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

[Alastor15243]

8 hours ago, Boomhauer007 said:

I've always wondered while I've read this, but do you play other games while you've been doing this? Playing Fire Emblem takes awhile and I couldn't imagine writing up a long post for every single chapter, also couldn't imagine playing the whole series for that long without a break. 

Also spent like 200 hours playing just 3 houses last year so....

I play other games. I'm not allowed to play any FE game I'm scheduled to do on the marathon and haven't yet, but I play other games. It would have been a living hell if FE1 was the only game I was allowed to play for a whole month.

I've also (very) slowly been working my way through Three Houses so that I only have Azure Moon left by the time I do the game, so I have the full picture and context by the time I do it. I honestly can't even imagine how long it will take to get through AM for the marathon. I knew immediately I'd have to limit it to just one route, but even just one is going to take forever.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I've also (very) slowly been working my way through Three Houses so that I only have Azure Moon left by the time I do the game, so I have the full picture and context by the time I do it. I honestly can't even imagine how long it will take to get through AM for the marathon. I knew immediately I'd have to limit it to just one route, but even just one is going to take forever.

What about Fates? What route are you planning on doing?

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

What about Fates? What route are you planning on doing?

If I had to choose one, obviously it would be Conquest. But the Fates games are entirely different games with entirely different map design philosophies. So I'll be doing all three of those.

[Jotari]

10 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

If I had to choose one, obviously it would be Conquest. But the Fates games are entirely different games with entirely different map design philosophies. So I'll be doing all three of those.

While we're asking, Eirika or Ephraim?

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Jotari said:

While we're asking, Eirika or Ephraim?

Ephraim. I did Eirika a year or so ago and it's still reasonably fresh in my memory. I did it to try out that "survival horror" ish challenge run Mekkah came up with where you try to go through the entire tower of Valni using nothing but the untrained trainee trio. Lots of fun, even if I eventually lost late enough into it that I was discouraged to try again for a while.

[AnonymousSpeed]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

While we're asking, Eirika or Ephraim?

Even more immediately, Lalum or Elphin?

[Alastor15243]

Just now, AnonymousSpeed said:

Even more immediately, Lalum or Elphin?

I suppose I'll find out when it happens. I hear it's not immediately obvious how to get which one?

[AnonymousSpeed]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

I suppose I'll find out when it happens. I hear it's not immediately obvious how to get which one?

No, it's not, so I suppose you should just see which one you stumble into.

[Shadow Mir]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

I suppose I'll find out when it happens. I hear it's not immediately obvious how to get which one?

It has to do with which one of the villages (specifically, the two northern villages, as there's another one near the southwest corner) you visit in chapter 9.

And while we're at it, Ilia or Sacae?

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

It has to do with which one of the villages (specifically, the two northern villages, as there's another one near the southwest corner) you visit in chapter 9.

And while we're at it, Ilia or Sacae?

Whichever winds up happening. Shanna's kinda hopeless, but I'm not sure if Sue and Shin are gonna turn out any better.

[Eltosian Kadath]

18 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Whichever winds up happening. Shanna's kinda hopeless, but I'm not sure if Sue and Shin are gonna turn out any better.

Shin's Hard Mode Bonuses are making me think you will have to face Sacae. Good luck with that.

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Shin's Hard Mode Bonuses are making me think you will have to face Sacae. Good luck with that.

Oh right. Shin gets hard mode bonuses. Well, it made a swordfighter good, and I guess mounted archers are roughly on that level...

Edited February 1, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Jotari]

I legit think Shin is one of the best bow units in the series.

[Alastor15243]

Binding Blade Day 6: Chapter 6

Funny thing: before playing this game, I had this weird impression that the plains of Sacae were to the west, and that Lycia was to the east of it. I don't know why. Maybe it was all the movement to the right that my army kept doing in Lyn mode? I guess all of those maps were upside-down, then?

Seeing the narration say that Dorothy is a bodyguard just feels... weird. What is it with staff users in Elibe picking absolutely atrocious classes to be their bodyguards? Serra at least only picked Erk because he was hot. Honestly I'm frankly kinda surprised Saul doesn't have that same excuse.

Matter of fact... Dorothy may be one of the least “conventionally attractive” playable female characters in-

...Nope, just remembered that Niime is playable. But then that's in this game too... Actually... how many examples of non-conventionally-attractive playable female characters are there in the series outside of Binding Blade? I'm struggling to think of examples that aren't in this game. I mean Bernadetta, maybe? But she's clearly still intended to be cute in her own weird way.

And here's the Lord Orun that I completely forgot existed until I heard people talking about him in the thread.

...Oh for shit's sake. Even this game makes you prepare before the story happens!?

Well, thanks to the handy-dandy flavor text, I can tell without pressing start that Orun isn't a piece of shit, he got betrayed and that's why we're being attacked. Honestly though, this is just more reason why it makes no conceivable sense to put the story after the preparation. It makes it too easy to guess why we'll be fighting!

Hmmmm... so Merlinus counts as a deployment slot? Iiiiiiiinteresting... I'm gonna try leaving him out this chapter, because apparently he's not necessary in order to send things to storage.

It's weird... looking at the myrmidon map sprite, I can still only see Guy and even his ponytail.

Okay, so, I just checked Lance's average stats. Apparently he's not screwed at all. Allen is just insanely blessed. Lance is actually ahead of the curve in most things besides strength. It's just that Allen has one more strength, and three more speed and defense, than he should. Wow. Okay, so, changing my mind. Looks like I won't be dropping Lance.

I guess this game is even harder than I thought, if Lance's abysmal performance so far is supposed to be normal.

I do like how this preparation screen shows you where on the world map you're fighting. Wholly unnecessary, but a nice thing to do with that space on the screen that I don't remember the games that come after it making much use of.

Hey, that's funny! If you move your cursor up to Roy, you can press up again and actually press A on the “press start” prompt!

Oh wow, we don't even get to see Lord Orun? Now I suddenly hardly blame FE7 for not mentioning him. He seemed like an utter afterthought in this game too! The fact that he's Hector's half-brother doesn't even have any relevance! He could have been anyone and this would have gone exactly the same way!

I find it hilarious that they basically have to justify seizing this castle instead of just running away since this game doesn't have any other objectives.

Man, Rutger still only has 4 luck. I hope I can get that support with Clarine going soon so he can get some crit resist.

For some utterly bizarre reason, when all of the soldiers advanced, one didn't, leaving an extremely conspicuous hole in the upcoming wave of soldiers where the eastern flank's javelineer should have been.

The initial wave has been taken care of. The fact that the mages were in front really helped with taking them out before they became a menace. Now I Just have to work out a way to quickly take out these knights so I can advance further before Cath causes any problems when she shows up.

Allen continues to be absurdly blessed, gaining strength and defense upon level up.

Lugh also gains more speed and luck with his latest level, cementing him as easily my second-fastest soldier.

Chad unlocked the first door, and... there's nothing inside but a staircase. I'm hoping that's where Cath spawns and not random reinforcements that I wouldn't have to deal with if I left it closed.

...Nope. Cath spawned somewhere else entirely, on the other side of the map than where I sent Roy. Gotta hurry and rescue-chain him over to Cath before she steals too much.

...And reinforcements did arrive from that fucking room I unlocked. But instead of a single one spawning from the staircase, too deep into the room to attack anyone outside of it, like I had expected, four units spilled out of the stairwell en masse, stopped in the middle of the room before their turn started, and a knight moved over to completely, exactly one-shot Clarine just outside of the room.

…

(Inhales)

Note to self: this ambush spawn occurs on turn 7. Brace for the worst, but test what happens if you don't unlock the door. It's entirely possible this is some nonsense where unlocking that door is the only way those enemies spawn at all, turning it into some kind of beginner's trap where all the veterans know to never unlock that door at all.

Restarting.

I think I've said my part on why I despise these things. There's only so many ways I can say “death from things the player has no chance to react to is fake difficulty that has literally no staying power and should die in a fire” before I sound like a broken record. I'm just going to silently mark the game down, and keep going.

Repeat went pretty well. Lance got a crazy number of crits that didn't end with him getting overloaded and killed, and he got a +str level up again. Allen's level up wasn't nearly as good as it was last time, but I made peace with the fact that it probably wouldn't be. Rutger got a mostly-dud level up, but he did gain luck, which at this point is really pretty appreciated. Especially since speed and skill level ups at this point in the game are... wholly unnecessary for him.

Funny how both chests in the west room had gold in them, but entirely different amounts. I don't think I've ever seen two gold-bearing chests in one room before.

Oh wow. So Cath needs multiple turns to recruit? The first one doesn't work? That is... I mean the conversation was funny, but that's still a bit annoying. Especially when it's so easy to trap her that it mostly makes it a time sink.

Turn seven came and went without that room self-unlocking. This seems to confirm it. That room serves no purpose other than to fuck over first-time players, which is... Thracia levels of shitty game design.

...Aaaaaaand Cath is refusing to be talked to. Do I have to talk to her with Chad? If I have to talk to her with Chad, I am going to be more pissed off than you can possibly imagine.

Okay, no, it's not Chad. Thank goodness. A backup thief who can only be recruited if you still have your original thief would be insanely dumb. I'm thinking it might be Sue who recruits her for some reason, so I better recruit her quickly. Meanwhile, Lugh, Allen and Lance are dealing with the reinforcements from the north.

Nope. It's not Sue either. Jesus Christ. I've tried with basically everyone I have with me. The only option left is Dorothy, which I can't see any connection for, but...

Fuck it. I'll see if the key to recruiting her isn't in one of these locked rooms. I'll box her in like I've been doing, and if I still can't figure out how to recruit her by the end, I'll steal her lockpick and just seize without recruiting her. I'm not looking it up, and I don't have time to fuck around with this today.

Well. It's not Dorothy. Time to loot the rest of the building and pray.

I got a goddess icon, which obviously is going straight to Rutger. And I also got some more gold, a killer axe that Lot is getting as soon as he has room, and another silver lance. Almost done looting the area. If having no more stuff to loot is supposed to be the way to get her, I'll find out soon.

This map seems to be intended to take an awfully long time to loot if Cathy's recruitment isn't something really obvious and normally she can help out looting the place quickly. If it's someone like Merlinus who I left behind, then fuck it, I'm not restarting for her.

Looks like the southeast room is a pointless trap room as well. Nothing more left to loot but that one chest I missed to the northwest.

The pointless trap room isn't summoning any reinforcements, so I guess I missed the cutoff for that.

Nope! Looks like it's timed to be a few turns after opening. Good to know. If it were relevant anymore.

I've unlocked everything I can, and it's accomplished nothing. I have to assume that someone I didn't bring was crucial to getting her.

Lemme just double check and try Lugh, who I forgot to test before...

Nope. It's not him either. It's probably Merlinus or some nonsense like that. Or I had to let her steal a bunch of stuff before she'd let me recruit her. Whatever the case, before leaving her be to do her own thing, I stole her lockpick, which you apparently don't even need to be faster than the enemy to get away with in this game, thus completely invalidating the need to train a thief. So let's kill the boss and get out of here.

Alright, we're done. The boss went down pretty easily to Rutger, especially now that he has a C support with Clarine.

So apparently even a clan of Sacae turned traitor to Bern. Interesting. I'm curious to find out the reasons. Which I apparently probably will, if what people have said about Shin is any indication.

Not too keen on this map, honestly. Most of the time-consuming nature of it was me trying to exhaust every possible option to get Cath without looking it up or restarting, but those ambush rooms... serious dick move.

Well, looks like we're off to Ostia next time, to take out rebels who want to surrender to Bern.

Bring it on.

[Flere210]

17 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I think I've said my part on why I despise these things. There's only so many ways I can say “death from things the player has no chance to react to is fake difficulty that has literally no staying power and should die in a fire” before I sound like a broken record. I'm just going to silently mark the game down, and keep going.

Imo almost no difficulty has staying power in a turn based game short of an highly advanced AI. Once you find out an rng proof strat you can just repeat the same moves every time and will always win. 

Wich is why i really like the concept of roguelike. There is no set level, there are just many different challenge that you can meet in many different patterns and combinations. No pre set combination of moves will be surefire, you need to adapt to the flow.

Edited February 3, 2020 by Flere210

[Shadow Mir]

17 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh wow. So Cath needs multiple turns to recruit? The first one doesn't work? That is... I mean the conversation was funny, but that's still a bit annoying. Especially when it's so easy to trap her that it mostly makes it a time sink.

She needs to be talked to three times. Over multiple maps.

[Alastor15243]

5 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Imo almost no difficulty has staying power in a turn based game short of an highly advanced AI. Once you find out an rng proof strat you can just repeat the same moves every time and will always win. 

Wich is why i really like the concept of roguelike. There is no set level, there are just many different challenge that you can meet in many different patterns and combinations. No pre set combination of moves will be surefire, you need to adapt to the flow.

A procedurally generated Fire Emblem could be absolutely awesome. Thankfully, most difficulty still has a good amount of staying power thanks to randomized growths and varying endgame parties.

But holy shit would I love a roguelike Fire Emblem game.

Edited February 4, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Interdimensional Observer]

Chapter 6's problem for me was you only have one Thief and faaaaaar too many doors and chests, some rooms being total duds/traps makes it even worse. FE6 is only so laden and oversaturated with chests b/c they didn't think to bring back enemies that can drop items, you know, a mechanic that was in every prior game except Thracia. Fix that, remake.

 

Chapter 7 I recall being a bit hairy on Normal, and I've only heard evil of it on Hard, the earlygame jagged peak of infamy.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Interdimensional Observer said:

Chapter 6's problem for me was you only have one Thief and faaaaaar too many doors and chests, some rooms being total duds/traps makes it even worse. FE6 is only so laden and oversaturated with chests b/c they didn't think to bring back enemies that can drop items, you know, a mechanic that was in every prior game except Thracia. Fix that, remake.

 

Chapter 7 I recall being a bit hairy on Normal, and I've only heard evil of it on Hard, the earlygame jagged peak of infamy.

Wait, seriously? This game doesn't have any dropped items at all? Everything is obtained through a massive bloat of chests?

Holy SHIT am I glad I stole that lockpick.

[Espurrhoodie]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh wow. So Cath needs multiple turns to recruit? The first one doesn't work? That is... I mean the conversation was funny, but that's still a bit annoying. Especially when it's so easy to trap her that it mostly makes it a time sink.

Ugh, I hate those kinds of recruitments. Mitama's wasn't too bad since she wasn't an enemy and was in a house, but there's still the likelyhood that Azama could possibly get killed (unless I'm misremembering that paralogue, I can't remember Fates real well). Gangrel's on the other hand? That can go fuck itself. Only managed to complete it thanks to pairing Chrom with a reclassed flier Robin and using Rescue staves.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Espurrhoodie said:

Ugh, I hate those kinds of recruitments. Mitama's wasn't too bad since she wasn't an enemy and was in a house, but there's still the likelyhood that Azama could possibly get killed (unless I'm misremembering that paralogue, I can't remember Fates real well). Gangrel's on the other hand? That can go fuck itself. Only managed to complete it thanks to pairing Chrom with a reclassed flier Robin and using Rescue staves.

Agreed. Apparently though, this wasn't an example of that. This was a character I can't recruit until later, and I have to keep talking to her or something.

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Wait, seriously? This game doesn't have any dropped items at all? Everything is obtained through a massive bloat of chests?

Holy SHIT am I glad I stole that lockpick.

You didn't notice that so far? That not a single early boss or grunt had any droppable items?

But yeah, consider fielding two Thieves in some chapters. That is, if you prefer cutting back your offense by 1, rather than having some more empty turns where all you do is move your lone Thief around as they pick chests and Roy waits until they done to seize a throne long abdicated.

[Espurrhoodie]

2 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Agreed. Apparently though, this wasn't an example of that. This was a character I can't recruit until later, and I have to keep talking to her or something.

Actually, are there any other examples of that besides Cath, Mitama, and Gangrel? I've only played the 3DS games, most of TH sans both BE routes (waiting for Cindered Shadows to come out), and a decent chunk of Eirika's route in SS (I think I left off at the chapter after you recruit Syrene).

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

You didn't notice that so far? That not a single early boss or grunt had any droppable items?

But yeah, consider fielding two Thieves in some chapters. That is, if you prefer cutting back your offense by 1, rather than having some more empty turns where all you do is move your lone Thief around as they pick chests and Roy waits until they done to seize a throne long abdicated.

It's a lot harder to notice something isn't there than to notice that it is. Especially when there's a ton of other stuff you're focused on.

That second paragraph is giving me FE1 flashbacks.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Doing a GBA chests chapter-by-chapter comparison:

Spoiler

FE6:

• 2
• 7
• 8
• 6
• 12
• 10 + a boss item you really want to steal
• 8
• 6
• 6

 

FE7:

• 2 & 1 for Lyn Mode
• 1
• 2
• 4 (albeit so spaced in pairs that out Matthew will need a Cav to ferry him a little quicker)
• 3
• 5
• 2
• 3
• 3/4
• 4
• 4 (+some nice steals)
• 3
• 3
• 2

 

FE8:

• 4
• 2
• 3
• 3
• 3
• 6
• 5
• 4
• 6
• 2

So it isn't that many more, but FE6 felt a little chest-sloggy to me.

I recall that PoR has one bad chest chapter, but the rest wasn't bad, and being able to smash open doors getting to them mindlessly easier. RD almost abolished chests, I felt. 3H didn't need chests, I felt it only had them out of obligation to the franchise's past of having them, what was the point to the lone Gronder chest?

 

Of course, Chest Keys are an underrated gift. Add a few Door Keys, and barring stealing, Marcus, Clarine and Rutger alike can be just as good as any Thief at their job + their day job of slaughter or healing. It isn't like everyone needs all five inventory slots full all the time. It's only a little extra work juggling the keys around and remembering who has them.