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Artelier
Jan 23, 2015


This level here is exactly where I stopped. It's rage inducing. So...many...units...

Nice to see you made it through even with a big prep blunder. I can't even last half the level fully decked out.

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Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Onmi posted:


This whole first trip to Valor really hurts this game badly, I mean... if it ended in the next few chapters + maybe moving the final chapter up? It would be a short (Counting Lyn Mode as well of course) game that would have a pretty well rounded story, I mean you lose a lot but it works...

But frankly what's going to happen is you'll get to the logical end point, the game will have its grand climax then the game just sort of goes "Uh... poo poo... we uh.... weren't ready to actually have the final battle... could you like... go dick around Nabata and Bern and run back and forth across the continent so we can prepare for the exact same climax at the end of the game? Thanks."

And that's FE7's main flaw to me, The story, on the whole, is really quite good, it's just arranged in a way that leads to it blowing its load and then blowing the same load later. Mind you, I understand why they did it, it's the same reason that Aine is the boss of Chapter 12 in FE6, you need to establish the main 'threat' of the game to the player visually, and just being told Here be dragons, go do something about it or we're all going to loving die Doesn't have the same effect as what FE7 actually does.

Still, I personally, as do many of the people I've talked to when discussing FE7 and hacking and blah blah, believe this part of the game serves great merged with the finale, but when it comes to map travel logistics it's a nightmare and just serves to blow the exact same climax as the end of the game.


I'm inclined to say that what you think is a huge flaw is actually one of the game's biggest strengths. But I'll get there as the story gets there.

Fatcat214
Feb 19, 2015

Party Poogie

Melth posted:






Hector promptly turns away, angering her.




He relates the story of how he recently lost both his parents to illness




:ohdear:

Krumbsthumbs
Oct 23, 2010

2nd Place.
1st Loser.
The reason Priscilla says she isn't seasick is during normal Eliwood runs Guy talks rather than Priscilla and he will say he's seasick. A handful of the start of chapter conversations do this, where someone says something in one path, and the person in the other path says something related to the first, but different enough to be amusing as a call back.

Dr. Buttass
Aug 12, 2013

AWFUL SOMETHING

Melth posted:



You know, the point of this screenshot was to point out that even with just 2 levels, Raven can completely slaughter his own kind of unit. But… now it’s about his sword. Look at it bending and curving as he does his silly jumping attack! I never noticed that till I took a screen shot of it.

This is called a "smear"! In animation, sometimes it will come to pass that a movement, like Raven's goofy-rear end spinning jump, goes by too fast and doesn't read well when you just draw it out completely on-model. So, by warping, stretching, or sometimes even doubling certain features in a movement, you can better communicate that movement in the frames allotted rather than slow down your movement by adding frames, which could kill the flow. That crit attack of Oswin's you can't figure out is a smear too, but it wasn't until I started doing this little write-up that I realized that was what was giving you trouble; this game actually uses a lot of them. Since by their very nature they're meant to make movements read properly in a very short amount of time, they're usually only visible for one or two twenty-fourths of a second and are therefore nearly invisible when they're in motion.

Raven's sword is actually pretty low-key as smears go. There's at least one blog on tumblr dedicated to them and I really recommend looking into them further; smears are almost always ridiculous works of art in their own right.

Dr. Buttass fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Feb 27, 2015

Sorites
Sep 10, 2012




That bandit is not alright.



Here's a compilation of various frames interesting frames from the myrmidon combat animations.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!


Here we go! Since at least chapter 17 we’ve been hearing about Valor, also known as the Dread Isle. The place has such a sinister reputation that only a half-mad pirate captain is willing to sail to it for any price and no one is known to have ever braved its unknown dangers and survived.

One of the things I rather like about this game is that the reason Valor is so dread is a mystery never fully explained. Yes, at the moment it’s occupied by the Black Fang, but they won’t have been there for more than a year. No one in living memory has returned from it, so there must be some other danger lurking on it- possibly besides Nergal and whatever minions he had before the Black Fang. Even during the Scouring it was already covered in strange ruins and the place is associated in some way with dark magic because the two greatest dark wizards in history gained their power there.
One gets the impression that Black Fang members are always going missing around here, never to be seen again.

The creepy, forlorn background art, ominous music, altered color scheme, fog and night levels everywhere, the fear and trepidation expressed by even people like Hector, and the presence of several mysteries never fully explained as well as numerous others first time players will be trying to solve really evoke a sinister atmosphere quite well.

There’s no doubt that Valor was a huge influence on me and my writing and my tendency to GM dark fantasy and horror games and I regard the Pirate ship to Dragon’s Gate section of the game as one of my favorites.

Chapter Summary:
Hector and company have arrived at the fog-shrouded and densely forested Dread Isle, now with a confused Ninian in tow. Fargus bids them farewell and pledges to wait up to 2 weeks for them to return, sending one of his crewmen with them. As they enter the misty forests, no one knows what to expect. The first person they come across is Leila- dead and left for them to find. Moments later a Black Fang named Uhai and his men spring from ambush, warning Hector and Eliwood that even if they can defeat him, they have no chance against Nergal’s unimaginable power.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5spEydo92sQ It’s Nergal! And his awesome musical theme! This is the first we’ve seen of him- in fact, it wasn’t even certain clear for a while that he was a person rather than a place. Ostia’s spy network knows nothing about him- no one has even seen him- even though his sinister and possibly inhuman minions have been everywhere and have even seized control of the most dangerous organization in Elibe.




Holy cow, dragons? This is the first mention of dragons period in Hector’s story and in Eliwood’s story it’s the first since the opening narration explained that the 8 legends defeated them a thousand years ago.
Suddenly the plot is not just about a boy trying to rescue his father anymore.




(Hearkening back to my exposé after chapter 14, this conversation makes it 100% clear that Elbert is not and has never been in favor of Darin’s little Nergal-backed rebellion).




And here’s our first glimpse of Ephidel under that hood! This chapter really reveals a lot of secrets, but it raises far more questions than it answers. Also it’s revealed that Nergal has no respect for Darin and no use for him now but to send him into combat against Eliwood. Afterall, a certain idiot threw away his armies and his realm and his status. Now he’s not good for anything but maybe fighting as one of Nergals’s many, many warriors.




Nergal REALLY loves mocking his enemies and explaining to them just how thoroughly he’s defeated them. And he’s pretty much always right. This time he explains to Elbert that Elbert having freed Ninian and Nils was for nothing because Eliwood is unknowingly bringing Ninian right back. Now he’s going to kill Elbert’s son and undo all Elbert’s work at once.




Well that sounds ominous. Also I love Nergal’s smug smirk. He does that a lot.




Leila has been eavesdropping and now hurries to tell Hector all she’s learned.




And Ephidel noticed her. Or, more likely, Jaffar did and informed Ephidel since Jaffar is about to reveal he’s been right behind her.




And also in front of her at once. There are a lot of critical animations that involve people making duplicates or illusions of themselves somehow. I’m not really sure how we’re supposed to interpret that.




See this time we knew what happened because they used their rather good combat animations to show us the action rather than having the sprites on the map just slide around. Why they didn’t do something like this for several other such scenes I’m not sure.

Also look at that architecture. The Dragon’s Gate is a weird and scary place full of giant green torches, statues dozens of times bigger than people, glowing green stone, and bottomless abysses.




At first glance, this really looks like a rare moment of Ephidel succeeding at something, but stop and think about it:
He just found out Leila had been eavesdropping. So he had her killed by someone actually competent (at least he didn’t try to stab her himself or she’d still be with us today). But wait! He forgot the part where he’s supposed to find out who the heck she really is and who she’s working for- and whether there are any other traitors in his organization. It’s only several chapters later that Hector reveals to Ephidel that she was an Ostian spy! At this moment he has no idea. He also doesn’t consider the implications: he’s been allowing this woman who was secretly a traitor to be privy to all kinds of secrets and special missions completely unsupervised. There’s no telling what kind of things she could have done to sabotage their plans- like leaving Marquess Hausen alive for one example- or how often she possibly listened in on these secret conversations before and reported them to her superiors.

By immediately having her killed instead of interrogated, he ensures he never finds out any of this potentially critical information, doesn’t know what his enemies know, and doesn’t find out about any other spies or traitors in their midst.

Furthermore, by telling Jaffar to drag the corpse out for Eliwood to find as a ‘warning,’ he accomplishes nothing or less than nothing. First of all, he doesn’t even know she’s connected with Eliwood’s group. She could have been, say, a spy for Bern. Or actually just working for some old Black Fang members who don’t like the way Nergal has taken over. In which case leaving her for Eliwood to find doesn’t really even send them a clear message. But it’s worse than that: other Fangs are surely going to see the body being dragged halfway across the isle so news will get out that Leila was found to be a traitor. Besides potentially causing morale problems, this also warns anyone she was working with that Ephidel could be looking for them and thus gives them a chance to hide or escape. Plus if Leila IS working with Hector or Eliwood, then Ephidel is needlessly tipping his hand here by revealing both that they found her and that they know Eliwood is coming.

Who’s really the fool here, Ephidel?




So, after they land, Hector finds Leila. Evidently Jaffar propped her up against a tree or something since they don’t realize she’s dead immediately. This is potentially another moment where it would have been better if we didn’t see the previous scene with Ephidel having found her out.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzeLdRC7CmE

Agh. It’s the most heartrending scene in the game. And everything Matthew says is just perfect. You can just hear his voice cracking as he tries to keep up his cheery demeanor. And no one knows what to say to him.







The others leave him alone to bury his love. One gets the impression that respect for the dead and not posing them like mannequins for their friends to find is a big thing in Sacaean culture.

And check out that background.



Lyn’s been taken hostage! Here’s our introduction to Uhai, who Eliwood will spend the rest of the story lauding for his honor and decency. Having let Jaffar leave Leila posed for everyone to find, he charges out of the fog, grabs Lyn by surprise, and threatens to murder her if the others don’t hand over the girl he’s been sent to abduct.
Truly, Uhai is a consummate gentleman and a credit to his organization.




Pherae doesn’t negotiate with terrorists! Lyn never seems mad at Eliwood later for having refused to hand Ninian over and thereby put her life at risk. She’s quite brave. It also probably helps that Eliwood shows equal or greater courage when he himself is in a similar situation later on.

Evidently Uhai realized that Eliwood really was not going to hand Ninian over so he’d have had nothing to gain from following through on his threat instead of just having his men attack them all from ambush.

He warns them to just leave Ninian and flee because even if they defeat him, they cannot even comprehend- let alone hope to stand against, Nergal’s overwhelming power. Eliwood insists on fighting on even though he admits they don’t know what they’re up against.




So true. Some might argue that taking someone hostage before battle and threatening to kill her to coerce her friends into doing what you want is also shameful, but apparently Uhai doesn’t believe that.
In any case, he releases Lyn so he can kill her in battle with the rest of them and seize Ninian by force, as any good person would do.

The War Room, Part 19

So as many of you already know, there are 2 chapters in this game which have 2 alternate versions: Four Fanged Offense (Chapter 24 of Hector’s Story) and Pale Flower of Darkness (Chapter 27 of Hector’s Story). The map, the enemies, and the time limits and treasure and everything are completely different, so if you’re serious about max ranking, you should figure out which ones you want to do early. This chapter here is probably your last chance to change your mind and start preparing to do a different one.

The easy version of Four Fanged Offense to get is a small, fog-shrouded map where you fight Lloyd and can recruit Wallace.

The harder to get version is bigger, has no fog, and has Linus as the boss and Geitz as a recruitable ally instead. You get this version if the sum of your lords’ levels is 50 or higher.

Linus’s version has a much, much larger turn allotment than Lloyd’s and also has slightly more treasure relative to its funds requirement as well as treasure that’s far easier to acquire. Having no fog also makes it easier to strategize.

On the other hand, Lloyd’s level is easy to complete in just a turn or two if you don’t care about XP or treasure or recruitment, potentially allowing a bigger turns savings even though the budget is far smaller. Further, training all your lords so heavily to unlock Linus’s version can be a tall order on HHM and could potentially cost you turns here or there over the course of the story leading up to that chapter.

All in all, I think Linus’s chapter is the superior of the two. For one thing, using the lords heavily helps boost your XP score and none of them is good enough that you can skimp on training them early and then expect to be able to start using them late in the game. Plus Lyn can easily be pumped 8 or so levels in her own story, so all in all the ‘cost’ of getting Linus’s level isn’t as bad as it looks. For another, the only way to save serious time on Lloyd’s story involves sacrificing way too much funds and XP to be worth it. Linus’s level lets you save major time while still harvesting lots of XP and getting all the treasure and is a much easier level due to the lack of fog.

The easier version of Pale Flower of Darkness to get on a max ranking run is probably Kenneth’s, which is a relatively simple map consisting largely of a snowy exterior and one huge building. It involves taking heavy fire from annoying long ranged magic. You get this if the total XP gained by Serra + Priscilla + Erk + Lucius is > that gained by Dorcas + Bartre + Guy + Raven. Only post-Lyn’s story XP counts.
The harder one to get is Jerme’s, which is a much more complex map of numerous small buildings which have to be unlocked to see into them while outside the snow turns on and off.

While nearly everyone agrees that Linus’s level is > Lloyd’s for max ranking, people are much less sure about Kenneth’s vs Jerme’s. I’m not entirely sure myself since it’s been a long time since I saw either on HHM, but I crunched the numbers on turn allotment and treasure required and treasure available and noticed the following:
Kenneth’s level has more assets available than Jerme’s, but some of those assets are significantly harder to get and even if you get absolutely everything, it doesn’t actually make up for Kenneth’s level having a higher funds requirement.
Additionally, Harken is far easier to get on Jerme’s version of the level and is absolutely, without a doubt better for max ranking than Karel. Getting him on Kenneth’s level will require deliberately playing badly and wasting many turns doing little, despite having a lower turn budget than on Jerme’s level.

I also consider Jerme’s level to be both easier and more interesting. All told, it looks superior to Kenneth’s to me.
But unlocking it comes at a hefty price. Of the units you must train to unlock it, only Raven is actually great. Guy is mediocre at best. Bartre is horrid early game and decent late game. Dorcas is decent early game and horrid late game. Of those required for Kenneth’s level, Serra and Priscilla are both absolutely mandatory to some degree. Erk and Lucius are both good.

I consider Jerme’s level itself to be better than Kenneth’s for max ranking HHM and the numbers back me up pretty solidly. The question is whether it’s enough better to be worth the serious cost of pumping levels into worthless units like Dorcas and bad ones like Bartre and Guy and not using Erk and Lucius much. And that I’m not sure about. I’m going to go for it though.


Battle Preparations & The Map

It’s a fog chapter! I ran Matthew onto the middle with a torch right away to reveal as much of it as possible to make this map picture, but there’s still a lot unseen. As usual, FoW chapters are pretty luck-based and have a lot of trial and error to them. At least this time it seems thematically appropriate…



Units Allowed: 12 + Dart
Units Benched: Lucius (As I mentioned in the War Room, I want to do Jerme’s level instead of Kenneth’s later in the story. That requires not using Lucius much even though he’s very good).
Units Added: Eliwood (His rapier is effective against many enemies here and I need to train him hard to get him ready for unlocking Linus’s chapter), Lyn (Ditto), Lowen (Serious movement is beneficial here and he can fight effectively against Pegasus knights, pirates, AND nomads- just not all 3 at once), Guy (I need to use him a lot to unlock Jerme’s level instead of Kenneth’s and he’s at least capable of fighting the pirate reinforcements decently), Serra (It’s a big map and I need to split the party, so 2 healers will be needed)
Useful Units Rejeted: Erk (Again, I need to stop using him for a while to unlock Jerme’s chapter)
Objective: Kill Uhai (He’s in the bottom right area)
Secondary Objective: Recruit Fiora (Flies in at the beginning of turn 3) with Florina
Secondary Objective: Kill the runaway enemy thief for his Torch staff
Secondary Objective: Win within like 20 turns or something to unlock 19x
Reinforcements:Due to fog it’s hard to be entirely sure, but I believe there’s a pirate spawned in the top left ocean, a Pegasus knight spawned on the top right ocean, and possibly a nomad somewhere in the bottom right woods on every turn from 2 or so to at least 6.
Turns Allowed: 10

You know, this chapter isn’t actually that difficult- except the fog and related nonsense almost guarantees at least one guess-and-check restart. There really aren’t a lot of tricky objectives to accomplish, no items to steal or anything like there are in the Eliwood’s story version. You just need to make sure the thief is killed before he runs off the right side somewhere. The reinforcements are more a nuisance than a threat. And they actually let you bring a ton of units for once!

All in all it’s an easy chapter except for the fog and the short time limit. You just need to thin out the huge enemy standing forces a bit and then the rest will collapse.

I lost my first attempt on turn 1 because there turned out to be a huge flock of Pegasus knights on the top right of the screen and they killed Raven when he didn’t dodge any of them. This is just one of those things it’s impossible to know while you’re deploying. And since the smart move is to move Matthew toward the center, you won’t find it out before moving your top right units either. Oh well. There’s another nasty surprise in the bottom left- arguably even more devious because half of those Pegasus knights fly out early and thereby make you think there’s none left, but the other half will wait for someone to walk in range- but I happened to put Hector in their range rather than someone more vulnerable, so they were no problem for me.




I re-thought this formation quite a few times . It was tempting to put Florina in the bottom right spot because from that position she can one-round kill the enemy thief before he has a chance to escape if you have Matthew use his torch to reveal him. However, she’s far too likely to then be killed so I didn’t do that.
This was what I went with on my first attempt. Lyn, Matthew, and Sain pushed through the middle while Raven and Serra and Dart looped through the top right and everyone else but Guy took on the main enemy force to the south while Guy killed the pirate reinforcements.




This is what I went with on my second, successful attempt. Finding out about the Pegasus knights to the top right meant I needed to have Lowen go there instead of Raven and also take my time on that side. Raven instead took the bottom side and I had Dart join in the middle area fight.

Canas’s and Florina’s positions are the only ones that let me efficiently occupy the southern forts to defend myself on the first turn. Sain is in reach of the snag he needs to attack but not so close that slower units are pushed back too far to reach the middle island. The others are just pushed as close to the area they’re going to as is feasible.

Everyone who can use a javelin or handaxe has one as usual, and Sain has been given the horseslayer while Raven gets the longsword and nearly everyone has a vulnerary now since I’ve been conserving those pretty well. Giving the horseslayer to Florina might also have been a good option, but I wasn’t sure how easily Sain could take on Uhai without it. Plus it would slow her too much to often be worth it.

Lyn has been given an iron axe and Florina a spare iron lance to pass on to Dart and Fiora.




One of the pre-battle comments that’s actually meaningful, Matthew explains that Leila wouldn’t want him to spend his time mourning her when Hector needs his help. He’ll bury her when they’re done with Uhai.




I really like Matthew and this level is one of the main reasons, as I’ve said before.

The Characters:




“I’m here, Captain! Ready to serve!” -Dart, Chapter 18

One of Fargus’s braver but weaker pirates, Dart is extremely loyal to his captain. This turns out to be because Fargus defied tradition to save his life and took him in a couple of years ago when he had no idea who he was after winding up half dead on the docks of Badon with amnesia.
Secretly, he’s Rebecca’s long-lost brother Dan who left to find adventure with Wil. They parted in Badon and never ran into each other again till now. He’s lost his memory and doesn’t recognize either of them, but they figure out it’s him in their supports. He spends most of his time trying to be a ferocious pirate and intimidating no one or getting outsmarted by people. I suspect brain damage.
Kind of like Sain he’s a semi-joke character, but has enough serious moments that I think he’s well-done overall. And it’s interesting to try to find out the truth about him. But he has a lot less personality to him than Sain so he’s not really as fun.

Dart is one of the best units in the game, but he’s completely un-usable in a max ranking run. He starts off fairly weak but easy enough to start training, and then he grows amazingly. He has, bar none, the best Strength growth in the game and an absolutely staggering 60% speed growth. That’s more than myrmidons like Karel. And though his HP growth is poor for an axe user, his base is so enormous that that doesn’t matter. The only stats he really lacks badly are skill and resistance, but those are really unimportant.
Further, the Berserker class is pretty much indisputably the best infantry class in the game. Dart winds up able to cross rivers and oceans with ease as well as mountains with only moderate difficulty. And only berserkers can traverse peaks at all. They get to use axes, which are probably the best late game weapon, and they even get a nice +15 crit rate bonus, same as swordmasters. But whereas swordmaster crit damage is just ok, a berserker getting a critical is instant death.
Dart even has decent out of combat utility courtesy of solid Con combined with being able to move easily over terrain others can’t, which makes him semi-decent as a rescue dropper.
However, the only way to promote him is to get one of the most secret items in the game – the Ocean Seal. And this item costs 5x more than any other promotion item, so it must never be used. Essentially, if you promote Dart, you cannot promote anyone else. And though he’s really good, he’s not as good as 5 other good units combined. So I’ll train him to 20 unpromoted probably, but he won’t be on my late game team.




"The pain of being the sole survivor… It had me trapped" -Fiora, Chapter 19

Florina’s sister, Fiora has a terrible case of survivor’s guilt as a result of getting her entire unit killed on the Dread Isle shortly before this chapter begins. Actually come to think of it, that’s less survivor’s guilt and more her genuinely being a complete screwup who got the people who trusted her leadership killed. Still, her plan to throw her life away by singlehandedly attacking the black fang would have been quite irresponsible and have wasted the sacrifice of her followers, so it’s a good thing Florina talks some sense into her.
She’s probably the most mentally healthy and normal of the three Pegasus sisters, which is kind of saying something. And she has cool-looking armor. All in all I kind of like her as a character and I really wish it was her rather than Florina who was the main Pegasus knight in this game. But she needs more screen-time. Her supports reveal her to be a very formal –uptight even- person with a strong sense of responsibility to both her sisters and her country and a lot of them are pretty interesting even though they’ve little plot importance.

She and Florina are quite similar statistically, but Fiora is a good deal tougher at the high levels. Florina’s main statistical edge is in luck. Florina’s main strategic advantages stem from being available in Lyn’s story and thus easy to train up ahead of time and give stat-boosting items like the angelic robe too. All in all Fiora is quite good, probably better than Florina overall, but it’s hard to get her rolling due to her late join time and the fact that Heath will soon be making his grand entrance and blowing them both out of the water.




"I am Uhai! I am the Soaring Hawk!" - Uhai, Chapter 19

Be prepared for Eliwood to not shut up about this guy for the rest of the story. “I met Uhai and he was a great guy!” “Hey, you seem like a decent Black Fang, did you know Uhai?” “Man, remember that time when we had to fight Uhai and he totally didn’t deserve to die?” “The existence of Uhai proves that Jaffar is a good person!” But… actually Uhai is pretty bad. At the very least, he was not ‘honorable’ as people like to describe him. What’s more, unlike many other Black Fangs, Eliwood actually knew the kind of bad stuff Uhai did.

Uhai allowed Jaffar to disrespect Leila’s body in his territory, a deed which Lyn described as “Beyond foul.” While they were mourning the loss of Matthew’s love, Uhai then ambushed them- unarmed and unprepared- and took Lyn hostage, threatening to kill her if the others didn’t hand over Ninian.

Only when Eliwood refuses to hand over Ninian regardless and his hostage ceases to be useful to him does he release Lyn

And while he knows Nergal to be wholly evil and to be using the Black Fang, he insists on then attacking with his giant army in order to capture Ninian and kill the rest.

When defeated and dying, he then betrays the Black Fang by telling Eliwood where to find the Dragon’s Gate, thereby ensuring the deaths of dozens and dozens of his comrades. For no reason.

Uhai isn’t good and he certainly isn’t honorable- he fights dirty, as any smart person would when up against a group as dangerous as Eliwood’s little army. He isn’t even actually loyal to the Fang. But for some reason he, rather than Legault or the like, is forever touted as the iconic ‘good’ Black Fang member.




In HHM he’s about the same kind of threat he was on Eliwood’s story, which makes him much less of a big deal relatively speaking. Still, that Killing Edge is not to be messed with and he’s quite well equipped in general. He also benefits from being on a forest and hard to approach due to thick woods all around and his longbow lets him attack most people for free at least once. All in all he’s fairly hard to kill, but not actually that dangerous if you fight him carefully and you have plenty of time for that.


Playing Through:




First things first, Sain needs to break the snag so he and the others can start fighting through the central isle- it’s the quickest way to get to Uhai.




I happen to know from last time that there’s a lone Pegasus knight on the right side of the screen who can just reach that forest. I want to take it out promptly and Dart is perfect for that, but he needs an iron axe first. That’s why I gave one to Lyn.




And before I can move anyone else intelligently, I need to light a torch. Matthew could have moved a space closer to the front, but that would have exposed him to ranged attackers who would stand on the snag bridge and thereby block Sain and slow my progress. It’s better to make more of those guys attack Sain and therefore die right away so I can have everyone fight more effectively next turn.




As I mentioned, Lowen can deal with pirates or nomads or Pegasus knights easily, but not all 3 at once- which is what he’d be up against if he charged in there. Instead I’ll take the woods here and wait to attack targets of opportunity after thinning their numbers.




Canas prepares to soften the enemy for Florina to finish. Note that even with no magic growth, he could 2-hit kill this enemy cavalier already, and cavaliers are tough. Canas hits like a truck. He’s also already sturdy enough that I can trust him to survive an attacking enemy wave as long as he has that fort to stand on.




It was efficient to kill that cavalier with an iron lance, but for the incoming nomads I want her to have a javelin. Always remember you can trade to switch the items of someone whose turn already ended.




So you can see my groups for each front here. Lowen (with a little assistance from Guy and Serra to start) will be taking on the whole right area. Lyn, Dart, and Matthew will try to cut through the middle area fast enough to let Sain get a crack at Uhai quickly.


And everyone else (except Florina who’ll need to go back and recruit Fiora when she appears) will be slowly making their way along the bottom.




Lowen missed so Guy couldn’t finish that nomad even if he could stand up to 2 pegasus knights- which he can’t. Instead he’ll get out of their range and in position to deal with the pirates coming out of the top left.




The rapier is just essential for training Eliwood, he can’t do much of anything without it.He’s still kind of struggling here because there are just too many forests on this level. The enemy almost always has terrain boosts.




Lyn is much better off, in part because the Mani Katti is just better but also because she got the speed to double everything while my Eliwood is still only quick enough to double a few things.




Ugh, another bad level for Matthew as he softens up a pirate for Dart or the like. And I can see that there’s no way I’m getting to the required 20 speed by 19xx even with a decent speed-bless. Things are going to be tough.




Florina retreats to be in position to talk to Fiora and also to help with that nomad who I missed twice.




A poor level up, but it’s still one step closer to Linus’s level.




Meh, not bad.




The enemy thief is getting away. But I think I can see a way to kill him. I need to use Dart, Lyn, and Matthew to carve a path south for Sain. Then he can charge through and take the thief down this turn.




Florina recruits Fiora. Unfortunately you cannot trade with green units and you can’t trade after talking, so I can’t immediately give her the iron lance she so desperately needs.




But I CAN move. And if I move here, Fiora can then move next to the nomad, take the spare iron lance herself, and THEN finish it. After Guy weakens it of course. No one has hit the thing yet.




There we go, not bad odds.




Raven vs pirates it not a fair fight. He completely wrecks everything on this level- even the northeast Pegasus knights on average, mine just didn’t dodge that one time. With his longsword he’d be surprisingly effective against Uhai, though admittedly not a match for that Killing Edge yet.




I am getting a nice luck bless. Believe it or not, this is actually a really slow hard mode raven (but decently strong).




My plan worked, that thief is not getting away. Even if Sain double misses, it’ll be effortless to lance him next turn.

Yeah this is just ridiculous any way you slice it. Early in the map some Pegasus knights flew out of that area, giving you every reason to think there aren’t more just standing there. But no, there’s 2 more just watching their comrades die and then waiting for someone to move in range to fly out and kill and make you restart. Fortunately for me, it happened to be Hector in the lead at the moment.




Lowen is now making pretty good progress, though he took a big hit from that steel axe pirate and then the nomad. Still, he can probably take on the remaining Pegasus knights since he’s Lowen.




This is just not a good join level for Fiora; she can’t beat the cavaliers, no Pegasus knight likes to fight pirates, and the map is cluttered with nomads to run up and instant kill her out of the fog. So I’ve got to take every chance like this to net a kill.




Even if they do reward me with bad levels like this one.




Lowen can probably handle things and Serra doesn’t belong anywhere near Pegasus knights, so I’ll send her to the middle instead.




Next turn, Lowen kinda sorta got beat within an inch of his life when he didn’t dodge anything and then missed his counterattacks, so now I have no real choice but to move to a forest and use a vulnerary. Fortunately I’d had the foresight to put him in range of a forest last turn to begin with.




At the moment I can’t see Uhai or his guards, so it’s worth a second torch to reveal things.




There they are! The unusual looking nomads are female ones actually. There are different models for males and females of quite a few different classes, but you almost always just fight the men except on Hector’s story for some reason. For whatever reason, males and females of the same enemy class often have different stat caps but the same stat growths. There’s no one pattern to it though. Really I have no idea what they were going for there.




Guy has been fighting 1 pirate per turn and gets a level out of it. This is a terrible HHM dart. Just… ugh. And I have to keep using him to get Jerme’s level.




Lowen finally kills those bad Pegasus knights for a lousy level.




Canas shows everyone how it’s done. This guy is unbelievable even when he’s average. Am I actually going to get a good one?




Meh, but he does need more speed and he’s good as is.




Other than Canas, my levels this chapter were pretty cruddy.




So pretty much every Black Fang from now on has a title, almost all of thing being birds. Soaring Hawk, Owl, Shadow Hawk/sometimes mis-called the Shrike, Mad Dog/Rabid Hound, White Wolf, Death Kite, Shrike (for real this time), Blue Crow, Angel of Death…




I didn’t want Sain to get the kill, so I ran Hector into longbow range. This means Uhai can attack him for free, which means Uhai won’t die, which means I can feed him to someone else next turn. That’s probably worthwhile.




Son of a gun, he chose to attack Sain and therefore certainly die instead of attacking Hector for free. Why? Anyway, he now betrays the rest of the Black Fang by telling us where to find their secret hideout. So honorable.




Sain gets another fantastic level. Welp. The thing is, he’s about to cap everything. And then never grow again. I really don’t want the bosses to keep attacking him when there are much juicier targets around. But I can’t retire him from the team, no one else can take his place until I can promote Raven or Canas.




What if the Sacaens have been lying to everyone about that?




Unlike Eliwood, Hector has the appropriate attitude toward this wretched hive of scum and villainy. It’s also clear that he was really quite fond of Leila, although the nature of their relationship is never really explored. Given the way he talks about her from time to time, I begin to wonder if he had some sort of unrequited love for her. On the other hand, he’s definitely not jealous of Matthew or anything. Maybe the whole Ostian court is just really close-knit. Though that makes the gigantic number of traitors in the next game kinda weird.




Let’s go meet Kishuna!

Total Restarts: 9 (Stupid hidden flock of lucky pegasus knights)
Turn Surplus: +10 (It’s pretty easy to finish that chapter early and there’s no real loss for doing so since there aren’t many reins coming)
Things I Regret Missing: The lockpick on chapter 11, that darned archer on chapter 11, this one brigand who attacked Marcus on chapter 12, 2 more brigands who ignored everyone else to attack Marcus on chapter 13x, and 2 archers who ignored Hector and Dorcas (DORCAS!) to attack Marcus on chapter 14, like 10 more enemies I could have killed if Hector could have survived one more turn on chapter18, and Uhai who decided to take a 100% chance of death to Sain over a free hit on Hector

Melth fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Feb 27, 2015

Cake Attack
Mar 26, 2010

would uhai have killed sain with a crit? i think enemies prioritize a potential kill even over not getting counterattacked.

marshmallow creep
Dec 10, 2008

I've been sitting here for 5 mins trying to think of a joke to make but I just realised the animators of Mass Effect already did it for me

I don't think I ever saw the map you re-recruit Wallace on personally.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Lotish posted:

I don't think I ever saw the map you re-recruit Wallace on personally.

This game was both the first and the last that my brother and I each bought a copy of at the same time and both actually liked- way back when we were in elementary school- and we each had a very different approach to it our first time through.

I remember I was the first one to realize that using the lords- rather than his strategy of having Marcus rescue Eliwood and hold onto him all chapter- was often a good idea. But I think he was the first one to unlock Linus's level (on his 2nd or 3rd play) because I wasn't yet using them enough. Oddly enough though, I don't think he mentioned it to me, so when I finally came across it myself and excitedly showed it to him, he'd already seen it.


That was an exciting era. It seemed like every week one of us came across a secret or alternate level the other one hadn't yet seen. And though we'd heard vague mentions of a 'Hector's Story', we both talked it over and decided that this clearly meant that there was a third section to the game unlocked after Eliwood's story, just like Eliwood's story began after Lyn's.

I'm somewhat nostalgic for that epoch when most people my age had no idea how to use the internet to learn things about video games, so we spent all our time telling outrageous lies about non-existent secrets we'd unlocked or credulously spreading rumors and distortions based on other people's outrageous lies about non-existent secrets they'd unlocked. Fire Emblem was really the kind of game that encouraged such things too.

Fatcat214
Feb 19, 2015

Party Poogie
I know i never knew about Jerme's version of Pale flower of darkness until about 4 years ago, and when i found out about it i went through every chapter on the Fire emblem wiki looking for alternate versions, and when i found out about Linus's version of Four fanged offense, my brain nearly exploded from all the new knowledge

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.
I just sort of had both versions happen to me to be honest. It's kinda what happens when you opt to use different units each run.

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



Lotish posted:

I don't think I ever saw the map you re-recruit Wallace on personally.

I've seen it a few times, but there's not much reason to go for it over fighting Linus at the port.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Manatee Cannon posted:

I've seen it a few times, but there's not much reason to go for it over fighting Linus at the port.

Other than different dialogue on both that chapter and Cog of Destiny anyway.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!


So for many years I saw people calling this chapter “Prisoner of Magic” and assumed this was just some idiot’s typo that got copied and repeated endlessly by people who didn’t stop to think about the fact that it should clearly be “Imprisoner.” And the one time I remembered this whole issue while actually playing through the game, I happened to be on Eliwood’s story where it is indeed entitled “Imprisoner,” so that further reinforced my impression that this was just some players getting it wrong.

It was only a few months ago that I realized that the chapter actually has a different name in Hector’s and Eliwood’s stories. Possibly my original theory about some dumb typo getting copied around is not far from the truth afterall.

Or possibly some writer at Intelligent Systems was being very clever indeed and the different title reflects the secrets of Kishuna’s nature that will be revealed only in Hector’s story. Afterall, is he not in a sense both an imprisoner of other people’s magic and himself a prisoner of the nature of the magic that created him?

Can you imagine the kind of great essays we’d have been able to write in high school if video games were actually accepted as art? I could go on about the obviously deliberate reasons for the slight title change and their implications vis-à-vis the other themes of the game and the nature of the characters involved for pages and pages.


Chapter Summary
After defeating Uhai, Hector and company stumble through the dense forests of the Dread Isle looking for the Dragon’s Gate and wander into another Black Fang ambush- this one definitely led by Marquess Araphen. There’s been a strange, unsettling, and unnatural presence felt on top of the actual dread of the dread isle for some time, and this is suddenly revealed to be caused by the reality-bending nature of a strange man called Kishuna who suddenly appears, neutralizing all magic in the area of the battle.




The chapter opens with Lyn and Hector at each other’s throats again because of Lyn being rude to him as usual- this time she can’t stop criticizing the fact that his heavy suit of armor makes noise.




As usual it falls to Eliwood to be the adult and mediate between them while pointing out that their little shouting match is far more of a problem than Hector’s armor ever was. To their credit, Lyn and Hector do both acknowledge that he’s totally right and their remarks were uncalled for.




Meanwhile, Marquess Araphen’s scouts spotted them and he takes the opportunity to get in one of his trademark racist jabs at Sacaens. Clearly Uhai failed because he was Sacaean rather than because Eliwood’s group is overwhelmingly powerful for a bunch of assassins to be taking on.




An enemy shaman who looks exactly like Zoldam and Heintz (they make like 8 different portraits for random minions to unimportant brigand bosses but only one shaman for the whole game?) teleports in to inform Eliwood that he’s now under attack and then teleports away. For some reason Eliwood says ‘Oof!!’ I’ve never been sure what to make of that. The guy wasn’t close enough to have punched Eliwood or anything, nor was there any animation to suggest an attack of any kind. He just popped in, chatted, and then vanished. And then Eliwood says “Oof.’ Maybe it made more sense in the original Japanese or something.

It reminds me of a painting I saw in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC one time: http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79298




He’s right; I should wrap this up.


Battle Preparations & The Map



Units Allowed: 8
Units Brought:
1) Hector. Required, as always. Plus he’s great for this level, also as always.
2) Eliwood. Has a good set of stats for cheaply taking on the axereaver pegasi and is effective vs knights with his rapier, plus he has an A in swords so he can hit Kishuna hard with a silver weapon, plus I need to train him hard to get Linus’s Four-Fanged Offense.
3) Lyn. Pretty much just an inferior Eliwood at this point, but I also need to train her.
4) Matthew. Can’t fight worth a darn here and there isn’t much to steal… except for the single most valuable item in the whole game.
5) Canas. That dripping sound you hear right now is me drooling as I realize that Canas might be able to solo this entire level given some decent terrain to stand on. He can kill knights by the truckload with his adequate speed and huge damage and enemy mages can’t even scratch him while he kills them in 2 hits- and with one more point of speed he’ll be doubling them. True, Kishuna will make him useless in the end stages but no one else will rip up everything else on this stage so easily so it’s great XP for him.
6) Sain. I don’t intend to use Sain much here, but he’s highly effective as usual. Critically, I need him to have a chance against Kishuna.
7) Florina. It’s an air-drop map, plus she’s good against mages and other Pegasus knights at this point. Not even bad against knights.
8) Fiora. Same as Florina but not as good.
Notable Units Rejected:
1) Raven. I really want to use him and he’s definitely better than Eliwood or Lyn overall, but I desperately need to feed them some XP now and he can kind of wait. Further, Eliwood and Lyn have anti-knight weapons but Raven doesn’t really, so the upshot is that they’re possibly better on this particular map.
2) Guy. As I said last time, I do want to give him some XP to make sure I get Jerme’s level, but he can’t scratch knights and he can’t survive mages and he’s really not even as good as Lyn or Eliwood at this point. Or maybe even Matthew.
3) Lowen. Lowen would almost be good here, but his Res is too low for him to be properly tanky and his Str is too low to take on knights.
4) Priscilla. For once, healing is basically not useful on this map. That you’re fighting so many mages basically means you’re either invincible or dead from full HP. Also Kishuna makes healing impossible in a big area. I also need every good fighting character I can muster to beat down Kishuna and I only get 8, some of whom have to be non-fighters like Matthew. Plus the less XP Priscilla gets, the easier I can get Jerme’s level.
5) Serra. Same as Priscilla but with 2 less movement. As usual.
6) Dart. Dart would be pretty solid here if not for the fact that each of those Pegasus knights has an axereaver.
7) Marcus. I’m not quite that desperate for anti-Kishuna firepower.
Objective: Seize Gate
Secondary Objective: Steal Silver Card from Marquess Araphen
Secondary Objective: Visit the ruin (Village) in the bottom right for a Goddess Icon.
Secondary Objective: Kill Kishuna to unlock the sidequest
Reinforcements: Well there’s mages from the forts from about turn 8 to 12 or so. Plus a brigand or two from near the bottom left. Bizarrely, the brigand you see on the map there is actually a reinforcement who shows up before the first player turn. So functionally he’s on the map from the beginning… except not while you’re choosing your formation. No idea why they did that, but he’s no problem. A much bigger deal is that Kishuna and some absolutely elite troops are going to teleport in and spawn-move on turn 3 (though they don’t actually move, just attack). He’s got level 15 knights and level 15 snipers. No seriously, level 15 promoted units. We won’t be fighting those again for like 15 chapters. If you don’t know they’re coming and you do an air-drop, you WILL lose. Kishuna himself is the big game-changer here though, as I’ll get into.
Turns Allowed: 10

Well this is a weird, weird chapter. All of the Kishuna chapters are really, but as a first-time player this one really takes the cake since you’ll have no idea what to expect.

The time limit here is absolutely brutal; I’ve seen 0 levels with more reasonable time requirements. Looking at the map, I don’t think I could have actually won before turn 10 with the units I had. Even if I had Sain solo nearly everything. See, even he can’t beat down Kishuna’s guards that fast and must kill Marquess Araphen before you can safely kill Kishuna. And Sain can only do 50% of Kishuna’s HP with a silver lance, so you really need the ENTIRE party in position by the time you go for him. And even with mass-air dropping, that’s going to take time. And the exact positions of Kishuna’s guards + Marquess Araphen’s bolting before turn 3 makes it very hard to drop people efficiently anyway. Plus there’s just the little matter of needing to seize the gate after Kishuna is down. If Hector has to fight him, that takes minimum 2 turns to walk. If by some miraculous chance you still have 2 people capable of rescue dropping, it’s still 1 more turn.

One thing that helps a lot is that the enemies don’t have a lot of variety. Being good against both mages and knights means you can run over everything on the chapter. It’s important to notice the nature of the enemy force before battle in terms of both class and gear and think about which of your characters will do well against them. For example, knights are best beaten by magic damage or axes. Among magic users, mages like Erk are decent against enemy mages while shamans like Canas are overwhelmingly powerful against them. Among axe users, anyone with a handaxe can fight mages decently well.

This is also a chapter that’s much easier to approach when you know about the enemy reinforcements (specifically at what point Kishuna will completely shut down the enemy and render your own mages useless on offense).

Lastly it’s good to note that this is very definitely an air map. The enemy has not a single archer or axe user and the terrain is rough and ground paths to the both circuitous, so you should bring every flying unit available and use them extensively.

The War Room, Part 20

There are suddenly a dozen tactical war rooms I need to go through but not many strategic ones. Oh well, here’s another tactical one. So Marquess Araphen is packing some serious heat this time around. A long time ago I mentioned that one reason ballistae are totally unimpressive is that there exists long-ranged magic which is many times better. That’s what you’re looking at here:




The longest-ranged weapon mentioned so far is the longbow, which hits range 2-3 and sucks even for a bow in statistical terms but is decently useful nonetheless. Bolting hits 3-10. And at this level it hits like a car carrier loaded up with pickup trucks which are themselves loaded up with bricks of solid nitroglycerin.

Look at that 12 Mt. On top of Marquess Araphen’s solid magic score and coupled with the fact that most units’ Res stats are terrible, that will instant-kill many of your troops. And it will do so from halfway across the map. The accuracy is bad for Anima, but as a boss he has the skill to pull it off. And it’s not even that bad in absolute terms anyway. The big weaknesses it carries are the 3-10 range (meaning no fighting back up close) and the 20 Wt, meaning anyone wielding it is going to have close to 0 speed and therefore be doubled by Bartre wielding a steel axe and have no dodge chance either. Also it only has 5 uses, much like a ballista. Unlike the ballista, no one can take 5 hits from it at this point and I don’t have the time to waste on that anyway.

The mere presence of an enemy with Bolting – or the similar light spell Purge- on a map should completely change your strategy and tactics for that map. You must at all times be aware of their range and position. You should concoct a plan to eliminate them as fast as possible so you can move freely. You should probably outright not bring people who can’t take a hit from it. Eliminating them is usually priority 1. But you can’t do that with this guy really because at this level he’s just too dangerous to even approach and he’s well-guarded too.




That range! There’s no way to get near him! But wait, it’s not that bad. See, Marquess Araphen is on a gate so he doesn’t move. The displayed range assumes he moves. To find the true range you need to worry about, just count out 10 spaces from him in a direction (here that reaches the thicket the cursor is on) and then just look at the diagonal lines back from that square that will form a diamond around him. Try to remember the most notable looking square that’s on the edge of the range so you can keep track of it.

Honestly, you should re-check the range of people with bolting pretty much every time you make a move until they’re dead. And if you can put a person in their range such that that person definitely won’t die even if hit, you should probably do it. The next best thing after getting to them fast and killing them is making them run out of ammo, same as with a ballista. Remember: tomes lose durability even on misses.

Back to Preparations & The Map




I’ve mentioned a couple of times that every Pegasus knight on the level has an axereaver and that’s the kind of thing that totally changes what your approach should be. Always check the enemy inventory before deploying to spot dangerous weapons and stealable goods. Axereavers are pretty serious weapons. They hit hard like steel weapons but with a small crit chance and they’re a good deal lighter- though still too heavy for these pegasus riders. More importantly, they’re incredibly powerful vs axes (+2 damage, +30 hit, and -2 to enemy damage and -30 to enemy hit) but incredibly weak vs swords. So while the usual counter to enemy Pegasus knights is Hector or another axe user, that would be a horrible idea in this case.

The War Room, Part 21

Surprise! I haven’t had 2 war room sections in one chapter for a while but this one really calls for it. It’s long-past time I did a war-room about how rescuing works. There’s so much to say that it’s been hard to know where to put it or how to begin, but I’ll just start with the basic rules of it and go into strategy in a future war room:

As has been indicated several times before in this Let’s Play, Rescue is a command much like that of using a vulnerary. For an infantry unit it immediately ends their turn, but mounted units can continue moving. It can be done after trading or rearranging items (but obviously not before, since it ends the turn other than for purposes of mounted unit continued movement).

As noted in the War Room Part 2, non-mounted units may Rescue any ally whose Con is less than their own. Male mounted units may rescue any ally whose Con is less than or equal to (25-their own). Female mounted units may rescue any ally whose Con is less than or equal to (20-their own). Apparently men ride bigger horses or something. And no one may ever rescue an ally when they already are carrying one or rescue an ally who is him/herself carrying an ally.

So it should immediately be apparent that mounted units enjoy 2 mechanical advantages when it comes to rescuing: first, most of them can rescue much larger allies than infantry units with the same Con and second, they can continue moving after rescuing an ally, allowing them to transport the ally immediately.

So what does rescuing actually DO? Well first, the rescued unit’s turn ends. Even if it has not been used yet that turn and is dropped in the same turn it’s rescued, it cannot take any action (without the help of a bard/dancer).

It’s tempting to think of the rescued ally as being pulled into the space of the rescuer, but this isn’t entirely accurate. For one thing, a rescued character does not grant support bonuses to allies within 3 squares of the rescuer. For another, they can’t be targeted by enemies in any way (the main obvious purpose of rescuing is to protect a vulnerable unit in this fashion). And the unit cannot un-rescue itself and move out of the rescuer’s square on future turns. It’s probably more helpful to think of the unit as having ceased to exist except for the purpose of trading.

So that’s what happens to the rescued unit, what about the rescuer? Well it can’t do much else on its current turn- as if it had drunk a vulnerary- but on future turns it essentially behaves completely normally except for taking a massive stat penalty. While carrying an ally, the rescuer is reduced to half base skill and half base speed (round DOWN). Essentially this is equivalent to saying it takes a penalty to its accuracy equal to its skill and a penalty to its dodge equal to its speed. The more skillful and speedy your unit, the more this penalty hurts it. Furthermore, the decrease to base speed will often mean the unit no longer doubles enemies or is in fact doubled by them. This + the dodge decrease means that carrying an ally into battle is hugely dangerous.

Now there are a few secondary commands associated with rescuing: Drop, Give, and Take.
Drop is essentially the un-rescue command and is executed by the rescuer. It’s the same kind of action as drinking a vulnerary or rescuing in the first place: infantry units immediately end their turn, but cavalry can finish their movement (but not do anything else else). Rescued units can be dropped into any adjacent square which they are capable of moving into. So Lyn cannot be dropped onto a peak by Florina, but she could be dropped onto a mountain just as easily a plain. Dorcas could drop Fiora onto an ocean or a peak even though he can’t traverse either of those himself. The dropped unit’s turn is immediately over, but a bard could allow them to move.

Give is a command executed by the rescuer which passes the rescued unit directly to another ally. It’s the same kind of action as Trading, meaning even infantry can still do things like attack or even rescue another ally immediately afterward. You can even do things like Give, then Trade, then Attack. You can only Give to an ally who would be capable of rescuing the person you’re carrying. So they must have sufficient Con, not be carrying someone already, etc.). It’s ok if the person you’re giving to has finished their turn already though.

Take is a command executed another ally which passes the rescued unit from the rescuer to that ally. It’s the same kind of action as Trading or Giving, meaning even infantry can still do things like attack or even rescue another ally immediately afterward. You can only Take an ally who you could rescue. And note that while you can Take and then immediately Drop an ally, you cannot Take and then Give. That’s important and unfortunate.

Battle Preparations & the Map




This is the first chapter in the whole game where you can have 2 flyers available and it’s best to take full advantage of that since the huge formation of mountains in the middle means otherwise you’ll have to spend far too long walking around to get to the boss.

This formation will allow me to immediately begin rescue-dropping sword users over the mountains with Florina and Fiora while Canas (backed up by Hector and Marcus) begins sweeping through the main enemy groups in the south.

Equipment is somewhat unusual on this level. One reason I didn’t bring Raven is that he doesn’t yet have an A in swords, so he can’t equip a silver sword. Kishuna is tough as nails and a lot better at dodging, so you’re going to need to bring the heaviest weapons available. Sain is packing a Silver Lance, Hector has a Silver Axe, Florina has a Heavy Spear (neither she nor her sister can yet wield a silver lance and they need more firepower to take out the knights on this level), Lyn has a Silver Sword and Eliwood has the Killing Edge. The Killing Edge went to Eliwood because he has more Strength than Lyn, so his criticals will hurt much more.
Everyone has a vulnerary since I couldn’t bring a healer, but I hope not to use any of them.




Fiora shows that she knows something of tactics herself- appropriate for someone who once led a company of Pegasus knights.




The reason I don’t bring Merlinus to this chapter is left as an exercise for the reader.
Oh fine. It’s because a ton of mages are going to spawn near him and if he’s on the map, I can’t make them go for Canas instead of him. If I bring him, he’ll certainly die since only Canas can remain to guard him. Further, Canas won’t be able to get the XP from the mages because they won’t start attacking him till Merlinus dies- which will take most of the turns between them starting to spawn and me finishing the map. I value a level or two for Canas over maybe a 10% chance of Merlinus dodging everything and surviving and therefore leveling. And both are better than leaving behind 2 other guys to kill the mages off the fortresses as they spawn and therefore being unable to efficiently complete the chapter or kill Kishuna.

The Characters:




“Combat is an equation. Those with intelligence have a natural advantage.” – Marquess Araphen, Chapter 19x

Marquess Araphen makes his triumphant return! Just what happened to him in the year since Blood of Pride uncertain, but it seems quite plausible that after having come dangerously close to backing Lundgren –Who Uther opposed- and alienating the Marquess of Caelin, his traditional ally, he lost much of his standing and perhaps his title outright. It probably didn’t help that his captain of the guard quit his service and his palace was badly burned and that the guard captain might or might not have acquired that 5000 gold he brought Lyn at the Marquess’s expense.
Then too, Marquess Araphen was both ambitious and subtle and might well have joined in Darin’s plot- if he wasn’t a Black Fang already. That the Black Fang operates so freely in Lycia suggests they have long had some allies among the Marquesses.

One thing is clear: he’s still the same arrogant, racist jerk we all know and love. And this time we get to kill him for it!




But NOT before taking this precious item. A unit carrying the silver card buys all items at half price. Since you normally buy items for a price equal to their value and the value of the item is not changed when you use the silver card, this means that every purchase with the silver card actually INCREASES your assets. Further, it’s now possible to sell an item and then spend the resulting money and actually break even! This is a game changer. It will easily be worth 40,000 by the end of the game + its own actual value and not even getting into the great usefulness of being able to buy gear more freely once you have it.

In large part because of his tremendously powerful weapons, but also because he has a gate and quite respectable stats, the Marquess is a formidable enemy. Fortunately, this next character will defeat him for you:




“……” –Kishuna, Chapter 19x

One of the most enigmatic and intriguing characters in the game, Kishuna’s nature and history are impossible to uncover in Eliwood’s story. However, several Hector’s story exclusive chapters reveal more of the truth. I’ll reveal details about him as they’re discovered in the story.

For now, it’s enough to know that he’s known of by Black Fang elites, but not under their control, that he’s unwilling or unable to speak, and that his very presence bends the laws of reality to nullify all magic anywhere near him. His unnatural presence sets people on edge and disquiets them as well.

Kishuna can’t fight, but he’s almost impossible to kill. Just look at that speed! Nothing and no one can double him and his avoid of 50 means he’s almost impossible to hit. Res of 2 means absolutely nothing since even Bolting doesn’t have the range to affect him from outside his magic-nullifying zone, but that 14 def and 52 HP will mean that even those attacks that do hit him will barely harm him.

But there are 2 bigger problems: first, he brings with him a contingent of matchlessly powerful guards who will slaughter the unprepared. Second, you have only 1 round to kill him. He will teleport off the map at the end of the turn he’s attacked, so you don’t get a second chance at this.

If you want to kill him, you have no choice but to fight him with the most powerful weapons and characters at your disposal. And even that isn’t likely to be enough. To be honest, you can either hope for the 5% or so chance that you actually kill him legitimately and restart this level 20 or so times till it happens or you can exploit the RNG. In this case, I consider the latter to be perfectly legitimate.

Playing Through:




Y’know, it’s been a since looked at the shaman selected but not clicked animation and I was suddenly struck once again by its awesomeness. Gotta love shamans and their billowing capes and slow charge-ups. Sages make magic look easy. Shamans make magic look powerful. Sadly, druids make magic look like it’s done by weird duck things.




Hector stops just outside of mage range so they’ll aggro to Canas and Sain skirts the left side of the map to approach the village. Meanwhile, Eliwood moves so Fiora can pick him up and Florina can take and drop him.




Eliwood is on a mountain where Marquess Araphen can hit him in theory but actually will almost surely miss. But he’ll go for him because in principle, Eliwood can be killed this turn if Bolting and every mage hits him. This has <.01% odds of happening. It happened. I restarted. This time I did things a bit differently, but similar in principle.




You know, that giant lightning bolt totally hit him. He doesn’t dodge nearly far enough to get out of the way of that monster




Fiora is set upon by the nearly Pegasus knights and kills them for a lousy level up.




Next turn, Hector and Florina help Canas kill the first wave of mages, then Fiora prepares to haul Hector over the mountains.




So it’s now turn 3. At the beginning of the enemy turn Kishuna will spawn from the selected space and everyone’s magic will go dead. Furthermore, a huge level knight with a javelin and a silver axe will spawn to his north and south and an even huger level sniper with a silver bow will spawn to his east and west. Anything in those areas is going to die, so I can’t really advance Eliwood. Fortunately I don’t need to because Kishuna showing up at the beginning also hurts the enemy: none of those mages including Marquess Araphen will be able to fire.




Sain visits the bottom right ruin – which for some reason not only functions as but actually looks like a village. That makes no sense. At all. And inhabiting it is a strange old bishop who feigns not to know who the Black Fang all around are. And then hands over a Goddess Icon. Well I’m sure we’ll learn all about this mystery man in 15 chapters or so.




So I crunched the numbers and decided putting Eliwood in range of the enemy about to appear was worthwhile for the chance to kill an enemy mage. On the mountain he has enough defense and avoid that it’s extremely unlikely both the sniper and knight will hit him. Meanwhile Hector is dropped in and Lyn is carried into the area to start hacking their way through Marquess Araphen’s knights and Kishuna’s guards. I need to get everyone in here promptly since killing everyone will take many turns. It’s already the end of my third turn.




That enormous 10 range red darkness is his anti-magic zone. Notably spells and staves can be used from outside the zone into it, but not from inside it to the outside. So don’t get careless- enemy mages will definitely take the chance to run outside the area and throw lightning bolts into it at you if you leave them alone and stray too close to the edge.




Oh you have no idea.




Fighting is heavy as Lyn and Matthew are both dropped in and Eliwood and Hector chip away at the enemy. Lyn gets a wonderful level.




And even Eliwood gets a solid one as he takes down another mage. He just needs speed, speed, speed at this point. Level 11 is way too late for a swordsman not to be doubling enemies.




Heck yeah! Canas has been eating well this chapter and he finally gets a fantastic level to show for it. Also I love that dense, lush, shadowy forest background for woods on Valor.




So here we have the end of turn 6. Sain is tearing his way through the enemy while I try to thin out the last few knights. But I’m just not making much progress. Kishuna’s guards are barely hurt because I didn’t want to start using my silver weapons on them, plus these knights have been a nuisance. It’s going to be hard to wrap this up in time no matter what I do.




Next turn, I know enemy mages are coming and I want to be ready for them. From this particular wood, both mages can reach Canas but neither can use good terrain while he gets to use the forest. And I think he’ll be able to double them with that recent lucky speed boost.




Fiora finishes an enemy others weakened and gets a mediocre level. More toughness is good on Pegasus knights definitely, but at the present time she’s too slow and too weak (look at that 3 damage) for me to level her properly. I can get her more defense in the future if I can just get more kills now.




Classic for my Hector, piling on the speed while his defenses languish.




You can see I’ve been making NO progress on Kishuna’s men. I decided there was nothing for it but to wait for Sain to get his hands on them and have the others clear the weaker enemies. And at last Matthew steals the silver card. Now I can kill Marquess Araphen. But again, only Sain can do it.




I’m going to wait by this knight rather than attack it. That means it will stupidly attack him and almost but not quite die. Then someone else can finish it for massive XP. Think about what I just said: this is an enemy tough enough that it can actually stand up to Sain for 1 round.




Oh and I finally have a chance to have Hector and Eliwood do their support conversation! Florina and Lyn also unlocked theirs, but they’re both busy.




Eliwood and Hector’s C and A supports in particular are pretty great. Their friendship is a lot more compelling than the somewhat rushed supports of other people falling in love and the like. Or at least than some of those.




Luckily, Matthew was able to inflict 1 damage on these snipers. As long as you inflict damage, you can get some decent XP for fighting. But if you double miss or do no damage, you just get a useless 1 XP.




Canas took an axe to the face earlier, but I still calculate he can take on about 10 mages with thunder (and only ½ of these mages have thunder) before dying due to his forest, weapon triangle, solid dodge chance, and great Res. So no need for him to use his vulnerary.




Speed, man! Even with a Killing Edge and his solid Str he could barely scratch that knight Sain had beaten up.




I’m getting seriously worried about Florina’s overall defenses, but she’s doing well on offense at least and that’s something.




Argh, still not even done with his guards! And I haven’t even had a chance to go for Marquess Araphen yet, and the clock is really ticking.




No, Canas still can’t double these mages. Even with their thunder tomes slowing them down. It turns out the mages that spawn from the forts are much faster than those on the rest of the level. Fortunately, he’s still within 1 speed of doubling them and he can easily 2-hit kill them regardless.




There we go! For the mighty deed of killing one of those horrible snipers, Eliwood gets possibly the best level he’s got all game- and he’s got quite a few good ones. This is some Ike level stuff here.




And Florina finally kills the other one. And gets another offense but no defense level.




Here it goes! I’m in serious trouble since I’m in overtime now. And if I kill Kishuna, Marquess Araphen is free to attack But I see little choice. Everyone is ready to go, so this is my best chance to kill him. Then if Marquess Araphen just misses once with Bolting I’ve got it in the bag. I did injure him a bit previously, so it mightbe possible to finish him off on the same turn I kill Kishuna if I still have someone in range ready to attack. Alright here goes-




…. …. … what? Really? I JUST KILLED KISHUNA LEGITIMATELY!
Holy cow! I was all set to rewind and manipulate the RNG and wasn’t even thinking about crits, but Sain just went ahead and instant-killed him with one! Wow! You’re the man, Sain!




Hey Marquess Araphen, remember when your bolting was scary? Because Bolting cannot counterattack and because it slows him down to a total of exactly 0 speed, he’s now double-able by literally everyone who isn’t Bartre and can’t dodge to save his life.
Note that he’s not this helpless while Kishuna is around. While Kishuna is around, he’s considered to have no weapon equipped at all so he gets to use his full speed to dodge and prevent you doubling him.




As I’d hoped, he does dodge one of Florina’s javelins so I can actually give the kill to Lyn and give her some more much needed XP if I’m going to get Linus’s level.




Hey, remember that one time when you disparaged her heritage, broke your promises to help her when she was in mortal danger, and sided with that guy who was killing her grandfather after she helped save your life?




Well Lyn does. And revenge is a dish vest served with a side of excellent level-ups. Meanwhile, Hector can’t actually reach the throne so the level continues one more turn while Canas fights on valiantly alone.




My favorite purple-haired god of magic never ceases to amaze.




So that’s everything dead and it’s now turn 12. That’s 2 overtime. I don’t think I could have done much better except by dropping in Sain first instead of Eliwood and having him just kill EVERYTHING. Even then, I only won this fast due to that absurdly lucky crit from Sain.




Now that Kishuna is gone, Hector and Lyn feel much better and apologize for their earlier rudeness. Eliwood says he was feeling on-edge too, but whatever the problem was seems to have stopped when that mysterious area where magic was nullified went away.




Hooray! The second-most secret sidequest in the game has been unlocked.


Total Restarts: 10 (So yeah, as I mentioned Marquess Araphen and 2 mages all hit Eliwood on his mountain on turn 1 on my first try, killing him in an extremely improbable way)
Turn Surplus: +8 (Ouch, this was the first non-zero chapter on which I actually lost turns. I don’t think I could have done more than 1 turn better feasibly either.)
Things I Regret Missing: The lockpick on chapter 11, that darned archer on chapter 11, this one brigand who attacked Marcus on chapter 12, 2 more brigands who ignored everyone else to attack Marcus on chapter 13x, and 2 archers who ignored Hector and Dorcas (DORCAS!) to attack Marcus on chapter 14, like 10 more enemies I could have killed if Hector could have survived one more turn on chapter18, and Uhai who decided to take a 100% chance of death to Sain over a free hit on Hector

Melth fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Feb 28, 2015

SC Bracer
Aug 7, 2012

DEMAGLIO!
If I can give you a bit of feedback, when you decide to do ~deep~ analysis of a loving typo, do you think you could try to keep it concise and actually readable instead of that ungodly word salad.

FPzero
Oct 20, 2008

Game Over
Return of Mido

Pretty sure Marquess Araphen is not Aion and that they just share recolored portraits. Araphen has blond hair while Aion has greenish hair.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

FPzero posted:

Pretty sure Marquess Araphen is not Aion and that they just share recolored portraits. Araphen has blond hair while Aion has greenish hair.

yeah I was going to say... sometimes a recoloured portrait is just a recoloured portrait. FE does it all the time.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

SC Bracer posted:

If I can give you a bit of feedback, when you decide to do ~deep~ analysis of a loving typo, do you think you could try to keep it concise and actually readable instead of that ungodly word salad.

Evidently not. But if it would make it more palatable, I could provide some dressing for it.


Onmi posted:

yeah I was going to say... sometimes a recoloured portrait is just a recoloured portrait. FE does it all the time.

Yes, yes, of course it's just a portrait recolor. But unlike most portrait recolors, 1) this one is of a person who didn't die yet, 2) their personalities are quite similar, 3) Marquess Araphen was not officially named during Lyn's story, and 4) there are several fairly plausible explanations for how Marquess Araphen could have ended up working with the Black Fang (I gave one: that his actions during Lyn's campaign put him on very shaky ground, so he decided to throw in with Darin and is now here for more or less the same reason Darin is).

Ephraim225
Oct 28, 2010
Aion seems to know about Kishuna, though. It's a tad implausible that Marquess Araphen would know of him unless Marquess Araphen was working for the Black Fang the entire time, and even then, he was for the most part away from any of the locations Kishuna appears in anyways. It doesn't matter at the end of the day I guess, but it would be pretty cool if it were true.

poorlywrittennovel
Oct 9, 2012

Melth posted:

Evidently not. But if it would make it more palatable, I could provide some dressing for it.


Yes, yes, of course it's just a portrait recolor. But unlike most portrait recolors, 1) this one is of a person who didn't die yet, 2) their personalities are quite similar, 3) Marquess Araphen was not officially named during Lyn's story, and 4) there are several fairly plausible explanations for how Marquess Araphen could have ended up working with the Black Fang (I gave one: that his actions during Lyn's campaign put him on very shaky ground, so he decided to throw in with Darin and is now here for more or less the same reason Darin is).

Dude, out of all the things you read way too much into, this is the most egregious. You want to know what other character has a recolor? loving Glass. Aion and Araphen have totally different personalities, and (this is the more damning point against your theory) you can theoretically never actually meet Araphen. He's literally a throw away featured in a single chapter in Lyn mode. Aion is a throw away boss from a gaiden you never have to go to. If they were the same dude, the game would have pointed it out explicitly. FE games are many things, but being good at subtlety is not one of them.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Melth posted:

Evidently not. But if it would make it more palatable, I could provide some dressing for it.


Yes, yes, of course it's just a portrait recolor. But unlike most portrait recolors, 1) this one is of a person who didn't die yet, 2) their personalities are quite similar, 3) Marquess Araphen was not officially named during Lyn's story, and 4) there are several fairly plausible explanations for how Marquess Araphen could have ended up working with the Black Fang (I gave one: that his actions during Lyn's campaign put him on very shaky ground, so he decided to throw in with Darin and is now here for more or less the same reason Darin is).

So?

1) They do portrait recolours of people who haven't died all the time
2) Racist as your sole character trait does not equal 'Similar'
3) That doesn't really matter, most Marquess aren't named unless they become recurring and important
4) While you may consider them plausible nowhere in the script the games data, or Aion's character description

is it even hinted that he's Marquess Araphan, there's no conversation with Lyn or any of the Lyn Mode crew, there's no talk with Eliwood, Hector or any of the people who would know a Marquess. There is nothing.

Listen, there are times when you are insightful, and then there are times when you over analyze something very simple. This time you are over analyzing something very simple.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Onmi posted:

So?

1) They do portrait recolours of people who haven't died all the time
2) Racist as your sole character trait does not equal 'Similar'
3) That doesn't really matter, most Marquess aren't named unless they become recurring and important
4) While you may consider them plausible nowhere in the script the games data, or Aion's character description

is it even hinted that he's Marquess Araphan, there's no conversation with Lyn or any of the Lyn Mode crew, there's no talk with Eliwood, Hector or any of the people who would know a Marquess. There is nothing.

Listen, there are times when you are insightful, and then there are times when you over analyze something very simple. This time you are over analyzing something very simple.


No, this time I'm making a joke. You may recall I said "Yes, yes, of course it's just a portrait recolor," admitting that I'm well aware this is just them re-using a portrait.

Melth fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Feb 28, 2015

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Melth posted:

No, this time I'm making a joke. You may recall I said "Yes, yes, of course it's just a portrait recolor," admitting that I'm well aware this is just them re-using a portrait.

Oh. See I was thrown for a loop because Jokes are by definition, usually funny. And for all intents and purposes your post came across as 100% serious.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Onmi posted:

Oh. See I was thrown for a loop because Jokes are by definition, usually funny. And for all intents and purposes your post came across as 100% serious.

That's the idea. If I went out and said "Hey guys, I'm going to make a joke about how these guys have similar portraits now" there'd be no potential humor to it. It would just be me acknowledging an issue I'd pointed out several times before (On this very chapter in fact I remarked that the generic enemy shaman has the exact same portrait as both Heintz and Zoldam).

But by insistently referring to Aion as "Marquess Araphen" every single time- without ever acknowledging that there could be any doubt whatsoever that they were the same person or that he even had another name- I hoped to bring a bit of dry humor to the issue of palette-swapped portraits and fairly weak characterization of Aion.

Other clues I hoped would give the joke away (besides that I had just finished bringing up overuse of portrait-recolors a few paragraphs before) include the rather silly sentence "Marquess Araphen makes his triumphant return!" being used to introduce the character and that (admittedly a long time ago) I ended my description of the actual Marquess Araphen with the equally silly line that after Lyn's story he "runs off to become a powerful wizard and assassin."

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



It's still not a funny joke, dude. Just let it go.

Sorites
Sep 10, 2012

Yeah, it didn't work and is confusing.

You should probably include some kind of definitive punchline before the chapter gameplay starts, even if you plan on then continuing the joke, just to be sure the reader is there with you. The 'overly long gag' trick is only progressively funnier every repeat after the audience has had its laugh to begin with.

I've played FE7 a dozen times and was only 50% sure I hadn't gone crazy and missed that Aion was Araphen somehow.

---

On another note...is *anyone* on your team not plus-offence minus-defence? Hell of a glass cannon crew you've got going there...

Silver Falcon
Dec 5, 2005

Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and barbecue your own drumsticks!

I agree that your joke was not particularly funny and pretty obtuse to people who don't know this game backwards in forwards.

I've never even seen this chapter. :sweatdrop: I guess I take too long on that stupid Fog of War Map. (gently caress fog of War.)

A good time to drop in the punchline would have been when Lynn goes to attack him, since she would have had some unique dialog for sure. Something like "Nothing to say? Oh, you're not Marquess Araphen. Just some shmuck who looks like him. My mistake."

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



If you hate fog of war then you'll love chapter 19xx. :v:

Sorites
Sep 10, 2012

Silver Falcon posted:

I agree that your joke was not particularly funny and pretty obtuse to people who don't know this game backwards in forwards.

I've never even seen this chapter. :sweatdrop: I guess I take too long on that stupid Fog of War Map. (gently caress fog of War.)

A good time to drop in the punchline would have been when Lynn goes to attack him, since she would have had some unique dialog for sure. Something like "Nothing to say? Oh, you're not Marquess Araphen. Just some shmuck who looks like him. My mistake."

"Just some schmuck who looks like him."

*screenshot of Lyn's follow-through, with Aion's health at zero*

"My mistake."

It would even fit with Lyn's ruthlessness.

Worthleast
Nov 25, 2012

Possibly the only speedboat jumps I've planned

Because I hate myself I've dug out my old FE7 and am attempting an Archers/Lords only run. It's miserable even on Eliwood Easy.

Also nobody is allowed to hate Serra until they've read her support with Hector.

Krumbsthumbs
Oct 23, 2010

2nd Place.
1st Loser.

Sorites posted:

On another note...is *anyone* on your team not plus-offence minus-defence? Hell of a glass cannon crew you've got going there...

Since she's only gained two levels so far and both have been lackluster, Fiora! She's riding a little high on resistance and gained a nice defense point there. Fiora is usually more durable anyway so this isn't a huge surprise. Now if she would only gain a few more points of speed so she could use some heavier weapons to make up for her pitiful strength stat and growth.

Raven is also running well (for him) defensively with three +luck levels. A 35% growth is decent, but with Raven's starting two luck it is actually a pretty big sticking point, since him getting hit by an unlucky crit usually means he's dead or close to it with his otherwise lackluster defensive gains. With a decent luck chance his defense and resistance don't matter since he'll just dodge everything anyway and his mammoth hp total can make up for taking a hit or two in the process.

I'm sure others might also make the list (Lyn perhaps? Her defensive stats don't look amazing but with her bases those are actually very impressive) but that's all I can see off of a quick glance.

Krumbsthumbs fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Feb 28, 2015

Ephraim225
Oct 28, 2010

Worthleast posted:

Because I hate myself I've dug out my old FE7 and am attempting an Archers/Lords only run. It's miserable even on Eliwood Easy.

That's...precisely the kind of playthrough on my cartridge too. Sweet, I'm not the only one who's crazy! (I had this weird obsession with mono-class playthroughs back in the day)

Silver Falcon
Dec 5, 2005

Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and barbecue your own drumsticks!

You know, why is it that you get two sword lords in this game and one who uses axes? It's a bit redundant. Wouldn't it make more sense if either Lynn or Eliwood used a different weapon? Sacae is all about the bows, so Lynn could use bows (and even gains them on promotion)! Or Eliwood is basically a Paladin without a horse anyway so have him use lances, maybe?

I dunno, it would add some variety other than SWORDS EVERYWHERE.

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



Eliwood should have a horse and lances because he is basically a cavalier anyway. A bow lord would be awful because archers are awful. But really, Hector is one of the very few lords that do not specialize in swords. I think Micaiah is the only lord in the series that has no access to swords at all.

Senerio
Oct 19, 2009

Ooh! Are we messing with Adora?



Manatee Cannon posted:

Eliwood should have a horse and lances because he is basically a cavalier anyway. A bow lord would be awful because archers are awful. But really, Hector is one of the very few lords that do not specialize in swords. I think Micaiah is the only lord in the series that has no access to swords at all.

Ephraim doesn't get swords in Sacred Stones If I remember right.

Erwin the German
May 30, 2011

:3
Having blundered my way through FE7 and 8, this is a pretty fascinating LP. Wouldn't mind seeing you do a more casual run-through without all the rating nonsense, but that aspect of it does make it pretty interesting in itself. Having not read through the thread, is Sacred Stones on the agenda after this?

Dr Pepper
Feb 4, 2012

Don't like it? well...

Silver Falcon posted:

I dunno, it would add some variety other than SWORDS EVERYWHERE.

Frankly getting a Lord that didn't use swords was already brave and scary new territory for the series.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Silver Falcon posted:

You know, why is it that you get two sword lords in this game and one who uses axes? It's a bit redundant. Wouldn't it make more sense if either Lynn or Eliwood used a different weapon? Sacae is all about the bows, so Lynn could use bows (and even gains them on promotion)! Or Eliwood is basically a Paladin without a horse anyway so have him use lances, maybe?

I dunno, it would add some variety other than SWORDS EVERYWHERE.

Because Axes and Bandits are common place enemies to whom the easiest way to kill is with a Sword, also because Lances are much more powerful, and Hector should be an example of what an axe-rapier does, same as Ephraim with his Lance-Rapier in FE8.

Yeah it's very samey but they make the decision for a good reason.

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Dr Pepper
Feb 4, 2012

Don't like it? well...

You're confusing cause with effect.

The Lord isn't given a sword because early game is filled with axe users. The early game is filled with axe users because the Lord uses a sword.

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