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

[Eltosian Kadath]

3 hours 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.

To be fair you had the chance to react. You knew reinforcements were going to pop out as soon as you saw it empty with stairs, and had the time to move troops away, or even safer, turn the entrance into a choke point. You might not have had all the option or information, but you could react. Plus this one might catch you more than once, as Cath can and will release the hounds if you don't block her, or talk her into retreating.

 

1 hour 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.

Interesting thing about Cath is she appears in more chapters than times you need to talk to her, so you don't have to stress too much about it. I don't think I've even seen all of her appearances, as I tend to recruit her fairly early.

 

1 hour ago, Espurrhoodie said:

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).

Recruiting Katarina in New Mystery is one, as you need to have the avatar talk to her three times while she is an enemy to recruit her (the annoying bit is keep everyone alive while doing it). There is a hard way of recruiting Tate that involves her sister Shanna talking to her once before, and once after you recruit Klein, but most people avoid that headache by just having Klein recruit her.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

To be fair you had the chance to react. You knew reinforcements were going to pop out as soon as you saw it empty with stairs, and had the time to move troops away, or even safer, turn the entrance into a choke point. You might not have had all the option or information, but you could react. Plus this one might catch you more than once, as Cath can and will release the hounds if you don't block her, or talk her into retreating.

Yeah, but I assumed it would work like a normal staircase ambush spawn and that if I stayed a good distance away from the staircase, I'd be fine. But then they just filled up the room and then walked from there. And even ignoring that, the fact remains that the only purpose of this room is to fuck over people who haven't played the game before, rendering the ambush spawn entirely pointless, because not only will you not be surprised next time, you won't even fight them next time.

[Boomhauer007]

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...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

Vaida immediately comes to mind in fe7, I can't think of any others though.

Also personally I find it MUCH easier to just kill Cath in this map after swiping her lock pick, she's so much hassle for a straight up bad unit.

Edited February 4, 2020 by Boomhauer007

[Alastor15243]

Binding Blade Day 7: Chapter 7

Alright, so, this map looks like it should be pretty straightforward, assuming there aren't any nasty ambush spawns. I just got everyone outfitted, and frankly I find it curious that Ilia and Thracia are basically in the same situation, but in one case depending on mercenary work makes them famously dependable and loyal, while in the other case depending on mercenary work does no such thing, if anything the exact opposite.

Let's go!

…

…

So, the first few turns were kind of a terrifying blur and I found myself wrapped up in the game and forgetting to comment. My initial gambit mostly involved having Lugh take the west flank by dodgetanking on a forest while everyone else charged the east flank to recruit the green units I remembered spawn in that direction. The amount of RNG at work here is kind of terrifying, because you just have to move so goddamned fast if you want to keep those green units alive. Treck is still alive basically entirely due to sheer luck, because the green units have almost no self-preservation instinct whatsofuckingever.

Thankfully I managed to rescue Treck and retreat back far enough to get him to safety, but unfortunately Noah can't recruit him, I have to assume only Roy and Jerrot can. Or maybe even just Jerrot.

Speaking of, Jerrot, while impressively strong for this point in the game, is off doing his own thing and is probably gonna be a massive pain in the ass to keep alive, even considering that my entire plan so far is, by necessity, being held together with spit and prayers due to the game's hit system.

Thankfully, he decided that if he was going to be outrageously, suicidally stupid, he might as well be outrageously, suicidally stupid in the direction of my troops, so I could rescue-drop him back behind my lines. I seem to have weathered the storm entirely through frantic, panicking impulse and dumb luck.

Treck is pretty funny with how doofy-looking he is and how apathetic he is about being recruited. Honestly makes me curious about his supports. Which is a pity, because Noah and Treck don't seem all that worth using. Their bases are mediocre and their growths are worse than Allen and Lance's in everything but a slight edge on defense. Obviously Jerrot's going to get some use for a while, at least as long as his bases hold out. He's basically an upgraded Marcus with a strangely above-average defense growth in the midst of all of his otherwise barely-better-than-Marcus ones.

Nearly lost Rutger to two wyvern riders who finally healed up and decided to aggro again.

...and now I have to start over because I forgot to have someone block Sue from the wyvern rider. I noticed it, I made a mental note, and I forgot. After all of that bullshit, I'm amazed that the thing that eventually did me in was simple user error. Fuck.

Well, restarting.

This reminds me of something I really liked about the GBA games: the auto-saving. Somehow the game automatically saves after basically every move, even on enemy phase, so you don't actually have to suspend in order to secure your save file if you want to put the thing down. Which is a fantastic feature for a game for a handheld with batteries you have to replace.

Ugh. Lost again, because I left Clarine in the line of fire of the offscreen wyvern, and yet again, I got a reset because someone got one-shot. Which I just realized, I think has been the cause of literally every single one of my resets so far. Yeah. Chad, then Clarine, then Sue, then Clarine again. All one-shot by enemies, either due to me fucking up their positioning, accidentally hitting end turn in one case, or just flat-out getting ambush spawned. Now, ridiculously fragile units who can't even take a single hit from enemies even when they're keeping up with the exp curve is fine... in games with enemy range highlighting and no ambush spawns. Here, while it's still realistic to avoid placement fuck-ups by double and triple-checking enemy ranges, it sure as hell does make it more of a chore to use them than it ever was for Elise, and if Conquest had ambush spawns, I don't think Elise would have made it past chapter 10 when I first played the game.

Restarting.

Honestly, Sue is pretty garbage. If I didn't need her to get a much better version of her, I probably would have let her die and kept going. A level one bow user who can barely even do chip damage? Honestly, I'm amazed the people who playtested hard mode didn't think she desperately needed a buff to stay relevant. If it weren't for the wyverns, I probably wouldn't even deploy her here.

Yeah, really, unless I'm royally missing something about gameplay here, this mission is waaaaaay too luck dependent for my liking. Way too many powerful enemies who can obliterate you with the wrong combination of RNG if you enemy-phase them, and yet who need to be enemy-phased because you simply don't have enough units in your army who can even fight worth a damn in order to take them out before they overwhelm you. And I can't even resort to hit-and-run tactics here because if I don't move forward immediately, the Illian mercenaries will die.

And nothing, nothing short of Foreign Land and Sky gets my blood boiling more than maps that are only difficult because someone who's supposed to be on my side is a massive dumbass.

Lost again. The odds were starting to get overwhelming so I was hoping to soften them by using Chad as a distraction on a forest tile, but Chad wound up pushing his luck.

Restarting.

Honestly, if I just said “fuck it” and stopped caring if the green units got themselves killed, this map would be way more manageable and way more fun. But alas, that's not an option, because I wanna do this game right.

And speak of the devil! I lost because it was just Trek not being lucky enough to survive his second enemy phase. Near as I can tell, it's simply not physically possible to rescue those guys in time before they have a chance of getting themselves killed.

This is not how you make a strategy game hard.

Restarting.

Alright, so, looks like I was wrong. I was too focused on dealing with the units incoming on the right side, and I didn't realize that it's just barely possible to get them out of there the turn they spawn if you ignore the incoming enemies entirely and just rush in with four cavalry to rescue-drop. I managed to have Marcus and Sue rescue-drop Jerrot in range of Roy so I could recruit him, and he then recruited Trek, who I had rescue-dropped with my other cavalry. Honestly, now that I've done it, I'm wondering how I didn't see it before, or if it was even possible before or just a quirk of how they moved this time (not likely, but this didn't feel nearly as obvious or realistic before).

This, however, creates the problem that apparently JERROT CAN'T RECRUIT NOAH. WHY THE FUCK NOT!?

...Alright, well, he can still be rescued and all that, so it's not a huge deal, it just seems outrageously stupid that Noah won't join a recruited Jerrot.

But more importantly, I think I've got it now.

...NOPE! I missed two 70%s with a hammer when either one of them would have killed the knight, and Lot got bodied come enemy phase! And even if I wanted to keep going without him, he has all my good axes.

Restarting.

...OKAY. I think I've got the situation stabilized again. It could have gone wrong at any of several moments, but I finally did it. I also managed to steal a red gem from one of the wyverns, which should come in handy for the shopping this chapter. Which I'll be doing a lot of. Now then, to visit all the villages.

I got some pretty awesome stuff! A physic staff, a horseslayer, a hero crest, a red gem, and a killing edge. I bought a bunch of thunder tomes, a chest key (five uses, and I really want to make sure there isn't a repeat of last chapter again) and a bunch more javelins. I'm gonna leave the rest of the money for later though. I hear there's lots of cool stuff to buy in this game. Including purchasable boots at some point.

However, I also bought a shitton of door keys once I realized how insanely cheap they were. That's going to be useful in this game, especially since you can't get door keys from enemies. Curious. Does that mean this game won't ever have a single locked door between Roy's starting position and the throne, ever?

The game is at least gracious enough to warn me when reinforcements are coming, giving me time to get the fuck out of here.

...And strangely, the reinforcements also weren't ambush spawns. I didn't even know this game had non-ambush reinforcements.

And of course, the boss gets a bunch of reinforcements right as we approach the throne.

...Why the fuck does this castle have a “throne” on what is essentially its front porch? I'm suddenly reminded of a glorified version of the rocking chair that a redneck would sit on, shotgun in his lap, daring anyone to set foot on his property.

Anyway, the reinforcements don't look too bad. Once I get rid of the mages, I have a few tanks who should be able to wall it off, especially with limited facing and their inability to one-round them.

Rutger nearly died due to some lucky shots from the enemy, but thankfully the game just settled for giving me a heart attack and didn't kill him with a third consecutive 20% ish hit.

And the last two items from the... treasure room... connected to... the outside and nothing else... like some kind of fucking garage... were a rapier (just when I had used up the first one) and a barrier staff.

With a combination of Lugh and an armorslayer-using Allen, I managed to finish the map just as the second wave of rear reinforcement cavalry arrived. The porch throne is ours.

I find it interesting that they use “we have to break down the gate” as a justification to stop and dump exposition. I mean, it still feels clumsy as all hell, but at least they make time for it to be said in-story without just ignoring their tight schedule to rescue Lilina.

Yeah, this map was... not good. While realizing I could get Jerrot and Treck out of there quickly helped matters greatly, this map's difficulty still depended on a lot on overwhelming me with a bunch of enemies it was impossible to reliably player-phase and yet also was near impossible to reliably enemy-phase. This game is probably one of the most luck-based entries so far, and I really, really don't think that's a good thing.

I honestly get the impression that carefully making calculations to ensure survival wasn't even something the developers were thinking about as an intended part of gameplay, or they wouldn't have created the worst info screen in the entire franchise, with all of the information necessary to calculate damage, attack speed, etc. split up between multiple different pages. That tiny little bit of dead space at the bottom of the stat page infuriates me, and makes me wonder what kind of information could have been put there. With just a little tweaking, it would have been entirely possible to put hit, might, etc. on the same screen as stats, like every other generation of games in this franchise since the info screen was a thing. But this game makes it about as much of a pain to calculate damage and attack speed as it was playing Dark Dragon, to the point that it's becoming harder and harder for me to bring myself to bother, since more often than not the answer increasingly seems to be “pick a god and pray”.

Before I go, I suppose I'll have to address something, specifically the hero crest I got. Will I be using it on Rutger right away?

No. Right now he's a perfectly great unit, and aside from the 30% crit boost, promoting him isn't going to accomplish much of anything. He may have capped speed and skill, but he's still got plenty of strength, luck, defense and HP he'll be missing out on if I promote him early. Right now, Lugh is serving as our bosskiller perfectly well, and until and unless that changes, I see no need to promote Rutger this early in the game. I will if the situation demands it, such as if enemies start getting so fast that even 20 speed isn't enough to double them, and for this reason I intend to keep it handy on him. But for now I don't see much I stand to gain from stunting his growth, even if his levels aren't going to be the best now that he's capped speed and skill for now.

Well, that's about it for now. Take care, guys!

[Eltosian Kadath]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Alright, so, looks like I was wrong. I was too focused on dealing with the units incoming on the right side, and I didn't realize that it's just barely possible to get them out of there the turn they spawn if you ignore the incoming enemies entirely and just rush in with four cavalry to rescue-drop. I managed to have Marcus and Sue rescue-drop Jerrot in range of Roy so I could recruit him, and he then recruited Trek, who I had rescue-dropped with my other cavalry. Honestly, now that I've done it, I'm wondering how I didn't see it before, or if it was even possible before or just a quirk of how they moved this time (not likely, but this didn't feel nearly as obvious or realistic before).

I usually do the opposite and rescue drop Roy in walking distance of Jerrot, but you need to kill any enemies that move in the path between them. Plus its a little tight positioning if you want to delay aggroing some of the enemies between house. Which reminds me, did you notice any difference between the number of enemies when looking at the map on the prep screen, and when the map starts? I kinda remember the prep screen only showing the enemies that would be on the normal mode version of the map, but I am not entirely sure...

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...And strangely, the reinforcements also weren't ambush spawns. I didn't even know this game had non-ambush reinforcements.

The next round of the same reinforcements (I want to say they show up something like 5 & 10 turns latter) they are ambush spawns.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

And of course, the boss gets a bunch of reinforcements right as we approach the throne.

One interesting thing about these guys, is where the line is that you have to cross to trigger their appearance on enemy phase it is possible to kill the boss with mounted units and prevent them from spawning.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Which reminds me, did you notice any difference between the number of enemies when looking at the map on the prep screen, and when the map starts? I kinda remember the prep screen only showing the enemies that would be on the normal mode version of the map, but I am not entirely sure...

I didn't notice that. But I didn't look at the whole map on the prep screen very closely. I mostly focused on the enemies I'd be fighting on the first and second turns.

Honestly, I don't know what I'd have done if I had to split up my army. Pouring nearly all of my forces onto the east side barely made it any easier, and I could only get away with that because Lugh was strong enough to basically one-round everything with few exceptions.

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Honestly, Sue is pretty garbage. If I didn't need her to get a much better version of her, I probably would have let her die and kept going. A level one bow user who can barely even do chip damage? Honestly, I'm amazed the people who playtested hard mode didn't think she desperately needed a buff to stay relevant. If it weren't for the wyverns, I probably wouldn't even deploy her here.

To be frank, I'd sooner say hard mode WASN'T playtested.

[Boomhauer007]

18 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Does that mean this game won't ever have a single locked door between Roy's starting position and the throne, ever?

22 definitely locks the throne room, and I'm pretty sure 20A requires some doors being opened. 

Ch 7 is rough, at least the awful part is at the beginning so restarting isn't too crummy. Ch 8 is a lot easier, but also possibly the most boring map in the game. So much nothing while you spend all those turns moving.

[Jotari]

18 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Binding Blade Day 7: Chapter 7

Alright, so, this map looks like it should be pretty straightforward, assuming there aren't any nasty ambush spawns.

Chapter 7? Hahaha. No. Honestly, this could be the hardest map in the series outside of Awakening's Lunatic+. It's not a big a time sink as some other maps in the series due to failure happening in the first few turns, but it is, shall we say, rather unforgiving of any miscalculations.

Well at least if you care about full recruitment. As you say, simply letting the green units die would probably make life a lot easier. But that's not an option for a lot of us.

 

Edited February 5, 2020 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

Chapter 7? Hahaha. No. Honestly, this could be the hardest map in the series outside of Awakening's Lunatic+. It's not a big a time sink as some other maps in the series due to failure happening in the first few turns, but it is, shall we say, rather unforgiving of any miscalculations.

Well at least if you care about full recruitment. As you say, simply letting the green units die would probably make life a lot easier. But that's not an option for a lot of us.

 

Yep. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into when I typed that.

 

Binding Blade Day 8: Chapter 8

Alright, time for the first map with a sidequest objective. Thankfully it's pretty straightforward, just keep Lilina alive.

Looking at the prep map, it doesn't look too bad. No overwhelming rush of enemies, and a lot of these enemies are just soldiers, who still seem to be carrying lances way too heavy for them.

Also, as I wondered before, yes, it seems like there aren't any locked doors whatsoever between Roy and the throne. As for the treasure in the side rooms, the game seems to give you three options:

If you have a thief, you can use their lockpick to unlock the rooms and the chests inside.

If you... have a thief... you can use him to steal all the door keys and chest keys you'll need to unlock all of these doors.

If you don't have a thief, then you can either hope you stocked up on door and chest keys in the previous chapter, or you can curl up on the floor, make like Ouroboros and devour your own ass.

...Speaking of remembering to buy things, I, uh... didn't. I forgot to restock my healing staves. I did buy a lot more vulneraries, after noticing how frequently I've been using the things due to the fragility of my healers, but in the rush to get out of there, staves completely slipped my mind. I'm hoping there isn't a huge drought of shops in the future. I should have enough to manage for a chapter or two, but after that I'm gonna have to start getting really sparing with them, or start chugging vulneraries like crazy.

Lilina, as I remember, is stuck in a tiny four-square cell with an archer who by the looks of things is either gonna chase her around in circles while she constantly moves to the one corner of the room he can't shoot, or break down the wall to kill her. I might be able to bait him over to have Allen kill him with a javelin though.

I'm a bit tight for unit slots, so I think I'm gonna have to drop Deke. He hasn't been keeping up very well at all unfortunately, and given that I already have two hero crest users in my party, adding in a third one doesn't seem like a good idea. And I need room for Jerrot in case I'm grossly underestimating this chapter again.

Ooh! So Astore isn't technically a thief, but an Ostian spy! That's cool how FE7 expanded on that and showed how Ostia uses lots of thieves/spies. It's a cool way to bring more morally-upstanding thieves into the party, given the usual almost mandatorily shady morality of members of the class.

Well now that I know he's coming (something I would very much have liked to know before preparations, game), there's not much reason to bring Chad. Not that stats on a thief is overly important, especially since stealing doesn't need speed and they can't even promote in this game, but it'll be nice to have a thief who isn't in constant danger of being one-shot.

Fuck it, I'll bring Dorothy to try and get that funny support she and Saul have.

Operation “bait the bowman” seems to have been a resounding success, even if killing him is going to take some doing due to his surprisingly high evade.

...Nope! I forgot how insanely accurate Lugh is with fire tomes. It's kind of absurd how good magic is in this game. Haven't gotten to see much of the other types of magic though, so jury's still out on those. But anima magic users are insanely good in this game. Reliable player-phase nuking (and even enemy phase if you've got a forest) is super handy.

Also, I think I may have completely forgotten to talk about the GBA trio's visuals, and so please allow me to take a second to do so. Ahem:

HOLY SHIT.

These animations are simply classic, and absolutely gorgeous. They really help bring the combat to life despite the reduced resolution of the GBA compared to the SNES. The choice to use these big, detailed sprites placed front and center on the screen really helps compensate for that reduced resolution, and I like how they made most of the basic class animations fun to watch while still making the promoted ones a clear, drastic upgrade in badassery. The promoted animations are absolutely phenomenal. Every single tier 2 class looks like a legendary badass, from the classic paladin with their outright majestic cavalry charge critical, to the sage with their glorious cape and pauldrons and midair runes, to the fucking general and the goddamned pulley-mounted chains they use to rip an axe out of your fucking face after they buried it three feet deep into your skull. You just feel the impact of everything. These are powerful fucking animations, and they are seared into my mind from years of watching them in my childhood. And I'm still not bored of any of them.

This map is a major drop down in difficulty from the last one. And while that's great in many ways, due to how annoying I found that particular style of difficulty, this is still a pretty damned uneventful map where the only real challenge is working out how to funnel some of this spare exp into my units who haven't been getting as much use lately, like Lot. For a second I thought he was royally stat screwed, but really he's mostly on par, he just seems really screwed due to his poor performance against hard mode enemies. But the soldiers here he can mostly handle.

And now we've got some new reinforcements, who are... almost entirely worthless. We've got a mediocre, underleveled mercenary competing with Rutger and Lot for hero crests, and we've got two mediocre, underleveled knights competing with Allen and Lance for knight crests!

...Actually scratch the underleveled part. Barth at least is up to speed with most of my army, and 14 defense is the highest defense stat in my army, if just barely thanks to my blessed Allen. He might have some practical short-term use. And if they let generals use swords earlier than Sacred Stones, full disclosure, he'd probably have been my favorite knight in the whole series as a teenager, because then he'd be blue and he'd be able to swing that badass claymore. I'd probably have obsessed over making this guy good, because I just think generals look that cool.

Also, scratch that mediocre part for Wendy. That is way too generous. Jesus fucking christ. ELEVEN FUCKING ATTACK POWER? ON A KNIGHT!?

I'd honestly rather train Amelia.

At least they're not gonna make me restart the map to recruit them with Bors though. At least they're already on my side. I do kinda wish I could see the dialogue that probably comes from bringing him though.

I was kind of expecting Cath to show up at some point, but while maybe the length of this map means she's supposed to trigger real late into it, no, looks like this isn't one of the chapters she shows up in.

Nope, speak of the devil, she shows up. And thankfully she isn't going for the treasures near the throne room, which I have basically no means to recover from her other than cornering her in and stealing them back one by one. She's going to the one I'm closer to, meaning it should be trivially easy to talk to her, steal her lockpick, kill the other thief, and keep going.

OH THANK GOD. For a second I was terrified that if the thief is programmed to fight enemies, Lilina was going to die. But thankfully she has just barely enough physical bulk to survive being doubled by the thief after he unlocked her cell, if he attacks.

Well that was a disappointingly short B support between Clarine and Rutger. Shame. I hope there's at least a decent payoff in the A support. Regardless, he now has +10 to crit and crit resist, which is gonna be a massive boon for him.

Looks like the thief has no interest in fighting a defenseless unarmed little girl. Good on him. Tell ya what: you get to live. Just hand over your lockpick.

Well, that's an interesting backstory for Cath. We only get her side of the story, but apparently her marquess burned down her village “in order to prepare for the war with Bern”, and so she considers the entire idea of taxation to just be theft by another name because the nobles don't fulfill their end of the bargain.

Okay, so, what's the timeline here? How long has Lycia known that they were going to go to war with Bern? Because if this is her excuse for why she steals from the rich, then that would mean that unless she's just using it as a retroactive justification and reaffirmation for something she was already doing for most of her life, she's only been stealing for like a few months at most. Breaking into rich mansions and castles isn't exactly something you can just start doing without lots of prior practice. Either her beef with the social elite goes way, way further back than that marquess and she's just using that as a recent example, or she's just a liar trying to emotionally manipulate a naive young noble to let her go. Honestly the latter would be quite amusing.

WHOOP! Got a knight crest! You know what that means! Like I promised... it's early promotion time! Lance is luckily just at a high enough level to do this.

The promotion gains in this game aren't massive, generally just a bunch of 2s and the occasional 3, with a 4 for resistance. I've definitely seen games where promotion has made a bigger impact, namely FE4. Promoting early has really mostly just brought Lance up to par with Marcus. And again, this is mostly average. It's Allen who was blessed, not Lance who was screwed. This is the usual result of promoting Lance at this stage. I'm prepared to be proven wrong, but this really seems like I sacrificed a potentially much stronger unit in the future for a third one of something I already have two of right now.

I got a light brand, but I hear that it's really, really awful in this game, and it has fixed damage or something.

Whoops. I got back from doing errands and I completely forgot my resolution to not kill the nameless thief. Whoopsie daisy!

Anyway, reinforcements are just flooding in now, and I'm actually finding this a lot more fun at this point. I like feeling like I need to race to the seize point, or at least like I need to evacuate my more fragile units while arranging an escape route for them. My slower elements are retreating through the first treasure room while Allen and Lance cover their escape by blocking the door, and Saul heals them as they take turns retreating a few spaces back to him.

Alright, so... Allen is so blessed at this point that he's actually still better than a roughly average early-promoted Lance. This promotion barely lets Lance keep up with this menace. On the one hand, this is absolutely fantastic, but on the other, I am a bit annoyed that it makes any honest assessment of early promotion that much harder.

Aaaaaand Lilina is complete trash. She's one of those units who risks getting one-shot by enemies in her joining chapter, and unlike Nino, I have literally no emotional investment in making her a badass. Yes, her father is dead, and her father was awesome, and getting revenge would be sweet, but there is a massive demand for guiding rings right now, and I cannot even remotely hope to spare one for her.

I notice they're starting to sneak armorslayers onto these mercenaries. I think I recognize this from Mangs's death montage for his ironman run of FE6. Good thing my tanks aren't armor users!

Anyway, the reinforcements have mostly subsided, allowing me to finally force myself through the hallway between the two staircases on top of... staircases...

...Why are there big staircases up that lead to nothing but a big spiral staircase down?

This is the second consecutive hpsauce level I've gotten with Rutger. Frustrating, but still, HP is good for a dodgetank to have.

Dorothy and Saul are taking forever to get their support. I don't remember making any serious effort to field these two in the past, so I'm amazed I managed to get their support before.

The killer lance knight could have been dangerous, but I took him out with Lugh from afar after clearing up the other reinforcements. I forgot to steal that second chest key though.

OH! SHIT! I REMEMBER NOW! I KNEW SAUL FELT FAMILIAR! I JUST REMEMBERED WHO HE REMINDED ME OF!

Yeah, when I first played this game as a teenager, I was like “this guy's Miroku. He's Miroku from Inyuasha but he can do actual fantasy priest shit.”

...Makes me kinda wish Saul had a black hole in his hand. That would sure as hell skyrocket him to the top of the tier list.

...Okay seriously now, did I completely hallucinate that Saul x Dorothy support? It's taking forever!

...No, it's listed on the support page that they support each other... I've been keeping them next to each other... pretty much continuously whenever deployed...

OOH! We got a guiding ring! Lugh's pretty close to using that! But given that he's doing so well at the moment without it, I don't see the need. It's only a few levels away anyway.

The other treasures we get are a silver axe, a secret book, and an elysian whip that I am totally saving for Miledy. I've heard she's amazing, and even if I hadn't, who the fuck else am I going to use it on? Shanna?

And with that, the boss is down.

...Oh god.

Oh god.

Lilina doesn't know.

Lilina doesn't know Hector is dead.

...Kind of unnecessary, game, wouldn't you say, to switch from one sad song to another sad song of equal weight when dropping the bombshell on her?

Wow. Even the people who betrayed Ostia to surrender to Bern didn't have the heart to break it to Lilina that her father was dead.

...But with that, we've successfully unlocked the gaiden chapter! Tomorrow it'll be time to get one of the divine weapons! One we'll be able to use as soon as Rutger promotes! I'm going to try to get someone who can use each S rank weapon, including the S rank staff that's apparently in this game (I hated how FE7 didn't have an S rank staff, rendering S ranking staves literally pointless).

Honestly... I liked this level! At least the end of it. I liked the reinforcements pouring in from all sides in a manner clearly not intended to ambush, but to apply pressure. I liked evacuating my weaker units in back and fighting off a massive horde up front. I just wish that initial lead-up hadn't taken so annoyingly long.

Well, until tomorrow guys!

Edited February 6, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Seafarer]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

The other treasures we get are a silver axe, a secret book, and an elysian whip that I am totally saving for Miledy. I've heard she's amazing, and even if I hadn't, who the fuck else am I going to use it on? Shanna?

Yes, Shanna. I think you'll have another Elysian Whip by the time Melady is a thing. Though since you haven't been training Shanna...

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Okay seriously now, did I completely hallucinate that Saul x Dorothy support? It's taking forever!

...No, it's listed on the support page that they support each other... I've been keeping them next to each other... pretty much continuously whenever deployed...

They have a base of 20 points towards the C support, with a growth of 2 points per turn spent adjacent. So 20 turns together are needed to get them to C.

Also, don't expect to have anyone support in the same chapter Rutger and Clarine hit A. Why?:

Points needed for each level of support:

• 60 points are needed for a C support
• 120 points is needed for a B support (60 points to go from C to B)
• 200 points is needed for an A support (80 points to go from B to A)

A maximum amount of 120 points can be accumulated for all characters per chapter. For example, in Chapter 20, Roy and Lilina use up 60 points to go from a C support to a B support, leaving 60 points left for other characters. If Roy and Wolt also use 60 points up in the same chapter, no other characters can gain support points in the same chapter.

So, by making RutgerxClarine A, it'll be impossible to Support anyone else for the fight. You can spend the turns together to reach a new rank, but you wouldn't be able to activate that rate until the next fight.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

The promotion gains in this game aren't massive, generally just a bunch of 2s and the occasional 3, with a 4 for resistance. I've definitely seen games where promotion has made a bigger impact, namely FE4.

The unused FE6 Female Paladin promotion bonuses are kinda good:

Cavalier (F)

Paladin (F)

+5 HP

+1 Str

+3 Skl

+8 Spd

+1 Def

+6 Res

+1 Con

+1 Move

[Alastor15243]

37 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

They have a base of 20 points towards the C support, with a growth of 2 points per turn spent adjacent. So 20 turns together are needed to get them to C.

Also, don't expect to have anyone support in the same chapter Rutger and Clarine hit A. Why?:

Points needed for each level of support:

• 60 points are needed for a C support
• 120 points is needed for a B support (60 points to go from C to B)
• 200 points is needed for an A support (80 points to go from B to A)

A maximum amount of 120 points can be accumulated for all characters per chapter. For example, in Chapter 20, Roy and Lilina use up 60 points to go from a C support to a B support, leaving 60 points left for other characters. If Roy and Wolt also use 60 points up in the same chapter, no other characters can gain support points in the same chapter.

So, by making RutgerxClarine A, it'll be impossible to Support anyone else for the fight. You can spend the turns together to reach a new rank, but you wouldn't be able to activate that rate until the next fight.

Thaaaat explains a lot. I got Allen and Lance to A and Clarine and Rutger to B on the same map as I tried this.

Edited February 6, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Eltosian Kadath]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Also, as I wondered before, yes, it seems like there aren't any locked doors whatsoever between Roy and the throne. As for the treasure in the side rooms, the game seems to give you three options:

If you have a thief, you can use their lockpick to unlock the rooms and the chests inside.

If you... have a thief... you can use him to steal all the door keys and chest keys you'll need to unlock all of these doors.

If you don't have a thief, then you can either hope you stocked up on door and chest keys in the previous chapter, or you can curl up on the floor, make like Ouroboros and devour your own ass.

Fourth option is wait for enemy thieves to open it for you...

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Lilina, as I remember, is stuck in a tiny four-square cell with an archer who by the looks of things is either gonna chase her around in circles while she constantly moves to the one corner of the room he can't shoot, or break down the wall to kill her. I might be able to bait him over to have Allen kill him with a javelin though.

If you just keep her out of range for a few turns, he will end up giving up on that distasteful task and move towards your main army. Plus the baiting strategy you did works just fine.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

And now we've got some new reinforcements, who are... almost entirely worthless. We've got a mediocre, underleveled mercenary competing with Rutger and Lot for hero crests, and we've got two mediocre, underleveled knights competing with Allen and Lance for knight crests!

Mediocre Mercenary? you must mean the free Armor Slayer :P. One other thing to note is that Bors, Barth, and Wendy can perform their own Triangle Attack, which is kinda cool.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

and an elysian whip that I am totally saving for Miledy.

As stingy as this game is with its promotion items, Elysian Whips are the odd exception, as you get them just as you need them for the most part.

Also figured I would point out that this map and the Denning map from FE7 share a throne room.

 

[Boomhauer007]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Well, that's an interesting backstory for Cath. We only get her side of the story, but apparently her Marquess burned down her village “in order to prepare for the war with Bern”, and so she considers the entire idea of taxation to just be theft by another name because the nobles don't fulfill their end of the bargain.

 

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Fourth option is wait for enemy thieves to open it for you...

If you just keep her out of range for a few turns, he will end up giving up on that distasteful task and move towards your main army. Plus the baiting strategy you did works just fine.

 

Mediocre Mercenary? you must mean the free Armor Slayer :P. One other thing to note is that Bors, Barth, and Wendy can perform their own Triangle Attack, which is kinda cool.

 

As stingy as this game is with its promotion items, Elysian Whips are the odd exception, as you get them just as you need them for the most part.

Also figured I would point out that this map and the Denning map from FE7 share a throne room.

 

Damn. You beat me to it. Well I can still show off the previously mentioned mock up I made of all of Ostia.

On retrospect the rest chapter in Blazing Blade probably is meant to be the same area as Binding Blade due to the forests around it and the position of the vendor, they just took some liberties so everything would be close together. Though honestly given how you have like five turns to move around and absolutely nowhere to go, I think they could have just ripped the Binding Blade map wholesale.

 

 

[Alastor15243]

Binding Blade Day 9: Chapter 8x

Well, first gaiden map, and... this is looking a bit... bad. Not so much the map itself, but more the fact that I've got like 9 total uses of my heal staves left. Not counting Physic because no one can use that yet.

...No, wait, looks like I may have a way out on this. Thankfully, it seems most of the mages and some of the other units have vulneraries, so looks like Astore will be putting some work in stealing those things. Which unfortunately means I can't bring Dorothy to get that support today. Oh well. I'm gonna have to conserve staff uses, and every unit I rob is another 30 damage we can take without going in the red. I also can't bring Marcus and Jerrot, but I think my A team can do fine without them now.

Alright, so, mental note: Roland's legendary weapon is in Ostia, and Roland was the first marquess of Ostia. Curious. I guess I didn't notice that when playing the Elibe games before. I kind of assumed it had more of a connection with Eliwood than Hector. Well, I mean, that does explain Roland's hair color, though it looks more like Ephraim's, honestly. And also... this map doesn't look anything like the gauntlet Eliwood went through in FE7.

So... this music is the precursor to Scars of the Scouring, is it? I like FE7's version better, but it is nice.

The killer axe is turning out to be pretty useful for Lot. His high axe rank is helping make up for the fact that he's relatively behind. Pity the thing only has 20 uses. It's a damned good weapon.

This is going pretty smoothly. Vulneraries are in plentiful supply, so it looks like all this setback is going to do is cut into my staff exp. Which is a pain, given that I love valkyries but rarely get the opportunity to properly train them, but it's not the end of the world.

Funny. I'm noticing that a lot of the enemies with vulneraries aren't moving, even when approached.

Honestly, I think aside from Thracia, this is the most use I've ever gotten out of stealing in a Fire Emblem game. It's cool they have so much for thieves to do in this game, gotta say.

Y'know, I was kinda hoping there'd be reinforcements from the dead end to the west of the starting location, given that there were some enemies there to start with, but no real point in heading in that direction aside from killing them.

I just realized that it isn't just fire tomes that are light. Even elfire fails to be too heavy for Lugh to wield with his base con.

Well that might be tricky. We've got a killing edge mercenary. However... he has a vulnerary. Could it be...?

...Yep. He's not budging either. Holy shit was it scary taking that gamble, though. Making plans when you can't trust the game is honestly just frustrating, because the game is never as unfair as the worst-case scenario you think up in your head... until it inevitably is.

On the plus side, Lugh is now level 19, and thus likely stands to promote after fighting the boss!

...In the event that he can handle him on his own. He probably can, eventually, but Rutger with Clarine support is also a nice option. This would be easier if I had more staves...

On the plus side, Rutger breaks his hpsauce streak and gains defense and resistance!

Success! Lugh beat the boss, though his absurd evasion meant there was a lot of vulnerary spamming and prayers. And now he's level 20 and can promote!

Ahhh, the sage. My favorite-looking class in the GBA games, and the best that sages have ever looked in the entire franchise. Lugh is now S rank in tomes and can use Forblaze once we get it, and he has 17 magic, 16 skill, 17 speed, 12 luck, 6 defense, and 12 res. He also can use staves now, not that that means anything at the current moment, since the only staff we have left is a physic staff nobody can yet use.

Oh yes. This was definitely worth the wait.

And now we have Durandal, the Sword of Sacred Fire! ...Speaking of which, do you think they're going to change that line to “Durandal, the Blazing Blade” in the remake? I really, really hope they don't. I love “the Sword of Sacred Fire”.

As for the sword itself, that weight of 12 is a bit inconvenient for my non-mounted sword users, but 17 might and a strength bonus of 5 is definitely impressive, and 90 hit is greatly appreciated in this game. Pity it has 20 durability and that has to last us literally the entire rest of the game.

Good thing I don't have anyone who can use it yet, or I might be tempted!

…

...What.

I'm sorry, what?

...The ending transition to what I have to assume is the end of chapter 8 if you don't get the gaiden is... phenomenally stupid. So the events of the end of chapter 8 just happen as normal? How fucking close to this volcano did Hector's ancestors build Ostia!? Does that thriving, scenic town with libraries and blacksmiths and good 'ol wholesome bloodsport arenas live under perpetual threat of being consumed by fire and ash!? Because if it isn't that fucking close, then how the fuck can this entire side-chapter can be hand-waved as a minor errand and not a massive fucking detour? If Durandal were inside the actual building we seized, like in many other examples I remember from this game, that I could understand. But we made a trip to a fucking volcano and back, and it changes nothing!?

It's so surreal! Merlinus just says that the Bern wyvern knights have arrived in Ostia, and Roy just... fucking flash-steps across the countryside like he has seven league boots, and the wyvern knights are just still waiting for him in front of the colosseum, like they haven't had multiple days at minimum to take over in his absence!?

Fuck this. Complete and utter horseshit.

...It is hilarious though.

Huh... Perceval is on Etruria's side? Hmmm... I can't quite remember what circumstances cause him to be an enemy unit with hard mode bonuses... I'm kind of curious to find out.

Well, that looks like the end of the chapter. I really, really hope this next chapter has shops. I've got too many staff users right now to let that go to waste.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I just realized that it isn't just fire tomes that are light. Even elfire fails to be too heavy for Lugh to wield with his base con.

Enjoy that while you can - that's gonna change in the next game, where C rank tomes or higher will be heavy to the point of being impractical.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Her: Do you eat ass?

Me:

19 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

curl up on the floor, make like Ouroboros and devour your own ass.

***

17 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

As stingy as this game is with its promotion items, Elysian Whips are the odd exception, as you get them just as you need them for the most part.

You can promote every flier in the game without visiting a Secret Shop, I'm pretty sure. You come close at least.

***

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Which unfortunately means I can't bring Dorothy to get that support today.

Saul should really be supporting Jodel anyway.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

This is going pretty smoothly. Vulneraries are in plentiful supply, so it looks like all this setback is going to do is cut into my staff exp. Which is a pain, given that I love valkyries but rarely get the opportunity to properly train them, but it's not the end of the world.

They're easier to train if you promote them at level 10.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

l, the Sword of Sacred Fire! ...Speaking of which, do you think they're going to change that line to “Durandal, the Blazing Blade” in the remake? I really, really hope they don't. I love “the Sword of Sacred Fire”.

They probably will, the tasteless cowards.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Huh... Perceval is on Etruria's side? Hmmm... I can't quite remember what circumstances cause him to be an enemy unit with hard mode bonuses... I'm kind of curious to find out.

Genius plot happens.

[Jotari]

Does Binding Blade not have a preparations shop? I can't say I ever remember literally running out of healing staves in it before.

Re the volcano. That's pretty funny, I never considered it. Though to defend the decision, Roy could have been holed up in Ostia for months preparing a hopeless defense. And when Merlinus says there wyverns coming it have been more like the wyverns have started attacking our outer border of control. If you suspend your disbelief a bit further it shouldn't be hard to imagine that the time frame here is a bit longer than it seems. Think if this was Three Houses there would probably be a mandatory month between the exchanges, with the opportunity to visit four volcanos in the mean time.

I would suggest they move the Gaiden to the other side of these cutscenes, but that would actually change Roy's character massively as they's meant to be at an uneasy peace after this chapter. Roy going and getting a super weapon the moment Bern stops their assault would look far more aggressive than him getting it in what is Ostia's darkest hour.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

17 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Does Binding Blade not have a preparations shop? I can't say I ever remember literally running out of healing staves in it before.

I looked and didn't see one. I'll try again, maybe it's translated weirdly in this patch and I didn't notice it, but I'm pretty sure it's not there.

17 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Re the volcano. That's pretty funny, I never considered it. Though to defend the decision, Roy could have been holed up in Ostia for months preparing a hopeless defense. And when Merlinus says there wyverns coming it have been more like the wyverns have started attacking our outer border of control. If you suspend your disbelief a bit further it shouldn't be hard to imagine that the time frame here is a bit longer than it seems. Think if this was Three Houses there would probably be a mandatory month between the exchanges, with the opportunity to visit four volcanos in the mean time.

I just went back and checked, thinking this might have been the case, but sadly, the text explicitly says that Merlinus is telling Roy that the Bern wyvern knights have "arrived at Castle Ostia". So I don't think that really works. The wyvern knights have been there long enough for a message to get to Merlinus and for Roy to race back, all while Etruria's reinforcements haven't arrived yet. If Ostia isn't a Pompeii situation in the making, this is some complete and total nonsense.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Alastor15243

[AnonymousSpeed]

13 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Does Binding Blade not have a preparations shop? I can't say I ever remember literally running out of healing staves in it before.

There's no preparations shop in Hard Mode.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

There's no preparations shop in Hard Mode.

Oh! Good to know, thanks for the heads up! I just assumed that was something FE7 added!

On the plus side, the next chapter does have an armory and shop, so I'm just gonna have to hope it has staves, as it should at this point in the game.

4 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

You can promote every flier in the game without visiting a Secret Shop, I'm pretty sure. You come close at least.

That is... surprisingly generous. I'll see if I can get one of the later pegasus knights off the ground in addition to training my wyvern knights. The falcon knights do have fun animations I generally don't see nearly enough of.

[AnonymousSpeed]

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

That is... surprisingly generous. I'll see if I can get one of the later pegasus knights off the ground in addition to training my wyvern knights. The falcon knights do have fun animations I generally don't see nearly enough of.

Yeah, it's kinda weird given how strapped you are for the other things.

Thea (Tate? I don't know what her name is right now) gets Hard Mode bonuses, which is okay I guess. She also supports Alan (Alen?).

Edited February 7, 2020 by AnonymousSpeed

[Interdimensional Observer]

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Success! Lugh beat the boss, though his absurd evasion meant there was a lot of vulnerary spamming and prayers. And now he's level 20 and can promote!

The Chapter 8  boss, Henning, is generally considered to be very annoying on Hard, probably not Hyman- FE11 Chapter 3- bad. His Spd is too darned high, early promote Rutger is considered here to ease the headache I think.

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ahhh, the sage. My favorite-looking class in the GBA games, and the best that sages have ever looked in the entire franchise. Lugh is now S rank in tomes and can use Forblaze once we get it, and he has 17 magic, 16 skill, 17 speed, 12 luck, 6 defense, and 12 res.

Lugh vs. Lilina is Skl & Spd vs. Mag & Lck. Though Lugh's extra availability, doubling and Anima already being potent makes him a bit preferred tier list-wise. His usual problem is Mag screwage for those who ditch the Banana Mage.

My Lugh ended up being rather heavily blessed I remember. Though I don't get how, unless you were taking it slow, he promoted already, mine had to wait until C12 to hit 20 on Normal. 

His 20/1 averages:

Level	HP	S/M	Skl	Spd	Lck	Def	Res
1	29.5	15.6	16.5	16.5	11.65	7.85	12.7

So, other than a pinch of Magic, yours is right where he should be.

 

4 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

They probably will, the tasteless cowards.

American Adapters Ardently Adore Almighty Absolute Alliteration.

"Sword of Sacred Fire" sounds fine and formal, but for me, you cannot do that phrase right unless you carry out seven months worth of rituals to the Master of the Sacred Tower beforehand.

 

14 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

If Ostia isn't a Pompeii situation in the making, this is some complete and total nonsense.

Well, Ostia is the name of Rome's old port city. To see it become a Pompeii would be befitting.

Fortunately, that will not happen, because Roland quelled the volcano using Durandal as a catalyst to safely vent its destructive potential. In doing so, his people could safely sow the soil long enriched with volcanic ash, and mine the igneous rock that formed. As long as Durandal is returned to its proper place in the shrine within a matter of a few years, the magma chamber of the volcano will not fill. -I joke.

But, my objective time records tell me that in 1378 EC, the volcano at last erupted and consumed the entirety of Ostia. ...

Spoiler

For in 1302, the then-raging civil war in Lycia between the Pheraean and Tuscanan noble houses, now heirs to the defunct Ostian line with the passing of the barren Queen Fiourna, saw the Tuscanans sack the shrine before being forced to flee Ostia, due to the political and military success of the Pheraeans. Yet, with Durandal in tow, the Tuscana pretender, Ursurt fought heroically back and managed to deal a nearly decisive blow to the Pheraean cause. Ursurt negotiated a merciful end and allowed the Pheraeans to keep their fief, but had its patriarch murdered, the surviving son exiled to Sacae, and wed his third son to the surviving daughter.

From Ostia, Usurt reigned for seventeen years, attempting to legitimize his inferior claim to the monarchy, before dying of illness and passing the throne to his eldest son. Bad blood between the three sons invited yet more civil war, and thus Durandal, which Usurt had relocated to a temple in the city of Ostia itself, and often wore in a scabbard as a good luck charm, was drawn once more. The youngest of the three brothers seized Ostia and slew the eldest, but the second son took the Durandal and maintained independent rule in the north and east of the country, he buttressed a strong army with mighty forts and a vast number of Sacaean mercenaries, whose arrows harassed Ostia's advances at every turn.

When the second son died in time, his children negotiated their family into a powerful dukedom, only nominal was Ostia's rule over it, but nominal was better than what it had prior. Durandal remained in Tuscana, the national treasure had become the preserve of the Tuscanan duchy, never did it see Ostia ever again. All tales of Roland's use of the blade to suppress the fire of the mountains were forgotten or became regarded as mere superstition. Thus, the volcano erupted one fateful, inevitable day. His Majesty had taken precaution and fled, but his wife, ill following childbirth days prior, died with her newborn, and tens of thousands more. Ostia was buried in ash and rock and wiped off the map, Lycia was to fall into greater anarchy, were it not for Queen Belogia, the Tuscanan Duchess who brandishing the very blade whose absence from its proper place had wrought this tragedy, reenacted her ancestor's daringness and reunified Lycia yet again, at its new capital.

Just me writing purest fanfict on the spot, because I can.