insanity continues! Teehee Madness 3 - Fire Emblem x Pokemon Linked Ironman!

[Eltosian Kadath]

On 3/27/2024 at 5:02 PM, Shrimpica said:

O.o wat

Say....

Did i miss a secret here both in FE4 and Engage?

This little secret is hidden where Palmark roughly reaches in the original before handing over the Tyrfing. As for FE4 the only real secret on this map is if Seliph personally kills Arvis, he can wait near the water to have a scene with the spirits of his deceased parents.

 

On 3/27/2024 at 5:02 PM, Shrimpica said:

 

This has been the longest i went FE-less in years. Let's see if i even remember how to FE xD

That is an ominous statement to make in an ironman.

 

On 3/27/2024 at 5:02 PM, Shrimpica said:

 

He get's bow access O:

Lessgo

They are being rather faithful to Shadow Dragon generals with that move.

 

On 3/27/2024 at 5:02 PM, Shrimpica said:

"He got seal STR'D, that sux" i said

Lmao

Your Draug is such a beast.

 

On 3/27/2024 at 5:02 PM, Shrimpica said:

>Paired up with Sword master
>Gets doubled by Armor anyway

Topest of keks

And Draug evades by jumping in the air (Sniper Animation) with his fucking armor xD

I mean look at this monster doubling everything on top of that strength and defenses (even resistance).

 

On 3/27/2024 at 5:02 PM, Shrimpica said:

 

Ayy

Wow, giving Mercurius a ranged exp boost, such an interesting improvement. Nice of them to give a nod to its old Mystery of the Emblem exp boosting effect with this one (although they probably got the reminder from Engage's revival of that old effect...)

 

On 3/27/2024 at 5:02 PM, Shrimpica said:

 

Some food arrives...i wonder if i can show off triangle attack 🤔

As a massive fan of the Triangle Attack, I am looking forward to it

 

On 3/27/2024 at 5:02 PM, Shrimpica said:

I love the smell of Triangle attack into Galeforce

OMG, what a way to improve Est, and you could setup some real impressive multi-Triangle attack turns with that skill and some creative unit placement.

 

On 3/27/2024 at 5:02 PM, Shrimpica said:

AYO!

Est still has that old Est-y growth rates as well. What an amusing little unit they have made here.

 

On 3/27/2024 at 5:02 PM, Shrimpica said:

 

...OOPS

That was a very stupid miscalculation lol...that's what i get for opening doors like that...

F for Minerva in the chat. For some reason i was sure she would survive lol

...Oof. Killing off not only my favorite character from Shadow Dragon, but also one of my most consistently used units that is difficult to replace.

Seems Ivy is doomed to never make it through an Ironman with me.

 

On 3/27/2024 at 5:02 PM, Shrimpica said:

Tfw

...Wow, the man is already a speed demon, and now this?

 

On 3/27/2024 at 5:02 PM, Shrimpica said:

Canceling Mind control changes clothes?

It is a clever use of the FEH art there, as she goes from the FEH version of her that is specifically the mind controlled version of her to a more normal version.

 

On 3/28/2024 at 5:41 PM, Shrimpica said:

Welcome to Ballista Hell

 I thought that was the Wooden Cavalry chapter a few maps back.

 

On 3/28/2024 at 5:41 PM, Shrimpica said:

 

Took out Paladin on EP, Lena escaped a lethal 47 *phew*

Yikes, another close call...

 

On 3/28/2024 at 5:41 PM, Shrimpica said:

😮

It also repairs all equipemt in a character's inventory damn

To be fair, not all equipment in this hack even has uses, so I guess they felt the need to boost it a little because of that.

 

On 3/28/2024 at 5:41 PM, Shrimpica said:

 

Oh fuck. FFFFFFFFFFF. Sorry Eltosian for killing both Ivy and Hortensia. Fuck.

Eh, I doubt I would have used her anyway...although that does now make it literally impossible for me to have a flying mage.

 

On 3/28/2024 at 5:41 PM, Shrimpica said:

They fucking moved over fire.......There was also miracle as fail safe (Lck x 3 here, and hers was through the roof...but the enemy brought her down to exactly 1 HP lol)

Yeah that is rather understandable, as I would not have expected that space to be traversable by non-fliers either.

 

On 3/28/2024 at 5:41 PM, Shrimpica said:

I love Triangle attack

It really is fun to setup and use.

 

On 3/28/2024 at 5:41 PM, Shrimpica said:

 

...and i missclick and wait with him Fuck. But i clear the enemies near him.

Another spooky moment, but at least it was early enough in the turn to fix things before enemy phase.

 

On 3/28/2024 at 5:41 PM, Shrimpica said:

 

>Boss Moves

Bruh

Taking cues from New Mystery's chapter 2 I guess...or perhaps FE1's chapter 22. For some reason Macedon was always the most willing to have bosses abandon their castles.

 

On 3/28/2024 at 5:41 PM, Shrimpica said:

Afaik reinforcements stop after boss dies.

At least this little oversight didn't end up biting you in the butt.

 

On 3/28/2024 at 5:41 PM, Shrimpica said:

 

...Secret Shop only has stat boosters...I nab dual Yumi instead.

And I am guessing there weren't even boots there to lure you into spending.

 

Originally my plan was to do quite a few of the paralogues here, but I think I will save most of them for after I decide which of Veyle or Mauvier ends up replacing Ivy...but I did decide to do one before the main chapter, so its time for Eirika's paralogue

Spoiler

But first we have a bit of necessary costume changes here, which was a good excuse to buy the new outfits, and

I let Rosado curl up with this cute little woolen outfit

And I let Lindon get some similar, but far starker digs than what he was wearing before.

And one last minor change by making our master chef Bunet into a bit of a pirate.

We also have some Arena levelups to get through, first Merrin continues her murder filled levelups

While Timerra gets one that is a bit underwhelming.

What a strange way to describe the last chapter of the game. Usually that is one where things are wrapping up, returning to normal, not changing drastically.

Its even a bit odd that they chose the last chapter to represent Sacred Stones, as I think its the only one they did this with. It almost feels like a bit of an indictment of that game, as the last chapters tend to be iconic for most of these games, and that they couldn't find any other iconic maps to call upon for the paralogue...I guess it isn't as bad as poor FE7 which got snubbed entirely.

Oh Eirika, Lyon was long gone well before you got here, this is just where you removed the monster wearing his skin as a coat.

This is such an odd sentiment to see given the way the time crystal moves things away from permadeath in this game, as it captures something far more resonant with an ironman run with this line.

Its easy to forget that Eirka's ring is both her and Ephraim, so its interesting to see the idea that the two blend into eachother mentally like this,

These two ring changes are a bit obvious given my deployment choices (Louis coming back and getting his ring, with Bunet sitting things out so his ring goes to Alfred).

With Eirika on the field, and losing Ivy just before she could claim the Celica ring, this seems like a good temporary finger for her ring.

And here we have our starting placement, before jumping right into the gameplay. Side note, I rather like that we start in the boss's place instead of the players, with Eirika starting where she should. It is kind of a shame they didn't do that reversal with any of the other paralogue maps.

I open with some longbow chip so that

Louis can...miss the kill actually.

I decide to make sure Merrin covers this front with the fog before committing to a Louis dance

Which actually does get the kill this time.

Although I trade switch him over to 1-2 range before getting to enemy phase

As I stay out of Dragon range while baiting in as much as I can with my defensive and dodge tank turn 1.

And Louis does his job just fine, although is just getting in a little bit of chip

While Merrin even manages a kill on one of her targets.

Although she did leave one for her friend and princess Timerra to kill.

On the other end TeeHee kills one

With a crit to avoid even the chance of a counter.

I have Anna get in a bit of chip and break, but that proves a bit unnecessary in the end

As I have Fogado grab the kill for cantering reasons (as I would otherwise have to move Merrin's fog machine early to escape Dragon range), and

He even gets a crit kill to ensure Anna's chip was useless.

Although I did skip past Rosado grabbing this kill between those two attacks.

Merrin's avoid should be good enough that she doesn't have to worry about the Dragon's range there

While Louis charges a but ahead to get in some chip before cantering out of Dragon range, but much farther ahead than the rest of the army.

As most of the army is still stay close to the starting position.

Merrin is dancing in the fog

While Louis shows that regular tanking works almost as well.

I open with Timerra cleaning up another of her knight's foes, which also commits me to killing a Dragon.

So I let Framme break it, so I don't have to suffer any of its defense ignoring attacks

So Fogado can pound it with heavy ranged chip

So that Lindon can become a Dragon slayer.

On the other front Rosado picks up another kill from Louis's refuse

Anna also goes for a ranged break before cantering past the great wall of Louis

While Merrin goes in to choke a point with the fog

And Louis uses Anna's chip and chain attack to get a more comfortable kill

For even more defense on our great wall here.

I also spend a freeze so I can deal with one of the two thieves racing south next turn.

But there are also some foes coming up the skirt of our formation, so I send a small force to deal with them, and I am going for a bit of enemy phase chip to start that off.

As it halves one of those foes immediately.

Merrin enemy phases are so routine that I almost miss the first of them here

But I do catch an image of the other one attacking her just fine.

Having the boss announce anything is a bit spooky, but

She is just warning us about some flying reinforcements that are a comfortable distance from out army.

Although it is time to deal with those thieves, with a 20 range Astra to snipe the one I didn't freeze (fun fact, I need the 20 range so he could use TeeHee's personal to get the kill here)

Although I need to cut my way through the enemy formation a fair bit to reach the frozen thief, and this opens up enough of a hole

That Louis can engage into the move for the opening chip on that thief

For Rosado to finish it reliably.

Just in case I have Lindon heal up Louis's chip, as he will be a part of holding the coming line

As Merrin is standing right beside him with the fog rolling in.

Although I have left one enemy behind my lines, and while Timerra gets the break here, but I decide I need to deal with the rear before figuring out how to finish this.

So Panette deals the rest of the damage on the one she chipped on enemy phase, but she is just shy of cantering into chain attack range of the other

Although TeeHee can get in enough chip that Alfred

Can get a perfectly reliable kill with TeeHee's personal (otherwise I would have to risk a miss of some kind...)

With that I can dance Lindon into the kill of this last foe behind our lines

Before Framme finishes the turn by healing Panette up to full.

Although Louis is drawing all the enemy phase action this turn.

I open the turn with Lindon getting in some chip so that

Rosado can open up a hole in the enemy formation that lets

Louis circle around back for this beautiful 4 foe Override.

And I do so with the Ridersbane so that Anna can snipe this ki-

I guess a dance can let Lindon deal with Anna's miss instead.

Although with those enemy fliers coming in, I use a chain guard to prepare some enemy phase chip

And I decide to prepare the doubles for maximum damage next turn.

All that is left to do is let the fog roll in for enemy phase.

Louis and Merrin don't have the best of enemy phases here,

Although Timerra gets some nice chip in on her protected enemy phase.

But even with a Sandstorm proc, she was just shy of the enemy phase kill and has to cleanup here on player phase.

Anna then pops one flier like a grape

For about the best level she could get for the weapon she was wielding.

Fogado turn another into pink draconic goo

Although we do also have a wolf to deal with, and Panette goes for a lot of chip with positioning for a chain attack.

I go for this heal to cover a rather unlikely scenario

But at least it get him a nice little healing levelup

As Framme now survives a double miss enemy crit. I an not that unlucky, and get the easy kill instead.

I let Fogado claim the dance for the last flier kill

That gives me enough breathing room to starting breaking through the front I have blocked up here, and with Rosado grabbing this ranged kill

I can press in a little with Louis to try for some chip on the wolf, before missing and cantering back

So Merrin can trade equip him a stronger enemy phase weapon

Before fogging thing back up.

In retrospect I should have been paying a bit closer attention to enemy weapons, as a double crit from these Smash weapons

Could have actually killed him (admittedly that is just shy of 1 in 250 odds, but I have lost units to worse crit luck before). Also it was entirely an accident that a double smash wouldn't break my formation here (Lindon blocks him from being pushed back again, although the fog was probably enough to keep that from becoming a disaster even if he was pushed back again).

Although with the second one actually missing this is even more speculative.

Merrin meanwhile deals with them just fine.

I open player phase by roasting one of these smashers in its shell

He even crits the kill to really show off his creative cooking skills.

Anna pumps out enough magic damage to kill another

I am so used to Dragons not being weak to Dragon effective weapons (instead needing a fell dragon effective weapon 🙄) that I almost forgot this would work. That deals with the other Dragon on the field, and really opens up my options.

I have Louis just pop vuln to heal

Before I have Lindon  roast the last armor with a dance.

Rosado goes for some chip on that last wolf there, and the only damages it with a Dual Assist proc

But that is enough to get the chip exp for this nice little levelup here.

With a little more fog thrown around, things are going rather well so far.

Although the dodginess of this last wolf is getting on my nerve at this point

In retrospect, I do slightly regret killing both the thieves before either could open a door, but I have Merrin go for the open here, trusting in the rest of my army being able to kill the wolf.

And I open the wolf hunt by trying for this bit of chip that sets up more reliable chain attacks in the future, and instead get a Hero Dual Assist+ double chip instead

And in similar fashion I only get in 3 rounds of chain attack damage in with this attack (Dual Assist+ is a very funny skill)

And thanks to weird Dual Assist+ luck, this is actually the kill here

And I am pressing in a bit to secure the treasure, and kill the

Freezer sitting in the treasure room.

Speaking of which, Alfred opens with some nice chip on that freezer

This proves to be a bit of a mistake though, as missing the kill and taking the effective hit means

I have to expend a warp use to fix it.

Really TeeHee trivializes the thing all on their own.

Fortunately Eirika's main forces haven't started moving yet, so I can

Grab the loot, and spend a few turns

Repositioning to go for the other chest

With Lindon getting a healing levelup along the way before

Another group of fliers spawns in from the other side to harass us.

Seadall gets a level while dancing my troops around, but

I am waiting a bit before positioning for the new fliers

And I open next turn by opening the other loot door

And funnily enough all the new fliers have magic weapons, so it makes sense to enemy phase them a bit with

Old man Lindon here, who does a fine job of it

Although just like the last treasure room, this one also has a freezer

And with Eirika's army moving, things are going to get uncomfortably dicey here.

This time I engage Rosado so that two elwind hits can't kill, and this deals enough

That a Warp Ragnarok will finish it off

With a lot of hard hitting mobile mages in the mix, and Merrin frozen, I engage Lindon's Micaiah powers to drop a massive obstruction to add a little protection to her

I do still have those flier to deal with as well, but with a dance

I have enough bows to

Destroy them all in one turn.'

And I end up breaking one obstruction with this bit of Fog generation, but she is going to need it, as the enemies will break through those obstructions

Sorry for the dutch angle shot here, but its the only way I can show my whole army at this rate, as we are in a horribly spread out position.

Merrin does fine against the melee enemies, but

The mobile mages do hit hard enough to taker her out, but this first one misses, and the obstructions were enough to keep the rest from reaching

But there are still enough of them to wipe us out, and Eirika has a perfectly accurate super, so I open by trying for this mass freeze here

Which both hits them all, and earns him this fantastic levelup.

And that lets me safely go for some ranged chip from the room,

Which lets Framme grab the kill, with both having the Canter+ to get as far as I need them to for my plans with Merrin.

With Panette only having regular canter, she secures the treasure instead, while

Merrin can get in some chip (which kills with a Dual Assist+ proc from my hero), as all the melee foes in range are frozen, and the mages aren't effected by the fog, and she can canter back

In a way that is both blocking the door, and out of range of the third mage, so she isn't risking death by doing this. Admittedly I did mess up my Panette movement in a way, as I wasn't planning on leaving her in mage range, but it should still be fine

As I am intentionally baiting the mages in a way that should keep them from concentrating their fire, with

Anna in range of exactly one mage (the one furthest back that couldn't reach Merrin)

Exactly one mage in range of Timerra here, and

That leaves one for Panette. Now even if she did proc the 1% crit, and a second went for her instead, she would have been saved by hold out, so I wasn't punished for my minor mistake before.

That is a bit annoying, as I really didn't notice I left her in range of this, but it could have been much worse.

Now I the turn open by finishing the last mobile mage here, which then

Lets me proc Merrin's super to freeze the rest of the dangerous foes on the map.

And I go for some free chip on Eirika here

Which also triggers this adorable little battle convo.

Although it is setup as if I just kept Eirika on Rosado, which is distinctly not the case.

Rosado is just too cute.

Sorry to say it, but your inability to counter is far more embarrassing for you Eirika.

I then let Fogado break her first health bar

For a kind of meh levelup overall.

Now this might seem like a really weak option here, but

I am rolling for the Sandstorm procs, and I get two of them

For a strength levelup on her...thank goodness.

And it is time to press in with a goddess dance

Which earns a nice enough levelup from it.

Although that is mostly to start dealing with the rest of her army, as she is restrained for this turn.

As these two future rules wipe one off the map each.

Lindon is pulling this just because it is the last turn I can, and it is worth a fair chunk of experience.

Before I let Louis break another of Eirika's healthbars

For this hilarious Speed and Luck levelup on the lumbering giant.

Fogado goes for some long range chi-

Or he gets a bit of turnabout on the killer edge by getting a crit kill instead.

This was a bit of a mistake though, as it basically ensures I will end this map next turn, and I could have squeezed a little extra exp if I could delay the map by another turn.

As there is a group of reinforcement on the bottom of the map right now that are mobile.

Also the freezer decide to use a physic instead

Which was not enough to save it from Fogado's bloody bow.

Especially when it crits.

And with a dance he can even wipe  out one of the immobile healers.

Although I can't quite reach those mobile reinforcements in the back with enough fire power to really defeat them, with Alfred getting in a bit of chip with his "super" here,

And even with creative use of swap

To squeeze in one extra attack here, it is not enough.

I reach a point where I have to end the map

In a way that triggers another battle conversation

I guess this is getting them a boss kill, so they are kind of right.

Another true statement, as TeeHee still is one of my strongest units.

Fair enough, Fogado generally does a very good job, and I used his engage rather well this map.

🙄 of course they have to inflate Ephraim's ego.

...Boy that statement conflicts strangely with the game, as Eirika having to learn how to handle thing without her brother was a bit of a thing in Sacred Stones. Then again they had to make Ephraim such a Gary Stu that her rescue attempt on him gets reversed into him saving her.

...sigh.

Honestly, I don't think I have used Eirika well enough for her to have saved me all that much. I like how I am using her, but Framme is useful in a lot of way other than combat, and while Eirika help makes her combat hilariously powerful, she often finds other uses for her turn.

...Dragony, Oh Merrin, don't ever change, that is adorable.

Next time I will be doing a story map, promise.

 

[Eltosian Kadath]

Really should have gotten this one out earlier, but playing through it was rather draining.

Spoiler

I open by using the arena to cap out Framme's level so I can

Reset her level without wasting any of the next (two) chapter's exp. Luckily enough she got a high yield match up on the first go, so I can

Get Alfred this underwhleming defensive one, and

A classic murder hobo special for Merrin. Getting the three levelup arena round before the next maps is nice. I also make sure to pick up some skills

Most notably spending two novice Books for Anna

To unlock the last upgrade to Dual Assist+ for my Backup units.

Also upgrade some Canter to the + on those that can afford it, and for similar reasons

Start buying Reposition on a few folks that can fit it in, on Rosado, TeeHee, and Fogado specificallly (but I will spare you more repetitive skill images).

Look Marni, I am about as surprised by this development as you, as nothing has really indicated we would be anything other than enemies before now, but I guess we have to choke down some sympathetic backstory for you moments before your death, so

We are chasing after the real bad guys with their refuse this time.

To an unjust extreme? More like a stupid extreme, as leaving the both of you in a state where you couldn't escape our army is about to prove itself to be the disaster it should be.

Don't worry too much Mauvier, TeeHee took quite a few courses from the Corrin naivete school (hence all the letting the defeated baddies go multiple times), plus we have the fire power to prevent you too goobers from causing much trouble on your lonesomes.

Yeah, I am not the biggest fan of this whole half baked friends to enemies thing with you, as they only really setup Veyle to make it believable...well I guess Mauvier has a believable conditional betrayal, as he is setup as the kind of person whose loyalties side with Veyle.

I do like this exchange though, with Marni recognizing what TeeHee is saying gently.

I do appreciate that they go through the effort of showing that we have clued our interlopers in on the whole TeeHee soap opera situation, before they start voicing their opinions on it.

They even get into some of the nitty gritty details like this. I rather appreciate that they aren't just skipping past this, and instead lets us see her reaction to this news.

It is odd that they left someone so in the loop behind, where they could be very easily captured...

It feels very strange to describe a land as wicked, but I guess that is his way of trying to distinguish the blessing of the Divine Dragon on the land from the blessing of the Fell Dragon.

It does come across as very odd that Lumera was using her Divine Dragon power to keep a literal land mass from existing.

It baffles me even further that they just left someone with so much vital information just unconscious in the middle of castle the enemy was about to capture. Why didn't the hounds have an escape plan for at least keeping the unconscious pair from being easily captured and interrogated, let alone easily betray them like Mauvier did, especially as the result of them being punished.

...Of course there are other worlds TeeHee, the Emblems have been talking about coming from other worlds at like every paralogue.

I guess it is nice that they drop this detail at least a little before it becomes relevant, and adds another reason for Sombron to call his last remaining daughter a defect.

It is interesting how they frame the summoning of Emblems on being dependent on the summoner remembering them. That is what TeeHee always felt to start their summoning, and here it is mildly tied to Veyle not being able to.

The cruel consequences of Lumera's hard won peace, even if she would have probably never wanted Veyle hurt, if knew about her at all.

It is funny how she is protected by villains that she would eventually end up opposing.

Also how she just casually power naps through the lifespan of the humans that first found her.

Poor girl was looking for comfort from all the wrong places, thinking that monster would act like a father.

They did mention an important ability she is missing, but as Sombron's noticeably lower skill at creating corrupted shows, these abilities don't seem as universal as Sombron thinks.

Plus he doesn't actually care about her having the character of a Fell Dragon, he would much rather just have a pawn than anyone as ambitious as he is.

She just did not care at about Veyle at all before now huh.

She really thought she was the only one of these villains with a tragic back story? You don't end up working for a world ending evil dragons because your life up to that point is going great...

She really got screwed by the patriarchal forces that favor boys over girls in an extreme sense here.

Its not a competition Marni, you don't have to compare your sorrows to hers.

Mauvier really failed to read the room with that one. What she needed more than a knight was a friend, and even TeeHee got a friend only shortly after they woke up.

It is a very toxic and dysfunctional found family you have built up in this one.

No TeeHee, that is just winter. I know you have enough amnesia that this is the first time you remember seeing the trees bare of leaves 😛 

It is all coming full circle. Really it is a bit of a story telling cliche, so you shouldn't be that surprised TeeHee.

Honestly, not a terrible name for them.

What were you expecting when you abandoned them injured, unconscious, and undefended in the castle we were just about to capture. If you didn't want them spilling the beans, you should have either killed them, or dragged them with you.

Mauvier, you white knight shtick of trying to take all the blame for Marni didn't work last time, why do you think it would work this time?

She really is taking the Sombron view of family, that children should mindlessly obey their parents into death, and sabotage any effective effort by murdering their siblings.

Plus you kind of gave the sadistic game away with the last moronic round of punishments.

But now we get to meet the evil Veyle, taunting us all with her knowledge of TeeHee's relationship with her.

Really just giving away the secret of your mind control magic there, letting everyone know that removing or breaking the ugly horn hat will fix her. Also, does that imply the weird crescent moon horn helmet on your head is also a mind control device?

Really, were you drinking the Corrin Conquest kool-aid this whole time? You even recognize that the things you were doing were awful, does Veyle only deserve to be treated well if she has a sad back story.

This attempt at redemption feels so ridiculous, like she only now realized that other people might have had hardships in their lives, and thus deserve to be treated like human beings.

And then she tries to break the magical helmet on the person she is trying to free's head, by hitting it with an axe at full force. A very stupid plan, that would just as likely hurt Veyle than actually help, and the magic of the ugly horns

prevents it from sustaining damage...or at least only receive damage that is only noticed when it is convenient for the plot for people to notice the cracks she canonically put in it.

And then Zephia just guts the girl who sees her as family to her very face, killing her.

They are doing everything in their power to make sure we get Mauvier to join us in the fullest extent possible with this melodrama.

...I am sorry, this pose, and scene are just too goofy.

But we do get Mauvier to officially agree to join...as a green unit in the preps. Just give him a minute to go full blue on us.

Evil Veyle is really trying to twist the knife with these little guilt trips here, but TeeHee has the perfect shutdown for this

Right here.

Please, we never turned our back on Marth, we just haven't had the opportunity to rescue him yet.

I guess this is why Somron's forces failed so spectacularly in the past, what he thinks of as the character of a Fell Dragon is for his children to kill eachother, sabotaging his efforts with moronic infighting.

Alright, time for some ring change ups, first I am getting Eirika back onto Framme, but that does leave the whole Celica issue open again...

I guess this will have to do. She does have a fairly passable magic stat, and she doesn't have a dedicated ring at the moment either.

I also start using some of my spare stat boosters, as there is a notable difficulty bump right about here in the story. I am starting with these luck boosts on some of my lower luck units. The only person with worse luck in my active army is Louis, and his very high defense usually keeps that from becoming a major issue, and these two have fairly valid reason to be in the thick of things, and with more middling defense could use the crit avoid a bit more in my opinion.

Honestly, this is almost certainly a mistake. She is woefully behind on strength, and while this stat boost helps, she is probably too far behind to really save. I mostly just like her utility with her crit debuffing skill, and value as a backup unit. I guess the proc skill helps as well.

This is to balance TeeHee's defenses a bit, and make them even more of a mixed tank. Plus survivablity on the game over unit in any form is a good idea.

Thanks to the fog and Pairup, the most likely way for her to take damage is from magic, so boosting her res is an obvious move.

I was just thinking I would like a little better accuracy on Louis.

I do still have a pair of really good stat boosters left, but I was a little too indecisive to give them to anyone at this point.

After a long hard look at my army, it is sad to say that Bunet gets one last round on the bench here, before we get to the point in the game where max deployment is common.

And I do a little bit of fiddling with my units positions in preparation for turn one here. This is a dozy of a chapter, and I am a bit nervous as I ended up having to sacrifice Rosado the last time I ironmanned this chapter...but hopefully I can manage it better this time.

We also officially recruit Mauvier, although I am leaning more towards Veyle as my Ivy replacement, so I don't plan on using him much...

And I open with Lindon beautifully eviscerating this first armor in front of us.

Sadly my magic archers can't do that as cleanly, although Anna manages with a Dual Assist+ proc

And the even worse off Fogado

Lucks into a crit for a kill on his end too.

That leaves the archers ahead of us, and with Merrin going for the chip (and almost getting enough Dual Assist + procs for the kill)

TeeHee goes for some similar chip on the other one.

Fortunately Rosado doesn't miss the kill here, as  it is getting hard to reach these ones in the back here (and the only way to deal with a miss is with my dance at this point.

The last of them is a very reliably kill, and Louis is even in position to

Canter ahead into enemy range in preparation for enemy phase.

Thanks to saving my dance, I can even get in

A bit of enemy phase fog action as well.

We have a fairly comfortable enemy phase setup here, with

With Merrin getting from free chip on the swordie

With Louis comfortably tanking his pair as well.

Although these things are still obnoxiously tanky, taking an effective hit like this...or would have if not for the save from a Dual Assist+

Which earns her a solid little levelup from that assisted kill.

On the uninjured one I have Rosado go from the safe break

This is a bit of a random place for me to do this, but I needed her to move (and setup her own enemy phase action)

So that Alfred could use her space to go for the kill. Alas the swordie is obnoxiously dodgy, but it doesn't end up biting us this time.

With Louis having missed one of his enemy phase attacks, the overwhelming murderlation powers of Framme proves necessary.

I guess I kind of wasted the break here, but she can chip and setup the easy chain attack kill here...but she gets the Dual Assist+ for the kill all on her own.

I am rather avoiding the dragons for now, but after

Merrin exactly kills all of the horse archers on enemy phase

I really don't have much else to do on my turn, other than take them out.

With both Dual Assist+ procs, and Sandstorm proc, she gets a LOT of chip in here

To the point that it is a much easier kill for Rosado here.

As for the other one, Fogado can clean it up after Alfred's solid round of chipping,

With Lindon getting this rather nice healing levelup as he helps Alfred with a Physic.

We are spread out enough that I don't try to bait in any of the Hound's formation ahead of us, as I don't want to bite off more than I can chew on this map

Especially when I know a fairly sizable chunk of reinforcements are coming on this map. Admittedly this is the more manageable group of reinforcements, at this point they are coming in a number and rate that I can handle, so I have an enemy phase planned for them.

With Louis getting in a bit of free chip here

And at least Fogado deals a lot of damage to his.

But committing to this plan will bog us down for a fair number of turns here, as they keep coming each turn. I should be able to handle what is here, and setup some enemy phase action for the next group (like with this fogging here).

Alfred finishes off the archer that Fogado chipped rather nicely

Which lets our archer get in some heavy chi-

With how much crit he had there, that wasn't all that surprising.

On the other front, Louis goes for even more chip on his enemy phase foe...but he gets the Hero Dual Assist+ proc for the kill.

While Anna shows us some rather fortuitous numbers here, able to reliably kill, and tank the Thoron mages from three range with no assistance from support skills...

And gets a very well earned levelup from it.

Needless to say, after seeing that (and some healing)

I let Anna pull that trick off on enemy phase, with some support skills just to slightly reduce the damage.

While Merrin does some great work on the next archer coming in.

And Anna still has the health to go for a hat trick of 3 range Throron kills.

And she earned this solid round of healing after that one.

I let Rosado pick up this kill here, mostly for

The nice levelup from it.

...Yeah, Framme is a bit of a monster at this point.

We are handling things well enough that I let Fogado go for some free 3 range chip on one of the ones that just spawned

But after this lucky crit, instead of setting up for the enemy phase

I can dance for the

Entirely free kill instead.

He can even canter out of range of the melee one on that side, with Anna all ready

For another repeat performance on the mages.

You have earned this fantastic little levelup so much, for hitting these benchmarks so perfectly.

Back to player phase, and Fogado sets up the kill

Nicely for Alfred, without any crits to kill it off early.

For a fabulous levelup on the lad.

Perhaps I should be spreading the exp on this side a bit better, but why fix what ain't broke.

Plus the mages are winding down enough that Louis can get repositioned into some enemy phase action this turn

With just some fog prep on the other front.

I swear I remember these reinforcements run out at some point...

I have a strong sense of deja vu...

It feels like I have done this all already

Although this time Framme gets a superfluous crit to try and spice things up for us.

With Rosado claiming another injured archer kill as well.

Which encourages me to actually spice things up on the other side, with Panette going for the break on the one Louis injured

And I let Timerra get the mage kill this time

With Louis finishing the injured spearman off.

For a LOL speed levelup.

But with that we have finally broken through that first wave of reinforcements, and I am ready to bait in the hounds on my next player phase.

Starting with a chain guard to protect

Little Anna from the might

Of a charging Zephia,

I even luck into keeping my guarder healthy thanks to her miss there.

We have a lot of foes to deal with this turn, so I open with an engage to wipe out one of Griss's health bars

Just one more map of hounds to bring that back down to 0.

Framme than continues her streak of brutal one-rounds with her punchies

With Fogado taking full advantage of his effective damage.

...That is rather underwhelming.

Very similarly, Anna uses effective damage for a clean one shot with the radiant bow here

With Merrin having to clean out one of the mages.

For the second kinda meh levelup of the turn.

I might regret not saving this for the boss rush at the end, but it would be very difficult to finish this force off without popping my goddess dance here.

I guess all these meh leveups have had some effective speed in them.

Framme claims another easy one round after the the dance

While this is to get Panette back to full health to trigger

The extra hero chain attack on the two bosses in range

And thanks to a Sandstorm proc on top of that, our desert princess claims the kill on Griss here...or not quite kill I guess, as this hound still gets to slink away here.

Really the extra chain attack matters more for making this kill more reliable here

With Fogado using them to claim the honors on taking down the last health bar on the last of the bosses in the middle section.

Although that still leaves one last foe

For Panette to one shot to avoid even the counter.

I even have the luxury of making sure the dragon moves a little with the fog.

And Seadall gets a levelup as well, although his levelups barely matter.

We made it out of that turn safely

Especially with the dragon unable to pierce the fog. As for how to deal with this dragon

I do a bunch of gratuitous setup

To get Rosado the one round on it for funsies

And a fun little levelup as well.

Although some wyvern reinforcements are now coming from the rear, so I send Merrin back a little to fog up their progress.

While  try to bait in the enemy with a dropable dagger, but despite my memory of the group in the back by the boss moving at some point, it simply does not take the bait

Merrin meanwhile does her job fine

And even kills one a little early with a crit. I hope you all don't mind me saving a little space by not showing all the wyverns wasting their time attacking her...

As I have her pull back and fog again to finish the rest of them off on enemy phase. I haven't really focused on it yet, but these fliers are a bit of a herald for some far more overwhelming numbers of reinforcements coming in, so it feels like I am on a bit of a timer.

And I am utterly wasting that precious time by trying to get the boss's group to actually move. I have some vague memory of them moving last time I did this map, but my efforts here utterly fail, as I squander this Astra Storm here.

In retrospect I should have used it on the Entrap staffer instead.

Sadly I am looking at the annoyingly dangerous one in front of me, that has to fall to finish this chapter.

Alas I try to pointlessly bait them one more time here, but I at least setup well for plan C...before messing all that planning up trying to go for a hasty plan B, but that is a tale for next turn

As before that Merrin gets this fantastic levelup enemy phasing all the remaining wyverns.

Here comes the failed plan B that forces me to make a worse version of plan C, as I was hoping the doubles being in range of both Veyle, and the Entrap might bait the group into doing something...

I almost bungles this map worse than last attempt where I thought I could actually weather the overwhelming hoard of reinforcement, whose attack range is already pressing in on us from every side...

But now I have to go from the desperate move of plan C, a Micaiah warp, into a dance for a second Micaiah warp to hopefully get enough fire power to wipe Veyle off the face of the earth. Unfortunately that means I have to deal with her obnoxious terrain, and the doubles mess up my second warp formation a little

But Lindon does get an effective double speed levelup from the warping.

And I open with a move from one of the ones not warped in, as Anna goes for the kill here so she can canter into chain attack range of Veyle for more damage build up as I go for the kill

Here is one of the surprising way the doubles messed me up here, as I wasn't actually expecting one of them to be warp, and pushed to the other side of Veyle, so I can't go for the Override without messing up my positioning with Panette. I did get very lucky to actually land his actual hit here, so it was accidentally a net positive, but the override would have been much more reliable damage...

And that is low enough that I can go for the kill with just the chain attacks here, and that is enough units setup around her that

The Lucina super proc (that also positions me for another chain attack) is almost good. It is sadly not enough for the kill, but is still a solid chunk of damage...

Unfortunately Fogado can't reach Veyle this turn, so the most useful thing he can do is try for a lucky kill on the enemy that drops something, but I am not that lucky.

Alas, I can't keep holding back with Mauvier, I need someone to trigger the chain attack damage to bring her down to her last health bar.

Plus he has a convo with her, where she is still trying to manipulate Mauvier by pretending she is the real Veyle.

But he isn't swayed at this point.

...Is that true, does Mauvier never call the evil Veyle by her name? I might have to look back through my screenshot, but I was not thorough enough with the story to really confirm it if he actually did (but I might have still lucked my way into a counter example that proves he didn't).

Not even Griss would consider that a reward.

That is such a weird thing to say while fighting her body.

🙄

Things are getting a bit tight, but as long as either the main attack hits here, or both of the chain attacks do, I can secure the kill here.

Which lets me go for some ancillary moves, like letting TeeHee try for the weapon drop. I do slightly regret not trying to see whatever special convo the siblings have with a Levin Sword, but getting an items seemed like the better play

It even gives them the chance to show off with a critical kill.

I can also get in a bit of extra experience with Timerra on this last turn

Which earns her this effective double speed and defense level, which is kind of nice (although she still would love a little more strength)

Thankfully I managed to wipe Veyle out with the double Micaiah warp gambit, with this certain super proc to confirm the kill. There were some real lucky hits in there, but I did have a little bit of wiggle room with TeeHee's attack, all things considered.

...Phew, that ending there really took a lot out of me. It seems the ending of this map is always really stressful.

And little Framme is ready for even more punchy murder with this levelup.

Honestly I am tempted to give the MVP to Micaiah for the double warp at the end alone, or maybe even the brutal pugilism of Framme, but the fog isn't a terrible pick either

It seems Framme managed to punch some sense into Veyle with that last hit, as she is back to normal

And Marni's death wasn't in vain, it just wasn't a complete success.

And then TeeHee makes the same mistake villains in Dragon Ball tend to, not immediately using the wish they unlocked when they collect all the MacGuffins , and instead giving others time to steal it from under their nose.

As evil snake daddy is here to steal

And prove quite definitively why he isn't on the side of any Fell Dragons other than himself.

But TeeHee decides to take a breath weapon to the face for Veyle

Which the funny scorch patterns prove is surprisingly effective, if ultimately fatal for them.

As they say Sombron, third time's a charm, as this one isn't going to stick either.

It really was rather foolish, but I get that it was a very emotion driven thing, to take a bullet for your little sister.

Alas that is a promise...

That is almost ironically denied them with TeeHee cutting off right here

But the shattering Dragon Stone is doing enough showing to tell her what was cut off.

And then the hero's incompetence is made blatantly evident. Literally just wasting the wish of the 12 rings on something silly would have prevented

This villainous wish here. Although it is admittedly a bit of a silly wish, that his death proves was beyond their granting, as the power they give him is clearly finite.

Although it does super size him

And resummon Gradlon

From beneath the sea. Although it does rise up in a way that looks rather like the place has been submerged in lava while it was beneath the waves.

It also supposedly repowers the damaged horn hat of mind control...

Although as next chapter will show, its more in Veyle's head.

But for now, Evil Veyle gets to claim her victory once more

As we fade to black on her ready to wipe out the remaining heroes with an army of freshly spawned corrupted

And all our powerful Emblems useless without TeeHee to reawaken them...

Thankfully the game lets you save between this two parter of a map, because that was so draining that I have left it at that save point for like a week now. I will try to reach the checkpoint by the weekend, although I don't know when I will get my writeup for it up.

[Eltosian Kadath]

Alright time to finish this two parter.

Spoiler

We cold open on an ancient memory from the last battle between TeeHee and their father, who is baffled that his awful treatment of his children might have consequences.

Although this battle starts with rather different results

It ends in a double kill, with TeeHee shot in the back thinking they had won.

With one last comment of hypocrisy to highlight Sombron's vengeance

There is something strangely charming about TeeHee falling back on this old trope in their final moments here. Although this game does a better job than Fates of saying that our fates are not defined by our blood

.

As our little TeeHee is given a second chance here, to play that role of a good dragon, and not die in the end, just right now instead 😛 

That is one dream that gets fulfilled, as Lumera must have redressed TeeHee in their sleep for that very reason.

What a beautiful depiction of the threshold between life and death. Although I am a bit surprised there isn't a more prominent river involved, as that kind of imagery is common to both the Japanese and Greco-Roman traditions (with the rivers Kamo and Styx respectively). Although perhaps the stars are hinting at a second layer of metaphor, with the Milky Way (or Heavenly River, as its name would more directly be translated from Japanese) is the river that separates life and death in this fantasy setting.

This feels so backwards, as the realization isn't that it happened, but that you dreamed it.

It does feel odd that Veyle would be here, as her body is just fine outside this liminal space. Are the two Veyles meant to be separate souls? What a strangely muddled depiction.

I do like how this kind of emphasizes from the beginning that what brings Veyle to this precipice is that she is giving up on life, as things "didn't go how [she] wanted"

Really TeeHee should have pushed Veyle out of the beam's way instead of trying to block it. Then again that might be my fault, I never gave them the push or smite skill 😛 

Although I do respect TeeHee for sticking to their guns, that saving Veyle was the right choice.

Although the poor girl just wanted the her father to love her, like a normal father should. Honestly, this is giving some real uncomfortable metaphor for parents that will never accept their LGBT+ kid no matter how hard they try vibes.

Oof, this blaming your abuse on yourself instead of the abuser is a vicious trap to fall into, that often keeps people in abusive relationships.

Such a sickeningly sweet way to describe her little attempted suicide here.

While death comes for us all, the depth of the sadness here is palpable, just waiting for the whole world to die for you.

Unlike the chronically lonely Veyle, TeeHee has lived a far healthier life in recent years, with a lot more emotional ties binding them to the mortal coil, with the friends we made along the way.

And it is really charming how TeeHee wants Veyle to have that kind of experience, and uses that wish to talk her off the edge here

Alas, her weakness come in to play. Although with how much weaker the red Emblems are than the blue Emblems, I don't think this is as big of a change as she thinks... actually that makes me wonder what this game would play like without equipping any Emblem Rings.

But her strength gives her a creative out, to cover her weakness.

It is a long shot, and revives our dead little MC, but with their fell powers combined....

I do find the change back comment a little odd. Like change TeeHee back into what, a corpse?

Although this is a bit more cogent, more about the dignity of the way they die, and whether or not the undeath of corruption is a desecration of their corpse that they would willingly accept. Perhaps these questions hold a bit more weight for the more religious, although with our little TeeHee here considered a Divine Being, it makes the question of religion and afterlife especially odd.

Seems TeeHee is of a similar mind of how unimportant the manner of their death is.

TeeHee, if Veyle really knew that, they wouldn't been ready to die like this to begin with. I guess the question is just to get her to think about it, when she obviously hasn't found an answer.

Again we are getting those strong themes that choices surpass fate, that bonds matter more than blood, and all while framing it as TeeHee talking Veyle into trying to live.

Phrasing the sentiment in the future tense like this really does give it a lot more weight, as she wont have a future if she gives up on life now.

They really do make a really cute pair of siblings.

Back in the real world, evil Veyle is playing with her food with a little sadism at play.

Before our Veyle decides she will not go quietly into that good night

Yeah, that must be odd to watch, two souls arguing over one body...I was going to note that they lack the camera tricks to better follow the conversation in their reality, but the changes of voice and eyes are probably good enough.

Ah the old believe in me that believes in you to help people that have low self esteem, but high esteem in another overcome that internal issue for some vital moment.

...And how are you not also a "defect"? Can evil Veyle awaken an Emblem?

Anyway Veyle finally breaks the chains of her toxic family symbolically by breaking that hideous helmet physically.

The sad desperation of Evil Veyle, begging for her abusive monster of a father to help is deserving of pathos

But our Veyle has to tell her the cold hard truth about Sombron. Perhaps if Sombron did care about her, evil Veyle could have a second wind like ours did, same way TeeHee inspired one in our Veyle

Alright, the magical costume change from evil black to good white outfit is very silly.

I'm myself again. I do like that little turn of phrase there.

Who are these Guardians of the underworld? This invocation here hints at them being more tangibly divine figures than the dragons...then again, being able to intervene in such matters is also very divine even if they aren't the masters of such affair (or called fell instead of divine).

You heard it here, rise up all you corrupted TeeHee 😛 

...That is a kind of trans sentiment to state.

It is a wonder we can awaken them for battle at all like this. Didn't this trigger a 1000 year deep sleep for the Emblems last time around.

That TeeHee's powers failed at first, when they are still trying to awaken the same way Lumera taught them, and have to fall back on the far inferior simple invocation of a Fell Dragon

Although knowing how distinctly non-consensual the way the invocation that creates these red Emblems is described, makes you wonder about how the Emblems actually feel about being forced here, after the close relationship they had before, during what is supposed to be their time of rest. Sadly Engage doesn't engage with a hard question like this.

And so we have our heroes joining hands with the Fell siblings, with all the divine dragon power (other than the coloring) spilled out of our little TeeHee.

It is funny how they finally lampshade the fact that there is an army of Corrupted have just been meandering around eating popcorn during the mellow drama, before they remember we need to have a map here.

Alright, enough chit-chat, it is time to really fight.

Fun little fact about this map number one, you can't increase supports between these two chapters

Fun little fact number two, with us not being able to change deployment between chapters, if you had a character die on the last chapter I would simply be down a deployment slot on this second map (which I learned the hard way on my last ironman)

More relevantly, I did change up my deployment locations though a bit here.

As the main objective to this map is to waken the emblems and rout the map.

And I open the map by having Louis go for some chip while choking the point.

With Timerra trade switching our wall over to a better enemy phase weapon.

Although most of the first turn is just setting up for enemy phase where'

Louis tanks his foe fine, but misses his chip.

While Rosado and Merrin pick up some free chip by dodging their foes

I open turn 2 with Panette comfortably one rounding one of the foes on the unchipped front

For a nice little levelup to boot.

While Framme shows her first are deadly even without Eirika, to clear out that front.

In the middle I let Fogado commit me to wiping the front by hitting deep behind enemy lines to Longbow the backline mage to death.

And the goober really wanted to show off with that critical flourish with the kill.

Veyle gets her first kill of the game (for us at least), and while she is risking a heavy return hit, she dodges it just fine.

Louis managed to redeem his enemy phase miss, by putting in enough chip on this dodgey swordie

Which is enough to let Timerra clean up the kill from range.

...Using Lindon here is overkill.

While I try to cripple one with Corrupted TeeHee, but there are enough Dual Assist+ procs for the kill instead.

I let Panette have the dance, but alas she is just one damage shy of another kill. At least it is some free damage

Before another active enemy phase.

Rosado getting the dodge here made this a bit better than it looks.

But that lucky dodge from Rosado is payed back in kind by this swordie dodging Louis.

But at least Panette can pick up the enemy phase ki-

...I may have bitten off a bit more than I can chew with that Rosado enemy phase draw.

But I can pick up a little safe chip while pulling out.

And Anna can get the kill on one of the armors with magic, but

She does need our dance to escape enemy phase.

And with the mage finally starting to move on Louis's front, we are pulling in, concentrating our forces together while getting in a tiny bit of enemy phase chip

Louis get his hit this time, but the enemy messes up the formation they needed to hit Merrin.

So I teach the body-blocking armor why he should bring some 2 range with it.

Timerra picks up the one Rosado chipped last turn, with a Sandstorm proc for the overkill

Speaking of which, Rosado wipes out the mage that was scaring Louis away.

While I let Lindon clean up the dodgey little swordie

And the old mad shows his disdain for their dodgey nature with this brutal crit.

Back with the dangerous front, Framme goes for the breaking chip on a scary little wolf here

With Anna finishing it off.

For a down right terrible levelup.

I let TeeHee one round one of those usually dodgey swordies, but they are accurate enough to make it fairly reliable (barring the need for the chain attack for that last hit point)

Which lets Merrin take out the chain guarding healer from range, which then lets

Fogado go for the chip damage I need on the other dangerous wolf so that

Alfred can finish it off with effective damage. Thanks to everything hitting I even have the luxury of using my dance

On having TeeHee awaken this cluster of rings

I also let Louis return to his choke point, and while one of the green unit Emblems is in dragon range, they don't actually get attacked.

And Louis does just fine there, although

We now have a pair of wolf reinforcements sniffing at our butts.

So I open with Framme going for some breaking chip on one

And some safe Longbow chip on the other, which also sets up some longbow chain attack on the pair.

Which is enough for Rosado to go for the kill, but that is some uncomfortable return damage if anything misses...

But instead Rosado gets this nice little defensive levelup from the kill.

Similarly enough Panette grabs the kill on the other, and I am luck enough not to miss any of the kills on these shifty wolves.

We also have some thief reinforcements from the flanks to deal with, but the wolves felt much more pressing, espeically when these ones lacked 1-2 range.

I then let Alfred get the talk on Byleth here, as it doesn't end his ac-

...You knoe I didn't even think about grabbing two of these goobers at once, and while that means I don't get to use both of their power on this map, just like how Sombron's Corruption summoning power pales in comparison to Veyle's, TeeHee's Fell Emblem summoning powers pales in comparison to Sombron's, as these red ones are rather underwhelming.

In retrospect, I should have talked to Lyn first, as now her ring goes to storage, but

Before I got side tracked, I was going to mention that I can still go for this kill after talking

With TeeHee grabbing the last of the rings in this corner, before

Using my dance (and cantering out of dragon range)

So that Fogado can wipe out the flier coming in to threaten my ring grabbers.

Louis meanwhile grabs the player phase hit, so he can try for the enemy phase kill

Cantering as far back as he can while maintaining the choke point.

And Louis gets a very Louis levelup from said kill

While the perceptive amongst you might have noticed Timerra baiting this offscreen enemy flier.

Which I let Panett kill come player phase.

It is time to start powering through this dragon that is restricting our movements too muc-

What a prince. He not only dodged the flames, but crits to one round the Sombron be damned thing.

So I have TeeHee burn our dance to awaken the next group of Emblems

While staying out of any enemy phase action this turn.

I am having Louis move to rejoin our forces, and I decide to heal up the chip he picked up from all that point choking

While further ahead I let Veyle grab Celica, before

Dancing into the siege tome kill.

And she really wants to make a good impression on her sibling.

I also have Lindon reclaim the Micaiah ring

Before another very quiet enemy phase.

But that quiet was just a lull before a storm of reinforcements.

Which I open with Merrin wiping out one

While I pull back Veyle so Lindon can prepare to enemy phase the other mage, and I try to act agressive with Fogado drawing in some enemies ahead as well, but nobody bites.

While Lindon grabs a crushing critical kill on his end.

Next turn I open with Louis cheekily breaking this thief from an older reinforcement group by smashing it into a wall

Making Timerra's kill here even safer.

Even after setting up a chain attack with Timerra using canter and trade-equiping is still not quite enough for Alfred to grab the kill with effective damage here, but

Rosado is still in range to finish it off.

With my foes being passive with Fogado's advance, I decide to get a hit in on them instead

And using the Killer Bow to try for the critical kill actually payed off.

And earns him this fantastically murderous levelup.

And I can dance him out of enemy range after the kill (or even if he failed the kill)

Alas our army is split between a rearguard with Louis luring in the last reinforcement, while the vanguard is staying out of enemy range after the crit kill.

Louis misses his enemy phase chip

So I try for it on player phase as well

Which is enough for Alfred to go for the effective damage kill

For a fairly solid levelup.

Although the real action is ahead of us, and I start with Fogado going for some dragon chip, although things don't go as well as last time, taking the hit and missing the crit.

Framme decides to punch a horse to death before

Panette finishes off the dragon.

For a very basic strength levelup.

Anna then goes for some heavy chip on the the last horse archer with a longbow

Before having Lindon heal back up Fogado, get my dance and

Finish the bugger off.

So he can get this...kind of meh levelup.

And TeeHee can awaken the next group of Emblems before the end of the turn

Although we are spread out enough to need the dutch angle to catch all my troops in a single shot, and while we are out of enemy range for now

A rather dangerous group of reinforcements have descended upon our army.

And some of them are right next to us, so I have TeeHee chip one of the archers, before

Fogado grabs the kill without having to risk that crit rate.

I then let Panett grab Sigurd here, and decide I have the time to give the Eirika ring to somebody else instead of sending it to convoy.

Although Seadall gets a random levelup letting

Framme put her trusty Eirika ring back in her punchy fingers.

And Anna grabbing the last ring of the group.

In retrospect, I regret not controlling the Wyverns' movements a bit better by luring into controled enemy phase, but on the other front

Louis tanks a hit and misses the counter.

Sadly Anna is only close enough to get the Lonbow chip here

But Rosado can clean that up easily, but in a similar situation

Fogado is only close enough to get the Longbow chip on the last Wyvern as well, although a Dual Assist + proc gave our prince the kill here anyway.

On the Pegasi flyer front, I try to get Louis to get that chip he missed on player phase, but alas he misses again, so I try to pull back with the rest of the rearguard that was near him

But Timerra can't escape without the help of TeeHee repositioning Seadall into dancing

So again it is just Louis in range

And Louis finally manages to hit the sword pegasi...but misses the lance one.

But now they are both close and chipped enough to give Alfred this kill

While Merrin chips the other

So Panette can go for the kill from a safe range to avoid the high crit range, but she misses, so

I have to go for the kill with Veyle instead

And she vents all of our frustration with these flitting birbs with a critical overkill.

Meanwhile Fogado takes advantage of the tactical mistake the last mobile reinforcement made while advancing on us

With a timely critical, so I don't need to find another three range attack for the kill.

We are getting close to the end of this, but we don't have any enemy phase this turn

And on the next turn I chain a reposition

A dance, and

One final reposition to let my armor

Try and bait in some of that final group, but they don't take the bite, so again

I go on the offensive

Although I need to reposition Seadall to get the dance I need

For Rosado to finish off the one with the drop

Who can canter to safely, while now enemy phasing with

Lindon instead, as I am now drawing in a magical instead of a physical threat.

Time for Framme to open the next offensive by punching an enemy's face off

Timerra can finished the mage Lindon chipped

For a levelup that I want to call nice, but she is missing the Strength gain again.

I let Rosado rush ahead to wipe out the distant elthunder-er

As for the last pair of horses, I open with a bit of chip from Merrin, but she procs every Dual Assist+ I can with this hit, so

Panette can get a perfectly reliable kill on the first...and she somehow dodges the displayed 94, so I don't even have to heal her

So I can use her Hero double Chain Attack to make this a fairly reliable effective damage kill on the last enemy on the map

And I can even use TeeHee to reveal the last group of Emblems, and with a dance

So Rosado can grab one ring before the end of the turn. Although with no enemies on the map

It is trivial to grab the other rings next turn

For the win. Fun fact number 3, if there were still enemies alive on the map, after talking to all the Emblems the map objective changes to rout (something else I learned the hard way on my last ironman).

Which TeeHee even acknowledges here.

...Why would he need trickery at this point? By the time TeeHee revived you had basically lost, ready to be fed to the corrupted.

It is nice that all our friends give little Veyle this little ego boost, when she really needs it.

And she does deserve the praise, as her top tier corruption powers is what made this turnabout possible

Whoops, sorry TeeHee, that is looking like death number 3. Although the way they go reminds me of that old phrase, the old soldiers never die, but simply fade away...

Makes you wonder how much of a lifespan Corrupted are supposed to have. How long would the world have to wait for the Corrupted armies remaining to just disappear.

Interesting that Veyle's fell power, unable to awaken Emblems on her won, let Corrupted TeeHee do so (emphasized by how their Emblem awakening powers changed after corruption).

TeeHee did not take enough anti-rejection, immumosuppressant drugs 😛 

If we had to go through the rest of the game with those pale red imitations of the Emblems, I am less certain of how much help it would be, and in all honestly, I would prefer my rather good TeeHee to them.

It would have been actually rather interesting if they did shift the lord position to Veyle here, and just keep TeeHee dead.

The shift from black to white in TeeHee's "death" is a nice little transition, although why they didn't return to that starry tree place from before.

At this point I am wondering if TeeHee is half cat. Would that dive them 4 1/2 lives then...I guess that kind of fits 😛 

I do like the ring falling onto their hand, but that strange double band in an x looks ridiculous.

Although as a fan of heterochromia, and their twin toned hair, the color change to all blue here is disappointing.

How did her birthday gift to TeeHee get here for...actually I guess we did come full circle, returning to the place she died so here ring happens to be in the right place at the right time.

...How? Wasn't it a major plot point that the Emblems were keeping the miracle a secret, and making an Emblem ring seems an odd thing to do, given all these Emblems came from distant worlds, with none from the lands of this world.

Roll credits.

...They really shouldn't have had tried to explain TeeHee's death with them disappearing, as it makes this comment feel odd.

Although this is an interesting comparison that might explain it better, that a dragon is more used to this disconnect between their power and their body.

Really raising the death flags for all the Emblems there...or is this saying it breaks the 1000 year cycle of DBZ wish fulfillment of the Emblems.

...TeeHee has died like 3 times already. Although it is interesting to note that each "life" was as a different kind of being, Fell Dragon first, imbued into a Divine Dragon in the second, risen as a Corrupted in the third, and embraced as an Emblem in this fourth life.

Yeah, that would cause a game over for sure.

It is odd for her to mention the pep talk in their semi-dead liminal space, but she is kind of right, TeeHee talked away from effectively killing herself (although I guess that did require killing off a different version of herself).

I guess TeeHee was a little dead during the whole raising of Gradlon bit.

Although that is a bit more important at this point, the great portal being prepared in the sky. Thankfully it taked forever to actually move worlds.

And so we have the big setup for the next three maps, and buildup towards the end.

And again, Veyle is vital towards the progress going forward. It it reminding me of that "what if", of if Veyle had taken the lord's role from TeeHee.

Lets end with beautiful little artistic touch from Rosado here, with the sunset as a vision of our TeeHee. Although it is a bit ominous that TeeHee's is tied to the sun setting.

That gets me to the checkpoint, but I have a fair number of paralogues to get through for the next one, as I put quite a few off so I can potentially bring Veyle with me...

 

[Venger_06]

ALPHA SAPPHIRE - GYM 8: THANK GOD MY MILOTIC IS ALIVE EDITION

I think my 3DS is dying... saving and screenshotting are taking forever...

Spoiler

'Cause I didn't go through all that trouble just to lose you

 

 

We headed to Seafloor Cavern to stop Team Aqua's plans, and on the way we added Noelle the Golbat to the team, which we'll evolve soon, and the TM26 Earthquake

We find Maxie jobbing to Archie, who then challenges us with the power of Mega Evolution.

He could have been a worthy opponent, but I soloed him with a Golem.

And do you know why?!

 

HE DOESN'T HAVE ANY WATER ATTACK!!!!!!!!!

THE LEADER OF TEAM AQUA, THE TEAM THAT WANTS TO FLOOD THE WORLD, ONLY USES ONE WATER POKÉMON AND HAS NONE WITH WATER MOVES ON THE TEAM

Fuck this game. "Ah, but he didn't have it in the original either." FUCK IT, it was the Devs' obligation to fix this shit

My reaction to this battle

Sore loser

Kyogre is an ugly MF, feels good to be a Groudon fan

It's not like I have a choice. Well, it's time to head to Sootopolis

You're next

That's why you sit there waiting for me to sort everything out, right?

Thank you, this is exactly the kind of thing I needed to motivate me. Cave of Origin, here I go

It's time... the legendary is at hand...

Thunder has 100% accuracy...

But I ain't risking anyone and insta Master Ball it. Excuse me but I have the league coming up and I don't want to lose half my team fighting this stupid oversized fish.

Don't worry, I will not be using Legendaries.

You bet your ass you owe me

Steven gives Eon flute and it's finally possible to fly without the HM. Next stop, New Mauville...

Of course you do. But thanks to this we can add a new one to the team, Magnus the Magnemite, and the Thunderbolt TM!

Now, let's challenge the Gym!

I like the Sootopolis Gym and the way you can tackle it. Normally I fight all the trainers, but now I wanted to be direct.

Manectric baited Whiscash after one-shotting Wallace's Luvdisc. I switched to Crobat to evade Earthquake and then to Gardevoir to defeat him with Magical Leaf. This made Wallace put Milotic on the field, a big mistake, as his Milotic could barely take away 1/4 of Exia's HP. I used Calm Mind 6 times (with two Draining Kiss in between) and swept the rest of his team.

With the last badge and HM Waterfall, I can finally get my Meteor Falls encounter (and Dragon Claw too)

Please don't kill the units linked to her, guys...

Cheackpoint reached. Sorry, I'm late. I was busy with a remake that was far superior to this crap I chose to play. But alas, the fault is solely mine. If we do this one more time, I'll choose a game that's actually exciting like Black & White or Platinum.

Edited May 19 by Venger_06

[Codename Shrimp]

On 4/14/2024 at 11:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

.although that does now make it literally impossible for me to have a flying mage

Griffon + Levin is really strong in Engage.

On 4/26/2024 at 8:41 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

...Yeah, Framme is a bit of a monster at this poin

tbf, Eirika!Framme kicks alot of ass.

On 5/5/2024 at 4:20 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

peak!

On 5/19/2024 at 7:25 PM, Venger_06 said:

HE DOESN'T HAVE ANY WATER ATTACK!!!!!!!!!

...excuse me

wtf

On 5/19/2024 at 7:25 PM, Venger_06 said:

"Ah, but he didn't have it in the original either."

huh

Not even in Emerald?

On 5/19/2024 at 7:25 PM, Venger_06 said:

Cheackpoint reached. Sorry, I'm late

all good!

----------

Welcome to Victory road!

And right at the entrance, i am facing some trouble, for you see...

This guy needs to be taken out turn 1, before he fucks me over

This guy has long range magic which he can use to make

Dual attack, which probably fuck over most of my units. Also turn 1 Target then

And let's not forget the thief.

But i cooked something up!

Here is Shrimpy, and today i am preparing a quality dish for your enjoyment. I just gotta remember the recipe i prepared...

Bon appetit!

Spoiler

1 Damage and 21 hit off....wait a sec

Auras + pair up! Problem 1 gone!

And that's problem 2!

Entrap and...

Problem 3!

Cooking to continue next turn!

Enemies start to rush me, but everything still within Calculations.

Now to finish this cook off!

Tiki goes through his effectiveness shield :D....and i am 1 damage off....according to my calculations with all the auras it should've been exact damage. Maybe i forgot something.

Still, Mr. Ballista is here!

Idiot 😛

Anyway, i hope you enjoyed this little dish of mine!

We now return to our regular programming

I take out Mr.Fortify, the 2nd staffer near the boss.

The enemies rush me....and i missclick a heal instead of a pair up from Palla. F. Now i have to cook again instead of taking it easy xD

I attack and Galeforce out

I send Tiki forward. Give her Draug to due the Falco with enfeeble

I withdraw Marth from Lunge range, and use Norne's Draw back to get Palla into safety.

while preparing for EP and looking over my units i now remember what i didn't remember for my recipe on turn 2

Soverign Axe give +2dmg aura...i used him as Pair up. Oh well, all well and that ends well!

Tiki goes on a small rampage

Est continues Est'ing and learns Luna

Linda on pair up lmao. She sure is something else....not like Etzel needed it since he crit kek

The rest of the enemies start to move out

Reinforcements appear....i honestly wanted to split my armies instead of focusing on one side, but since the enemies all came to me from one side...

Norne learns Rally Speed, nice!

I use Draug and Tiki to block the way...but then i notice the armor slayer...gotta to something about it...

Oh wew 74%....

that's better

Did the incoming enemy Dracolord really need to have a hammer 🤔

I kill into Galeforce the Paladin with Est, then transfer Tiki to her so she can take out hammer Draco

pew pew.

I clear up the rest of the frontline enemies.

Tiki continues being absolute pandemonium

Palla with the Wyvern Lvlup

Speed is the best defense!

More reinforcements spawn. Truly Victory road. Let's take em out, get starlight, do some shopping and seize.

Some Lvlups...mostly Tiki lol

Time to take out some asshole next chapter.

We seize to reach the Pokemon League!

[Venger_06]

ALPHA SAPPHIRE - VICTORY ROAD - IMGUR EDITION

For some reason, my internet provider blocked access to IMGBOX. Thanks to this, I don't know how much longer my galleries will stay up.

Spoiler

Here we add the last member to our team, Peter the Lairon

And it's at the end of the road that we meet Wally for the last time

Heh, are you sure? Shonen protagonists have no place here

One Gardevoir sweep later...

Pardon for the Mega Evolution, but I wanted to defeat his Gallade with style points xD

This is not a shonen, I will never hold back

Should I try to get a Froslass, teehee?

Finally, we're here. And this is team I plan to take on the Pokemon League:

Exia the Gardevoir, my first encounter.

Aria the Absol, the wild card.

Alice the Salamence, she delivers. Don't know if I should use Aerial Ace instead of Crunch.

Magnus the Magnezone, Glacia's worst nightmare.

Marcus the Milotic. Or it should be Lazarus, because the rose from the dead.

And finally, Peter the Aggron, because he's the rock upon I built my team.

Any thoughts? Is the moveset good? Is there someone in my box who can be helpful?

Checkpoint reached. Update much shorter and dryer than normal because I didn't do anything other than get some TMs and evade trainers along the way.

On 5/20/2024 at 5:33 PM, Codename Shrimp said:

Not even in Emerald?

Nop

Same team on both Emerald and Sapphire btw

[Eltosian Kadath]

On 5/19/2024 at 10:25 AM, Venger_06 said:

I think my 3DS is dying... saving and screenshotting are taking forever...

You can take screen shots with a 3DS?

 

On 5/19/2024 at 10:25 AM, Venger_06 said:

We find Maxie jobbing to Archie, who then challenges us with the power of Mega Evolution.

Archie has always been trying to fill the land those waters that foster life 😛 

 

On 5/19/2024 at 10:25 AM, Venger_06 said:

And do you know why?!

Did you somehow manage to maintain sturdy til the Mega Sharpedo?

On 5/19/2024 at 10:25 AM, Venger_06 said:

 

 

HE DOESN'T HAVE ANY WATER ATTACK!!!!!!!!!

THE LEADER OF TEAM AQUA, THE TEAM THAT WANTS TO FLOOD THE WORLD, ONLY USES ONE WATER POKÉMON AND HAS NONE WITH WATER MOVES ON THE TEAM

...this is almost as bad as the Emerald Matt fight where his Mightyena has no damaging moves.

 

On 5/19/2024 at 10:25 AM, Venger_06 said:

 

Thank you, this is exactly the kind of thing I needed to motivate me. Cave of Origin, here I go

Brendan does have a far more interesting arc to him (as an NPC), than May does. He goes from a very offhanded misogyny of being disappointed that the gym leader's kid was a girl and thus unable to keep up with him in battling, to a friend who recognizes your achievement, and ready to see you save the world where he can't.

 

On 5/19/2024 at 10:25 AM, Venger_06 said:

 

But I ain't risking anyone and insta Master Ball it. Excuse me but I have the league coming up and I don't want to lose half my team fighting this stupid oversized fish.

You had me going there for a second. I would have respected you going for the honor battle with the legend, but this is a far safer play.

 

On 5/19/2024 at 10:25 AM, Venger_06 said:

 

Steven gives Eon flute and it's finally possible to fly without the HM. Next stop, New Mauville...

I find it to be an odd change that they moved the New Mauville visit to after the legend fight in the remake (when before you could go as soon as you got surf), especially when they didn't change the levels of the pokemon you encounter in there. It makes a bit of extra grinding to get that encounter up to snuff, especially when there are some great electric types in there.

 

On 5/19/2024 at 10:25 AM, Venger_06 said:

 

I like the Sootopolis Gym and the way you can tackle it. Normally I fight all the trainers, but now I wanted to be direct.

It was really odd how he has a harem of all women trainers locked in his basement...

 

On 5/19/2024 at 10:25 AM, Venger_06 said:

 

Manectric baited Whiscash after one-shotting Wallace's Luvdisc. I switched to Crobat to evade Earthquake and then to Gardevoir to defeat him with Magical Leaf. This made Wallace put Milotic on the field, a big mistake, as his Milotic could barely take away 1/4 of Exia's HP. I used Calm Mind 6 times (with two Draining Kiss in between) and swept the rest of his team.

Great little battle plan there, with solid switch baiting, and pivoting to setup the clean clear.

 

On 5/19/2024 at 10:25 AM, Venger_06 said:

 

Please don't kill the units linked to her, guys...

I would have to see two major deaths before the character linked to her will be on my radar for deploying.

 

On 5/20/2024 at 1:33 PM, Codename Shrimp said:

Griffon + Levin is really strong in Engage.

I guess, but the Levin sword lacks the three range a real mage can get, and I don't really have anyone heading in that direction at the moment either.

 

On 5/20/2024 at 1:33 PM, Codename Shrimp said:

 

This guy needs to be taken out turn 1, before he fucks me over

This guy has long range magic which he can use to make

Dual attack, which probably fuck over most of my units.

That is a rough first turn to have to deal with.

 

On 5/20/2024 at 1:33 PM, Codename Shrimp said:

 

But i cooked something up!

Here is Shrimpy, and today i am preparing a quality dish for your enjoyment. I just gotta remember the recipe i prepared...

Bon appetit!

Chef Bunet wholeheartedly approves.

 

On 5/20/2024 at 1:33 PM, Codename Shrimp said:

Auras + pair up! Problem 1 gone!

On 5/20/2024 at 1:33 PM, Codename Shrimp said:

Entrap and...

On 5/20/2024 at 1:33 PM, Codename Shrimp said:

 

I kill into Galeforce the Paladin with Est, then transfer Tiki to her so she can take out hammer Draco

Its stuff like this that brings to light how excellent the gameplay of Fates is.

 

On 5/20/2024 at 1:33 PM, Codename Shrimp said:

 

The enemies rush me....and i missclick a heal instead of a pair up from Palla. F.

That really is the easiest missclick to make in Fates, and it always feels awful when you make it...

 

On 5/20/2024 at 1:33 PM, Codename Shrimp said:

 

Did the incoming enemy Dracolord really need to have a hammer 🤔

The game knows how overpowered your Draug is 😛 

 

On 5/23/2024 at 8:02 AM, Venger_06 said:

 

Pardon for the Mega Evolution, but I wanted to defeat his Gallade with style points xD

That is such a thematically appropriate way of taking Wally out, defeated by his old ace megaed like his new ace.

 

On 5/23/2024 at 8:02 AM, Venger_06 said:

 

Any thoughts? Is the moveset good? Is there someone in my box who can be helpful?

As for changes, giving your X-scissor TM (which Bulbapedia says is in Victory Road) to Absol over slash to better cover Sydney is a change that makes sense to me, if your Aggron has sturdy instead of rock head, I would switch Double Edge for the buyable Bulldoze for better coverage against Steven, and as for Glacia, maybe have a Focus Blast TM ready for Gardevior to teach over Shadow Ball after the Phoebe fight for Glacia, as a lot of the pokes with moves to cover Ice types are particularly weak to ice type moves as well.

 

Sorry to say it, but my plan is for two more paralogues before hitting the next check point, and then two more after that one (not quite sure where I will squeeze the two paralogues left after those), so I have a paralogue for you here.

Spoiler

Opening with my Arena levels I have

With a nice little violent levelup on Rosado here

And a little bit of speed onto Framme, which I want to complain about, but can't. And we have some new troops to outfit in some outfits as well

And I get to have our sister bundle up in this cute little outfit.

And Mauvier's base outfit is close enough to a pirate that all I needed to add was the eye patch 😛 

But onto the paralgue

Of my girl Micaiah, and they are doing a chapter that is iconic for its green units (or I guess Yellow units in that case)

Also its a really nice touch that having both Ike and Micaiah as Emblems means TeeHee can better appreciate the conflict at hand. Side note it would have been cool if they gave the Emblem Ike a chance to have a battle convo in this paralogue...

Give how Radiant Dawn bulked his forearms to the size of a head, strong is an apt description. Also it is an interesting point about how the stakes for these two sides are very different, I am tempted to joke about them having different victory conditions from a mechanical stand point, but they mean it in a broader sense clearly

The happy little accident with the disgusted look on Micaiah is fun here, but she is making an interesting point about how Ike's "help" was neither needed, or wanted, the Daein had to fix things on their own.

No Micaiah, you mean the script was, not my people were 😛 

In a way this is an interesting shift that we see about Micaiah's character in Radiant Dawn, although it would have helped to see a little more of her in Path of Radiance to strengthen her arc. Prior to Radiant Dawn she was far more disconnected with the world, the discrimination against the branded, and the issues with her slower aging led to her fleeing from place to place, but in Daein, where that discrimination would be worst, she got entangled with people who cared about her. Cared enough about her to chase her across the continent in war (and father Ike's children 😛 ). As she lived with people, she started to care, and care enough about them to suffer for them, and through that suffering she tied herself even more to remain with them.

Fitting that they describe her as filled with despair and fear, and not breaking in the face of it.

Now the last chapter really messed with our ring distribution, so this will be a bit longer than normal for ring talk, but some of it is important

For instance, the classic indicator that Bunet is joining us on this chapter by giving him his Lucina ring back

And in spite of having a new Dragon unit type in Veyle, I am keeping Byleth on TeeHee for now, although once we have more deployment slots than rings there is a chance that could change in the future, although I am a bit undecided about it at the moment.

Although some of them are no brainers.

But this is a slightly more interesting one, as it is indicative of my plan to leave Rosado behind this chapter, with this as the ring left that best fits Alfred, who often trades deployment slot and ring with Bunet

And this might be a more permanent change here, simply because I don't know who else I would give the Marth ring to.

And with us fighting Lindon'd ring, letting him wear the Roy ring instead was a bit of a last minute decision, but it would prove to be an excellent one when I get into the nitty and gritty of the map.

And here we have our deployment for this map, with Rosado and Anna on the bench for this one. Leaving Anna behind felt like an odd choice as one of my few bow wielders, but as I well remember from the last time I played this map, the ballisa are mostly for show. We don't see the kind of reinforcement, or place of enemy reinforcements, or even the map objective that the original map used to make them relevant.

And our starting deployment is too spread out to catch with a single image, and I made a bit of an obvious mistake in retrospect, of having my healer too close to eachother. At least I had the common sense to spread out my walls.

In spite of Micaiah saying this, it isn't true. The objective is just a boss kill, although you had the option to defend in the version of this map from her game.

Although I do start with an aggressively defensive play in fogging up close to our foes (but just outside enemy mage range).

Although we start too spread out and far from our foes to have a very aggressive start beyond enemy phase action with our main tanks

With Merrin getting in some nice free chip

And even getting a crit kill on one of them

And Louis gets some lesser free chip in on his side of the field as well

But turn two opens with immediately engaging Lindon to Roy

As the extra temporary levels lets him hit the thresholds he needed to one shot his foes

Which means I have the fire power to wipe out the foes on this front instead of having to fog again

With Lindon getting the dance for another kill Roy lets him get

And ending off with Framme just barely being able to reach this last kill to secure this side of the battle field.

The other front isn't going to be able to manage that, but it has a choke point with a lot fewer holes. I open the turn by using the Smash attack to break this foe by smashing him into the wall.

Although with Timerra still shy of the kill, it proves unnecessary, as I have to go with the range kill instead.

I still want to use her to choke the point for now, and while the game tells me this will deal no damage

The ol' Dual Assist+ chain attack get her some chip exp anyway.

I don't end up going with this move, as I want to save the Engage for now, but if she would be able to get the kill here I would have.

And it only saves her a turn from getting into the action with her own feet. I also lure the archer coming up the undefended center with Fogado

As he kills it one enemy phase

Timerra isn't as defensive as Louis, but she does well enough for now, and I set it up so only one foe can reach her. Both my healers being on the other side of the map is a bit irritating, so I will have to manage thing carefully. It does help that she managed to dodge this first hit here.

Although Louis is still getting his gentle chip in.

And our foe decided to put a lot more pressure on our western forces...

I need to  thin out that heard a bit, and I think I can sneak in some kills here and still keep all the focus on the mischievous fog

Although Framme does have to get her hands dirty with one of the kills here

But Lindon and Roy earn the dance with the slightly longer range of their magic

Show off

I am keeping her just out of the inner defender's range just in case.

On the other front Veyle snipes her first kill of the map here, although it does also reveal the awkward truth that I forgot to give her canter...

While Louis again goes for the Smash break with his chip

Which means Timerra can get the kill here without worrying about taking a counter if one of the chain attacks miss.

And Panette sneaks out for a cheeky Hammer kill, but she does get hit in return before cantering back to formation.

In retrospect I should have chipped it with a Fogado ballista shot to prevent the counter. It was even the last foe in ballista range, so I am having him sit there just for nostalgia. Also you can see my plan for fixing my healing issue about to arrive at the front...

Merrin gets her free foggie chip in

And the last enemies attack our choke  point are squishy enough for Timerra to get a little chip in herself.

But most dramatic of all was realizing that staying out of that inner defender's range was in vain, as they charge at Merrin's front after I concentrated far more forces on the other side...

Lindon pops the only foe further back, but we are going to have to pull back a little on this front.

Honestly this attack is just for the fun of using a ballista once, as it is objectively worse than just moving him forward to attack.

I did have Timerra swap over to the Javelin to get to the chain attack for this kill here.

And I have enough action that I can go for a very safe bit of ranged chip here

Before TImerra grabbed the kill here

Louis then charges forward to go for a little ranged chip in before enemy phase

And its time to reveal the means of healing I have brought to this front, TeeHee's convoy full of random healing items. Although I would slightly regret trading the Poleaxe for it real soon.

And I leave just Louis in enemy range on this front while pressing in aggressively thanks to numbers.

On the other side I use my dance to heal up Framme, so that I can use her action to

Chain guard Bunet while he lures in a few stragglers

While Merrin pulls back enough that the fog wont mess up any enemy phase movement range.

The chain guard was important so that this guy wouldn't break Bunet, as now he gets the counter kill on this one

Which gets him some extra chip on another foes as well.

The sniper here actually used the fog to get the avoid to dodge the hit that would kill it here.

The other isn't as smart and dies on enemy phase

Which earns Merrin a fantastic levelup for it.

Merrin grabs another kill on a this swordie, although it is a bit of a shame she is grabbing so many kills

Although the rest is just some nice chip for Merrin

Although Louis misses the enemy phase kill

Although with more reinforcement, mages included coming in, even Merrin is going to have to pull back in the west.

But first we have some stragglers to deal with first.

Fortunately Lindon didn't need the engage to get

These kills here

And it gets him a...Strength levelup? At least he got some speed and resistance as well.

As I already hinted, Merrin had to pull back, although she is still in range of one of the mages.

While on the other front Louis engages to Override Ridersbane kill the back two of the reinforcement on their front

And it gets him what is probably the best levelup I have seen from him.

I let Fogado cleanup Louis's enemy phase miss

I let TeeHee get in a bit of chip on one of the last foes on the front

So that Panette can get the perfectly reliable kill (and get the Poleaxe back from TeeHee)

And have Veyle go from a bit of range 3 chip on the last

So that Alfred can get the more reliable kill here instead of having to risk the lower accuracy kill of the Ridersbane.

I am still letting Bunet go for some enemy phase action as well

Which lets him kill the sniper that survived thanks to the fog.

For a nice enough littlle levelup for him.

I didn't even realize the mages were cavalry type units, as I just saw the little book symbol and assumed they were mystic type units. Well I guess that is one horse mage dead at least.

Back to player phase, Bunet grabs the kill on one of the heavily chipped foes

And Framme trade switches him over to a 1-2 weapon to use Lucina's chain attack powers to go for the kill with Framme here too

Overkill, but I needed to clear this one out here before

Nabbing the mage kill here with Merrin, and we have gotten enough kills here that after dancing her

...Seadall interrupts my train of thought with a pointless levelup

Before Merrin kills the last of these foes (instead of having to go for the fog up)

The other front only has to deal with a pair of horses, so I open with an effective hit with Louis

Before Alfres gets the effective kill with the real Ridersbane

With the critical flourish on the kill

With Panette finishing off the last of the pair.

But currently all that is left is Micaiah and her thief friend...

And with nothing new coming in, I have Lindon bait his favorite Emblem in with his high resistance

Although he isn't able to deal much damage in return

Before she announces the arrival of a last group of reinforcements reminiscent of the Dawn brigade, with a bunch of droppable gold to incentivize us to wait on slaughtering Micaiah.

So I open by engaging Merrin so she can freeze her with an attack, which should buy us some time

And I dance her so she can freeze another cluster of these foes, so I don't have to kill all of these foes this turn

I have Fogado go with some particuarly safe chip on this central one here, while cantering into a particu-

Nice, that is a bit of extra chip to help things out, as killing this foe is particularly important to my plans.

Speaking of which, Timerra breaks its first health bar with her low damage attack, so that

Lindon can get his higher damage chip in on the foes (and try for the crit kill that he misses), which gets him out of the way

For Framme to overkill the break on another of Micaiah's health bars, but more importantly position herself

For the most potent Goddess dances I can

Which lets me freeze another cluster of these enemies, so that central swordie is the only mobile enemy left on the map

Although not for long, as Bunet finishes it off immediately

I then have Fogado snipe the healer with a status staff, the only foe that can effect us on enemy phase after cantering

And I let him claim the dance to fully kill the heal all on his own. RIP Laura, but that is what happens when you don't deploy her with Aran like Micaiah did here.

Honestly a massive bit of overkill, but I find it funny that staying adjacent to this sniper is perfectly safe

I then start chipping the foe with the most health bars left

Breaking the first health bar as safely as I can.

In similar manner I have Panette go for the free break chip

Which breaks an entire health bar thanks to a crit.

And thanks to the break, Alfred can get in some free chip as well

For a solid little levelup on the guy

And with everyone out of the frozen army's range, we can move onto the last turn of the game

And I open with Bunet grabbing the kill on Nolan with his super

Veyle then finishes off Jill's first health bar

And effective damage kills her off.

Framme then punches Leonardo's face off

I try for a Sandstorm proc kill on one of Sothe's health bars with her super, but none does

So Lindon has to finish it o-

...if only I had gone with this first, although I guess getting at least one Sandstorm proc was more likely.

...It is so frustrating to see her miss the kill by 1 damage, but

I have the actions to let Alfred kill Sothe instead

As Louis can go for the kill on Edward (I have decide the one we killed last turn was Zihark) all on his lonesome thanks to well placed chain attacks.

And while he takes an effective hit in return, I let Bunet go for some chip here just so he can

get a fairly normal Bunet levelup from it.

I decide to finish things by going for the battle convo.

Considering she has lived for thousands of year that seems kind of impressive, but I guess a lot of those years were spent asleep, so who knows how much time was spent making memories instead of sleeping the time away.

More like the past and the present, as this battle ends here.

Time to end this

And they earn a real garbage levelup from the kill.

Eh, Merrin probably did more, but Lindon did an excellent job thanks to Roy's help.

Huh, has she ever used or talked about her fortune-telling powers before? I honestly can't remember if it came up.

Honestly, I love this sentiment, as writing the future is more powerful than seeing it.

I promise Micaiah, I have the strength to never lose heart in the face of any loses in this ironman.

Next time I will cross the river Thracia, and make it once again run red with blood like in the days of Leif's grandfather.

 

[Venger_06]

On 5/26/2024 at 9:54 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

You can take screen shots with a 3DS?

Luma3DS baby

On 5/26/2024 at 9:54 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Did you somehow manage to maintain sturdy til the Mega Sharpedo?

No, his Mightyena started with Take Down instead of Taunt, that's how I managed to set up Stealth Rock. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't be able to do the Sweep with the Golem. But his Mega Sharpedo would only put me in Sturdy range if it critted

On 5/26/2024 at 9:54 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

...this is almost as bad as the Emerald Matt fight where his Mightyena has no damaging moves.

Maxie's not much better

Worse yet, his Camerupt has a stab move in Ruby at least

On 5/26/2024 at 9:54 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Brendan does have a far more interesting arc to him (as an NPC), than May does. He goes from a very offhanded misogyny of being disappointed that the gym leader's kid was a girl and thus unable to keep up with him in battling, to a friend who recognizes your achievement, and ready to see you save the world where he can't.

Yes, but it's the waifus that Nintendo can exploit

On 5/26/2024 at 9:54 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

I find it to be an odd change that they moved the New Mauville visit to after the legend fight in the remake (when before you could go as soon as you got surf), especially when they didn't change the levels of the pokemon you encounter in there. It makes a bit of extra grinding to get that encounter up to snuff, especially when there are some great electric types in there.

Reason 56467648443 why ORAS sucks

On 5/26/2024 at 9:54 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

As for changes, giving your X-scissor TM (which Bulbapedia says is in Victory Road) to Absol over slash to better cover Sydney is a change that makes sense to me, if your Aggron has sturdy instead of rock head, I would switch Double Edge for the buyable Bulldoze for better coverage against Steven, and as for Glacia, maybe have a Focus Blast TM ready for Gardevior to teach over Shadow Ball after the Phoebe fight for Glacia, as a lot of the pokes with moves to cover Ice types are particularly weak to ice type moves as well.

According to the calcs I made, Sydney will be a simple Gardevoir sweep, so I kept Slash on Absol to extract the potential of the Super Luck ability. Same reason for Double edge on Aggron, as his ability's not Sturdy unfortunately, but Bulldoze does seem more useful

[Eltosian Kadath]

9 hours ago, Venger_06 said:

Maxie's not much better

Worse yet, his Camerupt has a stab move in Ruby at least

That his moveset got worse in the remake is very, very silly.

 

9 hours ago, Venger_06 said:

Reason 56467648443 why ORAS sucks

The better ORAS is still under construction

 

Time to cross the river Thracia with no movement staff needed, just the spilling of blood as I rout Leif's paralogue

Spoiler

I have another paralogue to do, but first I have a bit of preps to get through

And before I forget I immediately give Veyle Canter+ (AND equip it)

And in the Arena I make sure Fogado hits the level cap, so I can

Reset his levels before the map. I still have an arena run left so

I can get Veyle a fantastic levelup as well.

And so we arrive at a familiar place, and an iconic battle from a Fire Emblem game I have a rather soft spot in my heart for.

In a place that is a strong defensive point for Northern Thracia, where Leif's Grandfather fell, and where magic is everything.

The iconic 10 star tactics man himself, and it is cute how they hint at his conditional recruitment with how only some thought him a hero. He holds an interesting place in whether he is a villain or hero, as we both fight against him (although he tends not to linger in such bloodshed for long), and see him do good things as well, from curing the curse of Mareeta's sword, to protecting the fleeing children of Manster, or even potentially joining our army.

Its the legendary meme from FEH himself. In a way it is sad how much that game overshadow his own appearance, as he is one of the more interesting Camus like characters, as the game interrogates the issues with the trope with the discussions about him between Leif's two advisors, August and Dryas. The two represent fundamentally different ways of viewing morality the Consequentialist (where morality is based on the result of the actions you take) approach, and a Deontological (where morality is based on the action itself) approach. While the Deontological Dryas praises all the ways Reihardt adheres to the principles of chivalry, and all those noble ideals, even stating the idea that he is the reincarnation of Thrud, the Consequentialist August lambasts him for defending the Empire, and all of its monstrous actions that the he let them commit atrocities under his watch.

I see this Leif played the map straight...and I think I will respect his choice in this, and try to play it straight myself.

But enough waxing poetic about the themes of a great game, it is time to prep for what I decided should be a legitimate battle.

And we have so few deployment slots that even my dancer gets a ring for this map.

And Lindon gets his favored ring back (although unless things go horribly, horribly wrong, I don't plan on using its true power this map).

And Rosado even gets Ike back as well, as I need a flyer for this one.

But this is my rather limited deployment, and leaving Timerra behind is a bit uncomfortable, but we are facing off against her main ring, and I don't remember this being a particularly crit heavy map.

And the most important aspect of my positioning is making sure Rosado and my dancer are as far forward as I can get them.

I did this map legitimately once in Thracia 776, time to do it in Engage. No running. No hiding, here I come.

And I open by killing one of the foes carrying loot (who ironically would flee in the original map)

And I had just enough room to canter back, and dance so I can

kill another of the loot carriers

And just to show off, Rosado got a crit kill on both of them, but this was the best image I got of either crit.

I am using Reposition to make sure Louis gets through this forest faster

But I end the turn off by Astra Storm sniping

The best loot on the map.

And we have no real enemy phase this turn, as those ballista are dangerous.

I open turn two with Louis engaging with Sigurd to charge in and crush the last of the loot carriers, and charging deep into enemy territory.

And I add some doubles in here to distract the ballista

Reposition Merrin past this irksome forest so she can

Fog up Fogado, which helps a little in case the ballista goes for him in spite of the doubles (as he is still the covert class type that gets double terrain avoid)

More importantly I reposition one of the doubles, so that both ballista have doubles to distract them.

And while I am pressing in a bit, those ballista ranges are long

One archer fails to damage Louis

And the Ballistas kill a double a piece

Louis tanks another foe, and

Our foes inability to properly use the Fracture staff continues to astound (they could have prevented that last swordie from taking a counter if they knew how to use this staff)

And this freeze use would have been a nuisance if not for

Our foes failing to read the long list of skills Sigurd is giving Louis. Really the AI just sucks at using staves, which is a minor insult to Thracia.

I try to open next turn by killing one of those Ballista with Louis's charge, but he fails to hit either of the hits needed.

I have Fogado press in to kill one of the refuse Louis left behind

And this just seems to be the map for pointless critical, as I have seen a lot of them already.

One of the Ballista should be distracted by the double, but I try my best to protect my two Covert type units with some fog, but this is a little dangerous.

And I let Rosado grab the kill in spite of the piddly effective damage on the return hit

But I do have to use my dance to get Rosado out of the far more dangerous ballista range.

But I do leave three (with Louis too far south to be in frame here) in ballista range, and as planned one goes for a double

But the other shows just how dangerous these Ballista are by actually hitting Merrin

And for the only time on this entire map the enemy staff does something annoying by silencing Veyle.

The others don't though.

This is the turn I commit to wiping out the ballista, as I reposition Seadall closer to

Dance Fogado into

Wiping the Sombron out the first ballista...and needing the chain attack from the last surviving double for this kill is rather frustrating, but I get the kill

And Louis has to go for a ranged chip here, as the staff bots have blocked off melee access to the second Ballista, and fortunately he hits, but I need

To reposition Lindon (and have TeeHee grab a staff from the convo to trade to Lindon) bef-

...Right, I forgot Restore was a ranged staff in this game, as it is rarely necessary, so I guess that reposition wasn't all that important

With magic restored, I finish the other ballista off with a Warp Ragnarok

So I start moving everyone in as quickly as I can, and without anything to support the staff bots, their staves matter even less

But I still better kill them before moving on to the next stage of this fight, and while the accuracy on this hit is horrible thanks to the terrain

He gets the kill

I let Fogado kill another, while not cantering so he can refill the engage meter at the same time.

Although Veyle's damage potential isn't that great while silenced, and needs

Lindon's help finishing the last one off.

And we are still just moving our troops towards the bridge.

I open next turn by fogging up the bridge just before the cavalry arrive

Louis is going to need an engage to catch up, so he spends his turn refilling it.

And my other troop in the south gets my dance to make better pace

...Huh, that is a really nifty advantage of giving Veyle Celica that I had overlooked until now.

AND THEN SHE THORON CRITS

FOR A 4 RANGE KILL...

I was expecting an enemy phase, but Veyle super sniped that option away.

I open next turn by obliterating one with that lovely Poleaxe

I then trade-equip her over to a Handaxe so I can use the chain attack so Bunet can cook up a kill here

I have Louis immediately engage for the move, but he still can't reach the front

Although there is another kill to grab, with Veyle chipping here

Setting up Rosado to finish it off.

Before fogging up the front

And have the luxury of using my dance to get Loius closer to those front lines

And a combination of Canter and Reposition even gets Seadall close to the thick of things

And our forces are now concentrated on the middle of the great bridge, ready for the next wave

And we are even drawing in the forces stationed on the peninsula

But the fog gummed things up enough that I have created a bit of a target rich environment.

So I open by snipping

Two armors with magic.

I try to have Rosado sneak in a kill on a bow knight, but miss the kill thanks to the terrain, but can still canter to safety above the river

Louis manages to finish off the one Rosado chipped on enemy phase,

And he earns even more defense from the kill

Panette Poleaxes another horse into paste

I then position TeeHee to get Bunet this kill on the other horse with their powerful personal skill

I let Fogado sneak in a bit of 3 range chip on one of the horse archers

Before Framme finishes off the last armor at the front of the defensive formation I am building

And she even crits to avoid the counter damage.

And I finish my defensive formation for enemy phase with the fog, but I do still have a dance

To pull Framme out of enemy range (although thanks to the crit this is more to preserve health than to save her).

Plus I noticed a little late that Bunet is just barely in Ballista range, so I drop an ostacle ahead of him to save him a hit on enemy phase

As he is taking a lot of fire, although him actually dying without the Obstacle was incredibly unlikely (all of them would have to hit, which they didn't, and he would have to kill the injured horse archer on the counter to allow all the enemies to attack him as well).

Speaking of which, Merrin counter kills the injured one

And viciously crit overkills the other one

for a nice little defensive levelup to finish up enemy phase.

And I open player phase by getting another kill with Bunet

Veyle then risks a hit for another kill here

But the crits just keep coming

IT JUST

KEEPS HAPPENING

Although with that ballista ahead of us, I am delaying things a little

And I am a bit ashamed to admit it, but I am just burning through its ammo with the wall of Louis

And to be fair, I still have cavs charging into our front lines

I engage Bunet to get an effective damage kill on that chipped cav

Rosado sneaks ahead to kill another while cantering to saf-

...I really feels like I have gotten a lot of crits this map

And Louis grabs a riderbane kill with the last turn of his engage there

Seadall manages to get a levelup at a bit of a lull in the action

As the only thing left to do for the turn is fog up

But that does burn through the last ballista bolt on enemy phase

And Louis gets one last heavy chip in with the ridersbane before player phase ends his engage

Where I am on the offensive with that ballista gone, with this effective damage engaged Bunet kill here

Lindon finishes the chipped one

With more effective damage to kill the last cav.

I hate to say it, but

I am using Louis to burn through another ballista. I am not proud of it.

But at least I will have some more cavs to deal with next turn

With a bit of nice effective damage chip from enemy phase to start us off

Which is exactly enough to let Bunet finish this one off on player phase

For a nice little levelup on the guy

Rosado sneaks in a kill on the furt-

I have legit lost count of how many of these random crits over this map.

I do also use the fog a little sneakily here

to feed Bunet the enemy phase kill here

Also another ballista has finally emptied its ammo on Louis

But we still have more cavs coming in, I chip with Lindon

So Framme doesn't have to face a counter with her kill

For a nice little levelup on our murder puncher.

Panette slaughters another with her trusty poleaxe

Huh, I remembered the trigger for this event being much earlier on the map, like as soon as I left the second bridge, instead of randomly in the middle of the third

Anyway, Bunet goes for the chip on the last of these cavs...and I have seen so many crits here that I missed the image on the one Bunet uses for the kill.

I then finish off the ballistician that is immobile just because I can

And while there is nothing for enemy phase, that event has gotten Leif's mageknight army to move in on us

And I am anticipating the need for the goddess dance in the next few turns, so I go for the the instruct here to prepare for Veyle setting up the strongest and safest 3 range enemy phase action I can...but I forgot about the most northern ballista, and to try and fix that

I dance TeeHee to try and instruct again to try and reach the benchmark for

Fogado to get this Astra Storm kill, but as you can see, he is 1 damage shy even with TeeHee's personal skill added in. I am not sure if this will make the difference due to rounding issues, but I have another longshot to try and get this kill here

As with the swap here

And with Merrin moving a little early (and setting up a far weaker, but safer enemy phase in case my plans fall through here)

I can position Fogado to be getting both of Veyle and TeeHee's personal skills for the extra +1 damage, but it doesn't cross the rounding threshold for the kill, so

Instead of going for the enemy phase action, I have Veyle use her Warp Ragnarok to finish off that 1 heal jerk of a ballista.

That was a very sloppy turn, but

Merrin is still very safe on enemy phase, even if she doesn't have the three range to hit the Thoron mages

Unless they mess up their positioning enough to kill themselves at 2 range instead

And I did manage to position Veyle's warp to get some damage on one of the three range foes this turn anyway

Although Leif heading north to chase our cornered Veyle up there is a mixed blessing

l

As it lets me go all out on the mage knight army, but there is nowhere for Veyle to really go-

These crits are getting a bit distracting.

Anyway I have Merrin use pass to grab this kill deep in the enemy for-

AGAIN...

Actually it is a bit difficult to reach some of the-

WHAT IS GOING ON

Rosado proves to be the first unit this turn not to crit

But I did setup a nice Goddess Dance here, but it is mostly to catch up to Leif more than deal with these stragglers

Although I still kill the stragglers along the way anyway

With Fogado safely wiping out the last that approached our army.

Although I mess up my end of turn image a little, the important thing is that I am not baiting anything on this enemies, but

The last mageknight rushed to his death anyway

I let Merrin wipe out the other immobile ballistician while I am here

...sigh

But this turn I am baiting Leif back in the direction of our actual army with a double

While Veyle gets a little cheeky chip in as she caters into the one space awkwardly out of his range

As all that is left is Leif and the defenders of Cohen (Saias included)

And just to add insult to injury, Leif missed the double too.

This is a bit silly, as they are already static enemies anyway, but I let Merrin hit a line of three with her super

Before dancing to freeze Leif (and break his first health bar)

This hurts, but that is one of the enemy mages down

And it gets her a nice little murderous levelup from it.

Bunet finishes the most injured of our foes

I also let Lindon get a free health bar break because Leif's Adaptability isn't clever enough to realize Lindon's defense is lower than his resistance.

For what is a great levelup on the old man

I also have Rosado reposition Veyle past some terrain to get her back into the action for next turn

TeeHee uses Byleth's blade to break Saias's extra health bar

Before Fogado puts the legendary tactician to rest

Although I will need next turn to finish off Cohen and Leif

But Leif does finally kill that double 😛 

Veyle makes that reposition maneuver valuable by slaughtering one of Cohen's healthbars. Also cute little fact about him, he has a siege tome and status staff to match his Thracia counterpart (although both Tracia versions are far more dangerous), in spite of his class not being able to use either of them in this game.

Rosado kills the last generic foe before

Panette burns her super so she can chip without risking a counter death.

Which lets Bunet finishes Cohen off.

I also have the spare actions to go for TeeHee's battle convo with Leif, but truth be told

It isn't the best of battle quotes

Tragically dull, but

It does amuse me to see the battle of the River Thracia in any form to be described as fair, as it almost always ends with either the player breaking that fairness with staves, or the foes breaking that fairness with its bloodthirsty brutality. Even in this version those ballista are brutal. On the other hand, I did treat it like a fair battle this time, in spite of those ballista, and it was an interesting little map because of it.

But Lindon finishes things

...Only if he was the one giving me all that crazy crit luck does this MVP award make sense.

We always keep improving, especially TeeHee, as they have been one of my best units whole game through.

This does kind of capture part of what makes Thracia so interesting, that it is about losing, and is one of the few Fire Emblem games that makes you feel like the underdog.

And this little lesson about making sure your sacrifices matter is an interesting one to see when ironmanning.

At least one of mine was a mistake with poor Zelkov, but it could have been much worse, and who knows what mistakes are to come.

But like Leif says, we just have to keep going, and continue on until the end of this thing as best we can.

TeeHee tries so hard to get Leif to make one of those impossible promises about being with TeeHee forever, but the Sage Lord

Makes a far safer oath to our Fire Emblem

Next time I will finally reach the checkpoint

[Eltosian Kadath]

Counter to my pokemon playing friend its time to kill off my games little four elite hounds as my equivalent to the Victory Road, and reach the checkpoint

Spoiler

Alas, the numbers aligned very poorly, so

Bunet is the only Arena levelup we get this time, although some extra defense is always nice.

Although  back to the story, we are just starting to hunt down the Fell Dragon Shards, and again we see the difference in our little fell children's power with Veyle being able to track the shards with her powers, but TeeHee can not.

And we know we must face the last of the four hounds with her powers as well.

I don't know why she is surprised when our Veyle weaseled her way in the last two times you thought she was gone for good, although I guess this third time is the charm.

She has shown herself to be competent, even if the variance she has in her fell dragon powers weren't the ones Sombron excelled at. The two would make a good pair if Sombron was actually willing to work with (instead of dominating) his daughter.

I know what you mean, the story killed them like three times already, and it never seems to stick

Why give that away...

Innocent little Veyle tries to call off her hounds, but

They are in full guard dog mode

Oh damn, that is a lot more hardcore of Veyle than I was expecting.

You never cared for this Veyle, and given how you treated the other hounds, I doubt you really cared for the other Veyle either.

Although the poor girl was so desperate for affection that she latched on to the empty words of the abusive Zephia

You are the only ones that are still enemies, so of course we are going to single you out.

It does seem a bit odd that Marni is being considered your knight postmortem, she only helped you for a moment, and you weren't even in control to see it happen either.

Their willingness to kill Marni is in stark contrast with our willingness to do so. Also it seems an odd sentiment that she never got to say goodbye, as that is what funerals are for.

Ah that awkward teenage phase where they defy their parents 😛 . In less jest, you reaped what you sowed there, as your harsh punishment before that was as much of a betrayal as Marni's act was.

It reminds me of the hypocrisy some parents can have about their LGBT+ children, how abusive and cruel they can

Made all the worse by them pretending it is for the child's good.

Its just abuse.

Although I do appreciate the snarky "" here, as there is something condescending about that judgement

Because we don't know her own heart. Although that gets into the conflict of whether the consequences, or the intent are more important to the matter, as that is a bit of a murkier question in general.

You tried Veyle, but not all of these conflicts are allowed to end peacefully.

There aren't many huge ring changes here, just Timerra getting Leif back, and

Moving Roy off of our dancer, and onto Alfred. Really Roy is the main ring I am uncertain of, the rest have very well worn fingers.

I also do a bit better job splitting my army than last time, splitting healers, main tanks, and sources of magic damage. I know I don't have to split my army here, but it is a bit more fun if you do

And with the objective being a double boss kill, splitting my army lets me split the attention of the bosses as well.

And we have area attacks that can destroy terrain to keep an eye on all the while. Also fundamentally changing our starting position after the map starts, is a bit cruel, but I was expecting it.

And I open with TeeHee killing one of the mage knights immediately

For a fairly nice little levelup on them

Continuing on with this front, I have Lindon go for the chip...and in an odd string of probabilities, he manages to miss the 91, but still proc a Dual Assist+, which is just enough

For Fogado to get the kill on the Brave Swordsman.

Bunet manages to squint his way through some safe chip on the other swordie

This chip is actually a bit pointless, as

Panette can finish that last swordie off even without it, but I guess it showcases that I could have covered a miss from Bunet as well.

On the other front I open a bit dangerously with my main tank of the front trapped rather deep in enemy lines to get this free chip with the super on the nearest wyrm

And after a Fracture use to break the Wyrm

Veyle can get the 3 range chip needed for

Anna to finish the Wyrm off without anyone having to take its nasty defense ignoring breath attack.

I end the turn with only enemy phase action in the west, with Rosado and Timerra

Drawing in some fliers across the lava

And Rosado even gets a nice little levelup from the enemy phase chip

Meanwhile Louis has a trio of foes to face, some of which can deal damage to him

Although only the ones with smash weapons

Although it frustrates me to note that if the Silver Greataxe one had crit, Louis could have died here

Although the east doesn't have to deal with enemy phase attacks, this status staff does freeze Bunet, before we see

Our foes lament that they will actually fall here, unlike the numerous times we faced them before

And Griss has to make it weird by calling dibs on first death (which looking at it in retrospect, he actually does). Although this is all foreplay for three 3x3 areas to light up to warn us of the map attack

And as you can see in the background of Rosado's kill here, two are focusing on changing the map, while the third is focusing on our little army in the east, although lets deal with this front for now.

Alas the other flier is too fast for Anna to get the kill with a longbow, and I decide to avoid the counter with the chip, as it lets me feed it to

Timerra with the help of Anna's Longbow Chain Attack

Louis was in a bit of a bind, trapped between an exploding rock and the three bulky cavs that surrounded him, so I need to Engage with Veyle to use her +1 magic range

When using Echo to free him from their body block, and to keep him a little safer for now, I charge him over to the other front for safety

On said other front I open by fogging up in a way that should draw at least one of the ones that trapped Louis her way, and also block our foes from reaching the odd little pocket I am going to have to create to protect our troops from the incoming map attack

I also work of killing the freeze staff with Fogado's longbow, but he will need the dan-

...In spite of the crit that would have let him kill without a dance, he then misses a 90 to waste the opportunity

Also with Bunet frozen, I have to reposition him out of the danger zone, and there is only just barely room to do so.

But at least we wont have to deal with such shenanigans next turn

I also heal Louis up while he is still over here

The thing is, I really, really, really messed up my enemy phase plans here by forgetting one important thing, the map attack hits after player phase, not before player phase like they showed with the example shot in the beginning, so all the walls my troops in the west are hiding behind disappear, letting the pair that trapped Louis charge right at Veyle

And while she can survive the weaker 1-2 range one, the higher damage one can kill her even if the Tomahawk misses...

And while I was all ready to catch her death quote, the weakness of the Smash weapon saved Veyle's life. Tragically we aren't out of the woods yet, as some of my other western troops were also exposed by the exploding rocks

As another Smash weapon is about too ruin Timerra's day, as there are still some Wolves to move after this hit to finish her off...

...phew....

we survived that disaster.

And in spite of how stressful that enemy phase was, it was accidentally safe, as we saw already with Veyle's 100 accuracy kill on the smash weapon, and here even if the axe before had hit, she would have lived on 5 HP, as the wolf behind this one can't quite reach her.

Also, Fogado uses the fog to avoid a hit on him, as the only enemy phase action in the east.

Our close call has left a fair number of foes right in front of us (although Veyle killed her pair), and I open with Framme going for the break, and then getting two Dual Assist+ procs to just plain kill it here.

Anna can magic damage the one horse to death all on her own

For a kind of lame levelup on her.

And that +1 echo range continues to show its value by letting Veyle get in some chip without taking a 1-2 range counter

And doubling my Chain Attacks to get the kill on the last wolf with the Echoes

For a very defensive levelup on the poor girl.

With that front dealt with, Lindon deals some free chip on the magic weapon wielder on the other front

So Bunet can claim the last kill of the turn

Although the main enemy phase action is all in the east this turn, with Louis drawing in a flier somewhat in the middle as well, as he hurries over to rejoin the front he started in.

Which our knight tanks just fine.

Merrin manages to crit kill the flier that attacks her, and

Bunet gets in a bit of an even back and forth with the flier going after him...or would have if the thing could hit the broad side of a barn

Back to player phase, TeeHee breaks for some nice chip on the one Bunet was fighting

So I let Panette finish the injured thing off, which clears the path to

Let Fogado reach the one deepest back with his effective damage.

And I let Bunet get the break on that last one that Louis drew in, and I use that break to avoid the counter on Bunet

And the magic chip from Lindon's heavy hit

To I let Bunet get the kill with a dance

So that Merrin can fog deep into enemy territory (instead of fixing any misses on the wyverns).

On the other front I have Veyle use the last turn of her engage to get in some 4 range chip on one of the swordies, but

With the bosses doing a lot of terraforming on the western front, I am just preparing for the new enemy phase

With Louis getting in some free chip on the uninjured swordie

While Alfred gets the enemy phase kill on the injured one.

While Merrin does Merrin things on the other front.

Speaking of which I open by clearing away the ones she chipped, with extreme overkill

And more gentle overkill

Although that is as far as I will push in this direction, as the rest of my forces are a bit too far out to easily deal with the uninjured one.

On the other front, I open with Rosado flying in to kill one of the bow knights

And Alfred charges ahead to one shot the mage knight with effective damage

Although to reach that last bow knight, I have to clear away the surviving Swordie, with Framme's furious fists.

And with that cleared away, I have Anna go for a little chip

So Timerra can double for the kill

And she gets even more speed on the levelup from it.

And I have the actions left over for Veyle to refill her engage gauge for future Echoes shenanigans.

With everyone in the west staying out of enemy range (most due to killing everything close), that just leaves a little dance in the fog

With Merrin getting in some heavy fre-

Or she can get the crit kill

Back to player phase, while there are some new reinforcements to deal with, I open by starting to chip the nearest Wyrm in the west, and while it doesn't look like much chip damage with this super, it is free, and

It ends up a bit higher thanks to a Sandstorm proc on one of the hits. I then break it with the staff so

That Alfred does not have to take a hit when he kills it.

...Show-off.

I then have Louis refill the engage meter, and

Still reposition him so he can get some chip in on one of the bow knight reinforcements

On the other front, there is nothing all that interesting to see, other than me pressing in even deeper with the fog

And so ends the least eventful map attack turn of them all.

Louis gets in a little free chip, like expected

While Merrin gets an enemy phase kill on a local pugilist

And earns her the ol' Murder Merrin special of a levelup

Which makes her kill the other puncher even harder.

Although there is a fair bit more action in the east this turn, as all the horses over here started moving, so I open with some chip that is free thanks to the break

And the crit makes it almost too heavy of chip

As Merrin can only reach this one, and she didn't need the extra damage for this kill

Although Fogado is tragically one damage shy of the longbow kill here, even with TeeHee's personal

So Bunet has to pick up the kill

And it earns him what is probably the best levelup we have seen this map.

Thanks to my dance, I can still safely fog off the rest of the forces coming in, to end off the action in the east.

On the other front, there are only two foes I intend to deal with, so I can open with some minor chip like this

Which somehow managed to hit with everything, and proc a Dual Assist+ for even more chip, and now Alfred joins in the free chip fest as well, and even gets a pair of Dual Assist+ proc for even more proc

And he gets a fantastic levelup on top of everything.

I let Louis get the kill in the end

While Veyle out ranges the injured archer to cleanup this front.

And we are so spread out that I can't capture both fronts with a single image, but the only enemy phase action we have is foggy

Although Merrin is so deadly that they are all dying on enemy phase, which I have rather mixed feeling about.

Although a new flier's freeze staff complicated things a lot

As Seadall is frozen in the map attack in a way that is difficult to reposition him out of while protecting him from regular enemy attacks, but I open with Fogado repositioning him into a different part of the map attack

And Seadall doesn't have to move to dance his reposi-

Seadall, stop distracting me with your pointless levelups

But what I was getting at was that Fogado isn't going to be the one to reposition Seadall again, trying for the longbow kill here, but missing one of the hits.

Merrin fogs up in preparation of new reinforcements

While TeeHee repositions Seadall to safety.

On the other front, Louis gets a little bit of chip on some fresh reinforcements, but is otherwise just choking the point

And I am having Rosado get a little chip into the last Wyrm on this front, but I am saving my staff, as

I am not killing it this turn, and even if the Wyrm did hit, I could heal Rosado to safely take the enemy phase hit it is preparing.

The western front is a bit sprea out in preparation for the enemies coming at us

While it is most just fog frustration for our enemies in the east.

Rosado does take the flaming hit this time around

While Louis tanks his sword pair just fine

And the staff of frustration freezes my sniper this time around, while the infantry didn't have the move to pass through the fog.

At least Fogado was frozen in position to still get a shot off

And he vents his frozen frustration with a crit kill.

While Panette finishes the flier that Fogado missed last turn, while cantering away from the advancing Wyrm

As for the other reinforcement, I break it with TeeHee

So Bunet can grab another kill

While I have Merrin fogging up close enough, that I hope the flier goes for her instead of freezing my troops again.

On the other front, things are a bit tighter, but I open with Anna one shotting one of the fliers

Louis engages to reach some chip on the other flier

For some even more defense on my wall

But it was enough damage for Veyle to claim the kill.

In Louis's wake, I have Alfred chip one of the swordies left behind

While Timerra double misses to avoid the kill here, but canters back so Alfred can choke the point

I heal Rosado back up, before he

Finishes what he started last turn.

In the west I end with Alfred ready for some enemy phase kills

While it is even more fog baiting in the east.

And everything goes according to plan.

And so TeeHee can kill that freezer, personally

And for the only wyrm in the east, I open with a Lodestar ruch to chip,

And a dance to solo it with Panette without facing a hit.

...sigh...

On the other front, I have a bit of an uncomfortable enemy to deal with here, as it is within the bosses's range, and I don't want to bait them yet, so I open with some 3 range chip with Veyle here

I try to finish it with Rosado, but only get some Dual Assist+ chip in, but

I can still finish the thing off in spite of the miss thank's to Anna's trusty longbow.

And we have a very quite enemy phase for a map attack turn.

And I open the next player phase by chipping a wolf in the east

But getting the crit kill instead.

Although that is the only real action we have this player phase, as I have hit the wall of boss ranges in the west, and setup a little enemy phase action in the east

With Lindon using his resistance to bait in a mage

Although with more reinforcements coming in, I have something to deal with on this map attack turn in the east, and I still have that awkard issue of having to kill enemies in boss range

But after missing Veyle's three range hit, even with this longbow hit, I am in an awkward position

So I have Louis kill that farther one back with a super (and some heavy chip on the close one too)

But doing so commits me to using a rescue staff to pull Louis out of there.

And I engage Alfred to more reliably finish off the last of those reinforcements

And I fortunately catch this in time, but the breaking of the terrain is changing the boss ranges by enough that I need to reposition Louis even after the rescue staff use.

On the other front, Bunet wipes out the chipped mage knight

While Lindon continues his chipping action with this attack here

So Panette can get the kill on it.

I am fogging up here in a way that will bait one of the bosses after the terrain is destroyed by the map attack

With everyone else staying out of range

While on the other front I avoid enemy ranges, but stay as close as possible to it, which should bait the other boss in this direction, as they are closer to it.

And we are approaching the end here

But in spite of spreading the bosses out here, I think I can get the boss convos Veyle and TeeHee have with the two bosses before the end of the map here, so I go for this chip and convo combo

Settle down Griss, I am working on your grisly murder at the moment

Cold does seem an odd choice of descriptor here.

Maybe I should have started with someone else, that way you weren't unsctrached before we talked

Plus it was the wrong Veyle this whole time.

Although our Veyle isn't a Corrin level pacifist here

Again Griss, give me a minute here. I promise, you will not live the turn.

Apparently Veyle is privy to a bit of Griss's backstory that we don't. Actually the difference in player, and character information is a bit interesting here, as I certainly don't know enough about Griss's back story to guess why he is as fucked up as he is, and never knew him from the start like she did.

And for this oddball that lack of cruelty is the cruelest thing of all.

On the Zephia front, I open with a vicious volley from Fogado, and thanks to some Dual Assist+ procs he breaks the first health bar here

For a solid enough levelup on him (although a little more strength would be nice as well)

And I decide to go for the TeeHee battle convo before I accidentally break too many of her health bars

Yeah, thanks to how many times you have retreated before death

And this is a cute little bit of setup for something we will see in the next map

With a cursory explanation for why her memory of them is so hazy, which will be expanded on in a moment, and a little next chapter as well. I do like that she describes her memory as hazy, as it fits with what we see from her, as multiple time we see her partially remember TeeHee throughout the story, but never really being certain of it.

It is a problem with being an avatar

It is reminder that she is remembering TeeHee from 1000 years ago, and its not like they remember Zephia either.

🙄TeeHee, she is talking about the facts of aging

Unless you plan on letting her follow through with this threat, in which case I guess you wont experience that kind of aging.

I have Merrin engage to freeze Zephia here while she still has an extra health bar

That way she doesn't fully crit kill Zephia before Veyle can get her battle convo in here.

...a rather meh levelup for her really.

Now a key part of my plan here is to dance up TeeHee so they can

Goddess dance, with my regular dance included specifically.

Now I do have one pesky little reinforcement to deal with as well, and I needed the goddess dance to reach it, first with this sniper chip

With Bunet finishing

With a critical flourish

But more importantly I dance TeeHee again so they can

Get the Griss convo, while breaking his first health bar with a Byleth engage weapon for 2 range

It really is, and its a bit of a hat trick at this point. Although given how dead most of the Fell children are, I am not sure why you would expect it from them

I do appreciate TeeHee's oddly sincere gratitude about Griss's ring based paternity test.

I guess most of the earlier attempts at ending this conflict peacefully was focused on Zephia, so its nice to ask Griss as well

But I appreciate his clear and flat rejection of that notion, and mild vitriol at the implication that Griss lacks agency in this situation.

Going way overboard there, but they way TeeHee framed it like Griss was a child blindly following Zephia was rather insulting.

And they had to show-off with a pointless crit to break the health bar.

Then the monster that is Framme punches Griss with enough force to break him, and a health bar. I am sure he is pleased by that

Fitting as I am about to put you down like ol' Yeller

The breaking lets Alfred try for the kill for free

Funnily enough it was the Dual Assist+ proc that caused the kill, and not a crit

And it earns him a very defensive levelup, which misses basically all the offensive stats.

And while I avoid enemy attack ranges before the last turn

There is one last freezing to annoy me before the end.

It is funny that the map attack is targetting the shard itself here at the end, but I obviously open by getting the Veyle convo I waited the whole turn for

Veyle going for the necessary, and righteous kill here, unlike far too many Fire Emblem character.

...When they are closed? Even when they are open, both Veyle's eyes look very different from Sombron's.

I don't really see much of a similarity, although being more similar than other Veyle seems like a low bar to meet.

And Veyle hits the nail on the head here. In part I think it is what a younger Zephia admits, that she tries not to learn about Sombron's children because she knows they are just going to die.

So desperate for any kind of affection

I like to think Zephia corrects herself here in view of Veyle's accusation, as the one she hated is Sombron, and how he led her around.

She is so used to how disposable Sombron treats his numerous children

Again with the strangely vicious Veyle here. You go girl, fire back with the comeback, and go for that kill.

Ironically you don't have mine

As I have plenty of actions to squeeze a little exp from the incoming reinforcements, like with this kill here

Fogado can use his super to snipe another from across the map, and after a dance

Veyle can miss out on the Warp Ragnarok kill on the last reinforcement. Oh well, this little corrupted gets to live.

I also squeeze a Great Sacrifice in for the exp, but its not enough for a levelup

Before I let Rosado end the map.

For a nice bit of defense and speed on the levelup.

And so the first shard shatters.

I have no complaints awarding MVP to the fog.

Given her feeling on the matter, it seems odd to apologize to Sombron here at the end.

This time? I guess she means with Marni before. Also its nice that you actually die this time...

Hey now, don't be trying to jinx things yet. I can make through the next chapter for sure...I hope. The one thing that worries me about it is the time limit, but I have been keeping a good pace on most of these maps.

The timeline isn't right for it, but it makes me think of how as a kid there were places where you would find the fossils of ancient sea creatures falling off the side of a mountain I lived on, but in reverse.

The game is a bit ambiguous about what is required to break these shards, as they seem to instantly shatter when its defending boss dies, so I really don't know how much extra effort is required to destroy these things.

especially when this one is noticeably weaker than the others.

It's a fun turn of phrase, but a bit deceptive about what the solution she provides is

But I guess her coyness is intentional with those ellipses; although the shape of the crystal is a nice hint.

It was odd to see a third type of dragon mentioned at this point, and it being the Mage Dragon, a class most famous for being immune to magic in the Archanea games. Another interesting little world detail, Veyle's mother was a Mage Dragon, and its hinted that the time crystal was a gift from her mother to protect her.

Although this talk of her power being drained being linked to her death is reminiscent of how Lumera died. It also puts a grim outset on for the creation of that Time Crystal I am not allowed to use on this run.

Really, trying to give her a tragic backstory with her literal dying breath. I guess Sombron did seek out the best in his dragon collaborators

🙄 The last minute redemption is such an obnoxious trope. It reminds me of the empty Christian practice of the deathbed confession. Although admittedly the game will get a little into why it is such Sombron-shit, so perhaps I shouldn't lambast its use here quite yet.

It is nice to have a bit of a story reason for the turn limit on the next map.

I love Veyle's exasperation at her waiting till now, when this "redemption" is at its most pointless. Also there is a bit of a "there had to be a map" explanation for why she couldn't be talked into it until now as well.

But she hits on why these deathbed attempts at redemption are so empty. The reason they can go through with it is because they wont live long enough to truly make amends, to see it through and face the consequences of their redemption.

I am imagining the camera then coming back to our heroes, and pan slightly left to reveal our ally Mauvier right there. Really Zephia, this is a Fire Emblem game, people literally paid extra money to pretend you were there ally.

If only you could forget them, but like Zephia we often can't until they have been overcome in one way or another.

An odd honor to give to such an abusive dragon as Zephia, although I guess it is a bit of petty defiance of Zephia's warning.

After how many times I defeated you, and you didn't die, it would make me feel a tiny bit safer.

And because Zephia dying words didn't last long enough yet, we have some dying words between her and Griss as well.

Sigh, of course you have to ruin the moment with your masochism

But she has a new answer for why she helped us now, the pettiest of vengeance

A dark take, but a true one as well, from an emotional standpoint at least.

Given how disposable Sombron treated his kids, I am surprised he has not been popping them out with you to replace the ones lost in the last war. There is also something interesting about the way her desire for children isn't tied to those trappings often required for their creation, that desire for a relationship. It makes me wonder if Zephia was supposed be either Aro or Ace (or both).

Why were you just waiting around then? Is Sombron literally the only male Dragon left on the planet? The ending indicates there are dragon orphans, which hints that if this was really something you cared about, you could have gotten one elsewhere (and that is ignoring the possibility of human-dragon hybrids). Perhaps she really is dealing with the misery of wanting a child while AroAce...

And of course they are building towards the dramatic irony that if she could simply look beyond that illusion of biological essentialism, she had what she wanted the whole time in the found family of the hounds.

Even Griss is critical of utter lack of timeliness of Zephia's betrayal.

Remember kids, buy the DLC, so you can see what it would be like to recruit these characters.

...sigh, again trying to cram in some backstory here in their last moments.

What a fool, Sombron never cared enough about humanity to even notice human suffering, or care about it. Only you care so much suffering.

Getting a little creepy there by combining all those roles there. They really are just trying to make this guy a little kink magnet all the way through

And she is finally spelling it out for those that lack media literacy.

Ah the worst end for the masochistic Griss...although, it is a little cute that they decide to hold hands in death.

Finally got to the checkpoint. I really bungled that one turn, but it could have gone so, so much worse.

[Eltosian Kadath]

Alright, we are all past at the checkpoint, but I have two more paralogues to get through, so I guess I will start with one of the most interesting map choices for a paralogue

Spoiler

And I open with something I have never bothered showing before

But as far as I know this is the worst meal of the run so far. But at least I have a nice arena run with three levels

Although you misspelled Magic there Lindon

And my little healy murder bot gets a nice enough level as well

Although this last one is rather underwhelming from TeeHee. Alright, its time to jump in

To one of the most interesting choices for a paralogue chapter. In the original its is an entirely optional map, and also one of the most Celica focused chapter as without the Seraphim spell it is brutally difficult, but once Celica does have it, she can almost solo the map.

It is a distinctly optional map in the original, with the main prize being the holy blade enshrined in the alter, and although there is a defense tile that Celica starts on that is implied to be the alter here, as far as I know there is no prize for reaching it.

Celica is even warded off about how dangerous the place is, with Kamui terrified of it.

But that is all there is on that map, a single Necrodragon (two of them if you play Echoe's hard mode), but in a sense she is right. Without the effective damage of the Seraphim spell most allies struggle to deal more than the minimum 1 damage at that early stage of the game, with it having health in the 40s, and dealing reasonable damage in return, it can overwhelm you. Admittedly that does mean this paralogues is one of the least faithful maps to the original, but they compensate for that in a way that recaptures another element unique to Gaiden/Echoes.

Again, against the wishes of people traveling with her, but that does capture one of the things that makes Celica interesting. She doesn't value her life and happiness above those of her people, and when confronted with an issue facing them like Pirates, Slavers, and Bandits, she will drop everything to deal with it. There is the sense that she is even endangering her quest to save the world, but I think she is just following a similar mindset to that unique to Emperor Rudolf from Gaiden, that the "destined" children aren't necessary to save the world. If Alm failed to perform some other hero of Zophia would rise up to face Rigel, if Celica fell to bandits some other priest would pursue the fate of Mother Mila. That does clash with the far more destiny focused framing of Echoes, but still fits extremely well with the way Celica chaffs against her royal heritage and the decadence that ruined her father.

A little bit, but it was nothing like the way Celica would go out of her way to help people (which is kind of what this chapter is about)

...Eh, TeeHee you are far more focused on your objective than Celica was. Sure if you come across someone in trouble along the way you will help, but that isn't quite like the lengths Celica would go.

Although enough talk, it is time to get strarted with this map

Or at least the preps for it, and it is a funny enough map that I give my dancer the holdout ring for precautions sake

As the number of deployment slots is literally less than the number of engage rings I have to pass around. In retrospect I should have brought Alfred along for another battle convo with Celica, but otherwise I think this is a good crew to bring along.

Although I could have prepared a better starting placement here

I didn't do the best preps in all honesty, although I don't think it is a vital to the overall map, but I could have had a much stronger first turn with a bit better planning. Although it is time to talk about the changes to this map. First there are now three Wyrms here representing the necrodragons, Celica sits on a little shrine

And they brought in one of the most iconic enemies from Gaiden/Echos, the Cantors, that can summon hoards of enemy monster. I will also note, that outside this first set of summoned enemies, all other summons have the Void Curse skill to prevent you from infinitely farming them for Exp, so killing them ASAP is priority number one

And if I planned my setup better, I wouldn't have needed a dance to setup this kill on the one deepest in Celica's warp range here, and could have instead used it to

Give my Engaged Louis the extra movement to Override kill the one outside of warp range entirely. Or heck, even just having one of my repositioners that wasn't TeeHee (as their personal skill was needed to get the Astra Storm kill, so they needed to move closer to that summoner in the west) close enough to give him the boost (and could have then saved my dance for Merrin to get in some enemy phase too if I got both those preps right).  Again, this isn't the biggest of deals

As Louis doesn't have to worry about the flies swarming around him (I will also say you from seeing the next two near identical images of this)

And he can finish the job next turn before the summoner can bring any more enemies in, but I could have had a stronger first turn.

In retrospect this wasn't the most impactful of moves, as the fliers aren't really hindered by the terrain, but it is a bit of nice chip

So Fogado can grab a cheeky kill without committing to taking an enemy phase hit

Or would have if he didn't miss one of those 90s, so TeeHee has to cleanup with a Levin Sword hit here.

Rosado also sneaks in a bit of chip before cantering to safety, but

With so many foes coming in I feel it best to play things a bit safely.

Louis gets swarmed by three of these lancers again

As Panette is baiting one

That she crit kills out of vengence

With a flier dinking off our tank to fully surround our armor knight with enemies

TeeHee's mere 2 attack range (as opposed to Fogado's 3) means they have to take an attack, although the fog keeps them perfectly safe

With Merrin getting the enemy phase kill on the last of them.

We have a bit of a target rick environment, but this far cluster is just far enough back that I have to Engage Framme to get in the 2 range necessary for this kill here.

Panette finishes off the nearest Wyvern

And Timerra gets in just enough chip, and the break so that

I can just barely miss the kill with TeeHee because I Cantered her out of Chain Attack range like a dingus, but she procs Dual Assist+ to cover that minor brain fart anyway.

TeeHee's personal is also enough to give Fogado the +1 damage needed for the kill here

And with Fogado missing this chip and break here, I stop trying to do anything fancy

And just let Merrin claim the easy kill on the last of them.

Alas, I need the override just to escape this little no damage formation

And in a move that is slightly dangerous, I use my dance to spawn in a bunch of doubles to distract the cage of bodies that once surrounded Louis.

Oh right, I forgot they will just do that on their own. Some warp staff reinforcements appeared in the south, and my memory of them is that they do their thing when you bait in Celica, but apparently

She starts moving on her own in not baited, but I am getting ahead of myself here. Not only did I also wait long enough in killing the last Cantor that they spawned in some more birds, but

One of the Wyrms gave me a real fright by being just in range to half Louis's health in a single hit. None of the others were in range to finish the job (thank Lumera)

And three of the illusory doubles die from these lancers (who I continue to snub by only showing one of their repetitive enemy phase attacks each turn)

But the last flier couldn't reach the one in the back, and tries for Fogado instead.

Finally a pair of birbs crash into Louis before we get to player phase

And I open by trying to freeze three of the things

But only two hit, so I have an extra birb to deal with uncomfortably covered by Celica's Warp-Ragnarok range

I finally let Louis kill one of those pesky lancers

For a little bit of Lol speed on top of an otherwise very normal Louis levelup

Timerra grabs the kill on the most injured one before

TeeHee effective damage break kills the wyvern

With a crit for good measure

Framme can get the perfect one round on the Birb I failed to freeze, but thanks to that freeze miss, I realized that

To get everything I wanted to get done this turn, I was going to need a Goddess dance, and while I setup the strongest one I can,

It is a bit wasteful, as I really don't need that many more actions

As Fogado can kill another Wyrm

And Framme can kill the one I was always intending her to kill (and then canter back out of Warp-Ragnarok range

But I guess it lets me bait in Celica with this funny little Great Aether gambit to hit her and one of the remaining Birbs

As that is all that really remains for this turn.

And thanks to Ike and Urvan, Rosado tanks it like a champ

And dishes up some nice chip, and a dead birb in return

With some Dragon steaks on the side come player phase

With a nice crit to avoid any of the heat.

It is also time to pull out the Merrin engage to freeze the boss, and because I find it a bit funny

Seadall gets a levelup dancing Merrin so she can

burn her super freezing the last set of summons that last Cantor brought to defend them.

I then reposition Fogado so he can

3 range snipe the Cantor, while cantering into

A 3 range enemy phase battle with one of the warpers in the far south...that I actually forgot to screenshot so far.

I get in some free ranged chip on the last birb

Just so I can canter Panette a bit further south

Alas, Fogado is a bit shy of the enemy phase kill on the elthundering warper,

And I think I will delay things for another turn to try and wipe out the other two before finishing the map.

That does mean I need to wipe out these Void Curse wyverns for safety, but that isn't that big of deal

And lets Framme show off this effective damage magic kill while she is still Engaged

Although pulling out Panette's super to one round the last uninjred one does feel rather wasteful

But that is the lot of them removed from the map

I let Fogado finish off his enemy phase foe

And after a dance kill another one in the far corner

This kill wasn't all that necessary

But it did let me canter my troops into a bit more southernly position

With Panette drawing the last of our foes close enough for

Her to kill it on player phase. That just leaves Celica

So I have TeeHee go for the weakest of hits here for the battle convo

I guess they are, although naivete probably fits TeeHee even better than it does Corrin. Corrin was just sheltered, TeeHee literally hasn't been a part of the world for 1000 years, and doesn't even remember what that ancient world was like. TeeHee is just swayed towards more sensical actions than Corrin, while Corrin holds to their views strongly in spite of what the world shows them (or I guess her in this universe).

Is that the dichotomy they are making with Alm and Celica now? That need for both fits the themes of Gaiden/Echoes.

I squeeze in one last Great Sacrifice for a little exp before the end, which comes immediately after with

Timerra getting the reliable kill with her TeeHee boosted super.

With another MVP that I fully agree with.

Thank you, thank you, although there were a few points I could have played better.

Seeing how potent the Emblems can get as your bond deepen, I guess I can agree with that in this game, although the strength of bonds really varies throughout the franchise.

An odd dichotomy to make considering considering these games end at the advent of peace, with Celica meant to represent that kindness, and Alm representing that strength.

Such optimism there Celica

But I guess it worth attempting, even if that dream lies beyond the reach of mortals... which I guess TeeHee isn't, so they have a better shot at it than I initially implied.

Next up its time to face our boy Roy in his little test for us, so take care.

[Codename Shrimp]

 

On 5/23/2024 at 5:02 PM, Venger_06 said:

Any thoughts? Is the moveset good? I

looks pretty good tbh. I don't have much to add to what Eltosian added.

On 5/26/2024 at 2:54 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

In spite of Micaiah saying this, it isn't true. The objective is just a boss kill

yup, which makes it so easy to cheese (especially on hard), and is even encouraged since staying longer on the map makes you face Reinforcement spam

On my first run i just let Ike!Timerra clean the map, honestly. Felt appropiate to do it with Ike xD

On 5/26/2024 at 2:54 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Which breaks an entire health bar thanks to a crit

weakest Panette.

On 5/28/2024 at 2:57 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

with no movement staff needed

I usually use a Warp or 2 to take out the early ballistas, as they a pain to face.

On 5/28/2024 at 2:57 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

On Maddening all the Cav reinforcements are promoted, and there're much more of them - makes the map so much slower...

On 5/28/2024 at 2:57 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

As with the swap here

Stuff like this is why i love Fates...i mean Engage 😛 

On 5/28/2024 at 2:57 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

You clearing it fully makes me think how making all the returnee maps "Kill boss" is a missed opportunity. Really should've had more variety there.

On 6/7/2024 at 4:41 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

so I guess I will start with one of the most interesting map choices for a paralogue

I am honestly surprised you didn't cheese it

------------------------------------------

Welcome to ch.23.

Where we search for an asshole to kick his ass!

Spoiler

We send Marth and Catria to go get the Chests, while the rest prepares for EP

Smokin'

We starlight the first one...

I like the animation

Duke Nuke'm continues...and learns Tomebreaker O:

Wait, it was the real one? Not a fake one?

some lvl'ing

New reinforcements teleported in. Boooo

Est Ests

>No Speed
Draug doesn't Draug

we continue pushing forward *Yawn*

Galeforce Galeforces

Tiki decides to do a Myrmidon

The Galeforce continues

only?

oh come on. The map is already boring don't make it longer <.<

I kill the clone, get a steel sword and rescue Linde out of the reinforcement spam for this lvlup

Then send in Tactical Tiki because i am bored and have a meeting in 20 minutes

Pretty meh levlups

and while i was yawning and not caring....

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
F
F
F
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
F
F
F
F
F
F

Continues to EST

Linde takes out the last clone, then...

We seize to finish, right on time

Draug's loss will hurt...but eh, next map i will most likely fly skip, this map was just not fun, and next has too many Dragons....sorry for Louis tho, Eltosian

Edited June 11 by Codename Shrimp

[Eltosian Kadath]

18 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

 

On my first run i just let Ike!Timerra clean the map, honestly. Felt appropiate to do it with Ike xD

A very fitting way to end that paralogue off

 

19 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

I usually use a Warp or 2 to take out the early ballistas, as they a pain to face.

It certainly does make the map a lot easier to use a few, but I thought it would be interesting to challenge myself to not warp through it.

 

18 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

You clearing it fully makes me think how making all the returnee maps "Kill boss" is a missed opportunity. Really should've had more variety there.

Honestly one of the biggest weaknesses of the returning maps. Being all boss kill strips some of the color from them, and makes cheesing all the easier, and more tempting.

 

19 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

I am honestly surprised you didn't cheese it

I like to avoid cheesing with the paralogues with early boss kills, that way I get to experience them to their fullest, with all the little ways they try to call back to their inspirations.

 

18 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

 

Now that is brutal there, especially when it isn't even effective damage.

 

18 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

 

Smokin'

Estus is bestus

 

18 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

Duke Nuke'm continues...and learns Tomebreaker O:

What a fitting chapter to unlock that skill on.

 

18 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

oh come on. The map is already boring don't make it longer <.<

Sometimes the reinforcements are just dragging a map out...

 

18 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

 

and while i was yawning and not caring....

Complacency is the real ironman killer.

 

18 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

 

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
F
F
F
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
F
F
F
F
F
F

That is such a rough loss with how powerful your Draug has been.

 

18 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

 

Draug's loss will hurt...but eh, next map i will most likely fly skip, this map was just not fun, and next has too many Dragons....sorry for Louis tho, Eltosian

Yeah losing Louis is going to suck, but Mauvier isn't that far behind the level curve (and it gets me back to having three healers which is nice for next map), and while I don't have people as tanky as Louis, I do have quite a few tanky boys on my team, and I could move my Ike ring around to partially replace his utility in that way.

 

Its paralogue time again, with our Boy Roy bringing us to the Shrine of Seals for a fun time with Wyverns and reinforcements. I will also note that I did finish this paralogue before seeing Louis's linked death, so this will be his final sendoff, and it is a fine one at that.

Spoiler

But first we have a three level up arena

With a nice looking level that misses strength on TImerra. I am used to it at this point

I am starting to find this lack of strength levelups disturbing

And we end off with a real garbage levelup on Panette, but at least she isn't as behind the curve on strength, but a bit more speed would be nice on her if she keeps missing the strongth.

I don't remember the shrine of seals being as ruined in the Elibe games, but these ruins remind Roy of the shrine all the same

I feel like I was just talking about how odd it is for TeeHee to be surprised by the existence of other worlds, when they ask about them fairly regularly.

It is interesting that Roy emphasizes Murdock's tactical prowess first. That is what people say is Roy's forte, although the muddling of gameplay and overly safe story don't show us the tactical prowess of either all that well.

What kind of mad lad lets Roy personally fight Murdock. Our boy could probably dodge a fair bit, but if you are even a point or two below Roy's level 20 bulk averages he is one shot, and even with effective weapons Roy needs like 6 hits to kill Murdock in return, he on average can't double the general, and the general heals half a hit each turn.

Look Engage makers, most people handle Roy with kids gloves after their army starts promoting, you don't have to struggle with his prepromoted stats against bosses with stats well above their 20 caps.

Way ahead of you kid. Let's battle our boy here, but first

A little ring management, with Veyle getting her ring back

Those with some pattern recognitino may realize this means Bunet is getting a brief sit on the bench so the little prince here can take up his ring

And after a fair bit of hard looks at my deployment, I decide to leave our hero behind for more bows, so Anna gets to grab the Marth ring here.

Although we at least have enough deployment slots for all our rings this time, and I sorta hinted at it with the ring discussion, as the two do tend to be intertwined when the number of rings are so close to the number of deployment slots.

I do also pump my temperary ring carriers up to 10, most importantly that means I can have the little prince draw a princess's bow if I need to.

I remember what kind of map this is, so I put the bows close to the front this time.

Oh I am going to have fun with it my boy

By splitting up, and fogging up

With Veyle drawing in a pair of mages quite safely

...Oops, I didn't actually expect her to kill them like that, but murderer Merrin means I way over commited my archers turn 1

More like the sound of Merrin cutting the wings off of like four of the flying lizards

Although I appreciate the reinforcement warning. A little unnecessary with these not being ambush spawns, its still a nice touch

Although lets open the turn by extra murdering the last of those fliers

While on the other front Timerra turns one mage into a kabob

TeeHee can go after one of those winged beast they heard before with the other effective weapon against them.

Louis can pop the other injured mage with another spit, and after cantering further ahead

Veyel can trade equip him to a 1-2 weapon for enemy phase before

Wiping out the other flier on this front before cantering to safety.

I have Fogado switch fronts, with Rosado's flight splitting the middle, but the only enemy phase action we have is

A pair of free armor chips from Louis

And two packs of Wyvern reinforcements show up just close enough to be relevant to my next turn.

Some Armors waddled behind those archers that dinked off Louis shield, so

I magiced both of them out of existence.

And of course Lindon had to really roast one with a crit

This smash weapon hit is so close to being relevant, as it moves the archer close enough

For Fogado to hit it with a 2 range bow. Now the chip was enough that he could have killed with the Longbow as well (honestly the archers are surprisingly tanky on this map), but it is so close to the smash effect being relevant.

And of course he had to crit to make the smash effect even less relevant

Finally TeeHee goes for some heavy chip on the last archer (fun fact it is defensive enough that the magic damage of the Levin swords makes it the best weapon here), and the get a dual assist+ proc to deny Rosado the kill here.

On the other front, I am just having Framme Engage just to get 1-2 range for some enemy phase action against the mages (while avoiding Wyvern range)

And with Rosado not needed for that last kill, I decide to shift streams again

With all the enemy phase action being Framme and her magic Engaged sword.

But now we have a lot of Wyerns right in our faces, so Veyle eviscerated one

Fogado show us the power of effective damage

With a crit to make the numbers ridiculous

Louis then goes for a bit of chip, so that

Timerra can get on of the kills, and thanks to a Dual Assist+ proc on Louis's hit, she doesn't even have to take a counter for that kill.

And I even still have TeeHee's effective damage sword left over after wiping this little flight of the fiends.

Although I thought the flier's pressure a bit too much for the other front, so I pull back with

Framme setup to enemy phase kill the mages she chipped before

Rosado lucks his way into enemy phasing one of the fliers. I missed that they would break with their axes, but thanks to a miss one died anyway.

Framme really is making good use of that Wind Sword here with effective magic damage to sweep one Wyvern away

Even more three digit damage numbers 😛 

Anna does her own effective magic damage kill on another of these flyers

And earns a fantastic levelup for the weapon she is wielding.

Alfred doesn't even have to pull out Lucina's bow to kill the last of them

Although the only action on the other front is Louis plinking a little chip here before cantering back

All ready to get in a bit more chip in while baiting them in on enemy phase

Somehow he actually hit the archer that claimed some terrain in his attack

Although these enemies are rather tanky, so it isn't a great deal of chip overall.

...OK that reinforcement set complicates things, a LOT.

Although its time for the other front to have an easier time with the flier reinforcements this time.

So lets start on that front with Framme using that wind sword to sweep one away

And Alfred can get in some perfect damage to kill the other nearby one

But I should be able to reach the far ones as well, with the help of this dance

So that Rosado can have a Wyvern duel with the furthest of them

And Murderess Merrin getting the range kill on the last of them

The other front is complicated a lot by there being more enemies for me to kill than I have units to use, so its time to get creative, first with this Engage to get in an Override kill on one (while chipping another) after marching around behind them

Veyle magics away one of the armors

With a crit to really show off

Fogado shooting one off the nearest wyverns out of the sky, before cantering back

The numbers on this turn are going to be very tight, hence needing to pull out another super here for this Wyvern kill (while also just getting out of the way)

Lindon then magics the other armor away, before cantering to finish the forma-

...Ok that one was a bit distracting there, but

I need to burn my goddess dance here to get the actions I need for all the kills I need this turn, and after I goddess dance I canter so th-

Oh, right,I forgot they all get a stat buff with goddess dance, so I don't need TeeHee's personal skill for Lindon to get the terrain ignoring kill on the last archer here (the buff even lets him double the wily thing).

Fogado then wipes away another Wyvern, leaving just one more to deal with, but it is a little awkwardly placed

So Veyle has to get in some three range chip

And thankfully the extra move of a Sigurd Engage is enough to reach the last one in melee for the kill.

Lol, even more speed.

We managed to pull that off, but it was a bit costly on my Engages

But we wipe out enough that the next turn is just moving

But the turn after we have a full on Dragon to kill, and of course I start with the staff break

And with the instruct buff here

Rosado can kill the thing in a single round, with no return hit thanks to the chip.

Before cantering into this funny pocket between enemy Wyvern ranges, with the only enemy phase action being

Louis drawing more Wyverns in, although one gets some free spear dinks in

Before Louis gets a lot of heavy chip in on the melee ones

Anna wipes out one of the wyverns hidingover terrain

Really the terrain is going to make wiping these wyvern groups a bit tricky (to reach at least), and thankfully the questionably reliable brave lance here lands its kill here

Fine way to end off Timerra's engage by getting this magic ranged kill here.

It helps that our army is back together again, so Rosado can fly over at the same time Louis is charging through on Sigurd to kill the ones furthest back

While Fogado can longbow past impassible terrain to grab another kill

Alfred can kill the last chipped one in here

While Veyle can get just close enough to finish off the last of that distant group.

And that deals with the last of Wyverns currently on the map.

And again we have fought our way to a safe enemy phase

The turn after I try to bait the enemy mages into moving

But only the siege tome takes a free pot shot

And Roy alone from that final enemy formation starts moving...and our boy moving trigger's Galle's reinforcements, with a group in the center, and in the south-west corner.

And I am just letting Rosado engage and enemy phase as many as I can

And Seadall leveling up almost distracted me to the point of

Missing a shot of my little plan here. I am sending a small force to deal with Galle's forces, while a larger group will cirlce round the shrine to kill the forces Roy has left behind.

I know the siege mage isn't all that dangerous on its own, so I didn't worry all that much about who took that hit

Alas Rosado only has a 1 range weapon equipped, but I did remember to equip a weapon that they can't break, so

Two of them die enemy phase, with little damage taken in return

I open next turn by sniping Galle himself

With Lindon taking down one of his wingmen

With the kind of extreme prejudice I have come to expect from this map.

And TeeHee's effective damage dealing with the other wingman

Jeeze, cool it on the critical overkill for a moment

With Rosado finishing off the 1-2 from his group, that is all of the Wyverns dead, for good this time.

Although that does lead to a rather sad levelup there

With the rest of my army circling the shrine too give Roy the slip (cue the benny hill theme)

And Framme shows all the disrespect possible to the siege tome on enemy phase

Although she wasn't quite close enough to punch anyone yet, so I reposition her with Fogado, which works well as he wasn't close enough to strike yet anyway

So we are killing two bird with one fist there, as Framme can canter back to safety

Although I do need to engage Veyle to save the dance on the armor kill with the higher Echo range (Thoron's inability to double means she couldn't kill with it alone)

But this all means Fogado is close enough to kill the siege tome after the dance, and again cantering to safety just in case.

Although I do need to freeze Roy now, as the splinter elements of my army could be threatened by him otherwise

Now Rosado can get in some free chip on the other armor

And I appreciate the extra crit chip we get in there.

And our enemy's reliance on Thoron means I should be just fine staying in range like this, but the defenders of the shrine do not move

So Alfred can take advantage of Rosado's crit to get this effective Engage weapon kill here (although that wasn't the effective weapon I was expecting me to use Lucina for on this map)

And I feed Timerra the other kill with my dance here, leaving just Roy

So I decide to break his first holdout with TeeHee

For a bit of a focused conversation between these two

In a way that makes it a fitting map to represent Binding Blade, but you only get said blade after this map if you miss the gaiden chapter from it.

Gaining the thing was the only way for you to promote, so perhaps it was that memory of finally promoting that is drawing that power out of you

What is experience, except memories that make you better.

I let Rosado break the first health bar now

And Veyle can warp in a little chip with her warp Ragnarok, as I am going to need allthe actions I can get with all the holdout chee-

...Huh, why isn't it triggering again here?

Well the health break earns Merrin a nice little levelup here

Well Fogado can use his super to get in some chip as well

It seems Engage super attacks can bypass the holdout skill. That is kind of frightening to discover, but having accidently done it once to avoid Roy's counter means

I have the spare actions to have Lindon do a Great Sacrifice for

A solid little levelup, instead of having to finish off a 1 HP health bar with him

I let Louis bring him down to his last holdout that way I can finish things

With a dramatic Mercurius super to finish things.

...Honestly, I don't think any one person really dominated here, so Rosado seems as good a pick as any.

Nice little battle there Roy

There were quite a few tight spots in there, but I feel like that was mostly because I thought it was funner to split my army

That is an interesting comparison to make, as in a lot of ways they feel like opposites. Idunn was once a Divine Dragon transformed against her will into the Demon Dragon we see in Binding Blade, and after said transformation is about as emotionless and seemingly brainwashed as we are about to see TeeHee be in the past. Or is this perhaps a comparison to things we don't really get to see in Binding Blade, of Idunn long after the game healing with the innocent kindness of Fah, emotions and powers of her true divine dragon self returning after the best ending.

Although this talk far more contemporary to the game makes me think they weren't looking that far ahead in the timeline.

I guess they do both have heterochromia, which is a superficial similarity, but it is a physical feature that I think is super cool, so I appreciate it.

I guess there is also the way both have this almost last of their kind feel to them, with both TeeHee and Idunn feeling like the last of like a handful of real dragons left in the end of things

I am not sure why you are being so coy after revealing that you got the extended scenario, but

We will never get to really find out

As that is another promise that is left unfulfilled.

Next will be a dangerously timed map with three lanes to reach the checkpoint. See you all next time

 

[Eltosian Kadath]

Alright time to reach the checkpoint with the big Fire Emblem timed MOBA chapter...

Spoiler

That is a bit of a wrinkle in my plans, but I should be able to pivot just fine

I didn't use Mauvier all that much, but I did use him enough to be close enough to Arena level him once (and a fairly good levelup at that)

And still be able to Timerra one as well.

I also remember to get Mauvier good old Canter+

And spend the skill books to upgrade everyone that wasn't already there, up to Canter+ as well (which was basically just the ones that needed to get Dual Assist+).

I also get Mauvier up to a respectable bond level with Roy, as I intend to give him that ring for now (as I like it as a way to help units catch up), and I didn't have a big plan for Roy before, but with Louis dead, I decide on a few other more permanent ring changes

Like passing Alfred the Ike ring to act as a faux Louis, hence getting his Ike bond up

And with the Sigurd ring up for grabs, it makes sense to give it to Rosado as compensation for giving up the Ike ring.

I also forge up a few weapons to help Mauvier along

And buff up a few of Timerra's weapons to help with her lower strength while I am forging

I also do my ring changes a little early (and I basically covered these changes with the Arena already)

And make sure the other rings are back on the fingers I expect them to be on.

And so we get to the story, and the mountain that sunk into a lake. My instinct is to not be all that surprised at such a change (again I can remember finding fossils of ocean animals fall off mountains in my neck of the woods), but I guess a mere 1000 years does make such a change rather extreme.

Fortunately we don't have to deal with whatever weird water mechanics they would be forced to create for an underwater map

I love how carefully they are wording that, so the extreme way in which it is brought into reach still fits with what is said.

So 15-20 turn (depending on difficulty) corresponds to a few hours...well there is the strange moment where we can explore the past map after our victory to muddle that assessment up a little, but that is an interesting bit of context for what sort of time frame a turn represents, as it implies a range of a few minutes (as opposed to something like the classic D&D 5 seconds, or something more extreme like each representing and hour or day, or even a singular minute which is also a somewhat standard turn length).

Well Veyle seems to have no idea what is going on, in spite of originally owning a special more limited time crystal of her own

But for somewhat contrived reasons TeeHee is alone, so that alone they can

Meet themself.

It is interesting that this young TeeHee is both expressing an ability to sense Emblems, but also distinguish them to the point of knowing the new TeeHee is one they don't recognize. This sense clearly isn't terribly nuanced, as said Emblem is literally right in front of them right now, but is interesting.

Hmmm... I guess we have TeeHee's birthday ring, but we don't even have the ring that really functions for TeeHee.

It is interesting that Sombron claims the title of King of Dragons. Not King of the Fell Dragons, but King of Dragons in general, and I guess he has at least one Mage Dragon as his subject even thousands of years from now, so there might be some justification to the name, but being at war with the Divine Dragons does make such a title even more suspect.  It makes me wonder if other Dragon types were more prominent in this 1000 year old war. I guess we also see a fair share of Wyrms as his subjects, but those are indicated as both corrupted, and fell dragon based on their weakne-

wait a minute, are we fighting the corrupted corpses of TeeHee's sibling every time they show up? Or Are they less undead and more construct like (similar to the Fabrications we see in chapter 2 and the paralogues) use of the fell dragon corrupted powers

Interesting how they say Divine Dragons here, but indicate that Lumera is the only one left just a little later. Although I guess there is that whole weird spirit of Divine Dragons protecting Lythos, which might be some way to justify the plural. Plus that they have collected many rings, and yet the rings power would eventually be used by the Divine Dragon in the end indicates there will be a serious reversal of fortunes soon to come, and I get the implications that TeeHee the ring gatherer's betrayal will be the shift in tempo to cause that.

Thanks for spelling it out to the kids in the back only half paying attention.

That mumbling line is a bit of clumsy lamp-shading for our TeeHee basically expositing to the camera about time travel shenanigans, or perhaps simply a second way of covering any pime taradoxes.

Your answer must be yes is such an uncomfortable phrase to hear, and hints at how messed up TeeHee's relationship with Sombron is at this point.

Although TeeHee starts getting into the nasty details of how repulsive of a parent that Sombron is, with his children not only disposable tools

But tools he is willing to dispose of himself. The commentary about the children eaten alive by "father"'s corrupted being cute is a particularly jarring moment. Also the talk about MOST being defects he disposed of, really emphasizes that they weren't defects.

Ughhh, the way they just simply state that 'The defects require disposal' really emphasizes how much of the koolaid TeeHee was forced to drink to survive their monster of a father.

The 'loyalty' Sombron would praise in children is just fear. Sombron ruling through fear.

It is a bit funny they mention this, almost as a way to explain one of the map gimmicks, before backpeddling and saying it is caused by the shard when we get to the map itself...

Uhh, Past TeeHee, there is one right in front of you.

Alright, the way Past TeeHee talks to themself (and not just their future self, although that is an interesting little coincidence on its own), is a bit disquieting, but given how oppressively lonely, and emotionally suppressed they are makes a sad amount of sense.

It is odd that they reveal red Marth here, when they are going to a bit more dramatically in a moment does come across a bit clumsy. Although I do like how they are using the time travel here to give us one last fight against an Emblem, in spite of us having the lot of them. Honestly, I think it would have been more interesting to have a Boss with an Emblem at the end of all three paths, but I guess having the other bosses be Corrupted would have been lame, and the other options of past versions of Zephia and Sombron would have had different story problems, and adding in some new soon to be dead siblings might have come across a little gauche as well.

But the crew is back together again, and for some reason TeeHee alone was separated from the group.

I guess we have an uphill battle ahead of us 😛 

And we have the return of Zephia, just a chapter after her death. Honestly amazed at the restraint they had in not making her a boss again.

This is interesting in a two fold way, both that it seems that Corrupted are not treated like the most expect and trivial enemy to face in this time period, and that our army has been apparently fighting them off screen

It is a bit funny that no one else figured

That this is past Zephia.

Although I guess meeting your past self is a bit more obvious. Actually that is a bit funny, as it is a surprisingly common trope that meeting your past self in a time travel story tends to be disastrous, but not in this universe it seems

And now our army meets candy apple TeeHee

While shooing away the unwanted repeat boss

With what would be a fairly reasonable reason, if the rest of our foes are incoherent zombies, which I guess they are.

...The Temple? what a pretentious prick Sombron is. Well, perhaps I am jumping the gun a little here, perhaps the temple is dedicate to some deity other than himself, and I guess the Divine Dragons that they are at war with tend to claim divinity, so that wouldn't be that unheard of, plus it could just be a when in Rome moment.

Don't worry kid, we have been doing non-fatal boss kills for a vast majority of this game, and I think everyone here understands the sort of disastrous pime taradox nonsense that will happen if we actually kill them.

I guess it makes sense that the shards were in place 1000 years ago (as Sombron didn't have the time to create them when he rose Gradlon), but it keeps putting into context just how much more rushed Sombron is the second time around. Hearing about the numerous dead Fell children, and all the prep involved in not only creating and training said children, but even stuff like these shards, really emphasizes how crunched for time the Sombron from our time is, even in that he has to work with a child he considers a defect instead of just disposing of her and replacing her with a 'better' model.

Eh, it was worth a shot.

Although our past selves setup a fair contest for this little map

And now we see the far more intersting reveal of red Marth, to our allies

With a Red and Blue Marth face off. Although there are two extra things I want to note, first that for once our TeeHee thinks to hide the fact that they are an Emblem (instead of immediately revealing it to the hounds like they did last chapter), and that it is cute of the game to assume we still have Marth on TeeHee at this point.

It is an interesting touch, although it is a little sad that this is the only ring mirror match we get in this game.

Although it is time to defeat ourselves to destroy the fell shard within.

Alas the map is too big to capture the full opening deployment in a single image, and it took a little while to decide on my split. A big one is separating all three healers between the three lanes, but I didn't split my magic damage among the three lanes as well as I would like, as I only have two tome wielders at the moment, and while there are a few troops known for using magic weapons (Anna with a Shining Bow, and Mauvier with the Flame Lance), I ended up leaving the north without any regular magic damage (Framme can sneak in a little when she engages with the Wind Sword, and Fogado technically has a Shining Bow as well, but rarely uses it over his regular bows). I also concentrated all of my backup units in the south, with only Bunet's Lucina in the north giving access to chain attacks on any other fronts. Not a perfect split for the reasons mentioned, but one thing I did pay attention to was making sure my fire power was well split up, and I tried my best to give a notably defensive unit on each front as well, although again the north gets the most shafted here by only having Bunet, while the south has my new Alfred-Ike combo and the middle has the fog machine (although with fog already on the map that is less of a selling point than normal), so to compensate for these deficiencies I gave the north my dancer. Also it is funny that I went through the effort of a rotating army so I wouldn't have to deploy Veyle and Mauvier only to see enough deaths to end up deploying the pair anyway.

We also get the warning about the Shard forcing avalanches to happen to push people back

And we even see this in action in the middle lane at the start, and I find this to be a far better explanation of the shard mechanic than the starting example we got last time, as we are pushed out of enemy range with how it changes initial setup, and it is shown occurring during the right phase.

Huh, I guess this is the first timed map of this game. It feels beyond preposterously late into the game to be seeing a literal tutorial menu like this, but here we are. Also I like how the avalanche mechanic is made as relevant as it is by this time limit...

Side note, I have never actually waited out the timer on this map, is there an explanation, or justification for the loss that comes with the time limit? Is it when the time crystal runs out of juice, or when Sombron and Zephia arrive, or is there no extra story attached to that loss at all.

Now I open by fogging up the middle

Although the only real action is happening in the north with Rosado sneaking in a little break here

And Fogado getting in a little longbow chip (while cantering out of enemy attack ranges), and thanks to a dance

Rosado can confirm the kill.

While cantering back into an enemy phase position, where Framme can ensure an enemy break doesn't ruin that with a chain guard use.

The other two fronts are more relying on the fog for their enemy phase action. Also important to note that we have warning for an avalanche in the south, but we get two turn to deal with that, so we will see the consequences of that next turn.

The chain guard preventing a break plan worked perfectly on Rosado

With Merrin getting a fair bit of free chip in (although after missing the first one not as much as I hoped) on the swordies going after her fog

With the one terrain ignoring mage not being accurate enough to hit her.

I also made sure Timerra had the natural fog boosted avoid to definitely dodge the hard hitting axes

And while the bow had a bit better accuracy on here, the main hit ended up missing...and then I she gets a 1% crit on top of that (which came so out of left field I miss the shot of it), to make this an absolutely amazing enemy phase for her.

Also just to add even more pressure to the time limit, reinforces are spawning in the back of each lane (like this pair here).

I think I will opening in the south here, as the avalanche at the end of player phase is adding some uncomfortable pressure to this front, but Lindon can fully destroy one of the axe wielders with chai-

*ahem* with critical hits.

I can capitalize on here enemy phase crit here by getting this kill, while being able to canter into the blocking range of the two rock further south there

And I have Panette do something very similar to the last of these axers, but that position to the south is awkwardly exposed to a hard hitting enemy with a lance smash weapon come enemy phase.

I then start working on the middle with Mauvier getting an easy kill

TeeHee dodging to kill the one mage for free

With Veyle grabbing the last kill

And thanks to fog already being on the map, I can even go for some free chip and poison on the middle Wyrm as well.

In the north, I use Bunet's Lucina to give Framme the first kill of the front

And I let Bunet get the break on the last

Before letting Bunet get the kill with a dance

For a little strength levelup on him.

In the north, I am just avoiding the Wyrm range

Similarly only my maximum avoid Merrin is in the middle Wyrm's range, and thanks to the avalanche I have a pair in enemy range in the south, with the other three avoiding it with a bit of jungling, but that is an uncomfortable seperation between the two forces in the south

And that one enemy phase hit in the south really hurts. I wish I was able to trade switch her to her hammer for this enemy phase, but thanks to the fog I needed the canter to get to this position to begin with.

And this one son of a Sombron sucker undoes all the damage I dealt to the middle Wyrm just to frustrate me

And after all that the avalanche comes in to do nothing thanks to my positioning

The seperation between the three I hid in the 'jungle' and the two who took an enemy phase hit is awkward enough to require me to reposition Anna

So she can kill the enemy phase foe with her magic attack

For a fantastic little levelup as well

With Lindon's positioning being too awful to help out, I end up having to Engage Timerra just for the mild magic damage of the Light Brand

So that Panette can get the hammer kill in spite of the damage she took on enemy phase (getting the Dual Assist+ on the first hit also means I don't have to rely on the chain attack hit here to save Panette from death)

I then end up the southern force's turn with Lindon dropping an obstruct here to make sure I only have to face one of the mages on enemy phase.

I will next turn my attention to the north, with Buent getting a break here

But I wanted to deal with the Wyrm first as I go for the break here, but funnily enough

The little goddess of punches is the best one to take advantage of the break she caused, with the Engage to get the perfect kill all on her own (what a monster)

And then she crit to get the kill before the break would be needed anyway.

And Rosado can cleanup the one Bunet broke to open the north.

The most awkward front is actually the middle thanks to this Wyrm being healed, so I go for the dagger chip again, and even without fog I only have to risk the 1% hit here

And then she crits one of them, to

So I don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops to figure out how I will deal with this damn Wyrm basically oneshotting with a defense ignoring attack.

You didn't get to see all the frustration I felt trying to find a way to play around how hard this beast hits, so this will probably not be as satisfying to you in the audience, as this second crit's massive overkill was for me.

You don't have to get the magic equivalent of a Louis levelup in his honor.

The southern front is deceptive, as they will break that Ice so I will face a magic hit on enemy phase

but I am avoiding enemy phase in the north.

I looked at that little book image indicating they had a tome equipped, and didn't even think about the possibility of them pulling out their fists instead, so Lindon...dodges so he can get the chip in despite the break attempt.

But I wanted to emphasize how dangerous some of the new reinforcements are with Wyverns and Wolves coming in this time

I will open in the north this turn, with Sigurd putting in some nice work here letting Rosado sneak in the perfect kill on a magic archer

And cantering onto this perfectly made hole above terrain

I also have a pair of fliers to deal with, so Fogado pops one, to then canter to the rocks below due to the Avalanche coming

With Bunet breaking the other, mostly to void chip on himself

As I thought it would be fun to use the wind sword's ranged effective damage against fliers for the kill to end off the front.

Moving onto the south, Alfred finished the chipped healer

With a bit of nice overkill with the crit.

Timerra then jumps ahead to kill the ice breaker

But since I haven't found the time to heal Panette up yet, she has to Engage for the super chip here

So my healer can finish the job. Those Wyrm kills were a little rough, and this was probably the roughest of them.

Finally in the center I have TeeHee chip the healer that went for the Chain Guard (thus breaking the guard)

So Mauvier can get the kill

I try for the crit here, but I am not that lucky

So Merrin has to get the kill instead of fogging up an enemy phase for us.

So we have no enemy phase on this turn.

I open in the north with the next turn, with Fogado getting in a lot of 3 range chip

So Bunet can get the kill

With Framme continuing her punchy rampage to wipe out the archer twice over

And she gets the kind of levelup that such a punchfest deserves.

Moving on to the south, Anna gets some chip in on the first of these hard hitting smash swordies

Only for Panette to miss the 94 and the kill

But at least he doesn't repeat that scale of dodginess so Alfred can finish things

For a fantastic levelup

Just in case I have another miss on these guy, I have Alfred canter ahead to choke the point, and start going for some range chip with Timerra's engage here

With Lindon finishing. I really wish I could have used his action to heal, but I needed to cover an enemy dodge instead

The center is fairly basic at this point, with TeeHee getting the breaking chip

Only to crit kill the only enemy I have to deal with on this front.

So I charge a fog forward up

Only for me to notice that thanks to Sigurd my flier can switch lanes to sneak in the kill on the middle ballista, making the fog entirely unnecessary.

And it even earns Rosado a fantastic little levelup on top of everything else.

So we end the turn with only Rosado in range

Which at least halves the wolf's health with a hit.

I will start with the south on this turn, with Anna getting the 3 range chip in

To give Timerra a chance to get the kill while avoiding the counter, which in spite of the Master Lance's ass accuracy actually happens.

This could be a bit spicy, but I have Alfred Engage fairly far ahead with this one shot on the hard hitting mage up here (and thankfully I hit the 70, so it all ends up OK).

Which means I finally have the time to get off some healing in the south (but that is technically jumping ahead)

As I move on to center with TeeHee getting in some heavy chip on the wolf

With Veyle trying for, and actually getting the lowish accuracy kill on the wolf Rosado chipped on enemy phase

And then Mauvier misses the more likely kill on the one I started with, so

Merrin still has to cover a miss with her kill for the turn, cantering to make this silly little line for the central avalanche.

That just leaves the North, and Framme thankfully avoids the heavy counter hit with the kill on this first Wyvern

Although I have a plan for Fogado here, so Rosado jumps back into his lane to get in some chip

And Bunet can pop one of the worst supers to get the kill with Lucina's melee effective weapons very reliably

Which lets me use Fogado to heavily chip the northern ballista

With my dance still available for the kill as well

All from 3 range so he can canter out of enemy phase as well.

With the only real enemy phase this turn being the last ballista going for my Engaged Ike tank

And the thing utterly baffles me by leaving the ballista to get the hit.

So Anna can get in some longbow chip, while cantering out of enemy range

With a bit of an unnecessary crit, as

Alfred doesn't need the extra damage for the kill, while baiting in the two flier in the south.

So I move onto the north, with Rosado wiping out one elthunder

With Fogado wiping the other, making a bit of a -ado dou

And that just leaves the center, with Veyle getting an easy kill on one of these tanks to magic damage

But the other needs some effective damage chip from TeeHeee

So Mauvier can finish it off with magic damage of his own.

I also fog up in range of one of the southern fliers

As we are getting close to the end of things here, with only Red TeeHee and some old reinforcements left.

But there is still a little enemy phase action in the south to keep track of

And Alfred crits one for the enemy phase kill

And in either case gets a lot of free chip in on these birbs

And I am kind of glad I didn't kill both, as missing the kill here

(with a little levelup from the chip)

Lets me canter two of my troops into the next little avalanche block point

For another levelup with a solid little double effective speed gain

And the trivial heal herelets me canter a third troop into that little pocket, so just Anna has to jungle past this avalancche

Now this sniper reinforcement spawning in some double avoid fog, leads me to go for the ballista chip for the hit boost

and after cantering off of it, Bunet can use Lucina's bow on the ballista to finish it off.

For him to cookup a fantastic levelup from the ballista kill

But there is so little action left that I forget to grab the end of turn images (I wish Engage let me turn off smart end...)

But we have even more reinforcements to deal with, so I open in the north with Framme embarrassing one of them

Before adding insult to that injury by cantering over to an Engage gauge refill on top of it.

The south has a bit more to deal with, starting with a break here (and missing the crit kill tragically)

Then Lindon grabs some free ranged chip on the other

For a kind of normal levelup for Lindon

But that is all setup for Timerra getting the break kill on the smash swo-

...the double 80 miss after missing the 41 crits from Panette as well complicates things here.

So I have Mauvier freeze across lanes

Which earns him a solid levelup (although some form of speed gain would be nice)

But I can now kill the unfrozen one with with Alfred

For a passable Alfred levelup on the kill

But in retrospect, these foe's insistence on smash weapons means I was probably OK even if I didn't freeze this fellow.

But we are almost at the end of this thing, as I am

Baiting TeeHee's super with Merrin here, and specifically doing so in a way where they will not be on a fog tile like where they started

And while that hurts, it is survivable

Also the frozen foe kills itself before it can hit thanks to the weakness of smash weapons

...Two more Sombron be damned Wyrms spawn when I bait TeeHee....

That is it. Framme's gloves are off and I am killing them in the most brutal way possible

And Framme violently agrees with me

And Seadall even pointlessly levels while getting Framme another action

So Rosado can reposition her in to range

So the other aborted bastard of Sombron can be punched to death as well

And the two of us could not be on a more similar wavelength here.

I then just freeze Red TeeHee with the Engage, and thanks to the fool having no 2 range, I can utterly trivialize this fight.

Going for the TeeHee on TeeHee battle convo for free from range

Seeing as you lack 2 range, I can win by just staring and gawking at such a foolish decision

Although it is nice to see the scaredy cat from the games beginning peaking out of TeeHee again

Ironman runs can be rough on people, although I have handled thing rather well...and had a lot of timely luck if I am being honest.

This game really does lend itself to a queer reading (specifically trans reading) of TeeHee, or Alear, especially here with the past closeted version envying their far more open, and out future self. Something about this meeting of past and future self feels reminiscent of Aranock's queer relativity video, the talk of disposing of rejects reminiscent of the way some Republican law makers talk of a dead child being better than a trans child, and the creepy way Sombron talks about ownership of his children...sorry, I will try not to get too sidetracked by it.

There is a strange irony in past TeeHee's admission of fear being silenced by fear.

Sadly that is all Sombron ever wanted from his children, creatures as mindless as the Corrupted...although in further irony Corrupted TeeHee, one of his Corrupted children, still fought in defiance of him.

And we get to see the dark sources of TeeHee's fear of the Corrupted.

Careful there TeeHee, you don't want to break causality with any of this idle chit-chat.

I guess they get to know when their reflection shows who they are inside.

And that is a solid little levelup from that dramatic chat.

But I decide to wait one last turn to finish things off.

Plus I decided to try and break all of red TeeHee's health bars with the newbie here, which will require all of my dances.

And that hit rate wasn't great, so I use Merrin's super to make the next one more reliable

And Mauvier kills the second healthbar as planned. I was kind of hoping he would get a bit more experience from this, but that is fine

Before I finish things, I have Veyle go for

A very interesting battle convo with her sibling.

She is so shocked that the past TeeHee recognizes her, when they had such a close relationship back then.

I do kind of wonder about how dragons age, and I guess this confirms that 1000 years is a noticeable amount of aging for someone as young as Veyle, although beyond the magically induced transition to more divine dragon eyes and hair, TeeHee stayed very close to the same

You sure will TeeHee

...asks Veyle. It is kind of funny how she is beating around the bush like this to learn how TeeHee feels about her.

The two go hand in hand, but there is a cuteness to the redundant repetition.

...yep...

Given how you talk about what he does to 'defects' in this time frame, she probably would have if you hadn't betrayed him.

It will take a while Past TeeHee, but we are finally to that point with the current TeeHee.

Given how you two meet again, you always will be.

Fortunately you aren't close enough to make that horrible mistake

What a great little battle convo for Veyle there.

To finish my silly little Mauvier string, it is time for a Goddess Dance

And I might as well Great Sacrifice for the exp before the end

And for funsies I finish with the Roy super. In retrospect I should have Engaged at the start of the turn for better stats, but everything went fine

Don't worry kid, you have at least 1000 years of life ahead of you

...Sight, I guess I better think about who to give this to before next map.

I was a little worried Mauvier wouldn't get any levels from all the effort I made to have him break all of the health bars, but that is a fairly solid little levelup.

I can not agree more with this MVP choice, as this little Wyrm strangler earned it. Also it was nice having 4 turns to spare there, although I definitely could have done it in 10 instead.

It has been a while since I covered any post map dialogue, but it is interesting how afraid Celine is of some butterfly effect issues here.

And Alcryst is just blatantly hitting on us

You are fine, so it can't have been too bad for them

Plus everyone knew to avoid anything too drastic for timey wimey reasons

Don't worry Veyle, none of the writer even slightly cared about any pime taradoxes

...really trying to look on the bright side of amnesia there. I know Amnesia has a LOT of lazy story benefits, but it is hard not to wonder if this was a prominent one, or if the time nonsense was important in scrambling their brain in the future.

🎶Every time, goodbye to yesterday...

also that is a bit of a lie, we still have some past story to get through before we are greeted by today, let alone smiling to tomorrow.

The fact that you could see her again here was a bit of a surprise to begin with.

Don't try making her half-assed redemption into more than it was now...

It is interesting that it is our TeeHee that draws the past Sombron out

Although he was just following the false hope that this new emblem might have been the mysterious Emblem he is willing to destroy this world to find...but we will get back to that plot point at the very, very, very end of the game.

..."loyal"..."subordinates"...children...

No Subtlety at all there. Its no wonder Zephia took that as a proposition.

With how some people treat their children, it makes you wonder how many monsters believe in such drivel.

As it is that sick sense of ownership over their children at its heart.

And Zephia makes it all about Sombron. Really if you wanted children, you had a 1000 years to find ANY other partner, but instead you waste your life pinning after this lunatic

Seeing as his ambition is to literally leave this world behind, he was always planning on ghosting her and her hopes for children.

Again with the weird possessive ownership nonsense.

Alas, getting there would only cost you your life...

I legitimately love this explanation for why she doesn't remember TeeHee. It fits perfectly with how Sombron treats his children.

And this is how Lumera and TeeHee meet

It is interesting that they think Lumera looks similar to TeeHee

As our hair is a darker blue, and eyes a slightly different blue than hers as well, but perhaps they are getting a sense of similar power invested in them, rather than the simple visual similarity with their beauty.

TeeHee really had a sad existence under Sombron's thumb...

Even Lumera recognizes it

I think this is all we hear about TeeHee's birth mother, and I wonder if that singular use of their name by Sombron holds true even through our future version.

Although we are already to the point that Lumera is the last Divine Dragon, which is a bit of a tragedy, it would be interesting to see, or hear of another, but I guess that was never in the cards

Plus as our TeeHee shows, killing really isn't in their nature, in spite of this being a war game.

Again it is so hard not to drag this all into a queer reading with lines like this, about a self discovery that would get them violence from their dead beat dad...

And Lumera's old queer insistence that their is nothing wrong with that.

With this decision to truly live at the heart of their acceptance.

And so a bond was formed between secret friends

Which will blossom into TeeHee transitioning into a Divine Dragon, and with the defeat of Sombron

Also, I love how cutely innocent it is to make a pinky promise.

We are finally back to our timeline, although I still have a pair of paralogues to power through as well

And we have this nice little cliff hanger to hold on to as well before then. Also it seemed like you could always kind of sense who was guarding them a bit, so I don't know why the question of why you could sense them matter. Or is this more that you feel uncomfortable saying they are corrupted. In either case I will leave that story bit for later

Alright, that is the next checkpoint reached just fine, so we are just waiting on @Venger_06

 

[Venger_06]

ALPHA SAPPHIRE - ELITE FOUR PART 1

I decided to listen to the advice and taught Peter Bulldoze. Let's go

At least they gave some visual flair to Hoenn's E4

The battle could have been a simple Gardevoir sweep, but I decided to save some PP and just used it to defeat the Mightyena. He then sent Sharpedo, so I switched to Magnezone and after tanking 2 Crunchs I used slow Volt Switch to defeat it and sent my Salamence, which defeated Shiftry, Cacturne and Absol with Flamethrower and Dragon Claw respectively.

Thanks, chump. Off we go!

Laugh while you still can

THE GHOST!😱

Do you remember that players thought this was intentional (and not just another case of Gamefreak games having bad optimization and being held up by duct tape) and started making theories about who that girl could be? Good times

This one was even easier than the first. Absol swept her entire team, hitting crits on 3 of them. Thank you, Super Luck

Checkpoint reached.

[Codename Shrimp]

Welcome to the Penultimate map!

Ya know, too many dragons, too many staves, so...

Rally Lck and Skl

Flyskip time

Xemcel is a funny name tbh

Some shopping and some lvl'ing

And we reach Finale!

Soon ™️ 

[Eltosian Kadath]

33 minutes ago, Venger_06 said:

At least they gave some visual flair to Hoenn's E4

They really did give it a bit of a Japanese flair to it.

 

43 minutes ago, Venger_06 said:

 

THE GHOST!😱

Nice job catching a shot of the ghostie, as it is like getting a shot of Kellam in that one cutscene.

 

44 minutes ago, Venger_06 said:

 

Do you remember that players thought this was intentional (and not just another case of Gamefreak games having bad optimization and being held up by duct tape) and started making theories about who that girl could be? Good times

Just out of curiosity, do you have a source for that girl being an optimization issue and not something intentional? Or is this just a dig on how Bethesda buggy Scarlet and  Violet are.

 

8 minutes ago, Codename Shrimp said:

 

And we reach Finale!

Didn't even have to warp skip it like in the original, Fates mechanics were enough to cheese it on its own.

 

I still have two paralogues to get through, so it might be a little before I get to the finale

Spoiler

Alas, the exp lined up in such a way that this is the only Arena levelup this time.

It is time to visit the universe of Shrimpy's game (as it looks a little more similar to the New Mystery version of this map, but the two are VERY similar).

Twice, because New Mystery and Shadow Dragon pass through similar places due to the odd nature of old Mystery also being a partial remake of the first game.

It feels really, really weird that he doesn't talk about how his sister let herself be captured to ensure his escape as well. They frame this like the first time Altea was captured (as they were away with no reason to escape in its (New) Mystery fall), and her sacrifice to ensure his escape is a rather important part of that story.

At the time Marth was both a child, and without the forces to deal with the overwhelming forces advancing on him. Powerless, but by fleeing to fight another day, he would grow strong enough to overcome.

At least they hit upon one of the most important part of Marth's character in New Mystery, and in a way that might explain the lack of any mention of Elice. In spite of them blending the stories of New Mystery and Shadow Dragon, at its core this is a map about New Mystery.

Oddly enough, at this point, TeeHee could probably achieve that by just, letting Sombron go at this point. If that is their goal now, it wont be, real soon.

That is how experience works Marth, we go stronger as we battle 😛 

Alas, we still have a paralogue to do, so let's get to it.

And we have one minor ring change due to me wanting another archer/magic damage unit more than another tanky horse, so I hastily give Alfed's ring to Anna

After looking at my potential first turn, I go back and get the Reposition skill onto all my mounted units

And I pick my deployment location carefully here

This one is a little tricky, but my army is fairly strong at this point.

But I start my opening gambit by Engaging TeeHee specifically for the instruct here, so that

Rosado can get the speed to one shot the foe on the outside of the map on turn 1 (and I will note that the extra move from Sigurd is necessay to reach here). That means I don't have to waste time chasing this fool.

The double horsie reposition here is just to get in some fog chip as deep into enemy territory as I can, while

I snipe through the first health bar of this 3 range mage here

And after danceing TeeHee to get them closer to the front, they buff up even more allies

Although Anna is still just shy of the kill on that distant mage

So Veyle has to finish it off.

I did also canter Anna into a bit of a baiting position, so I trade switch her to the best melee option

Before healing her back to full.

As other than Merrin she is the only one taking an enemy phase hit

Speaking of which, Merrin fogs up as far ahead as I could get her.

And enemy thieves are already in position to start looting the chests on this map

Merrin gets in a bit of nice chip on a pair of them

While Anna gets in a lot of nice chip damage while dodging the return hit.

But Marth is already opening the doors, and ready to chase us.

I open turn 2 by having Rosado engage to finish off the health bar of the one Anna drew in

And with Framme the fist murderer here as the only one that can take his life in a single round, I have her go for it.

Sadly she didn't get the crit before taking a hit from him, so it is just to show off.

I also do another round of buffing here

So that Fogado can get into range of only needing one crit at 50+ to kill here (so a bit over a 75 chance to kill here)

Which he does

It also got Mauvier in range that the stat boost from the Roy Engage is enough to finish off on of the ones Merrin chipped last turn

And I have Merrin push in deeper with that disruptive fog

Before sneaking in a tiny bit of cheeky chip with the longbow

With Anna again preparing for some enemy phase action, and while Fogado and Bunet are in range to enemy phase kill one of them

It kills itself on Merrin instead

For a levelup. I guess the resistance is a bit nice on her.

And that is on top of all the normal free chip she picks up here

While Anna gets the luck crit to enemy phase the one  coming at her.

And we are in a bit of a pickle, in the baseball sense of the term even, so it is time to make a bold move

And I open by buffing as many people as I can.

And then move on to buying myself a little time from the rear. Veyle can Warp Ragnarok to escape any pursuit next turn, and should be able to canter back so she only takes one hit on this enemy phase, which she can take as long as I save a healer for her,

And thanks to a crit she doesn't even need that.

Once again the buff was enough that Fogado only needs

This one crit to kill

It is kind of impressive how much of a difference those stat buffs from TeeHee are making here

This one is particularly dicey, as I only kill

If I get a Dual Assist+ proc here, but with 2 in range that puts the kill at fairly close to 75% chance (its a tiny bit lower this time, but who is counting)

I then have Timerra Engage here to get in a bit more ranged chip, before cantering back

Into formation to Goddess Dance (after TeeHee gets the regular dance)

I sneak in a tiny bit of chip from Anna as well, but this is mostly just letting me canter her a little further ahead

This here is serving two purposes, first off hoping to get some Sandstorm proces for some real damage here (which she misses), but more importantly

Cantering into position to make the breaking of this healthbar a bit more reliable

Fogado can kill the one Timerra failed to Sandstorm

For a fantastic levelup on the guy

Timerra's Chain attack is doing double duty helping get both the kills on this most distant of archers I needed to kill

Thanks to how I cantered TeeHee, I can grab an Elthunder from the convoy for this kill here

And the guy is so happy to have a thunder tome in hand that he has to show off.

And while the numbers there were a bit tight, this gets me all the kills I need for the turn

So that Merrin can fog up in a way that keeps the rest of the enemies from reaching me. All that is left to do for the turn is to galaxy brain my way into killing off one of my units anyway.

And thanks to her criting, I have this healer left over thanks to her crit, I have just enough action to bungle everything up by changing Veyle's weapon over to the much heavier, but able to counter at 3 range Thoron. Literally doing nothing here would save Veyle

Worse yet I could have Chain guarded to save her if I insisted on getting that chip, but moronically thought she would be OK (not realizing the AS drop was as significant as it was), but insted go for this minor heal for some exp

Or heck, I could have used a different staff to save her instead

Worst of all, I am just sitting on a Seraph Robe in my convoy, that I planned on using on her (after that one shot issues from last map's dragons) which would have saved her, but I forgot about it in the mean time, until after starting this one (getting a stat booster turn 1 reminded me, but I figured it could wait til between maps)

...I feel so very, very stupid for this one, literally doing nothing with my last action would have saved her. I want to blame this on me rushing a bit to get a chapter out while preparing for a family reunion this weekend, but really it was more me trying to be more clever than I needed to be at the end of what was otherwise my best turn for like the last few maps.

I guess I should note that technically the story keeps her corpse around for a few story scenes, but for the gameplay, she is dead.

I am so discombobulated by such a stupid death after what felt like such an intense turn, that I miss the first image of Merrin chip

But I catch the rest of them...

In retrospect, this was a little bit of a mistake

As I miss the kill on one of them by 1 (and I could have used my instruct to get that kill), but that is enough chip to cap level, and a fantastic levelup at that.

Engaging Merrin so early is a bit risky, but I couldn't pass up the triple kill here (and the freezing effect on such a large group is nice as well)

I rarely find this super all that useful, and I wish I could have used this to get the triple kill below, but I think it works here.

I now start working on the rather tanky one with an extra health bar, with some Fogado chip here

And I procced enough Dual Assist+ hits that Bunet can then break that first health bar

I give my dance to Merrin here for two fold reason, not only does she claim this kill here, but it also spreads enough freeze to catch the last mobile enemy in the area.

Am I really abusing this guy having his 1 range equipped here to get in even more chip, and thanks to how many Dual Assist+ procs I got

I can try for the kill with Dual Assist+ procs to kill

But only the Chain Attack hits, so I try for a go for the Sandstorm proc kill before turn end, but the same thing that happened to Lindon happened here.

finally I had Anna get in a bit of free ranged chip on a loot carrier while she is separated from the group.

No enemy phase action for this turn

But I will note that the last chest is nabbed by enemy thieves, so I am just killing the loot off of them.

Speaking of which I let Rosado claim one of those cheat loots (forgetting about him capping level in the moment)

I have Framme go for the kill on that once powerful Hero (who is probably suppose to represent Astram) with an extra health bar

Timerra goes for a break on the last Hero, and gets the Sandstorm kill this time around.

I was hoping to feed this kill to Mauvier here

But Fogado got the crit kill instead.

I let Anna go for some more chip on that loot carrier from before (as she can canter away from those advancing on her rear)

And she lucks into breaking the first health bar with that crit.

Meanwhile I have Merrin head in the direction of Marth's crew to fog up their advance

With some folks ready to help out a little if need be. Also I will note that TeeHee has been danced to head north for reasons that will become apparent next turn...

And the only enemy phase action I see is from the murderous archer going for a free miss.

I open the turn by refiling TeeHee's engage so I have a Goddess dance if I need it.

Mauvier can avenge Veyle, but mostly thanks to most of the nearby enemies chasing after Anna

Now I have Framme Engage so she can one round the thief, and

Thanks to a dance she can kill the last of the looting thieves as well.

Next I have Rosado go for the reposition here so Fogado can

distract some of the foes chasing Anna (and hopefully lure them into a range I can hit them from across the wall here)

Because she is running away, and with Marth getting closer in (which his avoid ignoring super, I hold Merrin back for now.

Alas only two foes were close enough to be baited in by the doubles

But with Marth right on our tail, I open by using the last turn of Merrin's engage to freeze him and as many of his allies as I can.

So it is safer for me to punish the ones chasing Anna, with Lindon taking out the armored one

Classic Lindon, critting to avoid the counter

Fogado can kill the other that took the bait easily

I have Mauvier grab the kill on the injured healer to keep it from being more annoying

And it earns him an amazing little levelup as well.

And with Merrin's Engage about to run out, I reposition her further back

And I am mostly staying out of enemy range

But this double did its job a turn late, but a turn late is better than never

Although this is another of those tanky foes with an extra health bar, so it is going to take a bit to power through him

With Lindon breaking the first health bar

But Framme lucks into the early kill with a pair of Dual Assist+ procs.

And similarly Bunet gets a Dual Assist+ for the kill here after Engaging for arrow access; although I will note that the Wyverns are all void cursed, so this is just to clear out a bit of breathing room for our army.

Although I do make a bit of a bold play in

Dancing Merrin as close as I can to the Engage spot in the treasure room

No enemy phase this turn, but we have more reinforcements coming form our starting position.

Next turn I open by repositioning Merrin

So she can refill her Engage Gauge, and although she is too far away to dance

I can dance Rosado to reposition her closer to the action.

With all the three range gone, it is time fr Anna to strike back, with a Great Aether gambit here

But otherwise I am just pulling back, with one last double

That actually baited the absolute fool of a Marth into wasting his super (on the doubles last turn of existence too), so it should be a few turns before he can use it against us.

Meanwhile Anna takes a bit from this smash hit, which perfectly positions her

After a piddly hit from a nearby Wyvern as well

Into a Great Aether that wiped out a bunch of those nuisance Wyverns, and still gets a hard hit on the armored loot carrier as well.

But I open the turn by again repositioning Merrin closer to the action, before she gets the dance

And another reposition

So she can distract Marth's forces with some fog, which is should buy a bit of time

For Anna to deal with this loot carrying armor. Although I did this attack during all that positioning, and the jerk still has another health bar to get through

Although doing so as early in the turn was a minor mistake as it makes Marth dodgey enough that these attempt to get in the hit to break the chain guard

Which should damage the healer enough to keep it from protecting Marth again, but alas

I only managed to get in one random Dual Assist+ hit for some chip damage on him.

Alas we end up with a rather boring enemy phase

With all misses in this little fight

The armor (probably Draug) getting in some free damage on Anna

And some piddly damage from an armor in the fog to finish enemy phase off.

Anna should be able to win her duel against Draug(?, I mean it could be like Macellan who is recruit in this chapter) eventually

But this chip here capped her level, and it is a nice on for her.

On the other front Mauvier kills that barely chipped armor with magic

And I have TeeHee get some breaking chip, but really I have them do this

Merrin can get their personal skill buff to actually kill the healer this time, with the Engage active to freeze Marth right next to the guy.

Bunet then uses his last turn of arrow access to finish off this injured and broken foe following Marth.

For another great levelup.

While Marth is frozen with no 2 range, I go for a bit of free chip

And break the first health bar with a Dual Assist+ proc here

Seadall also gets a pointless levelup while dancing Lindon

So he can heal up Anna

As she is about

To take a free punch to the face as our only enemy phase action

And I let Bunet get the funniest kill on the guy

I do also freeze Marth here, as some of the reinforcements coming in are worth experience (not the Wyverns though), and I am going to drag this out a bit as I can

As a fair number of my troops can still get experience

And I think I can wipe them out, like Framme does this one

Although I do decide to group freeze some of those Void curse Wyverns coming in

Which does manage to cap out Lindon with the multistaff hit

And that just leaves two more I need to kill...or one more after this one,

And with TeeHee break chiping the la-

Or they can get the crit ki-

...Alright the double crit was just plain overkill

With a dance I guess Merrin can fog up close to the last group of enemies

And Timerra gets some chip on Marth, after TeeHee stole her kill.

And we just have some fog enemy phase

Although one of them is a mystic and has higher than a 0 hit. It doesn't, and just dies, but that is better odds than the rest.

As she gets a nice crit kill on the other one

Although this is the start of the last turn, so I break Marth's health bar while getting the battle convo

I would say I was faring well...if your troops hadn't just killed my little sister.

And that answer is simply

die

Although my plan is to use my Goddess Dance to kill the remaining troops that grant experience

And I can grab a little chip exp while cantering into position

And some of my uncapped troops are weak enough to go for some chip on Marth

And I even account for for two potential Dual Assist+ procs on this hit, but she still has a tiny crit chance, which would be unf-

Oh right, forgot about Sandstorm, should have just walked her into position

Well RIP that plan to squeeze in a few more kills.

Congratulations Marth, now you have also killed her.

For the love of Naga stop rubbing it in

Yes, I see that Tiki and TeeHee are as similar as siblings

Just like a little sister...who is linked to her...and just died because of your troops...

NOOO, why are the themes of Marth's game so focused on making me feel guilty about killing off the unit literally linked to Tiki..

Sorry about that one Shrimpy, I just hope Tiki isn't a major part of your endgame plans... Also I will be busy this weekend, so I will try to get the other maps done some time next week, so we can finish it on the following weekend.

Also I have no idea how I am going to replace Veyle yet, but the two ideas I have are to either reclass Anna to Sage and deploy Saphir replace Anna's bow access, or bring Citrinne out of retirement and just be extra gentle with her due to much lower level.

[Codename Shrimp]

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Ouchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I just hope Tiki isn't a major part of your endgame plans

she's isn't a major part...she was pretty much the cornerstone of most of my plans for endgame xD

Then again, i shouldn't complain after i killed off so many units for you...but did it really have to be Tiki

 

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Also I will be busy this weeken

Have fun 😄

as fun as family reunions can be anyway.

 

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I have are to either reclass Anna to Sage

looking at your Anna's stats i honestly wouldn't recommend that. She will have like...24 Mag after reclass, right? But will lose BLD, and no Tome is as strong as the Radiant Bow, especially regarding Fly effectiveness. You could try with merged Excalibur, but i don't remember if it's enough to one-shot on hard (defo not on Lunatic)

Edited June 21 by Codename Shrimp

[Venger_06]

ALPHA SAPPHIRE - ELITE FOUR PART 2

Shrimpy's favorite place

Careful what you wish for

The battle was simple and at the same time the most difficult of this E4. I started with Peter, who almost 1h k-o her Glalie with Iron Head (it set up Light Screen). Two turns passed with her using Full Restores and me attacking until I defeated it. Then she sent her Walrein. Anticipating a Surf, I sent Marcus to tank it and then Magnus. His Thunderbolt put the Walrein yellow and the Light Screen ran out, so I used Volt Switch to defeat it and send Peter back into the fray. Glacia's Froslass used Hail, but Peter's Iron Head never missed he swept her remaining pokemon

Thanks. I know we meme Ice types, but I think they were effective this time

Probably the coolest entry. Shame the battle doesn't live up to these standards

Alice took care of the Altaria and the Kingdra with Dragon Claw. When Drake sent his Salamence, I switched to Exia to tank a Dragon rush and Draining Kiss'ed the rest of his team to oblivion.

Checkpoint reached.

[Eltosian Kadath]

 

On 6/21/2024 at 11:38 AM, Codename Shrimp said:

looking at your Anna's stats i honestly wouldn't recommend that. She will have like...24 Mag after reclass, right? But will lose BLD, and no Tome is as strong as the Radiant Bow, especially regarding Fly effectiveness. You could try with merged Excalibur, but i don't remember if it's enough to one-shot on hard (defo not on Lunatic)

I end up taking your advice, but my next best option for a magic using unit is not great...

well I guess you will see how bottom of the barrel I have to scrap for a "replacement"

 

On 6/23/2024 at 10:35 AM, Venger_06 said:

 

The battle was simple and at the same time the most difficult of this E4.

If there is one member of the Hoenn Elite Four where things can go wrong, its Glacia. Sounds like you didn't have any atrocious luck like a freeze, or Froslass snowcloak dodge so it all went OK

 

Alright, time for the last paralogue

Spoiler

But first we have a fair bit of prep work to get through

With three units needing their levels reset, but the last of them gives me a bit of a conundrum, as one of the options I was thinking about for replacing Veyle was to have Anna switch over to a sage, and have Saphir slot in as warrior, but I ended up listening to shrimpy, as Saphir wouldn't be able to replace the potential for magic damage Anna already has, so I would be losing magic damage potential anyway with that option

So I just reset Anna's level, but that leads to a bit of an awkward issue of just how far behind the level curve my next best living magic unit is, as a majority of them are already dead, the only remaining ones being Clanne whom is too low level to even promote, Celine who is just barely able to promote, and my best pick the prepromoted

Whom I immediate reclass to Sage for slightly better magic combat stats, but as should be obvious by the stats there, it is going to take a LOT of work to get anything of value out of this. Fortunately I tend to underuse forging, so I have plenty of resources

To get him a really souped-up weapon to compensate for terrible stats

I also burn through almost all of my SP books (including the expert book being used in this image), to get the SP for two skills on him

Of the standard Canter+, and more uniquely

Holdout to prevent him from dying too easily in spite of his low level

I plan on letting him use Celica so I power level that up almost to the top to make sure it helps him as much as she can

And I put the ring on him a little early, just to get a bit of a look at what I have made

I only give Timerra an arena levelup this time, as she was the only one close enough to get one in a single battle (judging by my eye at least, as Arena experience has a lot of variance to it), and I give the other arena battles to Pandreo for a tiny leg up, and seeing him in battle against my allies (and the Emblems) is making me really worry about him in this upcoming battle...

As we are taking on TeeHee's paralogue this time, while grinding Pandreo up. It is an interesting choice to have this not actually be the Lythos Castle Garden, and instead have it be like all the other paralogues, and simply being a place reminiscent of somewhere we have already been before.

Although the place it resembles actually existing in this world makes it such an odd notion.

As there are people beyond simply the Emblem that recognize its eerie resemblance. Actually, I wish Micaiah's paralogue had Ike talk about the similarity of the place as well, this moment just emphasized to me that it was a missed opportunity, especially with this basically confirming that the similarity isn't simply in the Emblem's perception of the place.

It is a bit odd to have nostalgia for something so recent, but I guess thanks to amnesia, this is a memory from a comparatively significant amount of remembered time.

I am tempted to joke a little about lazy reused maps, but the two have such a different feel to them in practice that I wouldn't have really notices the similarity without them pointing it out.

Huh, I guess that is why we are in a simulacra of the place, although I think it would have been a bit more interesting if the two did coexist. Although I guess these places of paralogues are supposed to be places of memory...

Time to get our engagement ring, and I have a bit of a plan for it 😛 

Poor TeeHee doesn't remember what the paralogue and these memory places are about. Its place to strengthen your bonds with emblems made a bit odd by you being the emblem whose bond is being strengthened

And we meet what might be the only Corrupted TeeHee ever created in spite of their fell dragon heritage

Really it belongs to you...but it is time for a bit more preps

And this ring change here indicates that Bunet is on the bench today

And our newbie's sis gets her Marth ring back

And with our deployment limit at exactly our ring count, I decide to give my dance the ring most useful to him, which leads to a bit of an odd ring change

As I am leaving Timerra behind, so Rosado borrows her ring (after lending Sigurd to Seadall)

And I go back to the Somniel to get Rosado's level with Lief up to something reasonable for this map, and I pump Panette's Marth bond level up to the same (but kind of messed up the image of it).

I also decide to burn through some of the tonics I have lying around in my convoy, an HP, Speed, Defense and Magic tonic in particular, to try and help the guy out.

With this as our deployment this time around, but we are split into two groups on the start of this map, and I carefully arrange my units this time

As I have a bit of a plan for my opening here

As I open by repositioning Merrin (while Alfred also positioned for a little enemy phase action here)

And immediately engage to freeze the fleeing boss here, that way I don't have to chase it.

Similarly I reposition Pandreo on the other end

So he can get the exp from breaking the first health bar

For a fine enough levelup...although he is going to need a lot of work to catch up to the rest of us.

And I have a third reposition on Anna, so I can

Heavily chip the boss again

For Pandreo to break his second health bar as well

Not the right timing for that one, but the way I plan on feeding him, I doubt any of his crits would matter this map. Although I am very intentionally leaving the boss alive this turn, that way I can whittle down the enemies that start on this map, before the game reveals the gimmick of this map

And I have Framme chain guard our TeeHee, so they can bait in a few foes on the flank

That way I am baiting the flanks where I want with a tiny bit of enemy phase action

TeeHee is tragically shy of the kill on their enemy phase attack, even with the crit here

And Alfred's chip isn't the highest either, but we have a very target right environment for player phase.

And I open with my murder queen Framme one rounding one of the Axes in the center

And she crits to deny the counter. That is out murder queen for you.

I kind of wish I equipped Alfred with a slightly stronger weapon for that enemy phase, but a dual assist+ proc lets Panette get the kill in spite of that minor error.

With Lindon finishing off this flank

Merrin is going for some chip on the foes pushing in the center

And she crits for the kill, which wasn't quite what I was planning, but I wont look a gift crit in the mouth.

Anna gets in some longbow chip, setting up the kill here, but before I go for it

I have the other flank to deal with, as Rosado finishes off the chipped one

With TeeHee going for the safe ranged chip on the next one, which is enough

For Fogado to finish it off.

🙄 showoff

Now Pandreo can finish off the foe Anna prepared for him

For another levelup, and thank goodness he is finally getting some speed.

I then have Alfred chip down the boss, and everything is going according to plan, so I can

Have Mauvier get some healing exp with his turn, before

I let Pandreo kill off all of the boss's health bars thanks to a dance, and although he is just shy of another levelup

But that is us theoretically completing the objective of this map, and I don't even get to canter Pandreo before

And entire maps worth of reinforcements spawn in

And the map objective changes to Rout. First time I did this map, I first turned the boss, and with so any of the starting enemies still on the map, and most of my troops still close enough to my starting position for some of those reinforcements just being right in my face that it made this map dangerously intense, but having consolidated my troops a bit, and weeded out a few foes gives a little breathing room

But at least we get a free extra player phase with the map objective change, to compensate for the surprise

And I open that turn with Pandreo getting his first one round on an armor

To get the levelup he just missed on the boss, although going back to another no speed levelup is a little frustrating

And I have TeeHee get some free chip on the last of the starting foes still threatening us in the center

So Mauvier can finish it.

On the west flank, I let Fogado get the effective longbow kill on a flier, while cantering back to the dodgey terrain behind him, taking advantage of Sniper being a covert class for extra safety.

Pandreo can one round another armor for a kill

For a fantastic levelup on the newbie

I also heal up Framme for some potential future Chain Guards

Although I end off the turn with a big fog up in the east

And all of my enemy phase is taking advantage of the covert type for extra dodging

And Merrin gets in some nice chip on one of the enemy thieves coming in

With her crit killing another

With some nice chip on this side's flier.

While Fogado was safely baiting in a very different type of enemy (although can't counter in this case).

Although our foes are really pressing in on the center this turn, so I open with Pandreo one rounding another armor, although in retrospect I should have started with a kill on the other armor there, but I will start getting into why in a bit

As I have Merrin use her last turn of engage to kill the flier, and freeze the surviving thief, while cantering back as far as she can, and it is a bit of an awkward space

As I am starting to think I would like to Goddess dance her, and that means finding a way of effectively using all the units blocking off the other spaces for it, so I start by having Alfred passby the pillar terrain to kill one of the mages

Moving him gave me the room for Seadall to dance up my special grinding target, and still canter into Goddess dance position

Although I decide to give my brain a bit of a break by looking at other parts of the map, with Fogado killing the foolish non-Mystic magic unit that attacked him, and cantering back to the terrain.

Funnily Rosado failing the kill here actually fixes a bit of a conundrum I was having.

As Lindon can now get out of the way with a useful action. Admitted my plan was to have him heal Rosado instead, but this is a bit better

Now Pandreo can kill the last of those armors, while positioning for the goddess dance

And I will gladly take more speed on him.

Mauvier then goes for a little bit of chip on the swordie, and he manages to get enough Dual Assist+ procs

That Panette can go for the chip on the new boss instead

As the plan was for Anna to get this longbow kill here, to then canter back

To finish off our Goddess Dance formation

For a fantastic levelup on TeeHee

And I have Pandreo break anothe boss health bar, although he does get enough exp for another levelup

And while I would love to use another dance on Pandreo, I have a lot more work to squeeze out of Merrin's last turn of Engage, as she freezes the boss, and somehow misses the health bar break here in spite of all my Dual Assist+ potential, but I digress.

As she needs my last dance to freeze this little cluster in the back of my enemy formation

And that was enough chip to let Anna longbow kill that enemy back there

With Framme breaking the healthbar Merrin failed to before to end off the turn

It took a bit of work, but my army is in a fairly safe position at this point

Although Fogado is baiting in a fair bit of enemies, although the thieves here are the only ones that can hit

And this son of a Sombron sucker actually manages to hit that 4%...

Although the other foe can't hit

And after the Speedtaker from this kill

And a speed levelup, he is now dodgey enough that even the thieves can't hit, although he is kind of trapped here now.

Back with my main forces, Alfred goes for some breaking chip on the boss in preparation for feeding to you know who

But first I have some enemies to clear out in the south, and the Quadruple hit here is enough for this kill on the most difficult to reach of my foes this turn

Lindon can kill the one I froze last turn

With a crit to show off

And I let Panette get in some chip down in the southeast

Before finally getting around to feeding Pandreo the boss kill

For his worst level yet

And before I forget, I have Framme go for the kill I need in the south west

For a nice enough levelup on Madam Murder here

Before Pandreo claims the other kill I setup for him

For another terrible levelup. Shape up man, you still have a long way to go just to catch up to the rest of our army.

This is a bit of a sign that I am tired of this map already

As it is just buffing up a big fog up for enemy phase.

And we have another enemy phase of all perfectly dodging Covert units

Merrin didn't even need the instruct to enemy phase kill all the ones going after her.

Although two of them are avoiding any counter with one range, which is actually a tactical blunder on the enemy's part, as both of these have 1-2 range, and they are blocking a 1 range Backup unit from using chain attacks to kill Fogado.

As with some Wolves piling in on him as well, they might eventually get in the 8 chain attack hits in needed to finish him off before he wipes the group out if I do nothing to help Fogado out.

Speaking of which, lets try and prevent that possibility, although I think the AI is too single minded to figure that tactic out.

Shrug, this instruct might bee more relevant this time around

Ah the first attack from Pandreo that isn't a kill, as it is difficult to reach these horse archers here

Alfred can kill the horse mage

With a timely crit to avoid the counter

And the dance lets Pandreo kill the one he chipped, past Pandreo feeding current Pandreo a kill

And I am starting to deploy my troops in the direction of the remaining eastern foes

With the only enemy phase action being Fogado's rounds of dodging

And the hunting of those wolves. I hope you all don't mind me abbreviating that with just this pair of images here.

Onto player phase Alfred goes for some heavy effective damage chip on a wolf, and procs enough Dual Assist+ for the kill instead.

For a nice enough physical levelup on the little prince.

Anna then goes for some safe 3 range chip on the other wolf, which should be just enough chip

That Pandreo can try for the double kill again, managing to get the Dual Assist+ so I don't have to worry about that 66 there

...Shape up man, I need another magic unit here, and these trash levelups are getting annoying.

Holy Stance and Hold Out make for a funny combo, but instead of having to rely on that he gets an unreasonable amount of Dual Assist+ procs (having a hero makes them rather potent) to kill without taking damage.

And I am trying to bait in that funny little formation in the center the-

Oops, I kind of forgot about Fogado for this turn. Fortunately the enemy is still mindlessly going for the free whiffs on him

Also those enemies in the center are too focused on their fansy formation to go for an attack, so I break 2 chain guards with this attack here

Lindon sets up this turns

First kill for Pandreo

And we finally have another good levelup on him

Panette kills the only remaining chain guarder, and

And her brother surprises me by being able to kill one of the enemy punches without any more help

With Framme showing them how a real Martial Master fights by killing the last of them

You don't need to teach them all of your tricks there 😛 

And before I forget again, Fogado kill the last foes he can reach with a bow

And those two are the only ones remaining, and with nothins happening on enemy phase I will jump straight to

Pandreo trying to get fansy with the finishing of this map, getting the free 3 range chip here

Which lets him go for the perfectly reliable super kill

And while I will let Pandreo finish the chapter, I let Lindon go for the Great Sacrifice exp here

As no matter what holdout will keep Pandreo safe

And his resistance is high enough that even a crit wouldn't have put him at risk anyway

...

SIGH

...

I still let him finish things on player phase (after a little healing exp acquired)

I can see why you would think he was the MVP game, but really he was just an extreme focus of grinding, and he is still far behind the level curve...

It doesn't entirely, but it is the blue half of your weird double banded birthday Emblem ring.

Don't be falling in love with a ring now TeeHee.

Holds the power of Lumera, did she poor a bunch of her life into this ring like she did into TeeHee?

Ah yes the engagement ring if you will 😛 

It is funny how they circle back to what all of the paralogues have been about, strengthening a bond with an Emblem, only thanks to TeeHee's weird flesh body, they need another physical ring to facilitate that.

There is something kind of cute about TeeHee getting her mother's engagement ring to use as theirs.

Although there is a bit of a tragic history to the thing, as she was a bit of a widower

...sigh, or they try to be ambiguous with the Emblems that lived long enough to see who she might have given the ring to not knowing for unknown reasons.

Awww, that is such a cute little rejoinder

I have thought about it, and I am giving to the person I wanted to on my last ironman, but whom died before I could get the ring

And I am letting the cutest of couples wear the same outfit for their little engagement meeting

The cutest in the army.

Glad we are all on the same page here

It is kind of funny that Rosado steals a march on us and takes the lead in gift giving

Although with how short this Alear's hair is, it makes me think this line was more written for the female version.

Fair folk, as in the fae?

Awww, Rosado is just being too cute in this scene, using it to prop up TeeHee's confidence in themselves and their cuteness, outside of Rosado.

And really taking the lead here, when we started this scene by trying to give him the engagement ring.

just too cute.

I do find Rosado's reaction particularly funny, as TeeHee is definitely following up on the way Rosado presents thing from their supports, but Rosado is having a far more natural reaction to such a ridiculous blending of IRL and social media

But TeeHee finally claims the initiative by reciprocating their feelings

Although they do play the cowards gambit a little with friend there. I guess it is an engagement ring, not a wedding ring.

TeeHee finally manages to give Rosado the ring

They really just go all in on the social media lingo there, but the sentiment is sweet enough that I don't mind all that much. There is something charming in a slightly corny way about TeeHee sticking to that social media mixing, a way of making something that was Rosado's thing into both of their thing.

And with that their feelings are made manifest in a sense as eternal as the ring implies.

The confidence in Rosado's eyes is a strong image there, but it is a bit of a shame that the text covers.

The gleam of the ring this whole scene centers on. I am glad they had the clean shot of it too.

Next time I will reach the checkpoint, in the meantime take care everyone.

[Venger_06]

On 6/21/2024 at 9:29 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Just out of curiosity, do you have a source for that girl being an optimization issue and not something intentional? Or is this just a dig on how Bethesda buggy Scarlet and  Violet are.

Both, tbh

Well, considering the fact that unlike other ghost appearances like in B2W2 there is no payoff, and as we saw in Sun/Moon they use multiple models for the same character, I'm inclined to think it was just a mistake on Gamefreak's part.

Yes, I forgot to reply to this before

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

If there is one member of the Hoenn Elite Four where things can go wrong, its Glacia. Sounds like you didn't have any atrocious luck like a freeze, or Froslass snowcloak dodge so it all went OK

One of the few fights that are harder in the remakes

[Codename Shrimp]

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

f there is one member of the Hoenn Elite Four where things can go wrong, its Glacia.

I had so much trouble with her in OG in my kiddie days. Kept getting sheer cold'd for days lol

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Atleast he can staff bot!

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

...

SIGH

When powerlvl'ing RNG wants to screw you over

[Eltosian Kadath]

On 6/26/2024 at 1:13 PM, Codename Shrimp said:

I had so much trouble with her in OG in my kiddie days. Kept getting sheer cold'd for days lol

Honestly, I almost mentioned Sheer Cold (as she has it in the remake too), but he is already high enough level that Sheer Cold doesn't work anymore

 

Time to finish off the Penultimate chapter of the game, and reach that last checkpoint before the end.

Spoiler

There are still a fair number of preps to get through for this map

But this one surprised me a little, I was expecting it to take all of my arena uses to finish off this last level here, but he rolled a battle against Framme, and the arena must not take Emblems into account because he tanked her hits well enough to actually win it and cap in the single battle, which means I can get a bit more safe experience on Pandreo and

Reset the master chef's levels

What gorgeous, and ominous scenery for our penultimate battle.

No can do Veyle, you are already dead in the gameplay at this point, even if your corpse can say a few words in the story here.

Eh, we have faced worse already.

If you flew on your wings, then why are you in human form? Really her not being a dragon during this fight, especially when the map attack is basically a breath weapon is the greatest disappointment of this chapter.

It is funny that she changes monikers there, and they are the middle monikers TeeHee had.

The first hints that she is uncomfortably Yandere for TeeHee in her corrupted state here.

To further emphasize how she isn't a defect, it took Sombron getting "infinite power" to make Corrupted comparable to those Veyle made.

Alas TeeHee has wasted all of our revives, so we have no way of recruiting mommy Lumera here

What an odd statement there, as not only did TeeHee's time as a Corrupted make it something questionable to need saving from, but the miracle as something that was only known about after it was used makes it odd as even an option for saving someone from being Corrupted.

It is funny how she makes it sound like she will just let us break the shard here.

You really should bite with a cool dragon form in this coming fight...

While TeeHee seems a bit conflicted here, it all comes to nothing.

Bah, pretty boy princes killing god in a JRPG is beyond cliche; you will be fine kid.

What an odd thing to say, when the most religious character I have used is the Solmic Pandreo.

Oh boy, its like Thracia endgame all over again 😛 

Although really its just a dead woman locking us out so she is the only casualty I have in this checkpoint.

It is sweet of Veyle to try and save TeeHee from the cruelty of matricide.

Trying to scare her away by making it matricide for her too huh. Honestly this desperate move is a bit sad.

Although that not needing another mother bit is kind of cruel to any step-mothers you might end up having there. Then again I think she is an adult at this point, but it is hard to tell with these weird dragon ages.

It is nice to hear a little more about Veyle's mother. It makes you wonder why she got together with Sombron, but I guess that could just be the rosy eyes of a child speaking

Huh, if she lived long enough for Sombron to be sealed, it makes me really wonder what killed her. If she did sacrifice herself to create Veyle's time crystal like I suspect, what drove her to such desperate measures.

She wasn't really good at following that advice, as we see with the good Veyle's behavior with the hounds in the mid game.

Really trying to guilt trip the girl into abandoning her purpose again with that line.

She is really glossing over how her own power being overtaxed is what was really responsible for her death.

Corrupted Lumera is starting to lean into that Yandere side of her here

Poor Veyle, trying to take responsibility for something someone else did with her body.

Alas Veyle's assassination attempt fails

As Sombron has apparently powered her corpse up for this fight. Really he should have made her strong enough to take on dragon form, but I may be starting to beat a dead horse with that comment.

And now she has crossed into the murderously Yandere threshold

Don't worry Lumera, Marth's troops saved you the trouble there. Although I guess we still have to make you double dead here.

And this line really gives the game away that her mind isn't her own, as only Sombron and his hounds knew her as a defect.

TeeHee finally manages to Koolaide man through the door, so we are about ready to have a battle here

But first we have some Yandere Mommy talk to get through

...Ugh this gives some uncomfortable vibes of Sombron defiling her or something.

She has even given the game away to TeeHee with that errant -sama (I am kind of assuming that is what is going on here in the Japaness). Although the defect comment was a bit more revealing, as without it I could see me interpreting this as Sombron having brought out Lumera's worst feature, and not a seperate entity like evil Veyle

She was not the greatest at ironmanning...although jokes aside the death of friends and family is a truly desolate feeling.

The weight of the world crushing down upon her like Atlas.

...That is an uncomfortable way to describe someone you adopt.

And to think we got the chance to see their C support in the past 😛 

And she is getting into some real creepy stay with levels of Yandere there.

Seems TeeHee is testing what I concluded before about her mind

And reaches the same basic conclusion I did

Time to get rid of the sickly thing possessing a facsimile of your mother's corpse

That comes across as a might suicidal given the context.

She has now crossed over the dangerously murderous Yandere event horizon...

No one should have to carry the creepy burden of a Yandere mother. Plus we are about to carry that burden together, with no back having to carry the burden alone

Free her soul is an interesting way of putting it, and says a lot about what the Corrupted are made of. But I have spend far too long rambling about story, its time to get to the map, and due to deployment quirks I have a lot of rings to fix up

As it is literally just getting the rings back into the hands I want them in for these last two maps

I do also buy a few tonics to give Pandreo the same drug boost he had last chapter (HP, Mag, Spd, Def). But I also have some real stat boosters to get to, and I have put off using a lot of these for far too long

With Seadall ready to put the boots to use in dancing

Alfred will never quite reach the defense thresholds Louis could, but this Dracoshield can get him a bit closer

Rosado was tied for Timerra at the worst luck at the moment, and with her personal boosting crit avoid anyway this made the most sense

With Veyle dead I wasn't quite sure where to put this, but I figured making my gameover unit even tankier is never a bad option

I thought long and hard about whether I should give this stat booster to Pandreo, and ended up deciding against it due to him still being too far behind, so Lindon made the most sense otherwise for the Spirit Dust as my other combat mage

He also had a lot lower dex than I was expecting, so he gets a Secret Book as well

In retrospect it might have been better to pump both of these into Panette, but my two horses here were both at that middling speed where this might push them into an important threshold

The game forces us to have a split army for this one, and I think I made a solid split here, with a fair split between magic potential, two healers a piece, bow access on both, and even splitting my tanks (although Merrin functions far better in that role than Alfred). Its impossible to get them perfectly balanced due to only having one dancer, but I think this a solid split

I open the map by fogging up, and getting a better sense of the space I have to work with here

Although the main action here is attacking enemies through the walls, with Anna heavily chipping this horse mage here

For Pandreo to finish it off

For a quite solid levelup on the guy.

Although thanks to a reposition here I manage

To arrange a bit of chip combat without a wall between us, with Alfred cantering back to get a little enemy phase action on the two swordies

On the other end I get in some 3 ranged chip on this foolish bowman that starts equipped with a silver bow instead of its longbow

And Fogado pulls twice his weight with that crit kill there, as it basically saves me a dance

Lindon can then sneak in a bit of three range chip on one that is much closer to the other front, but I have used enough range options over there

That I need to Engage Framme to get her the 2 range access needed to finish it.

Although I probably should have just used my dance to finish it from 3 range. Then again getting in some free chip on a wolf isn't that bad to end off the turn.

And I am ending off the turn with my main tanks getting in there bit of enemy phase here

Also there are foes using Fracture staves in spite of the AI having no idea how to use them. I wont bother showing them again unless they accidentally end up relevant somehow.

Merrin does Merrin things

One is even crafty enough to avoid the counter with three range

And Alfred is doing better as a defensive tank than I was expecting getting to 0 damage here

Although this is a nice reminder that I should work on getting him Pair Up, although I may have burned through too many skill books on Pandreo to pull it off before the final map.

This may be one of my best uses of Blazing Lion, which I find to be one of the most niche supers.

And the double kill gets him a levelup that at least gets some magic.

Lindon then one rounds a full health axer in the flames

Which he roasts a bit too well with this crit here (you want them medium rare not well done Lindon)

TeeHee finishes off the one that survive the main lion hit

And Fogado finishes off the one he longbow chipped along the way

But the last one over here is hard to reach, and even with flight and effective damage, Rosado is just shy of this last kill here

So I need to dance Lindon to reach the last hit there

On the other front, I open with Bunet finishing off the most chipped foe

And I have Timerra go for the ranged break on the other

And she gets a Sandstorm proc for the kill

Due to some bad positioning, and him being unable to double this foe, I have him go for the 3 range chip as he clears the way for others to finish him, and in what will become a bit of a theme for this end of the map, I procced unexpectedly many Dual Assist+ so

It is chipped enough that Anna can kill from 3 range, letting her canter just that little bit further ahead,

And we have wiped out all the nearby threats, with the only thing happening on enemy phase

Is Alfred tanking a longbow hit.

Onto the next turn, and am being a bit careful about the staff bot ahead, but Lindon can still one round the axeman advancing on us

And he shows off with a crit

And he earns an extremely underwhelming levelup from it

Rosado manages to charge in with an easy effective damage kill on the 3 range foe

Although the last of this group needs a bit of chipping first

Before letting Rosado finish it off with my dance

While on the other front, the force charging in a bit overwhelming, so I pull back and try to Great Aether as many as I can

And Alfred is the only one in enemy phase by the end of this

And this is the turn Lumera finally brings out the map attack, and it is an annoyance every time it happens

As it leads to you avoid these weird attacking ranges, and avoiding it just halts our momentum wherever it strikes. Also the "behind the pillar" areas always look incredibly arbitrary in these grid based maps.

Meanwhile Alfred is doing fine...

Until they start setting up chain attacks, because it makes me feel a little uncomfrotable, but

They didn't really set their positioning up right to take advantage of the chain attacks, and with Alfred not making space by being able to enemy phase any of these guys, they can't get in enough attacks to make it all that dangerous. That also means I don't get in as much Great Aether damage as I would like, but it will have to do, as I can't really repeat this move

And it helps that Pandreo can take down two by Engaging to Echo

Although he needs the Holy Stance damage to do it...if not for him proccing enough Dual Assist+ to not need it.

And it earns him a respectable enough levelup from the double kill

I try for a crit kill here, but miss it

But easily get enough chip that Timerra can finish it off

Framme can one round a lancer here, although the accuracy is a bit questionable thanks to the pillar, but she only misses one so it ends up just fine...although there were 3 Dual Assist+ misses which made me sweat a little.

Alfred can then sneak in to effective damage kill the one furthest back

Which just leaves one that I have just enough actions to chip here with Bunet

Before Anna finshes it off.

And underwhelming levelups seems to be a bit of a trend here.

Now for the far more awkward front, but I can open it by killing one of the flanking axers to the staff bot

Merrin can kill the staff before it can cause any real trouble

For one of the better levelups we have gotten this map

To get the kills I need here without taking a dragon hit, I need to drop an Obstruct here, but if the map attack can break the ice, this might be a bit of a waste, and even in that worst case scenario I should be able to take the one hit anyway

And I make things easy on me by using my dance to get the exact same one shot I did to start this front

But Mauvier has to spice things up with the critical kill

Sorry for the dutch angle, but due to how the map attack is contorting my army I needed it to show my whole army in a single shot

And the map attack didn't break the ice, so the Wyrm has to do it personally.

Onto player phase I reposition to get Panette close enough

To try for the kill on this front's disruptive staff user, but she misses the kill

And the only other thing that can reach is the Warp Ragnarok to finish it off, and thankfully I can still canter out of Wyrm range after that hit.

Meanwhile I have the first of these obnoxious double health bar Wyrms to get through, and I open with an Astra Storm for chip, so

I don't have to take a counter for the first health break, and I need to Engage Rosado to get close enough with a weapon that can avoid that counter. Really it is hard to reach this thing

But Mauvier is close enough to get some heavy chip in on its last health bar

And he manages the crit kill to avoid even the counter

And we are avoiding all relevant enemy phase for now

So of course the map has to spawn in a bunch of reinforcements to distract us.

So Rosado uses the active Sigurd engage to charge in and kill the most distant one on the western front thanks to the momentum boost.

Lindon can manage the kill on the mage easily enough, which just leaves the thief

And I get in some heavy chip with my own thief

And I finish him with Mauvier, while also

Cantering over to refill his Engage Gauge

And Fogado can sneak in a little bit of 3 range chip on the next room

But a lucky crit here means

I can dance to get the kill

The other front has the extra issue of me having to deal with a Wyrm here as well, but thankfully Panette can break one with a super

For a great little levelup here

I can then fracture it so

I don't have to take a counter when I kill the thing.

Although we still have the reinforcements to deal with as well, and unfortunately these ones had the sense to equip their 3 range weapon, so Anna takes a heavy hit sneaking this kill here.

And I am preparing a little bit of enemy phase here

With TeeHee luring in this armor to the door

And Alfred is luring in one of the reinforcements I left alive in the east

But now we have the uncomfortable position of this enemy thief looking ready to open a door before I want to, with the map attack making it even more difficult to deal with him.

But I open with Pandreo killing that chipped reinforcement from before

But I am going to need to burn a rescue staff to deal with that thief while avoiding the map attack

And that is a bit frustrating that she is just shy of the kill, but

She gets the Sandstorm proc on the last hit, so I don't need to leave someone in map attack range to get the kill.

On the other front, TeeHee has to go for the chip that our foes healed up on enemy phase

Although Mauvier almost can kill it on his own

And I will gladly take that levelup on Mauvier

But things are going well enough on this front that I open the door with my own thief

And I use that opportunity to sneak in enough chip here

For Rosado to kill that swordie

For a passable enough levelup

And I can fog up to cover my troops very safely

And the other front is cowering in the little space available to avoid the map attack

Oh wow, the fracture staff use almost mat-

Hah, we have gotten into range of a second one, which actually managed to hit, so we have the first relevant Fracture use of the map

So she can't get in any chip here. I am so proud of the little AI at the moment

But we are now on a bit of a timer, as infinite reinforcements are now coming from our starting position, with Void Curse to keep us from sitting here and grinding

So it is time to break down the other door, which if Panette could have reached one range she could do in a single hit

Framme refills her Engage while we are here

And Pandreo manages a terrible levelup from healing up Anna

With Timerra breaking the rest of the door

Our fronts are almost combined at this point, and thanks to that magic levelup before Mauvier can now one round the armors

TeeHee can manage a ranged chip break, but I have another enemy to deal with before finishing this one off

With Fogado chipping up this swordie here

With Lindon finishing it off

And Lindon continues his habit of overkill crits with this one

With Rosado finishing off that chipped axer

And ending things off with Merrin covering us with the fog

And the Fracture use almost mattered again

but those thieves that spawned in are after the loot not the kills. Also Anna misses the main hit here

But she got a Dual Assist+ proc, and can apply her own Chain Attack, so Pandreo gets the kill here

I also refill a few Engages before we move forward

Then I reposition Timerra

So she can try for the sandstorm kill, but she doesn't even manage to hit the two 94s...

So Mauvier finishes off the job Timerra started.

Eh, it was a killer weapon, the overkill crit isn't all that surprising

And I finally have the time to kill off this mostly useless immobile fracture staff carrier

And we are getting close to breaking into the final room, which is an odd immobile defesive formation, that I have to be a little careful about thanks to an entrap staff right next to the boss (and two Wyrms...)

...sight, now I not only have reinforcements spawning at the bottom of this room, but out momentum is utterly stalled by a breath weapon in our literal face here.

And with our momentum slowed, I need to take these void cursed guys down instead of just outrunning them.

Speaking of which, there is one dead. Also fun fact, they still refill Engage Gauge in spite of void curse.

Anna pops another one of these obnoxious 3 range mages

And Fogado keeps me from wasting more of my time on these pointless enemies

With a critical kill

What a waste of a turn thanks to that map attack

And I open next turn with Mauvier one rounding an armor that I can then canter past a bit

But unfortunately I am going to have to deal with this trash for another turn, as I don't think I can break through enough space to safely advance everyon ahead of these

I then have Alfred Engage to hit this thing with a 2 range weapon strong enough to one shot the 3 range mage (and canter over next to Mauvier)

Similarly enough I have Rosado one shot the other 3 range mage, but I don't have the space to canter forward so I pull back there instead.

And I end up positioning TeeHee so Anna can one round the armor in the center

With a lucky crit to avoid the counter hit

I do also start showing off a strat that is going to dominate this stretch of the battlefield for a bit, fogging up to distract our pursuers, although the fact that between 1/2 to 1/3 of our pursuers are fliers, that isn't a perfect solution

I end up spending a lot of time healing my army up, but end things off with a bit of chip here

Our army is about ready to break through this final room, but we are still clustering on the threshold here

Merrin has some enemy phase action here, but I wont be repeatably showing these enemy phase attacks here for future turns, just the first instance of each individual enemy attack on her so you have an idea of the pace here.

I open the next turn by breaking a hole into the west of this little enemy formation

The speed is nice

Panette then kills the chipped one to avoid damage on her

So she can give her double chain attack to get this kill here

And he makes that little detail work kind of pointless with a critical here

But I am rather happy with the strength gain here

And with that all that is left is the boss's nasty little formation, and the hoard of void cursed behind us.

But I do have to reposition Rosado our of enemy range after that canter

And while Alfred is still Engaged and taking half damage from the otherwise irreducible damage of the Wyrms I go for some heavy chip here

And the beloved little prince crits to break a health bar, and avoid a counter hit

Although him capping level is a little awkward as I would love him to do that again next turn.

I also end up using my dance for the turn to open this chest here

I am pulling back a little with Merrin to make sure she get some chip in on the flier, to hopefully delay them a bit longer

And with the rest of our army bursting in we are getting close to the end here

A few thing to emphasize for enemy phase, first the spawning mages have 0 hit on her anyway

Some of the Great Knights from the west are just barely able to reach her (and she is not going to kill any of these things with that kind of damage), and with all of my Wyvern shots only showing the infantry failing to chain attack I am done with these pointless enemy phase images.

But another thing to note is she takes two enemy phases to kill the wyvern, and new types of void cursed reinforcements are coming in from the flanks...

And with another map attack killing our momentum for the turn I have Merrin hold the door with the fog for one more turn.

But I can still get a bit of work done here, with Pandreo Engaging here, and dodging for the free kill on one health bar

And after a dance fully kills the beast, although he does take the hit this time.

It is fortunate one of the spots to open this chest is in the map attack's safe zone

I am having the one health heal here just for the canter over to the other side to escape enemy ranges

And while we are waiting I might as well heal that hit up there

And while we are avoiding the map attack

One of the Wyverns was still close enough to attack Framme after all that maneuvering

And I open the next turn with Alfred almost killing that Wyrm with his last turn of Engage

With Anna finishing the thing off through a lot of wall between them.

And that opens up the space for Rosado to Override the two disruptive staff bots and the boss

And she is still full Yandere mode here

I then move on to warp Ragnarok the more distant disruptive staffer

...Pandreo you are a magic unit not a physical one. What are you doing man.

Unfortunately it is around here where I realize I will probably not manage to finish off the boss this turn, so I fog up just once more

With a Micaiah Obstruct to ensure the fliers don't do something sneaky again

Unfortunately Fogado is shy of the kill here, and I don't get the crit or Dual Assist+ procs to kill anyway

I do also let Framme take down the Wyvern that tried to attack her before

With a dance I can let Rosado wipe out one of the remaining mages

For a solid levelup on that kill

Timerra can then finish that last staff bot off

Before going for the Goddess dance

With Rosado then giving us a repeat performance in killing the last of Yandere moma's entourage

...Why does she have this? She is never an ally, and this skill would only matter as a playable unit. Well whatever, lets start taking her down

With Fogado getting the Dual Assist+ to take her first health bar down

Framme can then wipe a second health bar out with her super

Oh, I wasn't actually expecting the convo here, figured it was just TeeHee and Veyle...

That is a clever little bit here, as Framme is saying something similar to her battle quote in chapter 2, but Lumera's response is identical, an intentional moment of deja vu

And when she doesn't get what she has done has some interesting implications to some amount of the real Lumera being in that Yandere cage

We are in a fairly safe position before this last turn

But I do want to emphasize how many of these pointless void curse foes are chasing us at the end here

And I open this last turn by going for the TeeHee battle convo

Here we are

And again, before the Ugh that is a quote from chapter 2 (admittedly not their battle quote, and I did have to look it up...)

I think the Framme version was a bit more interesting in its subtlety

But this one goes a bit further with her trying to finish the line as memories break through. It is making me think part of what keeps the true Lumera from breaking through is reliving those last few moments of her life between TeeHee's awakening and her death repeating lines like this.

With how Yandere coded she is this comes across uncomfortably romantic for a mother-child relationship.

Alas we have to put her out of her misery...

What would her surrendering look like? Would you bring her with you, make her an ally? Wouldn't it let Lumera get all the things she claims to want?

And she is unable to see that fighting us is wasting it, unless her corrupted life is tied to the crystal or something

And she has finally hit the Yandere willing to maim or kill her beloved level.

One last Great Sacrifice for the exp

Before letting Pandreo go for the funny Hold Out and Holy Stance combo for the kill

Or I could get comically many Dual Assist+ to not need it at all.

After a thousand year wait, I can see why this all would be moving too fast.

Huh, am I surprised he got the MVP, as I was not as extreme in training him.

But we end with the most cliche move possible, TeeHee having a chance to talk to true Lumera

Wait, is TeeHee actually wearing that ridiculous ring in this scene...Oh wow they are.

Huh, I don't remember them saying TeeHee got all their memories back. How odd.

Really it just took dying a couple of times to get that

It is odd that it took this long after death, but I guess that even happened the first time.

Although I guess it is more like most of the other boss fights where we don't actually kill them, and she is just fading away after like TeeHee at the end of their corrupted chapter...or her first death where her death is also tied to her running out of dragon power (just a different dragon power).

It is interesting to see her true self covering a similar subject as her evil form, with a far healthier outlook of hope.

And is putting a far healthier pin on the relation between the adoptive mother and child here.

This reminds me of a far better quote from Persona 3, about a far better character...but I am behind schedule enough with this update as is, no time to get into it here.

I do really like that they do go through the process of making the pinky promise here

With pinkies linked for the rest of the scene. There is something so charmingly child like about it.

This line would work so much better if we weren't inside. Then again with the giant hole Sombron has drilled in the sky calling it beautiful would be difficult.

I guess TeeHee has a better sense of what this world's after life will entail better than others after their last two deaths at least.

There are some amusing comments in this exploration scene, like this desire to destroy the temple after the fact

Or the utter shade being thrown at Sombron's architectural sense here

As in Sombron's children, or those of his worshipers? What an odd thing to say about the temple

Time to look at that beautiful sky, and look at our final destination.

And we still have to raise the stakes, although I seem to remember Sombron acting like it isn't that dire when we finally confront him, and I think that makes that final scene more interesting that way, which makes this feel a bit out of place.

Just moments before too...honestly this bit feels oddly repetitive.

And of course we have one final moment with the Emblems getting their last little lie in

🙄 Really have to make the player avatar ruler of the world at the end huh.

It is funny how they talk about how they will normalize an exciting life for the everlasting Emblems, setting up more death flags on them than even Engage can manage

Don't worry TeeHee, she is no longer able to face Sombron on this run.

It is nice of her to have the self awareness to realize how foolish she has been about Sombron.

Alright everyone, @Venger_06 @Codename Shrimp onto the final battle !

Although Marth had to end things off by confirming that at least this time the Emblem's promise to TeeHee is being made knowing it will be broken...

Phew, I am a bit latter with this than I wanted, but that is the checkpoint reached.

 

[Codename Shrimp]

Welcome to Finale!

This map has everything. Status effects, Staff Savant, Rally & Seal enemies, Inevitable end, no pair up on deployment, you name it.

I did extensive preps yesterday, let's hope they will be enough, especially since i do lack Tiki & Draug...I totally expect losses, but i should still be able to win it...i hope. Ngl seems like a different beast from the rest of the game lol.

we get an old man

And they get a buff dragon

Let's go!

(I will skip level ups this update unless i get a new skill or smth)

Spoiler

First, there are some key targets i really gotta take down first turn or there will be trouble

we take out this guy and activate Galeforce awaiting further actions

another one

Please hit...

and it misses....this guy has Enfeeble Inevitable end, so i need to kill him asap...

Option #2...

And it fucking misses again

<.<

FUCK

We prepare on this side for Enemy phase - I gave Linde pair up so she doesn't get one-shot by Brave Axe in case she gets hit, as enemy does have Heartseeker.

On the left side i stay on the defensive due to Enfeeble dude.

And Etzel get's enfeebel'd...F

I entrap a 3 range Lunge Bow Knight, and try to kill Enfeeble dude again...

I equip Marth with the Monarch Sword for +10 hit aura and...

Kill that asshole!

We slowly advance and i get trapped behind doors....

These are some bs reinforcements

If i run here, Est will get hex'd and Ballistad, so i will take out hex guy and hope for evasion...

I have to sacrifice Ymir here...

F...

More Reinforcements spawn, and more of my units get locked in...

Est still lives, but will probably die thanks to freeze ;_;

I double fortify to try and save Est...

...And more reinforcements spawn...

Hmmm...maybe i can rescue Est somehow...

saved

O:

F for Athena. 5%...

And the Belgium vs. France match started i wanted to finish before it ;_;

He did his job well, but i had to sacrifice him

o7 Beck, i would've never been able to come so far in this map without you sniping those stupid staffers....i hope more don't spawn lol

More spawned FFS

Etzel get's hex'd and rip'd...

I try to sneak away with Marth and Est...

I lose Lena, Gotoh and Wendell. The end is almost there...

Welp, i tried to rely on evasion, but that's it, GG

I am so sorry....

Another run i lost due tonot having door keys...although i think it's quite mean this gimmick to play blind, and the reinforcements + Fates mechanics did me in.

Well, you guys finish your runs at least xD

That said, i am not that mad (a little bit yes, i came so far), but coming so far in an ironman blind on highest difficulty is not something i should be mad about.

That said, I do generally think it was quite easy for Lunatic, especially if you know Fates mechanics well. Maybe a bit easier than Conquest hard. The creator did a great job making fun gameplay of the quite meh Shadow Dragon maps tho, and proved once again that Fates mechanics make everything better.

I will try the map later again, but no longer on Ironman then, just to "finish the game".

Edited July 1 by Codename Shrimp

[Codename Shrimp]

Bonus:

The difference killing Enfeeble guy on first turn and having Tiki makes XD

And knowing what's coming on the map as well xD

Edited July 1 by Codename Shrimp