To Become an Elitist [Playlogs FE1-5] [currently playing: Thracia 776]

[Punished Dayni]

4 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

People hate Birthright for being a mindless snoozefest, and they use Ryoma. They don't know how to control themselves.

Me, whose Lunatic run without Ryoma is stuck on Camilla:

5 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

You'd never actually use most prepromotes, even on an ironman, so you really can only rank them by how long it takes for them to not get 1RKO'd, with sniper Macellan being a somewhat servicable sniper that avoids counterattack. Hilariously enough, he's just a better Tomas. My Tomas got blessed and was better by endgame, but A base rank with higher strength and speed helps out one shotting ch17 dracos til you reach "not doubled by a lunatic snail" thresholds. Dolph was fine enough. I think I made him a zerker, but gave him a decent number of kills on his joining chapter, blocking the right path with Ryan and feeding kills through an iron bow for like 3 to 4 levels. Throwing him at the ballistaes is also free xp. Units like Sheema I'm pretty sure have better growths, but her availability is so shit that you really need to make her work. I was able to spoonfeed the hell out of her in ch18 and ch19 to survive battles in 20, but that was only on maniac, and remember that ch18 has an extremely limited number of enemies. Samson just kinda bores me as a unit and anyone using Beck should be using Sage Beck because there is no way you aren't using him completely ironically.

Yeah, I suppose I'm not anticipating a playthrough using just this lot, but it's good to get a bit more perspective.

RIP Beck I guess, SD is truly his peak

5 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

The real reason is probably that Kris is too useful. A lot of people call FE12 one of the hardest, and most FE3 fans will say anything above hard is just bad game design hard, so without their capped OC, they can't get past the first 7 chapters being bad at FE. I personally struggled like hell in 3 and 5 (screw rickard), but it was a fun challenge that made me utilize all my knowledge of the game to overcome with mediocre early game bases. It does get easier later when you probably found another unit that caps, like Cord, and actually having Arran be your proper jeigan/best unit at first is a right he fully deserves. I imagine if Kris was mid, he/she'd be benched like hell given how much hate they still gets to this day for reasons I'll never fully understand. They probably end up hating them more feeling like the game is unbeatable without le avatar. People who really like FE12's difficulty do usually end up doing Krisless runs at some point (i've heard/seen quite a few myself), but as we all know, there's about as many FE12 fans as there are respectful non damsel in distress women that don't get hypnotized made by Kaga.

Kris, the unit too good to bench despite people wanting to.

Who else would we say? I feel like Camilla and Robin come to mind, but who else would we argue?

6 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

The reason Krissless runs are so rare for me is that most supports belong to Kris. I hate that. I'd be doing Krissless runs all day if it wasn't for my crippling addiction to support hunting in FE12. I could've gone on and on about playing Krisless and the strats I had to pull out of my lack of an ass (as well as many other topics here but I'm getting lightheaded from not eating breakfast yet), but I need to know everything about Beck! I've been thinking of making a thread for a while about supports that could've been (not writing them myself, obviously), but where's Macellan Dolph? Where's Warren Catria? Where's Samto Ogma? Where's Abel and Cain? Matthis and Julian? Roger with woman?

There's so many obvious ones that needed to be, as well as interesting combinations that could've been, but they clearly placed all their eggs in the Kris basket and I'm guessing they got tired writing supports for all 72 characters Kris talks to. I have major respect for the effort they put into making every single Archanea unit from the series having dialogue now after 3 games of nothing, especially when 99% of players will never see over half of them, but damn do I get disappointed with the lack of other combinations. Given that Kris is a mostly blank state, they can focus most of these supports just on the other unit's backstory or gimmick. Some are amazing, I'm sure Ruben can shill plenty like the obvious Arran one, but then the Macellan Dolph supports are mostly just quirky despite their significant role with Aurelies and Nyna given BSFE and them joining you right at the official full scale war against Hardin when retaking Altea again.

  It'd be nice for units that get effectively nothing (e.g. Feena not being able to use Rapiers in NMotE does remove that potential what if, but imagine if we got somewhere with that instead of two sets of convos of her teeheeing all the time, or Horace getting any time with anyone), but obviously not the priority.

I realise what Kris's blankness provides for the others potentially, but that potential is not shared equally at all, alongside how little there would be. Some of this could be due to how little they expected the game to sell, but I think that's a bit too pessimistic to be acknowledging. (And wait, I thought Dolph and Macellan were Archanean)

5 minutes ago, gnip said:

He can, this map is actually fairly easy as long as you bring some magic. I have to say that I played without much patience, spending Marich's than I probably should considering that the Hammerne staff is still ways away. He isn't about to run out, but I should probably be a bit more frugal (and, as some people are surely already typing out, use old men with hats instead of Marich).

And apparently the Hammerne can't fix the legendary weapons.

Kaga was a coward in SDatBoL

6 minutes ago, gnip said:

Mars recruits Beck, of course, whose joining situation is just baffling. Up a cliff he cannot traverse, with forest tiles everywhere through which he has one movement. I guess Kaga was worried that somebody with effective damage vs. 95% of the enemies would be too broken to let roam free unlike mages who can one-round 95% of the enemies, which is fair and balanced.

8 minutes ago, gnip said:

If you insist on using a Ballistician, I suppose Beck might be slightly better, with an extra point of Str, a bit more Skl, and an actual Spd growth. If you feed him like 12 levels, he might even start doubling Knights. But seriously, same issues as Jake, with even less of a chance to do something during his joining chapter.

He can't do a thing in his joining chapter, something SD fixed to our horror.

Much like his future namesake, stumbling at the start.

53 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Speaking of problematic bases, has A vs. S already been decided/spoken for yet? I expect others to demand A, and considering -wait, why did FE11 bump both Samson's & Arran's base levels up from 1 to 10??? Yet they left their bases the same! Book 1 isn't to blame. What does that do?

Wait, did they seriously raise their level by 9?

I can only assume they don't expect them to gain enough levels by the end for it to matter, but it's an arbitrary decision on the face of it.

[Shaky Jones]

3 hours ago, gnip said:

He can, this map is actually fairly easy as long as you bring some magic. I have to say that I played without much patience, spending Marich's than I probably should considering that the Hammerne staff is still ways away. He isn't about to run out, but I should probably be a bit more frugal (and, as some people are surely already typing out, use old men with hats instead of Marich).

__

I'm less concerned about Linda spending a few Aura charges by taking on the two Ballistae on the northern path by herself. She one-shots Lv.1 Ballisticians on this map, which makes it a pretty easy training ground for her. She ended up killing three and gaining a level for it - with a Spd proc, so she's now officially able to deal 40 damage in a single round of combat in carefully selected situations.

In FE1, you are given a mage shortly before a stage where the most important unit is a high powered mage.

In FE11, you are given a mage shortly before a stage where all magic users die before walking two steps into the town.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

I guess Kaga was worried that somebody with effective damage vs. 95% of the enemies would be too broken to let roam free unlike mages who can one-round 95% of the enemies, which is fair and balanced.

Birthright trying to make sure you don't get an archer stronger than the royal you get right before giving you Takumi.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

What I do have an opinion on is the map, and it's that it is fairly unremarkable, which is a welcome change (un-change?) compared to what FE11 turned this into. Yes, Ballisticians have obnoxiously high Def, but with four tome users, you're well-equipped to blow through everything between Mars and the castle.

From worst map in the game to map of all time? Quite an improvement.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

Unlike Midia, Astria actually joins with the base stats of his class, which should make him more viable than her as a long-term unit. Like Midia, his growths are pretty solid - low Def, but everybody has that, low Spd, but he's already quite fast considering he uses swords, quite good everywhere else. Without calculating any averages, I suspect that Oguma and Navarre would still outdo him if you promoted them with the first Hero Crest, considering that especially the latter has decent bases and really quite good growths. Then again, my Raddy at Lv. 7 is still strictly (if only slightly) worse than Astria, so the difference should be much smaller than between Midia and the Xmas cavs.

• TL;DR: Astria seems pretty good, honestly.

FE1 Astria's pretty good.

FE3 Astrology is great. B1 is the same, but you'll probably value infantry units more with the indoor mechanic, and B2 Astram, while pretty bad in HP, has the Mercurius which is busted and doubles xp gain which goes really well with the starsphere. Even without it, his speed is nearly capped and his okay strength can be quicky patched with his pretty good strength growth.

FE11 Astram is a funny one. His stats are not known to be good given how much is carried by the hero class bases and the change of the xp system, but he's very fun to use as a warrior. He has a 70% strength growth and 110% HP, but without any speed whatsoever (actually it's 10%, the Bord number). His base speed lets him avoid being doubled up until the lategame arc, but then it's over. By then, he's a pure player phase unit relying on his massive strength, basically turning him into a bootleg FE6 Bartre. This is not a very good meme unit, but one I recommend nonetheless. 

FE12 Astram is the strongest man in the continent.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

Monkey brain like big green numbers. Me have more bananas than you.

Me earn banana. You take from human. We not same.

I love big green numbers, but I don't like it when they just are inherently busted. It's probably why I grew so attached to growth units playing FE at first and still like using FE12 prepromotes or FE11 Dolph, or even Cord. I prefer using unconventional units that then become powerhouses, because then I can say I earned that. Of course I don't want them completely trivializing the game, but they still perform exceedingly well, and that feels satisfying. Or using units with such bad growths that somehow getting them to cap becomes its own high. Arran's cancer has nothing on 50,000 gold's worth of statboosters and silly reclassing for even the smallest growth buffs. 

The only exception to this are Gotoh's that don't actually include Gotoh. Athos is cool. The laguz royals are sub humans, but at least they're accurately strong as their lore depicts. You'll never see me use them, but I respect their strength, and it's at the very end of the game.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

know that HM bonuses came into being as a bug, but with HHM bringing them back, I have to wonder if that bug was embraced by the developers as a feature. If it was only in BinBla, I could accept that they didn't have the time to fix it, since I can not imagine that they didn't notice. But HHM not only not fixing the bug, but also making sure that all recruitable enemies are loaded in a fashion that they get those sweet extra numbers, even Heath and Geitz who are on the field on turn 1... that seems awfully deliberate to me. To me, that looks like people liked having more bananas, so the devs obliged.

I don't know, but they made FE7. I don't trust their decisions.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

@Shaky Jones: Evidence secured. Pleasure making business with you.

Who says I'm unfair?

1 hour ago, gnip said:

And they even have precisely 20 HP, too. I don't know how intentional this was (there is one map between Linda joining and this one), but it really works out very nicely for her.

Let's just say it is. We've bullied Kaga quite a bit as of late.

1 hour ago, gnip said:

Yeah, it's not a terribly annoying map to play, but it's literally one-dimensional. There is *a* path leading directly to the throne, and there is no particular reason to interact with the other two paths, outside of XP. Linda killed the two coming from the north because she could do so risk-free, while the three from the south barely reached the bridges in the right center of the map when Mars seized.

i love xp i love xp i love xp i lo-

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

1 hour ago, gnip said:

It's kinda wild with how thoroughly DSFE smashed the traditional class system, that they still decided to be as faithful to the old FE1 base stats.

Mind-boggling indeed. SD's problem isn't that it is too "faithful", it's that it's stuck in the middle between faithfulness and modern revision, at least in gameplay.

And that's what makes it beautiful. SoV tried to be way too faithful and is now the "but the voice acting tho" game whenever I criticize the maps and questionable enemy balance, and FE12 is the game that I try to praise, but get shot down because it's apparently worse than FE3 because Kris exists and there's more gameplay (strategy is too scary). FE11's that sweet spot between being very faithful to the original game in many aspects while adding enough QoL features and introduced my favorite thing of modern FE (reclassing) that makes me truly love DSFE.

But wow do some units get screwed over. I think some units actually become very interesting with reclassing with how exact stat thresholds can feel when dealing with every little increase and decrease, and FE12 does balance a few things about it like pirates being not clone fighters but are limited, but we all know about Navarre just being garbage or certain prepromotes just being really bad now given the change of how promotions work and how xp scaling functions. I enjoy a lot of the imbalances, but I can see at least some of the frustration or confusion. 

3 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

Me, whose Lunatic run without Ryoma is stuck on Camilla:

Unlucky

Well I did use Ryoma in a lunatic run once. He was a sniper and Takumi was a swordmaster. Funny little role reversal. Maybe try that. 

Just don't tell Ruben you're playing Fates.

4 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

Who else would we say? I feel like Camilla and Robin come to mind, but who else would we argue?

A lot of people nowadays like Robin. I like Robin, as a character, not a unit. Him being imbalanced is a problem with the game as a whole.

Camilla, yeah I suppose I do struggle to bench her for a while. I get stressed enough playing CQ early game. How do you think I became a bald skeleton?

FE12 lunatic Palla. Fuck her.

6 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

I realise what Kris's blankness provides for the others potentially, but that potential is not shared equally at all, alongside how little there would be. Some of this could be due to how little they expected the game to sell, but I think that's a bit too pessimistic to be acknowledging. (And wait, I thought Dolph and Macellan were Archanean)

Whoops, I meant that. I somehow get Aurelis and and Archanea confused in the sense of Hardin and Nyna shenanigans. Stupid, but I can't help it.

FE12's supports are very hit or miss. The idea and number of supports is admirable, but the execution was that of a blind guy tryna kill a ninja with a gatling gun.

8 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

And apparently the Hammerne can't fix the legendary weapons.

Kaga was a coward in SDatBoL

I've been alluding to this for a while, and I hate it.

9 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

Wait, did they seriously raise their level by 9?

But he still gaming!

11 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

I can only assume they don't expect them to gain enough levels by the end for it to matter

If Arran was left at level one with the growths that he has, it'd be over. Medues? Joe Bidone.

how fukcin dare they? It's my right to cap Arran. Make him 5 or something, shit man what he do to you?

[Saint Rubenio]

8 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Awakening did provide H/L bonuses for everyone not-bred (minus Olivia) from Gregor and Nowi onward. Lunatic Gregor is just 1 point in most stats, scales to upwards of 5 points in select stats for Flavia per level of difficulty over Normal (so +10 HP, +6 Str on Lunatic).

However, Awakening has much more inflated stats than Binding does. And, while some weaker units in Binding probably wouldn't mind a few mild bonus points on Hard, Melady isn't one of them.

Huh. Awakening is such a fascinating beast.

6 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Samson just kinda bores me as a unit

He does have a pretty neat soup with Sheema, at least. And he's neater than Asstram at least.

6 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

This is me reminding you that you're old.

How dare you.

6 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Are there enough old people to make a romhack out of? You know, like myrm emblem. I would say old women, but you'd have like 3 characters.

You could probably scrunge up enough old folks, especially if you do like Myrm Emblem and pull folks from KagaSaga.

Old women though? Even just by pulling all the videogame grandmas I know, period, it might yield too small a cast for a FE game.

7 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

We need to have a full on conversation about this. It's killing me. Maybe I will make that thread, and you can rant about Malicia and add nothing to the conversation!

Seriously though, this could've been the support list to end all support lists. I'm perfectly fine with comically shitty supports. I still shill the idea of Roger Caeda because of how hilariously cringy I'd think it'd be, and that could honestly go well getting in the same run as Caeda Malicia, but there's way more serious supports that could've been added that would add on to the interesting worldbuilding of Archanea untapped by limited hardware in previous entries.

It's just so weird. How limited was their schedule that they couldn't write more convos?

7 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

The only game where I think Tomas is actually bad is in FE12, in which he's so awful that I love him to bits. His bases are so laughably dreadful, but you get one chapter full of dracos when he joins so the game begs me to go on a Tomas spree and patch him up for the lols. Combine that with him just existing in a random ass house 10 meters away from a Gra stronghold that houses the literal next fucking heir where he just tries to kill Kris and nearly gets a double kill with Jeigan in his support line? Bloody hysterical. Absolute meme perfection. 

Don't forget his hair. Tomas's hair in the DS games is on another level.

4 hours ago, gnip said:

Mars recruits Beck, of course, whose joining situation is just baffling. Up a cliff he cannot traverse, with forest tiles everywhere through which he has one movement. I guess Kaga was worried that somebody with effective damage vs. 95% of the enemies would be too broken to let roam free unlike mages who can one-round 95% of the enemies, which is fair and balanced.

This is the part where it actually feels weirder that this is the OG version. Beck works in FE11 to dispatch some fellow ballisticians from his little island. Here? Entirely useless, for some reason.

4 hours ago, gnip said:

.didn't I just kill you? It can be hard to tell with this game's recycled portraits.

For some reason known only to Shouzou K., Grigas delivers a death speech as the chapter outro, unlike the other... Three? FE1 bosses with death quotes, who do so in the battle interface like the playable characters.

4 hours ago, gnip said:

Only half as many as Berwick Saga?!

Jerk.

4 hours ago, gnip said:

Monkey brain like big green numbers. Me have more bananas than you.

I know that HM bonuses came into being as a bug, but with HHM bringing them back, I have to wonder if that bug was embraced by the developers as a feature. If it was only in BinBla, I could accept that they didn't have the time to fix it, since I can not imagine that they didn't notice. But HHM not only not fixing the bug, but also making sure that all recruitable enemies are loaded in a fashion that they get those sweet extra numbers, even Heath and Geitz who are on the field on turn 1... that seems awfully deliberate to me. To me, that looks like people liked having more bananas, so the devs obliged.

Then they thought it through in 8 lol

Then again, Seth is in 8, so.

[Punished Dayni]

10 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

Well I did use Ryoma in a lunatic run once. He was a sniper and Takumi was a swordmaster. Funny little role reversal. Maybe try that. 

Just don't tell Ruben you're playing Fates.

It's an (inactive) run where I spun a wheel to pick my units. The only royals I got were Sakura and Kiragi. I have never been fond of BR lategame from my other playthroughs, this looks to be the same.

11 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

A lot of people nowadays like Robin. I like Robin, as a character, not a unit. Him being imbalanced is a problem with the game as a whole.

Camilla, yeah I suppose I do struggle to bench her for a while. I get stressed enough playing CQ early game. How do you think I became a bald skeleton?

FE12 lunatic Palla. Fuck her.

I guess I was not fully counting how well liked they are, but I do think there are those who'd be bothered by Robin anyways.

As for Palla, I found that map in MotEII a dreadful experience, seeing as the aim was to just be using the units who couldn't promote. And I had to use her because of the cavs and thief. And she was awful to keep alive. Fuck Chapter 3.

42 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

But he still gaming!

Parthia is stupid powerful for him to have that much Atk on 13 Str. What difficulty's this, curious how viable the stats are.

47 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

Whoops, I meant that. I somehow get Aurelis and and Archanea confused in the sense of Hardin and Nyna shenanigans. Stupid, but I can't help it.

Considering the names aren't far off, I get it.

17 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

It's just so weird. How limited was their schedule that they couldn't write more convos?

There's a dozen or so titles in between the releases of the DSFE titles, but it's all small downloadable titles and the bigger ones were co-developed. I feel like they picked a scope and stuck to it.

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Don't forget his hair. Tomas's hair in the DS games is on another level.

Please. Gordin had this back in the day.:

The green-haired twink posing as a pantsless hunk, it's adorable. Tomas is toast.

 

1 hour ago, Punished Dayni said:

Considering the names aren't far off, I get it.

Enemy Soldier:
“B-beggin’ your pardon, sire, but everybody calls ’em the League now. Altea and Aurelis and Akaneia…The League of A’s, you might say!”

FE11 had a nice translation sometimes.

2 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

There's a dozen or so titles in between the releases of the DSFE titles, but it's all small downloadable titles and the bigger ones were co-developed. I feel like they picked a scope and stuck to it.

*Looks down the Wikipedia list*

Hey! Don't underestimate the amount of effort placed into Nintendo DSi Metronome!😝

Although it feels... strange seeing SD released in the same year as AW:DoR, only one year after RD and SPM, and PoR and AW:DS two before that. So much nostalgia, so dense was their development, the unreality of the passage of time.

[Shaky Jones]

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

He does have a pretty neat soup with Sheema, at least. And he's not the strongest man in the continent.

Astram, the strongest man in the continent. Very fun in FE11. 

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

It's just so weird. How limited was their schedule that they couldn't write more convos?

Look man, there's about 300 total support based base conversations in the game. I don't know how that compares to the average game, but I just feel bad demanding that there should've been more. I mean, RD clearly considered their large task too grand a task for supports. But I am sad that due to it mainly being Kris, no Kris runs are punishing for completionists like me. Fuckers didn't even believe their game was worth releasing outside of Japan. They probably had more planned, but just stopped after doubting the love people like us have for Archanea. A shame, huge shame that we don't get official FE12, or that FE11 sold poorly. They're great games guys, we swear.

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Don't forget his hair. Tomas's hair in the DS games is on another level.

Wish I could grow that hair, but everyone I know tries to bully me into getting haircuts. C'mon, what's wrong with long hair?

I'm tired of being bald.

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Then again, Seth is in 8, so.

Thank you once again Ruben. I hope you've been polishing your trophy every now and then.

1 hour ago, Punished Dayni said:

It's an (inactive) run where I spun a wheel to pick my units. The only royals I got were Sakura and Kiragi. I have never been fond of BR lategame from my other playthroughs, this looks to be the same.

It's the only one where you fight regular Garon. That's gotta count for something.

1 hour ago, Punished Dayni said:

As for Palla, I found that map in MotEII a dreadful experience, seeing as the aim was to just be using the units who couldn't promote. And I had to use her because of the cavs and thief. And she was awful to keep alive. Fuck Chapter 3.

Me when 20+ reinforcements bring the overpowered unit to lvl 20 in one map (they could've gone to Matthis)

1 hour ago, Punished Dayni said:

Parthia is stupid powerful for him to have that much Atk on 13 Str. What difficulty's this, curious how viable the stats are

This is FE11. It's THE weapon game. It's like real life. Money wins over all, including strength and dedication. If you can buy a bullet, Ruben's rocks have nothing on you.

I'm a Shadow Dragon fan. We only know 2 difficulties. Hard 5, and Hard 5 with the full content patch. 

25 speed is enough to double most things on hard 5. There's a sudden level spike for endgame specifically (if I hear right, h5 is +15 hidden levels earlygame, +20 lategame (camus arc), and +25 endgame), meaning enemies here are noticeably faster than the rest of the game, but even then, paladins have 19 AS at most and heroes have 21 AS, so 25 is the doubling threshold there. The 2 snipers in the center have 22 AS, so unlucky Arran there. Dracos have the max 23, but Arran has a picture of General Amelia to give the mount lovers a heart attack. Bishops only have 16 AS and manaketes are nearly immune to being doubled with a whopping 26 AS (SwordWrys solo). Speed is undeniably more important than strength when it comes to endgame, and OHKO'ing mainly would only happen if you spend an extraordinary amount of money on a ridersbane forge, so Arran having good speed makes him quite viable even with his lack of strength

This is an example of 35k gold being the endgame carry, ironically making her speed irrelevant. The main thing 23 AS does for her is prevent manaketes from doubling her. She was given a dracoshield to survive one hit against brave sword paladins, as they have 34 Might, but lose a whopping 4 from your A rank lance. Thus, she survive 14 *2, and counters for a clean one shot, so even if she had 10 speed, she'd be fine, but you can easily use a capped spd draco with a regular ridersbane to 1RKO them. Enemy phasing is very difficult for H5 endgame, so your unit surviving enemy phase isn't something you should expect or play under the assumption of generally, but having a handful of tanks is crucial to not being forced to warp skip. Of course, most people just Sedgar Wolf, but these were some fun numbers. I suppose the point is that high stats are very nice to have, but many are unessarcy to win even on the highest difficulty with the right weapons, rank buffs, and specializations. There's a lot of FE11 endgame, and it's actually my favorite endgame in the series, and Parthia Arran was a funny way to work around the incredibly buff enemies. Even did a no earthquake sphere run this time around. 

26 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The green-haired twink posing as a pantsless hunk, it's adorable. Tomas is toast.

I knew curate Gordin was the right choice.

(it was not the right choice)

[ping]

10 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

He can't do a thing in his joining chapter, something SD fixed to our horror.

Hapless Beck stan: "I wish my boy would have more to do on his joining map..."
Monkey's Paw: *curls*

9 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Me earn banana. You take from human. We not same.

Me sorry you no cunning enough to take banana from species as slow in both body and mind as human.

One could argue that a player deserves the shiny green numbers on Rutger and Milady by playing on the harder difficulty. I dunno, I don't think it's good design, but I can't help but enjoy when Milady joins with a whole heap of extra stats even though she recruits herself in the same cutscene that she spawns in. It's nice when a difficult game hands you a big stick to hit it over the head with, I guess. Plus, I'm biased towards bulky flyers, so...

9 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

For some reason known only to Shouzou K., Grigas delivers a death speech as the chapter outro, unlike the other... Three? FE1 bosses with death quotes, who do so in the battle interface like the playable characters.

Speaking of bosses delivering speeches, it seems that they only give their pre-battle dialogue when they initiate the fight. So with Marich one-rounding like three quarters of the game's bosses on player phase, most of the poor saps aren't even allowed their last words.

[Punished Dayni]

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

FE11 had a nice translation sometimes.

From this very chapter:

Nyna:
“That hunger for danger worries me, Marth. Humanity’s hopes rest on your shoulders. I would sooner not see them crushed.”

Marth:
“Which? Humanity’s hopes, or my shoulders? …Have a little faith, Nyna. The enemy ballisticians can strike from afar, but they’re powerless up close. All we need to do is move in and silence them before they do too much damage. Watch!”

6 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Although it feels... strange seeing SD released in the same year as AW:DoR, only one year after RD and SPM, and PoR and AW:DS two before that. So much nostalgia, so dense was their development, the unreality of the passage of time.

It tells me that they likely spent a bit of their dev time from at least 2009 on the 3DS as well, which would of course make sense given it'd be the next console.

6 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Wish I could grow that hair, but everyone I know tries to bully me into getting haircuts. C'mon, what's wrong with long hair?

Ah that's annoying.

Don't like that, especially the sense that they just won't let it go.

6 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

It's the only one where you fight regular Garon. That's gotta count for something.

And it's the only one where you fight a dragon that isn't Anankos #fuckAnankos

6 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

This is an example of 35k gold being the endgame carry, ironically making her speed irrelevant. The main thing 23 AS does for her is prevent manaketes from doubling her. She was given a dracoshield to survive one hit against brave sword paladins, as they have 34 Might, but lose a whopping 4 from your A rank lance. Thus, she survive 14 *2, and counters for a clean one shot, so even if she had 10 speed, she'd be fine, but you can easily use a capped spd draco with a regular ridersbane to 1RKO them. Enemy phasing is very difficult for H5 endgame, so your unit surviving enemy phase isn't something you should expect or play under the assumption of generally, but having a handful of tanks is crucial to not being forced to warp skip. Of course, most people just Sedgar Wolf, but these were some fun numbers. I suppose the point is that high stats are very nice to have, but many are unessarcy to win even on the highest difficulty with the right weapons, rank buffs, and specializations. There's a lot of FE11 endgame, and it's actually my favorite endgame in the series, and Parthia Arran was a funny way to work around the incredibly buff enemies. Even did a no earthquake sphere run this time around. 

With the difficulty of EP in DSFE's higher difficulties I get the feeling my head would have melted. Because yeah, what tanks would do?

7 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

A shame, huge shame that we don't get official FE12, or that FE11 sold poorly. They're great games guys, we swear.

FE wasn't even on my radar back then, the SD boxart in the used section didn't work at the time unfortunately. (Would have been €25 better spent than Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night)

[Saint Rubenio]

11 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Please. Gordin had this back in the day.:

The green-haired twink posing as a pantsless hunk, it's adorable. Tomas is toast.

That's just generic anime hair. DS Tomas has like, two pieces of hair that fly in wildly different directions. It's hilarious.

11 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Enemy Soldier:
“B-beggin’ your pardon, sire, but everybody calls ’em the League now. Altea and Aurelis and Akaneia…The League of A’s, you might say!”

FE11 had a nice translation sometimes.

FE11's localization was beautiful and it's a tragedy that they keep giving the games to Treehouse instead. Sure, 8-4 took perhaps even more liberties, but they were good liberties.

11 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Look man, there's about 300 total support based base conversations in the game. I don't know how that compares to the average game, but I just feel bad demanding that there should've been more. I mean, RD clearly considered their large task too grand a task for supports. But I am sad that due to it mainly being Kris, no Kris runs are punishing for completionists like me. Fuckers didn't even believe their game was worth releasing outside of Japan. They probably had more planned, but just stopped after doubting the love people like us have for Archanea. A shame, huge shame that we don't get official FE12, or that FE11 sold poorly. They're great games guys, we swear.

Pretty sure 300 is lower than the average FE. I'm not saying they had to do a million convos, but at least one Kris and one non-Kris convo for everyone would've been more than fair, I think.

11 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

I'm tired of being bald.

You're a skeleton, Shaky. You can't grow hair.

5 hours ago, gnip said:

Speaking of bosses delivering speeches, it seems that they only give their pre-battle dialogue when they initiate the fight. So with Marich one-rounding like three quarters of the game's bosses on player phase, most of the poor saps aren't even allowed their last words.

I think so, yes. Funny how these old games work. On a slightly related note, one thing that's always fascinated me about FE3 is that the tragic death music also plays for enemies. So you'll kill the generic bossman of the day and the sad music will be playing over them going "urgh, how coul I defeated by this rabble?!" I don't ever see anyone commenting on it, but it immediately stood out to me.

4 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

Ah that's annoying.

Don't like that, especially the sense that they just won't let it go.

My family tried for a while. Eventually they settled for nagging me to put on a ponytail. I accepted the compromise.

[Interdimensional Observer]

10 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Pretty sure 300 is lower than the average FE. I'm not saying they had to do a million convos, but at least one Kris and one non-Kris convo for everyone would've been more than fair, I think.

The non-Fandom FE Wiki says 143 support chains for Binding, 115 for Blazing, 83 for Sacred, 68 for PoR. That's the pre-NM era. And SoV is 26 to get that paltry thing out of the way (ignoring those little Alm/Celica-Other Character talks you can have at villages and rest spots in dungeons).

Skipping ahead to the Awakening of Bloat- 222 romantic, 94 nonromantic, not going to mention 2nd gen sibling supports b/c generic and parent-child ones are mostly generic too. Fates is 430 romantic, 187 nonromantic. Three Houses is 304 supports. Engage is 271.

[Shaky Jones]

5 hours ago, gnip said:

One could argue that a player deserves the shiny green numbers on Rutger and Milady by playing on the harder difficulty. I dunno, I don't think it's good design, but I can't help but enjoy when Milady joins with a whole heap of extra stats even though she recruits herself in the same cutscene that she spawns in. It's nice when a difficult game hands you a big stick to hit it over the head with, I guess. Plus, I'm biased towards bulky flyers, so..

I do admittedly enjoy when a harder difficulty rewards you during the game, despite how nonsensical it is to get something that makes the game easier on a difficulty whose literal purpose it to make things harder, but only under certain circumstances. KH2 critical mode gives you more skills and increases your damage output to completely turn the combat into a fast paced "who kills the other first" hell hole. Fallout 3 gives you more xp on Very Hard so you can cap your level by endgame to get those crazy perks for your build and Fallout 4 spawns legendary enemies often, being an addition to the difficulty while letting their legendary item drops become a difficulty reward. And going back to FE, FE7 and FE8 gave you the silver card on hard, which was always something that fascinated 13 yo me., even if FE8 is way too easy to deserve a reward. Unfortunately, FE6's Milady's and Percival's game breaking stats simply feel unfun and unfair for the enemy. It's just a free "you win" unit. Yeah, it's not Forsetti strong, but compared to the beautiful balance of FE6 units compared to FE6 hard enemies with accommodated growths and bases that rarely feel too strong or unusable (except when miss emblem...SOPHIA), those 2 feel like an insult to game design, for FE at least. It's like Fallout 3 again when companions like Dogmeat and Fawkes are virtually unkillable with their 10,000 HP. This isn't difficulty based, but it does share the element of being a bug, because it's Bethesda. Yeah some players might enjoy a dog tanking nukes left and right for a while which oddly fits into the comedy of the franchise, but it makes for terrible game balance that just irks me. No, you didn't earn this. You didn't earn Milady. Use your units, train them under the hard mode circumstance, and behold Wild Wade slammin' them chapter 13 cavaliers with an iron axe (give halberd to Lot to compensate low strength)! If you want strong units at base, use Marcus, Zelott, and Igrene. That's the FE hard mode experience. Besides, she's a flier too. She doesn't need crazy stats. I'm tired of mounted shilling. No one's gonna use Wade at this rate! 

5 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

With the difficulty of EP in DSFE's higher difficulties I get the feeling my head would have melted. Because yeah, what tanks would do?

Let's be real, you're probably using General Sedgar/Wolf like everyone else.

5 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

FE wasn't even on my radar back then, the SD boxart in the used section didn't work at the time unfortunately. (Would have been €25 better spent than Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night)

I've been meaning to make an FE box art tier list or something of sorts to discuss, mostly to rant about RD's box being ass. Although SD's is odd. I don't hate it, maybe due to its simplicity matching the game itself when compared to the other titles, and I do like the color. However, I wasn't really considering ranking boxes by how sellable they were as much as just how cool or how much it tells of the game, which should be the same thing, but I personally don't let box arts even remotely affect my thoughts, as how can I trust clickbait IRL? 2010s era only gave you so much to work with given the "white guy with a gun" trend we had for a while, and Badthesda refuses to make Fallout anything more than "image of brotherhood" even when they're not a mandatory faction, but I guess that also tells of the game's unoriginal drive. For FE11, I suppose their simply wasn't much to tell, although using the title card of the castle could've been cool. That said, I love FE3's box art unconditionally. How dare FE12 just have Marth and Kris? Heck, I find that more boring than SD. At least that felt classy in a minimalist way.

55 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Pretty sure 300 is lower than the average FE. I'm not saying they had to do a million convos, but at least one Kris and one non-Kris convo for everyone would've been more than fair, I think.

Well like Punny Nightni mentioned, it could be that they worked on Awakening for a long time, so maybe the team was to split to focus on writing supports for every character besides Kris, because they were too busy writing supports for Severa. That's a much better use of their time, wouldn't you say?

58 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

You're a skeleton, Shaky. You can't grow hair.

That's what they want you to think. 

59 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

My family tried for a while. Eventually they settled for nagging me to put on a ponytail. I accepted the compromise.

Ponytail Garon.

4 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The non-Fandom FE Wiki says 143 support chains for Binding, 115 for Blazing, 83 for Sacred, 68 for PoR. That's the pre-NM era. And SoV is 26 to get that paltry thing out of the way (ignoring those little Alm/Celica-Other Character talks you can have at villages and rest spots in dungeons).

Skipping ahead to the Awakening of Bloat- 222 romantic, 94 nonromantic, not going to mention 2nd gen sibling supports b/c generic and parent-child ones are mostly generic too. Fates is 430 romantic, 187 nonromantic. Three Houses is 304 supports. Engage is 271.

I'm guessing these are full chains and not each individual conversation, as then FE12 would be more around 100, give or take. It's not a crazy amount, but I still believe it warrants more respect given how deadset Archanea seemed to be on being a support-less series, and it's funny to say that Kris has 72 supports. 

But thanks for the reassurance that I'm allowed to rant about Macellan and Dolph not supporting one another. Man, a Cain and Abel support or even Frey and Abel would've been so cool. Abel would feel like shit about betraying Altea while Cain and Frey were there since the prologue, and they'd have to reassure him and go into these deep conversations about loyalty while reminiscing of their youth together as knights in training (aka when they did the prologue lol) while occasionally reprimanding him for simping for Est of all people.

[Saint Rubenio]

54 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The non-Fandom FE Wiki says 143 support chains for Binding, 115 for Blazing, 83 for Sacred, 68 for PoR. That's the pre-NM era. And SoV is 26 to get that paltry thing out of the way (ignoring those little Alm/Celica-Other Character talks you can have at villages and rest spots in dungeons).

Skipping ahead to the Awakening of Bloat- 222 romantic, 94 nonromantic, not going to mention 2nd gen sibling supports b/c generic and parent-child ones are mostly generic too. Fates is 430 romantic, 187 nonromantic. Three Houses is 304 supports. Engage is 271.

I see... Well, Shaky specified "support-based conversatoins", not support chains in general. If we divide by three, that leaves us with 100 supports, which I'd say is probably a good estimate. There's 77 units, but the priestesses don't count so 73, one Kris support for each, then there's 29 non-Kris supports. Exactly 102 chains, so about par for the course.

Still wish they'd tried to get at least two chains for everyone. That would've been neat and wouldn't have pushed the total that much higher than usual, especially if they hadn't blatantly played favorites with stuff like giving the Whitewings and Minerva supports among each other while Abel and Cain got to not speak a word. But oh well. We don't always get what we want.

46 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

so maybe the team was to split to focus on writing supports for every character besides Kris, because they were too busy writing supports for Severa. That's a much better use of their time, wouldn't you say?

...Jesus fucking Christ, don't say things like that. We lost the Wrys/Frost support because of Odin ffs

47 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

That's what they want you to think. 

Draw a skeleton with hair for your next project.

51 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

But thanks for the reassurance that I'm allowed to rant about Macellan and Dolph not supporting one another. Man, a Cain and Abel support or even Frey and Abel would've been so cool. Abel would feel like shit about betraying Altea while Cain and Frey were there since the prologue, and they'd have to reassure him and go into these deep conversations about loyalty while reminiscing of their youth together as knights in training (aka when they did the prologue lol)

That would've been neat, yeah. People like to explain away the Abel/Cain situation by saying Cain never forgave Abel for his betrayal, but I'd say Frey probably would. He's a kind man and he would understand his sacrifice to save someone he loves.

[Punished Dayni]

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I think so, yes. Funny how these old games work. On a slightly related note, one thing that's always fascinated me about FE3 is that the tragic death music also plays for enemies. So you'll kill the generic bossman of the day and the sad music will be playing over them going "urgh, how coul I defeated by this rabble?!" I don't ever see anyone commenting on it, but it immediately stood out to me.

Playing over Lang, it probably feels wrong.

I'd prefer FFVI's victory theme.

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

I've been meaning to make an FE box art tier list or something of sorts to discuss, mostly to rant about RD's box being ass. Although SD's is odd. I don't hate it, maybe due to its simplicity matching the game itself when compared to the other titles, and I do like the color. However, I wasn't really considering ranking boxes by how sellable they were as much as just how cool or how much it tells of the game, which should be the same thing, but I personally don't let box arts even remotely affect my thoughts, as how can I trust clickbait IRL? 2010s era only gave you so much to work with given the "white guy with a gun" trend we had for a while, and Badthesda refuses to make Fallout anything more than "image of brotherhood" even when they're not a mandatory faction, but I guess that also tells of the game's unoriginal drive. For FE11, I suppose their simply wasn't much to tell, although using the title card of the castle could've been cool. That said, I love FE3's box art unconditionally. How dare FE12 just have Marth and Kris? Heck, I find that more boring than SD. At least that felt classy in a minimalist way.

That's the thing, this is probably the only case where that was true, as boxart wasn't why I picked up any of the FE titles I did get and this was 2009 or so, when I'd no idea about FE or much of an inkling to look up game info online then (though I'd have been more likely to use it than before that point).

That menu screen is pretty dope.

[ping]

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Skipping ahead to the Awakening of Bloat- 222 romantic, 94 nonromantic, not going to mention 2nd gen sibling supports b/c generic and parent-child ones are mostly generic too. Fates is 430 romantic, 187 nonromantic.

It says a lot about society that there's more than twice as many romantic support pairings than platonic ones.

Bottom text.

2 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Well like Punny Nightni mentioned, it could be that they worked on Awakening for a long time, so maybe the team was to split to focus on writing supports for every character besides Kris, because they were too busy writing supports for Severa. That's a much better use of their time, wouldn't you say?

Careful, that kind of talk might attract angry Severa fanboys, and we wouldn't want that.

• FE1 Chapter 14: Gra, Land of Sorrow

Spoiler

In an ambush from behind, the Aritian army was annihilated.
Aritia's king Cornelius, and the Falchion, disappeared.
It has been 2 years since that tragic day...
Now, finally Mars reaches Gra castle, protected by the man who drove his father to death, Jiol.

Inventory management!

I've made the mistake of buying extra iron weapons in the earlygame, which I think was almost entirely unnecessary. I actually had to reshuffle a little bit just to avoid having to discard anything during last chapter, so I think discarding stuff with 5 uses or less is entirely reasonable at this point in time. It's not like money is a problem, especially with the Silver Card available on this map, as annoying as it might be to actually use it for bigger shopping trips.

The general strategy: Well, pretty straightforward. Most folks went directly south, while a small contingent of folks able to survive the Sniper went along with Julian to get the two chests in the bottom right. While there's another door to the throne room, this time Kaga made the good call of putting a convoy right in front of it, so it's no problem to grab a Door Key for this.

Roshe went north alongside (well more like after) Mars to counter some Archers through the wall. Unnecessary in hindsight, since he just could've supported the main group in luring them south, with only one per round being able to target Mars, but it didn't really hinder progress, either.

Hello handsome stranger. Would you like to join our little army?

__

There isn't a ton to say here - the area in the center is pretty devoid of enemies, so there's once again a bit of just moving about going on. It's really not too bad in this chapter, though.

__

The Pegasus reinforcements following Paola and Katua don't post that much of a problem, either. Maji unfortunately isn't the greatest at fighting them, since he's 1-2 points of Spd shy of not getting doubled, but Banutu and Minerva are actually able to just hold them back indefinitely.

You can see Mars facing Jiol on that second screenshot - it just seemed appropriate. He dealt 2x8 damage and ate 15 in return, so Wendell and Boah needed to heal him up, though - both, because the Relive/Mend staff broke some time ago.

__

Sweet revenge!

__

Meanwhile, Thomas grabbed the necessary XP to promote from the Archers and the Cleric in the north. He was actually slower than the Archers, which made it a little awkward, but he also dealt big damage with a Silver Bow.

Looking at his stats, he's almost indistinguishable from Sniper bases: The only difference is a single point of WLv. Which isn't nothing, Parthia is still 2 points away (and Thomas has a 50% growth rate), but it doesn't exactly inspire awe, either. Still two points faster than George, so that's nice.

...actually, right now, until he actually get those two extra procs, +1 WLv is nothing, isn't it?

Julian's little group had no issue - nobody got doubled, the Sniper made the dumb decision to move into the corner, and Julian took two extra turns to get the kill (with Iron, because I'm silly and greedy), since he's generally not getting as much XP as he maybe should if he wants to keep up as a combat unit.

The Pegasi would've been some easy experience (I think it's 40 XP/kill), but I generally don't like delaying a clear to grind levels, even though getting Raddy finally to promotion would've been quite nice. But hey, the game isn't so difficult that I need to milk every drop of XP in order to survive.

__

Next time, we shall learn if we can win against Gharnef.

The Team:

	Lv  	   HP  Str Skl WLv Spd Lck Def
Mars	9.09	   24    9   7   6  10  12   8	(+4 Mov)
Kain	16.17	   32   10  14  17  14   8   9
Darros	14.08	   31   11   2   9  16   6   9	(+6 Spd)
Marich	12.21	   28    1   7  14  11   9   7

Roshe	12/3.39	   29    9  13  12  12   4   9
Wendell	4.36	   24    3   1  13  16   5   8
Raddy	8.38	   23    9  12   9  12   3   6
Minerv	3.54	   23   10   4  11   6   5  15

Thomas	10/1.35	   24    7  10  11  14  11   7	(+7 Lck)
Boah	2.37	   22    4   7  10  16   4   6
Maji	11.63	   28   12   5   8  13   7   7	(+4 Str)
Wryf	11.24	   19    1   5   4   7   2   3

Banutu	2.09	   18    2   3   2   4   1   3	(no procs)
Julian	7.88	   30    6   8   7  15  10   4	(+9 HP, +5 WLv)
Katua	3.38	   19    5   6  10  12   0   7	(base)
Paola	8.94	   25    7   8  12  14   5   9	(base)

• Katua seems to be the awkward middle child both literally and figuratively, even though there isn't anything wrong with her stats at all. Paola, similar to Thomas, comes very close to promotion level (even closer because she starts as an enemy), although she's obviously a lot stronger than him in her base class. And if the player wants to use a more Est-like character, well...
  I'll probably field Paola at least a bit, getting her to Lv. 10, in case there's a spot on the team for a second Wyvern and I won't train Est up to be that. There is no third Dragon Whip (and the second one is already really late), so Katua is not going to get promoted. She'd probably be a more useful character to bring than Raddy at this point, but, well, Sunken Cost Fallacy.
• Please note the Spd stats on Roshe (!!!), Wendell, and Boah.

 

[Saint Rubenio]

4 minutes ago, gnip said:

Careful, that kind of talk might attract angry Severa fanboys, and we wouldn't want that.

Call her Selena and we can pretend we're talking about the FE8 one.

4 minutes ago, gnip said:

In an ambush from behind, the Aritian army was annihilated.
Aritia's king Cornelius, and the Falchion, disappeared.
It has been 2 years since that tragic day...
Now, finally Mars reaches Gra castle, protected by the man who drove his father to death, Jiol.

FE1 storytelling is such a silly thing. "Oh boy, here's this really important character in Mars's backstory, leader of a country that's also really important to it! They stole the really important plot sword that is required to beat the really important main villain! Better let the player know they're a thing."

5 minutes ago, gnip said:

I've made the mistake of buying extra iron weapons in the earlygame, which I think was almost entirely unnecessary.

Yeah, I believe I may have made the same mistake myself. This isn't a game where you'll find yourself in need of spare weapons.

6 minutes ago, gnip said:

Hello handsome stranger. Would you like to join our little army?

Fun fact you didn't point out: In this game, Himmler stole Boa's thoron tome. In FE11, it was changed to Volzhin. The reason is unclear, but I imagine they wanted as few mentions to "Heimler" in the script as possible, lest people catch on.

9 minutes ago, gnip said:

__

I do love how they went about making Jiol unique compared to all the other angry generals. They gave him a fucking mohawk. I'm actually so sad they made it less pronounced in FE3 before disposing of it entirely in FE11. Dude had style. Not great style, maybe, but style.

7 minutes ago, gnip said:

Please note the Spd stats on Roshe (!!!)

Speedroche leveled speed again. What else is new?

[ping]

4 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Fun fact you didn't point out: In this game, Himmler stole Boa's thoron tome. In FE11, it was changed to Volzhin. The reason is unclear, but I imagine they wanted as few mentions to "Heimler" in the script as possible, lest people catch on.

Maybe they thought that it would make more sense for the magic user to steal it. Although in that case, it would make even less sense for him to hand it to Cam-- I mean the mysterious handsome stranger.

6 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Call her Selena and we can pretend we're talking about the FE8 one.

Fire Emblem sure loves the trope of the noble enemy giving the hero something as reward for a good deed, doesn't it? Like Selena in The Sacred Stones, who we have been talking about, on the map where Moulder (and some lesser characters) join. Or Murdock in BlaBla. ...Ursula might be stretching the "noble enemy" part a tiny bit.

9 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Speedroche leveled speed again. What else is new?

Well, Darros has enough WLv to finally use Silver A-- ...oh. Right.

[Shaky Jones]

3 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Still wish they'd tried to get at least two chains for everyone. That would've been neat and wouldn't have pushed the total that much higher than usual, especially if they hadn't blatantly played favorites with stuff like giving the Whitewings and Minerva supports among each other while Abel and Cain got to not speak a word. But oh well. We don't always get what we want.

This is all we can do. Rant about what could've been given this is the closest we'll ever get to peak FE, given this is Wrys's game.

3 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

...Jesus fucking Christ, don't say things like that. We lost the Wrys/Frost support because of Odin ffs

But we love Odin around here, right everyone?

3 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Draw a skeleton with hair for your next project.

Ruben you dumbass. Look at my pfp.

3 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

That would've been neat, yeah. People like to explain away the Abel/Cain situation by saying Cain never forgave Abel for his betrayal, but I'd say Frey probably would. He's a kind man and he would understand his sacrifice to save someone he loves.

Man, we gotta force AnonymousSpeed to write these supports for us when somebody finally figures out how to mod DSFE.

1 hour ago, Punished Dayni said:

Playing over Lang, it probably feels wrong

It's to fuck with ya. You freak out for a split second thinking that somehow your unit died. Tell me that isn't something Kaga would do.

14 minutes ago, gnip said:

Careful, that kind of talk might attract angry Severa fanboys, and we wouldn't want that.

But we love Severa around here, right everyone?

16 minutes ago, gnip said:

Hello handsome stranger. Would you like to join our little army?

This fucker just lets the village die if the thief reaches it first?

17 minutes ago, gnip said:

__

Meanwhile, Thomas grabbed the necessary XP to promote from the Archers and the Cleric in the north. He was actually slower than the Archers, which made it a little awkward, but he also dealt big damage with a Silver Bow.

These bases are strikingly similar to sniper wendell in FE11, and those bases lasted me a long ass time even in H5. Snipers be damned. Poor Jeorge.

And then Wendel got +2 speed growths and kept doubling by ch16. Forged steel bow my beloved.

Fitting that you promoted Thomas here. This is the Tomas stage after all. Joining time of FE12, plenty of fliers in both games, this map was practically made for the guy.

20 minutes ago, gnip said:

The Pegasi would've been some easy experience (I think it's 40 XP/kill), but I generally don't like delaying a clear to grind levels, even though getting Raddy finally to promotion would've been quite nice. But hey, the game isn't so difficult that I need to milk every drop of XP in order to survive.

Mental illness will do lots of things. Staying until turn 60 to clear out all chapter 4 reinforcments in Thracia is one of them.

22 minutes ago, gnip said:

Next time, we shall learn if we can win against Gharnef.

Gharnef in FE21, FE1 Re-Re-Remake: "So you've bested me once? No matter...I SHALL RETREAT"

25 minutes ago, gnip said:

Katua seems to be the awkward middle child both literally and figuratively, even though there isn't anything wrong with her stats at all. Paola, similar to Thomas, comes very close to promotion level (even closer because she starts as an enemy), although she's obviously a lot stronger than him in her base class. And if the player wants to use a more Est-like character, well...

Thomas XP/10

26 minutes ago, gnip said:

Please note the Spd stats on Roshe (!!!), Wendell, and Boah.

Honestly, I'm just wondering what the hell my Julian was. Bro had like, 15 STR, 20 SPD, and 13 DEF by now. He wasn't even lvl 20 yet. 

That and you clearly aren't playing right if Maji isn't lvl 18 at minimum.

17 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Speedroche leveled speed again. What else is new?

I tend to be way more blessed with my Vylands, but I suppose he actually has a speed growth. I prefer his look way more anyways. Is Roche in SoHaE?

I don't think so.

9 minutes ago, gnip said:

Fire Emblem sure loves the trope of the noble enemy giving the hero something as reward for a good deed, doesn't it? Like Selena in The Sacred Stones, who we have been talking about, on the map where Moulder (and some lesser characters) join. Or Murdock in BlaBla. ...Ursula might be stretching the "noble enemy" part a tiny bit.

I can't think of any other scenario like that, but my S support is the start button, so maybe I'm forgetting things. Might just be those 3.

But like what the fuck happens if the thief destroys the town? 

[ping]

11 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

But we love Severa around here, right everyone?

Depends. In absolute terms? Ehhh... no. Relative to talking about Severa? That's a very different story.

(I do like Odin, actually. As far as silly Fateswakening character gimmicks go, "hardcore LARPer" is one of the funniest, even if he doesn't hold a candle to Arthur. I suppose it can get on your nerves to hear "UGHHH! MY ACHING BLOOD!!" for the umpteenth time if you actually play the game, though, similar to Minsc in Baldur's Gate)

11 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

Fitting that you promoted Thomas here. This is the Tomas stage after all. Joining time of FE12, plenty of fliers in both games, this map was practically made for the guy.

He's so good, he didn't even need to shoot any Pegasi to get the necessary XP to promote. He got a bit more than 100 XP last map, so two Archers and the Cleric were enough.

Edited September 8, 2023 by gnip

[Saint Rubenio]

1 hour ago, gnip said:

Maybe they thought that it would make more sense for the magic user to steal it. Although in that case, it would make even less sense for him to hand it to Cam-- I mean the mysterious handsome stranger.

FE11 does imply that Camus stole it. No need for consent for that.

1 hour ago, gnip said:

Fire Emblem sure loves the trope of the noble enemy giving the hero something as reward for a good deed, doesn't it? Like Selena in The Sacred Stones, who we have been talking about, on the map where Moulder (and some lesser characters) join. Or Murdock in BlaBla. ...Ursula might be stretching the "noble enemy" part a tiny bit.

Ahh I remember that map. Deuteragonist Moulder making his grand appearance was definitely the highlight of it.

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

But we love Odin around here, right everyone?

He... tries really hard. It's commendable.

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

Ruben you dumbass. Look at my pfp.

Another one.

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

Man, we gotta force AnonymousSpeed to write these supports for us when somebody finally figures out how to mod DSFE.

Someone was making some incredibly impressive tools for FE12. I mean truly amazing, stuff that could've competed with FEBuilder, even.

They vanished off the face of the earth over a year ago and never released anything. Life is not fair.

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

But we love Severa around here, right everyone?

I have to hand her one thing: She has one of the best designs out of any of Fates's regular playables. It's not sexualized out of the wazoo. That automatically makes her better than most of them.

Still can't stand up to the generic girls, or even Daniela, much less Candace, but I mean... It's somethin'.

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

I tend to be way more blessed with my Vylands, but I suppose he actually has a speed growth. I prefer his look way more anyways. Is Roche in SoHaE?

I don't think so.

...Vyland isn't in SoHaE either, what's your point?

[Shaky Jones]

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Another one.

Sure, I'll draw a picture of you 5 years from now, with Garon hair.

 

Okay probably not, there's too many other ideas to be had, especially with FE1 on the brain.

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I have to hand her one thing: She has one of the best designs out of any of Fates's regular playables. It's not sexualized out of the wazoo. That automatically makes her better than most of them.

How unsurprising. 

Now let's see her become Caeldori's mother.

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

...Vyland isn't in SoHaE either, what's your point?

I'm not dealing with this.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

(I do like Odin, actually. As far as silly Fateswakening character gimmicks go, "hardcore LARPer" is one of the funniest, even if he doesn't hold a candle to Arthur. I suppose it can get on your nerves to hear "UGHHH! MY ACHING BLOOD!!" for the umpteenth time if you actually play the game, though, similar to Minsc in Baldur's Gate)

I love it when he says the name of a Fire Emblem game. It's a thing I'm familar with. I love familiar thing.

[ping]

• FE1 Chapter 15: Land of Sorcery

Spoiler

Once they begin chanting, no warrior can defend himself.
One... and another... Brave warriors come and fall... Khadein... a cursed land of darkness...

Ignoring... the Sophia... ductus... It's a bit weird how Khadein is introduced here. Gharnef took over, like, a few months ago, and I'm pretty sure it was just the city of mages before that. Heck, if I recall, Marich said that he only stopped studying in Khadein to join Mars, although presumably, he was lucky to leave before the hostile takeover.

Anyway, as far as desert maps go, this one is pretty tame, unlike a certain other Akaneian one. You have that path of plains tiles going almost the whole way to the boss, and most classes can cross desert tiles decently well. Interestingly, only unpromoted Mages (and flyers, ofc) are completely unimpeded, while Clerics and Bishops need 2 Mov per tile. But the only classes that are hit really hard are unpromoted Cavalry and Horsemen, interestingly enough. The latter is even slowed down to a single tile (5 cost).

__

The initial danger comes from two incoming Wyverns with Javelins, which means that Mages and Archers can't shoot them down without eating a heavy counterattack. Darros had to set up the kill for Linda, and yes, she would've been in deep trouble if she had missed. She would've needed another Spd proc to avoid getting doubled, and yet another one to also avoid getting doubled by the higher-leveled ones that don't start aggressive.

As far as unit splits go, only Maji and Julian went towards the chests guarded by Gharnef. I only barriered up Maji, which was a mistake - these Mages were easy XP for Julian, but I had to use a few Physic charges so that he was able to keep fighting them. Although I also just as well could've just let Maji handle things, since he doubles and one-shots them with Iron (although he doesn't one-shot and gets doubled with a Hand Axe).

The next challenge for the main group was the generic Bishop, who is really fast (as old men tend to be) - fast enough to double basically everything except Sheeda, and even then, she wouldn't be allowed to use a Silver Lance. Luckily, Thunder tomes don't have innate crit yet, and Darros is bulky enough to live a crit+hit, which made the chance of him dying pretty negligible.

Ugh.

__

After that, there's another two Wyverns on the map - one covering the boss, the other one so far out of the way that you don't have to fight him. Palla does so anyway, just for the sake of XP.

__

Gharnef leaves... turn 8 or 9, I think. Julian was able to delay getting the treasure chests by a turn in order to get another Mage kill, since Katua needed that extra turn to get a second round of Silver Card shopping in (she got three Recovery staves, which have a low enough WLv requirement even for Wryf, and three Elfire tomes, which seem like a good compromise between power, accuracy, weight, and charges per tome).

__

The bosskill wasn't too difficult, since although Worm hits pretty hard, it also weighs down the boss to a much more manageable 9 AS. Boah doubled him with Elfire to set up a kill for Raddy, who also doubled him and only needed a single hit with his Silver Sword.

This was just barely enough XP for Raddy to finally promote, too - as I mentioned earlier, he isn't that much better than Hero's class bases (and therefore Astria's bases), but he does come with an extra +2 Str, which is certainly welcome.

__

But before we put on our roller skates, there are two new stat boosters to distribute:

• With all due respect for silly choices, I want to give the Power Ring to Sheeda. After she promotes, obviously, which isn't that far away anymore. I've constantly been feeding XP to a 3 Str unit, now I want the payoff of a strong fast bulky flyer.
• I'm less decided on the Amulet, apart from two things I won't do: (1) use the glitch that allows using it on everybody, (2) give it to Mars. The first one because that's kinda lame, the second one because I think I remember hearing or reading that FE1's AI won't attack anybody with 7 Res, even when they would still be dealing damage. And since Mars's superpower is to draw any incoming attack, that would be kinda contraproductive. So... maybe Miverva? I'll be honest, if I was playing on my own, I'd give it to Sheeda, too, just for the full Supergirl experience.

The Team:

	Lv  	   HP  Str Skl WLv Spd Lck Def
Mars	9.09	   24    9   7   6  10  12   8	(+4 Mov)
Darros	14.65	   31   11   2   9  16   6   9	(+6 Spd)
Marich	13.46	   28    1   7  15  12  10   8
Roshe	12/3.96	   29    9  13  12  12   4   9

Wendell	4.42	   24    3   1  13  16   5   8
Raddy	10/1.04	   24   10  14  10  14   4   8
Minerv	4.36	   24   10   5  11   6   5  15
Thomas	10/2.53	   25    7  10  12  14  11   7

Boah	2.73	   22    4   7  10  16   4   6
Maji	12.41	   29   12   5   8  14   8   7	(+4 Str)
Wryf	11.24	   19    1   5   4   7   2   3
Julian	9.80	   32    8  10   7  16  11   4	(+9 HP, +5 WLv)

Katua	3.45	   base
Paola	9.28	   26    7   9  13  14   5   9
Sheeda	11.65	   19    3  14  14  20  15  11
Linda	3.00	   22    1   6   9   8   9   3

• No new characters, but I want to point out that Sheeda now sits at 11 Def. Less funny, but more relevant is that she also hit Gradivüü WLv, as the second character after Kain.

 

[Saint Rubenio]

13 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Sure, I'll draw a picture of you 5 years from now, with Garon hair.

 

Okay probably not, there's too many other ideas to be had, especially with FE1 on the brain.

Draw Wendel running a marathon.

2 minutes ago, gnip said:

It's a bit weird how Khadein is introduced here. Gharnef took over, like, a few months ago, and I'm pretty sure it was just the city of mages before that. Heck, if I recall, Marich said that he only stopped studying in Khadein to join Mars, although presumably, he was lucky to leave before the hostile takeover.

Once again, funky FE1 storytelling at work. There's no room to tell the player this used to be a nice place, we have a major villain to introduce and only a few lines to make him seem like a big scary deal.

4 minutes ago, gnip said:

You know, one thing I haven't been commenting on as much as I should is the combat visuals. These are some sweet sprites for NES. Look at that archer with the big crossbow, that's awesome!

11 minutes ago, gnip said:

And of course, bishops looking like druids. Or rather, druids look like the OG bishops? Either way, I always loved this big bundle o' robes style. It's cool.

6 minutes ago, gnip said:

Oh God, I always forget that Imhullu used to be called Maph. The Spanish fanslation slightly corrupted that to Mafu, which is... ever so slightly less hideous. Still, I'd say 8-4 made the right call in just making up a new name for it in FE11.

8 minutes ago, gnip said:

So... maybe Miverva?

Why do you keep calling her Miverva

9 minutes ago, gnip said:

No new characters, but I want to point out that Sheeda now sits at 11 Def. Less funny, but more relevant is that she also hit Gradivüü WLv, as the second character after Kain.

Come now, give it to Roshe. He's the subordinate of its canon wielder!

[Interdimensional Observer]

53 minutes ago, gnip said:

Interestingly, only unpromoted Mages (and flyers, ofc) are completely unimpeded, while Clerics and Bishops need 2 Mov per tile.

That's unusual, like so much else in this game. Free-flowing clothing + magic abilities must be the winning combination, otherwise the otherwise the old duo and Marth for separate reasons ought to dashing across the sands with ease.

53 minutes ago, gnip said:

As far as unit splits go, only Maji and Julian went towards the chests guarded by Gharnef. I only barriered up Maji, which was a mistake - these Mages were easy XP for Julian, but I had to use a few Physic charges so that he was able to keep fighting them. Although I also just as well could've just let Maji handle things, since he doubles and one-shots them with Iron (although he doesn't one-shot and gets doubled with a Hand Axe).

Physical fliers in a desert map being the real menace? I wonder how often that has been the case. It's certainly not always magic that's the real threat in a desert map.

 

42 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Oh God, I always forget that Imhullu used to be called Maph. The Spanish fanslation slightly corrupted that to Mafu, which is... ever so slightly less hideous. Still, I'd say 8-4 made the right call in just making up a new name for it in FE11.

Mafu, broken down into Ma-Fu, is actually more accurate. "Fu" is one of several Japanese words for "wind", as in the Shinto wind god "Fujin". "Ma" is a loaded kanji, with the following definitions.:

• devil, demon, evil spirit
• harmful (or evil) person or thing
• magic
• supernatural
• crazy, insane
• obsessed

Most of these are malevolent. But as the possible definition of simply "magic" indicates, "ma" can be neutral in meaning as well. As in "maho shoujo" -the Japanese translated into English as "magical girl", those heroic young anime ladies who transform into defenders of justice!

Since Gharnef uses dark magic and is not a nice person though, the "ma" in Mafu is better translated as "Evil Wind", or something. A name totally lacking in creativity, might as well call it "Viento Maligno" in Spanish (using a translator) I guess.

Imhullu is apparently a reference to an evil wind in Babylonian mythology, some Mesopotamian mythological things are commonly name-borrowed in popular fiction, such as Ishtar. Imhullu suggests someone at Nintendo of America did more than a five-second look on Wikipedia, because it's a tiny detail you won't see pop up right away.

Also on the topic of "Ma", Gharnef's title in Japanese is "Maou", "ou" (alternatively "oh" or "o" with a line over it) meaning "ruler" (usually translated in the masculine as "king", but the kanji is gender-neutral and can be used by women). The most common literal definition in fiction is "Demon King" (yes, Formortiis uses the exact same title), and this term appears heavily in Japanese video games and anime and manga, even for less-anime games as with Bowser and Ganondorf. "Dark Pontifex" is a localization change that doesn't sound as weird to the unaware English player's ear, and flavors it with the local context that Gharnef is a priest in a position of administrative power.

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Come now, give it to Roshe. He's the subordinate of its canon wielder!

Give it to Caesar! -Because a Gladius is a typical Classical Roman sword, not a spear.😑

The typical Roman legionary infantry soldier during the height of the Roman Empire would've been armed with a gladius in one hand, and a large curved rectangular shield called a Scutum on the other arm. That's the image of the Roman Legions that have endured in the public consciousness, even though b/c Rome existed for many centuries the specifics gradually changed over time. If you wanted a somewhat-heavier sword, you used a Spatha, or a Pugio for a dagger.

Now if Kaga/IS were smart, they would've known that if they wanted a pokey-stick with a Latin/Roman name, they would had several options.

The Gradivus has 1-2 range, it can be thrown. Which makes it a kind of javelin. The first thing that comes to mind for that is this.:

The Pilum (about 2 meters long)! Thrown with abandon by Roman soldiers and Narron alike. Not entirely useless in melee combat if you have to either.

During the height of Rome's geopolitical greatness, the average infantry soldier would carry one or two pilum. When a battle would begin, the soldiers would chuck their Pilums as a first strike, and afterwards begin marching in tight formation towards the enemy Scutums raised rendering them near-invulnerable. When the legions finally reached their enemy, they would draw their Gladii from behind their shields and mow down the enemy. That was how the Romans won victory after victory. -The Pilum's purpose was to weaken the enemy a little, either kill them or at least get stuck in their shield. The Pilum tips were very bendable, which was great actually, since it would make it very difficult to pull one out of your shield if one landed in it and you didn't die, you'd have little choice but to throw away your shield and thereby expose yourself more to those well-armored hellbent Romans.

If we're talking a stabbing spear not meant to be chucked at things but used at close range with a shield in the other hand, that was the function of the Hasta, which FE would later waste on Blazing's useless S-rank lance. Lancea and Verutum are two other names for Roman stabby shafts that could be thrown or not thrown and were alternatives to the predominant Pilum. The Romans do not appear to have have had a form of extra-long heavy two-handed spear, generically referred to as a "pike". The Macedonians that Alexander the Great commanded did, in the form of the Sarissa (apparently 4-7 meters in length). And later Medieval Europe invented ...the Pike... as a what Fire Emblem would think of as a "Ridersbane", a weapon specifically invented for the sake of dealing with all those pesky overpowered blueblood mounted knights.

[Saint Rubenio]

19 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Mafu, broken down into Ma-Fu, is actually more accurate.

This sentence is basically the Project Elitist experience. Every single time, he kept throwing weird-ass names and translations at me, and then I looked them up and they turned out to be more correct.

Like, dude, I know by now everyone who's been around me has seen this screenshot, but c'mon. You can't make this shit up. He did this hilarity and he was right to do it. That's decidedly the intent, Mycen is gibberish.

Of course, there's always an argument to be made for liberties in localizations being a good thing. I'll express my preference for FE11's localized script any day of the week, and there are multiple examples outside of FE that I could personally endorse.

20 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Since Gharnef uses dark magic and is not a nice person though, the "ma" in Mafu is better translated as "Evil Wind", or something. A name totally lacking in creativity, might as well call it "Viento Maligno" in Spanish (using a translator) I guess.

Imhullu is apparently a reference to an evil wind in Babylonian mythology, some Mesopotamian mythological things are commonly name-borrowed in popular fiction, such as Ishtar. Imhullu suggests someone at Nintendo of America did more than a five-second look on Wikipedia, because it's a tiny detail you won't see pop up right away.

That does seem slightly more appropriate for Imhullu than the average mythological reference in Japanese media. It's certainly a hell of a lot closer than the Temple of Mars from TRS lol, remember that?

20 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Also on the topic of "Ma", Gharnef's title in Japanese is "Maou", "ou" (alternatively "oh" or "o" with a line over it) meaning "ruler" (usually translated in the masculine as "king", but the kanji is gender-neutral and can be used by women). The most common literal definition in fiction is "Demon King" (yes, Formortiis uses the exact same title), and this term appears heavily in Japanese video games and anime and manga, even for less-anime games as with Bowser and Ganondorf. "Dark Pontifex" is a localization change that doesn't sound as weird to the unaware English player's ear, and flavors it with the local context that Gharnef is a priest in a position of administrative power.

Come to think of it, I don't remember what they called him in the Spanish fanslation. Pretty sure it was something along the lines of Dark Pontifex though.

21 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Give it to Caesar! -Because a Gladius is a typical Classical Roman sword, not a spear.😑

I mean, wouldn't be the first time that's happened. I've seen falchion pop up in multiple other games, and every time it's just a generic cheap sword lol

21 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The Pilum (about 2 meters long)!

You may remember Kaga later adopted this as his prefered throwable spear - or at least, Aethin translated it as such in the two KagaSagas.

[ping]

20 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I mean, wouldn't be the first time that's happened. I've seen falchion pop up in multiple other games, and every time it's just a generic cheap sword lol

It's funny - FE1 has this legendary sword that can only be wielded by the rightful king, and it's named after some generic type of sword, and all the while EXCALIBUR is a wind magic spell.