack of magic Emblems a bit more tolerable. Though the lack of tome weapons to use on Emblems is still holding it back from magic users a bit.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oof. Seems Ivy is a bad cook. Either that or putting rare fish on steamed dango was a worse idea than I realized because I barely have an idea what steamed dango is. Rank E. And I can’t make the meal again, so it seems like it was a good call not to make Yunaka’s.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Level 11 extends the engage time limit to 4 turns, which isn’t as fantastic for Lucina as it could be for some others… but 15 gets you the Parallel Falchion, doubled chance on dual assist at level 18… and a shortened engage meter at level 20. Okay, I should probably be doing these more.

I feel like extending the engage meter to 4 turns actually hurts a few Emblems. As it means more turns before you can use their special ability again. I really wish there was an "Unengage" option so you can just end an engagement early.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yep, final battle location, more specifically the first part of it, the fight with Lyon.

With Fomortiis's actual chamber being absent. It just ends in the north. Which is a little disappointing. I don't expect us to fight in there too, but continuity of geography would be nice.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

With us in the position of Lyon.

Eirika is the only Emblem that pulls this, I believe. Which is a shame, as I think doing the legacy maps in reverse would be an interesting way to stop them feeling like complete rehashes.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I just realized that Pepsiman reacts to the word “trial” the Emblem uses like it’s the first time he’s hearing about the concept of an Emblem trial. In every single one of these.

Yeah, they even pull this for the later (re)acquired Emblems. I know any of them could potentially be your first paralogue, but I'm sure it could have been written with a little less bafflement.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

It’s curious how they’re being inconsistent here. After Lucina and Eirika I assumed the deal was going to be that we’d be put in the positions opposite the team the Emblem in question was- I thought the deal would be that the Emblem would be where they were in the original fight, and we’d be where the opposing army was. But I guess that’s not a rule, just a coincidence.

I think I would have liked this for Ike in particular. The notion where you have to take down an enemy playing like a defend map is great. Only time I can think of the series doing that was with that Great Wall chapter in Conquest. Here, using high stats and multiple HP bars, you could really simulate playing as the enemy by taking down even one enemy feeling like an achievement.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…I thought stairs maybe gave an avoid bonus I didn’t notice, but no. The deal is just that this berserker fighting Louis has a dexterity of one.

Oh wow. I can't remember off the top of my head, but these enemies definitely aren't that low quality on Maddening. On Maddening these paralogues are freaking brutal.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…I apparently just landed my 100^th critical hit.

…And I’ve killed 1000 individual enemies? Wow, that’s a lot!

Means you've been critting 10% of the enemies you've been killing 0.0

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…No, nobody. Diamant and Louis come the closest, at 11 and 12 respectively. Merrin has 10, so she’s not far behind. But basically nobody can wield this awesome sword without getting majorly slowed down. That’s a shame. Maybe once we get Leif back and can inherit the build plus skills? Or maybe there’s a body ring equivalent I can find? If so, that’s definitely going on whoever I decide to give Ike to long-term. And personally? I had more fun with Merrin when she had Ike than when she had Lucina.

But you can't equip a bond ring at the same time as Ike.

Alastor15243 · February 13, 2023

18 minutes ago, Jotari said:

But you can't equip a bond ring at the same time as Ike.

Body ring. The con stat booster.

18 minutes ago, Jotari said:

With Fomortiis's actual chamber being absent. It just ends in the north. Which is a little disappointing. I don't expect us to fight in there too, but continuity of geography would be nice.

I don't recall Fomortiis's chamber being visible in the original map.

20 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Means you've been critting 10% of the enemies you've been killing 0.0

The fact that one-rounding enemies is still a pretty tricky feat probably has something to do with this.

Jotari · February 13, 2023

5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't recall Fomortiis's chamber being visible in the original map.

Well, no, but that's the because the original map was 2D. Logically the Fomortiis chamber is just up those steps to the north.

Eltosian Kadath · February 13, 2023

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

OH SHIT.

IT GOES ALL THE WAY UP TO LEVEL 20 NOW.

Level 11 extends the engage time limit to 4 turns, which isn’t as fantastic for Lucina as it could be for some others… but 15 gets you the Parallel Falchion, doubled chance on dual assist at level 18… and a shortened engage meter at level 20. Okay, I should probably be doing these more.

Spending the 2k skill points to get that 70% proc chance Dual Assist+ skill on to your Heroes (for more of that double chain attack skill) is a solid little strat, if resource intensive. Admittedly less so once the recruits start coming with close to 2k SP on them.

6 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Actually, those are not Corrupted. They're Training Skirmishes, which only spawn on the Kingdom capitals. Where you fight against the Kingdom's own troops. We saw glimpses of this in the trailers, when they showed up the Chaper 14 map but the party was fighting Solmic troops. I remember there was speculation over what that meant... well, turns out, it was because it was a Training Skirmish. Their gimmick is that Casual mode applies even if you're playing on Classic, you get an extra bit of bonus EXP once you've finished (kinda like in SoV, though it's a set amount that's the same for everybody you deployed), as well as money. I mentioned this before, but they do seem to give more money than the actual Gold Skirmishes.

Huh, I had kinda abandoned skirmishes before trying one of those, and they blatantly sound like the best kind.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Nope! That can happen?

That is a shame. I was also too aggressive to see Ike Koolaid man through the fort, although after hearing about it, and seeing you try to play it like a defense map despite the objective, I was kinda hoping you would get to see that ridiculous maneuver.

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Eirika is the only Emblem that pulls this, I believe. Which is a shame, as I think doing the legacy maps in reverse would be an interesting way to stop them feeling like complete rehashes.

Honestly, most of them fudge the map enough, either by switching up the gimmicks a little, or thanks to different mechanics, or AI behavior (like moving bosses) that they do generally feel really different to the maps they were inspired by. Admittedly I do feel like the Lucina one is a bit of an exception to that, as both versions of the map are fairly simple.

Acacia Sgt · February 13, 2023

4 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Huh, I had kinda abandoned skirmishes before trying one of those, and they blatantly sound like the best kind.

Well, Silver Skirmishes are still better for SP grinding, but yeah, Training Skirmishes do feel like they're the overall best ones of the bunch.

Granted, you still need to increase Donation level to really benefit from them. I know the gold reward scales, but I don't know yet if the bonus EXP does. Recently I did one at Brodia which I have at level 4, and it granted 30 bonus EXP to each. I'd need to do one at Solm, which I have maxed out, to verify.

Jotari · February 13, 2023

7 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Honestly, most of them fudge the map enough, either by switching up the gimmicks a little, or thanks to different mechanics, or AI behavior (like moving bosses) that they do generally feel really different to the maps they were inspired by. Admittedly I do feel like the Lucina one is a bit of an exception to that, as both versions of the map are fairly simple.

Yeah, I don't want to come across as too negative. I just think on a conceptual level it's pretty neat and would have liked to have seen it more. Ultimately there's only one Paralogue map that I was actually underwhelmed by (not Lucina's, that one was fine for what it is). They do genuinely provide pretty great challenges. Even if they go a little top heavy on the number of enemies sometimes (if the Emblems really have this much power, why is Lyn only spawning four clones with 1 hp? I'd rather have the army of longbow horsemen. I jest, I know narratively it's due to the location, still wish I could lure Sobron to one of these areas and just unleash an army of spirit clones on him XD )

Edited February 13, 2023 by Jotari

Shanty Pete's 1st Mate · February 13, 2023

On 2/11/2023 at 6:50 PM, Acacia Sgt said:

So true. I mean, we know it's to give you a reason to buy them, but yeah, both of Celica and Micaiah shouldn't have been given to you so early if they were going to take them away from you. If they were sticking to that, then one of them should've at least been given after. I'd way Micaiah, since as it stands, you loss all three of Tomes, Staffs, and Knives after Chapter 10. Which is what she gives exactly (and surprise, it's also what Soren provides), so you'd have an option.

As for who I'd place earlier... maybe Eirika.

If they just swapped Micaiah and Lyn, then you'd have a neat and clean "first half of the series", "second half of the series" in terms of which Emblems you're getting. You'd also get a means of Bow proficiency pre-skip, outside of Leif, who gives everything. King Hyacinth would lose his doubles and Astral Barrage, but I think multi-target status staves and Rewarp would render him a potent threat regardless.

Not that I'm opposed to giving Eirika more screentime, that is.

On 2/11/2023 at 7:15 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Replaying the game a bit on that Maddening file... I can't help but be reminded of the claim that only divine dragons can enter the Somniel.

So uh...

...Why aren't Lythos's rings kept there? Especially considering it already had a chamber for them.

Only thing I can think is, Queen Lumera wanted immediate access to the Rings, and putting them in the Somniel would leave them further away. As for why she didn't live in the Somniel herself? Shrug. Obviously, she has be approachable for her nonexistent subjects.

On 2/11/2023 at 7:22 PM, Acacia Sgt said:

On that subject... just how exclusive is the Somniel really. It's not like Fort Corrin, secluded in a pocket dimension in an entirety differeent plane of reality. It's just floating really high in the sky. So can it really only be accessed by a portal only Divine Dragons can open? Or could someone in a pegasus/griffon/wyvern just fly really high and arrive that way? I guess not, since otherwise the Somniel might've already been attacked already...

Fort Corrin is actually less exclusive, because you get to play several "Invasion" maps where you defend it against enemy invaders. But I do wonder. We never witness someone attempting to enter the Somniel, but being denied entry. Maybe it's all talk?

On 2/11/2023 at 8:59 PM, Jotari said:

It was a bit of an odd choice to remove Master and Second Seals as conventional items. I guess their opinion was "Why bother". Well, this, this is why to bother. Inventory space is fine to deal with if it makes more interesting choices. Making seals freely available in a default shop also kind of removes their actual presence as items and turns them into a basic fee for promotion. I don't bother to buy a bunch of seals. Since their infinite and right there in the only place I can promote, I just buy one whenever I need one. They could have gotten rid of seals entirely and turned it into a more integrated stylistic thing like in Gaiden where you pray at a statue or something and you'd have the exact same set up if prayer costed money (though yes, I do recall some seals are given as treasure in a few maps).

Now I'm envisioning a system where you promote directly through the Rings themselves (rather than indirectly, via learned proficiencies). I.e. reach level 10 (and B-rank Bond) with Sigurd, and you can promote to "Holy Knight", a cavalry class with Swords and Lances. And if I get the same unit to B-rank with Ike, I can class change them into Vanguard, an armored Sword and Axe class. Of course, this would raise questions like "How do I get Wolf Knight?", and "Should Priestess from Celica be gender-locked, giving male units Sage instead?" Could've been a cool system, but I'm not totally opposed to what tgey came up with.

Assuming the current class system, yeah, there were definitely ways to do it other than the Seals. Ooh, maybe the unit who wants to promote has to feed Sommie, who will then grant them with their desired class change? Alternatively, just have a big statue of Lumera that they can pray (and "donate") to, Valentia style.

On 2/11/2023 at 9:55 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Update on the Maddening file... EXTREMELY good impression of the difficulty. I avoided picking it on my first run because I didn't know what to expect and I traditionally do my blind ironmans on hard anyway, but honestly the usual nonsense pitfalls from early game max difficulty are entirely absent here. Much more along the lines of Conquest than Awakening or New Mystery or Three Houses. Honestly makes me somewhat upset I didn't choose it for this. But I'm probably going to avoid playing it further to avoid spoiling my hard ironman experience.

Interesting. I had been assuming that the difficulty margin between Hard and Maddening was far smaller this time around than it was in 3H, and this definitely reinforces it. I may just try it for my second playthrough, then.

On 2/12/2023 at 2:48 AM, Jotari said:

If the Corrupted Dragons aren't weak to dragon effective weapons then I question what is, because I'm quite sure all the dragons in the game are like this one, except maybe some in the paralogues. They probably just don't feel like they're weak to Wyrmslayers because their defense and HP are so sky high.

Pretty sure my Alear was doing more damage to a Corrupted Wyrm using Liberation (+2), than using their Wyrmslayer. In which case, the Wyrmslayer makes very little sense. Sure, it can do effective damage to enemy Wyverns, but so what? They're already weak to Bows and Wind magic.

Acacia Sgt · February 13, 2023

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

If they just swapped Micaiah and Lyn, then you'd have a neat and clean "first half of the series", "second half of the series" in terms of which Emblems you're getting. You'd also get a means of Bow proficiency pre-skip, outside of Leif, who gives everything. King Hyacinth would lose his doubles and Astral Barrage, but I think multi-target status staves and Rewarp would render him a potent threat regardless.

Not that I'm opposed to giving Eirika more screentime, that is.

It was basically done for symbolism, she and Lucina being the first rings given to you after Chapter 11 lies heavily on symbolism. As it stands, Micaiah being Elusia's ring would also be quite symbolic. Elusia is a snowy country that is antagonistic to you with a King willing to bring back a dark god... that's Daein right there. Micaiah would be a good fit.

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

Fort Corrin is actually less exclusive, because you get to play several "Invasion" maps where you defend it against enemy invaders. But I do wonder. We never witness someone attempting to enter the Somniel, but being denied entry. Maybe it's all talk?

True, but it still worth to point the invaders are all Invisible Soldiers, from what I recall. It is mentioned you need permission from the First Dragons to step into the Astral Plane. And well, Anankos is a First Dragon.

Still, it likely is still more exclusive than the Somniel, depending on if you can enter or not without using the portal.

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

Now I'm envisioning a system where you promote directly through the Rings themselves (rather than indirectly, via learned proficiencies). I.e. reach level 10 (and B-rank Bond) with Sigurd, and you can promote to "Holy Knight", a cavalry class with Swords and Lances. And if I get the same unit to B-rank with Ike, I can class change them into Vanguard, an armored Sword and Axe class. Of course, this would raise questions like "How do I get Wolf Knight?", and "Should Priestess from Celica be gender-locked, giving male units Sage instead?" Could've been a cool system, but I'm not totally opposed to what tgey came up with.

Assuming the current class system, yeah, there were definitely ways to do it other than the Seals. Ooh, maybe the unit who wants to promote has to feed Sommie, who will then grant them with their desired class change? Alternatively, just have a big statue of Lumera that they can pray (and "donate") to, Valentia style.

That would've been interesting.

Funny thing. The Somniel eventually

Spoiler

gains an Alear statue. It's what that big lump of rock in the northeast area gets eventually sculped into, courtesy of Zelkov.

So it would've been a good call-back to Gaiden/SoV, and also perhaps a bit amusing, if that statue had been there from the start, and perhaps more ornate and in its own hall or something, and it's that what the characters pray to to promote. XD

Edited February 13, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

Alastor15243 · February 13, 2023

Engage Day 21: Chapter 17

Alright, no sense in holding this off. This chapter clearly has some sort of anti-Emblem gimmick from the way people in the thread have been talking about it, so no sense doing more paralogues until I’m past it.

Let’s prep.

Hortensia clearly has no idea what she’s doing in the kitchen, but she still managed a B with her peach cake, adding a +2 res bonus for all women.

Hortensia: I packed you a meal! With chaos! I mean love.

PFFFFF

Alright, time for supports.

Pepsiman and Ivy’s C.

Ahhhh, opening up with some good ol’ Pepsiman bread and butter: awkwardness at the weirdness of everyone around him. I’m surprised how they manage to make this endearing every time.

But he asks Ivy to explain Elusia’s whole “worshipping the Fell Dragon” thing.

…But she says no, she’s going to leave, and she drops yet another hint that she knows he’s a Fell Dragon. Which begs the question… how does she know and Zephia doesn’t? Was Hyacinth keeping secrets from Sombron? Or was Sombron keeping secrets from Zephia that he trusted Hyacinth for some reason? The former seems vastly more likely.

Which begs so many questions of how the fuck this support is supposed to go if it happens post-reveal. Is it something Pepsiman himself never finds out in the main story or something?

Pepsiman and Kagetsu’s C.

Kagetsu: Since you appear human, I am curious – what are the differences between dragon and human?

A very good question! But alas, Pepsiman is almost assuredly the worst person to ask that question. He is the most incurious individual about his fantastic heritage that I have ever seen.

…But he does know some things, namely longer lifespan and superior strength and speed.

PFFFFFFFFF

Kagetsu already thinks they’re friends, but Pepsiman’s basically like “Uh, this is our C support man, we’ve barely spoken”. But of course they decide they are friends because this is a Fire Emblem game.

Pepsiman: So I should get comfortable and brace for more questions. Got it.

Maaaaaaaan they’re good at writing the awkwardness.

Alcryst and Ivy’s C.

…Huh… this is… what?

Alcryst is just stone-cold unforgiving to Ivy. Steely, actually, in his interactions with her. No self-deprecation so far, no groveling, just eyes full of “fuck you and the wyvern you flew in on, your dad beat up my dad and killed him”.

…Why he has almost the exact opposite attitude with Hortensia… beggars explanation.

…He’s taken off guard when Ivy actually apologizes for her role in Morion’s death, and they talk about what they’ll need to do to move past this.

…Okay, so, like… I liked this support.

I also liked his support with Hortensia.

I do not like that they both exist in the same reality with the same character with the same personality and motivations.

They feel fundamentally contradictory to me.

Merrin and Kagetsu’s C.

So Kagetsu drops his riceball, and, uh… maybe this is the best time to ask this…

…Where exactly is Kagetsu from?

Like, every Fire Emblem game has an Asian-inspired country, or, bare minimum, a country that invented the katana and knows how to use it. Whether it’s the nomads of Sacae, or the swordmasters of Isaach, or the unseen Valmese land of Chon’sin that’s heavily implied to just be Ram Village under new management, the devs always find some way to justify putting Glorious Nippon Steel and the warriors who love it into the game, usually in the form of the killing edge or wo dao (which, fun fact, is Chinese for “Japanese sword”).

Where is that place here? Because Kagetsu’s clearly from it, what with how blatantly Japanese he is. Clearly there’s some part of this world with a culture heavily based on Japan. Is it a part of Elusia? Or is he an immigrant still heavily attached to his home culture despite for a while being so loyal to his new country that he’d commit war crimes for it?

If it’s the latter, I’m betting it’s Firene, because you just know they’d want it to be a place where cherry blossoms bloom majestically. I seriously doubt it’s a Brodian territory. Given Elusia’s animosity with Brodia I seriously doubt that he managed to become a high-ranking member of the Elusian royal guard while decked out from head to toe in Brodian swag. And maybe I could make a better guess as to the odds of it being Solmic if I had any idea how the fuck the ethnic demographics of Solm even work. Seriously, the rulers are black, the citizens are middle-eastern, and the retainers are white. What gives?

But anyway, Kagetsu drops his rice ball, and Merrin offers him some candy.

PFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Merrin is completely taken aback that the reason Kagetsu needed energy was to challenge Princess Timerra to single combat. And Merrin… takes exception to that. Not sure why. Kagetsu clearly means it in good sporting fun, and Timerra… does not remotely strike me as the sort of person who would object to a fight. I guess she just has a complex about chivalry and protecting her liege even when she doesn’t need protecting. Which makes sense with the whole knight obsession thing. And she’s basically like “if you want to fight her, you have to get through me first!” and Kagetsu’s like “Oh hey! Sure! That sounds fun too!”

…Except no, he backtracks and says he “would not feel right about repaying [her] so roughly”. So he backs down. “For now”.

Finally, Kagetsu and Céline’s C.

Oh yeah! I just realized another reason why I initially thought Céline was the crown child and not Alfred: her crown! Her fucking crown is so much swankier than Alfred’s, it’s hilarious. Alfred barely even has a crown, it’s more of a wreath! Meanwhile Céline has that fucking high-spired golden monolith with flowers over the head and butterflies on the sides! Hell, her crown is fancier than her fucking mom’s!

…But yeah, Kagetsu invites her to tea, and when she says she just had tea, challenges her to mock combat, and she laughs about how most people wouldn’t do those things in such quick succession so casually to a princess. It’s short, but it gives me a more solidified impression of Kagetsu’s personality.

Alright. Bullet, meet teeth.

Let’s jump into Chapter 17.

…And we’re clearly not using their teleportation powers to beat Elusia to the punch, and they seem to have set fire to Florra port.

…Well, that was… curious. Has the game done that before? Done a panning shot of a map like that? Not in cutscene form, but clearly the same map we’ll be fighting on when the battle starts?

…Uh…

…Please don’t tell me that Zephia and Griss are about to try and frame us for setting fire to Florra port in front of Good Veyle. That would be so beyond idiotic and absurd. Especially when Firene’s crown prince is present.

…No, seems not. Good. But Veyle insists they only just got to port when it was already on fire. And since this is Good Veyle, she isn’t lying. So did they send people ahead of them to do this?

Pepsiman: You’re Sombron’s daughter. How can you not know what his forces are doing?

A VERY GOOD QUESTION.

Veyle: I’m… not sure.

A VERY BAD ANSWER.

…And Zephia and Griss flat-out tell Veyle that she’s the one who ordered the town burned. Guess she had a very quick “nap” on the ship and stayed evil just long enough to do that. Either that or they’re gaslighting her with lies… to convince her of something true… that they’ve been trying to keep from her before.

It seems that the bad guys are just… emotionally torturing her with the reveal that she has an evil side… in front of the heroes that it would really benefit them not to vindicate Good Veyle in front of.

…So it was Zephia who did the brainwashing to create Evil Veyle.

Zephia: There you have it, Lady Veyle! I’d say the misunderstanding has been resolved.

…Okay. As much as this scene is idiotic sadism for the sake of sadism that isn’t even the most practical way to be sadistic… I do like that line. How she kept her word in the worst possible way.

And now we get a cutscene where Zephia puts Good Veyle to sleep.

Evil Veyle: You know, seeing as how I don’t share memories with that pathetic little girl, I had no idea you and I were friends now.

THEN HOW DO YOU KNOW IT NOW!? NOBODY SAID ANYTHING ABOUT IT SINCE YOU WOKE UP!

Alright, cutscene ends, we’re on the map, and…

Evil Veyle: Oh, that’s right. I have an exciting surprise for you.

Here it comes. What’s up now?

…Corrupted… Hyacinth…?

Speaking in complete sentences?

Evil Veyle apparently has a greater talent for bringing back the dead as zombie servants than even Sombron, according to her. Hence why this one looks so much more human.

Particularly impressive since Sombron fucking digested him.

So she can apparently resurrect the dead just like they used to be, “but at times that can be a hindrance, so [she] made some modifications”.

Lemme guess, this is why Lumera had such a weird defeat quote for a friendly spar?

Also, okay, really? Veyle can fucking resurrect the dead with zero consequences, and they haven’t been using this to have Marni and Griss actually genuinely repeatedly die? Like, okay, with Zephia maybe I’d believe she can’t completely resurrect a dragon, sure, and maybe I’d believe that having Mauvier get reanimated might have some consequences for when he’s recruited, especially if she got rid of his redeeming qualities, but surely, surely the story could have let Marni and Griss die repeatedly before now, no?

…So, Veyle says all the Emblem Rings are here. All of them.

Oh shit.

Oh shit.

Please tell me this is where we get all of the rings back!

…So Marni has Roy. Hold on… does that mean that even the unrecruitable bosses have growth rates at least for use with Roy’s skill?

…Griss has Celica and is… a sage?

Seriously?

If I expected anyone in the game to use arts, it would be this fucker.

Then again, the ab window is on form for sages in this game, as I so uncomfortably learned.

…Griss has bolganone, which looks absolutely devastating. Not to mention the whole “warp Ragnarok” thing.

Mauvier has Micaiah, which is profoundly redundant given he could already use staves as a royal knight. And they didn’t even give him any truly scary staves to use with her powers, just recover.

Zephia has Sigurd. Her reach is long, but thankfully Alcryst’s is longer. She has stalwart, so effectiveness is reduced, but reduced doesn’t mean negated. He should still do a decent amount of damage, and the point is to get her to start moving so we don’t have to get uncomfortably close to her before we can fight her.

Hyacinth has Leif, and also the killer axe and master lance, along with a speed-bosting art. Which means he has WTA on everything but arts and axes. Incidentally… Heroes declared that the Master Sword has been officially localized as the Meisterschwert (German for the same). Understandable why they wouldn’t want people to think it was an LoZ reference, even though they could get away with it as a Nintendo Property.

…So why isn’t this Master Lance called the Meisterlanze?

Veyle has Marth… but curiously lacks that personal dagger I saw her have last time. The Misericorde I believe it was called? But she still has her personal tome.

Oh shit! Micaiah’s advanced tome is nosferatu! Wow, that’s gonna make Clanne pretty impressive once she’s back on him! Yeah, I’ve decided I’m gonna reclass him to mage knight right after I get Micaiah back. Physic and rewarp are rank C, amazingly, so he’ll be more than good enough with staves.

Alright, hopefully the only reason the DLC Emblems undermine this is that it keeps it from being a 6 on 6 Emblem battle. That is… a better reason for this comment being made than I was dreading. Alright.

We’ve got two corrupted wyrms, and they’re close to each other, but the perimeter around them has tons of refill tiles, so I think Rosado can handle this. I’m going to avoid getting into their ranges before he’s ready to fight them, though.

This should be a somewhat rough fight, but the good news is that I have one unit who can enemy-phase all the units half the time (Merrin + Ike), one who can enemy-phase half of the units all of the time (Louis), and another who can enemy-phase all of the units all of the time (Yunaka + Corrin). Plus, I have a pretty decent chunk of units who are good on player phase. I’m not too worried.

Unless they throw a massive curve-ball at me after the start menu.

Well, only one way to find out.

…Ooh! New music! Ominous blaring horns and thunderous drums, okay, what’s next…?

…Okay, this is pretty good at setting the tone but not particularly-

OH SHIT, THAT CHORUS IS SO SAD. I GOT CHILLS WHEN VEYLE’S LEITMOTIF STARTED PLAYING.

…Alright, let’s get moving. Alcryst will definitely be able to recharge his special by the time it’s time to face Zephia, so I had him come out the gate with an Astra storm on an archer guarding the first corrupted wyrm. Given that Rosado’s the one who’s going to be fighting them, yeaaaaah, best to get that out of the way.

Speaking of which, I’ve confirmed that the effective damage formula is the same here as in other games. Triple weapon might. Which is unfortunate, given that the game doesn’t give you any way to look at raw weapon might inside battle. You have to just subtract strength from your total power if you wanna calculate how much damage enemy slayers will do. Probably the most annoying part of the interface in a game that makes a lot of improvements, I have to say. This honestly feels like a sidestep from the upper-tier games in a frustrating way. It had the right ideas to surpass Fates but made a couple of frustrating mistakes that hold it back.

…And a lot of enemies are rushing me from the start! Noted!

Griss is gonna warp Ragnarok us, but thankfully, only Seadall can’t take the hit. Just gotta make sure he’s not in range, and also that Griss doesn’t get the chance to end his turn on defensive terrain, which could be a paaaaain.

…I’ve also noticed that broken units, despite not holding their weapon, still hold their hands out like they are. Which for two-handed weapons looks really odd.

Griss: You hit me, I hit you! Let’s get this pain party started!

It is simultaneously fitting and ironic that Griss has Celica as his Emblem. Celica has the closest thing so far I’ve seen to a counter skill… but it only works on the minions of his own side.

Also, thankfully he’s using Seraphim and not bolganone. Bolganone would severely limit the number of units who could survive attacking him.

…They’re running away when we beat them.

Please tell me we nab their rings.

…No mention of it. Guess we’ll have to wait until after the battle to see how many, if any, of these rings we manage to recover.

…A lot of enemies, including a corrupted wyrm, are rushing us at once. And Yunaka can’t stem the enemies coming from the other direction without ending her turn adjacent to two backup units, so let’s, uh, not risk that. Instead, I’ll be using Pepsiman’s big dance to get enough moves to get all of these enemies dead by the end of player phase.

…I wonder why the Goddess Dance has a water motif. Water’s Azura’s thing when it comes to dancers, no? I don’t remember the Goddess Dance being associated with water in Three Houses. But then, I tend to repress a lot of my memories from Three Houses.

Query: Dragon veins dispel miasma. Do they also put out fires?

Answer: Yes! They do!

Awesome, good to know! Yunaka will be on bucket brigade while she, Louis, Clanne and Framme go up north and then west. The rest will go after Marni and Mauvier from the south, then we’ll regroup when we fight the second corrupted wyrm.

I baited in Marni with Merrin using Great Aether and Urvan, and Mauvier is now on the move. Also, I learned that apparently you can still technically be broken while using Great Aether, but since Great Aether starts at the very, very start of your player phase, it doesn’t cancel the attack.

I just barely managed to finish off Marni and her armor knights. Roy’s “don’t die” ability really complicated things and doubled the number of attacks I needed to use to finish the job. But by leaving the weak healer alive and using the hopelessly heavy silver bow on Marni while in range of a slow royal knight, I just barely managed to do it. Meanwhile, Yunaka will attract the attention of most of the other forces. Now to step on that refill tile with Rosado before the corrupted wyrm gets too close. Maybe Seadall can help.

…Okay so Yunaka only managed to attract the attention of Mauvier. But that’s fine.

Seadall managed to get Rosado to take out an enemy and step on a refill tile. Excellent. Now to finish off the rest.

…Okay, so “night and day” seems to not cost you any of your other actions. Interesting. Good to experiment with that when I have the chance.

Also, I noticed Mauvier seemed to make it plain in his battle dialogue that he’s loyal to Veyle. I suspect that’s how we’ll recruit him, through that. Though really, it would’ve been nice if we got a single scene before now between Good Veyle and Mauvier so we could see their dynamic.

OH SHIT, EVERYONE’S CHARGING US!

Okay, so, Merrin’s doing something pretty damned risky and ballsy, and running right up to the corrupted wyrm with her silver dagger and her last turn of Ike engagement. She hobbled the thing, meaning it’ll have to attack her from a range she can counter, and with all damage she takes halved and no backups nearby, she should be able to wreak havoc on these upcoming cavalry. Now I just have to get my army ready to make a shockingly, dazzlingly impressive player phase gambit. Meanwhile, Yunaka’s using her fog to keep Mauvier from attacking anyone but her. She’ll join the fight as soon as she and her allies can finish him off.

Thankfully the only one who isn’t charging us right now is the absolute last one I’d want charging anybody: Zephia. Meaning we still have time to finish off these enemies before the hounds are upon us.

…I totally forgot they were literally called hounds when I wrote that, I swear.

Alright, thankfully I managed to get Hyacinth to pay attention to Yunaka. That way all my main southern group has to worry about is Veyle. I can have Yunaka retreat and fog up in order to keep Hyacinth from being able to ever use quad hit on her if that turns out to be lethally dangerous. But we’ll see how dangerous it is when we see the damage indicator. For now, he has to attack with the master lance if he wants to attack her.

Key word being attack, not hit.

Corrupted Hyacinth: I remember nothing... That look on your face – is it fear or hatred?

Interestingly, this is a haiku that gave two of its middle verse’s syllables to its outer ones.

Hyacinth doesn’t seem to be programmed to use Quad Hit. I’m not getting the warning message that it’s happening.

…I just did something that seems like it will work, but also seems batshit suicidally insane.

I just had Yunaka attract the attention of both Hyacinth and Veyle at once.

Veyle: Ah, a new toy! I’m going to enjoy this. Can you defeat your old friend Marth?

…Strangely fitting that she says this to Yunaka, who was Marth’s last partner.

I used Alcryst’ special to finish off Veyle’s first health bar, and she goes ultra instinct, unlocking Mercurius. Thankfully, she hasn’t got shit on Yunaka, especially if she backs away to avoid getting Lodestar Rushed.

…Weirdly, Veyle doesn’t seem inclined to use Lodestar Rush at all anymore. Despite the fact that she was ready to use it when I initially approached her with Yunaka, prompting me to take a step back to be safe.

I’ve taken out both of the healers who were annoyedly physicing the bosses, so now it’s just a matter of time before Veyle and Hyacinth fall. And I’ll make sure that Zephia finds the main army a closer and more tempting target, because if she flies with her movement score near Yunaka’s group, no amount of fog will be able to hold the line.

…It would seem that “adaptable” prioritizes being able to counterattack over WTA. Which makes sense in some circumstances, but makes it easier for me to do my job after Hyacinth charged in after us.

…Meaning Ivy gets to have a chat with dear ol’ dad.

Oh shit. This conversation goes hard.

Ivy: Father. I’ve not seen you since we were at the Brodian border. That was our farewell. In this life, at least.

Corrupted Hyacinth: It need not be. I can appeal to Lord Sombron – ask him to welcome you back as our ally.

Ivy: No. You are… not you. I will not cling tearfully to my father’s shadow. But I am grateful for this. Grateful for the chance to thank you, say goodbye, and tell you that as Elusia’s queen… I will surpass you.

Honestly, the saddest part of this game for me is that they set out right out of the gate with a premise full of cheesy nonsense… only to proceed to demonstrate that they could have made something much more.

And now I’m sending poor Hortensia to fight her father too. She says she wants to follow the path of her father. Her real father. Before Sombron ruined him. And then she says goodbye, and that she loves him.

Now let’s let Alcryst get the finishing blow on the man who killed his father. With the help of the Emblem he used to do it.

…No dialogue? Really? Fuck, that would’ve been great.

But anyway, Alcryst still levels from it, a pretty good one at that, and gets Luna, his class skill.

Yunaka defeats Veyle, and now all that’s left is Zephia, who’s missed her opportunity to fuck us up by making us deal with three bosses at once.

Anyway, I have Merrin engage and bait her in.

Aaaand she’s down!

…And judging by what the villains are saying, we only managed to recover Leif’s ring, since Hyacinth was the only one who actually died.

Mauvier pointedly says he’ll take Marth’s ring. Which means that’s probably what we’re getting next.

…Oh shit.

Oh shit.

I think Veyle’s turned good again, and is pretending to be Evil Veyle in order to order Zephia to give Sigurd to her.

The camera is very conspicuously pointed away from Veyle so we can’t see her tell-tale color-changing eyes.

Are we getting Marth and Sigurd back now?

Yep! Well, at least Sigurd.

…The backdrop’s still on the shore, despite the cutscene showing her throwing it from a boat.

…Actually I’m not sure what it is. From the brief glimps of what I saw it looked like a raft that gave way to the water on one side… and to the roof of Peach’s castle on the other.

Zephia slaps Veyle and voices her intentions of silencing Good Veyle forever.

…Timerra’s… like… present in this conversation with the good guys for some reason… despite so far not saying a word.

…Okay, she has one line.

…Either this game has a really cool method of imposing an ending to the song on almost any point of it… or I timed the song perfectly to end right at this very slow, beautiful piano ending, before the dead silence that follows in the exploration.

…Which would probably be more impactful if they gave some damned ocean ambiance. All I can hear, literally all I can hear, is the faint audible glowing of the “proceed” zone. It’s frankly eerie, and not the good kind of eerie. If this were meant to be, like, the world after Ashera turned everyone to stone? Sure, this kind of eerie would be chilling. But it just makes the area feel pathetically incomplete.

…Okay, so the ocean sounds do show up when we get closer to the harbor. But there shouldn’t be dead silence around the exit.

And the game lets us adopt cats that I suppose we’re supposed to assume belong to people who have died, and not survivors whose cats merely got lost in the chaos.

Villager: All my prayers were for nothing. So much for gods…

Oof. That kinda hit hard.

Alright, exit scene time.

…or not. Just straight to the world map this time?

…Alright. Time for some cleanup then. And I’ve got something I know I want to do now.

Merrin’s gonna take a trip to the arena to build up some bonds.

First, train with Leif to level 6.

…Then Ike to level 15.

And with that…

…Merrin can inherit build+4 and wield Ragnell with only a single point of penalty in speed!

…Well no, she doesn’t have the SP yet.

But she will.

And she can at least get build+3, so only a 2 penalty.

And now Sigurd’s going back where he belongs, on his old friend Louis, and Leif… Hmmm… Well Diamant has kinda fallen out of use, so who to put Leif on…

…And here we run into a bit of a problem.

We’ve sort of run out of physical units to put physical Emblems on. And Leif unfortunately doesn’t seem to provide any good benefits for mages. Lessee, who does that I might be overlooking?

…Well for now I can always give Byleth to Clanne and then Leif to Pepsiman, but that’s just a quick fix, really. Two of the remaining four are still physical-focused (though Marth at least can be put on a mystical unit with pretty kickass results). And who the fuck am I gonna put on my dancer? The only one of them he stands to gain any real benefit from as far as I can tell is Sigurd, and that seems like a titanic waste.

…Maybe something more sensible will come to me later, when I’m looking at all 12. Also I’m assuming 12 will remain the maximum deployment limit for the rest of the game. A big assumption.

For now, Pepsiman gets Leif, Clanne gets Byleth.

…Weirdly, Sigurd’s ring is fairly dirty, while Leif’s is mostly clean. Did the enemy just consistently maintain them at the same amount of dirt I left on them last time I had them? That is… spectacularly ridiculous to think about.

Also, the firm polishing seems to consistently weird the Emblems out no matter how dirty they are when you use it. They all act like it’s overkill and that the ring isn’t dirty enough to warrant it.

…No, it seems more like there are specific spots you’re supposed to clean… the game is just very bad at making it apparent what those spots are.

…I thiiiiiiink that now I’m going to go on a paralogue spree. Just catch up on my backlog. Starting with Lyn, since Alcryst is at level 10 with that.

Ivy is surprisingly high level for a pretty much exclusively player-phase unit. Lindwurm level 10. She’s somehow my highest level unit, in an army that includes Yunaka. Also, she got a near total level up and said “The Divine Dragon has blessed me”.

…Which makes me think there could be an alternative, far more spoiler-irrelevant, explanation for all of her “my deity” and “worship” comments. I may have jumped the gun and drawn the wrong conclusion entirely from that. She could just straight up be a secret Divine Dragon worshipper. None of this “she somehow knows Pepsiman’s true identity when not even Zephia does” stuff, she’s just a secret Divine Dragon worshipper who’s kept this hidden from her Sombron-worshipping family.

…Which could make the reveal quite amusing in that context.

Rosado lost to Alcryst due to luna. I mean, awesome for him, but Rosado was the one I needed to win for the level up.

…There’s a new thing at the training yard. A dragon wing icon?

…Wyvern Ride?

…Seems like a flying minigame. Alright, let’s check it out!

LILITH IS HELPING! SHE’S SITTING ON A WYVERN’S HEAD! THAT’S ADORABLE!

Okay, so it’s more of a rail shooter, which isn’t that fun, but on the plus side, I apparently got a SSS ranking on my first try. Lilith helped by exploding certain I’m assuming Lilith-only tiles for me. That got me 100 bond fragments, two elixirs and a vulnerary. Okay, cool. Let’s see what else… do the stories have anything new, incidentally?

Some more physics, a fortify, warp and rescue, infinite obstruct staves, infinite reclassing and promotion at long last, pretty good haul, but I’m still short on cash to spend on it. Hopefully the cash I’ve seen periodically dropped in paralogues will somewhat ameliorate that. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something.

I’ve got some supports too, so let’s get through those.

Pepsiman and Alcryst’s B.

…Alcryst… apparently continuously stands at the ready to bow in case he needs to apologize for something.

…Sigh.

…It’s kind of depressing how being so miserable can make you annoying.

But like, seriously, why is he like this? Nobody is just “like this”. Like, Bernadetta was like this because she was physically and emotionally abused by her shit of a father and terrified of shaming herself or angering the people around her, to the point that she fled social interaction whenever possible just to minimize the chances of fucking up. That makes sense. But like, Morion gave no signs that he was remotely anything like Bernadetta’s father. In fact, from the brief glimpse we got, he seemed aware of and sad about his son’s low self-esteem, but utterly clueless how to fix it. So what the fuck happened to this guy?

Merrin and Rosado’s C.

Oh shit! Tomboy meets femboy! Let’s goooooooo-

…Creepy ominous music is playing, like, bad guy music, which makes me certain I’m being set up for a bait and switch joke where they’re taking something utterly stupid completely seriously.

Yeah, they’re talking about battling, so what’s their utterly stupid battle going to be about?

PFFFFFFFFF

Rosado: Cool versus cute!

…They’re apparently going to go on a scavenger hunt, Rosado looking for the cutest thing he can find, Merrin the coolest thing she can find, and they’ll compare.

I will say, part of me was hoping this was going to be about Rosado’s wyvern. Merrin would be a good avenue for that, what with her love of animals, and it would be nice to get some background on how Rosado wound up being a wyvern knight. I want that story.

…Merrin did an explosion sound effect that wasn’t in the script before “blow your mind” and it was hysterical.

Hortensia and Rosado’s C.

So Rosado drew Hortensia while she was staring into space, and Hortensia thinks she looks boring, but Rosado likes it.

…Yeah, I’m intrigued. I wonder where this is going. This could be interesting.

Also, bonds.

Pepsiman and Byleth’s B.

…Pepsiman just wanted to call Byleth professor. Okay.

…Ah yes, the Vajra-Mushti. I wonder if those still use a mix of physical and magical power. At least it targets the lower of def and res.

Yunaka and Corrin’s B.

…Yunaka’s just gaslighting the girl fighting literally right alongside her, trying to deny how scary she gets in combat.

Rosado and Eirika’s C.

Eirika compliments Rosado’s drawing ability, while Rosado’s all “Girl I like your face”, obladi, oblada, bond is done brah.

Speaking of bonds, unless Maddening does something to more heavily punish dodgetanking, I think Corrin may be way too overpowered. Personally, I think dragon vein should have been while engaged only. That might have done some good to put a cap on how broken Yunaka can be with her. But then, Yunaka’s just as invincible on any defensive terrain; all this does is let her take it with her. I suppose coverts being way too easy to turn into dodgetanks is the real problem.

Oh well, we’ll see how later chapters handle this.

I find it hilarious that Goldmary in her swimsuit by the pool says she takes well to the water, when in her intro chapter she was complaining about how gross the rising tide was.

…Okay, I think I’m done with the Somniel for now. Tomorrow I’m going to do my best to do Lyn’s paralogue. After that? Well, I’m gonna see if I’m ballsy enough to try Eirika’s, probably. Like I said.

I.

Need.

Closure.

Alastor, signing off.

Acacia Sgt · February 13, 2023

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

…But she says no, she’s going to leave, and she drops yet another hint that she knows he’s a Fell Dragon. Which begs the question… how does she know and Zephia doesn’t? Was Hyacinth keeping secrets from Sombron? Or was Sombron keeping secrets from Zephia that he trusted Hyacinth for some reason? The former seems vastly more likely.

Which begs so many questions of how the fuck this support is supposed to go if it happens post-reveal. Is it something Pepsiman himself never finds out in the main story or something?

Ah, it pays off in the rest of the support chain.

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Why he has almost the exact opposite attitude with Hortensia… beggars explanation.

My guess? Since Hortensia is younger than him and/or the younger Elusian princess.

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

What gives?

Oh, the game does say. I think in his... Alear support chain, was it. I just got that support yesterday in fact where he says where exactly he is from.

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

It seems that the bad guys are just… emotionally torturing her with the reveal that she has an evil side… in front of the heroes that it would really benefit them not to vindicate Good Veyle in front of.

And this is why I both like and not like the whole misunderstanding thing.

Good part? It's not allowed to last for long.

Bad part? If they were doing this to begin with... why drop it so quickly?

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

So she can apparently resurrect the dead just like they used to be, “but at times that can be a hindrance, so [she] made some modifications”.

So as it turns out, when Hortensia brought up about her father being could be brought back...

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Lemme guess, this is why Lumera had such a weird defeat quote for a friendly spar?

Say Chekhov, why are you hanging that gun on the wall?

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also, okay, really? Veyle can fucking resurrect the dead with zero consequences, and they haven’t been using this to have Marni and Griss actually genuinely repeatedly die? Like, okay, with Zephia maybe I’d believe she can’t completely resurrect a dragon, sure, and maybe I’d believe that having Mauvier get reanimated might have some consequences for when he’s recruited, especially if she got rid of his redeeming qualities, but surely, surely the story could have let Marni and Griss die repeatedly before now, no?

You still need to play quite a bit to reach that answer.

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Please tell me this is where we get all of the rings back!

*whistling*

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

…So Marni has Roy. Hold on… does that mean that even the unrecruitable bosses have growth rates at least for use with Roy’s skill?

I'd think so.

...

Wave 4 Spoilers:

Spoiler

Or rather, Madeline does...

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Hyacinth has Leif, and also the killer axe and master lance, along with a speed-bosting art. Which means he has WTA on everything but arts and axes. Incidentally… Heroes declared that the Master Sword has been officially localized as the Meisterschwert (German for the same). Understandable why they wouldn’t want people to think it was an LoZ reference, even though they could get away with it as a Nintendo Property.

Probably don't want to make an association regardless. Would you see Nintendo reusing the name Mario without being a reference?

*remembers Bow Knight Mario from the Genealogy Arena*

... eh... never mind...

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

…So why isn’t this Master Lance called the Meisterlanze?

I wonder. We'd have to wait until either of Mystery or Thracia get an official localization.

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Please tell me we nab their rings.

Ahahahahahaha... no.

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Query: Dragon veins dispel miasma. Do they also put out fires?

Answer: Yes! They do!

I mean, it'd be weird if it would come back...

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Honestly, the saddest part of this game for me is that they set out right out of the gate with a premise full of cheesy nonsense… only to proceed to demonstrate that they could have made something much more.

If they could only spare enough... good thing this was one of them.

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

…And judging by what the villains are saying, we only managed to recover Leif’s ring, since Hyacinth was the only one who actually died.

Pretty much.

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Are we getting Marth and Sigurd back now?

Yep! Well, at least Sigurd.

Now remind me why Mauvier conveniently asked for his Ring again...?

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

…No, it seems more like there are specific spots you’re supposed to clean… the game is just very bad at making it apparent what those spots are.

It's a game of hot and cold. The sparkles indicate how far you are. More sparkles, the closer you are. When the characters give out blue music notes, that's when you know you found it. So you can now firmly polish the area for greater bond gain.

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ivy is surprisingly high level for a pretty much exclusively player-phase unit. Lindwurm level 10. She’s somehow my highest level unit, in an army that includes Yunaka. Also, she got a near total level up and said “The Divine Dragon has blessed me”.

Ah, just like my game.

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Which makes me think there could be an alternative, far more spoiler-irrelevant, explanation for all of her “my deity” and “worship” comments. I may have jumped the gun and drawn the wrong conclusion entirely from that. She could just straight up be a secret Divine Dragon worshipper. None of this “she somehow knows Pepsiman’s true identity when not even Zephia does” stuff, she’s just a secret Divine Dragon worshipper who’s kept this hidden from her Sombron-worshipping family.

Ding ding ding. Bingo!

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, so it’s more of a rail shooter, which isn’t that fun, but on the plus side, I apparently got a SSS ranking on my first try. Lilith helped by exploding certain I’m assuming Lilith-only tiles for me. That got me 100 bond fragments, two elixirs and a vulnerary. Okay, cool. Let’s see what else… do the stories have anything new, incidentally?

And that's Ivy's station... unlocked way after she joined, for some reason.

No, that's just Sommie's help when at high/max affection. You can blow those yourself too... I think.

Then again, it giving you items to use or sell means it's very useful to have that early I guess.

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

But like, seriously, why is he like this? Nobody is just “like this”. Like, Bernadetta was like this because she was physically and emotionally abused by her shit of a father and terrified of shaming herself or angering the people around her, to the point that she fled social interaction whenever possible just to minimize the chances of fucking up. That makes sense. But like, Morion gave no signs that he was remotely anything like Bernadetta’s father. In fact, from the brief glimpse we got, he seemed aware of and sad about his son’s low self-esteem, but utterly clueless how to fix it. So what the fuck happened to this guy?

Self-esteems issues from being the younger brother? Don't know, really.

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Eirika compliments Rosado’s drawing ability, while Rosado’s all “Girl I like your face”, obladi, oblada, bond is done brah.

Shame no reference to Forde, though.

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I find it hilarious that Goldmary in her swimsuit by the pool says she takes well to the water, when in her intro chapter she was complaining about how gross the rising tide was.

Well, I'd assume the pool water is much more cleaner.

Edited February 13, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

Eltosian Kadath · February 14, 2023

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Alright, hopefully the only reason the DLC Emblems undermine this is that it keeps it from being a 6 on 6 Emblem battle. That is… a better reason for this comment being made than I was dreading. Alright.

Yeah that is what I meant. Sorry about spooking you with that comment.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I just barely managed to finish off Marni and her armor knights. Roy’s “don’t die” ability really complicated things and doubled the number of attacks I needed to use to finish the job. But by leaving the weak healer alive and using the hopelessly heavy silver bow on Marni while in range of a slow royal knight, I just barely managed to do it. Meanwhile, Yunaka will attract the attention of most of the other forces. Now to step on that refill tile with Rosado before the corrupted wyrm gets too close. Maybe Seadall can help.

Marni is really obnoxious thanks to that miracle power on this map, especially if you end up leaving some of the heals alive.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Alright, thankfully I managed to get Hyacinth to pay attention to Yunaka. That way all my main southern group has to worry about is Veyle. I can have Yunaka retreat and fog up in order to keep Hyacinth from being able to ever use quad hit on her if that turns out to be lethally dangerous. But we’ll see how dangerous it is when we see the damage indicator. For now, he has to attack with the master lance if he wants to attack her.

I seem to remember Hyacinth not being overly dangerous with Quad Hit, as he has a kinda low strength stat...

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Weirdly, Veyle doesn’t seem inclined to use Lodestar Rush at all anymore. Despite the fact that she was ready to use it when I initially approached her with Yunaka, prompting me to take a step back to be safe.

Huh weird, I wonder why that is, as I certainly baited her into using it. I wonder if its just that you prevented it by keeping her from reaching 1-range with the fog.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Meaning Ivy gets to have a chat with dear ol’ dad.

Oh shit. This conversation goes hard.

Yeah the convos Ivy and Hortensia have are both great little moments for Engage's writing. Engage came in by setting the bar low, and now overshoots expectations with things like this.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh shit.

I think Veyle’s turned good again, and is pretending to be Evil Veyle in order to order Zephia to give Sigurd to her.

The camera is very conspicuously pointed away from Veyle so we can’t see her tell-tale color-changing eyes.

That was a nice touch, although the voices of Evil and Good Veyle are just too different to fool people watching it.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But like, seriously, why is he like this? Nobody is just “like this”. Like, Bernadetta was like this because she was physically and emotionally abused by her shit of a father and terrified of shaming herself or angering the people around her, to the point that she fled social interaction whenever possible just to minimize the chances of fucking up. That makes sense. But like, Morion gave no signs that he was remotely anything like Bernadetta’s father. In fact, from the brief glimpse we got, he seemed aware of and sad about his son’s low self-esteem, but utterly clueless how to fix it. So what the fuck happened to this guy?

He could just have anxiety.

1 hour ago, Acacia Sgt said:

And that's Ivy's station... unlocked way after she joined, for some reason.

I have heard that it only unlocks after Alear promotes, so when exactly it unlocks tends to be a bit variable depending on the player.

Alastor15243 · February 14, 2023

3 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Huh weird, I wonder why that is, as I certainly baited her into using it. I wonder if its just that you prevented it by keeping her from reaching 1-range with the fog.

Nope! Her line never turned black and Lodestar Rush never showed up in the corner of the screen to show how much damage she'd do! It happened once when I was approaching her and then never again.

4 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Yeah that is what I meant. Sorry about spooking you with that comment.

No prob.

Acacia Sgt · February 14, 2023

11 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I have heard that it only unlocks after Alear promotes, so when exactly it unlocks tends to be a bit variable depending on the player.

Oh, does it?

I'm gonna have to admit I don't remember when I promoted Alear and when the minigame unlocked for me...

Alastor15243 · February 14, 2023

Just now, Acacia Sgt said:

Oh, does it?

I'm gonna have to admit I don't remember when I promoted Alear and when the minigame unlocked for me...

And I promoted Pepsiman a few chapters ago. Maybe I failed a spot check but I could've sworn I looked in that general area of the Somniel map enough to notice if it happened sooner.

Jotari · February 14, 2023

7 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

It was basically done for symbolism, she and Lucina being the first rings given to you after Chapter 11 lies heavily on symbolism. As it stands, Micaiah being Elusia's ring would also be quite symbolic. Elusia is a snowy country that is antagonistic to you with a King willing to bring back a dark god... that's Daein right there. Micaiah would be a good fit.

That's the thing about symbolism. You can kind of stretch it each way. Lyn and Lucina do make a degree of symbolic sense being obtained when they are, but the fact that they give identical weapons is an unfortunate gameplay impact that I think should override that symbolism and prompt at least one different character.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…And Zephia and Griss flat-out tell Veyle that she’s the one who ordered the town burned. Guess she had a very quick “nap” on the ship and stayed evil just long enough to do that. Either that or they’re gaslighting her with lies… to convince her of something true… that they’ve been trying to keep from her before.

I got the impression the attack had been ordered before she woke up in Solm. Hence why Griss said they should go to Firene.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Particularly impressive since Sombron fucking digested him.

Yeah, I have a lot of issues with Fallen Hayacinth, which I detailed elsewhere. My feelings have mellowed a bit since first playing the chapter, but I still think the whole thing could have been handled better.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Hyacinth has Leif, and also the killer axe and master lance, along with a speed-bosting art. Which means he has WTA on everything but arts and axes. Incidentally… Heroes declared that the Master Sword has been officially localized as the Meisterschwert (German for the same). Understandable why they wouldn’t want people to think it was an LoZ reference, even though they could get away with it as a Nintendo Property.

It might genuinely have been a Zelda reference when it first popped up in Mystery of the Emblem. There are no other Master class weapons in Mystery of the Emblem. It was also made right when A Link to the Past had just been released.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…So why isn’t this Master Lance called the Meisterlanze?

Yeah...that seems like a bit of a fuck up on the lcoalizer's part. I wonder what Heroes will do if it ever gets around to giving us a Master Lance.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Hyacinth doesn’t seem to be programmed to use Quad Hit. I’m not getting the warning message that it’s happening.

I think he uses it on Maddening.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Weirdly, Veyle doesn’t seem inclined to use Lodestar Rush at all anymore. Despite the fact that she was ready to use it when I initially approached her with Yunaka, prompting me to take a step back to be safe.

How do you know that? Is there some kind of interface showing when enemies will use their emblem super moves?

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Villager: All my prayers were for nothing. So much for gods…

What are these gods you speak of Firene villager? You're meant to worship the guy in front of you as the only known god. Unless this villager secretly worships both Sobron and the Divine Dragon!

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

We’ve sort of run out of physical units to put physical Emblems on. And Leif unfortunately doesn’t seem to provide any good benefits for mages. Lessee, who does that I might be overlooking?

Hence my complain about there being too few magic Emblems. I ended up giving Sigurd to Ivy to increase her movement, but it always feels like he's not being utilized fully with his weapons being useless in her strength deficient hands.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Well for now I can always give Byleth to Clanne and then Leif to Pepsiman, but that’s just a quick fix, really. Two of the remaining four are still physical-focused (though Marth at least can be put on a mystical unit with pretty kickass results). And who the fuck am I gonna put on my dancer? The only one of them he stands to gain any real benefit from as far as I can tell is Sigurd, and that seems like a titanic waste.

I've found Lucina is a surprisingly good fit for Seadall. Her main gimmick is chain attacks, which don't care about how strong you are, only how close you are. And, while you don't want him to be so close to the action that he's taking axes to the face, he will likely be right there behind your front line units and free to perform chain attacks. I don't find myself ever using Bonded Shield though, as dancing almost always comes in more useful.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Weirdly, Sigurd’s ring is fairly dirty, while Leif’s is mostly clean. Did the enemy just consistently maintain them at the same amount of dirt I left on them last time I had them? That is… spectacularly ridiculous to think about.

Corrupted Hayacinth was surprisingly fastidious.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…There’s a new thing at the training yard. A dragon wing icon?

…Wyvern Ride?

…Seems like a flying minigame. Alright, let’s check it out!

So what annoys me about Wyvern ride is that it means the underside, or at least sky view of the Sominiel is fully modeled. They went to the trouble of fully rendering this floating island and even bothered to make a Skyward Sword esque flying minigame...yet somehow they just never put an establishing shot actually the damn place at the start of the game. It would have been so easy to do. All of it is right there. You don't even need art assets, you just need to screen shot the existing thing you've already made. It's just so baffling they had this moment talking about a flying island base and never once thought actually showing it would be a beneficial thing to do. It's like the tea drinking or fighting in supports. The game already allows for these things, but they just don't do it. Clearly they're not lazy, as they bother to make wyvern flying mini games which are a pretty big departure from the actual main gameplay...yet for small things that would really make a difference they just seem comically inept.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But like, seriously, why is he like this? Nobody is just “like this”. Like, Bernadetta was like this because she was physically and emotionally abused by her shit of a father and terrified of shaming herself or angering the people around her, to the point that she fled social interaction whenever possible just to minimize the chances of fucking up. That makes sense. But like, Morion gave no signs that he was remotely anything like Bernadetta’s father. In fact, from the brief glimpse we got, he seemed aware of and sad about his son’s low self-esteem, but utterly clueless how to fix it. So what the fuck happened to this guy?

Maybe his unseen (and I think unmentioned) mother was a total bitch?

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

…Ah yes, the Vajra-Mushti. I wonder if those still use a mix of physical and magical power. At least it targets the lower of def and res.

Wait it mixed physical and magical in Three Houses too? Huh, I never noticed.

26 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

That was a nice touch, although the voices of Evil and Good Veyle are just too different to fool people watching it.

She legitimately managed to fool me.

Edited February 14, 2023 by Jotari

Alastor15243 · February 14, 2023

6 minutes ago, Jotari said:

How do you know that? Is there some kind of interface showing when enemies will use their emblem super moves?

Their targeting line turns black and the super name and how much damage they'll do with it shows up in the top right corner of the screen.

6 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I got the impression the attack had been ordered before she woke up in Solm. Hence why Griss said they should go to Firene.

Shit, right, makes sense.

6 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Wait it mixed physical and magical in Three Houses too? Huh, I never noticed.

No, "still" as in "like all other arts in this game"

6 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I've found Lucina is a surprisingly good fit for Seadall. Her main gimmick is chain attacks, which don't care about how strong you are, only how close you are. And, while you don't want him to be so close to the action that he's taking axes to the face, he will likely be right there behind your front line units and free to perform chain attacks. I don't find myself ever using Bonded Shield though, as dancing almost always comes in more useful.

My one problem with this idea, while it has its merits, is that you generally want to throw your backup units around the boss immediately, to maximize the total damage they'll do. Seadall bare minimum has to go second.

Edited February 14, 2023 by Alastor15243

Acacia Sgt · February 14, 2023

Hm?

Gonna admit I don't quite remember well, but at least with Japanese voices it's still Evil!Veyle talking. But yeah, not showing the eyes still made it clear shenanigans were going on.

Speaking of, something I've found odd too is that... Veyle could stop you from recovering the rings in Chapter 11... what happened that she couldn't just magic Lief's Ring back as before?

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

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