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

[Punished Dayni]

4 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Honestly, it's more just chance. They happened to get a couple lines in Echoes that struck me. Other people were all over Annette going "I'm your girl" - I, meanwhile, laughed my ass off the first time Genny went "I'm ready to roll" in that hilarious tone that makes her sound like a six year old. And of course, Lu sounds so incredibly smarmy with his iconic line, I couldn't help but love it.

Everyone brings up her being ready to roll and the cultured understand how easy the pickings are.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

The next map is very green.

I do appreciate that Gaiden uses this map to introduce the new Cavalier enemy type, since they're actually a fair bit more threatening than what we've been up against thus far. Since maps tend to be so open, they're much more threatening to your squishies, and because they're a little faster (5 Spd) than all the other enemies sans the one Mercenary, they're actually very threatening to Silk, who barely survives a round of combat against them.

This may be one of the few tutorials that doesn't drive some up the wall

Remembers the one Boat map....

3 hours ago, gnip said:

The next map is honestly a little dumb. You're pitched against six Cavaliers, four of them across a river with a one-tile bridge above it, and two on the same bank as Alm's group.

And doing this after makes some feel like they're dumb for going the cav again. I can figure the intent is to teach the player about point choking.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

Echoes makes it so that Clive still is the head organiser and, I believe, implies that Alm is supposed to be more of a figurehead to make use of his connection to Mycen, as well as show the common soldiers how the nobles are totally treating them as equals. Or maybe I remember the whone thing being more cynical than it really was, because that's how I would prefer it to be.

That's close if not on the point.

If I recall correctly Alm is involved in planning offences, so figurehead is probably a bit too little credit. If I'm recalling correctly, it's been a while and a long day too.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

But, er, right, stat boosts! I'm honestly incredibly undecided, since I think most of them would "disappear" once a character promotes. Basically everybody is below their promotions' base Str and Def at this point. I'm sure the optimal play would be to throw them at Alm, or at least do something with them right away, but I'm genuinely tempted to save them up for later. Who knows, maybe Luthier would apreciate if pickings were even easier for him.

I get considering Luthier, unless you figure out someone wouid benefit if they promote soon to get them afterwards.

22 minutes ago, gnip said:

• +2 Spd for Boey (1 AS with Fire -> 3 AS). Since I want to use him, this feels almost obligatory, allowing him to double at least the lowest Spd tiers.
• Not entirely sure about the third charge. Just dump it on Boey, too? His Spd growth is only 10%, after all. Give it to Genny because Ruben wants her to do combat? She joins with 3 AS and also not much of a growth rate (15%).

Yes.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

[HP 40% | Str 40% | Skl 15% | Spd 20% | Lck 10% | Def 15%]

As I mentioned before, I used Python in my previous attempt, and didn't like him very much. He's Str-focused in a class that's also Str-focused, so promoting won't help much with his flaws, and he's a low-Skl character in a class with an inaccurate weapon type. I assume he's better in Echoes, where you can get +hit from supports, and eventually Hunter's Volley to ignore both his Skl and Spd, but he just doesn't seem like a particularly good (or fun) unit in Gaiden.

Sadly, true.

Hunter's Volley is busted.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

[HP 30% | Str 40% | Skl 10% | Spd 20% | Lck 20% | Def 10%]

I was a bit surprised to see after talking trash about Luka's growths, that Force's growths total is even lower: 130% vs. 145%. In fact, he ties Gray for the lowest growth total on Alm's entire route, with the exception of old folks. He also shares Python's problem that his promotions won't help his bad Skl or Spd, although at least he's using a more accurate weapon type.

I kinda assumed that Force ends up better than Luka because he at least hits hard, but looking at the class bases for Knight and Baron, in particular their excellent Strength, I'm not so sure anymore. Force does have an extra point of Spd and a decently high Res stat, though.

All true, but he has Force on his side

(I had him with the speed ring later on, guy shoved through for days)

[Saint Rubenio]

8 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

Everyone brings up her being ready to roll and the cultured understand how easy the pickings are.

Ready to rolling is necessary to ease one into the pickings.

Fun fact: There is no standalone video for "I'm ready to roll." Closest thing is this meme. There is, however, an upload specifically of Luthier saying "easy pickings." Eat your heart out, sheep girl.

[Shaky Jones]

3 hours ago, gnip said:

The next map is very green.

My eyes hurt by the end of the game, but the brown was a refreshing change of pace.

It accurately represents the shit you've been through.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

____

The next map is honestly a little dumb. You're pitched against six Cavaliers, four of them across a river with a one-tile bridge above it, and two on the same bank as Alm's group.

Turn that 6 into 12, and this is literally an FE4 map, or at least a part of it. Fun.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

They have a funny attack animation though, where they seem to goop into the ground, then reform in front of their opponent and smack them.

It's funny until you're spamming the speed key to hurry up the slow ass animation.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

Silk, on the other hand, got +2 Spd, so she now doubles everything in chapter 1 that isn't named Slayder.

Silk gaming? Why not. 

3 hours ago, gnip said:

To play Kaga's advocate

Is it okay if I use this?

3 hours ago, gnip said:

Honestly, it might not even be that hot a take. I've barely started playing FE2 and people have (well, Shaky has) been meming on FE4's maps already, and I know that it's divisive whether Thracia is cool and fun or stupid and bullshit, so I wouldn't be surprised if more people would rank FE1 more highly. I personally like New Mystery quite a bit (even though I think I'm better at GBAFE), so I'm curious to see how its maps will play in Old Mystery. Although I do have to say that I don't particularly look forward to ch.3 or the desert map.

Everyone's thrown their 2 cents in, and mine isn't too different, aside from me honestly liking a lot of FE5 maps, although this is me including the unique gimmicks that utilize character behavior/ideologies that make the AI much more believable, and tactics that are very interesting to see done in FE, even if they're a nightmare for the player. I'm not sure if most people include this,

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

and Thracia's strengths don't lay on its map design, which is a bit too walk-heavy at times (chapter 5 comes to mind), a bit too warpskip-heavy at other times (looking at you, chapter 21) and downright terrible in a few instances (12x...).

 and I'm guessing this is an example of that, as it's technically a separate factor, but I generally include it. I've only played Thracia once though, and I made sure to not warp skip any chapters. The lategame was honestly a joke given my capped army and abundance of sleep edges and thief stave uses. It was simultaneously fun to absolutely clown on Kaga's maps, but it does get boring when that feeling of having a staff war with a senile old dev wears off.

I don't think 12x is that bad. 14x though. Fuck that chapter. I like Thracia maps mostly, but it's definitely not the best of Kaga.

 

I'd say FE1 being the best as far as map design goes is a lukewarm take. Not many people would find it shocking to hear, although I do suppose Kaga map design is rarely discussed when it's not Judgral, as those are the stereotype elitist games. The only genuine competition is FE3 B2, which I do think trumps FE1 given how many FE1 maps had way too much walking just like fe3 ch3 (why start units 20 tiles away from anything) that fe11 luckily fixed. Then again, FE3 indoor maps are tedious because you're forced to have zero mounts, and sword emblem can be rather boring. Eh, my mind is willing to be changed, but I'll just say fe3 because I love chapter 8 of b2. Still, FE1 is a completely fair and reasonable choice.

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Hold on, now.

Is there a problem?

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

poor map reuse

But I like the reuses!

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

3 hours ago, gnip said:

I can't believe people are telling me to use the good unit. Well, good class.

Hey, you asked. You also called me spiteful, and I proceeded to prove you wrong and ugly by spiting you back and giving you boring suggestions and mage Atlas. And don't imagine for a moment I've forgotten. We'll see who's spiteful

It was very obvious that my "suggestions" were jokes purposefully exaggerated to emphasize how impossible it is to make actual funny or unique "builds" for this game. I never actually never expected them to be followed, and I imagine Ruben didn't expect anything for his, either. In other FE games, I think the good units are often boring and over-loved for the most bland reasons, but nothing matters in this game. Use whoever really, but please do use Mage Atlas. 

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

It does improve this bit somewhat. Though it's a bit muddled by Fernand showing up to grab Clive by the collar and yell at him, at which point the game gets distracted telling the player that they're supposed to feel... something, even though they've known Fernand for two cutscenes and he's been a horrible asshole in both.

"He's a farm boy! A peasant!"

Alm turns out to be royalty

Nice added plot point.

1 hour ago, gnip said:

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

...You know, it's funny, Echoes is the FE with voice lines on unit select I've played the least, and yet it's the only one with lines that I can remember off the top of my head.

I'd love to say that it's because Echoes generally has good voice acting, but then again, I can hear Elise's TEEHEEHEEYAY in my head, so maybe there isn't much of a correlation.

And then I ping AnonymousSpeed to rant about why voice acting is bad

I don't think too hard about it. Sometimes I remember lines. Sometimes I don't. No one game gets more recognition from me there. Well I suppose Fates has Odin, and Arthur. For justiiiiice!

56 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Honestly, it's more just chance. They happened to get a couple lines in Echoes that struck me. Other people were all over Annette going "I'm your girl" - I, meanwhile, laughed my ass off the first time Genny went "I'm ready to roll" in that hilarious tone that makes her sound like a six year old. And of course, Lu sounds so incredibly smarmy with his iconic line, I couldn't help but love it

What's so special about a child-like girl saying a child-like opening? I just don't get it.

42 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

Everyone brings up her being ready to roll and the cultured understand how easy the pickings are.

I tried coming up with another quote to respond with, but I blanked out for 10 seconds. Guess I really don't remember this game. 

44 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

If I recall correctly Alm is involved in planning offences, so figurehead is probably a bit too little credit. If I'm recalling correctly, it's been a while and a long day too.

Let's put the guy who's never seen real combat before until now the role of planning offences. Nobody in the Deliverance would know any better.

[ping]

8 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

All true, but he has Force on his side

(I had him with the speed ring later on, guy shoved through for days)

I'm tempted to try using him, just for the novelty of using what's apparently the worst character in the game, and so that I at least use one Soldier. Maybe then Ruben won't come over to Germany and change my wifi password. I'll see about the Speed Ring - since Gaiden is all Rout instead of all Seize, there's not as much incentive to drop the "boots" on the lord.

8 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Is it okay if I use this?

I'd be surprised if I was the first one to come up with this, so go ahead.

8 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

In other FE games, I think the good units are often boring and over-loved for the most bland reasons, but nothing matters in this game.

Hol' up, I thought boring and over-loved units are generally those with a cute anime portrait.

Spoiler

 

[Saint Rubenio]

11 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

I don't think 12x is that bad. 14x though. Fuck that chapter. I like Thracia maps mostly, but it's definitely not the best of Kaga.

All the Thracia gaidens are really bad, but 12x takes the cake for me because it's a dumb puzzle. The solution: Warpskip. If you don't want to warpskip, or haven't trained Safy to A staves or used up your only warp staff because hoarding staves isn't fun, you irremediably lose half the rewards and have to bend over backwards to keep the other half.

The game punishes you for not hoarding a staff - which, to be fair, does teach the very important lesson that Thracia 776 really does not want you to play it, but rather skip its content with warp staves. Key knowledge to have when you confront chapter 21. And the design of the map is just shit in general. Single-tile hallways full of enemies, woo! That sure doesn't get annoying to maneuver!

11 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

The only genuine competition is FE3 B2, which I do think trumps FE1 given how many FE1 maps had way too much walking just like fe3 ch3 (why start units 20 tiles away from anything) that fe11 luckily fixed. Then again, FE3 indoor maps are tedious because you're forced to have zero mounts, and sword emblem can be rather boring. Eh, my mind is willing to be changed, but I'll just say fe3 because I love chapter 8 of b2. Still, FE1 is a completely fair and reasonable choice.

FE3 book 2 is a bit more polarized, I'd say. It has some maps that are stellar, like chapter 8, but then it has some horrible shitters like 3 or 11. Higher highs, lower lows.

11 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

But I like the reuses!

Chapter 8 is brilliant, possibly the best case of map reuse in the entire series. The rest are basically just "hey you liked this map in the other game? Here, play through it again. Have fun."

11 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

I never actually never expected them to be followed, and I imagine Ruben didn't expect anything for his, either.

I'd think when someone says "all soldiers", it goes without saying that they don't really expect anyone to be mad enough to follow through lol

Then again, his rebuke got me thinking harder and remembering how much fun Mage Atlas is, so it all worked out in the end.

11 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

"He's a farm boy! A peasant!"

Alm turns out to be royalty

Nice added plot point.

Let's make class conflict a theme of our remake's story, very clumsily, while preserving the original game's twist that the farm boy is secretly the noblest noble to ever noble. Genius!

11 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Well I suppose Fates has Odin, and Arthur. For justiiiiice!

Arthur is pretty good. That laugh of his is contagious. I also like Setsuna, but she's a girl so you probably don't.

11 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

What's so special about a child-like girl saying a child-like opening? I just don't get it.

I don't know, it was just funny, okay? Can't I just find a thing funny?

3 hours ago, gnip said:

I'm tempted to try using him, just for the novelty of using what's apparently the worst character in the game, and so that I at least use one Soldier. Maybe then Ruben won't come over to Germany and change my wifi password. I'll see about the Speed Ring - since Gaiden is all Rout instead of all Seize, there's not as much incentive to drop the "boots" on the lord.

If you use Pholus and give him the speed ring, I will certainly reconsider my plans to go over to Germany and walk around your living room without taking off my dirty shoes.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

Hol' up, I thought boring and over-loved units are generally those with a cute anime portrait.

  Hide contents

 

Nah, those are just the units Shakes hates.

[ping]

FE2 Chapter 1: To Sofia!

Liberation HQ --> Sofia Castle

Spoiler

__
Dozer: "Think you can defeat me? Slayder, use my army to scatter those swines!"

Epic boss fight time! Or something like that, at least. I'm not going to 1-dmg-chip Dozer in order to get his Dracoshield, so Slayer, who I believe got brought up in a single line of dialogue before, will have to do.

The 3-tile chokepoint is where most of the fighting is going to take place. Enemies on this map don't move unless you get into their range, and this area is where you step into all the Cavaliers' (and Slayder's) range.

Speaking of the man, 8 Spd puts him in his own little speed tier, outrunning everything on the team except for Gray... if he gave the Bolt Sword away. With 12 Atk, that does make him pretty powerful an opponent, especially because he also has pretty good defensive stats. 5 Res in particular is worth pointing out.

Dozer is technically beatable because every attack deals at least one damage. I suppose if you really wanted to, you could try fishing for crits with Mage!Cliff and Mage!Robin using Excalibur, which of course requires some grinding. However, since he leaves the moment Slayder dies, that still seems pretty difficult to set up, especially because Slayder doesn't seem to go into coward AI (evidence further down).

We also fight our first magic enemy. "Dora" is functionally identical to the Fire spell, which means that his stats change to 11 Atk and 1 Spd. So basically, he hits most of our characters pretty hard, but gets doubled by literally everybody if they can counterattack.

Also the first of his class is this Knight, which in Gaiden is the promoted class for Soldiers. Hits very hard, takes very little damage from physical attacks, but gets fried very quickly by magic attackers. He does have enough HP to survive two Bolt Sword hits, though, so that's a distinction from other generic enemies.

This map is probably the worst offender thus far of the "useless walking" problem that FE1 and FE2 maps tend to have. Not only do you have to move everybody north for several turns, you also have to loop around a bit, with a lot of the path being one tile wide. Claire can help things a little, since she can fly over the wall and open the door, so you don't have to send everybody over the bridge on the right side.

__

I think the intended trick for the player to figure out is that you can send everybody (minus maybe your own Archer(s)) the left way, so that they can't be chipped at by the enemy archers. However, the Archers don't hit that hard, so I still just send everybody on the way that gets them into the fortress a little faster.

Cliff and (with less success) Python can at least take a few potshots back at them.

However, this also shows one Gaiden's "features" that Echoes almost certainly should've tossed in the trash can: 20 Avoid from "floor" tiles, i.e. all the grey areas on the map. With this, every fight is a gamble, especially when Archers are involved. You can see how Cliff's hit rate gets reduced to roughly 50%, and no, that's not because of the Steel Bow - the generic Bow is just as inaccurate.

__

Claire joins the fight after opening the door. She can fly over every wall on this map (I think -  I didn't try them all), although she has to be careful not to overextend with her low HP/Def stats. She's using Cleive's Steel Lance to help with her sub-par base Strength, but of course, that one does come with a -10% hit penalty compared to the default Lance. It's still 10% more accurate than bows, though.

You can see one Soldier and one Archer running to the Shaman (whose healing they seem to prefer over the healing tiles) - I don't mind that, since it'll still take them out of the fight while I face the Cav squad.

Which I do by putting Force, Cleive, and Alm into their range.

__

Slayder moves first and goes for Alm, who takes 2x3 damage and only deals 2 in return. Still, can tank Slayder for a good while, while ranged units wear him down from behind the frontline.

...Robin misses him twice on the next two turn, unfortunately.

__

As a result, progress is...slow.

Luckily, Slayder does not retreat despite his low HP.

I try setting up a kill for Force, but alas. (he does survive the double counter with 2 HP, or rather 7 because he dodges once)

____

Instead, Cliff takes the kill with a successful coin flip, which I suppose is a more useful outcome, anyway.

Dozer: "I'm leaving this to you, men!" (Dozer flees)

With Slayder gone, I can immediately push forward a bit, safely as long as the Cavaliers can't team up on anybody. Alm makes sure that they can't by blocking the middle entrance to the central rooms.

__

He was already worn down by Slayder a fair bit, but still healthy enough to tank a hit from the Shaman and still be fine against any Archer following that up. Bonus points for forcing the Shaman to attack from melee range, since he only has 4 movement and an Archer blocks the closest 2-range tile.

The rest is honestly just clean-up. The Knight gets another big hit in against Force...

...but Gray and Robin dispose of him immediately. The Archers being able to attack from healing tiles is a bit annoying, since those give +40% Avoid, but Archers without Steel Bows aren't exactly the most threatening enemy type we've faced.

Honestly, I'd rather use "Vanquished" instead of "Conquered". What, are we stationing an occupational army in Dozer now?

Entering Sofia castle, some unnamed NPCs fill us in on some plot points.

• Dozer fled to his fort in the western forest.
• Dozer took took the Royal Sword, a gift from Rigel that no 'normal person' (HINT HINT) can wield, with him.
• Dozer requested help from Rigel (we heard this one before from Force).
• Mycen 'shouldn't have any kin'.
• Dozer killed the entire royal family, except for one unnamed daughter.
• Mycen tried to stop Dozer, but was framed for the crime instead.

• Knight is good against knights.

It's actually a pretty solid weapon in general - one point weaker than the Steel and also with the -1 Spd penalty, but it also only carries a -5% hit penalty compared to the generic .

I'll probably give this one to Claire, and have Force take the Steel instead.

...

Mycen: "I can't seem to escape destiny. Alm, it's best if you follow your own path. Free this land of Valencia from its cursed fate. You and the red-haired girl who will visit this castle soon... Perhaps that is what fate has in store for you..."

And with that, Chapter 1 is beaten. Huzzah!

...honestly, the last-moment foreshadowing of Celica being important and maybe even the princess of Sofia is involuntarily funny to me, because literally the first dialogue in chapter 2 will include "HELLO CELICA WHO HAS RED HAIR AS YOU KNOW YOU ARE THE PRINCESS OF SOFIA". The narrative pacing is a little off here.

The Team:

	Lv.	   HP  Pow Def Skl Spd Lck Res  +XP   Item
Alm	4.34	   29   10   7*  8   7   8   4  + 38  Leather (+3 Def)
Luka	4.93	   23   10   6   4   4   3   2  + 13
Cliff	4.99	   26    9*  5   5   6* 11   8  +140  Steel (+3 Atk, -1 Spd)
Robin	4.43	   28    9   5   4   7   6   4  + 82  Fire (+3 Atk, -3 Spd)

Gray	4.69	   26    9*  5   8  10*  2   2  +142  Bolt (15 Atk, -3 Spd)
Silk	5.75	   18    9   1   5   8   4  11  + 59  Nosferatu (-2 Spd)
Claire  3.68	   21   10*  4   5   7* 12   8  +118  Steel (+4 Atk, -1 Spd, -10 hit)
Cleive  6.25	   26   12   7   7   7   6   1  + 25

Force	4.59	   28   11   7   4   5   3   5  + 59
Python	3.30	   24   10   5   3   4   2   4  + 30

• I genuinely tried to feed Force some XP, so seeing that it only resulted in half a level is a bit disappointing. Then again, he's still the same level as the four Ram boys, and early Ch.3 maps might have less floor tiles to screw over his accuracy.

 

FE2 Chapter 2: Celica's Leave

Monastery --> Nova Port

Spoiler

__

So, Ruben, how does Noma's beard stack up against Meißen's funny German ß?

Noma: "Between Geyse's pirates and the evil fiends rising, you'll surely be attacked. It's too risky..."
Celica: "But Father, it's been three years since we last grew crops. What in the world befell the Earth Goddess Mila? I want to find out for myself."
Noma: "I see... If you insist, then I shall not stop you, Celica."

__

See? Foreshadowing doesn't work quite as well when the cryptic messages are completely being deciphered literally one minute later, I find.

Noma: "Sofia's people depend on you. Don't try to do the impossible. May the blessings of Mila be with you..."

__

__

Yeah, Echoes seems to be pretty faithful to what little characterisation these three have in the original.

By the way, the translation patch uses "Lightning" in the character screen / spell selection. Why does May use "Thunder" in dialogue instead? Literally unplayable.

__

I decide to go with a Boeyish attitude and drop all three Spd boosts on him. He is going to be used as a combat unit more consistently than Jenny, I expect.

With that, into the first fight we go. But before that, our heroes!

[HP 30% | Str 25% | Skl 40% | Spd 30% | Lck 40% | Def 20%]
[Fire (Lv.1) | Seraphim (Lv.5) | Thunder (Lv.8) | Recover (Lv.9) | Excalibur (Lv.15) | Ragnarök (Lv.20)]

Celica is the first character who can use both swords and magic (and the only one except promoted May, I think?). Right now, it's a bit of a mixed blessing - it allows her to finish off weakened enemies without spending HP on a Fire spell, but she also uses her weaker sword to counterattack at 1 range. Overall probably even a bit worse than only using Fire to fight. However, in my abandoned run, she did pretty well with the Holy Sword - passive HP regeneration on a caster is pretty nice, and it also strengthens her melee counterattack.

Her growths are lower than those of her co-lord (and no big stat increase from her promotion), but generally better than those of her fellow magic users, despite her mediocre Str growth. In particular, 30% is tied with Silk and Sonia (who we are going to kill in this playthrough) for the second-highest Spd growth after Mage!Cliff.

More importantly, though, she has a very good spell list. Very early Seraphim (which is mandatory to get for the Necrodragon), Thunder at a somewhat late, but still reasonable level, and Recover at an earlier point than any other non-Cleric. Excalibur and Ragnarök are a bit late, I guess, especially compared to Robin and Cliff on Alm's side of the map.

[HP 20% | Str 40% | Skl 20% | Spd 10% | Lck 10% | Def 20%]
[Fire (Lv.1) | Thunder (Lv.1) | Aura (Lv.9) | Seraphim (Lv.14) | Recover (Priest)]

Growths-wise, May is worse than Celica in every stat with the rather important exception of her great Str growth. She's very much a Mage's Mage, who hits hard, but can't take (non-magical) counterattacks well at all.

Her biggest feature, I find, is getting Aura at Lv.9. She hits really hard with it (if I recall, she actually dealt a lot of damage to the Dread Fighter (!) bandit boss in chapter 3). Seraphim comes a bit late, although I assume it's very useful in chapter 4, and her promotion to Priest takes until Lv.20 for whatever reason, so it'll be a while until she can act as a back-up healer.

[HP 40% | Str 30% | Skl 15% | Spd 10% | Lck 20% | Def 40%]
[Fire (Lv.1) | Thunder (Lv.3) | Saggitae (Lv.12) | Excalibur (Lv.18) | Recover (Sage)]

Boey's big problem is is awful Spd - the screenshot is with the +3 from the Lion Head, so he starts with a whopping 1 AS thanks to Fire's weight, incapable of doubling freakin' zombies, and very low chances to grow out of that. However, his other stats are fairly decent, especially with his strangely high Def growth, not even just "for a mage". It obviously doesn't help his tankiness that he's rather prone to getting doubled, but it's still a nice feature.

Spell-wise, he unfortunately has a rather long dry spell before finally getting Saggitae. It's not like Fire and Thunder are awful spells, but he lacks the big guns that Mae and Celica get with their earlier Aura and Seraphim, respectively. Once he does get Saggitae, he's going to hit hard, though. Inaccurately, but hard.

[HP 20% | Str 40% | Skl 40% | Spd 15% | Lck 20% | Def 20%]
[Nosferatu (Lv.1) | Recover (Lv.1) | Invoke (Lv.4) | Physic (Lv.8) | Expel (Lv.12) | Seraphim (Saint)]

Whoops, forgot to make a screenshot of her during the first fight. Spoiler warning: Jenny won't die during it.

To be honest, Ruben might have to explain to me why Jenny is a good combat unit and Silk isn't. She has an extra point of Spd at base, which is nice, of course, but she also has that awful 15% growth, which isn't really made up for by her higher Str growth. I guess she's even more resilient against mages, and Celica's route has more of those than Alm's? She's not going to do a whole lot of damage in return though. Of course, I won't really able to make a fair comparison between the two, since Silk got two early Spd boosts, and Jenny didn't.

Still, she seems just as much a support unit as Silk, except that instead of Warp, she gets a pretty early Invoke spell (only Soldiers, iirc, but those are still useful meat shields in a pinch) and the (infinity range) Physic spell at a reasonable time, too.

On to the fight - it's very easy. Only zombies (so not a lot of XP, either). I guess it's so easy to allow you to get accustomed to your squishy sorcerer squad - although considering how weak zombies hit, the map doesn't really succeed at demonstrating your squad's squishiness. Even May and Jenny with their almost non-existant Def stats take barely any damage.

__

So I just don't have a lot to say about this fight. I guess it's interesting to note that mages don't get slowed down by forest tiles, but they will be in the desert because Kaga hates us. And also, gravestones having +60% avoid is such an odd design choice.

Basically, Jenny 1v1'ed a zombie while everybody else cleared the other remaining six, which apparently was worth more XP than the on average two zombie kills for the other three characters.

__

In Nova Port, we get a bit of foreshadowing (to the Holy Sword, as well as to the Necrodragon / Dragon Zombie guarding it, and to Valbar's group fighting the pirates).

Saber: "Don't gooo... Y'all can't cross the sea by yerselves, can ya?"
Celica: "Aren't you a mercanary? Could you protect us?"
Saber: "What? You wanna hire me? Hmm... Alright, it might be interestin'."

...I think I like Echoes Saber better. Maybe his drunken speech sounds a bit less stupid in Japanese, I guess?

[HP 50% | Str 20% | Skl 15% | Spd 15% | Lck 10% | Def 40%]
[Fire (Lv.1) | Seraphim (Lv.5) | Recover (Sage)]

No, I'm not planning to do the Dread Fighter loop for Saber. It's just interesting that his only spell in addition to the obligatory Fire and Recover is Seraphim, which is otherwise exclusive to female spellcasters.

Anyway, Saber has good HP/Def growths, and bad growths everywhere else. Since he's the first non-mage on the team, some defensive solidity definitely doesn't come amiss, but he'll need a few levels to improve his actually not that amazing 22 HP / 4 Def growths - that's actually -2 HP compared to the Mercenary class bases.

I actually didn't use Saber all that much in my first attempt at the game. As a frontliner when needed, sure, but I actually liked having Celica choke points because she can hit enemies past the enemy she's facing, to do something on player phase while only taking 1-2 points of damage from casting Fire.

The underlying question to that last paragraph: Which Mercenary should I prioritise? Saber, Kamui, or Jesse? Or none, given that Deen is going to be on the team?
And related to that - Death-warp y/n? (i.e. getting somebody killed one one side, to revive them on the other during chapter 3). I find this to be rather cheesy, so I don't really want to use this as a "power play", even though I know that warping the warp sta-- I mean Silk back and forth can save a lot of headache. But it might be interesting to use it on somebody who otherwise wouldn't see much use - Jesse in particular comes to mind, who I found was rather overshadowed by the earlier joiners and who I expect will also be overshadowed by the more high-leveled Deen. It would remove Grey's unique role on Alm's side, of course.

 

[Shaky Jones]

8 hours ago, gnip said:

17 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

All true, but he has Force on his side

(I had him with the speed ring later on, guy shoved through for days)

I'm tempted to try using him, just for the novelty of using what's apparently the worst character in the game, and so that I at least use one Soldier. Maybe then Ruben won't come over to Germany and change my wifi password. I'll see about the Speed Ring - since Gaiden is all Rout instead of all Seize, there's not as much incentive to drop the "boots" on the lord

Something something Star Wars reference.

I mean he wasn't that hard to use for me, but if he's apparently the worst, then I'll gladly pat myself on the spine.

8 hours ago, gnip said:

'd be surprised if I was the first one to come up with this, so go ahead.

Maybe I already said this and forgot. Maybe Ruben said this. Maybe the Bible said it.

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

All the Thracia gaidens are really bad, but 12x takes the cake for me because it's a dumb puzzle. The solution: Warpskip. If you don't want to warpskip, or haven't trained Safy to A staves or used up your only warp staff because hoarding staves isn't fun, you irremediably lose half the rewards and have to bend over backwards to keep the other half.

 

 

I will say I completely forgot about 12x. For some reason I thought about 12 as 12x, maybe because x chapters love the darkness. Yeah, it's unimaginably dumb. Although, I probably still hate 14x more because you can't skip it. The whole point is to save villagers, and how the fuck are you supposed to do that, when there are R A N D O M L Y G E N E R A T E D dark mage reinforcements in a fog map that you basically can't prevent in any way!? Hell, if they can't reach capture range, but can attack from a distance, they'll do it, so you just lose right there because you didn't expect a mage to spawn in a completely random tile and one shot your green unit. It's actually one of the dumbest and most unfair maps in the series. Even with a guide and save states, it's bullshit.

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

FE3 book 2 is a bit more polarized, I'd say. It has some maps that are stellar, like chapter 8, but then it has some horrible shitters like 3 or 11. Higher highs, lower lows.

That's a perfect description. It even fits with FE11 vs FE12. I really love some FE12 maps, but that game is home to some absolute Arran's disease that drives one mad, while FE11 mostly has good maps overall, with a few boring maps, and one crappy map (wooden shittery).

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Chapter 8 is brilliant, possibly the best case of map reuse in the entire series. The rest are basically just "hey you liked this map in the other game? Here, play through it again. Have fun."

And I eat up the slop like a starving piggy. ilovearchaneailovearchaneailovearchanea-

Look, I don't know why I love replaying the Altea caste map in 6 different forms, but if it's good, keep giving it to me before we get another Genealogy or a 3 Houses. 

This speaks a lot about my political views, because Fire Emblem is a deep franchise that delves into-

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I'd think when someone says "all soldiers", it goes without saying that they don't really expect anyone to be mad enough to follow through lol

is that so...

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Arthur is pretty good. That laugh of his is contagious. I also like Setsuna, but she's a girl so you probably don't.

Oh c'mon! I don't hate girls! I hate IS's marketing of them and the mindless drone of fans that drown out anything that isn't tits on screen.

So most FE girls.

Setsuna's funny. You never saw me shit on Etie or Pannete. Or Rinkah...Or Nailah........

Shiiiiit, it's all muscles with me, isn't it? Oh well, at least I can respect units where it counts. Setsuna being there proves I don't just look for conventionally attractive traits. Why is that so hard for everyone? You're not playing a game to be turned on.

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I don't know, it was just funny, okay? Can't I just find a thing funny?

I just question why everyone loves it. If not even Stingy Rubenio is immune to the supposed charm of it, then I might be dysfunctional. Just a husk. So there, I'm a skeleton IRL. You can't disprove it.

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

If you use Pholus and give him the speed ring, I will certainly reconsider my plans to go over to Germany and walk around your living room without taking off my dirty shoes.

We both know why you'd never try this in America.

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

9 hours ago, gnip said:

Hol' up, I thought boring and over-loved units are generally those with a cute anime portrait.

  Hide contents

Nah, those are just the units Shakes hates.

Amelia: A classic meme unit that is the banner of elitist seething. I like her purely for that.

Boy: I would make a joke about her age, but that's about half of the FE6 cast, so the FE6 remake release will be quite the month when the waifu art quintuples and Twitter finds out. My brother likes her, so I don't.

Lilina: I will beat her to death. Thank you Ruben.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

Dozer is technically beatable because every attack deals at least one damage. I suppose if you really wanted to, you could try fishing for crits with Mage!Cliff and Mage!Robin using Excalibur, which of course requires some grinding. However, since he leaves the moment Slayder dies, that still seems pretty difficult to set up, especially because Slayder doesn't seem to go into coward AI (evidence further down).

This is one of the only ways SoV players can find something unique to do in their game, because they're too cowardly to kill of their units for extra dialogue. 

I feel like everyone's killed him at least once in SoV, but I couldn't be bothered here.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

Entering Sofia castle, some unnamed NPCs fill us in on some plot points.

• Dozer fled to his fort in the western forest.
• Dozer took took the Royal Sword, a gift from Rigel that no 'normal person' (HINT HINT) can wield, with him.
• Dozer requested help from Rigel (we heard this one before from Force).
• Mycen 'shouldn't have any kin'.
• Dozer killed the entire royal family, except for one unnamed daughter.
• Mycen tried to stop Dozer, but was framed for the crime instead.

I do like these sections. Something about exploring the 8 bit castles with npc words on screen excites the retro gamer in me. Now help me get rid of that feeling before I become part of the ninty hive.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

...honestly, the last-moment foreshadowing of Celica being important and maybe even the princess of Sofia is involuntarily funny to me, because literally the first dialogue in chapter 2 will include "HELLO CELICA WHO HAS RED HAIR AS YOU KNOW YOU ARE THE PRINCESS OF SOFIA". The narrative pacing is a little off here.

Gaiden writing > SoV writing

3 hours ago, gnip said:

I'm in love.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

To be honest, Ruben might have to explain to me why Jenny is a good combat unit and Silk isn't

Ruben caught lackin

I used them both (because I have to), and they were mostly the same. I suppose it does feel easier to use Jenny though I don't exactly recall why. She did get somewhat defense blessed for me.

There was something special about Silk in my run though

3 hours ago, gnip said:

The underlying question to that last paragraph: Which Mercenary should I prioritise? Saber, Kamui, or Jesse? Or none, given that Deen is going to be on the team?

This is such a depressing question. Prioritize. There's nothing! What can you do in this game!?

I like Kamui, but Deen was a request, so either is great. Just look at him.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

And related to that - Death-warp y/n? (i.e. getting somebody killed one one side, to revive them on the other during chapter 3). I find this to be rather cheesy, so I don't really want to use this as a "power play", even though I know that warping the warp sta-- I mean Silk back and forth can save a lot of headache. But it might be interesting to use it on somebody who otherwise wouldn't see much use - Jesse in particular comes to mind, who I found was rather overshadowed by the earlier joiners and who I expect will also be overshadowed by the more high-leveled Deen. It would remove Grey's unique role on Alm's side, of course.

It's Gaiden. Who's gonna be offended? 

The answer is me if you kill Atlas at any point.

[Saint Rubenio]

6 hours ago, gnip said:

Slayder, use my army

That's a great way to tell your commander to give the order to march.

6 hours ago, gnip said:

This map is probably the worst offender thus far of the "useless walking" problem that FE1 and FE2 maps tend to have. Not only do you have to move everybody north for several turns, you also have to loop around a bit, with a lot of the path being one tile wide. Claire can help things a little, since she can fly over the wall and open the door, so you don't have to send everybody over the bridge on the right side.

Oh so that's how you open that. Silly me.

6 hours ago, gnip said:

Ahh, that quality 2008 translation effort.

6 hours ago, gnip said:

Mycen 'shouldn't have any kin'.

Who is that? I only know Meißen.

6 hours ago, gnip said:

...

Speaking of, there he is.

6 hours ago, gnip said:

So, Ruben, how does Noma's beard stack up against Meißen's funny German ß?

Meißen and Nom are about on par in the design department, but ẞen barely exists while Noma exists a little more. Plus, his recruitment is funny and his support in Echoes is weird as shit, so I think he wins. Not by a lot, though. Meißen does, in fact, have a funny German ß. I know it's pronounced "ss" or something, but my mind instantly jumps to "mayben" every time.

6 hours ago, gnip said:

There he is. The man, the myth, the legend.

6 hours ago, gnip said:

To be honest, Ruben might have to explain to me why Jenny is a good combat unit and Silk isn't.

The maps. Pirates are slow and bad. So are zombos. Unlike Silk, who faces more enemies that double the shit out of her, Jenny gets a whole arc of crappy opposition to double to death with her nosferatu blasts.

6 hours ago, gnip said:

...I think I like Echoes Saber better. Maybe his drunken speech sounds a bit less stupid in Japanese, I guess?

I mean, Echoes turned Saber into a main character with Keith Silverstein as a voice actor. Here he's just an afterthought lol

6 hours ago, gnip said:

The underlying question to that last paragraph: Which Mercenary should I prioritise? Saber, Kamui, or Jesse? Or none, given that Deen is going to be on the team?

Jesse is the one I don't think anybody has ever given the time of day before. Him, I guess? They're all varying degrees of win button, and optimally you'd want to do all of them, so...

6 hours ago, gnip said:

And related to that - Death-warp y/n? (i.e. getting somebody killed one one side, to revive them on the other during chapter 3). I find this to be rather cheesy, so I don't really want to use this as a "power play", even though I know that warping the warp sta-- I mean Silk back and forth can save a lot of headache. But it might be interesting to use it on somebody who otherwise wouldn't see much use - Jesse in particular comes to mind, who I found was rather overshadowed by the earlier joiners and who I expect will also be overshadowed by the more high-leveled Deen. It would remove Grey's unique role on Alm's side, of course.

Hey that's an idea. Maybe warp Jesse over to Arum, yeah.

2 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

I will say I completely forgot about 12x. For some reason I thought about 12 as 12x, maybe because x chapters love the darkness. Yeah, it's unimaginably dumb. Although, I probably still hate 14x more because you can't skip it. The whole point is to save villagers, and how the fuck are you supposed to do that, when there are R A N D O M L Y G E N E R A T E D dark mage reinforcements in a fog map that you basically can't prevent in any way!? Hell, if they can't reach capture range, but can attack from a distance, they'll do it, so you just lose right there because you didn't expect a mage to spawn in a completely random tile and one shot your green unit. It's actually one of the dumbest and most unfair maps in the series. Even with a guide and save states, it's bullshit.

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, 14x is horrible too. And let's not forget about the absolute troll moment that is the row of mountain tiles that makes it impossible for Dalsin specifically to reach the end. I've brought Dalsin here multiple times, only to remember that, hey that's right, he can't reach the exit! I remember one time I even had to reset, it was entirely impossible to get him over those shit tiles. Goddammit, Kaga.

2 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Oh c'mon! I don't hate girls! I hate IS's marketing of them and the mindless drone of fans that drown out anything that isn't tits on screen.

So most FE girls.

Setsuna's funny. You never saw me shit on Etie or Pannete. Or Rinkah...Or Nailah........

Shiiiiit, it's all muscles with me, isn't it?

Heh. My fella. It's okay, I can relate.

2 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Setsuna being there proves I don't just look for conventionally attractive traits. Why is that so hard for everyone? You're not playing a game to be turned on.

Setsuna's just great. In a game full of girls that seem like the character designers were checking off boxes on a list of marketable fetishes, Setsuna sticks out like a sore thumb. She's just high. That's it. You can't see her boobs or her feet, she doesn't want to fuck anyone, she's not Technically An Adult. She's just there, she says completely off the rocker things, and that's all there is. She also has Kaga the ghost of Fred Jones chasing her around and constantly setting traps for her to fall into, which is a gag so bizarre, contrived and unfunny it loops back to being funny. Fates's Best Girl, any day.

She also has the best voice lines. Victoree, victoree.

2 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

I just question why everyone loves it. If not even Stingy Rubenio is immune to the supposed charm of it, then I might be dysfunctional. Just a husk. So there, I'm a skeleton IRL. You can't disprove it.

You are Zephiel in real life.

2 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Lilina: I will beat her to death. Thank you Ruben.

I can confirm Shakes was extremely happy to murder her.

She got her revenge by exploiting a mistake on my part to spawn endless reinforcements on him and mentally breaking him. Somehow he thought this was intentional design on my part.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Saint Rubenio

[ping]

FE2 Chapter 2: Celica's Leave

One Whole Boat Map

Spoiler

Only one boat map (and, frankly, not much of an update) because I am annoyed, so I won't keep playing today.

__

Not so much at the first boat map. It's maybe a too simple a map considering we're in chapter 2, especially because we just had a map with exclusively pathetic enemies already, but hey. Free XP.

But honestly, this would've made a pretty good introduction to your Squishy Mage Squad, so it's really the graveyard map that one should be annoyed at. You're fighting the same Lv.1 Brigands as Alm at the start of his journey, and you're appropriately kicking their collective butts quite easily, but between everybody having a bit less Def than you would like, and losing another 2 HP from casting Fire twice (...unless it's Celica counterattacking on enemy phase), you still have to keep an eye on your hit points.

One thing that's neat about having a team full of magic users is that you care even less about cowardly AI. Sure, enemies running away can still make cleaning up a map a bit more annoying, but at least you're ignoring the +40 avoid they get standing on a healing tile.

So, in short, this was a decent enough opening map (that unfortunately wasn't chapter 2's opening map). Easy, but it shows you what's different about Celica's gang.

Not really enough leveling up to warrant a whole table of stats. Celica got a Skl/Spd level-up, which is quite good by this game's standards.

But on to my annoyance - two dead Celicas on the second boat map:

First, this Pirate didn't follow script and instead of running towards a healing tile, he brought Celica down to 2 HP and died to the counter, which made room for another Pirate to come in and kill her. A specific enemy that has coward AI disabled? Or does Celica's low HP overrule cowardice? I don't know, but it's annoying.

And second Celica kill - much more classic, the Merc got a crit, so he one-rounded her even though I had Genny heal Celica to full on the last player phase - 15+5 dmg vs. 20 HP. This is doubley annoying because the Mercenary was already supposed to be dead, but he dodged a Fire spell, ran away to heal himself, and then returned to murder Celica. I am annoyed.

This isn't supposed to be a rant about the map's quality, by the way. I actually think it might be the best that Gaiden has offered us thus far. Not that that is saying very much, but I do like the general layout with the two choke points, one of which isn't really blockable in time, the "double choke" around our own ship's mast, and the two specific enemies posing a threat - the Mercenary because see above, and the Archer because he is very close to two-shotting Genny, so she has to be very careful where she positions herself in order to heal, or to fish for a kill. I'm just annoyed for two resets caused by the game behaving differently than expected and by a crit, respectively.

 

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

Something something Star Wars reference.

I mean he wasn't that hard to use for me, but if he's apparently the worst, then I'll gladly pat myself on the spine.

He's probably not as obnoxious to raise as Python, considering he uses more accurate weapons and the Soldier class line at least has the bulk to stand there and fight a bunch of enemies on enemy phase. But he's probably also really similar to Luka, except Luka could be closer to the Knight promotion. I dunno, we should see if Mekkah has made a Gaiden tier list so that we can accept the holy truth that is things a Fire Emblem youtuber said on the internet.

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Meißen and Nom are about on par in the design department, but ßen barely exists while Noma exists a little more. Plus, his recruitment is funny and his support in Echoes is weird as shit, so I think he wins. Not by a lot, though. Meißen does, in fact, have a funny German ß. I know it's pronounced "ss" or something, but my mind instantly jumps to "mayben" every time.

I think you used a lowercase ß instead of a capital ẞ for "ẞen" there. Fix, please. Even if you took this seriously, I kinda expect that you can't even edit your post, considering that long posts tend to have that problem.

2 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

I like Kamui, but Deen was a request, so either is great. Just look at him.

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Hey that's an idea. Maybe warp Jesse over to Arum, yeah.

Hmm... I think if nobody objects, I'll give Kamui a non-commital try on Celica's route, and then death-warp Jesse over in chapter 3. Sorry Grey, you've been replaced. Or not, maybe what we really need is FOUR DREAD FIGHTERS!!! I actually don't know, I don't think I got any Myrmidon high enough to promote in the abandoned run.

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

There he is. The man, the myth, the legend.

This one better IMO.

 

On 9/22/2023 at 2:43 PM, gnip said:

Taking a look at the new recruits before talking about stat boosters..:

[HP 40% | Str 20% | Skl 20% | Spd 20% | Lck 20% | Def 20%]

Interestingly, Cleive's growth total of 140% isn't as bad - by Gaiden standards, of course - as you'd think. Most characters actually fall into the range of 130-150%, with only Claire (200%), Alm (205%), and Cliff (220%) falling outside of it.

As a result, he honestly seems pretty decent. He's only one level away from Paladin promotion, although he won't actually get that much out of it - +1 Spd and +1 Def, and no Str at all. But that's more indicative of his good base stats, with good Spd and higher Str than anybody else on the team.

Considering how criticized he is in SoV as a unit, this is unexpected. Cleave seems to have had his better days on the Famicom.

On 9/22/2023 at 2:43 PM, gnip said:

Dude had to lose his suave purple hairdo. Another victim of modernization, why'd he had to go green?

8 hours ago, gnip said:

Boey's big problem is is awful Spd - the screenshot is with the +3 from the Lion Head, so he starts with a whopping 1 AS thanks to Fire's weight, incapable of doubling freakin' zombies, and very low chances to grow out of that. However, his other stats are fairly decent, especially with his strangely high Def growth, not even just "for a mage". It obviously doesn't help his tankiness that he's rather prone to getting doubled, but it's still a nice feature.

Good luck trying to use Bowie. He is just as lacking in SoV, perhaps even more so with Mae now growing her Spd growth lead and Boey get only +5% to his Def growth.

At least he, like Gray, got fairly distinctive "Mediterranean" darker skin tones.

9 hours ago, gnip said:

And also, gravestones having +60% avoid is such an odd design choice.

 

I'll guess it was done specifically for this easy battle as an assist to Celica's squishies. Not like gravestones show up that much in this game.

9 hours ago, gnip said:

The underlying question to that last paragraph: Which Mercenary should I prioritise? Saber, Kamui, or Jesse? Or none, given that Deen is going to be on the team?

Won't weigh in b/c I'm not familiar with NES Gaiden enough to make that judgement.😅

Deen quite the handicap comparing him and Sonya seems more like an "alongside". Hideous growths, but if you can get him five levels, you'll have -I'm guessing- another
"easy" DF alongside the one you trained up from Merc, and he could skirt by as an auxiliary on class bases -perhaps b/c I don't really know.

9 hours ago, gnip said:

And related to that - Death-warp y/n? (i.e. getting somebody killed one one side, to revive them on the other during chapter 3). I find this to be rather cheesy, so I don't really want to use this as a "power play", even though I know that warping the warp sta-- I mean Silk back and forth can save a lot of headache. But it might be interesting to use it on somebody who otherwise wouldn't see much use - Jesse in particular comes to mind, who I found was rather overshadowed by the earlier joiners and who I expect will also be overshadowed by the more high-leveled Deen. It would remove Grey's unique role on Alm's side, of course.

Your choice, do as ye wish! I don't like making decisions for others. I wash my hands.😉

[Shaky Jones]

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Ahh, that quality 2008 translation effort.

4 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, 14x is horrible too. And let's not forget about the absolute troll moment that is the row of mountain tiles that makes it impossible for Dalsin specifically to reach the end. I've brought Dalsin here multiple times, only to remember that, hey that's right, he can't reach the exit! I remember one time I even had to reset, it was entirely impossible to get him over those shit tiles. Goddammit, Kaga.

From the same man who decapitated Wrys in front of Ruben's eyes while his hypnotized slave girls watch as he hands him a 33 use sword and tells you to rescue the damsels in distress.

 What a role model you have

4 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

You are Zephiel in real life.

This implies I would kill all humans and allow a foreign race to rule over us.

4 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I can confirm Shakes was extremely happy to murder her.

She got her revenge by exploiting a mistake on my part to spawn endless reinforcements on him and mentally breaking him. Somehow he thought this was intentional design on my part.

Turn 3: Reinforcements

Shakes: "Well now, Ruben's filling the empty map with enemies chasing me as I go along."

Turn 4: Reinforcements

Turn 5: Reinforcements

Turn 6, 7, and 8: Reinforcements

Shakes: "Huh..."

Turn 9, 10, and 11: 

Shakes: "Shit, that was my last javelin. The map just capped in enemies. Is this a glitch? Nah, Ruben wouldn't make a mistake like this. I, Dr Shaky Jones, have full faith in my good companion, Saint Rubenio! He just made another shitty map."

Turn 13: 

Shakes: "Ruben, I've come to make an announcement You're a bitch ass motherfucker."

Ruben: "My bad G, here's a new patch."

Shakes: "Nah I'm good."

 It was worth it though. I'd post screenshots of killing her and/or what happens, but I don't want to spoil it. It's a great scene. Kudos to you, Spanish man.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

So, in short, this was a decent enough opening map (that unfortunately wasn't chapter 2's opening map). Easy, but it shows you what's different about Celica's gang.

And somehow, it only gets worse from here.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

One thing that's neat about having a team full of magic users is that you care even less about cowardly AI. Sure, enemies running away can still make cleaning up a map a bit more annoying, but at least you're ignoring the +40 avoid they get standing on a healing tile.

For sure, I found a team of mages to be kind of fun when playing FE2. It's not as nice in SoV because there's a lot of value in combat arts, and as you'll soon discover, the rings are quite something to equip here. I ended up liking Celica rout more than Alm in this game. I want to die slightly less than I thought I would.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

First, this Pirate didn't follow script and instead of running towards a healing tile, he brought Celica down to 2 HP and died to the counter, which made room for another Pirate to come in and kill her. A specific enemy that has coward AI disabled? Or does Celica's low HP overrule cowardice? I don't know, but it's annoying.

Unlucky!

3 hours ago, gnip said:

This isn't supposed to be a rant about the map's quality, by the way. I actually think it might be the best that Gaiden has offered us thus far. Not that that is saying very much, but I do like the general layout with the two choke points, one of which isn't really blockable in time, the "double choke" around our own ship's mast, and the two specific enemies posing a threat - the Mercenary because see above, and the Archer because he is very close to two-shotting Genny, so she has to be very careful where she positions herself in order to heal, or to fish for a kill. I'm just annoyed for two resets caused by the game behaving differently than expected and by a crit, respectively.

How do you make someone happy? Take away everything from them and watch their standards shatter. The Kaga special.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

we should see if Mekkah has made a Gaiden tier list so that we can accept the holy truth that is things a Fire Emblem youtuber said on the internet.

me when youtuber opinion.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

Hmm... I think if nobody objects, I'll give Kamui a non-commital try on Celica's route, and then death-warp Jesse over in chapter 3. Sorry Grey, you've been replaced. Or not, maybe what we really need is FOUR DREAD FIGHTERS!!! I actually don't know, I don't think I got any Myrmidon high enough to promote in the abandoned run.

Should've done soldier Grey.

[Saint Rubenio]

3 hours ago, gnip said:

Only one boat map (and, frankly, not much of an update) because I am annoyed, so I won't keep playing today.

Oof...

3 hours ago, gnip said:

One thing that's neat about having a team full of magic users is that you care even less about cowardly AI. Sure, enemies running away can still make cleaning up a map a bit more annoying, but at least you're ignoring the +40 avoid they get standing on a healing tile.

Honestly, for as infamous as the boat maps are, I honestly liked act 2 more than 1. With an almost full mage team (at the start at least), it's a unique set-up, and the boat maps may be excessive but they're better than the average Gaiden map and there were a few semi-interesting set-ups with them. Not to mention the Valbar situation, which is cool, the little challenge of getting Celica to Seraphim level so she can take on the necrodragon... Honestly, I just like it. It's a fun (boat) ride, by Gaiden standards.

If only her act 3 wasn't what it is lol

3 hours ago, gnip said:

I'm just annoyed for two resets caused by the game behaving differently than expected and by a crit, respectively.

That will get on anyone's nerves, don't worry.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

I think you used a lowercase ß instead of a capital ẞ for "ẞen" there. Fix, please. Even if you took this seriously, I kinda expect that you can't even edit your post, considering that long posts tend to have that problem.

There, that's better.

3 hours ago, gnip said:

Hmm... I think if nobody objects, I'll give Kamui a non-commital try on Celica's route, and then death-warp Jesse over in chapter 3. Sorry Grey, you've been replaced. Or not, maybe what we really need is FOUR DREAD FIGHTERS!!! I actually don't know, I don't think I got any Myrmidon high enough to promote in the abandoned run.

Sounds like an idea.

23 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

This one better IMO.

My intended focus was more on the name than the actual art (seriously he really translated the old man's name as Meißen and was right, and then turned around and called this boy Boy, Spanishman Who Translates is the best), but yes, I agree. Clown shoes >>>>>> Merric 2: Electric Boogaloo. Neither of which looks like his ingame portrait, but hey.

23 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Considering how criticized he is in SoV as a unit, this is unexpected. Cleave seems to have had his better days on the Famicom.

Oh no, Clive in SoV is pretty much the same thing. He's just your typical "casuals hate him, elitists worship him" kinda deal. Like every Jeigan that ever was, and Glade if Thracia was actually played by casuals.

24 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Dude had to lose his suave purple hairdo. Another victim of modernization, why'd he had to go green?

As a Green Fan™, I can say it was an improvement.

...Then again, all the art in SoV was just an improvement period. We need that artist back, I swear. Insane quality art.

15 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

From the same man who decapitated Wrys in front of Ruben's eyes while his hypnotized slave girls watch as he hands him a 33 use sword and tells you to rescue the damsels in distress.

 What a role model you have

Role model? If he was my role model all the girls in my hacks would be mind controlled.

15 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

This implies I would kill all humans and allow a foreign race to rule over us.

Indeed. You think I haven't caught on to you? Why would you pretend to be a skeleton? Because you know nobody would suspect a skeleton of being a reptilian. Reptiles have no skeletons! I think.

18 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

Shakes: "Ruben, I've come to make an announcement You're a bitch ass motherfucker."

Ruben: "My bad G, here's a new patch."

Shakes: "Nah I'm good."

I mean, I may have been slightly more pompous about it, but yes, more or less this is what went down.

17 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

I'd post screenshots of killing her and/or what happens, but I don't want to spoil it. It's a great scene. Kudos to you, Spanish man.

I can also confirm that Shakes loved what I did with Lilina post-beatdown.

17 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

me when youtuber opinion.

It always sends me for a loop when you just post screenshots of shit I wrote as reaction pics. It's flattering, somehow.

18 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

Should've done soldier Grey.

He would've soldiered on.

[ping]

FE2 Chapter 2: Celica's Leave

Sailing to the Pirate Fort

Spoiler

So, back to this map...

The problem with sending sending forward so much is that she will take a lot of damage, between her Def not being that great and the Archer adding an attack per round.

So, after luring the majority of the enemies to the right instead of circling around over the left boarding bridge, everybody retreats back to our own ship for now. This comes with the added benefit that the Merc will reach the last tile of the bridge, which means that he can be attacked from three 2-range spots.

Uuuunfortunately, he dodges both Mae (who tried to set up for Celica) and Boey (after Celica set up a kill for him). So, Saber blocks him from murdering any injured mages...

__

...and for some reason, he doesn't run away even though he went into coward AI. The screenshot is mistimed - he's still standing above Saber, but he didn't attack him on enemy phase. Celica takes the kill, which also rewards her with the Leather Shield. Considering that I do like frontlining with her, that seems like a good fit, too, until we get a bigger selection.

__

The Archer manages to dodge this fireball and run away, which means that there's still a bit of danger remaining. But without the Merc, things are looking a lot less dire.

Speaking of magical misses - like in FE1, magic accuracy doesn't scale with the Mage's stats, even though magical damage does now. And unlike in FE1, enemies now have magic avoid - it changes from Avo = Lck (= 0 for enemies) to Avo = Spd+Lck, so it's not that big of a surprise that the enemy Merc (11 Spd) managed to dodge 2/4 attacks. This also makes Seraphim (90 Acc) and Excalibur (100 Acc) even more desirable to have - even against the Lv.1 Pirates, the basic Fire spell only has a 61% chance to hit both times when you're doubling, compared to 77% (2/2 Seraphim hits) or 96% (Excalibur).

__

Oddly enough, the Archer decides to become agressive again without actually recovering any HP, even though there's a free (if winded) path to the healing tile on our own boat, and I'm pretty sure the left healing tile on theirs isn't occupied, either. I guess what I'm learning on this map is to never trust that cowards will actually be cowards.

__

But nobody was in any danger of dying because of it, so all that really did was speed up the map a tiny bit.

As you can see, Celica is pulling ahead a little bit on XP, thanks to all her frontline activity. I'm not sad about that, either, since she does need to reach Lv.5 before long, and I'd rather not grind levels against the zombies in the graveyard near the monastery.

__

Next stop: the Pirate Fort, where I'm pretty sure Valbo is giving us false information. Like every other map, the objective is Rout, not Kill Boss, and I never noticed any changes in AI behaviour after killing Dahha.

____

Enemy quality goes up a fair bit on this map, actually. No Mercenary, of course, but Dahha is quite threatening, too - 6 Spd is enough to double Boey and Mae (and Celica, if you make the mistake of attacking with Fire in melee) and he hits pretty hard on top of that. On top, where the previous map had a single Lv.3 Pirate amidst all the Lv.1 scrubs, this map goes a step further and fields five Lv.5 Pirates instead. Their 4 Spd can catch you off guard, too - specifically, they're able to double Jenny, so she absolutely cannot attempt to nos-tank when these are involved.

I think this map is quite alright, too, and maybe a good example of what Gaiden (at least in ch.1-2) is probably going for: Instead of big fights, you're fighting small skirmishes. It actually makes sense, I think - since playing on the original hardware, you can't (permanently) save during a fight at all, FE1 is rather likely to put you before the choice between resetting after an enemy crit on turn 12 or accepting a character death, and to (somewhat) compensate, you have all these redundant characters joining throughout the game. Gaiden, on the other hand, has a much more condensed cast - but also much smaller fights that you can save between.

This map's challenge comes from the three blue units in the top left being secretive green units who will charge after enemies, putting you on a bit of a timer. Luckily, they're all strong enough to not get killed horribly on turn 3, so it's not as immediate a threat, but you still don't really want to hole up on your boat. It works out pretty nicely, I find, despite the general reputation green units have. Well done, Kaga.

__

My strat for this map: CHAAAAARGE!

Well, not entirely. The idea is that by sending everybody up, instead of splitting somebody off to, say, use the chokepoint created by the mast of our ship, I can use the edge of the map to make sure that nobody is open to too many attacks.

...except that I am caught off-guard by the Lv.5 Pirates having 4 AS and thus outspeeding Jenny. Whoops. I'm actually quite lucky here, since Jenny healed herself back to full against a Lv.1 Pirate earlier this enemy phase.

Because of that, the result of that slip-up is "Jenny can't do enemy phase combat to gain XP anymore" instead of "Jenny is fucking dead".

Bonus points for that same Pirate dodging spells from everybody except Celica, which made this a rather scary moment - but luckily, this time, coward AI came through for me.

A bit less good is that Valbar moved away from the boss in order to kill a Pirate that was running towards the healing tile Dahha is standing on. Kamui and Leo still match up OK-ish against Dahha, but it would've been nicer if Valbar had taken point.

Meanwhile, Boey has reached Lv.3, so he can now throw big hurty lightning at Dahha across the wall. Very nice.

__

However, Dahha then moves away to attack Kamui, who luckily took almost no damage against the generic Pirates.

__

Actually, Kamui and Leo are doing much better than I feared they would, Leo missing notwithstanding.

They then get distracted by the generic Pirate, which allows Mae to chip Dahha down to 1 HP after he moved back into Thunder-through-the-wall range...

__

...and with Boey clearing her a path by removing the generic Thief (I'm rather lucky that both Thunder spells hit, actually), Celica can finish Dahha off. Without Fire slowing her down, she actually doubles him, making this last fight pretty consistent.

After that, there's still two Pirates left who ran for the southern healing tile. Easy clean-up at that point, and some XP for Jenny after she had to be so careful for most of the map.

The fort itself turns out to be rather... minimalistic in design. Also devoid of any pirate booty, unless we count a single Steel Sword.

: "You helped us out there. I owe ya one! Wherever ya go, I'll follow!"

: "Me? Well, I can join y'all if you like. ...Unless you're gonna fight the Dragon Zombie. There's no way to defeat that thing without Angel magic."

: "If my bro Valbo's going, then I am too. I'll show you my marksmanship!"

I wonder if there is any possible double meaning in Leo calling Valbo his "bro" in Japanese, or if the romantic interest is entirely original to Echoes. Which, of course, would be completely fine - I'm just curious if it's possible to apply "Kaga did it first" to Ike and Soren's relationship.

The Steel Sword goes to Kamui, which is a pretty easy choice to make. I think Celica benefits more from the Def boost, at least until she can get passive healing from the Holy Sword instead, and I do want to prioritise Kamui over Saber this run.

To take a quick look at the new trio:

[HP 40% | Str 20% | Skl 35% | Spd 25% | Lck 10% | Def 20%]

Honestly, Valbo seems really useful for Celica's team specifically, who really doesn't have a tanky character until he joins. Valbo tinks basically every physical enemy for a good while (well, he takes 2x3 damage from the Necrodragon), so as long as you keep him far, far away from any Shamans, he should be good. ...now, let's hope he won't get completely destroyed on Sonia's map.

His growths are basically standard Gaiden fare. Decent Skl, which is nice, everything else is in the "cool if he gets a proc or two" category. 25% Spd is higher than Luka and Force's, but... well, 2 base Spd means that he probably won't overtake them anytime soon. Still, he seems useful for what he is, even if I wouldn't be surprised if he kinda phases out of usefulness eventually.

[HP 30% | Str 25% | Skl 20% | Spd 40% | Lck 20% | Def 20%]
[Fire (Lv.1) | Excalibur (Lv.7) | Recover (Sage)]

(stats w/ Steel Sword, so his bases are 10 Str | 8 Spd)

A Mercenary with a high Spd growth. I don't know how often this will be relevant, or how consistently Kamui can get there, but not getting doubled by enemy Mercs/Myrms/Dread Fighters seems like an interesting niche. He doesn't suffer in his other stats, either - a bit more Str/Def than Saber, although Kamui doesn't have his great Def growth. Still, he seems quite good.

[HP 50% | Str 20% | Skl 20% | Spd 10% | Lck 10% | Def 30%]

An Archer with pretty alright base Skl would catch my attention, but Leo really suffers in the growth department. His growth total is basically on par with all the other characters in Gaiden's big "low growths" group, but putting more than half into HP/Def sure is a choice for an archer, even when they can retaliate in melee. He seems more of a filler unit, since it's never useless to have somebody with 1-3 range around... but you don't even get a Steel Bow for him for a good while. Pretty meh overall, honestly.

 

13 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Considering how criticized he is in SoV as a unit, this is unexpected. Cleave seems to have had his better days on the Famicom.

I think I vaguely remember that people complain about his Spd in Echoes? With almost everybody having shit growths in Gaiden, that might be something that stands out more in Echoes, but as Ruben already said, I've seen a fair amount of "Clive is good, actually" comments for Echoes, too.

12 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Turn 13: 

I thought you liked free XP

12 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Honestly, for as infamous as the boat maps are, I honestly liked act 2 more than 1. With an almost full mage team (at the start at least), it's a unique set-up, and the boat maps may be excessive but they're better than the average Gaiden map and there were a few semi-interesting set-ups with them. Not to mention the Valbar situation, which is cool, the little challenge of getting Celica to Seraphim level so she can take on the necrodragon... Honestly, I just like it. It's a fun (boat) ride, by Gaiden standards.

If only her act 3 wasn't what it is lol

I think that's pretty accurate. It's not like there's a ton going on in these boat maps (TWO chokepoints! WHOA), but they're still more interesting than the multitude of open plains that Alm fights his way through. And as I mentioned in the playlog itself, the maps are small, so it's completely reasonable that there's only like one or two interesting things at a time.

12 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

There, that's better.

Guter Junge.

[ping]

Whoops, forgot to include the stats overview and, of course, cannot edit. So here goes:

	Lv.	   HP  Pow Def Skl Spd Lck Res  +XP   Item
Celica	4.33	   20    8   5*  7   7  10   7  +192  Leather (+3 Def)
Jenny	3.87	   18    7   2   2   5   8  13  +188
Boey	3.58	   22    8   5   2   8   9   7  +173
May	2.38	   20   10   2   2   7   5  10  +102

Saber	2.44	   23    9   4  10  10   6   6  +130
Valbo	1.00	   30   14  12   5   2   1   0
Kamui	3.00	   24   10*  6   5   8*  2   2	      Steel (+4 Atk, -1 Spd)
Leo	4.00	   23   11   4   6   4   6   1

• Boey is following the proud tradition of Darros and got a Spd proc on his first level.
• +Def on Celica is also worth mentioning, considering how I'm using her. No +Atk yet, though.

[Saint Rubenio]

48 minutes ago, gnip said:

It's interesting how FE3 had no green units, yet this one does. I mean, they aren't green, but they very much are allied NPCs.

49 minutes ago, gnip said:

This map's challenge comes from the three blue units in the top left being secretive green units who will charge after enemies, putting you on a bit of a timer. Luckily, they're all strong enough to not get killed horribly on turn 3, so it's not as immediate a threat, but you still don't really want to hole up on your boat. It works out pretty nicely, I find, despite the general reputation green units have. Well done, Kaga.

Yeah, this map is pretty neat thanks to those three. Funny how the very first instance of green units in the series is actually one of their least annoying usages.

50 minutes ago, gnip said:

Look at that cool sprite.

50 minutes ago, gnip said:

: "If my bro Valbo's going, then I am too. I'll show you my marksmanship!"

I wonder if there is any possible double meaning in Leo calling Valbo his "bro" in Japanese, or if the romantic interest is entirely original to Echoes. Which, of course, would be completely fine - I'm just curious if it's possible to apply "Kaga did it first" to Ike and Soren's relationship.

For the record, the Spanish fanslation (which, let me remind you, ignores official sources to such a histrionic degree as to call the old guy fucking Meißen) translates this line as "if that hunk Balbo's going, so am I." I would argue between that and his very pink design, the seeds were already there for Echoes to expand upon. This old fanslation just assumed it couldn't be, because gays? In my non-political videogame? Unlikely.

52 minutes ago, gnip said:

[HP 40% | Str 20% | Skl 35% | Spd 25% | Lck 10% | Def 20%]

Honestly, Valbo seems really useful for Celica's team specifically, who really doesn't have a tanky character until he joins. Valbo tinks basically every physical enemy for a good while (well, he takes 2x3 damage from the Necrodragon), so as long as you keep him far, far away from any Shamans, he should be good. ...now, let's hope he won't get completely destroyed on Sonia's map.

His growths are basically standard Gaiden fare. Decent Skl, which is nice, everything else is in the "cool if he gets a proc or two" category. 25% Spd is higher than Luka and Force's, but... well, 2 base Spd means that he probably won't overtake them anytime soon. Still, he seems useful for what he is, even if I wouldn't be surprised if he kinda phases out of usefulness eventually.

Balbo is nice until Celica's route becomes Sand Emblem, at which point he stops being able to function.

53 minutes ago, gnip said:

[HP 50% | Str 20% | Skl 20% | Spd 10% | Lck 10% | Def 30%]

An Archer with pretty alright base Skl would catch my attention, but Leo really suffers in the growth department. His growth total is basically on par with all the other characters in Gaiden's big "low growths" group, but putting more than half into HP/Def sure is a choice for an archer, even when they can retaliate in melee. He seems more of a filler unit, since it's never useless to have somebody with 1-3 range around... but you don't even get a Steel Bow for him for a good while. Pretty meh overall, honestly.

He's also Echoes's best character, so there's that.

54 minutes ago, gnip said:

I think that's pretty accurate. It's not like there's a ton going on in these boat maps (TWO chokepoints! WHOA), but they're still more interesting than the multitude of open plains that Alm fights his way through. And as I mentioned in the playlog itself, the maps are small, so it's completely reasonable that there's only like one or two interesting things at a time.

Pretty much. Again, by Gaiden standards, act 2's fine. Certainly beats Arum's nothing plains, or Celica's sand/swamp fun times going forward. Heck, thinking more about it, I might have to call act 2 the best part of the game. What's the competition? Nuibaba's Abode, a map I hate? The finale, which I couldn't even stomach finishing? Bleh.

54 minutes ago, gnip said:

Guter Junge.

Oi. Como te atreves, te mataré.

50 minutes ago, gnip said:

Boey is following the proud tradition of Darros and got a Spd proc on his first level.

AttaBoy.

[ping]

FE2 Chapter 2: Celica's Leave

Living Dead Dragon

Spoiler

__

Back to the boats we go. And we meet our first Cantor. Shaman. ...I've been calling the "normal" enemy spellcasters Shaman thus far, so... sorry for making this more confusing than necessary? I'll try to go "Cantor" vs. "Wizard" or something, since like Thief, Shaman is a class name with very different connotations in most other FE games.

He summons zombies, and loads of them on his first two turns. These are the same Lv.1 sword fodder that we fought in the first fight as Celica, so they're effectively just functioning as meat shields for the Cantor.

____

They are very good at being annoying, though.

Eventually, the set-up to actually fight the Cantor is to have Celica on the adjacent tile and Kamui with Jenny attached to him take swings at him.

Very inaccurately take swings at him. May and Leo also join the fun attacking uncountered from three range.

To give an accurate representation of this, I'd have to constantly repeat myself while showing dozens of nigh identical pictures where only the health bars show the difference. Putting a high-res enemy of a healing tile is really frigging annoying, especially because it's not like his Def is particularly low.

__

But just as a small snippet - bringing him down to 1 HP and then not having anybody to finish the job because Valbar would die to the counter-doubleattack was just a great experience.

Although Celica does get him on the next turn.

Cantors as an enemy type are a concept that I understand - they kinda function the same way as reinforcements, just with a clearer source of them on the map. But it honestly just doesn't work because they're just so frigging annoying to kill, which in conjunction with the constant, random stream of new enemies makes them 100% frustration, 0% fun or engaging. Maybe it would work better if they were easy to kill once you actually hack and slash your way through their summons, so that they function a bit more like a reinforcements-spawning fort that you can block.

On the plus side, Celica gains a ton of XP, reaching Lv. 5 and the Seraphim/Angel spell a few turns before she gets the finishing blow. I would've preferred to give the kill to Kamui as a result, but he was too low on health to attack him even with Jenny's healing.

Next up:

Who is this irresitible who has an insatiable love for the dead?

Whatever it is, it's very dangerous, since it's also alone, the fight is very staightforward. Valbo lures it from its starting location, since it doesn't start aggressive...

...and then we hope that Celica hits two Seraphim spells in a row. She deals 20 damage with it, which means that with the 5 HP regeneration that the Necrodragon gets from the Holy Ring it carries (and drops), it barely survives these...

...which means that Kamui can face and overcome his fear.

__

Boey grabs the Holy Ring instead of Jenny, because clearly she can get by with nos-tanking all day.

__

Inside the Sea Shrine, you have to fight what I believe is the same battle as the demons in the Liberation HQ, with a bunch of zombies and two Bonewalkers.

I won't bother you with the details. It was an easy fight for Alm, it is an easy fight for Celica.

__

Unlike the previous Mila shrines, this one has a path behind it requiring another fight - and this one is a fair bit more dangerous. Instead of zombies with a couple Bonewalkers, this one has five of the latter, as well as two Gargoyles:

These are pretty tough to bring down, thanks to their huge Spd and good mixed defenses.

Celica still one-shots them, though (although needs a Str proc, which she got in one of the previous fights).

The other one goes down to a group effort, with Kamui taking the spoils.

__

With that, the map isn't too difficult anymore, but the Bonewalkers still hit a couple of our units quite hard, in particular Saber and Jenny. But with a little bit of turtling, you can make sure that they don't fight too many enemies at a time.

The reward is the Holy Sword, which is an excellent weapon: only 3 Mt instead of the Steel Sword's 4, but it has no weapon weight, has 100 base hit, 15 base crit, and heals the wearer for 5 HP/turn. Oh, and it also deals effective damage against monsters.

I think I'll default to Celica using this, because she can really use the HP regen, especially with Seraphim being more pricey in that regard than Fire. On monster maps, she might swap with Kamui so that both of them can deal bonus damage.

__

Finally, there's a choice to be made, although it's less impactful than the one at the start of Celica's journey. A point of Skl translates into +1 hit (not for magic attacks, though) and .5 crit, which is nice to have, but not game-changing. HP might be the more boring, but also more useful option, especially with many in Celica's party not being particularly blessed by Mila with a lot of endurance. I don't really have strong opinions on this, so feel free to shout for your favourite character.

The Team:

	Lv.	   HP  Pow Def Skl Spd Lck Res  +XP   Item
Celica	6.90	   21    9*  5   7   7  11   7  +257  Holy Sw (+3 Atk, +10 hit, +15 crit)
Jenny	5.29	   20    8   2*  3   5   8  13  +142  Leather (+3 Def)
Boey	4.64	   23    8   5   2   8   9   7  +106  Holy Ring
May	3.41	   21   10   2   2   7   5  10  +103

Saber	3.17	   23    9   5  10  10   6   6  + 73
Valbo	1.99	   30   14  12   5   2   1   0  + 99
Kamui	5.72	   24   10*  6   5  10*  2   2  +272  Steel (4 Atk, -1 Spd)
Leo	4.98	   23   11   4   6   4   6   1  + 98

• Kamui got +2 Spd and nothing else in his first two levels. Now, that's kinda his quality, to be fast even for a swordie, but with Myrmidon having 14 base Spd, it also means that these two levels will become effectively empty when he promotes.

 

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Balbo is nice until Celica's route becomes Sand Emblem, at which point he stops being able to function.

*sigh* Good point. Although of course every character stops functioning in the desert.

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Oi. Como te atreves, te mataré.

Ich glaube, der Knochenmann ist kein guter Einfluss für dich.

[Shaky Jones]

19 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

That will get on anyone's nerves, don't worry.

not enough to prefer fe3 UI over crit emblem apparently

19 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Oh no, Clive in SoV is pretty much the same thing. He's just your typical "casuals hate him, elitists worship him" kinda deal. Like every Jeigan that ever was, and Glade if Thracia was actually played by casuals

If anyone makes an argument to me that involves "turn counts", I schleep.

19 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Role model? If he was my role model all the girls in my hacks would be mind controlled.

Roll deez nuts across ya beard.

19 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Indeed. You think I haven't caught on to you? Why would you pretend to be a skeleton? Because you know nobody would suspect a skeleton of being a reptilian. Reptiles have no skeletons! I think.

You'd be surprised by the skeletons found at my local elementary school. I remember my first time holding a squirrel's skull. It looked so cool dude. Skeletal structures are amazing.

But no, I'm just a skeleton of a human, and I will absolutely kill any humanoid foreign being that attempts to integrate itself within human society. 

My main goal is to rise up my skeleton army and have them peel out the human skin encasing their beautiful selves.

19 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

It always sends me for a loop when you just post screenshots of shit I wrote as reaction pics. It's flattering, somehow.

"Look look! It's thing I did! I remember making thing! Recognition!"

No but it's completely understandable. I get giddy when referenced in other discussions, and that's mostly just when talking about stupid shit I did with funny units. If I made a whole ass hack, I'd want it shown too. 

6 hours ago, gnip said:

Speaking of magical misses - like in FE1, magic accuracy doesn't scale with the Mage's stats, even though magical damage does now. And unlike in FE1, enemies now have magic avoid - it changes from Avo = Lck (= 0 for enemies) to Avo = Spd+Lck, so it's not that big of a surprise that the enemy Merc (11 Spd) managed to dodge 2/4 attacks. This also makes Seraphim (90 Acc) and Excalibur (100 Acc) even more desirable to have - even against the Lv.1 Pirates, the basic Fire spell only has a 61% chance to hit both times when you're doubling, compared to 77% (2/2 Seraphim hits) or 96% (Excalibur).

Anything that isn't above 90% will miss. That's the Gaiden guarantee.

6 hours ago, gnip said:

Next stop: the Pirate Fort, where I'm pretty sure Valbo is giving us false information. Like every other map, the objective is Rout, not Kill Boss, and I never noticed any changes in AI behaviour after killing Dahha.

Bro thought his choices mattered

6 hours ago, gnip said:

I think this map is quite alright, too, and maybe a good example of what Gaiden (at least in ch.1-2) is probably going for: Instead of big fights, you're fighting small skirmishes. It actually makes sense, I think - since playing on the original hardware, you can't (permanently) save during a fight at all, FE1 is rather likely to put you before the choice between resetting after an enemy crit on turn 12 or accepting a character death, and to (somewhat) compensate, you have all these redundant characters joining throughout the game. Gaiden, on the other hand, has a much more condensed cast - but also much smaller fights that you can save between.

Or, get this, make good maps without critical rng. 

6 hours ago, gnip said:

This map's challenge comes from the three blue units in the top left being secretive green units who will charge after enemies, putting you on a bit of a timer. Luckily, they're all strong enough to not get killed horribly on turn 3, so it's not as immediate a threat, but you still don't really want to hole up on your boat. It works out pretty nicely, I find, despite the general reputation green units have. Well done, Kaga.

__

If only there was actual map design going on instead of 10 pirates just rushing towards you or the not green units if you didn't rush.

6 hours ago, gnip said:

My strat for this map: CHAAAAARGE!

Most creative Gaiden strategy.

6 hours ago, gnip said:

I thought you liked free XP

Why do you think I didn't restart with a new patch when offered?

6 hours ago, gnip said:

I think that's pretty accurate. It's not like there's a ton going on in these boat maps (TWO chokepoints! WHOA), but they're still more interesting than the multitude of open plains that Alm fights his way through. And as I mentioned in the playlog itself, the maps are small, so it's completely reasonable that there's only like one or two interesting things at a time.

Damn. Gnip's already developing Stockholm Syndrome. Kaga can't keep getting away with this!

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Yeah, this map is pretty neat thanks to those three. Funny how the very first instance of green units in the series is actually one of their least annoying usages.

Put 3 units in a mostly empty square so the chunks of axe men don't get choke pointed on turn 1. This is the extent of Kaga's master game design in Gaiden. Bravo.

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

This old fanslation just assumed it couldn't be, because gays? In my non-political videogame? Unlikely.

Based?

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

He's also Echoes's best character, so there's that.

I dunno man. Sage Kamui was pretty crazy. And I vibe with the guy. 

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Pretty much. Again, by Gaiden standards, act 2's fine. Certainly beats Arum's nothing plains, or Celica's sand/swamp fun times going forward. Heck, thinking more about it, I might have to call act 2 the best part of the game. What's the competition? Nuibaba's Abode, a map I hate? Or the finale, which I couldn't even stomach finishing? Bleh.

Kaga made a game created for the purpose of rotting your brain to the point where you become a subservient husk that does not control or seek better.

Kaga did the education system first.

2 minutes ago, gnip said:

Cantors as an enemy type are a concept that I understand - they kinda function the same way as reinforcements, just with a clearer source of them on the map. But it honestly just doesn't work because they're just so frigging annoying to kill, which in conjunction with the constant, random stream of new enemies makes them 100% frustration, 0% fun or engaging. Maybe it would work better if they were easy to kill once you actually hack and slash your way through their summons, so that they function a bit more like a reinforcements-spawning fort that you can block.

But it'd be so funny to just put them on avoid tiles and be mage enemies with a res stat. 

4 minutes ago, gnip said:

Engage reference! 

This was the peak that they needed to reference. Dragons, and cantor. The true Celica experience.

7 minutes ago, gnip said:

The reward is the Holy Sword, which is an excellent weapon: only 3 Mt instead of the Steel Sword's 4, but it has no weapon weight, has 100 base hit, 15 base crit, and heals the wearer for 5 HP/turn. Oh, and it also deals effective damage against monsters.

Too bad these weren't actual stylized dungeons that you played ol RPG fashioned or something. That would've been nice.

7 minutes ago, gnip said:

Kamui got +2 Spd and nothing else in his first two levels. Now, that's kinda his quality, to be fast even for a swordie, but with Myrmidon having 14 base Spd, it also means that these two levels will become effectively empty when he promotes.

I just can't be a fan of these types of promotion bonuses, and I'm surprised they brought this back for 3 Houses. How hard is it for FE to just give up FE6 tier promo gains with cool animated classes?

[Saint Rubenio]

1 hour ago, gnip said:

__

Finally, there's a choice to be made, although it's less impactful than the one at the start of Celica's journey. A point of Skl translates into +1 hit (not for magic attacks, though) and .5 crit, which is nice to have, but not game-changing. HP might be the more boring, but also more useful option, especially with many in Celica's party not being particularly blessed by Mila with a lot of endurance. I don't really have strong opinions on this, so feel free to shout for your favourite character.

Give the skill to Balbo. Lances aren't the most accurate. Spare a point for Leo too for shooting purposes.

1 hour ago, gnip said:

Ich glaube, der Knochenmann ist kein guter Einfluss für dich.

I've been saying that for years, it's literally my catchphrase

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

not enough to prefer fe3 UI over crit emblem apparently

Eeeeeeyup.

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

Roll deez nuts across ya beard.

I refuse.

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

You'd be surprised by the skeletons found at my local elementary school. I remember my first time holding a squirrel's skull. It looked so cool dude. Skeletal structures are amazing.

But no, I'm just a skeleton of a human, and I will absolutely kill any humanoid foreign being that attempts to integrate itself within human society. 

My main goal is to rise up my skeleton army and have them peel out the human skin encasing their beautiful selves.

A likely story.

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

"Look look! It's thing I did! I remember making thing! Recognition!"

No but it's completely understandable. I get giddy when referenced in other discussions, and that's mostly just when talking about stupid shit I did with funny units. If I made a whole ass hack, I'd want it shown too. 

What can I say, I am only human. Humans like their dopamine.

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

Put 3 units in a mostly empty square so the chunks of axe men don't get choke pointed on turn 1. This is the extent of Kaga's master game design in Gaiden. Bravo.

Let's have a round of applause, people.

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

Based?

Come now, Knochenmann.

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

I dunno man. Sage Kamui was pretty crazy. And I vibe with the guy. 

Kamui is very forgettable.

[Punished Dayni]

On 9/22/2023 at 11:42 PM, Shaky Jones said:

I tried coming up with another quote to respond with, but I blanked out for 10 seconds. Guess I really don't remember this game. 

Guess you weren't at the top of your game /s

On 9/22/2023 at 11:42 PM, Shaky Jones said:

Let's put the guy who's never seen real combat before until now the role of planning offences. Nobody in the Deliverance would know any better.

Considering they're hiding in a zombie-infested cave, maybe they're that stuck already.

On 9/23/2023 at 1:46 PM, gnip said:

Epic boss fight time! Or something like that, at least. I'm not going to 1-dmg-chip Dozer in order to get his Dracoshield, so Slayer, who I believe got brought up in a single line of dialogue before, will have to do.

This is why Excalibur is what you use for this, the crits help.

On 9/23/2023 at 1:46 PM, gnip said:

Speaking of the man, 8 Spd puts him in his own little speed tier, outrunning everything on the team except for Gray... if he gave the Bolt Sword away. With 12 Atk, that does make him pretty powerful an opponent, especially because he also has pretty good defensive stats. 5 Res in particular is worth pointing out.

Slayder should have dropped the D, maybe he'd be OP then.

On 9/23/2023 at 1:46 PM, gnip said:

especially because Slayder doesn't seem to go into coward AI (evidence further down).

I don't recall as much with Gaiden, but he is a coward in SoV.

On 9/23/2023 at 1:46 PM, gnip said:

This map is probably the worst offender thus far of the "useless walking" problem that FE1 and FE2 maps tend to have. Not only do you have to move everybody north for several turns, you also have to loop around a bit, with a lot of the path being one tile wide. Claire can help things a little, since she can fly over the wall and open the door, so you don't have to send everybody over the bridge on the right side.

Warp also really helps with this, allowing you to push units forward faster, but grinding that out in Gaiden takes more effort than you're looking for.

On 9/23/2023 at 1:46 PM, gnip said:

Cliff and (with less success) Python can at least take a few potshots back at them.

However, this also shows one Gaiden's "features" that Echoes almost certainly should've tossed in the trash can: 20 Avoid from "floor" tiles, i.e. all the grey areas on the map. With this, every fight is a gamble, especially when Archers are involved. You can see how Cliff's hit rate gets reduced to roughly 50%, and no, that's not because of the Steel Bow - the generic Bow is just as inaccurate.

I do not understand the logic, there's never really an indication of magic being favoured with this.

On 9/23/2023 at 1:46 PM, gnip said:

Honestly, I'd rather use "Vanquished" instead of "Conquered". What, are we stationing an occupational army in Dozer now?

Well, bout that......

On 9/23/2023 at 1:46 PM, gnip said:

__

By the way, the translation patch uses "Lightning" in the character screen / spell selection. Why does May use "Thunder" in dialogue instead?

They couldn't put in "big, hurty lightning"

On 9/23/2023 at 1:46 PM, gnip said:

Celica is the first character who can use both swords and magic (and the only one except promoted May, I think?).

Everyone else who'll have Mae's promoted class will.

On 9/23/2023 at 1:46 PM, gnip said:

her promotion to Priest takes until Lv.20 for whatever reason, so it'll be a while until she can act as a back-up healer.

SoV changes so little from the base game in terms of stuff already there, that IS changing this is an admission this was a fuckup.

On 9/23/2023 at 1:46 PM, gnip said:

To be honest, Ruben might have to explain to me why Jenny is a good combat unit and Silk isn't. She has an extra point of Spd at base, which is nice, of course, but she also has that awful 15% growth, which isn't really made up for by her higher Str growth. I guess she's even more resilient against mages, and Celica's route has more of those than Alm's? She's not going to do a whole lot of damage in return though. Of course, I won't really able to make a fair comparison between the two, since Silk got two early Spd boosts, and Jenny didn't.

Still, she seems just as much a support unit as Silk, except that instead of Warp, she gets a pretty early Invoke spell (only Soldiers, iirc, but those are still useful meat shields in a pinch) and the (infinity range) Physic spell at a reasonable time, too.

Genny has double the Spd growth of Jenny, that's my assumption.

G/Jenny having Physic is all good regardless.

On 9/23/2023 at 1:46 PM, gnip said:

So I just don't have a lot to say about this fight. I guess it's interesting to note that mages don't get slowed down by forest tiles, but they will be in the desert because Kaga hates us. And also, gravestones having +60% avoid is such an odd design choice.

I suppose they cause a person swinging with a sword to hesitate to damage the graves out of respect and fear for the dead?

On 9/23/2023 at 7:38 PM, gnip said:

And second Celica kill - much more classic, the Merc got a crit, so he one-rounded her even though I had Genny heal Celica to full on the last player phase - 15+5 dmg vs. 20 HP.

The funny part in SoV Hard: Saber's base HP, Spd and Def leave him 1-rounded by this merc if the guy crits.

9 hours ago, gnip said:

This map's challenge comes from the three blue units in the top left being secretive green units who will charge after enemies, putting you on a bit of a timer. Luckily, they're all strong enough to not get killed horribly on turn 3, so it's not as immediate a threat, but you still don't really want to hole up on your boat. It works out pretty nicely, I find, despite the general reputation green units have. Well done, Kaga.

I mean, you can retreat from the map and the green units leave, still being recruitable.

9 hours ago, gnip said:

[HP 30% | Str 25% | Skl 20% | Spd 40% | Lck 20% | Def 20%]
[Fire (Lv.1) | Excalibur (Lv.7) | Recover (Sage)]

(stats w/ Steel Sword, so his bases are 10 Str | 8 Spd)

A Mercenary with a high Spd growth. I don't know how often this will be relevant, or how consistently Kamui can get there, but not getting doubled by enemy Mercs/Myrms/Dread Fighters seems like an interesting niche. He doesn't suffer in his other stats, either - a bit more Str/Def than Saber, although Kamui doesn't have his great Def growth. Still, he seems quite good.

Low Luck is probably the one area that undercuts him, and it's put him at risk for me plenty.

Still, a DF not getting doubled by HM DFs is appreciated.

8 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

For the record, the Spanish fanslation (which, let me remind you, ignores official sources to such a histrionic degree as to call the old guy fucking Meißen) translates this line as "if that hunk Balbo's going, so am I." I would argue between that and his very pink design, the seeds were already there for Echoes to expand upon. This old fanslation just assumed it couldn't be, because gays? In my non-political videogame? Unlikely.

Can you summarise for me what the intentions for that fanslation were?

3 hours ago, gnip said:

__

But just as a small snippet - bringing him down to 1 HP and then not having anybody to finish the job because Valbar would die to the counter-doubleattack was just a great experience.

Kant, R. trolls again.png

3 hours ago, gnip said:

__

Finally, there's a choice to be made, although it's less impactful than the one at the start of Celica's journey. A point of Skl translates into +1 hit (not for magic attacks, though) and .5 crit, which is nice to have, but not game-changing. HP might be the more boring, but also more useful option, especially with many in Celica's party not being particularly blessed by Mila with a lot of endurance. I don't really have strong opinions on this, so feel free to shout for your favourite character.

I can see Leo hitting his Bow Knight Skl base and the extra hit would be nice for him, while everyone might just end up seeing their HP boost lost in promotions, so Skl for Leo imo.

While looking for class bases to answer this question, I found out Sister's bases are ridiculous. Saint doesn't compare.

[Saint Rubenio]

51 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

Can you summarise for me what the intentions for that fanslation were?

Very faithfully translate the games' scripts, ignoring all outside sources and influences. Ignore them so hard you end up with a guy called Meißen.

[Shaky Jones]

4 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

A likely story.

All this finger pointing, I'm starting to think you're projecting. Perhaps...you're trying to distract everyone from finding out that you're the reptile! 

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

What can I say, I am only human. Humans like their dopamine.

That sounds like something a reptile would say.

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Come now, Knochenmann.

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Kamui is very forgettable.

More memorable than Celica's healer girl.

3 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

Guess you weren't at the top of your game /s

I'm guessing this is another quote.

I will slash anyone who uses /s. What do you think this feature is for.

3 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

Everyone else who'll have Mae's promoted class will.

Oh sure, just a few 20 levels. That'll show the baddies who's boss. All 5 of them left.

3 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

SoV changes so little from the base game in terms of stuff already there, that IS changing this is an admission this was a fuckup.

Now I'm baffled that they actively decided everything else was worth keeping.

3 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

Kant, R. trolls again.png

Another boon of bosses no longer being stationary emblem is that we no longer have to deal with avoid bonuses. Can't believe it took us this long. 

Now this the part where Ruben tells me about KagaSaga boss design.

[Interdimensional Observer]

On 9/23/2023 at 6:31 PM, Saint Rubenio said:

If only her act 3 wasn't what it is lol

It's not THAT MUCH sand. Just the fort where Jesse is learning being in bondage isn't always fun, either Deen or Sonya (the sand sorta helps in the former?), and like the first two or three turns of Grieth's lair.

...But it is still very much annoying, and the challenge level isn't nil in any of those maps either.

On 9/23/2023 at 6:31 PM, Saint Rubenio said:

Like every Jeigan that ever was, and Glade if Thracia was actually played by casuals.

 +3 Hit & Evade fo' everyone yo!😛

-If you can ignore the minimal Sword rank and wouldn't mind tossing him a Scroll or two. Or, are accepting that he'll only be useful for outdoor maps.

 

18 hours ago, gnip said:

: "If my bro Valbo's going, then I am too. I'll show you my marksmanship!"

I wonder if there is any possible double meaning in Leo calling Valbo his "bro" in Japanese, or if the romantic interest is entirely original to Echoes. Which, of course, would be completely fine - I'm just curious if it's possible to apply "Kaga did it first" to Ike and Soren's relationship.

I'm curious as well. But I'm going to err on the cautious side and say the unrequited love is a total modern invention, using these two sentences as the kernel around which the invention was spun.

11 hours ago, gnip said:

Whatever it is, it's very dangerous, since it's also alone

Unless you're playing SoV Hard, where Stefalaw is accompanied by his girlfriend. That complicates this a little.

11 hours ago, gnip said:

Them DracoZ got drip. Fetid indeed.

...Angel looks more like fairies, those wings aren't angelic.

[ping]

9 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

Warp also really helps with this, allowing you to push units forward faster, but grinding that out in Gaiden takes more effort than you're looking for.

Given that the two grinding spots in chapter 1 are filled with Lv.1 Brigands and Zombies respectively... yeah, grinding levels sounds like a slow proposition.

9 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

I mean, you can retreat from the map and the green units leave, still being recruitable.

Interesting, I didn't know that. Definitely an easy out if green units become too much of a pain, but I'll try to beat maps as Kaga intended before using that... bug? Feature?

9 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

Low Luck is probably the one area that undercuts him, and it's put him at risk for me plenty.

Serenes doesn't have a calculations page for Echoes, so I don't know if it has been changed, but Gaiden seems to use the same formula as FE1, which is to say that crit rates are completely unmitigated. Low Luck only means that Kamui has lower crit rates himself, and that he's less likely to dodge incoming spells. I think his greater vulnerability against magic until Dread Fighter might be his biggest disadvantage compared to Saber, actually - 2 Res vs. 6 Res.

9 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

While looking for class bases to answer this question, I found out Sister's bases are ridiculous. Saint doesn't compare.

Probably a storage space thing. A lot of enemy-only classes use some regular class's bases, like the Necrodragon being the same as a Falcoknight, so I guess some irrelevant class bases (since nobody can promote into Sister) just use the same array of numbers as an enemy type. Similarly, Female Mages share their base stats with Witches - more reasonable than Sister bases, of course, but it would leave a hypothetical Faye promoting into Mage leagues above the three boy's stats as Lv.1 Mages.

12 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Damn. Gnip's already developing Stockholm Syndrome. Kaga can't keep getting away with this!

I don't have to take this from somebody who probably thinks Stockholm is the capital of Switzerland.

12 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Bro thought his choices mattered

What can I say, I haven't been jaded by Awakening, since I haven't played it. All I know is that choices in New Mystery's prologue are hugely impactful on how easy it is to get through it.

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

It's not THAT MUCH sand. Just the fort where Jesse is learning being in bondage isn't always fun, either Deen or Sonya (the sand sorta helps in the former?), and like the first two or three turns of Grieth's lair.

...But it is still very much annoying, and the challenge level isn't nil in any of those maps either.

It's not a large fraction based on number of maps, but considering how much time you're going to spend walking very slowly towards Sniper Man's fortress, it's a significant fraction of your time spent with this game.

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

12 hours ago, gnip said:

Whatever it is, it's very dangerous, since it's also alone

Unless you're playing SoV Hard, where Stefalaw is accompanied by his girlfriend. That complicates this a little.

Whoops, I forgot a "but" in that sentence. ("...but since it's also alone, the fight is very staightforward.")

Or maybe I was implying that the Zombiedragon is also a Ninja, and thus more dangerous in smaller numbers.

Edited September 25, 2023 by gnip

[Punished Dayni]

8 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Very faithfully translate the games' scripts, ignoring all outside sources and influences. Ignore them so hard you end up with a guy called Meißen.

I can buy it, but it's still possible what we're on about here could still have been them choosing to embellish without looking at SoV, the main reason I say that is because of the when this came out. I don't have the capacity to ask, so I'm going to grumble at the doubt that sits there being a nuisance.

6 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Another boon of bosses no longer being stationary emblem is that we no longer have to deal with avoid bonuses. Can't believe it took us this long. 

Not all bosses move.

Like Kant, R. here, he doesn't. None of the cantors move, because fuck you (even if there are cantors not on healtiles, they're still behind who knows how many enemies).

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

It's not THAT MUCH sand. Just the fort where Jesse is learning being in bondage isn't always fun, either Deen or Sonya (the sand sorta helps in the former?), and like the first two or three turns of Grieth's lair.

It's still a lot of sand in those maps.

Least the desert fort will be possible to assault with fliers in Gaiden.

[Saint Rubenio]

12 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

All this finger pointing, I'm starting to think you're projecting. Perhaps...you're trying to distract everyone from finding out that you're the reptile! 

Silly. Reptiles don't have beards.

12 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Another boon of bosses no longer being stationary emblem is that we no longer have to deal with avoid bonuses. Can't believe it took us this long. 

Now this the part where Ruben tells me about KagaSaga boss design.

Eh not really, KagaSaga's boss design isn't really anything fascinating, for the most part.

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

It's not THAT MUCH sand. Just the fort where Jesse is learning being in bondage isn't always fun, either Deen or Sonya (the sand sorta helps in the former?), and like the first two or three turns of Grieth's lair.

That's still the bulk of act 2's maps, though, isn't it? What else is there? Palla and Catria's join map, which is the first map of the act, and then... The final map of the act, the storming of Mila Temple. Oof.

6 hours ago, gnip said:

I don't have to take this from somebody who probably thinks Stockholm is the capital of Switzerland.

 

6 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

I can buy it, but it's still possible what we're on about here could still have been them choosing to embellish without looking at SoV, the main reason I say that is because of the when this came out. I don't have the capacity to ask, so I'm going to grumble at the doubt that sits there being a nuisance.

That's certainly a possibility. And the term used, "machote" could also be interpreted as just "tough guy" or something. Oh, well.