Best Final Chapters vs Best Final Bosses

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

It's not a super hard boss but I think you're underrating it slightly; there are some siege tomes and status staves which can reach you and mess up some plans if they don't involve just one-rounding the boss. At minimum it's more tactically demanding than the other GBA final bosses, as well as Normal Mode Ashnard. Though I agree it's still not great.

Can those siege tomes and status staves morphs even do anything to interfere with you? I suppose if you just don't move your units out of the starting area they might, but I'm pretty sure they otherwise can't even cover the area of the fire dragon since they're so far away.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

7 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

As for the second part, I kinda agree with you, but interestingly I felt this one even more strongly with a map you like, the final battle of Verdant Wind. It just... doesn't feel like a final battle at all in terms of where you fight it (which makes sense, since it apparently wasn't intended as a final battle originally). You're just in a random swamp, one with no lore behind it. And on top of that you're fighting a zombie, instead of someone the protagonist(s) share a connection with. I have some issues with Ashnard as a character but at least he feels like a proper final boss narratively.

Y'know, I realized pretty much after the fact that all my objections to the Path of Radiance finale, could apply to the Verdqnt Wind Endgame. I could mince details aboit "minibosses", and just extol "God-Shattering Star". But truthfully, it all comes down to "vibes" for me. "Fódlan's New Dawn" has them, and "Repatriation" does not. Pretty much impossible to argue for or against; it's entirely subjective.

I will grant that, yes, in terms of narrative, Ashnard makes a lot of sense as the final boss. Zombie Nemesis...doesn't. There's a thematic argument about "Claude being interested in digging up the past, and overcoming it for the future, so Nemesis makes perfect sense to face!" But even then, I only adhere to that argument half-heartedly, at most.

8 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

His clone is a replica, and replicas share health pools. By the time you fight Takumi you've seen this mechanic before, in Chapter 15 of Conquest (never mind the possibility that you might have used Mechanist's Replicate yourself e.g. by playing Birthright first). As soon as you attack Takumi the first time you can see both their HP pools go down in tandem.

Counterpoint - I am dumb, and don't understand how Replicas work. Every time, I assume it's gonna be like Xane transforming into whoever, and find myself shocked and betrayed whenever the damage applied to one version is reflected back upon the other.

20 hours ago, Jotari said:

I'm okay with Ashnard's battlefield. It's outdoors, but I get the impression it's an interior castle garden, so it is essentially indoors for any strategic military value. And similarly, I don't think Ashnard needs to go full ham on a final boss feeling. He is the second boss in the series (after Veld) who is literally just some dude. So given a sky changing atmosphere wouldn't gel with that. Especially since it's not really the end of the saga. Making him touch the medallion and go zombie methhead is subtly dramatic enough for my tastes.

Admittedly, it's been a few years since I last beat Path of Radiance. I should replay it in the near future to see how the "vibes" of the Endgame hold up.

Anyway, it just occurred to me - Lehran's Medallion functioned as a revival stone, almost two decades before Engage.

20 hours ago, Jotari said:

My least favourte Final Chapter would have to be Grima. Obviously in terms of plot you have the issue of "Do a barrel role" where Grima should be able to end things easily, but even in terms of gameplay it's the lowest effort final chapter imaginable, where you're just expected to walk up and kill him.

But see, the game tries to impress upon you that Grima is BIG. How big, you might ask? So big that they've got their own gravitational pull. And I've played enough Mario Galaxy to know that a barrel roll won't save them.

20 hours ago, Jotari said:

My least favourite boss would have to be the Fire Dragon. Obviously there's the "it's just a random fucking generic enemy" aspect to it, that is a bit hilarious in how ballsy it is, but even just the basic gameplay of the enemy I find kind of insulting to my tactical mind. I've heard some people describe this boss as difficult, but if you ever lose a unit to the Fire Dragon then you're just playing really badly.

Just beat the Fire Dragon on ENM, and... yeah, that all tracks. I do see it as challenging for players who don't understand Rescue-carry strats yet, so they assume that being in the Dragon's range on player phase means you're stuck there through enemy phase. Come to think of it, for all its "tutorializing", I don't think Lyn's Story ever demonstrated the Rescue and related functions. Huh.

Where were we? Ah yeah, the Fire Dragon. Very easily trivialized by Athos with Luna. Or Canas, assuming he has enough Speed and HP. Having the Dragon totally disregard your own units' defensive stats was certainly a design choice that was made. As was making the legendary effective weapons substantially weigh down all of their potential wielders. Eh, I don't hate the Fire Dragon, but it's very "whatever" to me nowadays.

21 hours ago, Arvis4Prez said:

Something I'd have been happy with is changing the sky color during animations fighting Ashnard's second phase, like to a blood red or something. I don't think that would be entirely difficult to achieve (add a filter to the sky) as opposed to having to remodel the map and load it in (which to be fair could be done since there's a brief cutscene with the medallion, so that could be used to hide the load time and switch to the new, "destroyed garden" map).

That could be a cool way to do it! One approach would be, have Ashnard retreat slightly to "lick his wounds", before giving in and touching the Medallion. That way, you can have a dramatic "impact" scene, without Ike and company getting blown back by direct proximity. Another notion could be to apply something of a "time limit" to the second phase. Like, if you don't defeat Ashnard quickly enough, he'll successfully release the "Dark God", dooming Tellius. And every turn, the skies would fall a little bit darker, and the musuc get a bit louder, to build a more and more oppressive scene. A bit overambitious, perhaps, but I think doing so could wrangle those elusive "Endgame vibes" for me.

[Dark Holy Elf]

53 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Can those siege tomes and status staves morphs even do anything to interfere with you? I suppose if you just don't move your units out of the starting area they might, but I'm pretty sure they otherwise can't even cover the area of the fire dragon since they're so far away.

If memory serves the range edge of the nearest ones lines up perfectly with the edge of the dragon's threat range; that is, if you're in one, you're not in the other, and vice versa. The siege tomes aren't likely to one-shot anyone, but they're still an extra complication.

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

Just beat the Fire Dragon on ENM, and... yeah, that all tracks. I do see it as challenging for players who don't understand Rescue-carry strats yet, so they assume that being in the Dragon's range on player phase means you're stuck there through enemy phase.

One other thing the dragon has compared to other bosses in the game is that he's range 3, so unless your rescue-carry unit has canto they can be stuck in the range of the boss themselves. (And yes, this is one last cherry on top of mounted units being too strong in FE7, but I digress.)

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

If memory serves the range edge of the nearest ones lines up perfectly with the edge of the dragon's threat range; that is, if you're in one, you're not in the other, and vice versa. The siege tomes aren't likely to one-shot anyone, but they're still an extra complication.

I've just checked and there's one tile of safety between the dragon and the right bolting mage. The left Druid with sleep leaves more safe tiles, but that could be variable on different difficulty settings (I was just checking on a clean rom which doesn't let you choose easy or hard) as sleep's range = magic/2. You say they aren't likely to one shot anyone, but those bolting mages have probably killed more units in player history than the Fire Dragon has.

Edited July 20, 2023 by Jotari

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Thracia 776's final map would've been my favourite, if there hadn't been the fact that tools for unlocking the door had been required.

Seriously I love the idea of seizing six thrones (or however many it were) by fighting the stongest enemies before which have buffed stats, threatening skills and authority stars which demands of using all the staves very wisely to have an easier and especially faster time with this chapter, but the problems are the doors for me. It's annoying that no one drops door keys, so it's theoretically possible not to pass the final map because of that (if no warp / rescue / rewarp / unlock / lockpicks are left either).

I voted for Radiant Dawn because taking out the auras feels like a puzzle, and I love puzzles.

 

As for the final boss I'm about to say FE12 Medeus for that fact...it's really threatening on higher difficulties.

As for the final boss from the personality aspect, it's Ashnard, because it's a 1 vs. 1 fight at its purest. 

[Jotari]

8 minutes ago, Lady Hortensia said:

Thracia 776's final map would've been my favourite, if there hadn't been the fact that tools for unlocking the door had been required.

Seriously I love the idea of seizing six thrones (or however many it were) by fighting the stongest enemies before which have buffed stats, threatening skills and authority stars which demands of using all the staves very wisely to have an easier and especially faster time with this chapter, but the problems are the doors for me. It's annoying that no one drops door keys, so it's theoretically possible not to pass the final map because of that (if no warp / rescue / rewarp / unlock / lockpicks are left either).

I voted for Radiant Dawn because taking out the auras feels like a puzzle, and I love puzzles.

 

As for the final boss I'm about to say FE12 Medeus for that fact...it's really threatening on higher difficulties.

As for the final boss from the personality aspect, it's Ashnard, because it's a 1 vs. 1 fight at its purest. 

All the rooms contain a dark bishop with a door key. Can you capture from two range over a door? I'm not sure, if you can then the game gives you everything in chapter to defeat it. If not, then you only need a singular key, lockpicks warp or rewarp. And if you don't have a singular one of them, then I question what game you're playing. Siege tomes and long bows can be used too. Really that's what I like about Thracia's endgame, it gives you a lot of uses for the most useful materials you've gathered throughout the game.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Isn't the hitrate very low due to the enemies's authority stars?

I never even tried capturing in this chapter because of this.

(I don't remember if it's possible to instant capture them despite them having a long range tome)

Either way the easiest enemy of this map to kill is probably

Spoiler

the final boss.

 

[Eltosian Kadath]

Ah what the heck, time to defend my answers. I went with Julius for the best boss for a few reasons. First I like the more graceful way they incorporated the story premise that only the holy weapons can damage him by having them mechanically be the only weapons strong enough to do so. That is just the kind of story-gameplay integrations Kaga is so well known for that I love from the older games. Second stray a little into a map territory, but I like that there is an easy way to deal with him, but that the easy method is something optional you can seek in that map, rather than just lying in your inventory or preps (like Idoun with the Binding Blade, or Wrath-Resolve with Ashnard, etc.). Third kind of relates to the second, that there is a very minor incentive of going for the harder kill with the unique boss kill quote he has with Seliph that cutely ties into the rest of the series.

As for map, I went with Night Breaks Through for one really big reason, and a few minor ones. The big thing is that it feels like a map that was designed with the idea that you will sacrifice some of your units in mind, and that is really interesting, it leads to more dramatic and interesting personal stories about how this map turned out, without the risk of some important deaths cascading into an unwinnable game you might see with a map designed like this earlier in the game. A minor one is there tends to be a point where you have to just go for it, and that leads to a very tense ending to the map.

 

On 7/18/2023 at 9:40 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Changing gears, if I may, to "least favorites":

Fire Emblem rarely does bosses well, but I think I will go with the controversial pick of Ashera, as the only boss whose boss fight weakens both the game's story and gameplay. It makes no sense that Ike has to be the one to kill her, and not guessing what the writers were thinking with that leads to Asera reviving at full health, and you literally having to do the entire lengthy fight again. If there was a reason why Ike had to be the one to get the kill (like if they setup that a weapon has to be blessed by both goddesses to seal her, or Ike was of some blessed divine bloodline that is necessary to seal a goddess, or something...), or if they went with a less stupid penalty for getting the kill with someone else, like how Duma prevents attacks that would kill him from someone other than Alm, or even the incredibly lazy option of just having Ike go for the kill in a cutscene after the gameplay, like how Awakening handled either Chrom or Robin having to kill Grima at the end, then it might not be my pick for worst boss.

As for worst map, that is a very tricky question, as a lot of them are really bad, with just a boss instead of a map, and trying to link maps together into a "final map" can be a bit tricky at times (sure it makes some sense to link FE7's Light Part 1 and Part 2, but should FE6's chapter 24 and Endgame be counted together for instance?), so I think I will take the same cue as the poll itself and just look at the endgame map. With a lot of garbage options, I think Grima edges out the competition for that low effort @Jotari talked in their post.

 

7 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Like, if you don't defeat Ashnard quickly enough, he'll successfully release the "Dark God", dooming Tellius. And every turn, the skies would fall a little bit darker, and the musuc get a bit louder, to build a more and more oppressive scene. A bit overambitious, perhaps, but I think doing so could wrangle those elusive "Endgame vibes" for me.

That makes me think of the final map of Tear Ring Saga, where you are on a timer before the final boss recovers enough from his imperfect revival to unleashes the black rain that will kill everyone (admittedly it is a very generous time limit).

I rather like Tear Ring Saga's final map. There is the more traditional use the lords and holy weapons to kill the big bad in the center, with that black rain time limit hovering over everything, but there is also a narratively important enemy witch warping around the map to deal with (with extra story if you manage to kill her with her vengeful abandoned son), and dangerous siege mages, monster, and dragons to deal with your army while the lords approach their objective, and fight for the fate of the world.

 

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

Can you capture from two range over a door?

You can't capture from range.

7 hours ago, Lady Hortensia said:

 

(I don't remember if it's possible to instant capture them despite them having a long range tome)

You can only insta-capture if they have no means of targeting 1 or 2 range, and they have the 1-2 range Hell tomes as well, so unless you find a way of stealing that Hell Tome you can't insta-capture them.

[Jotari]

12 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Fire Emblem rarely does bosses well, but I think I will go with the controversial pick of Ashera, as the only boss whose boss fight weakens both the game's story and gameplay. It makes no sense that Ike has to be the one to kill her, and not guessing what the writers were thinking with that leads to Asera reviving at full health, and you literally having to do the entire lengthy fight again. If there was a reason why Ike had to be the one to get the kill (like if they setup that a weapon has to be blessed by both goddesses to seal her, or Ike was of some blessed divine bloodline that is necessary to seal a goddess, or something...), or if they went with a less stupid penalty for getting the kill with someone else, like how Duma prevents attacks that would kill him from someone other than Alm, or even the incredibly lazy option of just having Ike go for the kill in a cutscene after the gameplay, like how Awakening handled either Chrom or Robin having to kill Grima at the end, then it might not be my pick for worst boss.

It's not really the entire lengthy battle you have to do again. The Aura's stay down after you defeat them. So if you fail the kill on Ashera you just need to kill her personally again, which can be accomplished in three or four attacks. I'm less upset about Ike having to deal the final blow and more upset that it needs to be Ike+Ragnell, as Ike has some annoying hit issues against her with Ragnell that he doesn't have if he could use Urvan to deal the final blow. It's frustrating to have everything set up for the Ike kill only for him to miss.

[Quell]

As far as bosses goes I love Duma, big dumb eye serpent that has a great showing in its final chapter. Honestly doesn't do anything majorly wrong which is why I love him.

As far as maps are concerned I was surprised seeing Cq endgame doing well but than I remembered it is one of the most polarizing chapters in the franchise to the point of having its own diehard fanbase.

Honestly I'm of the opinion that the worst fire emblem games have usually the best final maps, Rev too has Anankos which is a surprisingly decent map (just to spite you for hating the game even more). Still, my pick for my favorite final map is Beyond the Darkness. Let me preface this by saying I consider 24 and endgame to be one chapter, just cut into two for hardware reasons like the other GBA games. It's a great final map, summing up basically the whole game and distilling it into a fun a surprisingly tight endgame. I'll admit, the chapter still has quite a few problems that stops it short from being one of the best in the series but in my opinion it is still a really great and underrated map.

Edited July 31, 2023 by Quell