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

[Jotari]

12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

The thief has shown up from the west, apparently outside of the fort. And he's a member of the Black Fang. Has the Black Fang really ordered their own treasury to be raided in case they lose? That seems... way more pessimistic of them than seems appropriate for their current attitude.

Maybe he's a defector who's figured no way he's risking his life for Brandon Reed's new girlfriend. So he's decided to rob the place and get out of Dodge.

9 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Lyn, one of the greatest killers of Ironmans, strikes again.

 

More like one and a half, as Eliwood can be really good if you can get him off the ground and promoted (plus his incredibly fast and useful support with Hector helps them both), but if he is unlucky with his growths he can be just as useless as Lyn.

That's the issue with Eliwood. He's growths are much more middling which means his quality is way more of a coin flip. Hector and Lyn both have extreme growths that means they'll probably cap their relevant stats, while Eliwood is at the mercy of the rng. Aside from the steel lances that hold Lyn back, the fact that enemy attack speed is so atrocious in this game means her actual niche, being able to double everything, is superfluous as everyone, even a good Hector, can double almost all enemies. While Hectors best feature, his defense and attack, and the ability to use hand axes, makes him completely tailored for the game. If Lyn were to be transplanted into another game, say Three Houses Maddening or whatever the most difficult mode is, she'd be way more of an asset as enemies are freaking fast in that game.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

If Lyn were to be transplanted into another game, say Three Houses Maddening or whatever the most difficult mode is, she'd be way more of an asset as enemies are freaking fast in that game.

Hell, she'd probably have been pretty great in FE6, for that matter.

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Boomhauer007 said:

I like to think it came with the mustache. 

Facial hair does weird things to people. Bartre becomes smart, and Hector's arms shrivel up- his FE6 version has only 18 Str for a 20/20 General.

 

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

Hell, she'd probably have been pretty great in FE6, for that matter.

And Hector would've been much worse, and Eliwood... would've been Roy with less Luck- so-so.

Lyn vs. Normal Mode Rutger and Fir, for the heck of it (rounding up if .5 or greater):

Level 4:

• Lyn: 18/5/9/11/7/3/1
• Rutger: 22/7/12/13/2/5/0
• Fir: 21/7/11/12/5/3/2

Level 15:

• Lyn: 26/10/15/17/13/5/4
• Rutger: 31/10/19/19/5/7/2
• Fir: 30/10/16/18/10/5/4

 

I'll leave Lyn's promotion as Blade Lord, instead of changing it to Swordmaster.

Level 20/5:

• Lyn: 35/15/23/22/18/10/12
• Rutger: 43/15/24/23/8/12/6
• Fir: 40/15/23/24/15/9/8

Level 20/20:

• Lyn: 46/21/29/30/26/13/16
• Rutger: 55/20/29/30/13/15/9
• Fir: 52/19/29/30/22/12/11

 

Lyn has inferior bases even on Normal for Fir and Rutger. But, by promotion she sheds her inferiority and ties, before emerging the best besides HP at maximum level. Not bad, her base HP just needs a bump. Made female Swordmaster instead for +30 Crit, she could be roughly as good as these two.

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Facial hair does weird things to people. Bartre becomes smart, and Hector's arms shrivel up- his FE6 version has only 18 Str for a 20/20 General.

 

And Hector would've been much worse, and Eliwood... would've been Roy with less Luck- so-so.

Lyn vs. Normal Mode Rutger and Fir, for the heck of it (rounding up if .5 or greater):

Level 4:

• Lyn: 18/5/9/11/7/3/1
• Rutger: 22/7/12/13/2/5/0
• Fir: 21/7/11/12/5/3/2

Level 15:

• Lyn: 26/10/15/17/13/5/4
• Rutger: 31/10/19/19/5/7/2
• Fir: 30/10/16/18/10/5/4

 

I'll leave Lyn's promotion as Blade Lord, instead of changing it to Swordmaster.

Level 20/5:

• Lyn: 35/15/23/22/18/10/12
• Rutger: 43/15/24/23/8/12/6
• Fir: 40/15/23/24/15/9/8

Level 20/20:

• Lyn: 46/21/29/30/26/13/16
• Rutger: 55/20/29/30/13/15/9
• Fir: 52/19/29/30/22/12/11

 

Lyn has inferior bases even on Normal for Fir and Rutger. But, by promotion she sheds her inferiority and ties, before emerging the best besides HP at maximum level. Not bad, her base HP just needs a bump. Made female Swordmaster instead for +30 Crit, she could be roughly as good as these two.

That makes sense for a lord unit. A lot of the time they're slightly more Esty in the stat growth, especially if they have late promotions. Though not having any crit bonus would hinder her greatly. On the other hand, Binding Blade is Wyvren Emblem, so her access to bows would help her play phase potential somewhat. Her higher luck would also make her great for doge tanking...hmm. I"m getting a hack idea. FE7 lords in FE6. Would be trivially easy to do.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

That makes sense for a lord unit. A lot of the time they're slightly more Esty in the stat growth, especially if they have late promotions. Though not having any crit bonus would hinder her greatly. On the other hand, Binding Blade is Wyvren Emblem, so her access to bows would help her play phase potential somewhat. Her higher luck would also make her great for doge tanking...hmm. I"m getting a hack idea. FE7 lords in FE6. Would be trivially easy to do.

Would you just add them to chapter 1, or mix them in with other recruitments? I'd be interested in playing that.

[Interdimensional Observer]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

That makes sense for a lord unit. A lot of the time they're slightly more Esty in the stat growth, especially if they have late promotions. Though not having any crit bonus would hinder her greatly. On the other hand, Binding Blade is Wyvren Emblem, so her access to bows would help her play phase potential somewhat. Her higher luck would also make her great for doge tanking...hmm. I"m getting a hack idea. FE7 lords in FE6. Would be trivially easy to do.

And why not go a step further and swap out some FE6 characters for FE7 ones? Alen and Lance with Kent and Sain would be good, since they've same total growths. Marcus with Marcus too?

Lugh with Erk? Melady with Heath? Shanna with Florina? Ogier with Raven? Garret with Hawkeye? Clarine with Priscilla? Bors with Oswin? Sin with Rath? Wolt and Dorothy with Rebecca and Wil? Ellen with Serra? Wade and Lott with Dorcas and Bartre? Geese with Dart? Maybe even Zelot with Isadora just because? Cecilia with Pent?

You don't have to, but it'd be a way to check and see how certain characters function in a higher difficulty environment. Does Oswin get worse, or better? How much less broken is FE7 Marcus in 6? Is Raven even better?

Edited April 15, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Alastor15243]

Blazing Blade Day 26: Chaper 27, Take 2

Well.

Time to start my first day as a filthy, resetting peasant.

Thankfully out of instinct I still saved by battle preparations from the last map before starting, so I'm still good to go right away.

I'm... I think I'm just gonna repeat my actions yesterday in silence. I'll let you know if anything notably different happens this time.

I just checked Kenneth's range. Did I really put Lyn that close to him? I really don't remember doing so. Not remotely. I would've had to put her damn near in range of the archers too if what I'm counting is correct!

Alright, I'm almost to the part where I was at before. Given how little extra exp Bartre seems to get from kills, I'm just having him do chip damage twice a turn with Ninian's help.

Also, curious... I did remember Harken saying “we” in his introductory line when I was a kid, but I remember him having a bunch of black fang soldiers with him when he said that too. Curious. He's just “talking” to his fallen comrades by the looks of it.

Oh shoot. I accidentally fast-forwarded through a warrior bow critical! I don't even remember what those look like! I practically made it my mission as a kid to see every damned critical animation in the whole game. Maybe I can get Bartre a killer bow eventually and see it again.

But none of the archers attacked him on enemy-phase, because for some reason, a bandit really wanted to move into that newly-free space that Bartre's crit opened up. Can't for the life of me fathom why. But anyway, Bartre's gonna pick off all the archers so that Lyn (ONCE I HAVE COMPLETELY DRAINED KENNETH'S PURGE) can fight all the melee fighters in that room.

...Honestly, what the fuck does it say about Karla that I only need to get Bartre to level 10/5 in order to make sure she doesn't one-round him? She doesn't one-round fucking Bartre. I mean, I get that his HP's pretty great, but still...

Anyway, I'm almost done prepping the lower room for Lyn, and I'm also in the process of taking out the archers to the northeast and the longbow archers inside the main building. I'm gonna have Lyn do that just for the hell of it, since those longbow archers aren't that tough, and rescue-dropping is a thing.

Weird. I was fast-forwarding, so I can't be sure, but there was a strange hiccup in the battle screen, like they were about to bring in a named enemy's dying words, right as I killed that bishop in the main hall with Bartre (he can just barely avoid getting critted thanks to his support with Canas and my tactician bonuses). I think that might have been the game triggering the “more than one of the key enemies killed” flag.

...No, it happened again when I killed the sniper. Maybe that's just what happens every time one of them is killed, increasing the tally?

Oh hey! Ninian's stats don't cap out at a measly 20 like Lalum and Elphin's did! Awesome!

I got a talisman, a guiding ring, and a blue gem. Decent haul. Now to train up Lyn so she's slightly less of a liability when I bring her in to Battle Before Dawn tomorrow.

She's been getting some pretty terrible level ups, but that's to be expected when she's capped speed.

Nope, wait, she got a pretty damned good one for level 19. I should get her promoted with this batch of enemies in the lower room. Ninis's grace is turning about absurdly useful for little tasks like this, making sure Lyn doesn't die when first entering an area where multiple enemies can attack her.

I completely failed a spot check and forgot to kill two of the ranged enemies in the lower room, but thankfully Lyn easily dodged both. I'll probably feed those two to Bartre.

But that's getting pretty damned annoying, because that bandit from before seems to continuously be moving as if he were a longbow archer, constantly moving to the same spaces that a longbow archer could attack units from, and moving away to follow them when I move them. It's utterly bizarre. I can't even imagine what coding causes that behavior.

Lyn finally got to level 20, and got literally nothing. Well, time to promote her and finish off that hero with Bartre.

Also, thanks to his B support with Priscilla, Heath could kick Kenneth's ass. So now I just have to finish off these enemies and seize.

Wow, Lyn actually has the attack power to one-round some enemies with an iron sword now! Nice! Maybe I'll actually find a use for her! That increase to her bulk is greatly appreciated too.

...And yet again, I find myself furiously forced to admit that if I had early-promoted her at level 16, my ironman would still be alive and well.

...Wait...

...Okay, so I beat the chapter, Lyn and Eliwood are talking...

...And they're surprised to find the Fire Emblem by Kenneth's corpse? What the fuck does Eliwood mean, “It can't be”!?

Didn't they witness Sonia tell Kenneth to guard it!?

...Oh goodness... Nino's asking to hold Sonia's hand... Oh my god that's so sad... And Sonia's basically admitting, tacitly, that she's never even hugged her once.

Oh my god, Nino really did say “do my best” multiple times in this game! Was that actually something Heroes took from the game!? I thought it was just an innocuous random line that became a meme!

And then, the stone cold bitch... the second that sweet little child leaves...

...Sonia tells Jaffar, super casually, to kill Nino too once the prince is dead.

And now Jaffar's coat of heartless ice has been sufficiently stabbed clean through that he's actually fucking horrified by Sonia's behavior.

You know how fucking much Nino got to him?

He's not using ellipses anymore.

He's using exclamation points.

TWO EXCLAMANTION POINTS.

HE USES TWO EXCLAMATION POINTS PER SENTENCE WHEN HE TALKS TO HER ABOUT HER DEMANDS.

FUCKING JAFFAR.

How the fuck would that even sound voice-acted? I'm looking forward to seeing them try to do this scene justice.

But on the other hand, maybe the fact that I can't even imagine him saying those lines is a strike against this scene? I like it, but on the other hand, it kinda feels like I shouldn't...

But speaking of not liking things...

I seem to remember this scene ending the chapter in Eliwood Mode. But here, they tack on a scene with Hector and Oswin talking about Uther's condition, and... I think that was ill-placed. It should've gone before the Black Fang scene, not after.

But really, that's all I have to say.

While this chapter may have given me a lot of grief, I don't really have any complaints about it specifically, just how easy it is in general for siege tomes to sneak the fuck up on you in games without range highlighting, something that I'm so used to having when I do ironmans.

Anyway, time for the most infamous chapter in the entire game.

Hector Hard Mode Battle Before Dawn.

Stay safe, everyone.

[Shadow Mir]

17 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Lyn, one of the greatest killers of Ironmans, strikes again.

That to say you've lost your fair share of ironmans of this game because Lyn died?

 

12 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Honestly, what the fuck does it say about Karla that I only need to get Bartre to level 10/5 in order to make sure she doesn't one-round him? She doesn't one-round fucking Bartre. I mean, I get that his HP's pretty great, but still...

Don't forget the Iron Rune.

This reminds me, if this game gets remade, both Bartre and Karla need to be buffed, because this is embarrassing. I mean, for how hard she is to recruit, she just isn't worth it as is; by that point, you have no shortage of sword units that outclass her (even ignoring the cavalry, Raven, Harken/Karel, Guy, Lyn and Jaffar all run rings around her). One blog, which ranked her at #5 of the hardest characters to recruit, says this:

Oh joy! You have to use one of the worst units in the game. I don’t just mean use him, I mean he has to be promoted and at least at Level 5. Then they have to survive a round of combat against each other. What could possibly go wrong?

Edited April 15, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Eltosian Kadath]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also, curious... I did remember Harken saying “we” in his introductory line when I was a kid, but I remember him having a bunch of black fang soldiers with him when he said that too. Curious. He's just “talking” to his fallen comrades by the looks of it.

The Jerme version has him show up as a red unit with a bunch of Black Fangs, and that might be what you are thinking of.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Oh shoot. I accidentally fast-forwarded through a warrior bow critical! I don't even remember what those look like! I practically made it my mission as a kid to see every damned critical animation in the whole game. Maybe I can get Bartre a killer bow eventually and see it again.

Its really dumb looking with them flipping the bow all around that ridiculous beef cake of a body.

 

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

That to say you've lost your fair share of ironmans of this game because Lyn died?

Noble Lady of Caelin tends to be a bit of a bottle neck if you skip Lyn mode with HHM, as all of the Lyn mode units that are there to defend her are barely usable at their starting stats, and if you have one untimely miss in the usually 70-80s accuracy you see, somebody is dying, and it is usually Lyn. Plus she is so squishy that on every chapter she is in, she has a real risk of dying even if you train her. When I did get to the end, there were a few chapters where it was clear to me that multiple units had to be sacrificed to make sure Lyn lived, on the handful of maps I deployed her. On top of all that this is the second FE7 ironman being played on Serenes Forest, where Lyn died this week...

[Alastor15243]

13 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

The Jerme version has him show up as a red unit with a bunch of Black Fangs, and that might be what you are thinking of.

Ahhhhhh. Yeah that explains it, thanks!

[Shadow Mir]

54 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Noble Lady of Caelin tends to be a bit of a bottle neck if you skip Lyn mode with HHM, as all of the Lyn mode units that are there to defend her are barely usable at their starting stats, and if you have one untimely miss in the usually 70-80s accuracy you see, somebody is dying, and it is usually Lyn. Plus she is so squishy that on every chapter she is in, she has a real risk of dying even if you train her. When I did get to the end, there were a few chapters where it was clear to me that multiple units had to be sacrificed to make sure Lyn lived, on the handful of maps I deployed her. On top of all that this is the second FE7 ironman being played on Serenes Forest, where Lyn died this week...

Fair enough.

54 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Its really dumb looking with them flipping the bow all around that ridiculous beef cake of a body.

Not to mention the bow being bent even further than during their normal bow attacks. It's a wonder the bow doesn't just break from all the stress.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh my god, Nino really did say “do my best” multiple times in this game! Was that actually something Heroes took from the game!? I thought it was just an innocuous random line that became a meme!

This isn't at all special, so I read.

https://kantopia.wordpress.com/2018/06/24/fe-heroes-do-my-best-jpn-vs-eng/

Outside of FE, I recall a young happy archer girl who'd say the phrase often at the of their turn.

 

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

How the fuck would that even sound voice-acted? I'm looking forward to seeing them try to do this scene justice.

Besides tone of voice, how about facial and body language? Eyes narrow with inner anger, the sword hand, although the mind has no desire to kill, clenches the Killing Edge with a touch more strength. The still body of the silent assassin keen to avoid unnecessary movement, unusually moves its stance a bit as if caught most unexpectedly off guard- but not too much given Jaffar's expertise and still strong loyalty to Nergal and Sonia.

I can't see Jaffar shouting in rage very much, not yet. In the Night of Farewells confrontation with Sonia, after he has discarded his old obedience forever, but not now.

Will you get to see that confrontation? Well, 58 Avoid + a Pillar's +20, 34 HP, 15 Def, 11 Res and an Elixir will largely determine that, won't it?

[Shadow Mir]

2 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

This isn't at all special, so I read.

https://kantopia.wordpress.com/2018/06/24/fe-heroes-do-my-best-jpn-vs-eng/

Outside of FE, I recall a young happy archer girl who'd say the phrase often at the of their turn.

Bold: You got my attention. Who is that? Because the only archer girl who's not from FE that's coming to me now is Popo.

[Interdimensional Observer]

18 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Bold: You got my attention. Who is that? Because the only archer girl who's not from FE that's coming to me now is Popo.

Rina, to be precise she said "Let's do our best!" but thats basically the same thing in meaning.:

If the art style looks vaguely familiar, it because she's from Luminous Arc 2, Stella Glow is basically Luminous Arc -three narratively unrelated DS games, third is Japan only- with a name change b/c legal rights, but exact same developer. An SRPG with a story emphasis on lovely anime Witches (but Rina isn't one). They'll probably be inferior to Stella Glow, but they might interest you.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Acacia Sgt]

Sorry. Wrong thread.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Acacia Sgt

[Jotari]

10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Would you just add them to chapter 1, or mix them in with other recruitments? I'd be interested in playing that.

I actually have had the thought before to make a FE6 Hector Mode, where Hector comes in and replaced Roy in the story in the first few chapters (which let's face it in universe had a very good chance of happening if Hector didn't die at that moment). All that rewriting would require much more effort than making new units though. Simply replacing existing units would be the easiest way of going about it, but I managed to add Guinevere before so I'm sure I could add them. If I recall it was only the ending that provided any real sort of trouble. If I were to do an expansive FE7 cast in 6 then I'd replace characters. Otherwise I'd probably just replace Roy with Lyn and make Eliwood and Hector playable within the first few chapters.

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

This isn't at all special, so I read.

https://kantopia.wordpress.com/2018/06/24/fe-heroes-do-my-best-jpn-vs-eng/

Outside of FE, I recall a young happy archer girl who'd say the phrase often at the of their turn.

 

Besides tone of voice, how about facial and body language? Eyes narrow with inner anger, the sword hand, although the mind has no desire to kill, clenches the Killing Edge with a touch more strength. The still body of the silent assassin keen to avoid unnecessary movement, unusually moves its stance a bit as if caught most unexpectedly off guard- but not too much given Jaffar's expertise and still strong loyalty to Nergal and Sonia.

I can't see Jaffar shouting in rage very much, not yet. In the Night of Farewells confrontation with Sonia, after he has discarded his old obedience forever, but not now.

Will you get to see that confrontation? Well, 58 Avoid + a Pillar's +20, 34 HP, 15 Def, 11 Res and an Elixir will largely determine that, won't it?

That's what I was thinking. The exclamation marks and ellipses work for the medium where you have to use relatively static portraits without voice acting, but proper animation quality would definitely be able to convey the same thing. Let's just hope if this games does get remade the animation budget is higher than it was for  Three Houses.

[Alastor15243]

On 4/14/2020 at 11:04 PM, Jotari said:

Maybe he's a defector who's figured no way he's risking his life for Brandon Reed's new girlfriend. So he's decided to rob the place and get out of Dodge.

Just realized I never replied to this.

Honestly, given there's precedent for that with Legault, that's a fair point.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Just realized I never replied to this.

Honestly, given there's precedent for that with Legault, that's a fair point.

On the other hand we shouldn't have to invent reasons for the characters to make sense. On the other other hand, MST3K Mantra, it's just a random thief, shut up and play the game. 

[Alastor15243]

9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

On the other hand we shouldn't have to invent reasons for the characters to make sense. On the other other hand, MST3K Mantra, it's just a random thief, shut up and play the game. 

Yeah, in other games, that guy wouldn't have been labeled as the same army as the enemy. Like, in Fates, they'd be listed under a separate faction.

Edited April 16, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Alastor15243]

Blazing Blade Day 27: Chapter 28

You know, as the opening scene plays out, something just occurred to me, a pretty impressive bit of irony:

Nino and Jaffar... they're both members of Nergal's Black Fang. People brought in, by Nergal, after he used Sonia to take over. People intended to slowly undermine Brendan Reed's control of the once-chaotic-good organization.

And yet they're the only ones in the entire damned story who defect from the Black Fang for heroic reasons.

Legault defects too, but he doesn't go out trying to stop them, he's just running off for greener pastures with as much loot as he can carry.

Awww. While a bit of Nino's “I can do this, I must make Mother proud” talking to herself was a bit on the nose, when it got to listening to Zephiel praying for the healing of the broken home he lives in and begging to be loved by his father... Seeing Nino's silent “...” reaction... you can just tell what she's thinking in that silence, and it's heartbreaking.

Jesus...

It only just occurred to me:

Nino's supposed to do the deed of actually killing Zephiel.

A girl who only has one viable means of killing another human being.

And there's only one tome she's carrying with her right now.

A very specific tome... the one that gives players grief for the fact that it's decidedly too heavy for her.

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

The original plan for the assassination was to burn Zephiel alive.

And then they'd leave Nino's corpse on the floor to be found near Zephiel's charred remains, leaving the whole kingdom of Bern to assume that poor Nino was some kind of Peri-esque giggling psycho killer.

I mean...

That's...

...That's one of those things that you know wasn't intentional, but actually still sounds compelling when you think about it.

Awwww...

When Nino starts talking about how much she can't bring herself to kill somebody like Zephiel, and Jaffar's all “Stop this foolishness!” I get the feeling that he's actually lost his composure a bit, and he knows full well that he doesn't have it in him to kill her anymore. Especially now that she won't even ease his guilt a bit by turning out to be just like him in the end: willing to kill simply because he's told.

Oh shoot. I remember the music abruptly stopping when Jaffar says “come”, but it doesn't. Shame. That would've made the scene a lot better.

Oh shit. This scene is awesome. Nino ruining Jaffar's cover accidentally was... unfortunate, but there's no way he would've been able to sneak her out without them noticing she's still alive anyway. And I like how she was trying to protect Jaffar when they got caught by blaming herself, not realizing that the fact she's even still alive proves Jaffar failed to do his orders.

But when Jaffar goes “I will not let Nino die. Get in my way, and I'll kill you.”... I just love that part. He's talking exactly like he did before, just as stone cold and merciless, but for completely different reasons, and I find that so oddly satisfying.

I find it hilarious that they say to “put out all the lights” as if it isn't already obvious it's dark by the shading of all of the map tiles.

Yet again they have a big, meaningful silence moment, only to resume the exact same music next line, which honestly annoys me almost as much here as during Hector and Lyn's talk on the pirate ship.

But anyway, now it's time to get started. Oh, and speaking of Hector and Lyn...

...Another thing that makes Lyn terrible is that she has the wind affinity, which the GBA games inexplicably decided should not boost evade.

I know it only amounts to a 7.5 point loss, but still, she needs every point she can get.

Oh for shit's sake.

This is slightly irrelevant because I already know, but yet again, this game doesn't tell you where the green units start on the map during the prep screen! I was hoping to use Jaffar's thief vision to help get a better idea of what his rescue team will be up against!

Speaking of which, I don't have any torches. I ran out of them in Four Fanged Offense and I haven't seen hide nor hair of a means to get more since.

Oh well. At least spamming that torch staff got me Priscilla on time to be super useful. And she'll be really useful here too.

I'm bringing Hector, Marcus, Lowen, Priscilla, Heath, Canas, Farina, Legault, Pent and Matthew. And honestly, now that I'm not ironmanning this anymore, and given how time-sensitive this infamous map is, at this point my strategy is just to rush the fuck out of this place with my strongest units, see if that works, and adjust my strategy from what I learn.

I'm sending Priscilla, Heath, Farina, Matthew and Canas to the west. While it kills me to send fliers into fog of war, I'm in a hurry, and there's no more ironman, so I'm gonna just do it. Originally I was gonna send Pent that way to help with his Physic staff to heal Jaffar and Zephiel from the area around the little hallway around Zephiel's room, but then I realized that Priscilla actually has just as long of a physic range as he does, so it'd be better to send him the other way where that physic utility would be more needed.

Oh shit.

Marcus just nearly got one-rounded by an enemy hero. Holy shit.

And then a mage came and finished him off.

Okay.

So.

Marcus clearly needs to stay in the back. I think his days of fighting directly on the front lines with Lowen are... very decidedly over.

Anyway, Jaffar is kicking ass, as well he should, but that 20 use killing edge... is not going to last long. I've heard he can easily die if you get unlucky once the non-axe enemies show up.

And then Zephiel wakes up, and has the good sense to stay where he is and, also, to deliberately walk over to a pillar to hide behind. Good going. But alas, generic AI takes over from here, and if he needs to leave that pillar to attack a ranged enemy, he will.

Jaffar thankfully critted against a swordreaver fighter, avoiding the 53% chance for 14 damage entirely.

And I forgot to give Matthew a lockpick since it's been ages since I've actually used him.

This is the sort of shit I stop double-checking when it's not ironman anymore. Looks like I have to restart again.

I keep hoping for critical hits with Jaffar mostly because it'll save on weapon uses, and he needs every kill he can get with that 20 use weapon.

Man, that hero is terrifying. Lowen not only can't double him, but he wouldn't be able to one-round him even if he could!

Priscilla managed to just barely kill the thief just as he rounded the bend from the stairs, thanks to Farina managing to kill a fighter with a javelin.

This unfortunately draws the ire of Maxime, but she managed to dodge his incredibly nasty silver lance and retaliate with some piddling damage. While her magic is just as good as Pent's, that really isn't enough against a lot of resistance-bearing enemies in this game, especially not the promoted ones.

And Jaffar's managed to dodge two swordreaver fighters in a row, critting one of them on the first attack. With a silencer crit too, not that it really matters.

...Priscilla also didn't even double Maxime, I just realized, which is a bad sign for my other fighters.

Yeah, honestly, Maxime's so terrifying I'm almost tempted to send Lowen and Marcus west if I wind up restarting.

Thankfully, Heath got a crit with Farina's killer lance (she can't use it without getting doubled by Maxime, which is utterly surreal), so now as long as he survives another turn, we should be in the clear to press on towards Zephiel and Jaffar.

Um...

...Is this... a well-known glitch?

A shaman... and a thief... have appeared right on top of each other on the staircase by Maxime. Literally occupying the same space.

Thankfully, it's the more dangerous shaman that the game's letting me target. The thief can't do anything from his current position, not even steal Matthew's lockpick.

Also, Jaffar miraculously survives with exactly one HP, allowing him to run away to heal.

Ursula attacks Marcus, doing a nasty amount of damage, but as long as he heals, even if he's doubled when he rescues Nino, there shouldn't be any danger of him being one-rounded. He'll just barely survive with one HP.

I misjudged Ursula's position in the darkness, and Hector got bolting'd. Thankfully, possibly due to the speedwings I gave him, his 11 speed was still enough to avoid being doubled.

Mission accomplished. Both Nino and Jaffar have been secured. Now I just have to safely bring one to the other.

FUCK.

A mercenary just showed up in Zephiel's room, and he has the stats to one-round him.

You really have to just rush straight the fuck there, don't you? I totally forgot how little time they give you. I thought I had time to take out Ursula, which I did. Now I'll have to be obscenely lucky in order to get out of this alive.

And the room's just one square too thick for Heath to throw a javelin through it.

...Yep. I lost.

Alright, switching things up. I'm bringing Harken instead of Canas, and Priscilla will have to make do with an Elixir when it comes to healing herself. I need a more reliable method of taking out Maxime, and Harken with a brave sword should be enough to turn the tides. Top priority is saving Zephiel, which I'm going to have Marcus do. The enemies near the throne room shouldn't be so dangerous that Marcus is in trouble. None of them are promoted, after all. Meanwhile, Lowen will once again fight Ursula to help with Nino's speedy extraction.

And I've finally noticed the music that's playing over this map. It's the typical fog of war track, the only track in the game where I prefer the FE6 version. Honestly, it's too dull for this. I'd much prefer “Scars of the Scouring”. Still fog-of-war-y, but way more high-stakes.

Looking at Jaffar's stats... yeah, it wasn't just the awesome crit animations and story role that made me love Jaffar as a kid. His stats are insane. Nineteen strength? On someone who promoted from a thief!?

Marcus has nineteen strength. Heath has nineteen strength. Lowen has 20 (blessed, remember), and Harken has 23. This guy just destroys things.

Alright, I killed Ursula much faster this time, by timing Lowen's approach and Legault's arrival to light up the area, and giving Lowen a killing edge that he luckily procced. And then Priscilla and Farina saved Jaffar.

...But Marcus turned out to be way too weak to be handling even the unpromoted enemies approaching Zephiel's room. Which means my plan to kill Ursula early... is basically completely unviable. Lowen has to be the one to rush that hallway, and since he's the only one with any realistic chance of taking out Ursula...

Honestly, it's kind of ludicrous that they give such ridiculous time constraints to a fog of war map. They deprive you of information, but also make it not remotely feasible to get that information in time to make informed decisions. It's entirely trial and error, because you just can't beat this map without barreling headlong into the dark.

Anyway, my new plan is to have Lowen do a quick sweep of that hallway before turning the nearby corner to rush Ursula, because we do have to take her out before she starts moving.

Success. So far. Interestingly, no run has gone quite the same way due to various tiny tweaks to my strategy, but I've strangely gotten a lot of lucky crits in the same important places, which is extremely fortunate. I just killed Ursula with one of them. Hopefully this one will actually take.

Alright, Nino just talked to Jaffar. And while Jaffar's “I am a corpse. I have been dead since the day I was born” line feels... kinda sorta comically edgy now, that's kind of more because of “edge” becoming a meme in the years since this game first came out, combined with a lack of buildup on Jaffar's backstory. If we get some more of that, I could totally see that line working.

Alright. Zephiel's hallway has been completely secured against reinforcements by Lowen and Marcus, Priscilla managed to fight off all of the assorted mages and snipers and generals sent to kill Jaffar, the treasure vaults are being raided, Nino and Jaffar have been talked to, and everyone vulnerable has successfully retreated to safety.

And I only have four more turns for things to go horribly, horribly wrong.

...And it doesn't sound like it will. “Victory is Near” has started playing on turn 13. And Zephiel never even left his column!

...It's kind of crazy how easy this was once I came up with the proper general strategy.

Really, all the difficulty in this chapter revolves around figuring out where you have to send your army blindly charging into the dark.

...It's done.

Let's see the ending scene.

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of Hector and Jaffar's talk. Jaffar saying he won't draw his blade because he hasn't been ordered to feels... incredibly stupid, given all the fighting he did of his own volition mere moments prior. Also, Hector... I mean I'd get why he'd be so especially furious with Jaffar... if he knew Jaffar killed Leila. But he doesn't. Only Matthew finds that out, and during Jaffar and Matthew's supports at that So he's just... way more angry at Jaffar than the other lords are for reasons I can't quite explain just with his personality.

Okay, so this talk between the queen and Eliwood... what exactly did the queen think about the “assassins sneaking into the manse” that made her think it wasn't a big deal until Murdock tells her that Eliwood and company saved her son's life? What the fuck kind of mother...

1: cares about her son that much,

and

2: doesn't give a shit that assassins snuck into her fucking house?

This scene feels really stupid. It feels like it's a way to just do a quick twist in the narrative, make Eliwood lose his opportunity to get to the Shrine of Seals, only to have the mother realize what she's done and give it to Eliwood for his more important act of heroism. And I mean, on paper, that's all fine. But it just doesn't make any sense.

Who the fuck did the queen think the assassins were there to kill?

Why did she not care until she found out it was her son?

How many important people live in this fucking manse other than her and her son?

Why wouldn't Eliwood let Lyn tell her what happened?

I hate how they try to blame all of the queen's faults on Desmond, too. This... this behavior, this attitude bordering on cackling evil chancellor gloating, is not what naturally comes from spousal abuse. Especially when her “abuser” can barely stand to be around her. She's a spiteful, arrogant, classist bitch, and I don't believe for one second that she wasn't already a good deal of the way there before she married Desmond. And I also refuse to believe that learning that her son nearly got assassinated by assassins she would have to assume would be sent by her husband would make her decide that her son's very-near fate was due to her not loving him enough.

Huh. So... wait...

The second heaven seal was intended for Zephiel?

Okay, first, how fucking terrifying would Zephiel be if he got to use one of these things?

And second, what did he wind up using to promote in FE6?

And third, are you trying to tell me that right after her son nearly got assassinated, she's decided to give the thing that was going to make him stronger to someone else!?

Also, uh...

Speaking of Zephiel getting stronger...

...Isn't he already supposed to be some kind of prodigy with the way of the sword?

Why was he so terrible at defending himself? Surely he should've put up a better fight than the one he gave, right?

Honestly, I'd fix that in the remake. Make him more of a badass, and add danger in some other way. Maybe he doesn't have an elixir on hand, and the enemies are a little stronger.

One of the many changes I'd make to this chapter.

Back to the story.

Okay, no way in hell that this is making Hellene want to reconcile with Desmond. He was the one who sent the assassins. There's no conceivable way that she wouldn't be in the mindset to connect the dots like that, even if proof is so limited.

Yeah, actually, playing this again, as an adult, and realizing the implications...

...This is actually kind of fucking disgusting. Hellene feels she is the one in the wrong, completely in the wrong, and is planning on apologizing to Desmond, the man we as the audience know full well tried to murder her son.

This sad and sweet music is playing like this is some great heartwarming moment...

...But it's a fucking tragedy. This isn't a happy ending. We don't even need to know what happens in FE6 to know this is going to end with yet another attempt on Zephiel's life.

Really, if she's going to realize that she's made a horrible mistake, you'd think the epiphany she'd have wouldn't be to reconcile with the boy's awful, murderous father, but to give up on the succession battle entirely. To defect to some other country where her son will be safe, even if it costs her everything she owns and everything she's so jealously tried to gain. To realize that her obsession with the throne has nearly cost her her son's life, not in the sense that it's her fault assassins nearly killed him, but in the sense that he was only in danger because she was too prideful and spoiled to even see the way out as a way out.

But instead, we're treated to a “heartwarming” scene where Hellene resolves to get back together with a man she knows wants her son to die, and that she's willing to kiss the bastard's ass and apologize for nothing in order to do it.

I can't believe I didn't see how fucking awful this scene was as a kid.

Holy shit.

...Moving on...

...Curiously, only the “heaven” in Heaven seal is apparently capitalized.

And then Lyn said the queen listened to “all of us”, when Hector wasn't even in the room, or if he was, he didn't say a word.

Honestly, I would've liked to see Hector be the one who talk to Queen Hellene and snap at her. That argument probably would have made more sense if Hector simply got that pissed off at seeing someone give that little of a shit about their family.

So, yeah...

...I'm not happy about this chapter.

It wasn't hard, not in the end. Just annoying trial and error, nearly all of it being shit I couldn't have seen coming due to the darkness. Looks like losing the ironman just before this map was a blessing in disguise. It saved me time. There was no way my first blind runthrough of this map wasn't going to end in disaster. This way I did way less panicking about what might have been hiding in the dark.

Which means it is indeed complete and utter garbage for an ironman. At least a blind one. I'm confident if I did this map again I'd almost be guaranteed to do it deathless, just like 23x. But that really, really shouldn't be necessary.

That said, the “random risk of death beyond my power” I was warned about feels like it was pretty drastically overstated. With Jaffar, I can see it, but he's not a game over condition. Zephiel's RNG seems to be damn near nonexistent. The fighters won't kill him, but the mercenary will. Get there before the mercenary does. If you can do that, you're golden. If not, fuck you. So while I said that a game that can't be reliably ironmanned even if it isn't blind would be way worse than one that merely can't reliably be ironmanned blind, I can't say this chapter qualifies as that. The fact that Pent is a game over condition in Chapter 23 is still complete horseshit however, but only a single instance with a low chance, in a game that doesn't have ambush spawns or tripwire reinforcements once things get really dangerous, isn't really enough to put it below shit like Binding Blade and Thracia.

No way in hell this is coming out as clean as Genealogy though.

But anyway, I'm done for the day. Tomorrow, we take on the water temple, and try to train up Nino!

Stay safe, everyone!

Stay safer than Zephiel.

[Interdimensional Observer]

17 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Honestly, I would've liked to see Hector be the one who talk to Queen Hellene and snap at her. That argument probably would have made more sense if Hector simply got that pissed off at seeing someone give that little of a shit about their family.

Actually, I prefer Eliwood doing it. He is kinda bland and generic, the subversion of expectations of character benefitted him here to me.

 

25 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Why was he so terrible at defending himself? Surely he should've put up a better fight than the one he gave, right?

Honestly, I'd fix that in the remake. Make him more of a badass, and add danger in some other way. Maybe he doesn't have an elixir on hand, and the enemies are a little stronger.

I feel you'd visually have to redesign him to do more. That I think would require some rewriting of his child character, it's too suited for how innocent and gentle he is. Sure some minor stat buffing into the low teens would be fine, but "badass" is too out of character. A massive Luck stat with some great Skills- I'd expect an FE7 remake to add them- would be suitable signs of his incredible potential. Aether maybe?

 

I didn't notice the issues in the writing concerning Hellene's response to the assassination you lambasted here before. But I can see your point. 

The silver lining is that we know the attempted reconciliation had to have ended in failure. How it failed is left to our imagination, I'd say Hellene reverted to her old outwardly egocentric personality, except even worse for having attempted to be a saint to appease that hideous husband of hers. If you really wanted to be dramatic, you could play with her death, murder by Desmond? Maybe she went down in defiance and stabbed herself, smiling, when the King's executioners came in the night to drag her off to the gallows? And how would she have reacted later in life if Zephiel, the cornerstone of her life's ambition, rejected her counsel and guidance in its entirety?

[Eltosian Kadath]

58 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

That said, the “random risk of death beyond my power” I was warned about feels like it was pretty drastically overstated. With Jaffar, I can see it, but he's not a game over condition. Zephiel's RNG seems to be damn near nonexistent. The fighters won't kill him, but the mercenary will. Get there before the mercenary does. If you can do that, you're golden. If not, fuck you. So while I said that a game that can't be reliably ironmanned even if it isn't blind would be way worse than one that merely can't reliably be ironmanned blind, I can't say this chapter qualifies as that. The fact that Pent is a game over condition in Chapter 23 is still complete horseshit however, but only a single instance with a low chance, in a game that doesn't have ambush spawns or tripwire reinforcements once things get really dangerous, isn't really enough to put it below shit like Binding Blade and Thracia.

The gameover condition is Jaffar gets hit early, and moves to the left to use his elixer, this gets the pathfinding of the swordreaver fighters that usually go after Jaffar to kill Zephiel (as he is now a closer target) before you can reach him. I think is also possible for him to be lured too far left to kill enemies for similar results, but figuring out what if anything causes that rarer scenario is harder to figure out. Side note, Nino also has a chance of being crit killed by the monk if you are very unlucky (as he has to crit just before she would heal), or more likely move into Ursala's bolting range when she uses her elixer to heal, which kills her. Also of note if you didn't kill Ursula she will start moving something like 2 turns before the end, and get the bolting kill on Zephiel on the last turn if nothing is done to prevent it.

 

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

The gameover condition is Jaffar gets hit early, and moves to the left to use his elixer, this gets the pathfinding of the swordreaver fighters that usually go after Jaffar to kill Zephiel (as he is now a closer target) before you can reach him. I think is also possible for him to be lured too far left to kill enemies for similar results, but figuring out what if anything causes that rarer scenario is harder to figure out. Side note, Nino also has a chance of being crit killed by the monk if you are very unlucky (as he has to crit just before she would heal), or more likely move into Ursala's bolting range when she uses her elixer to heal, which kills her. Also of note if you didn't kill Ursula she will start moving something like 2 turns before the end, and get the bolting kill on Zephiel on the last turn if nothing is done to prevent it.

 

Wow. Yeah, this is the problem with green units far away from your starting situation. You're just BEGGING for shit like this to happen.

Hey, does anyone know what the odds of that scenario you described with the swordslayers is?

[Alastor15243]

Blazing Blade Day 28: Chapter 28x

Quick aside about the last chapter before we begin: I seem to have gotten exceptionally lucky, and remained blissfully ignorant of how fucked up this map can be.

I was looking for a picture of Jerme's version of Pale Flower of Darkness out of curiosity, and google image search led me to LPArchive, and out of curiosity I kept reading to the next chapter.

It was there that I learned that apparently, in this game, having exactly 50% health isn't enough to trigger elixir use in an AI.

And that first fighter does exactly enough damage to take out 10 of Zephiel's 20 HP.

If Zephiel's attacked by that fighter and the fighter connects, Zephiel will apparently just flat-out do nothing on his turn. He won't heal, and he won't even kill the now-wounded fighter. And then he will die if he's hit again.

Now, on the one hand, so what? That's really not that big a deal in terms of ironmannability, because as long as you have a physic staff (which you're guaranteed to get a few chapters before), you can easily get in staff range of Zephiel by the time he gets wounded.

But on the other hand, Jesus Fucking Christ, that on top of the the other bullshit I was informed of and the bullshit I saw firsthand all but confirms either that this map was barely playtested, or that the developers' ideas about game design were eleven-throttle stonk bonkers.

I don't think I've ever seen a Fire Emblem game where the map design of just a handful of maps ruined what was otherwise stellar ironmanning material.

The idea of winning this map blind is completely risible. Even if you've already beaten it on other difficulties (like you must have if you were playing on original hardware), the idea of winning this version of the map blind is completely unreasonable. This is a fog of war map that it's impossible to be careful on, running on a ludicrously strict time limit the player can't see. That is...

That's...

…While it's not as offensive to me in principle as A Certain Other Map, it's... yeah, this is complete garbage.

I may very well actually have to put this as the new worst on the list for ironmannability. I know that technically nearly any FE game can be lost even with perfect decision making, if you're really, really unlucky with growths, but the idea of tying defeat conditions to something outside of the player's control... I have to accept that the only reason I'm not incandescent with rage about this is that I didn't actually lose my ironman run because of it, and also didn't experience any of the myriad ways the map can become unwinnable.

Moving on, let's play 28x.

...Yet again, the game implies that Hector's hatred of Jaffar stems from what happened to Leila, when we don't fucking know that yet. The game flashes her closed-eyed portrait on the screen while talking about Hector's inability to forgive him, as if that's Hector's motivation.

But he doesn't fucking know.

I'm a bit confused by Nino saying she didn't tell the others about her plans because “they're good people, so they'd know I'm not lying”. What does she even mean by that? What relevance does that have to why she's not telling them she's planning to see Sonia?

Hector talks about how Jaffar “slaughtered our friends” like he knows who a single one of the people he killed is. He's never once seen the man kill somebody he cares about. And who exactly are “our friends” outside of this merry band that he's killed, and he knows he's killed? Really, he only has Jaffar's word that Jaffar killed anyone Hector cared about, and that was an off-handed comment when Jaffar was kinda-sorta trying to goad Hector into killing him. His hatred of Jaffar is still obviously understandable, but it feels way more personal than it should have any right to be, since we don't even have any idea of who Hector thinks Jaffar has taken away from him.

…

...About Eliwood saying “that's why I said what I did” in this conversation...

I sure as hell hope he's talking about his decision to go help them, and not the end of last chapter. Because Eliwood hadn't “said” anything to Jaffar back then, since that conversation was replaced with Hector doing the talking.

Ugh. I never even questioned Hector's behavior here as a kid. I liked this scene as a kid! But now all I can think is “why the fuck didn't they just reveal he killed Leila!?”. That would fix nearly all of the problems with this scene, and yet we know for a fucking fact that Hector doesn't know yet.

Brendan Reed's final moments are... a lot less cool than I remember. I remembered more music changes and, as is usual for these games, more actual lines and a slightly slower burn with the pacing.

“The father, the mother, and then the child I carried... After they revealed all of their secrets... And I slaughtered them with these very hands!!”

That's...

...Sonia, that “and” after the second ellipsis isn't grammatically correct.

Yeah, the writing of this chapter feels... way cornier and cheesier than I remember. A lot of lines are almost embarrassing to listen to here. Which is a shame, because it's the big payoff of Nino's excellent story arc.

Which I intend to finish off in style.

Also, Lyn kinda flustered-ly thanking Hector for helping save her from the collapsing water temple paths, which he replies to with “Mm. Did you get wet?” is unintentionally hilarious to a modern, adult, filthy mind.

Anyway, on to battle prep.

Time to prepare to train up Nino. Ninian is going to be absolutely crucial to this, since she'll double the number of attacks Nino can do in a turn and in theory double the experience. Due to the exp nerfs of Hector Hard Mode, I have serious doubts I'll be able to get her to kill Sonia, but the rest of my army won't be getting much out of the exp these enemies offer, so I'll feed Nino as much as I can. Now I just need to see if any paths open up on turn one.

Biggest concern I see is the shitload of ballistae I see scattered all over the map, ballistae I know weren't there on other modes. With a lot of these, there's no chance any archers are getting anywhere near them, but there are still the ones that archers clearly start near.

...Shit, how fucking big is this temple that fucking siege weapons can be fired indoors!?

Anyway, after quickly doing a test-start of the first turn to see if any paths open up immediately after you begin preparation (to the map's credit, they don't), I've decided it's important to take out that sniper immediately with Heath and then have Farina block the ballista space and trade Heath back his javelin so they can both kill the remaining archers (at some damage) on enemy-phase.

The main plan is to send Nino and Ninian through the gauntlet of paths at a decent pace, with a massive cavalcade of bodyguards with varying amounts of DPS. The ideal goal is to secure Nino two kills per turn by any means necessary, and if things calm down towards the end, I'll probably feed her even more.

I love how completely minimalistic the dodge animations for the promoted fliers are. They don't give a single shit, like they just know exactly how much effort they need to expend to dodge, and don't waste a single joule more.

...That... that entire platform of mages is equipped with bolting.

Things go reasonably well, but I forgot I put away Priscilla's restore staff to make room for an elixir, and holy shit am I going to need that thing... no, both of them, this map. There are several promoted status staff users that I can see. So I had to restart a couple of turns in.

I completely forgot I got the Delphi Shield last chapter, and that Legault's carrying it. I'll have to give that to Heath.

Also, something I learned today: you can take and drop in the same action, but you can't take and then give. I assumed those things would be comparable, but for some reason those two things can't be done together.

I forgot that enemies in this game have basically no luck. Even without a killing edge, Jaffar has a 12% crit rate at base, using a weapon type he doesn't even have an S rank in.

Nino's gained her first two levels, one of which was basically Full Glass Cannon, with magic, skill, speed and luck, and the other got her speed, luck and resistance. Her attack speed, thanks to the absurdly terrible enemies of this game, is actually already bordering on doubling some of them.

I also let a wounded nomad live, hoping he suicides onto Nino, because she can take it, and that would be even more exp for her.

He does indeed, and dies like a bitch. Unfortunately, some of the enemies I was trying to feed to her also suicided onto Jaffar, due to that “you'll never take my XP alive” mentality the enemies seem to be coded with for when they know they're outmatched.

Flying reinforcements are arriving all over, which on terrain like this is making me really grateful I have two powerful fliers on my team to cut them off at the pass, as it were.

It's been three levels, and Nino is currently faster than Marcus. I'll make a badass out of her yet. And honestly, it's kind of a fun way to breathe some challenge into this, figuring out how to feed as many kills as I can without simply unequipping someone and walling. I've actually run the numbers and figured out I can leave her in range of a light brand hero. Crazy.

I'll have to make sure to steal the shit some of these guys are carrying. I see an angelic robe that's got Nino's name all over it.

Oh.

That's absolutely adorable.

The bishop berserked Nino.

What the fuck would Nino even look like when berserked? What does the mad, rabid fury the berserk staff instills look like when it's controlling the face of a precious, adorable 13 year old girl?

Has anyone ever done a comic about what it must look like when cuter characters are berserked?

...Anyway, thankfully I have not one, but two restore staves, so that's not even a momentary setback.

Speaking of which, I just realized Priscilla's at A tomes, while Clarine struggled to reach D by the end of the game. That has to be a combination of the fact that Priscilla is a much better fighter, and the fact that weapons just flat-out level faster in this game.

Nino's levels haven't been quite as stellar as her growth rates indicate. She's only gained magic once in four levels, for one thing. No matter though, I'm committed at this point. The Nino family must achieve greatness.

I nearly decided to have Farina attack the sleep staff bishop just in case something happened to overwhelm Marcus (the guy currently protecting Nino from melee attacks and softening enemies up for her), which would have been absolutely disastrous if she had been berserked by the other one, because she'd have been over open water, with no adjacent land space to restore her from.

It just occurred to me that there seems to be literally no rush here at all to get to the treasure chests on time. This map seems almost specially designed as a way to train up Nino.

Speaking of which, I got that angelic robe from the berserking bishop, and gave it to Nino immediately. Sadly, Harken critting the hero meant I couldn't feed a promoted kill to Nino this turn. But there are still plenty of enemies to go.

More reinforcements arrive, but by this point I'm quite well versed in the drill. None of these enemies are a match for my army. It's just a question of finding out how to make Nino a match for at least one or two.

These generals are a real tempting target for stuff to feed to Nino. I hope I have time and that a thief doesn't show up to ruin my day. I'll have one of my fliers stake out the one chest a thief could plausibly steal just in case.

Marcus's axe crit rate unfortunately meant one of the generals was killed, but the other two were safely fed to the beast that is La Nino.

Nino is currently level 14, and according to Serenes Forest...

...Yeah, aside from being ridiculously blessed in skill and 1 behind in defense, she's pretty much right on the money for her level. I mean, I gave her Afa's drops, but those wouldn't make a stat point difference yet, so she's pretty average for a Nino.

A thief's arrived. I should have plenty of time to take him out, though. I'll let the thief take the treasure and then kill him.

The reinforcements of 3 pirates and 3 falcoknights every turn would be terrifying... if this were a game where enemy-phase sweeping weren't so trivial, and if the pirates couldn't be picked off with ease on player phase.

I managed to grab the speedwings. Those are going on Hector too, which should bring him up to “at least he's faster than Marcus” once he promotes at the end of next chapter. I wound up using a rescue staff just to be absolutely sure I'm not sending Heath to his doom. I mean, seriously, the hell else am I gonna us the thing for at this point in the game, with only a handful of chapters left?

Thankfully, it seems I'm finally learning from my mistakes, because that train of thought made me remember Sonia has bolting and that I I hadn't checked her range, allowing me to avoid sending Nino straight into it in the name of more exp. She's going to wait out the enemy phase, because she can actually do that now. Her defense still sucks, but her HP, with the angelic robe boost, is enough that she can take these poison weapon enemies no problem.

Alright, time to drain Sonia's bolting so we can approach the chests, and also Sonia herself. Jaffar should do the job. Might as well, since unless I'm giving Jaffar the kill, something like this is the only real way to get their boss conversation.

I love how Jaffar has literally nothing to say to her besides “Here I come.” He's not concerned with fancy words, or big speeches, or reeling in horror at her evil. He is a simple man, he's of few words, and his victims are of fewer.

Lowen takes out the luna druid before I can potentially forget he's a luna druid. Man, I get I have a super blessed Lowen, but it's shit like this that's why I know I'd love him even if he were more normal.

All the platforms have disappeared, which if I remember correctly... isn't going to change anymore. So I'm gonna have to deal with that.

I used Filla's might for the first time ever. I used it to give Heath killing power on these tanky wyverns. He still won't be able to kill the lord without a crit, but he's strong enough that Jaffar and Nino won't be impossibly swarmed once they're provoked. I'm doing it now, from juuuuust outside of Sonia's bolting range, just in case the vanishing paths is a trigger for them to move anyway. Because that would be very, very bad.

Apparently the answer is no. In fact, those wyverns don't even aggro as a group! I can pick them off at my leisure, one at a time.

Okay, all of the platforms are back now. Guess I was wrong. Well, still gotta wait one more turn for the bolting to be expended.

Nino has... nearly capped speed at level 17. But honestly, that defense... even for all this effort, she'll never be a reliable frontline unit without supports and terrain abuse.

Ooh! Yay! Nino and Jaffar's first support! And it looks like we'll get some backstory about Jaffar!

Oooh! Interesting! Remember in the last part when I said this?

“When Nino starts talking about how much she can't bring herself to kill somebody like Zephiel, and Jaffar's all 'Stop this foolishness!' I get the feeling that he's actually lost his composure a bit, and he knows full well that he doesn't have it in him to kill her anymore. Especially now that she won't even ease his guilt a bit by turning out to be just like him in the end: willing to kill simply because he's told.”

That “she's not like me at all” thing turned out to be right on the money in terms of themes with Jaffar. It seems he was fascinated by the fact that despite being raised in very similar (on paper) circumstances to him, Nino is nothing like him in terms of how she responded to her environment. I get the feeling this made him think, like, a lot about himself, and whether or not the way he turned out really is natural, or if there's something about him he needs to change.

Unfortunately, their support bonus... is pretty damned lame. Fire and ice. Attack and defense boosts don't round up until (I think) the Tellius games, so if you only have one of them boosting it, you're getting a third of the benefit rather than half by A rank. And I'm pretty sure since fire and ice don't share a single thing they boost-

Wait, no, that can't be right. There are only two things each element doesn't boost. So why is she not getting the full five avoid from...

...Oh. I forgot to subtract the 1 speed loss from her being weighed down by her fire tome. Yep, they get the full hit and avoid bonus from this. It's only attack, defense, crit and dodge that they aren't both providing. Granted, that still makes this a pretty bad matchup, since all of the things they aren't boosting are things the other one does, resulting in a lot of rounded-down points. But as long as she's gonna get 15 evade, I'm fine with this.

I got Thor's Ire, a recover staff, and Fenrir from the chests. None of those are particularly fantastic (though I'll probably be using Thor's Ire to try and see Bartre's bow crit again), but the tome is especially disappointing. 18 weight is absolutely atrocious.

Okay, Sonia is going to be an absolute pushover. She barely has more con than Nino does, and she's carrying a tome that weighs her decent 19 speed down to a pathetic 11. Shame, because I always thought Fimbulvetr looked awesome as a kid, and I hated how rare it was.

Honestly, I think I'm gonna use Filla's might to have Nino kill Sonia. It'll be slow, but I have little other use for Filla's might, and it'll get Nino plenty of exp.

...Shit. Even with Filla's might, she only does 1 damage with thunder. Oh well, at least she'll get some “fought the boss” exp on player and enemy phase. And I wanna see her battle quote at least.

Okay...

At first, hearing Nino tell Sonia that she's “no perfect being” seemed... off... since I don't think she's ever boasted about that during their screentime together... but then... she did raise Nino, didn't she, so...

...Wow, that's actually kind of messed up, thinking about Sonia constantly boasting about being a “perfect being” while Nino's growing up. I'm not sure why, but it just kinda somehow makes Sonia seem even worse. I can't really think of a way to explain why that makes me feel that way without sounding stupid, but... it still mostly makes sense in my head.

Wow, Sonia is a tanky motherfucker. Even when I don't use Nino, she's still taking a massive amount of punishment. I may actually be able to arrange it to give Nino the final blow given all the low numbers I have to work with.

Yep! Worked out perfectly, thanks to the combined efforts of Lowen, Heath and Hector. Nino got the kill, and is now level 19.

Now let's see the ending cutscene.

...Wait...

“Uncle Jan”.

Uncle Jan.

As in the brother... of Nino's father.

Who, may I remind you, at least in terms of how the term “uncle” is being applied here, is Brendan Fucking Reed.

This soft-faced, big-nosed goober of a man...

...had the same mother and father as this motherfucker!?

This veritable paragon of gritty, chiseled, over-the-top manliness?

I mean for fuck's sake! If Fire Emblem and the X-Men ever did a crossover... ...this son of a bitch is the guy who would team up with Cable.

And he was a part of the same fucking genetic lottery as Jan.

I'm sorry, I just... woooooow. I get that a lot of that has got to be lifestyle, but I mean... just look at their fucking mugshots! They look nothing alike! If you told me these two were brothers, I'd have to assume that Brendan just got back from the story arc where he spent 10 years in a bad future where subterranean krakens have taken over the earth.

...Okay. I'm done.

Waiiiiit a sec... Brendan Reed did a background check on Sonia, found about about Nino's real parents, got a tragic keepsake to entrust to Jan should Nino ever find out she's adopted... and still never found out enough about Sonia and what she did to not get wrapped around her finger like we see in all of his scenes until this chapter?

...But never mind that, because awww, Nino said “I'll do my best” again!

Oh, hey. I don't remember this scene. Hector and Jaffar alone.

...Oh. It's just one of those “the protagonist trusts you, and I trust his judgment. But make no mistake, if you betray that trust, you will be punished” things. Like what Katara says to...

...Yeah no, I won't say who she says that to. That's a good series. If you somehow haven't been spoiled about the original Avatar series, I'm not going to just randomly throw spoilers to that into an unrelated review.

Seriously though, watch it.

But yeah, people who have seen the show know what moment I meant. I've seen shit like that a lot, and this doesn't really do anything for me.

…

Okay, what the hell?

I just realized the implications of this whole “Sonia discovers she's actually a morph” thing. I mean, I thought it was kind of amusing that Sonia thought she was human, but like... they do nothing with it.

They don't let the audience know she thinks that until it's time to reveal the truth to her, and she looks so much like the other elite morphs that even if they did, it wouldn't be a reveal to basically anybody but her.

She just dies, learning a truth we assumed she knew until this moment.

I mean really, this makes no sense.

How the fuck can she go on about being “literally perfect” and not know that she was hand-made?

What did she think her backstory was that explains why she's never questioned why she has no memory of her childhood or parents?

But yeah, that's the end.

I... don't have much comment about this chapter. I mean, I have to say, while it's nice that training Nino in this chapter isn't some psychotically herculean task, the fact that this map is so trivially easy even with the water gimmick makes it kind of... just plain tedious, and it would be tedious even if I weren't using as much of it as possible to train Nino.

I honestly found the FE6 water temple to be a more exciting and fun take on the collapsing platforms gimmick. At least there the platform gimmick meant you had to hurry, not that you had to wait for platforms to open up or use your fliers.

So next chapter, which will probably be tomorrow, we'll finally get to play one of the two major endgame massive battle sequences: Cog of Destiny.

Until then, you guys.

Stay safe everyone.