New Heroes: Rearmed Eitr & Rearmed Alcryst

[Sunwoo]

24 minutes ago, Diovani Bressan said:

Yeah. Heroes forces his personality too much. He is not 100% annoying in Engage.

I confess I don't remember many of his supports though, but the little he appeared in story cutscenes he was alright. But I believe his supports is where that this side of him appears the most.

It's like Céline in Engage. Céline during the story is quite nice, but then 90% of her supports is about having tea and talking about having tea. Kinda boring, tbh.

Celine in Engage is an amazing character, she's surprisingly deep if you watch the right supports. Incidentally, her support with Alcryst is really good for both of them.

And they're both very meh when translated into Heroes.

On a slightly related note, I have to take back what I said about Engage's story writing. It's not the worst story I've ever seen in FE, or even a video game. Heroes is the worst. It's so bad I think I forgot Heroes technically has a story.

[Diovani Bressan]

23 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Celine in Engage is an amazing character, she's surprisingly deep if you watch the right supports. Incidentally, her support with Alcryst is really good for both of them.

And they're both very meh when translated into Heroes.

On a slightly related note, I have to take back what I said about Engage's story writing. It's not the worst story I've ever seen in FE, or even a video game. Heroes is the worst. It's so bad I think I forgot Heroes technically has a story.

The only supports from Céline that really stuck with me were Alear & Céline and Alfred & Céline. But at least she is still a good character. I don't dislike her. She is charming.

She is not Goldmary, so that's enough to me. lol

[Etrurian emperor]

While Alcryst being stuck with two lame summoner supports is a downer there's also a positive note to his forging bonds chain. His chat with Takumi.

It reflects well on Takumi that he tries to be chummy and patient with Alcryst. Despite being a tsundere Takumi is actually kinda soft, and its nice for Heroes to show that rather than simplify him to ''I don't like you or anything! Baka! BAKA!'' They did this earlier too by giving him some moments with Tiki, recalling his trait of being good with kids. 

[Ice Dragon]

20 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Despite being a tsundere Takumi is actually kinda soft,

That's literally the definition of tsundere. If you're only tsun and not dere, you're not tsundere.

[Humanoid]

Junior royals in Engage probably get about as much screentime as non-royals get in other games, so mostly anonymous. I suppose that's not helped by supports not really coming in at a particularly high rate - I'm at chapter 18-ish and I can probably count the number of B-supports achieved on one hand. So even if I were to use a unit like Alcryst regularly, I suspect I'd still not see any of his A-supports where he presumably redeems himself.

This might be different for people who do the repeatable content - whether the fluff activities in your castle or the various world map skirmishes, but for a non-completionist playthrough, nope.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Oof, yeah, Alcryst got pretty hammered in Heroes. In Engage, his gimmick is certainly heavy-handed, but here in Heroes? It's more heavy-handed in a single Forging Bond support than almost the entirety of Engage. Ouch.

[Etrurian emperor]

Its not as bad as with Alcryst but Citrine also got a bit simplified. They decided to focus on the aspect of her character where she unintentionally flaunts her extreme wealth. This despite her self doubt and strong bond with her cousins being her far more interesting traits. 

The ''flanderization'' of characters in Heroes can be a little weird. Not just because its usually the least interesting option but also because in cases its just....weird. Alcryst getting defined by his self loathing is unfortunate, but I get it. Its easier to write that way, and if you're doing the writing arguably a bit more fun. But then you also have a character like Leo who's randomly defined by tomato's despite it barely being a factor in Fates. Leo getting simplified as a fashion disaster would be far more in character but they chose tomatoes instead. 

But then the team equally randomly starts putting some ambition into certain characters. It be easy to just portray Lugh as the perfect cutesy little brother, but instead they made it a point to show he's a responsible lad by successfully babysitting and redeeming Idunn. Or how they didn't just wrote Arvis to be a prick but went out of their way to shed light on how Azelle factored into his little barbecue. 

[Sunwoo]

45 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Its not as bad as with Alcryst but Citrine also got a bit simplified. They decided to focus on the aspect of her character where she unintentionally flaunts her extreme wealth. This despite her self doubt and strong bond with her cousins being her far more interesting traits. 

The ''flanderization'' of characters in Heroes can be a little weird. Not just because its usually the least interesting option but also because in cases its just....weird. Alcryst getting defined by his self loathing is unfortunate, but I get it. Its easier to write that way, and if you're doing the writing arguably a bit more fun. But then you also have a character like Leo who's randomly defined by tomato's despite it barely being a factor in Fates. Leo getting simplified as a fashion disaster would be far more in character but they chose tomatoes instead. 

But then the team equally randomly starts putting some ambition into certain characters. It be easy to just portray Lugh as the perfect cutesy little brother, but instead they made it a point to show he's a responsible lad by successfully babysitting and redeeming Idunn. Or how they didn't just wrote Arvis to be a prick but went out of their way to shed light on how Azelle factored into his little barbecue. 

And then you have instances like Shinon in Heroes, where he's portrayed as a cynical, rough-around-the-edges guy and seems to be written as a "jerk with a heart of gold". Whereas in actual Tellius games, he was an apologetic racist (who never changed this), continued to hate Ike even after Ike proved that he was worthy to lead the Greil Mercenaries, and is generally a dick who's only nice to Rolf and sometimes to Gatrie. (Can you tell that I don't like how Heroes!Shinon is written?)

Edited July 19, 2023 by Sunwoo

[Ice Dragon]

On 7/17/2023 at 1:57 AM, Ice Dragon said:

Packleader Tome is "四狗頭領の魔書" (shiku tōryō no masho), "Magic Tome of the Leader of the Four Hounds".

With Zephia released, added translation note for her weapon.

[Mercakete]

Diamant's supports

Spoiler

Sharena just wants to play house. To me, that's kind of cringe. However, Alfonse is just extremely sincere. That, I find to be just so funny and endearing, how he began to take it so seriously in Support B. X3

 

[Jotari]

So with the likes of Fair Play Blade and Pack Leader's Tome, I'm quite disappointed to see that, for Engage, they're taking a page out of Fates' book and ignoring the actual S Ranked weapons in the game entirely, or any of the weapons, I'd love for one of these mages to come with Surge. Even if it's just a regular inheritable tome with Close Counter built into it. It's particularly irksome here, as Engage has two S ranked weapons for most weapon types. Even if they plan to have a legendary Diamant later, they could have given him Georgias now and Caladbolg later. I'm not even confident Griss will come with Nova since he's almost certainly going to be a GHB unit and a Brave Tome on a free unit might be considered too powerful.

[Diovani Bressan]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

I'm not even confident Griss will come with Nova since he's almost certainly going to be a GHB unit and a Brave Tome on a free unit might be considered too powerful.

I can see them changing the effect of Nova in FEH, from a Brave Tome to a Desperation Tome. Catherine got that threatment when she released, since Thunderbrand in Three Houses is a Brave Sword. That or it will be like Whitecap Bow, that has a Spd check to trigger its Brave effect.

However, I don't remember Griss being a fast unit in Engage... Magic can be quite heavy as well in that game.

With that said, we got Male Shez last month with his dual phase brave lance that also has Spd based damage. So It's totally possible Nova has a brave effect. Maybe only player phase and not dual phase, and being 9 Mt like Dire Thunder.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Diovani Bressan

[Tybrosion]

5 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

However, I don't remember Griss being a fast unit in Engage... Magic can be quite heavy as well in that game.

Gregory more or less has the same Spd as Citrinne, so I imagine that they're not gonna make Griss fast in this game.

I just hope that Griss gets a Prf weapon at all because he's the only Hound I'd be interested in getting to +10. To a lesser extent, I also hope that he is a green tome unit because we have way too many red tome GHBs and a very sad number of green tome GHBs:

Red Tome GHBs: 14 (18 with TT units)
Blue Tome GHBs: 6 (11 with TT units)
Green Tome GHBs: 2 (5 with TT units)

[Diovani Bressan]

It's funny how Alcryst mentions in his FB Convo about Brodian Tomatoes, while in Engage Brodia is the only country where you cannot get tomatoes during exploration.

[DefyingFates]

On 7/18/2023 at 9:37 PM, Sunwoo said:

In my Engage playthrough, I remember noting that Alcryst is a great character ... when he's not loathing himself like there's no tomorrow. The self-loathing can be quite excessive, and he's very lucky that the other half of him is decently written (otherwise I'd feel the same way about him as I do Marianne and Bernadetta).

I second this. While the self-loathing is a big part of his character, it has the positive side effect of making him really good at appreciating the best parts of the people around him. Despite Engage's cast being a lot simpler on average than 3H's, Alcryst is a MUCH better example of the "low self-esteem" character than Marianne and Bernadetta who just throw pity parties for themselves 90% of the time. @Humanoid

On 7/18/2023 at 10:46 PM, Sunwoo said:

Celine in Engage is an amazing character, she's surprisingly deep if you watch the right supports. Incidentally, her support with Alcryst is really good for both of them.

And also this. Sampling tea is her hobby, but most of all she's dedicated to defending Firene and is quite the pragmatist when she needs to be. In fact -

Vague Fell Xenologue Spoiler:

Spoiler

Unlike Alcryst I don't think she changes at all in Fell Xenologue; that version of events just played out in a way that meant she had to be a pragmatist more often.

Anyway, to get back to discussing FEH, Diamant just refuses to show up for me in FB. I got the girls' S Supports and Alcryst to A before I got anything for him. The last time something like this happened was for F!Edelgard on her debut banner, and even she didn't take this long to start talking to people!

[Flying Shogi]

So... I just realized this banner has a little bit of everything that I'm looking for. A Galeforcer in Eitr, an Arcane bow, and an interesting support unit in Citrinne. I don't need any of these units but they're all nice to have. The main reason is that I already spent the tickets so I don't feel like committing orbs to the banner. But realistically, even if I pulled every focus unit on the banner, they'd just be sitting there in my barracks until the next Engage LHB rolls around. I am saving for a banner that's a long time away but one spark certainly wouldn't hurt but it's best that I keep saving. This banner should see a rerun given the high value skills unless something crazier manages to top it. 

[Magenta Fantasies]

I haven’t played Engage yet (though I’m hoping to soon,) but so far I like this set of Forging Bonds conversations better than the last. I thought Alcryst would be annoying, but his self-loathing is taken to such a ridiculous degree that it crosses the line from being annoying to comical. I laughed several times during his conversations. I’m enjoying the other characters’ conversations as well.