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 Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, often abbreviated to “SD” or just “FE11”, is the first DS game in the franchise, a remake of the original Fire Emblem, and one of the least beloved games in the series. Many fans think that, after the comparatively very complex Radiant Dawn, which included skills, third-tier class upgrades, the Shove mechanic, etc., returning to basics felt like a pretty backwards move. Add in an extremely bare-bones story, a host of characters who have literally no lines aside from death grunts, the worst requirements to get bonus chapters in the franchise (and possibly just...video games in general) and a rather poorly received shift from fancy 2D sprites to very rudimentary 3D models. The game wasn’t very well liked, and the sequel didn’t even get localized. All that aside? I still think Shadow Dragon is a good game. It’s probably one of my least favorite Fire Emblems, but it’s a good game. So I’m LPing it. Welcome. What kind of game is Shadow Dragon? The Fire Emblem games are turn-based strategy games, known for featuring pretty huge casts. That’s because, unlike games like Advance Wars, your units are not replenishable, as any characters who fall in battle stay dead forever. Your goal is not to let that happen as you use the variety of available units, classes, and weapons to complete all of the maps and save Archanea. Didn’t you already do this? I did the sequel, New Mystery of the Emblem/Heroes Of Light And Shadow. Honestly they look extremely similar. That’s on the Archive here: http://lparchive.org/Fire-Emblem-Heroes-Of-Light-and-Shadow/ Certainly not “required reading”, I wouldn’t submit anyone to that many of my awful jokes, but I’ll probably reference it a lot because I’m incorrigible. What kind of playthrough is this? I’ll be doing two playthroughs. The main one you’ll see will be on Hard Mode (Just basic Hard, not 2-5 stars because I am, in fact, not very good), but Hard does not include the Prologue. So the Prologue and bonus chapters will be taken from my side run on Normal. On this main run I’ll be recruiting every single character, and not letting any of them die. I also plan to mess around a lot more with the Reclass system than I did in FE12, to try and make some more interesting combinations. There are some hidden gems. This game has a bizarre requirement to get the bonus chapters that requires your total unit count to fall below a certain threshold to unlock them. Basically you have to make your army commit mass suicide. It’s stupid. So the Normal Mode run will basically be me ramming my units into a meat grinder to unlock the bonus chapters, and then playing through those. I’ll just show off the highlights of this one, not the whole thing, so you don’t have to watch the whole game twice. If you think FE11 is so bare bones, are you doing something else with it? I’m planning on trying to spice up some of the dryness by adding in some bonus content from the sequel, which adds much more dialogue for the characters. I also never played the DLC maps in my last LP, so I’ll be rectifying that here, as some of them serve as pretty nice epilogues to this game to bridge the gap between it and the sequel. That being said… Audience Participation? Though FE11 is a very linear game, the reclassing function opens the game to a lot of fun alternate classes for units. I have a few ideas in mind, but if you’re familiar with the game and want to toss out a class+unit combination, or unfamiliar and just want me to try something out, I’ll give it a shot so long as it doesn’t cause me to get totally obliterated. Unfortunately, reclassing won’t be unlocked until Chapter 4, so you’re stuck with my decisions until then. Sorry in advance. Sadly there are no hats in this one. Spoiler policy? Shadow Dragon has about the most generic fantasy plot of all time. I’m not super worried about this, especially since I’m kind of LPing these games out of order. I’m just fine with story spoilers, I’ll probably drop a few, although I’d rather not do gameplay ones. For example, saying we’re going to fight X Dude is fine. Just please don’t talk all about the map surrounding X Dude until we get there. Update Schedule? Nothing concrete, I try to just kinda pace it with the thread, which is code for "i do not know exactly". I'll probably be moderately paced at the start, slow in the middle, and fast at the end, because somehow that's how these all turn out. hard 1 c’mon man I have a hardwired fear of ballista and ballista accessories. Table of Contents Prologue 1: Humble Beginnings Prologue 2: Enter The Frey Prologue 3: The Three Cavaliers Prologue 4: Sacrifice Chapter 1: Pirate Palooza Chapter 2: The Ballad O' Shanty Pete Chapter 3: Unfortunately Named Bandits Chapter 4: Lea: An open area of grassy or arable land. (Prep) Chapter 4: Lea: An open area of grassy or arable land. (Battle) Chapter 5: The Catastrophic Cavalier Cavalcade (Prep) Chapter 5: The Catastrophic Cavalier Cavalcade (Battle) Chapter 6: Ocean's 14 (Prep) Chapter 6: Ocean's 14 (Battle) Chapter 6x: A Vonderful Day To Die (Prep) Chapter 6x: A Vonderful Day To Die (Battle) Chapter 7: Death from Above, Also Below (Prep) Chapter 7: Death from Above, Also Below (Battle) Bonus Chapter #1: By The Sword Chapter 8: Render Unto Caesar (Prep) Chapter 8: Render Unto Caesar (Battle) Chapter 9: Questionably Canon Dragon (Prep) Chapter 9: Questionably Canon Dragon (Battle) Chapter 10: Ave Maria (Prep) Chapter 10: Ave Maria (Battle) Chapter 11: This Map Gave Me A Kidney Stone (Prep) Chapter 11: This Map Gave Me A Kidney Stone (Battle) Chapter 12: It Takes Ages (Prep) Chapter 12: It Takes Ages (Battle) Chapter 12x: Saint Jagen (Prep) Chapter 12x: Saint Jagen (Battle) Chapter 13: Pretty Much Just Me Sighing For Several Images (Prep) Chapter 13: Pretty Much Just Me Sighing For Several Images (Battle) Chapter 14: Gra'dess Of The Skies (Prep) Chapter 14: Gra'dess Of The Skies (Battle) Chapter 15: Welcome To Wizard Hell (Prep) Chapter 15: Welcome To Wizard Hell (Battle) Chapter 16: It's Pronounced Like "Chainy" (Prep) Chapter 16: It's Pronounced Like "Chainy" (Battle) Chapter 17: Marth Meets Morzas, The Matricidal Mage Manakete (Prep) Chapter 17: Marth Meets Morzas, The Matricidal Mage Manakete (Battle) Chapter 17x: Thiefless Speedrun (Prep) Chapter 17x: Thiefless Speedrun (Battle) Bonus Chapter #2: Wind and Thunder Chapter 18: Sable Showdown (Prep) Chapter 18: Sable Showdown (Battle) Chapter 19: 60% Orb Ratio (Prep) Chapter 19: 60% Orb Ratio (Battle) Chapter 20: Grust to Grust (Prep) Chapter 20: Grust to Grust (Battle) Chapter 20x: The Reason I Went For The Generic Units (Prep) Chapter 20x: The Reason I Went For The Generic Units (Battle) Chapter 21: Nothing Title-Worthy Happens (Prep) Chapter 21: Nothing Title-Worthy Happens (Battle) Chapter 22: Long Live The King (Prep) Chapter 22: Long Live The King (Battle) Chapter 23: Throwdown at Thabes (Prep) Chapter 23: Throwdown at Thabes (Battle) Bonus Chapter #3: Assassins Chapter 24: Day Late, Dolhr Short (Prep) Chapter 24: Day Late, Dolhr Short (Battle) Chapter 24x: Dimensional Detour (Prep) Chapter 24x: Dimensional Detour (Battle) Final Chapter: Shadow Dragon. (Prep) Final Chapter: Shadow Dragon. (Battle) Finale: Goodbye, Archanea Bonus Post: Camel Pimp's Archanean Safari: Other Great FE1 Art Fan Art   vilkacis and I were both pretty happy to see Wrys again. But gently caress Knorda Market. LordHippoman posted:
vilkacis posted:
  Vilkacis also helps you envision Camus as that guy from your Literature and Philosophy classes who wouldn't take off his ascot, but that might just be my experience.    Vilkacis also found great use for Astram, Camus, and Hardin's old art.     Camel Pimp knows Caeda rules. Everyone should. Camel Pimp also makes portrait edits and they rule. Camel Pimp also presents the ideal Shadow Dragon.  Also the ideal Marth. Camel Pimp also gets in on the forbidden romance craze.  chiasaur11 shows us the true use of the Fire Emblem, opening chests with extreme prejudice.  Blaze Dragon has achieved the best possible result in Fire Emblem Heroes.  LifeOfAGuardian discovers the long lost relic of Khadein, Elrean's fabled Smugspheres. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Jun 25, 2017 |
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Prologue 1: Humble Beginnings Altea Castle, 10 AD (After Dragon)  : We’ve done all we can, Marth. He doesn’t have much time left. : ...I see. : I’d say I’m surprised, but...he’s like 100. : Sire! Am I here in time?: Barely, Knight Captain Steve. You’ll need to hurry. I’m sorry...he’s asked for you specifically. : Steve? Is that you?: I’m here, Sir Jagen.: I am not long for this world, Steve...but before I go…: Anything, Sir Jagen!: ...Have I ever told you the story of the War of Shadows?: ...Sir Jagen, please-: Too late...Marth locked the door behind you…: Please do not spend your last moments in flashback!: IT WAS MANY YEARS AGO- I’ve missed these guys. Intelligent Systems has worked on every single Fire Emblem game, as well as games like Advance Wars and Paper Mario. They recently did Code Name: S.T.E.A.M., which I heard was bad? Shame. Dunno what a “nintendo” is. They’re probably out of business.   The screen divide on the DS has not been kind to this woman’s torso.  The horse butt is fully intact, however.  Now we get some rapidly appearing action shots!  This one is really more of an implied action shot.     I’m not sure how the trajectory worked on that dragon slicing. Maybe he ricocheted off the rock?    These two are pretty important.  This is a pretty cool title screen. I’m pretty sure nothing like this ever happens in game. But it’s a nice title screen.  I doubt I have to explain “Continue” or “New Game” to you, Copy and Erase Data are just for messing around with your save files. “Extras” contains some stuff we won’t get into, like the defunct online battle mode, and “Suspend Point” will be explained when that becomes relevant. Chapter 2, I believe?  I’ll be doing the main LP on Hard, but you don’t get to see the Prologue on that difficulty.  So, for completion’s sake, these first few updates will be using the “Normal” difficulty. Not turning on tutorials, because that’s kinda my job. I’ve already set us up for disaster.  This map is on the bottom screen the whole time, by the way, so I’ll crop it out of future exposition shots. : beginning an age of fear and despair for all its people. This is Anri, one of Marth’s ancestors. He went on some long journey full of deserts and icecaps and it was the worst. : He stood against the Shadow Dragon, and struck him down. For some time after, the land enjoyed an age of peace.  Fiendish Sorcerer pictured on the left. That other guy is a Paladin. Not very fiendish either. : and their combined might toppled kingdom upon unsuspecting kingdom. Again, darkness threatened to engulf the continent. : to sally forth with the divine blade and fulfill his blood destiny.(yeah they reuse this whole panorama in the sequel :shh:)  : and a garrison manned by Altea’s neighbor and ally, Gra. Thus the boy applied himself to the ways of both pen and sword, until one day… I really like these prologues, they weren’t in the original Fire Emblem this is a remake of. But they’re good tutorials with a fair amount of personality that I feel the main game suffers for not having. The titles kinda suck though.    : She seemed to be, sire, but her words implied a certain urgency. She bade you dress quickly and wait by the throne.The generic soldiers have portraits in this LP! This is the only improvement I’ve made in two years, please enjoy.  : ...Has something happened?: It’s our forces off in Gra, sire. There seems to ‘ave been some sort of incident, but… Well, I’m not privy to the specifics.: I see… Thank you. I’ll be there shortly. Marth actually walks out into the hallway now.  I’m sure it’ll be fine. How many heroic fantasy dads do you know that just up and die?  My unfunny pointing out of common storytelling tropes aside, let’s take a look at Marth here. Marth is the main character of this game, no My Unit this time to contest it. He’s the only Lord in the game, and if he dies, it’s Game Over. Marth is a pretty okay unit, his stats aren’t going to blow you away, but it doesn’t really matter because he’s literally required on every map. Up at the top screen on the far left you can see Marth’s current Stats. Might as well get that infodump out of the way here. HP is hit points, if those hit 0, you’re dead. Str is Strength, which is added to the damage you deal with most weapons. It also lessens the penalty to effective Speed with your heavier weapons. Mag is Magic, which affects the use of Staves (More on those later) and the damage dealt by Tomes. Marth can never use either, so Magic is completely irrelevant on him. Skill governs your chance to hit or critically hit (Triple Damage). Speed determines if you can hit an enemy twice in one round of combat, or NOT get hit twice. This is a big deal, as it can potentially double or halve damage. Luck is pretty much the inverse of Skill, it helps with lowering enemy crit chance. Defense is subtracted from the damage of enemy physical attacks. Resistance is subtracted from the damage of enemy magical attacks. It seems like a lot at first, but you get the hang of what all this means pretty quickly. Just know that bigger numbers are better, and that nobody is ever going to get any drat Res.  This is how far Marth can move per turn. The red squares represent places he could attack...if he had anyone to attack. Marth has a Movement stat of 7, which you can see to the right of his portrait. “Rng” refers to range. Swords have a range of one tile, and that’s what he has equipped right now.  Marth’s got to get to the throne to talk to Elice. Thankfully, the R button allows you to swap between the Stats view and an overview of the whole map. Looks like the throne is just down this hallway.  Seems like a pretty uneventful journey. After moving, you can use an item, but since we have none, Marth’s just going to Wait.  This bodes well.   : We’re soldiers of Gra, li’l prince. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll surrender to us without makin’ any trouble.The generic goons in this game have some kind of accent. I’ve always read it as Irish, but Cockney is probably more what they were going for. : Surrender? But that’s ridiculous… Why would I surrender to the army of an allied kingdom?: Meh heh heh… They don’t tell you much, do they? No matter. You’ll ‘ave the full story soon enough. Now…lay down your sword.: I will not. I am the prince of Altea. I will not yield to you or any other nation, here on my own land, under my own castle roof!Marth’s supposed to be like : Heh, you talk big, brat. Have it your way. If you won’t lay down your sword, then we’ll just have to take your life instead!Alright, now literally threatening to kill him.  Four red dots appear! (also pretend that says “Enemy Phase”, I promise, I get a better shot later.)  Two of these enemies will run down the hallway after Marth.   This just became a little more complicated.  The Gra soldiers near the throne are...Soldiers. They’re an enemy-only class because they really, really suck. They can only wield Lances, and don’t excel in anything.  The axe wielders rushing Marth are Fighters. Fighters use axes, and they do big damage...when they hit. They’ve got pretty terrible Skill, and aren’t the most reliable of units. They’re decently sturdy, though, so they can afford a mistake or two. That applies to most fighters, I mean. These guys are just awful.  I’m swapping Marth’s weapon out for the Iron Sword. Those numbers next to the weapons indicate their Durability, once they’ve been used that many times, they disappear into thin air! The Rapier is a good, rare weapon, and I don’t want to waste Durability on these chumps. Speaking of weapons, I should talk about the Weapon Ranks. You see to the right of Marth’s stats, it has a list of icons and...hyphens? Well, for weapons you can use, you’ll get a rank, E through A. The better the rank, the more types of that weapon you can use, and you’ll get some minor bonuses at the higher ranks. Weapon Rank increases the more you use that weapon type. Marth can only ever use swords. While I have the Iron Sword selected, you can also see its stats on the bottom screen. It’s E rank, has 5 Might (added to Strength to make total Attack), 100 Hit Chance before other stuff effects that, 0 bonus Critical chance, one Range, and a Weight of 4. Weight makes you effectively slower, but is reduced by your strength. It’s a weird mechanic and this is the last game they used it in. Sorry for all the mechanics chat in this update, but not much else is happening.  There’s the good Enemy Phase shot!  The first soldier attacks Marth, and the fight plays out on the top screen. You can see the damage, chance to hit, and chance to crit of both units, from left to right under them. This guy missed.  Marth struck back twice and killed him. The other soldier tried the same thing, and met the same fate.  Time to keep advancing towards the throne.  This enemy won’t move until Marth gets in range. A lot of the game’s foes work this way, and you’ll have to exploit it to your advantage for a clean run.  This dialogue triggers as you enter the throne room.  Hey! That’s our Throne!  : I have to get rid of him before my sister arrives! The other Soldier attacks, however, and you might notice that Marth’s sword has a red arrow under it. This is the Weapon Triangle in effect, a staple of FE games. Certain weapon types put others at a disadvantage, effecting damage and hit rate. The triangle is: Swords>Axes>Lances>Swords None of the other weapons factor into it.  Since this is the first time I’m attacking on my own turn, I can show off the combat forecast. You can check the way battles will go beforehand with this information. The x2 means Marth is fast enough to hit this guy twice.  With all but the final soldier cleared, Marth hits 100 Exp…  It’s a level up! A lovely level up! Each character has a percentage chance for each stat to get increased on a level. This does add some randomness to the game. There are ways to gauge some characters chances here, called “growth rates”...but we’ll talk about that later.  Right now let’s attack the final soldier. Since he’s on the Throne, as indicated on the top screen, he gets bonuses to Avoidance and Defence this turn.  He also heals! Most bosses are on Thrones for this reason.  Still, he’s no match for the  With the enemy cleared out, we can seize the throne to end the map. Every map in FE11 ends by Seizing a tile, which only Marth can do.  This game doesn’t have “MAP CLEAR!”, to my eternal disappointment.  anyway   : Steady yourself, Marth. I have grave news. Our father was defeated by the Dolhr-Grust allied forces.Dohlr is an empire ruled by a bunch of crazy dragon people. Grust has...uh...horses? The locations in Shadow Dragon aren’t exactly fleshed out. : What? No…: It was Gra. Our own ally betrayed us and struck Father’s army from the rear. I am… I am not sure if he is safe. The scouts who returned gave conflicting reports…: Father...it can’t be… He might be okay! (he’s not okay) : As we speak, soldiers sent by Gra are trying to take the castle. Mother and I were separated during the escape. I do not know where she is.It’s hard to overestimate how unimportant Mama Marth is in these games. I don’t think she even gets mentioned in the sequel. : …..Hey, save those dots, I know a guy later who’s going to want them. : Marth, I need you to listen to me. You must flee the castle. Go on without me.: What?: We’ve not many soldiers left...This is hard to bear, I know, but the castle is lost. We must face that. I will find Mother and join you as soon as I can. You find Jagen and get away from here- far away. Understand?: ...All right. But promise you won’t be long. That’s the end of the first map. Only...28 to go, not counting Bonus Chapters. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Jun 5, 2017 |
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Nov 21, 2016 07:57
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Aw man, the positive reception so far  , thank you a ton. It helps it go along faster knowing people are enjoying me floundering my way through the game.Torrannor posted:There's no MyUnit in this game? Like BlazeDragon said, FE12 was the establishing of MyUnit. They did it again in Awakening, and after Robin was so successful, plus judging by Fates, I think that trend is going to stick around for a while. (steve for smash 5) RareAcumen posted:Maybe take the top screen with the text and put it right before Jagen's words too so it reads cleanly? Like, double post the image but cut out the map screen. I was considering that, but I didn't want people to get tripped up by the double image. I'll keep that in mind for future updates, though, it does look good the way you showed it. Camel Pimp posted:
Whoops, yeah, did a re-google, he's 14 in the prologue, 16 in the main game. I'll fix that. Rabbi Raccoon posted:That said I can't believe you lied right to my I honestly didn't plan on starting this so soon, but I've got a lot of work right now that requires me to sit at my computer and wait for things to upload, and this is a really enjoyable way to spend downtime for me. I ended up missing it more than I thought I would. I don't have a problem. 
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Nov 21, 2016 23:23
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Whoops, I just noticed the backgrounds on the soldier portraits are white instead of transparent. I'll work on fixing that. So, uh, if some of them disappear for a while, don't worry, it's just routine maintenance. (in retrospect I think this improves the joke about this being the only improvement over the past 2 years.)BlackPersona posted:For what it's worth I think there was some leftover data for a My Unit in this game, it just... got scrapped. For some reason. This baffles me because that would have made Shadow Dragon so much better. With the reclassing there was already precedent for this being the "customization" Fire Emblem and...ugh. I'm a little harsh on a lot of the flaws in SD because they might have contributed to FE12 not coming over here. Which is like, top 3 Fire Emblems for me. theamazingchris posted:I'm excited to finally catch one of your LPs live, LordHippoman. Well, I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to post if you have any questions or anything or notice any mistakes! No pressure, I will not lampoon you in the updates. Nissin Cup Nudist posted:I tried playing this game, but the growth rates on most characters were killer Yeah, that's something I think Awakening and Fates really do right, everybody is pretty drat usable, and you have more padding against someone just getting utterly run over by the RNG. It allows them to make the maps a little more nuts too. (Fates really starts to run away with it towards the end.)
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Nov 22, 2016 07:07
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Not that I do anything but lurk, but hey, it's fun to watch the sausage get made.
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vilkacis posted:
Good catch, somehow I missed that while I was replacing the soldier portraits with the transparent ones. (it's because I hit Ctrl-F and called it a day). Also I'm highly tempted to just have a bonus update where I post the official art for FE1/3 because oh my god. Miniskirt Marth is the tip of the iceberg.
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Nov 22, 2016 21:05
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Prologue 2: Enter The Frey Welcome back. Last time we met our hero, Prince Marth, as his sister told him to find Jagen and escape the castle. Today we’re going to find Jagen and escape the castle.  The bottom screen is blank during these prologue titles. I wanted to show that off, and this was definitely not a cropping error.  These two men on horseback run up to Marth as soon as he enters the scene.    : Sire, we must be quick. Sir Jagen awaits us at the gates.There’s no actual time limit here, but I’m sure you don’t want to keep Jagen waiting.  Seems things won’t be that easy, though. Jagen may be at the gates, but he has no trouble letting enemies just run on through.  : Jagen and the others will be caught like mice...we need to seize the gates and secure the area, immediately. It’s not immediately obvious where “the gates” are, but if you check the map, you can helpfully see the objective tile highlighted in yellow.  By the way, just like you can see allied movement ranges, you can check that for enemies too. We don’t want any of our units getting ganged up on, or hit with an attack you don’t think they can take, so this can be extremely helpful.  That said, I’m just going to charge these dorks because they’re awful. Abel is honestly one of the strongest all around units in the game. He has the most availability possible (except Marth on Normal), and respectable growths in pretty much all his stats. Growths are your chances to gain a point in each stat on leveling, and they vary for each character and class. He also starts able to use the Javelin, a 1-2 ranged weapon. It’s hard to go wrong with Abel.  For example, he immediately doubles this Soldier, killing him without taking a counterattack, like you normally would between hits. That’s the power of the Javelin! This is probably a good time to introduce the Cavalier as well. Abel and Frey are both Cavaliers. They have extremely high movement and access to Lances and Swords. They’re well rounded, and honestly one of my favorite classes. Hopefully they’re one of yours too, because Shadow Dragon vomits Cavaliers at you.  Against the fighter, I’m sending Frey. Frey is like Abel but even better. He’s got better growths in almost everything. Oh, he’s also not available on any mode but Normal. So...that hurts.  Sadly he can’t double the fighter for all of his HP, but I’ll scoop up the kill during the Enemy Phase.  : Ho ho… What’s this? I spy the Altean prince. Oi, listen up, you lot! Bag the prince! Dead or alive, he’ll fetch us as sweet a reward as the mind can conjure.: Sir Jagen, did they really all have that accent?: Do you really still have all that poo poo on your head?: … The fighter goes for Abel and does some damage, but he dies for his trouble.  We’ve still got four enemies left on the map, though. Two soldiers and  Yeah, archers.  Archers exclusively use Bows, and can only hit from 2 squares away. This makes them easy to avoid counters with, but they have trouble countering themselves. Their high Skill makes for good hit rates and lots of criticals, but you have to be very careful with these units, or they’ll get destroyed on the front lines.  I’m using Frey down there to lure in the last soldier.  It worked out splendidly!  Now I do the same thing, but with Abel and the archer. Honestly, these enemies aren’t dangerous, you could just bum rush the boss, but I want to show off some strategy in the early parts of this strategy game.  Now you see him.  Now you don’t. Abel got a critical there, you can tell when the screen flashes yellow and your character has a special attack animation. It’s quick and hard to capture with Javelins, so I’ll try to grab a better shot later.  While Abel goes to deal with the second and final archer, Frey is taking on the “boss”, which is just a normal soldier who won’t move off of the point.  Again, really not much in these Prologue goons.  Abel did get a hit off on the archer, filling up his EXP bar and getting him his first level!  And it’s terrible. Don’t get me wrong, Speed’s a good stat, you just...hope for more than just that and HP, especially on someone as good as Abel is.  Frey also rides over to kill the archer, so I can try my luck at the Level Up wheel one more time.  Oh, this is a bad, bad omen.  I’m leaving these damned halls. I will flee the bad RNG, but it could always linger.  Glad to know Jagen is always rocking those ridiculously dangerous shoulderpads.  This guy wasn’t here for the Chapter itself, he just shows up in this cutscene.   Marth says “Yow!” a lot. Hopefully it’s a habit he’ll grow out of.  : Sire, it’s really you...I feared the worst. That his message would go undeliv...Agh…: In that state I don’t know how you even stayed ahorse.He’s not a horse, he’s a Cain  : Those gashes must be treated at once- : No, sire, Not until we’ve escaped. There’s the Jagen I know and love.  : Of course, sir...I aim to please… This is a really minor nitpick, but the Throne Room of Castle Altea looks nothing like this. There are like, three different throne room maps spread across the two games in this duology for this one castle. Maybe they just remodel a lot. : No, Malledus, I am staying here. : S-staying here?! What madness is this?: Too many people have died to keep Altea and its castle safe. I cannot abandon what so many lives have brought. With Father and Mother unaccounted for, I am the natural choice to remain with Altea’s people. And besides, by staying, I can buy time for the rest of you to escape.Elice making the bold choice of assuming they won’t just immediately stab her like they did her dad. : Nonsense. Just gather your things, and-”: Malledus. I am not suggesting. I am commanding. If something befalls Father, Marth will become the last person in the entire world worthy of wielding the Falchion. I want you to guide him, Malledus- even when the rest of us no longer can.Little bit fatalistic there. : Princess...I will try my best.: There’s not much time. Go, Malledus, go! And he went. So, since these updates are fairly short, I figure a bit of bonus content’s in order. In Japan, the Fire Emblem Card Game, known as Fire Emblem Cipher or Fire Emblem 0, has been picking up steam. Because of that, we have lots of cards of our favorite characters, even from Shadow Dragon! So I’ll try to show some of them off, since the art is available online. Credits to the Fire Emblem Wiki for that. Today, we’ll go with our new pal, Abel.  The Green Knight, Abel I’m not sure why everything around him is on fire. I also don’t know how to play the card game, although evidently you get some sort of bonus for playing Cain and Abel at the same time! LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Nov 25, 2016 |
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Nov 23, 2016 07:34
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Booky posted:Also, as noble (I guess?) as it is to stay with the castle for the people, it'd probably be a better idea for Elice to join up with Marth's group so she can help him out more in the long run. Elice's idea is to stay so they'll waste time trying to capture her and not Marth, I guess. Presumably the Queen would be better at that, but Mama Marth will never, ever appear. BlackPersona posted:I forgot Malledus ever existed. Thank God they replaced him with Jagen in the sequel. I think my favorite thing about the abrupt Malledus/Jagen swap in the sequel is that Malledus is just never even mentioned. I think everyone just made a pact to forget he existed. And oh yeah, posting the Ciphers isn't going to stop me from showing the FE1/3 art, though that'd probably be like a bonus update. I'll also probably grab some of the Mirage redesigns from SMTxFE because...uh...some of those are interesting. Rabbi Raccoon posted:I remember in the first Fire Emblem on GBA I got an absolutely insane Rebecca once. 5 stats going up per level was fairly normal for her and she slaughtered everything that looked at her funny. Best archer ever I think my best was Virion, but Awakening is probably cheating because almost everybody can get pretty broken. Camel Pimp posted:
"Maybe if I don't mention it in the captions, they won't notice."-Me, before posting. vilkacis posted:You won't be Bord with us Arrand! Just reLex and don't Barst a vessel. Careful, I need these for update titles. Please Wrystrain yourself.
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Nov 23, 2016 19:39
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I'm so happy to see you
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AradoBalanga posted:Frey has an E-rank in swords, not lances. Whoops, I was thinking of the other guy. My bad. Good catch.
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Nov 23, 2016 21:24
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Mysticblade posted:Meanwhile, Shadow Dragon's growths rates are a hell of a lot lower. I'll leave it to the OP if he wants to actually drop the growths for each character later. I'm probably not going to give out exact growth rates for each character in the updates because I get kinda wordy/screenshot heavy as is. But if anyone is interested, serenesforest.net has a section on Shadow Dragon (and...every other Fire Emblem) with exact growth rates, if you want to delve into the detailed stuff.
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Nov 25, 2016 07:46
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Prologue 3: The Three Cavaliers Look at these nice title cards. I don’t have to make my own, which is fantastic when you’re as lazy as I am. This is another short map, the prologues don’t really have much meat to them in the gameplay department. We’ll get to play with two new characters, though.  So from now on, chapters come with art and narration on the top screen, and a map on the bottom. I’m not sure why this doesn’t apply for the first two prologues only. The part of the narrator will be played by future Jagen because : However, this success would mean little to him once he learned the cost. The boy’s woes were just beginning. : These scratches? It’s my pride you’re wounding sire. …Anyway, we must talk. There’s a reason I’ve returned. …Sire, I am…I am to deliver to you His Majesty’s last words. I may have accidentally spoiled this earlier, but I’m not really worried about spoilers in Shadow Dragon and come on you all guessed this already. : My condolences sire. The king died valiantly on the fields of Gra. The traitors took from him the divine blade Falchion and gave no quarter to those of our soldiers who remained…: I…I see…So they’re all dead. Father, too…: His last words were as follows: “Tell my son that I leave the future of Altea and our continent in his hands. He must rise now where I have fallen. As Falchion’s rightful heir, he has been born into greatness…Now…he must be great.” Marth’s dad is the kind of guy who tells his kid he wishes he’d become a doctor on his deathbed. : ...Father. I will try…: …Sire, I…I cannot bear this! Failing to protect His Majesty…then leaving my brothers to die, slinking away like some coward…This indignity is too much to bear! One day I will repay them in kind. I will avenge the fallen…I swear it!I like the characterization they give Cain here, but because it’s Shadow Dragon this pretty much never comes up again. : Cain, you speak for us both. When that day comes, we will punish them together.  The game highlights an example of a house for you, in case you’re playing this game in your underground cave network and have never seen one of those. : Your countrymen love you; perhaps they have knowledge that may serve us. So this map’s a little bigger than the last two. You start off in the top right, and have to make it to the upper left.    Unfortunately, there are 10 Gra soldiers blocking the path! It’s...not that big a deal, but let me try and be dramatic here.  So this chapter introduces us to the infamous Jagen. He looks pretty good, right? Jagen is a Paladin, which is the Promoted version of a cavalier. While units cap at level 20, they can Promote to a higher class with an item. This raises their stats, sometimes gives new weapon options, and lets you level to 20 all over again. Jagen’s what’s commonly referred to as a “Pre-Promote”, he’s already promoted, so he effectively has 19 less opportunities for level ups. To compound the problem, his growth rates are among the worst in the game. Jagen is a trap. If you’re new and use him to solve all your problems, you’ll be stuck with an awful unit and a bunch of underleveled, neglected characters. This has forced many a restart for new players. That said, he’s not entirely useless. Jagen has great movement and starts with a B in lances, giving him access to the powerful Silver Lance. You can use him to visit houses or villages, or chunk down enemies to let weak units get the kills. Just don’t take him too far. Note for anyone playing a Fire Emblem game, if you get a Paladin around the first few chapters, and they’re some kind of mentor figure? Be warned, it’s probably a Jagen.  Let’s see what advice the villagers have for us.   ...What job did you have?   Hitting the X button displays the ranges of all enemies on the field. It’s handy.  I’ll start moving my units in there to get countering. Cain’s new, and he’s much like Abel, but on average a little tankier with higher HP and Luck, while Abel leans toward big hits using Skill and just a tiny bit more Strength. They’re both great choices, and can easily fit in your team.  So, let’s just let them come at us.  Jagen, I can see that. : Elice will have no way to escape…Let’s seize that fort across the water. Perhaps we can squash enemy reinforcement at the source. Anyway, these soldiers still aren’t a huge threat. One rushes Marth.  It wasn’t a good plan.  Abel can start chipping away at this Archer with his Javelin while the rest of the group can’t reach him yet.  So let’s check out another house. I won’t be visiting all of these, but this one has a special place in my heart.    This guy basically flat out tells you to avoid the Jagen trap. What a helpful guy! Apparently in the original FE3: Book 1, (which I haven’t played, so I can’t confirm) he just says “DON’T USE JEIGAN”.  Then Abel missed.  And he missed again! I just talked up your skill!  Still, I mop them up pretty quickly, and we can move on to the next quadrant of the stage.  Mostly Axe users over here, so I’m putting my cavaliers on swords.  Well, there’s also this guy, but he wasn’t an issue.  Yikes, though, those Hand Axes do about triple the damage of anything we’ve seen so far! They’re inaccurate, however, and Frey dodged.  Since these Fighters can be a little obnoxious, I’ll show off some Jagen use to bring one of them down.  Poke. That’s got him at 2 HP. Also no, Jagen’s battle model is not purple and yes, I am angry about it.  If you look at the Level and Experience thing under Jagen’s name, you’ll see that chip damage only got him 6 XP, less than any of our other units would get at this point. There’s a penalty for fighting lower leveled units, which is another reason not to use the experience vacuum.  I’ll give the kill to Marth instead.  I am immediately rewarded! That’s a good level! That’s the first good level!  : We’ll need to approach carefully.Oh, there are mages across that bridge. The camera pans over to them, but...I missed it. I’m sorry, I was excited about that level.  Finishing off the stray archer gets Frey a good level too. Wow, what a world it is outside Altea Castle!  So, Mages. Mages hit HARD, mostly because their attacks deal with the Resistance stat, which pretty much nobody in this game gets aside from a few select classes. A powerful mage in the endgame can melt even the tankiest units, quite literally. They can also attack from either 1 or 2 range, meaning they don’t have the same drawback Archers do. However, you might also notice that Marth can kill this guy in one round, even though he’s on a Fort that boosts his defense.  Mages are made of tissue paper. High damage physical units will shred them.  I did accidentally leave Marth in the range of the other Mage, though. This is the kind of slip up that could screw me over later, but he doesn’t do enough damage to kill Marth anyway, so it’s not a big deal.  Well, not to me. Abel apparently took offense.  With the mages down, we’re all clear!   Oh hey, it’s that guy from the last chapter. : Why aren’t you with my sister? Did you leave her someplace safe? : ...Princess Elice will not be joining us. She has elected to stay at the castle. Marth actually tries to run back, and Malledus steps in his way here. It’s a neat little detail, and the kind of thing the prologue does way more than the main game. : Where do you think!: Stop! Sire, consider for a moment why the princess would go as far as to lie to you to ensure your escape. Your sister knows that you are the future of Altea- nay, the whole land!: …! Marth, I don’t think 10 minutes ago is the kind of thing that deserves sepia tone. : I’m...our future…: Sire… You must live. Drink deeply now of these injustices; sup on these slights they serve. Remember them! One day you will lead us back here to avenge the fallen and reclaim Altea in their names!: Then it seems my life is no longer mine to hazard.: In your veins flows the blood of a hero- the blood of Anri. You are a son of House Archanea, and sole heir to Falchion- our only hope of defeating Medeus, Emperor of Dolhr. Sire, were’t in my power, I would have you choose your own path...but I’m afraid your path has chosen you.Ominous enough.  Next time, the final prologue, and a harrowing choice*! *That won’t really matter because I’m not using this file for the main playthrough anyway. Since last time’s bonus content focused on Abel, it’s probably only fitting that today I give us a little Cain.  The Red Knight, Cain I like this one better than Abel’s, looks less flammable. Edit: Also sometimes he's a motorcycle.  (thumbnailed because it's huge.)
LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Nov 27, 2016 |
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Nov 25, 2016 20:09
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Momomo posted:This game's my favorite of the series even though 12's better on a technical level. I really do prefer the simpler systems as opposed to going all out with skills the games after the two remakes did. That's fair. For me it was mostly the super  in the plot and characters with this one, but I'm a big dork who really loves that stuff. If you're just in it for the gameplay, the basic systems still work fine.I also thought Fates went a bit overboard with the amount of skills and new mechanics and such. I actually still haven't finished Revelations because I got really burned out. Sjs00 posted:Its an art to make this game seem actually interesting. I remember Tenacrane's LP with Barst wielding the twin hammers of Time and Space.That was beautiful. I never got to see those threads, but I heard whispers of the FE12 one while I was playing it, and I don't think I'm good enough to get to that level of hijinx, but I will try. vilkacis posted:Finne, if you Innesist. See, those aren't Archanea characters, go wild with that. I Garontee I won't interfere. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Nov 26, 2016 |
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Nov 26, 2016 04:44
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AradoBalanga posted:Calling it now, the crazy old man we met at that village was a berserker from the time when Jagen was a fresh-faced cavalier. I like bloodthirsty Old Man way better than like half the characters we will actually recruit in this game, and he has more dialogue. MythosDragon posted:He drank the sacred water of potential, but he drank it too late in his life. "actually murder is bad and I'm nice now" is a revelation that just skyrockets all of your growth rates. Also, and I'll edit this into the update, I can't believe I almost forgot about the time Cain turned into a motorcycle.
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Nov 27, 2016 02:14
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Prologue 4: Sacrifice So, we’ve got the final Prologue chapter today. I like this one quite a bit.   : lying low while they waiting for the right chance to escape the kingdom. Before long, the enemy grew less watchful: the time to slip away had come. Still, the prince could not quell the sadness in his heart for his sister Elice.Also his mom. Seriously, Marth’s mom is just so neglected by the game.  : Huh? ...Oh. Malledus.: Get ahold of yourself, Sire! I know how you grieve, but the Gra host that pursues us will not be interested. We must keep moving, and with all haste at that.Apparently they weren’t very good at hiding in the woods or lying low. : I…I’m sorry. These thoughts are hard to put aside. Another emergence of Blinking Marth. The harvest will be bountiful this year. : Talys… I’ve heard the name. An island kingdom to the east, isn’t it?: That is correct. The king there was a good friend to your father- and perhaps more importantly, a true friend. It was Princess Elice’s wish that you seek refuge in Talys should things ever go awry.: Me, but not her…: I’ve arranged for a boat to take us from the northeast shore. But to get there, we’ll first need to cut through a prison to the north. I managed to come by a key to the premises. Let me hand it over.Altea is a kingdom where everything is frequently blocked off by massive structures for little reason. When your only claim to leadership is “my grandpa killed a dragon”, I guess you aren’t super qualified with civil engineering your kingdom.  Oh, this will be handy. (It’s mandatory.) : Now, on the road, you may notice people who seem to be fighting for Gra against their own wishes. This is good advice! In the Fire Emblem games, lots of potential allies will appear as enemies. Sometimes you’ll have to talk with them before they join your side.  This map isn’t exactly complicated either. Picture a reverse L. We’re going right, then up. It’s moderately guarded.  Perhaps most notably, this is our first map with a real boss! For, uh, certain definitions of the word. Bosses are typically named...I guess “Captain” is sorta halfway there.  So, I’m trying to park most of my units in the woods, because as you can see in the terrain overview in the bottom right of the top screen, it gives them +10 to avoidance. Terrain is a pretty significant detail on some maps. Keep in mind that forests also cost more movement points to move through, especially for mounted units, but...the game never really tells you that. Maybe a house does, I don’t know.  The exception to this mass forest excursion is Jagen, who’s off to visit another house.   Alright, I’m going!  This little cutscene triggers at the start of the Enemy Phase. : Yes, sir. Not many of ’em, but the scouts say they’re a tough bunch all the same. And guess who’s with ’em… : …You’re saying the prince is coming this way?: Yes, sir. How ought we proceed? The main force ‘as yet to arrive, and- to be honest, sir- we need ’em.: Bah! You’re cowed too easily. We can win...if we set a trap.: Er...a trap, sir?: The prince of Altea will be ours. Just do as I tell you, and we’ll pluck this royal plum long before the main force can show up to steal all the glory. Heh…So, uh, the forests?    Turned out to be a good idea, because Cain dodged every single attack that came at him. I have good feelings about our red haired friend on this adventure. After their phase ends, it’s another cutscene! There are a lot of them on this map. But this one is great.  Ah, Ruffian. Get used to Ruffian.  Don’t worry about this guy.  : Heh. I thought Altea was the great ‘ero Anri’s kingdom! Didn’t take more’n a couple of days to break you, now did it, Gaggles? : Mmph! Arrumph! : Ba ha ha! I’ll letcha in on a little secret. Altea’s little princeling is on ‘is way ‘ere right this moment.: ….!: Ooh, but sad for you, you look awful dangerous in the uniform… MISTER GRA SOLDIER!I love this guy.  : Gugrrrrmph!: Once the prince sticks you like a pig, we get to call him Marth the Tyrant, coz ‘e kills ‘is own countrymen. Won’t that be an ‘oot!His grammar is shifting to accommodate just how aggressively cockney ‘e is. : Rrrmph.: So long, Gaggles! Better start praying to your ‘igher deity of choice! I just cleaned up the remaining enemies south of the prison. Abel leveled up!  And we got an Iron Bow, but nobody can use it. Huh.  I did have to use Jagen on one guy because there was just a bit too much HP for the others to kill all of them, but I’ll take it.  Abel got a bit scratched up in that fight, so I’m moving him onto the Fort. Along with being fantastic defensive spots, forts have healing properties! You’ll see in a bit. However, some forts are villainous traitors. Again, you’ll see later.  Houses will never betray us.    This, I guess, counts as a hint towards this game’s absolutely asinine requirements for getting bonus chapters. Don’t worry, on the main run I will never accept my losses.  At the start of my next phase, Abel recovers some HP for being on the fort. This is a good way to heal up units without using consumables or a healer.  Door Keys are required to open...doors. That’s probably unsurprising.  Hm. Something’s telling me I shouldn’t just attack this guy.  I will scoot everyone in around him, though.  This special command appears when two units that can talk are next to eachother. So, let’s have Marth chat with Gordin.  Wow. Ruffian’s a prophet. : Rrgmph mrph!: Huh? You’ve been gagged? Here, I’ll get that… Wait, I know you! You’re one of our archers, er… : I see. Well, I’m glad you’re unharmed. But I’m afraid we cannot stay here a moment longer. Stay behind me and-: I can fight, sire! If you have a bow I could use, I would be honored to fight at your side.That’s a handy coincidence.  Units next to eachother can trade items, although it does eat up the turn of the one who initiates the trade.  So, Gordin gets his Bow! Unfortunately Gordin kinda sucks. Archers aren’t a great class, due to the restrictions of the bow, so they often need great stats to make up for it. Gordin...does not have those. Oddly, his most notable growth is probably his decent defense, which is...not really something Archers are begging for. Even reclassed, Gordin remains pretty mediocre. At the start of the Enemy Phase… (again)  That...that looks bad.  : No...Anri save us...Of all the places to be beset! Sire, that is Gra’s main force- and they are accompanied by the knights of Grust’s Sable Order. Our chances of routing them are slim, I’m afraid, and those of slipping away undetected afterward, all but nil…: Then we’ve no hope?: I…I can think of one strategy. We could leave a decoy behind for when the enemy catches up.: A decoy?: It’s you they’re after, sire. Were one of your men to stay behind disguised as you…Well, the enemy ought to take the bait. That would give you, and the others time to escape. : He will act as a decoy by dressing as you and luring the enemy force away.I like that an Emergency Marth Costume is standard issue for Altean knights. : But Malledus, how will he find his way back to us?: Sire...He may not. That sound you hear is that of thousands of OCD Fire Emblem players having traumatic flashbacks to this scene. : …Well, I will find a way! You cannot expect me to agree to…to abandon one of our own to a death at the hands of the enemy. Surely there must be another way…: Forgive me, sire…But this is our only chance. You know as well as I do that you must not die here today.Well, I have a difficult choice to make. Or, I would, if I weren’t commentating this after I’d already done it.  This door is conveniently blocking passage until someone dies. Unfortunately I guess Marth broke the Door Key on that first one. There is a “canon” sacrifice here.  Farewell, Frey.   Oh, hey, he took Marth’s sprite!   Two of them have met. I’m not sure the game engine can handle this much generic red guy.  : Simpletons! Use your heads! One of them ran; the other didn’t. What does that tell you? Easy! The one who stayed behind is trying to buy time for the one who fled.: So, er…the one who took off is-: The real prince, you idiot, yes! Hie, troops, after him! Put that craven whelp to the sword!“Hie”? The prologue of this game does the whole faux-Medieval English thing way more than the rest of the series, for some reason. Regardless, that huge mass of knights disappears, along with Frey. : Frey? Wait! Frey! Quickly, Malledus, we must head south and rescue him!: No, sire. We have to press on.: Press on? Frey might be dying back there!: If he were, then why would you be so selfish as to let him die in vain? Honor him, by allowing his life and his choice to mean something!: ...Frey…..All right. I will honor him. I will go. What is with this man and plums? : No matter. Open the north door! We can still crush the Altean rabble he left behind… you hosed up.  Abel whiffs two Javelins in a row. C’mon, man. Be like Cain.  Exactly.  He learned!  The remainder of the enemy Soldiers decided to try their luck against Cain. It was a bad decision.  I wish I could keep this level up. drat having to move to Hard after this. At the start of Player Phase… (I promise this is the last one)   Villages always have rewards, unlike houses, which just give advice. Only Marth, the Lord, can visit villages, which sucks and is dumb, because in almost every previous game in the series, that wasn’t the case. But that wasn’t one of the things they updated for the remake.  Well, regardless, the Mage goes down, and only the boss remains.  Or...does he? These guys spawned during the enemy phase. This is your introduction to reinforcements. Reinforcements can spawn at the start of the enemy’s turn, in fixed locations, almost always on a Fort. They can be on a turn timer, or wait for you to cross a certain point on the map...regardless of cause, these can be some of the most deadly things in the game. Especially on Hard and above, where they can move and attack as soon as they spawn. This will make you deeply distrust forts. They are shifty and dangerous beasts. For all that buildup, though, these Pegasus Knights aren’t a huge deal. I’ll hold off explaining this class for a bit, because this update is getting huge, but for now, just know they can fly.  While the others move to engage the incoming Pegs, Abel challenges Captain to a duel of the Javelins.  He wins with STYLE. That’s a critical hit!  In lieu of a death quote, Captain leaves us a free Vulnerary.  The Pegasus Knights don’t hit too hard, but they are fast.  Abel hides in a corner for now.  Here’s the bonus for bows, flying units take triple damage from them. This makes Gordin suddenly good at damage! In very, very, niche cases.  Oh, I had Marth visit the village.  : Here, this is the bow my granddaughter always used. Take it, sire! Please, promise you’ll stay safe… Later Village rewards will prove...better.  Gordin deletes the other Pegasus, though, and that’s all for this one.   A new ally! : Draug, is that you? What are you doing here?Draug’s name is Guard backwards and that’s his whole character.  : I received word from Sir Malledus to ready a vessel, that we might slip away discreetly by sea.Then the screen fades out. They didn’t want to actually make a boat. This is one of the few Fire Emblems without a boat chapter (and we’re probably better off for it, gently caress boat chapters.) (the blazing sword one was okay)        “There goes everything you’ve ever known!” Jagen’s not the best grief counselor. : ..aven…: I beg your pardon?: I am a craven. Powerless to save my sister, to stanch (sic) my kingdom’s wounds; to ease my people’s fears…: This...was your only recourse, sire. But surely, one day, you will be able to set things right…: ”Surely”? Why do words of such conviction smack so much of uncertainty when spoken? Marth those mean the same thing. Also worth noting, if Jagen died, this cutscene features Draug instead...with the same dialogue. : Today, though, allow me to wallow in this pain, to feel every awful twist of it. I never want to forget.: Sire…: I will return, Altea! Your prince will return to you one day!And that’s where our real story will start.  But...there’s something I want to go over here. There’s a bit of an alternate way to overcome the sacrifice dilemma. And a unit hidden behind weird gameplay decisions. Let’s check that out.  : Of course, none of that is what REALLY happened…: Huh? : I knew that Gaggles had to have been a spy...so I killed him with my own hands!: ...I spoke to Gordin yesterday, Sir Jagen. : Who the hell is Gordin? If you kill Gordin, Jiol and his knights don’t even appear.  : Hie, let’s give them the punishment fools deserve! Open the north door! Lure them out and strike them down!You can’t escape the “Hie”, though.  : And then Sir Cain was consumed by fireballs, sacrificing his life for the prince! : Sir Cain is outside the door, Jagen.(Killing Cain was actually a little annoying, the soldiers didn’t do enough damage, I had to get the mage to do it. And yes, this was on purpose. Trust me.)  Oh, also, the Rapier does triple damage to mounted units. Captain goes down like a sack of bricks against Marth's weapon of choice.  The map starts out ending the same way, but… : Draug, is that you? What are you doing here? If you have 4 or less remaining units, which is one death in addition to the sacrifice/Gordin, minimum, Norne appears here. This means she’s also only available on Normal mode. : Right, we’re on our way. Sire, this is Norne. She heard wind of our struggles and wishes to fight for Altea.Norne is an Archer, just like Gordin. She has better Speed and less Defense, which is probably better for an Archer, but she’s still not very good.  : Prince Marth, ’tis an honor. By your leave, though, I’ll be savin’ the curtsy-bobbin’ for later. Quickly, sire!She’s also vaguely country, I guess.  Then the chapter ends as normal. This file I WILL be keeping, to do the Normal mode run for the bonus chapters on. But all of that can wait for now. For now, we’ve finished the prologue, and next time, the main game starts. Hopefully you’ll join me! Today’s bonus content is in honor of our fallen friend. He doesn’t have a Cipher card, but he did get special artwork for being a character debuting in the remake.  ...I mean, he’s got blueish hair. Close enough to Marth, apparently. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 12:23 on Jan 31, 2017 |
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Nov 28, 2016 03:17
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AradoBalanga posted:I'm more upset that you let Frey keep all his items/weapons and didn't toss them to other units before letting him play poo poo. Thankfully that run never happened, technically. Taciturn Tactician posted:What kind of a sadist would leave that in the remake after so many games where you never have to let anyone die ever? This was added specifically for the remake.  Camel Pimp posted:I always have some questions with the whole decoy thing, namely how close did they have to get before they realized that the middle-aged man they're chasing isn't the scrawny teen-age prince? (I scarified Jagen, because I wanted to keep the actually decent Frey, which makes this scene much funnier to me.) Everyone in Gra that isn't a character we don't even see in this game is cartoonishly incompetent. Also how could you. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Nov 28, 2016 |
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Nov 28, 2016 03:48
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Black Balloon posted:That is a word and it is used correctly here. This post lead me down a chain of google searches on the differences between "stanch" and "staunch" and I've had that wrong literally my entire life. MythosDragon posted:You did not just sell Norne short, I fell in love with her pink hair and she was my end all best unit at the end of the game alongside Athena. I don't have a ton of Norne/Athena experience because I don't like tossing away units, even awful ones, but I just think she's outclassed when you get her. Being built for Archer in a game where Archers aren't too great hurts. I think she's easily the best base Archer in the game, but I'm not big on them. Also there are two and one is Gordin. I did ask two friends for their Norne Opinions after this was posted, though, and they agreed with you. So maybe I'm just wrong. I will be using her on the Normal Mode run, because she's an exclusive character, same with Frey.
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Nov 28, 2016 13:06
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Miacis posted:Between this and the infamous side chapters requirements, I think the dev team wanted to try and go back to the original game's philosophy that it's okay to lose units, and players should try to make their own story, instead of going for a perfect ending. It's pretty telling that a tutorial would have a house telling you to accept your losses, and reward you not once but twice for having dead units. This is a really good point. I think it's interesting, though, that Fire Emblem's never done a thing like with the Suikoden games where you get some extra reward at the end for having everyone recruited/alive, to my knowledge. MythosDragon posted:I just thought of something, pretty sure this game gives you generics when you run under the 15 or something units. Has anyone done a generic challenge run? Onthat note, do other games in the series give you generics if you murder everyone? You do get the generics, and they only appear in this game and the sequel. I think I've read about someone doing a generic unit run, but it wasn't on SA, I forget where exactly. theshim posted:Marth, though? He has a resistance growth rate. I'm glad we managed to start the game by catching a shiny Marth. Unfortunately I have doubts the RNG will hold. Rigged Death Trap posted:I dont think you can class these graphics as effort. I want to mention real quick how much I don't like the top screen in this one. It's this weird sorta beige and it's like they're going for a "dragons" motif, but only made it like halfway there. Compare the sequel:  It's just a nice blue and I think it looks a lot better. That's just me, though. The whole next update is actually just going to be me picking out wallpaper. Actual fair warning about the next few updates, now that we're in the real game, I probably won't update as frequently as with the prologues. Sorry, work is flaring up soon, and things are going to get a lot more complex. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Nov 28, 2016 |
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Nov 28, 2016 22:59
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theshim posted:Awakening's writing does indeed knock Fates out of the park, both in terms of the fact that Fates has stupid plot and ideas while Awakening's just sputters out and in that the writing itself takes often simple situations and still conveys them wonderfully. Chrom confronting Gangrel or Walhart has some spectacular dialogue, even if there's nothing crazy different about it, and the supports are mostly amazing in Awakening(I am particularly fond of Gaius/Maribelle and honestly it might be one of the best supports in the series). I think one thing Awakening is really good at is taking some very one note characters, like pretty much all the Fire Emblems have, but making their gimmicks fun and playing off of each other well in the supports. There were also some really good character moments you only got in the supports, like Frederick going from grumpy stuffy token stoic one to OCD fitness instructor with a hint of pyromania and a stack of posters of naked Chrom. I didn't really get that in Fates, the supports felt more kinda like each character doing their gimmick in turns than anything else. There are still some good characters (I love Arthur and OPHELIA DUSK), but I didn't really like them as much as in Awakening. Fates kinda shoots way too high and ends up with too many characters without many developed ones, and a story that completely relies on everyone being oblivious to everything, which isn't satisfying for the player. I could go on, but I don't want to accidentally derail my own thread too hard. Feel free to discuss general FE stuff here if y'all want, though, I've got no objections. (Just try to use spoiler tags for the newer games if you want to get into how dumb (Fates Spoilers!)your dad is a slime beast but you can't tell anyone or you'll die is.)
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Nov 30, 2016 09:59
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Glaive17 posted:I had forgotten how ridiculous Steve's head had gotten by the end of the last LP! Oh poo poo thanks for mentioning that. Credit for the base Steve portrait goes to vilkacis, and the massive hat tower was made, along with many other Steves, by CamelPimp. Chapter 1: Pirate Palooza Well, there goes the Prologue. Now we’ll be hopping into the main game. This, unfortunately, means that all my units levels are back to 1. On Normal, you can just keep playing from the prologue and keep all that progress, but since Hard skips the Prologue, we’re starting fresh.  Basically it’s what the top screen says.  There are five degrees of Hard in this game. Merciless is utterly soul crushing and sort of the precursor to modern Lunatic mode. I’m only doing 1-star hard because I’m not good and I don’t want to hold up entire updates while I try to fumble around a chokepoint or whatever. The only mechanical/map differences are between Normal and Hard, the stars just make enemies tougher.  No matter which mode you start on, you get the same opening narration. : Long ago, Medeus, king of the dragonkin, conquered the continent of Archanea.: No, you’re looping again! A little extra bit is tacked on to summarize the events of the prologue, though. Including the crew in these ominous hoods. Evidently they all swapped to Dark Mage.  Oh, look, the bottom screen is still blank. That’s...that’s an easter egg.   : they could not take his life. Marth lived, and made it to the eastern isle of Talys. Talys was a small border kingdom, with no grand order of knights to boast of, but its king selflessly gave Marth use of the isle’s eastern fortress.I’m pretty sure Talys literally does not have any army at all. I’m not sure why this is the safest refuge for the chosen one of the divine sword. : And as he saw the boy shake with anger and grief, he also gave wise counsel: “Prince Marth,” he said, “I do not doubt you love your sister something great. But you must be patient…time is on your side. If you stay here, and grow stronger, a time will come when you can help her.” So Marth stayed in Talys, protected by its kind people, and the years went by…It was two years. That’s barely plural.  Here we are in the peaceful kingdom of Talys.  So much for the peaceful kingdom of Talys.  This guy dismantled a village!  But who’s this? And why does her sprite have green hair?   Marth’s got a new portrait for his new age. Two years did a lot for the guy.   : They stormed the gates and cut down everyone in their path! I fear for my father’s life…So far we are potentially 0/2 on dads.  : Steady, Caeda. You did well to come find us. Altea’s bravest knights aren’t about to hand Talys to that flock of seafowl. Come, we’ll make for the castle now! Hey, it’s our first real map! With new units and everything! We start on the east side of the island, the Castle is on the west. This place might look a little familiar if you played the first set of DLC maps in Awakening.  First off, here’s Draug, who we’ve already met, but haven’t seen on the battlefield. Draug is a Knight, who are your archetypical tank class. They have high Defense and use Lances, but they are slow and suffer from a painfully low Movement score. Draug himself actually has a surprisingly decent Speed growth for a Knight, but he’s going to have some trouble gaining Strength and really being much aside from a wall, at least in his base class. His natural beefiness makes him a good lure for the incoming Pirates.  While Abel whiffs a Javelin (again) I’ll talk about a very special unit type here, the Thief. Thieves are fast and do decent damage with their Swords (No bows until the 3DS games.), but they’re squishy. Most importantly, enemy thieves can destroy Villages, potentially depriving you of goodies. Never be deprived of your goodies. Kill thieves ASAP. They’re also worth a bucketload of XP, if it helps.  Meet the queen.  Caeda, also known as “Shiida” if you live in Europe, is a Pegasus Knight. Peg Knights can fly over terrain, get great movement, and they get fantastic Luck and Speed. Unfortunately they are squishy, and their attacks don’t tend to do a ton of damage. Caeda is all of that to a pretty extreme degree. Her speed growth is ridiculous, as is her luck, and that’s without the Pegasus Knight bonuses. She’ll have some trouble dealing damage against defensive enemies, but see that weapon she’s holding? That’s the Wing Spear. The Wing Spear is Caeda exclusive, and it does triple damage automatically against any horseback or armored units. This game has boatloads of both, making Caeda a really, really good character, if you can keep her alive.  Meanwhile the Pirates smash themselves against Draug. Starting with 11 Defense is pretty drat useful this early on.  About three of them will rush you.  “Pirate” is not only the faction these guys are, it’s also a class, which is why this guy is called “Pirate Pirate”. Pirates are locked to Axes, and they have worse base stats than their closest relatives, the Fighters. They can, however, walk on water.  The double cavalier buddy line is an unstoppable defensive tactic.  Oh, I also accidentally just let this guy through to whack Gordin. Walk it off, buddy.  There’s a village near the start of the map, don’t forget to have Marth Visit it!    I’m extremely okay with this. If you take too long killing that thief, he might destroy this village.  Caeda also crit this guy. Her first two hits were criticals. I’m sensing good things from our Pegasus Pal.   Abel also finally hit a drat Javelin.  That fort is going to make Draug functionally invincible, so I’m moving him there while the rest of my units regroup and trickle in.  While the pirates up top go for Draug, there’s still one down here trying to mess with the Cavaliers.  Then Abel missed a javelin.  The “use me” radar is slowly swinging more and more towards Cain.  ...I mentioned I’m not good at this, right? Keep walking it off, Gordin!  This Pirate chose to attack Jagen. This was a poor decision, but it also let me know that Jagen can’t even double these level 1 pirates.  So, with one of our units...a bit the worse for wear, I want to clean up these pirates this turn, before they can make more trouble. Time to divy up the damage a bit.  Easy pickings.  Gordin provided enough chip damage to let Draug pull off the kill here.  This guy was just hosed. I should mention Caeda can double all these enemies.  This is the most Caeda of level ups.  “So Hippoman,” you ask, delayed like fifteen screens up, “what do you do with that Gold you got?” I’m glad you conveniently asked now. This is the Armory, you’ll find these scattered around the maps.  Since weapons have durability, it’s important to stock up. You can buy them at these shops. This one only has the basics, but I got one of each except the Bow, and two Iron Lances, since we have so many people using those.  The rest of the pirates are a bit more deeply entrenched, so it’s time to lure them out.  I also gave Caeda a Javelin. Any items you get over the inventory limit (5) will be sent to your Convoy, which Marth can access. This should help stop me from wasting the Wing Spear.  Operation Draug Bait was a success, leading to this Pirate and Hunter coming over. Hunters are like Archers but angry. They have more damage, but less defensive power. This generally makes them better, because hopefully your bow guys aren’t getting hit too much anyway. I’ve marked his range specifically because bows deal triple damage to fliers, and now that we have Caeda, that would be a one shot kill.  Oh, Draug also got a level from killing that Pirate. Not exactly blowing me away here yet, guys.  I just really like this screenshot. This wasn’t a miss, Marth is just a big fan of absorbing arrows with his neck.  gently caress that guy, though.  There’s a Fort right in the range of the remaining pirates. How handy! Marth’s gonna camp there.  Group Hug, everyone. : They left me out of the group hug.:  Well, it worked. Now to actually dispose of these guys.  Caeda’s a bit more accurate with this thing than Abel.  And Cain’s 10 XP away from a level, which is coincidentally what getting hit gives you. Let’s hope this other pirate takes the bait.  Thanks, pal.  And so the chain of two stat level ups continues. Don’t worry. It’s gonna be fine.  I’m kinda feeding Caeda EXP here as a gut reflex, since I usually play on Normal and she’s still level 1 and way weaker than the others at that point.  New strategy, everybody just line up.  They really like to go for Cain.  Marth gets him low, and dodges the counter.  And Abel kills him off. Ignore the encroaching darkness, I was just a little late on the screenshot trigger.  The boss here is Gazzak. Gazzak’s got a Steel Axe, which alone makes him more powerful than anything else we’ve seen. He also deals some pretty big damage, and the Gate he’s on is basically just an outdoor Throne, so he can be tough to take down. You’ll want to do this gradually.  Or, because he has no ranged weapon, you could potentially just pummel him to death with bows and javelins. This is a way to “Boss Abuse”, since Gazzak heals himself, you can just sorta grind EXP that way. I’m not doing it because I don’t want to just blow through the game.  Even though he called us “sprogs”.  I didn’t say I wouldn’t shoot him a few times for fun.  So, with bosses, it’s good to check the combat forecast. If I were to attack with Abel here, on the Enemy Phase he could potentially attack again and kill him. That, hypothetically, would suck, and make me have to restart the map and delete a ton of screenshots because gently caress. Good thing I didn’t do that, and instead just leave him parked here.  But this guy is a heavy hitter. Maybe the village could provide us with a way to help that. Someone fast, someone strong, someone   : Take me with you, and you’ll be very glad you did.WRYS WRYS WRYS WRY- : -S WRYS WRYS WRYS WRYS Here’s Wrys, our first Curate and Stave user! Curates/Clerics (for ladies) are a utility class, using Staves to provide various effects. Healing is chief among them, and Wrys can help you patch up your units.  Get Adjacent to them with Heal, and there you go. The amount of healing done scales with Magic. Wrys himself is apparently sort of a fan favorite in Japan for being this weird bald guy with one line who just shows up and is never relevant again. In the original remake of this game, FE3’s first half (this game has had TWO remakes), he was completely removed and replaced with a single Vulnerary. Satoru Iwata mentioned in an interview about this game that he liked Wrys (rip ). I kinda love him.Statwise, he’s actually really awful and will very soon be outclassed. The only thing Wrys really has going for him is a rather high Resistance growth, which is an extreme rarity in this game. He's also Wrys, though, so that carries some weight. Bless you, Wrys.   Gazzak’s chunking away at Abel, but our new pal can help him sustain for a while. Caeda and Gordin keep firing away from the sidelines, and slowly but surely, his HP dwindles.  Another 2 stat level up, but I can’t bring myself to complain about Strength on Caeda.  Holy poo poo, THREE. It’s turning around!   If we just keep progressing at this rate I’ll be getting stats that don’t even exist by the end of the game.  ...Abel. Can you do it? Can you show me what Javelin dreams are made of?  Majestic.   Not a bad prize. Vulneraries are usable items, they restore 10 HP. We had them in the prologue but I didn’t use them.  A hard fought victory. Kinda. When we get to the longer maps I’ll cut more of the little details out, I don’t want any completely page busting updates. Oh and  They didn’t even give this guy a name.  : Lad, I believe you are ready. If you wish to seek out allies in Aurelis, I will give you what soldiers I can to see you arrive there safely.Marth never said he wanted that. He doesn’t even talk for the rest of the chapter.  I have a good feeling about Captain Ogma. : Another thing…During your travels, you are certain to meet many who despise Dolhr. Some may be hiding in villages; other may have been captured or forced to fight against their will or better judgment. Talk to people with portraits to recruit them. : Understood, lad? Then go! The time has come! Be patient, steady, strong: I know you will do great things. Next time we beat up even more pirates. It’s bonus content time! Today we have the Cipher card for Talys King!  I’m kidding it’s Caeda. I don’t know why she looks like she’s like, six in that card though. One sec.  Fire Emblem did a crossover with Shin Megami Tensei for the Wii U. It’s called Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE and it’s as aggressively anime as it sounds. I'm not through it all the way yet, but I did get to this! Here’s Caeda reimagined as like...uh, a mind ghost thing? Persona, basically.
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Dec 2, 2016 05:05
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AradoBalanga posted:Have you considered that having giant spikes on your shoulders makes you less huggable, Jagen? I don't think Jagen's even aware of the spikes. They're just there for him. MythosDragon posted:My favorite strategy is to just send Pegasus Knights flying around en masse murdering everything, while the plebeian non-fliers go a different route. I've never had an issue with them getting strength outside of the very last recruit of the game trope, then again I also use my stat boosters, I once saved them all for that unit and made it usable. I tend to have good luck with most PKs as well. I remember having a really bad Caeda once, which was weird, but, like, last LP Catria was the MVP of the entire game, easily. Taciturn Tactician posted:It's weird to think that you have a pegasus knight who potentially will get wrecked by mages, considering they're basically spellproof in later games. You mentioned pegasus knight bonuses, incidentally, does reclassing change your growths? I imagine it changes your caps. It does do both of those things, and I'll go over it in more detail once we actually hit the ability to reclass. Sorry for the confusion, just trying not to tutorialize too hard near the beginning of the LP. vilkacis posted:
I really have to wonder if someone on the team was like, really strict with what changes they could make to the original script. Because stuff like that and the gaiden characters all being pretty cool points to a ton of effort with the writing that sorta flops in the main game somehow. also 
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Dec 2, 2016 19:59
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Rigged Death Trap posted:No Wrys card I was saving it for when we get to the maps where we won't get Cipher characters! Don't worry, I wouldn't forget Wrys. I might forget one of the like 9 Marths. But actually yeah, post it now, people should see spooky zombie Hero Wrys. It is a treasure.
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Dec 2, 2016 21:54
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vilkacis posted:I read somewhere that the text goes along the lines of, "I am Wrys, a warrior. I will have time to heal your wounded after I've buried the enemies." Sjs00 posted:Holy poo poo; I suddenly want to order a ton of boosters and get that card The Fire Emblem Wiki, at least, has it listed as some kind of special promo card, and the text is apparently "“I am Wrys, a hero. I might have time for healing...if I'm not giving my enemies a proper burial.” Rabbi Raccoon posted:If you start on Hard can you skip the sacrifice? Basically what MysticBlade said, starting on Hard just skips the prologue and puts you straight in Chapter 1. There is no Hard Mode version of P1-P4 (Although the sequel has all difficulties for all of its prologues.) This means that the list of normal exclusives are: Frey Norne Any kind of EXP/items you can get for Marth, Jagen, Cain, Abel, Frey, or Gordin before the main game. GeneX posted:this game is actually not all that bad, mostly because it's a fire emblem game before things went excruciatingly weird, but as someone who more or less 100%d this, there's absolutely no defending the bonus chapters (and other associated stuff) Honestly I have pretty much the same opinion. Game's fun, writing's dull and bonus chapters are the weirdest poo poo, but it's still pretty enjoyable to sit down and play.
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Dec 3, 2016 10:41
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Sjs00 posted:I humbly request you reclass Wrys because Jegan's memory of him is a merciless axe murderer I actually can't because of some reclass limits. Curates can't be made into any axe wielding classes until they promote, at least. It's a weird thing called "Class Sets", I'll get into it more when we get to reclassing.
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Dec 3, 2016 22:27
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Chapter 2: The Ballad O’ Shanty Pete Last time we saved the island kingdom of Talys from pirates and hunters. This time we’ll do that, but moreso. (this is the last chapter like this)    That’s two things. : All that changed when a pirate crew fell upon the town and made it their hideout. Here, in Galder, history records Marth’s first steps toward freeing his homeland.: What about all that stuff last time?: History doesn’t care. Oh, they have Cavaliers now. I guess it’s not all just Pirates and hunters.  Thankfully, we’ve got new friends too.   : The king has bid me and my three men join your army. Cavalry has arrived from the west, flying Grust’s standard. They mean to take your life, sire. Be careful.Grust sent literally two guys.  This map looks more complex than it is. There’s a lot of rivers to cross (that are of no consequence to our pirate foes), but the bridges are plentiful and convenient. We’ll also have to deal with an attack from the north. Also, you might notice that I have Caeda highlighted, and Ogma has a yellow glow. More on that later.  Our objective is to the far west. Gomer’s about the same thing Gazzak was, but he has range, so no cheesing him with Javelins or bows.  Also, this guy is mixed in with the enemies north of here. We’ll want Marth in his range. But we have FOUR new units to check out, so let’s do that.  Ogma fuckin’ rules. I don’t know what else to say except that he’s good. He’s got solid stats in just about everything that’s not magic related, and he’s got a ton of usability, coming in at chapter 2. He’s also our first Mercenary. Mercs are tanky and strong, but they aren’t too quick, and they can only use swords. I don’t like them quite as much as Cavaliers, but they are seriously a good class, especially in the early game when axes are all over the place.  Cord is alright. He suffers from starting with an E rank in his native weapon class, but his stats are okay. Compared to his brother Bord (yes, they are named Bord and Cord. Shadow Dragon.), he’s faster, but lands less hits. He’s also got a hidden talent that I plan to show off when we get reclassing.  Bord is slower than Cord, but he gets more HP and strength. He gets a C off the bat in Axes, though, and comes with the Hammer, which is a triple damage weapon against armored classes. They’re both fighters, so they serve as decent hit-sinks at the very least.  If you read the last LP you know I love Barst. His personal Strength and HP growths are kinda shockingly bad (Somehow some of the lowest in the game, though simply being a Fighter gives him class growth bonuses that help balance that), but everything else is pretty solid. I’ve honestly always had good luck with him, it might be just because he comes early and with some fantastic base stats. Honestly his growths were a lot lower than I expected, because I’ve always heard of people having great luck with Barst, even in his bad stats. Is this some kind of localized group hallucination?  Now that the introductions are out of the way, it’s time to start the map. I want someone durable to block the upper bridge, so Ogma’s on call. I also want Marth on the very tip of Darros’ range, because I don’t want to create an unintentional chokepoint.  Remember Ogma’s yellow aura? That means the currently selected unit can talk to them. This is especially useful when recruiting units, so you know who needs to speak to them. Although it is almost always Marth or Caeda. This, however, is just a bonus flavor conversation. It’s the closest this game has to Support Conversations, and they’re rare, so enjoy them when they come.  : ...Princess.: I never got to thank you for coming along with us. There’s no swordsman I trust more. I’ve seen your strength.You can have this chat at any time with Caeda and Ogma, so...I guess assume he didn’t literally just join us. : You don’t need to thank me, Princess. I’m just doing my job. Speaking of which, your father would flay me if you came to any harm.I’m pretty sure that’s a joke, because Ogma’s whole backstory is that he was beaten to near death for helping a slave gladiator, and Caeda’s intervention was the only thing that saved him. Of course that’s never mentioned in this game, because Shadow Dragon. It’s in the sequel though. Or maybe King Talys is just a dick and Caeda takes after her unseen mom. : Do me a favor, and leave the dangerous fighting to me and my men.: I don’t need protecting, Ogma. …I’ve got another job for you. Protect Marth for me.: But, Princess…: He’s very important to me. And the world… But mostly to me. So do as I ask, Ogma. Keep him safe. That’s my first and last request.: Very well. How could I say no to you?: Thank you, Ogma. I knew you’d understand. All right, I have to go. But I hope we get to talk like this more. You’re a good listener.: ...Princess.: Yes?: You keep yourself safe too. Marth would grieve if anything befell you.: Fair enough. Thank you, Ogma. You’re very kind.Caeda and Ogma are pals! They’re such good pals, there was a DLC about it in the sequel. But that’s for later. Now they’ll never speak again.  Here’s how I’m set up for this turn. I want the bulk of the team ready to push west, but a few powerful units like Caeda and Ogma near the north to deal with the enemies up there.  Darros immediately runs up and talks to Marth. You don’t even have to trigger this manually.  : I’ve had me fill o’ the piratin’ life, and now I be lookin’ t’start anew. What say ye? Make me yer matey, and I swear t’pull me load.We’ll make him our matey.  Apparently this pirate didn’t like either bridge, and decides to use the river to go for Abel. It’s alright by me.  The Cavaliers on this map will also rush you, so it’s easy to get them caught out without their allies if you time it right.  Now that we have Darros, I want to kill off the northern enemies. Caeda can double down the hunter.  As for Darros himself, he’s the only recruitable natural Pirate in the game. I think Darros is pretty okay. He’s not great, but he hits hard and he gets quite a bit of HP. However, he has some pretty serious speed issues, which only get worse as the game goes on. If he doesn’t get very lucky there, he can quickly become a liability. For a bit of trivia, Darros didn’t appear in the first remake of this game, FE3, but he was added back in for this and the sequel, just like Wrys.  For now though, Darros is gonna dice this goon.  The other pirate came around south for Cain, but since I moved Cain up to fight the northern front, Draug gets the kill.  One of Ogma’s best assets early on is his frankly ridiculous base speed. Sometimes he can double with his steel weapon, which will kill pretty much anything at this point.  Wrys.   Is this Abel’s idea of a joke? Buddy. Please.  You’re getting outshined by Gordin. This is embarrassing.  Second verse, same as the first. Two relatively durable units to wait for the incoming cavaliers.  Also Jagen sneaks in for some conversation. That wacky Jagen.  ...Thanks?  The Cavaliers are pretty beefy, but it’s nothing you can’t deal with.  Also Barst is a storm of pain and axes.  The Rapier is, of course, an elegant solution to any Horse Problems.  Cord and Gordin team up to down the second Cavalier, and that’s all the impact they have. Way to go, Grust, you sure did assassinate Prince Marth!  Third verse, same as the previous two verses. Although, Bord’s not that durable. I’m sure it’ll be fine, though. how could I gently caress this up?  There are some Hunters over there, including this guy. He looks like he could use a pick-me-up chat from a fellow blue-head. I mean Caeda, because I just realized how ambiguous that is in this universe.  I’ll have Jagen pull him closer.  Bord manages to whiff this 82% in one of the more embarrassing misses so far.  Here’s your other hint to talk to Castor with Caeda, delivered hopefully not as he shoots Caeda. Which can totally happen.  Pulling Castor also pulls the other Hunter. It may look like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, but…  So here’s a problem with Darros already. His strength and speed aren’t enough to let him not get doubled against these guys with his Steel Axe. So this is just a death sentence.  I don’t feel super confident about this setup. If only there were a handy feature with which I could achieve a sense of assurance.  SAVE TILES The glowing blue tiles let you save your game mid-chapter. This is a compromise between FE10’s “you can save whenever you want” system, which sorta made you nearly invincible, (Disabled on Hard Mode, though.) and the rest of the series’ “gently caress you” system.  You only get two Map Save slots across all your files, though, which is kinda weird, since you can have 3.  With some backup from Gordin, Bord’s actually able to down his Pirate foe, though.  Well, let’s see how this turns out.    Hmm.  Oh, that’s handy. I won’t be showing when I do this in the future, don’t worry, I just wanted to show what the system looks like.  Maybe I DON’T want Bord there.   This seems better.  This seems even more better.  There. More fortified across the board.   And everyone’s looking quite a bit more alive. They shot over Jagen, though, so he did nothing. Poor Jagen.  C’mere, Castor.   : Princess Caeda? Oh...I’m sorry, but me mother’s sick, and the medicine don’t buy itself, see…Castor is meant to be a con artist, but he really, really sucks at it. Again, something not actually mentioned in game. NES cartridge dialogue limits brought to a new era. : So you agreed to fight for the pirates in exchange for coin…All right then. If it’s gold you need, take mine. Here, this is all I have. Take it, and go to your mother’s side.: But Princess…I betrayed you! …Ach, I’ve been a fool! Forgive me, Princess. Let me fight for you now. Me life is yours.He’s bad at this.  Or maybe he decided to join after he watched Caeda nonchalantly Javelin a man’s guts out. Either solution is possible.  It’s a very Caeda level up.  So, Castor (dented due to eating an Abel Javelin) is a bow unit who is way better than Gordin. His HP sucks, but he has pretty solid growths in some key stats, like a nice 20% in Strength, equal to Cain. A lot of people like to reclass him because bow locked units are meh, and it helps to cover some of his weaknesses (Like that ugly 0% HP growth.) Also, did you notice the yellow Marth? Sharp eyes.  Wrys you can’t even use Skill, you silly goose.  With the threat of Bord dying no longer on the table, it doesn’t take much to mop up the rest of these guys.  Fourth verse, it’s the last verse. Ogma and Jagen are beefy enough to survive hits from the pirates while Marth chats with our new ally.  : Of course. Caeda told me about you.: You know, she’s always been very kind to me, sire, even before I left Talys. And look how I’ve repaid her…: Castor, you can still show her your heart is true. Let the battles to come be what defines you!  Well, that worked out.  Cord went Axe Shopping and got a few backups for weapons we already have.  There’s also a village up here. Sorry I didn’t get that in the shots earlier. This one is in no danger, though, because there aren’t any Thieves in the enemy ranks.   : She’s gone up into the Ghoul’s Teeth to tend to the sick there. We warned her, I swear we did… Lena is our angel. If something befell her, I- No, I won’t think of it. Take this gold: we’ve 5000 pieces. Just promise you’ll use it to bring her home to us unharmed. This is nice, but I’m more excited to meet Sister Lena. She’s good at her job!  Just like with Gazzak, Gomer isn’t someone you want to attack on your turn. Let him hit you so you don’t get doubled up by a hit and a counter. Also, I know he has a low hit rate, but never, ever trust the hit rates.   ...I want to recruit Gomer, can we please recruit Gomer? I’d take Shanty Pete.  Cain flees upon the invocation of the mighty Shanty Pete.  So, the best way to do this is just to rotate your units in and out to be healed by Wrys or the fort, letting one take a hit from Gomer and counter each turn, until he’s low enough to kill.  Again, not attacking on my turn, but Caeda’s a really good bet for most early bosses.  This goes on for a while. I’ll spare you.  Cain landing a crit does wonders to weaken him, though.  I’m getting increasingly worried about the home team’s stats here. regardless. A sneaky Wrys level before the end.  Beware using Steel Weapons because of their weight! I’m really glad they dropped that system after this game.  Abel gets the honor of the final blow, once again.   That’s more like it.  Also good! Why did Gomer have this? ...Maybe this was Shanty Pete’s sword.  Here’s another ending conversation where Marth just stares at someone. I think it’s justified in this case, though, because this guy’s eyebrows fuse to become his mustache.  : Now, as I hear it, you plan to march on to Aurelis…That’ll take you right up through the Ghoul’s Teeth. With all due respect, sire, you’re taking a great risk crossin’ those mountains, that’s Soothsire territory. The Soothsires are fearsome bandits, always raidin’ the villages and harryin’ what travelers dare pass by. : How did you pronounce that?: Nabarl.: Just checking.: If you go up there, keep your wits about you- or you won’t come back down. Next time the game outdoes me in the pun department. Have a Cipher Ogma.  I like his...forearm band? ...Also, because it must be seen, and it’s on the Fire Emblem Wiki, Anime Ogma. 
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Dec 6, 2016 06:34
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chiasaur11 posted:Although Shanty Pete was a legendary pirate, modern viewers know him best for his generosity. I have nothing to add, I just feel like this good post was unappreciated for being stuck at the bottom of the last page. Keldulas posted:The save point system is what I think is Shadow Dragon's best idea, flat out, and is a feature I'm SORELY disappointed has not made a reappearance in later games. Especially with poo poo like how long Awakening's or Fate's maps can get. Using saves as a resource, especially when it takes a unit's time to use it is great. It's so bizarre that this never came back, it's really good. Especially given the late game of Fates having some ridiculously long maps.
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Dec 7, 2016 05:45
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Camel Pimp posted:Probably because the developers assumed that if you wanted the ability to save mid-mission, you'd just play on casual. This does remind me that this was the last FE game before Casual came out, so I guess this is sort of the prototype of that? Still, I'd have loved to have save points, especially in Fates, where there's poo poo like (Fates Spoilers) Conquest and Birthright both having two part, no checkpoint finales, and Revelations having those two chapters towards the middle that you get no chance to save between either. Guess who lost one character towards the end of each of them I've also decided I'm going to do the art update, by the way, because there are some truly...wonderful portraits and official arts. One of my favorites is actually for Mystery of the Emblem but I'm including it anyway because my god. I'll hold off until we've met more of the characters though.
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Dec 7, 2016 09:16
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MythosDragon posted:Anyway Lord Hippoman, I gotta ask now that I've read your RF1 LP. Any plans to do Rune Factory 2 someday? Its almost as bad mechanically as 1 I think what made Rune Factory 1 sorta work for me, in any real capacity, was that I'd played it before a long time ago, so there was this sense of nostalgia and fondness for a lot of the game, even though going back and playing it again it really kinda sucked. RF2 I never touched, so I have a feeling that if I played it it would just be a lot of bitterness and exasperation at "oh gee here's THIS bad mechanic again", and I don't think that would be as fun for me doing it or for people to read. Some LPers, better than me, can really make that work, but I'm not in that camp. So probably not. RF3 was mentioned, but I did play a bit of that and it's just such a vast improvement that feels way different. I feel like someone with more experience than me with it could do a better playthrough, because I'd be blind outside the first 10 minutes. Then again I didn't have plans for Shadow Dragon until like, the last week of RF so I mean don't take anything I say as a guarantee. Just, like, in general. Snorb posted:The next chapter has the best line of dialogue in the game. I think I know what you're talking about and it's pretty great. tunapirate posted:Shadow Dragon was the first (and only) Fire Emblem game I've ever played and to this day I'm still very confused as to what you're supposed to do with knights--theoretically they seemed useful, but they just move so slow that by the time I got to the indoor grind-y maps they were too low-leveled for me to feel comfortable using them All the characters you get in Chapter 3 are really, really good, so you're probably safe there! Like Vilkacis and Camel Pimp said, knights are pretty bad in a lot of the FE games, they're a massive liability if you care about low turn counts (I don't), but they really only excel in chokepoints or if you have a very low movement team in general. And considering Shadow Dragon is pretty much "You Like Cavaliers, Right?: The Video Game", they aren't great. Except, again, like, Fates, where Effie is an unstoppable bulldozer of rage and steel.
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Dec 7, 2016 21:42
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, so I cant play it myself .
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Camel Pimp posted:Oh, if we're talking armor knights, I feel like I need to share this absolutely amazing piece of fanart I found. Time to check the thread before I go to bed- Time to stay up until I can comprehend this image.
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Dec 8, 2016 08:26
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Miacis posted:Shadow Dragon removed the support limit, and replaced it with much smaller support pools and literally no support conversations (you just get the naked stat bonuses) Yeah, I'm gonna try to explain this in a future update but it's a really weird and sorta obscured system. The game never tells you it exists, for one, and the only way I know anything about what it does is Serenes, after like 4 playthroughs of this game. What I'm saying is that I'll probably gently caress it up. (I say as I edit the first update to remove the part where I already hosed up what a stat does) Camel Pimp posted:Here's some more fan art. This time I made it. This is so good. Added to the OP.
LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Dec 10, 2016 |
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Dec 10, 2016 00:12
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Chapter 3: Unfortunately Named Bandits Alright, that’s enough pirates. We’re done with pirates! Mostly. Let’s go climb a mountain.  This chapter name is so much better than anything I could come up with, drat.  You can see the little line connecting us to our previous location on the bottom screen there, it’s pretty neat.  : Since before anyone could remember, the mountains had belonged to bandits, blights on the land whose acts of plunder, kidnapping, and arson knew no bounds. Out of fear, their victims gave these peaks another name: the Ghoul’s Teeth; while the bandits who ruled atop the Teeth’s craggy crowns took a name as well: the Samsooth Sires, or Soothsires…That’s a dumb name. Dumb names are the theme of today’s map.  Looks like a Thief and a Cleric. And they’re blue. That’s always good.   : Rumor has it the knights of Altea are at the foot of the mountain. We won’t get a better chance. It’s just a little bit farther. Stick with me.   : You go on ahead…Save yourself! Here, I could use this Warp staff to send you someplace safe-: Uh-uh, honey. No can do. I didn’t betray my boys back there so you could zap me on out of here alone. Forget the staff; I’ll come back later and get it for you myself. All right? Right now though, I need you to RUN. Tick-tock, now move that frock!So, I’m using the Serenes Forest online script for this game, and it’s got a few typos. One being that the last line is transcribed as “Tick-tack”. That’s just the first one I noticed because it gets in the way of the rhyming!  Uh oh. Seems someone isn’t too happy with this. He’s even busting out his catchphrase.  So, the main gimmick for this map is that we’re basically fighting on two fronts. All of our usual units are in the bottom right, with Jagen bizarrely west of everyone else. We’re just pushing northwest. Which we have in every map so far. Huh.  But we also have to help out these two on the east. This is Julian, our first Thief. Julian is good just because of his utility. We’ll encounter locked doors and chests, and Julian doesn’t need keys for either. His combat actually isn’t too shabby either, though he’ll never be very durable, so he’s a bit high risk. I’m pretty happy to have him, though.  Lena is the best Cleric in the game. She shows up with an automatic C in Staves, the ABSURDLY GOOD Warp staff, and even an exclusive stave only she can use later. In addition, her stat growths are good. She’s got good Luck, is tied for the highest Resistance Growth in the game, and the second best Magic. You could swap her to a Mage and still get some good results. A solid hit will kill her easily, though. She has our first NEGATIVE personal growth rate, -5% HP. Thankfully each class grants their own bonus rates, and that’s enough to ensure she at least always has a chance at it. Still, don’t count on her to tank anything. She’s really best as a staff user.  The fearsome swordsman mentioned last time is here, and he and his minions will give chase to our new friends. We should probably stop them.  Thankfully, the mountains form a natural chokepoint, so the Cavaliers, along with Draug and Cord, should serve as sufficient backup.  Everyone else just rushes west. There’s even a village here! Jagen’s just...already here.  All of these units will start to run for us, as well as three fighters from the western group of foes.  I’m trying to strategically position Caeda here. It’s pretty crucial she goes with the east group. There’s no hint for this, and I missed it on my first playthrough years ago.  Julian and Lena pretty easily clear out, and Draug blocks the whole canyon with his powerful defense.  So I realized the others can probably just go I kept a Cavalier over there, though! What treasure could lie in wait?  : Such a warm smile here deserves a nice reward. Here, take this axe-  Oh gently caress you. The Devil Axe is an immensely powerful weapon...with a drawback. Sometimes it decides to hit YOU instead. Luck lowers the chance of it happening, but I don’t have the exact numbers. I believe the formula is “If:FucksThePlayerOver=yes Then:SelfDamage”.  Anyway, Caeda’s got a great vantage point to wipe out the only ranged member of the eastern bandits.  G’night!  The Fighters come a bit staggered, but we can lure one into attacking Darros.  Marth can also chat with our new pal, Julian. This isn’t required to recruit him, he does that automatically. : Stop! Whoa! I’m...I’m not your enemy!: Huh? (I tried to get the blink, I really did.) : See, now I’m a good guy! Lena gave me a reason to- well, let’s just say I’ve had a change of heart.I don’t think they ever explain how Lena got Julian to swap sides, aside from “she’s pretty and he has a crush”. That might just be it. It would fit him pretty well. : ……: Hm, not explainin’ myself very well, am I? OK, OK, what I’m trying to say is-: Yes. You can come with us.: Oh...Well...well, good.Julian is a pretty good dork. : I’m inclined to trust you. If you’ve truly had a change of heart, you deserve the chance to prove it. Show me you’re ready to help people, and then I’ll know I’ve picked a man of character.: Wow. That’s… Thanks! I couldn’t ask for a better deal! While they were chatting the rest of the crew mopped up the first fighter. He didn’t go all the way to Darros.  I’d prefer Strength, but I like those.  I think Draug ought to be okay up here.  One of them went back for Caeda, though. That’s impolite.  Fighters do have a bit of an issue hitting stuff. The hit formula is generous in FE11, though. In the GBA games this would have been way worse.  Also, Julian cleans up nicely.  Castor is one point from a kill here.   At least Marth can benefit.  Now then, that’s it for the Fighters. There are a few Hunters northwest of us, though…  A bit of lure, with a ranged rebuttal attached. Ought to work.  Uh oh, Jagen’s bored again. He’s chatting up the villagers.  I already mentioned that.  This guy is still bothering me, though. We could use some reinforcements. If only someone were around to help.  Well then.  (almost always)  : What? Who are you? Fly away, girl, before someone decides to swat you.: Please, Navarre. Why fight for nothing when you can fight for something? Leave this rabble. Lend your sword to our cause. Or, if you will not, then turn it on me now instead.: …Nay, I’ll turn no blade of mine on a women. If you’re willing to pay for my services with your life, then consider yourself the high bidder. My sword is yours.He’s totally lying, he’ll chop Lena to ribbons if he gets close. Or Caeda, for that matter, unless you talk to him first. I think he’s just shy around girls.  Or, like Castor, he saw her casually murder a guy with a javelin and reconsidered. Honestly, viable option.   So, let’s talk about...Na...varre? Nabarl? It depends where you live and what translation you like. Navabarle is a Myrmidon, which is like the Mercenary, but faster and with more skill in exchange for strength and bulk. They were the same class in the original. Nav himself is pretty much the perfect example of his class. He’s quick, he’ll smash his foes with crits, but he doesn’t have the tanking capability of, say, Ogma. So I don’t like him as much, but he’s definitely very good. He also comes with a C in Swords and the Killing Edge, which adds a huge bonus to Crit chance. He’s quite a useful pickup.  Also, the Abel Bait worked smoothly. Come to me, my foolish hunters.   Oh hey, this is pretty much Navarre.png. Not a ton of HP, but drat if he’s not going to crit this guy into oblivion.  While I have the chance, we can chat with Lena too.  : Yes… Thank you.: These mountains are dangerous. My forces will draw the enemy away; use that time to escape.: No, I wish to help.: But…you… What?Marth, she’s a Cleric. Helping is like, her thing. : Please, sire. I am a cleric. I cannot bear to watch others come to harm when I have the power to help.Yeah, that! : Well…all right… But I don’t wish to see you come to harm, either.: I will be careful. Thank you, sire. Just stay behind that pirate and you’ll be alright.  Draug pretty much has everything covered up here, so we can forget about this half of the battle and move onto our final push to the Soothsire lair!  Meanwhile, these two will battle for eternity...or until Draug just kills him.  I approach the castle by putting a bulky guy in range of the goons to lure them close. Look, there’s not a ton of variety early on here.  Yikes, though, that’s a big number on Abel. The last Soothsire guard on the right has a Steel Axe, which makes him pretty dangerous, if inaccurate.  Then again...I have one too. Barst  Yoink.  drat, no mercy for these guys.  There’s a semi-hidden armory behind the boss. I’m sending Caeda to it.  Also, while getting ready to fight the boss, Wrys’ staves level up  Not much we haven’t seen. Grabbed one of everything but the Hammer. So, uh, in Europe this next boss is called “Reynard”. In the US…  : And Sir Jagen, what was the name of the fearsome bandit leader?: Erm...uh… : Gouber. The fearsome Gouber.: Ha. What a dork. Hy...Gouber’s got a Hand Axe. Honestly he’s pretty much the same boss Gomer was.  He’s still quite a threat, though. He’s also got Lena’s mend staff!  The biggest issue with Gouber is his speed. 14 is hefty for this point of the game, and a double from him could send most of our units to an early grave.  Like usual, Ogma is an exception.  I feel like I’m leaning on him a bit much, though…and there is a save point on this map. Do I dare?   IT’S DEVIL TIME. HahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA!   Probably yes.  I love this man. I love Barst.    : This money will buy plenty of new equipment for your army. Tomorrow is the day, sire, when we finally arrive in Aurelis. Be sure to rest up tonight.Three good new units? 15k free gold? I’m happy with this.  Next time I google what a “Lea” is so I sound impressive on the internet. Bonus Content (wow!) Here’s the guy we just got.  There are like five different Nacards, so I’m saving some of them for later. For now, though, take this Tokyo Mirage Sessions edgy boy!  I am unsure why his arm is a Slinky. P.S.: If you’re reading this live, today this game has been rereleased on Wii U! If you want to play it, it’s there, it’s 10 bucks, and you don’t have to put up with me the whole time. So I mean, there’s that! LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 06:44 on Dec 10, 2016 |
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Dec 10, 2016 06:41
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tunapirate posted:Realized as I read this last chapter that I view Jagen as Joe-Biden-with-spiky-epaulettes. Gotta find a way to cram "This is a big fuckin' deal" into a future update now. AradoBalanga posted:Barst has passed the Devil Axe TestTM. Now let's see if our other axe users can pass the test. Tempting. MightyPretenders posted:And at this point you remember that Marth was asked to bring Lena back to Galder, and never does. Either she didn't actually like the place, or Marth isn't the hero the writers intended him to be. In Shadow Dragon you can pretty safely assume that no plot thread other than "Marth is gonna go beat up a dragon" will really ever be followed up on again. vilkacis posted:You missed something dammit I only checked the top screens Actually, this is Jagen being an unreliable narrator. That's what I'm sticking with. This LP is artistic now. Sjs00 posted:So have you guys ever been taken totally aback by a character whose name is the same as yours? Because our new thief friend did that to me on my first playthrough. It was really weird! There's this bizarre phenomenon for me where every character who has my name seems to be an rear end. It was very discouraging when I was like, 6. And I think I watched the anime like, years ago, I'll have to look it up again for this thread because I remember enjoying parts of it, thanks for reminding me. chiasaur11 posted:Yeah, that makes sense. The bit that confuses me is how IS outsourced the supports. I don't have anything to contribute except to say that, while I think Fates' supports are generally pretty weird and bad, there's one about a guy having a civil conversation with a bear and trying to get it to politely leave and that was good.
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Dec 11, 2016 01:12
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MythosDragon posted:Correct me if I'm wrong but isnt it implied that every single dude Caeda recruits has a crush on her? Or is it just me. I think they only really push that angle hard with Roger. One of the bonus maps from the BS Fire Emblem games has Rickard pointing out that Navarre just gets really, really awkward trying to talk to women. I think the anime gives him some odd backstory about that with his girlfriend being murdered protecting him or something like that, but I don't entirely remember, and it's not canon to the game, IIRC.
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Dec 11, 2016 07:42
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Camel Pimp posted:You know, this LP's been missing something, and I think I just figured out what it is Camel Pimp posted:Eh, I think this is more Jagen's speed  This is some prime thread content (Especially since I've proven in the past I can't edit portraits for poo poo.). Thanks again, Camel Pimp. Glaive17 posted:I forgot to comment on it earlier, but now that I am thinking about it again, I just wanted to say: Good, because I do not have very many jokes, so we're going to have to go economy here. Wayne posted:I'm not saying he shouldn't do it. I just got to the part where Navanime shows up myself. It's at (minor character spoilers for the spinoff game) The start of the third chapter, with the dapper smug heterochromia guy. Somehow I knew it was him. I'm progressing very slowly because I'm really not too into it, unfortunately. And, I mean, I'll look at Rune Factory 2 a little more, but what I said earlier still kinda has me convinced at this point. (Also, embarrassingly, I didn't know my RF1 LP was live on the archive until today, like a week+ after it got posted. I should twitter stalk the LPArchive account more.) Next update shouldn't take too much longer, but I've gotta write a lot of poo poo about reclassing. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Dec 13, 2016 |
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Dec 13, 2016 11:01
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Chapter 4: Lea: An open area of grassy or arable land. (Prep) We’ve got some more Shadow Dragon today. We’re going to be introduced to a key gameplay element today,  Oh, and since I haven’t shown it yet, here’s the Marth sprite that jogs across the World Map between chapters. It’s kinda great.  gently caress talys, imo  : However, joining his might to that of the Aurelians would have to wait. As Marth descended into the vast green lea separating his troops from theirs, he heard a terrible sound: the galloping of enemy destriers, far away…then closer…Then far too close.The map will start with us nowhere near the cavaliers.  : The enemy will have sent their forces to meet us. Grust, Dolhr, Gra..We’re up against their standing armies, and we must brace ourselves for it.“Malledus, please wake up, we’re bracing.”  What’s this? A gameplay shift! Sorta! : We should select the warriors best suited for the situation and outfit them with the right weapons and items accordingly.: All right, that’s sound advice. I believe I’ll take it. Welcome to the Prep Screen! From now on, before each battle, this screen allows you to make adjustments to your units, scout the map, fiddle with options, and so forth. I’ll be explaining each of those menu options in this update. I’ll be adding more into subsequent prep screens, namely some of the Base Conversations from FE12, which add a little more personality to our units, who right now are...dull. Really, really dull. But this one’s got enough in it already. Also from now on, I’m splitting the updates into “Prep” and “Battle”. If you read FE12 it’s the same as that. If you didn’t, basically the Prep updates are me making preparations, talking strategy stuff, reclassing, etc. The Battle updates are actual gameplay, so if all I just talked about bores the hell out of you, feel free to skip it. This just helps me divide things up easier, as well as cut down on individual update size.  The first option, “Pick Units”, lets you choose which units will participate in battle. There’s a cap from now on, it varies, but 14 is about what you should expect. There’s limited XP in this game (mostly), so you’ll typically want to stick with a core team. I’m dropping Bord because I like Barst more, Gordin because his one good moment was when they called him “gaggles”, and Jagen because...I’m sorry, buddy, I really am  “Inventory” lets you mess with character inventories. You can trade items between units, merge two inventories together, access your Convoy, etc.  For example, I used the “List” command to get a list of Staves, then grabbed the Mend from Barst to give to Lena. It’s pretty easy to use.  “Armory” lets you buy and sell weapons. The Forge is something interesting I’ll explain later.  Unfortunately, you can only buy the most basic type of each weapon here. It will never upgrade.  “View Map” is one of the big ones. You can swap the starting positions of any units you deploy, except Marth. This is also how I’m going to scout the map so I don’t have to awkwardly try to segue into it mid-battle anymore.  For example, I can show you that right to the north of the start is this squadron of dickheads who are just going to rush us from the side of the lake! Great!  There’s also a thief right to the west.  Probably just to destroy this village slightly west of him. That’s something I’ll need to find an answer for. (Cavaliers.)  North of that is our goal, unfortunately it’s across a narrow bridge guarded by two Archers and a Knight. There’s also another village, and…a ton of empty space. A lot of Shadow Dragon’s maps feel weirdly empty.  Most notably up there is this squad of mounted units. These guys do not wait around, and they will rush us from the start. There’s a nasty surprise hidden here, this one has an Armorslayer, which is triple damage to Knights. Be careful, Draug!  We also get our first Promoted foes, and they’re Horsemen. Horsemen are promoted Hunters, and they’re pretty dangerous right now. That’s a lot of movement. They can also use swords, but these guys didn’t have them, I guess.  ...there’s also...matthis…  Ahem. Anyway, the boss, Bentheon, is a bit different from the others we’ve fought. Namely he’s not as hard, but he’s got another rude surprise for people who aren’t looking at the top screen. He’s got a Ridersbane. Triple damage to cavalry. That’ll one shot Cain and Abel easily.  There’s also an Arena. I’ll get to that next time.  Oh boy here’s the big one. RECLASSING is a new feature added into Shadow Dragon. It allows you to change a character’s class, up to a cap of units in a single class. You might see on the right there that we can only have so many of each unit type. That will rise as the game goes on and we get more natural units of that class. I think it’s N+1.  Not only does changing classes change the weapons you can use, it changes your stats. Each class sorta has a baseline, and it’ll adjust accordingly. It also affects Growth Rates. Not only does each character have their own growth rates, the class they are adds its Growths to the equation when Level Ups get calculated. They’re kinda what you’d expect, Knights get more Defense, Myrmidons get more Speed, but I’ll link to the SerenesForest chart if you want to get really into the details: Class Growth Rates This enables a lot of fun loving around. Want to take advantage of Navarre’s natural speed to make an Archer who gets lots of doubles? Go nuts. Want a bald Swordmaster? Wrys. Keep in mind that you’ll start at an E rank for any weapons you don’t have proficiency in yet, though, so that can be a drawback. Not only that, units are limited to reclassing within their class sets. They are as follows: Female units get Pegasus Knight, Archer, Mage, Cleric, and Myrmidon, with access to Paladin on promotion. Male units that start in Cavalier, Archer, Myrmidon, Mage, or Curate can swap between those, or into Dracoknight on promotion. Male units that start in Fighter, Pirate, Hunter, Dark Mage, Knight, or Mercenary can swap between those. Some special units, like Marth or Julian, cannot reclass at all. Again, I plan on messing with this more than I did in the last game, so if you have any ideas, feel free to pitch them! Speaking of Dark Mages, there are no natural recruitable Dark Mages in the game! They’re basically Mages that don’t hit as hard, but get more Resistance and Speed. I like them, but who to choose?  Ta da. For some unknowable reason, perhaps for reclass rewarding, Cord has a personal Magic Growth of 10%, which is tied with most natural mages. He can never use it in his natural class. Now he can. But we’ll need to outfit him properly.  Let’s go to the Forge! The Forge lets you adjust the stats of most weapons, excluding some special ones with unique effects (Like the Devil Axe). You can increase (or decrease) Might, Hit Chance, Critical Chance, and Weight, but each change makes the Forge more costly, and you can only Forge once per map. To help him get off the ground, I bought Cord a basic Fire tome and jacked it up here.  You can also rename the weapon if you want. Cord is still using axes, see! (This is why I welcome any name suggestions.)  I think that’s the last great Infodump in the game. Hopefully you’ll join me next time as we investigate the Lea and its Destriers and wonder why they whipped out the thesaurus for this one. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Dec 16, 2016 |
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Dec 16, 2016 06:55
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Taciturn Tactician posted:What insane backwards world is this where dark mages are faster and less powerful instead of the axe users of the magical sphere? Since you said you gave hin a fire tome I'm assuming magic weapons triangle doesn't exist? Yeah, that gave me pause too, I like, triple checked Serenes but it's true. Dark Mages have -10% Magic, but +5% Speed and +10% Res on normal Mages. Which is...not how they usually work? Also yes, magic triangle isn't a thing in this game. It's all just filed under "Tomes". RareAcumen posted:poo poo, with a reclass system like that, redundant characters might actually see some use now. Thus the Cord. It's really weird that he just has like, one weird outlier stat, but he does and it's kinda cool.
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Dec 16, 2016 15:35
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Miacis posted:I'm all for keeping the woodcutting occultist in the team for as long as possible. Although there is a possible replacement coming up a bit later if the RNG gods feel merciless. I have been looking for something else for Draug to do, perhaps. Hunter sounds fun. Also, don't worry, Jagen might not be along for THIS adventure...but he might find his way into another.
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Dec 17, 2016 01:02
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vilkacis posted:Ah, Matthis. Please show him whining about being unable to find Lena and following it up by running her through I've already recorded this one and I tried this, but that idiot WENT FOR WRYS INSTEAD. I'm gonna go for it on the Normal Mode run though. Cattail Prophet posted:Every chapter of Shadow Dragon actually has the same unit limit: 16. It's just that characters that you recruit curing the chapter count towards that limit, so if there's a chapter where you recruit, say, six new characters, you can only bring in ten dudes at the start. This is not the only thing in the game that's governed by the number 16. I didn't know that, huh. I'll keep that in mind. That would explain why an upcoming map gives you so few spots.
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Dec 17, 2016 02:14
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Chapter 4: Lea: An open area of grassy or arable land. (Battle) Well, with all the preparation out of the way, it’s time to get to the battle!  : I’m convinced you’re just making up words now.: Quiet, you clamshank. : If they think we’ll sit by and let them join forces with the Aurelians, then they have another thing coming. With this ridersbane, I’ll litter the lea with their cavalry!The game’s nice enough to toss you another hint here. Also, my god, Bentheon’s nose.  Let’s start off our newest mission by letting Dark Mage Cord get the first hit! (castor missed) The pretty formidable Might of “an axe” combined with the low Resistance numbers in Shadow Dragon makes this a pretty huge chunk of damage, more than most of our units are capable of right now.  Julian gets the kill, though, because I want him to get some experience.  Meanwhile, I need to block off the reinforcements that will rush around the lake, so the usual wall of Cavalier strategy is in order.  Ogma and Barst also lend some formidable hands.  Everyone else is just rushing west, and I figure this is a good time to show off the Convoy feature! I can use it to grab a sword from the Convoy, then trade it to Navarl so he doesn’t have to waste Killing Edge.  I mean, I would, if I didn’t forget to put anything in the Convoy  Let’s just forget that happened. I don’t think we’ve heard much about Macedon yet, but we’ll be introduced to them this map.  The Cavaliers in the top left also begin their charge. Thankfully the horsemen and Bentheon stay put.  After seeing Abel take that hit, I thought they might need some healing, so I’m sending Lena to the eastern blockade. I immediately regret my actions because I need her over on the other side, but it’s too late! Look how well I’m starting this map off!  The armory has nothing of real interest, but I had Cord grab two Steel Lances, since we can’t buy them yet and have a lot of pretty solid Lance wielders...  I say as Abel misses a Javelin again, the irony of my statements entirely lost on me in this post-commentary.  This Hunter just exists to make the choke here a bit more difficult. I’ll have to do some creative shuffling to keep everyone alive up here.  There are bigger problems, though, namely that the cavalry has almost arrived. I’ve marked Matthis, because as you probably guessed, he’s recruitable, and the Armorslayer guy, so I can be more careful with Draug.  This is safely out of either of their ranges, but I’ll be able to catch the first couple guys with a counterattack.  Ogma gets out of here and takes a sip of Barst’s vulnerary, in case that Hunter decides to get cheeky.  Thankfully, Abel’s finished missing.  Barst never started.  As expected, the Cavs attack, and Marth deals some decent chip damage. I want to save some of the Rapier, though, there will be a lot of tougher mounted foes ahead.  Draug gets hit too, but it just benefits him, really.  Evidently this is also the trigger for the Thief and Hunter to the north to come down. I didn’t plan for that, but it should be okay.  Alright. So, the goal here is to talk to Matthis with Lena, but because I moved Lena wrong...that’s gonna take a turn. So the NEW goal is to kill off most of his buddies, then hope he doesn’t kill himself/kill one of my units on the Enemy Phase. Also there’s that thief and hunter slightly off screen.  One square out of Hunter range, Caeda removes the Armorslayer with some extreme prejudice.  Not great.  Better!  I was hoping for a crit here, but Navarre only got the chip damage. I had to bring Julian in to finish up and-   Thanks, Julian.  Lena moves forward, mostly because she kinda has to. Wrys retreats.   Thankfully, this turn cleaned up the choke point, meaning these guys can start to rejoin the main team.  Matthis you absolute gently caress you ran right past her in your urge to impale a bald man!  He’s okay, folks.  So is he.  Behold as I regret doing the 100% Recruitment Run.   : Lena?! What are you doing on a battlefield?: I was attacked by bandits in the Teeth while tending to the sick there, and these people saved me. The real question is, what are YOU doing on a battlefield- least of all this one!: I’m not here by choice, sister of mine. Since you left, Macedon has only gotten worse and worse. They forced me to enlist- you know I hate warfare, but it was into the army or onto the chopping block.: Shame on you, Matthis. If you’re going to fight, then at least fight for something you believe in. Macedon has done terrible things: marrying their might to Dolhr, helping them torment people…Brother, it’s not too late. You could join Altea’s forces. They’re good people you know. Prince Marth would welcome you. They all would.I wouldn’t.  : …All right, then. If I’m gonna to die, I’d rather die as one of the dashing than one of the dastardly. You know, Lena, you always were the reliable one, and now you’re all grown up…I thought for sure you’d have already settled down with your one true love.: T-true love? I’ve…I’ve met no such man, Matthis.: Hmm, is that so? I’ll bet you haven’t…So one creepy thing about Matthis is that his dialogue, mostly in the sequel, kinda implies he has a crush on his sister. I guess this is the start of another classic Fire Emblem trend. Awkward Incestous Vibes. Which they made into a full game called Fates! : Well, you just be careful. There are plenty of thieves out there who would steal a girl’s heart.Thankfully Lena’s got a much better and less disturbing option.   And I think that’s the end of the enemies on this half of the map.  So now we’re headed for the bridge!  ...And I should probably talk about Matthis. I really, really don’t like Matthis. I’m not even really sure why. Maybe it’s his haircut. He’s a very defensively oriented Cavalier, with high HP and Defense growths, and his Strength isn’t too shabby, on par with Abel’s. His Skill is AWFUL, though, as is his Speed, and he’s yet another cavalier hurled at you when we’re about to get three more, one of whom is really good!  Wrys and Lena ran around and patched people up, but I cut it because you don’t want to see that. You probably want to see Wrys get a level though. There it is.  Tragically, this meant the end of Wrys’ Heal stave. Our first weapon break. Farewell, old friend.  Also here’s more matthis i’m sorry  : ACK! Y-you’re Prince Marth! Aieee! S-s-stay your rapier, I beg you!: …What has gotten into you?: You mean…you haven’t come to stick me like a pig for fighting under the Macedonian standard?: Er, no…: Really?: Really and truly.: Oh! Uh, right then… Sorry about that little display. I guess Lena was right. Just goes to show not all princes are cut from the same cloth!: What do you mean?: Oh, well, our prince- Prince Michalis of Macedon, that is- he’s strong, and proud…and an utter tyrant. They say he put the soldiers who look the most scared in the front lines on purpose.: Hmm...Prince Michalis of Macedon.I like that they foreshadow an upcoming villain here, but we won’t actually get to see Michalis towards near the end of the game! One big issue with Shadow Dragon is that it just doesn’t show its characters enough for you to really get a feel for them. : Don’t worry, sire, I won’t mistake you for him again! Altean princes I can trust! I can lure the Archers over, but the Knight is gonna stay put.  They have Steel Bows, which might be bad if you weren’t Draug. As is they get mopped up fast.  ...Oh. Already? Sometimes the RNG really, really hates you. Sometimes Fire Emblem sees you get a really good Julian level up and decides to punish you. Sometimes I need a bit for this LP. In all these situations, you get an empty level. Not a single stat procced, and Castor is just left looking like that. What a shame.  That said, the knight is open now.  PURGED BY an axe  Barst cleaned up the other one, and now there’s just one thing left to do down here.  We’ve got a new friend to meet.  : …Huh? Merric?! Merric, is that you? : Well, yes, sire, last I looked. Whilst studying magic in Khadein, I caught wind of a war brewing and decided to seek you out.: I see… Thank you, then. I need friends like you on the battlefield. You will fight with us, of course?: Of course! ‘Twould be a passing shame if you didn’t get to see me flex a little magic muscle. Wait till I show you my latest: Excalibur! Merric would be your first magical unit, if you didn’t reclass. And he’s a drat good start. Despite his low starting level, Merric is powerful, holding pretty decent growths nearly across the board and getting early access to a very powerful Tome, the Excalibur, which is a triple damage weapon against fliers. I’ve always used him, so I probably won’t this time, just for variety, unless people really want to see him in action. You’ll see it in one of the DLC maps anyway.  To lure the Horsemen this way, Matthis makes for fantastic target practice.  drat, only got one.   Well, I can’t complain too much. Bring me another!   Okay, never mind, that’s enough, thanks. These guys are promoted enemies, so they give a lot of Exp. It’s an easy way to kickstart Merric if you want to use him.   And then there were two.  This poor Cleric is completely helpless. I have to give her a fighting chance, at least… Devil Axe Time  Darros, you fool!  Thankfully Cain and Julian can mop up while Darros feels sad.  Cain kinda needs some more of these, or Abel’s going to be outdoing him.  Marth can get started on the boss here. Bentheon really isn’t a threat unless you decide to fight him with a mounted unit. Caeda doesn’t count as mounted, by the way.   Although...use the Rapier if you have Marth doing it. That 1 damage is sad.  ...Why did I not equip the Rapier? I’m openly questioning you, me from last night, what the hell?  Still, I want to get him just a little lower…  To give our new star reclassed pal the finishing blow.   Thankfully he drops this, It should come in handy on someone like Draug or Abel. Maybe Caeda. So the maps over, and a r e n a  Let’s talk about...the Arena.  The Arena is a recurring feature in Fire Emblem games. It was absent for the Gamecube duology and made its comeback here. I could explain it all, but let’s allow our friend the Fightmonger to start off.   Entering the Arena allows you to wager your gold in a simple betting system, double or nothing. The higher the wager, the tougher the foe you’ll be up against.  This is important. You can hit B to cancel a fight, but ONLY after a turn is complete, AKA both units have finished attacking. This is important because a death in the Arena is a real death, meaning you will lose that unit. Losing 900 gold or so is way better than a death, so stay on that B button.  You always strike first in the arena, so mathematically there was no way for Cain to lose here (Unless 100% isn't REALLY 100% and haha that would be ridiculous). Easy money. The arena also provides you with a basic weapon for your class, so you can’t bring the Killing Edge in or anything.  Why, yes, this is potential infinite gold, and more importantly, infinite EXP. The enemies also scale to the challenger’s level. However, you always run the risk of dying, so use of the save points is a great idea. Some people stay at the Arena for hours to get some maxed out units before the game even really gets started. I’m not going to be doing that, because I don’t want to break the game. Plus it’d be boring. I will use them, though.  Oh, after winning, you can fight again, but since you’re probably low on HP, I wouldn’t do that unless you just didn’t get hit or something. It does allow you to chain more battles in one turn, though.  Healing up injured Arena fighters is also a great way to grind levels on your healers.  This was a B button. When I said you get the first strike, I meant JUST the first strike, no doubles. Also, Navorbop couldn’t double this Pegasus Knight anyway. Retreat and live to fight again.  You do lose the cash, though, but it’s not that bad.  : We’ve saved up 5,000 gold and poured our prayers into every coin. Please, use this money to answer them.Oh, there was also that other village, but it was so uneventful I missed the Screencap. My bad.  I went ahead and used the Arena to get Cain closer to Abel in levels. I might reclass one of them soon because my god we have so many Cavs.  Banarre also did some grinding here, and even finished with a stylish crit.  That is so not worthy of a stylish crit! Anyway  : You’ll find Captain Hardin protecting the king and the lady Nyna at the Northern Fortress, located in Aurelis. When you find him, please be sure to give him this silver sword. Nice. I guess we’ll have to give that to Captain Hardin next time. I’m sure we’ll love him.  Next time: cavalier cavalier cavalier Bonus Content! This was Dark Mage Cord’s debut, although his card is a bit dated now that we’ve reclassed him. So here’s Julian instead. 
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Dec 19, 2016 04:43
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chiasaur11 posted:Fun fact: Sully's daughter Kjelle was initially meant to be a myrm before they realized, hey, maybe we should have more than one knight in the game and also we have three myrmidons already. Huh. That's interesting, because I thought "Kjelle" was supposed to be pronounced like "Shelly", and it was like a pun based on her being a knight? Of course they could have just changed the name, or I could be totally wrong. FoolyCharged posted:Off the top of my head you can empty level in: I know it's also possible at least in FE4, I don't know about 5, but with all the other poo poo Thracia 776 apparently pulls I'd be baffled if they safeguarded you against empty levels.
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Dec 19, 2016 23:34
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:I gave up on Shadow Dragon when I got Merric to level 5 or 6 without a single magic level I haven't been able to read the words "magic level" in two or so years without feeling a deep pain somewhere within my chest. Rabbi Raccoon posted:It's funny how the Lords in this series end up being either your best character or you're worst. I remember in Artix's LP he ended up with a Hector that only had like, 13 strength. On Hector Hard Mode. Marth kinda has this weird issue where he's usually just going to turn out...okay? But you're forced to use him. Thankfully there's nothing like Roy being locked off from promoting until near the end (Marth just doesn't promote and gets to Level 30 instead.). Also, unlike the sequel, you do get his superweapon before the literal last map. RareAcumen posted:This would explain my army and it's serious speed problems. It's so weird seeing people go without gaining any HP for five levels. Especially if you bounce between that and Awakening. I've been playing Awakening while I play this game and it's really night and day sometimes. Both with the levels being different, to the point where it's kinda hard to find a BAD character in Awakening, and the amount of personality/dialogue, like theshim mentioned. I know I harp on it a lot, but yeah, Shadow Dragon's biggest issue really is that it's like the vanilla of Fire Emblems. It's a remake so maybe it's French Vanilla.
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Dec 21, 2016 12:57
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Chapter 5: The Catastrophic Cavalier Cavalcade (Prep) Welcome back to Fire Emblem. Last time we arrived in Aurelis and defeated...some guys? I think they were from Macedon? We also got Matthis and everyone was sad.  Much like a lot of the chapters in Shadow Dragon, there’s unfortunately not too much different between this and the preceding chapter. In the original remake in FE3 Chapter 4 was actually cut completely.  I’m gonna be real with you here, map, that looks more like mountains than plains.  (Hint: It involves that guy with the goodass turban) : but only by some miracle. By the time Marth arrived in Aurelis, much of its territory had already been carved up by Dolhr’s ally Macedon. Still, the king’s younger brother, Hardin, refused to give up without a fight. The people called him Coyote, and he intended to live up to the name.I’m not entirely sure what coyotes are famous enough for to be a name to live up to. I’ve always just kinda thought of them as shittier wolves? : Since its founding, Aurelis and the holy kingdom of Archanea shared close ties and months ago Princess Nyna of Archanea had come to Hardin’s aid. By his side, she had called on the people to fight- but few remained to answer. Macedon’s finest soldiers were closing in. Nyna knew they were out of time…So, for clarification, yeah, Archanea the country and Archanea the continent are separate things. I’m not sure why this decision was made. But Archanea (country) is considered the most important of the kingdoms, so that’s something.  Get familiar with this screen. This is going to be a fairly short Prep update, because I honestly didn’t do much here!  We’re stuck with only 10 units to choose this time, because we’ll be getting a ton of new characters on this map. One of them is even good. But regardless, I’ll probably bench Darros and sub in someone else, otherwise this layout looks pretty solid.  Hunter Draug was recommended in the thread, so I’m going to try him out a bit this chapter, since it’s not really one that’s great for turtling up. It’s not one that’s great for bows either, but hey...padding the update.  This is yet another “Start in the southeast, go northwest” map, but we’ll have a few other issues to deal with.  There’s a village to the North, but we also get introduced to Macedon’s “gimmick”, flying units. Thankfully there’s just one here, and she’s pretty flimsy.  Also the Pope is in town.  Also a scattershot of additional units near the objective. There’s nothing particularly threatening here except the Thief, who needs to go down before he destroys that village.  Also, I’m just going to spoil it, some new units will join us down here on the first turn, and we’ll have to hold out to the south with them.  This boss has a hilarious forehead and disgusting Defense. Thankfully we have a Mage and that’s a Resistance score of Zero. Also he’s not ranged. Shouldn’t be too bad. Bonus Content So, as you might have noticed, the Prep updates can be...a little dry. So I’m choosing these as a spot to add some of the Base Conversations from FE12. This is a little out of order, because technically these take place AFTER the events of this game, but it adds more personality and character to a lot of the units in this game. So I felt like it was a worthy sacrifice. Something Incredibly Dangerous (Bord/Cord 1)  : Oh! There y’are, Cord. : What’s it now, Bord?: Somebody mistook me for you, AGAIN!: Wha…! Who was it!? I’ll take care of ‘em. Tell me!: Err… Huh, who was it again?: Hey! Gimme a break. Man... You're really slow. You're like my complete opposite.: What!? What about you? Hitting things without caring what happens. Faster doesn't mean better!: What...! ......Show it. Today, we're gonna prove who's the better one!: Yeah, bring it! Don't come cryin' to me later!: Heh, that's MY line, buddy. I'mma force you into an early retirement!: Did I just... hear something incredibly dangerous...?And that was when Marth witnessed his first murder. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Dec 24, 2016 |
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Dec 24, 2016 11:19
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