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 Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, is the eighth entry in the Fire Emblem series of tactical RPGs from Nintendo. It was the third and final FE on the GBA, before the series returned to its console roots with Path Of Radiance on the GameCube. Notably, it is a weird little game, often derided for a few years after its release by fans who didn’t like some of the decisions it made. The basic play cycle of Sacred Stones is very similar to other games in the series, especially its GBA contemporaries, but it contains some features that are usually never seen in FE games. A world map with grinding opportunities, a faction of monstrous units, and split promotions, things unseen since the (other) series black sheep, Fire Emblem Gaiden. If all of that sounds familiar to you, it’s because Sacred Stones fits the definition of “vindicated by history”. These oddball elements would later be incorporated into the game that is often cited as saving the series, critical and fan darling Fire Emblem: Awakening. Sacred Stones remains a bit of an outlier, still the only game with zero plot ties to any other FE, but it deserves its time in the spotlight. What’s this LP, though? Oh, yeah. So hi, I’m Hippoman, and a wizard cursed me to LP the handheld Fire Emblem games, backwards. This is going to be a Mostly 100% LP. What that means is that I’ll be covering each and every map, recruiting all of the game’s characters, and completing both possible routes at the game’s route split. We will be playing on Hard Mode, and all of the characters will survive to the end. I can’t guarantee I’ll get all the non-canon bonus characters, because that’s a lot of offscreen grinding, but they will, at the very least, be described with statblocks and profiles. Some updates will include bonus Support conversations and/or Cipher artwork. Temporary Note: Right now, I’m also working on another LP, so updates for this may come slower than usual with my FE threads. This should let up once I finish my other project. I was just really in the mood to play SS again. Will there be thread voting? You bet! In Sacred Stones, almost every character that promotes can promote into one of two classes. These decisions will, of course, be made by the folks at home. I’ll also be needing a decision on which character’s route is “canon” later in the game, as I can do both, but the experience and items from only one will count in the end. Thread Rules? 1. Put story spoilers in tags! I know this game is old enough that even Nintendo spoils it in the mobile game, but I want to respect it at least a little bit for people who want to enjoy the plot as it goes along. 2. I know about the Eirika and Ephraim theory. It’s weird and I don’t want the thread to derail talking about it. Disgusting.jpg whatever. I want other Fire Emblem LPs! The LP Archive is chock full of ‘em! Go check that out. Blastinus did a great LP of this game, which you should definitely read once I muck up this one. Moulder? the boulder Table Of Contents Prologue: Rising From A Fall Chapter 1: Wario's Woods Chapter 2: Axe Me Anything Chapter 3: Another Brick In The Wall Chapter 4: The Priest, The Prodigy, and the Putrefied Corpse (Prep) Chapter 4: The Priest, The Prodigy, and the Putrefied Corpse (Battle) Chapter 5: Serafeud (Prep) Chapter 5: Serafeud (Battle) Chapter 5x: Castle Crashers (Prep) Chapter 5x: Castle Crashers (Battle) Chapter 6: That Part With The Big Spider (Prep) Fan Art  Vilkacis immediately improves Hansel's character about 18 maps before he ever actually shows up in the game.   Moulder needed little improvement but it is provided anyway.  I think this is an anime reference but I only watch Yugioh and Jojo's so this must be dragonball?  Gilliam is not intimidating, and is a beautiful man who just wants to hold his flowers.  New Wave Jose will never let go.   Grizzwold and Megane might have edited Lute here but I honestly can't tell, she looks normal to me.  Camel Pimp buffed Ross.  vilkacis presents a challenger. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Jul 6, 2018 |
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May 25, 2018 07:17
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Prologue: Rising From A Fall Well, this is a familiar sight.  And so is this! Could it be another Archanean adventure, with our beloved Prince Marth and his friends?  No, forget that, we’re going to this continent now.   STARRING: BOGO Protagonists!  Hatvarre!  The Best Character!  A Mysterious Tablet!  Game Imbalance!  Impossible Haircut Dragon!  Spooky Tablet!   And the Not-Yet-Important-Enough-To-Be-In-Heroes duo.  Can they overcome their perilous ancient foes?  Probably. It’s Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones! This was the last English Fire Emblem game I played, before the 3DS games came out. It doesn’t hold as dear a place in my heart as its predecessor, Blazing Sword, but I still enjoy it. I know Sacred Stones can be a somewhat contentious game, but I think it’s a quality piece of work that I’d like to show off.  And, to do that, we’ve got to start from the beginning.  Already here’s one of the most controversial bits of Sacred Stones, the difficulty. This game has a reputation for being too easy. I sort of agree, though there are some mid-game chapters that are absolutely cruel. The game overall doesn’t provide quite the challenge most other FEs do. To help try and mitigate that, I’ll be playing on Difficult, the hardest available difficulty. They haven’t come up with Maniac yet, give them another game.  In its despair, mankind appealed to the heavens, and from a blinding light came hope.  The heavens literally just threw rocks at mankind.  The hero Grado and his warriors used the Sacred Stones to combat evil’s darkness. They defeated the Demon King and sealed his soul away within the stones. With the darkness imprisoned, peace returned to Magvel.   The Sacred Stones have been passed from generation to generation. Nations have been built around their power and their legacy. This is another one of those fantasy worlds where leadership qualifications mostly include “my grandpa owned a really cool magic rock”.  His class is not Warrior.  His class is not Sage.  Okay, you get a break.  The Divine Emperor must possess a forehead shiny enough to reflect the gods.    I love how they slip Carcino in here. It’s the exposition equivalent of “Special Guest Star: These guys!” They didn’t even name their leader here! In times of peace, tales of the past conflict have drifted into legend, and memories of the ancient dark arts have all but evaporated. It is now the year 803… In an instant, the whole of Magvel is threatened by an unexpected atrocity. The Grado Empire, the largest of the Sacred Stones nations, has invaded the kingdom of Renais under orders from Emperor Vigarde.  I like how Fado looks kind of annoyed at the narration in his portrait. “I mounted a little resistance!”    Gotta suck to be one of those two mounted units stuck marching with the beefy armored guy halfway across the drat continent.  That seems a little pessimistic. Maybe with some superior tactics, we can save Renais!  Or, I mean, maybe not.    : The castle gate has been breached. Emperor Vigarde’s forces are within the castle walls. : I understand.: The garrison has fallen. We’ve lost contact with Prince Ephraim and can expect no aid from his men. Your majesty, what are we to do? : Order your men to lay down their arms.I see two perfectly good Knights and two Generals outside. You guys could easily chokepoint this room, just saying.  : Eirika. Are you wearing the bracelet I gave you?It’s nice that King Dad is so concerned about his daughter’s accessorizing that he’s willing to stop and ask in the middle of a conquest.  : Yes, I have it right here.: Good. Seth. : Take Eirika and head for Frelia. King Hayden is an honorable man. I trust he will keep you safe. : Understood. And what of Your Majesty?: Me? I shall remain here. We have long held Grado among our dearest allies, yet now, they attack? I must know why.This seems like something you do when the war starts, not when it’s about to end in a crushing defeat.   Nevertheless, Fado’s a little  about this whole situation, and I can’t say I blame him.: Father, you can’t stay! You mustn’t! If you remain behind, then so shall I!: Go now, Seth! Ride! Take her to safety! Seth’s sprite kinda tramples Eirika’s here. It’s supposed to be him grabbing her and pulling her onto the horse, but GBA sprite limitations are a thing.  : Forgive me, your highness. Seth gallops off, along with that other horseman who just didn’t get a line in this scene.  And the room fills with Grado’s goons. I’m kinda thankful they aren’t making me do this battle.    : Franz, ride ahead and bring word of our coming to Frelia. A single rider has better odds of passing unseen by Grado’s men. Convey to the throne all that has happened here and petition for reinforcements. : U-understood!  Well, they don’t look friendly  Definitely not friendly.  : Well, this must be my lucky day. You’re a dead man. The wench goes with me.: Never! Oh poo poo, combat time!  This is a way cooler line than Valter deserves, to be honest.  I’ll be explaining the basics of Fire Emblem combat later, for the unfamiliar. This is just a cutscene, but we can already see that Seth’s in a lot of trouble. He at least does a decent amount of damage.  welp  It went clean through his horse! : Ahhh… No! Still, can’t underestimate that Paladin movement.  : How entertaining. Fly away, little man. Try to outrun death. More time to savor the hunt… and the kill. Valter can fly, so there’s honestly no excuse for him not to catch up here. I think he’s just lazy.  : If we’ve made it this far, we’ve surely earned a moment’s rest. Please forgive my grabbing you so… brusquely earlier.: Don’t be foolish, Seth. If it weren’t for you, I would never have made it out of the castle. You are the reason I’m still alive. You have my gratitude. And whoever that man was, he was clearly after me…He introduced himself by screaming his name and his title, Eirika. I’m pretty sure he’s   : It’s my fault that you received such a grave wound. Allow me to treat it, I-: Your highness, I can’t allow an injury like this to be an obstacle. We have more important matters to attend to. We must press on to Frelia. We must fulfill His Majesty’s wishes.It was only 17 HP, swig a Concoction and that enormous lance shaped wound will disappear in no time.  : And what of my brother on the Grado front? We’ve heard nothing from him in days.: King Fado and Prince Ephraim are both valiant and brave men. I doubt even the might of the Grado Empire can hold them in check. More important to me, Your Highness, is that you look to your own safety. How sad the two of them would be if something were to happen to you. We must reach Frelia to ensure the day of your happy reunion.: Yes, of course. You’re right. Until I’m reunited with my father and brother, I must not despair. Come, Seth, let us go. I guess getting to Frelia will bring Honor to Us All. : Let us proceed, Princess Eirika. Your highness, I won’t lie to you. This will not be an easy ride. Please, take this rapier. If something should happen to me, you must continue to Frelia, alone if need be.Frelia is like 10 steps away, Seth.  This, however, I certainly won’t turn down.  Especially not now. We’ve got company.  : Grado’s men. Stand back, Princess Eirika.: It’s all right, Seth. My brother has taught me something of swordplay. I will stand with you. Oh hey, it’s gameplay time! I’m going to explain the basics, so if you’re a series fan or you’ve read other LPs, you can probably safely skim this next bit.  Fire Emblem plays out on a turn-based grid. The player moves all of their units, then the enemy moves theirs, and so on. Right now, we have only two units, Seth and Eirika, and the chapter ends when we defeat the enemy Boss, the unit with the shield on him. Let’s take a look at Eirika.  Eirika is a Lord, an exclusive class for main characters. If a Lord dies in combat, you get a Game Over. If you lose anyone else, they are permanently killed! Don’t worry about that little Light symbol for now, it just denotes that Eirika is of the Light affinity. More on that later. Let’s talk about Base Stats. These are the stats the unit has when it joins. There are nine numerical stats. HP is your life gauge. Strength (or Magic for Magical units) is added to the Might score of your weapon to determine your attack damage. Skill helps decide your chance to hit in battle and score critical hits for triple damage. Speed effects dodge chance, and determines if the character will strike the enemy twice in battle. (Speed >or= Enemy Speed +4) We call it "doubling". Luck affects your chance to dodge in battle, and lowers enemy crit rate. Defense is subtracted from the damage of enemy physical attacks. Resistance is Defense, but for magical attacks. Constitution is a dumb stat that determines if equipping heavy weapons will slow your effective speed in battle or not. If the weapon’s weight is more than your Con, the difference is deducted from your speed when the game determines if you double/get doubled/dodge. Constitution cannot increase through level ups. Movement is how many squares your character can move. Movement cannot increase through level ups. The last stat I have on that sheet is Weapon Rank. There are many types of weapons in Fire Emblem, but Eirika here can only use Swords, and right now, only those that are E Rank or below (but there is nothing below E Rank). Using a weapon will get you experience in that area, and eventually allow you to use better weapons. As a character, Eirika is a pretty effective Lord! Her greatest weakness is her low durability, making her vulnerable to enemy attacks, but she can dish out damage and dodge in a pinch. She’ll stay fairly relevant throughout the whole game.  Seth over here is also on our team, though he’s a bit beaten up from his encounter with .Now, if you’re familiar with Fire Emblem, but not this game, you’ve probably got Seth pegged as a Jagen. See, traditionally, Fire Emblem games will give you a very powerful Paladin towards the beginning of the game, but they have terrible growth rates in their stats and suck up experience like a vacuum, meaning that if you overuse them, you get stuck with one eventually lovely unit and a bunch of underleveled suckers. These are named “Jagens” after the first example, the titular Sir Jagen, Greatest Hero Of Altea. Now, Seth…  Seth is like Jagen but if you take out all the bad parts. Seth is broken to a degree that puts him on a pedestal near characters like FE10 Haar and Ike or FE14 Xander. Not only is he extremely strong now, his solid growths will keep him afloat for the entire game. He doesn’t excel in anything later, but right now, he excels at EVERYTHING.  So Eirika will confront these Fighters.  Seth will leave and not interfere in this chapter again. While he is great, he earns very little EXP from fighting these low level enemies. This will be much more beneficial going to Eirika.  On their first turn, the first Fighter swings for Eirika and misses. You can see the Hit Rates, Crit Chances, and Damage the units will inflict on this screen in combat.  Not only does Eirika strike back, she does so twice! She’s fast enough to double this foe, dealing 14 (Eirika’s Attack Value-his Defense, multiplied by two)damage to his dumb mug.  On her next turn, I choose not to have Eirika attack. If I do, the bandit stands a chance at hitting her, since you always attack first in battle on your turn. Then, when she kills him, if the other bandit hit, he’d kill her. I know that’s me planning around less than a 25% chance, but that’s pretty key in Fire Emblem. Ask the playthrough of this map that I lost to pretty much that exact problem.  He doesn’t hit, but he could have!  And, as expected, his buddy moves in to avenge his death.  You might be wondering why Eirika seems to have such an advantage here. Well, part of it is that these are tutorial goons. Another part is the Weapon Triangle! Melee weapons adhere to a Rock-Paper-Scissors style Triangle in Fire Emblem. Swords beat Axes, Axes beat Lances, Lances beat Swords. Magic has a similar Triangle, Light beats Dark, Dark beats Anima, Anima beats Light. Having advantage gives you bonuses to damage and accuracy, so it’s always good to try and keep the upper hand.  That chump didn’t last long, and now we’re onto the boss.  Speaking of advantage, let’s grab some in the form of Terrain. Since this is a Forest tile, Eirika will gain 1 Defense and an extra 20% added to her dodge chance if she’s occupying it.  I have her go there and use this Vulnerary from her inventory. Vulneraries have 3 uses (which I foolishly blocked with a text box in this shot. Oops) and restore 10 HP.  Right as rain! Bring on the boss. Most bosses don’t move.   O’Neill here is an exception.   Yes, the Fighter animation is that good. I love it.  You can use the R button on a unit to examine their stats and inventory. Poor O’Neill here seems to have zero luck. Huh.  Again, I didn’t attack here. O’Neill stood the chance of hitting Eirika here, then hitting her again on his turn, which would have been fatal. This is a pretty basic tactic for fighting bosses in these games.  This time I do. When you’re about to attack, you can see this combat forecast. Let’s bring it home.  Eirika even pops a crit to finish him off, dealing 30 damage to his poor remaining 4 HP. That’s a little cruel, Eirika, but I appreciate the initiative.   Bosses are worth a lot of experience. Enough for a level up!  Level Ups in this game are somewhat randomized. Each time you level up, the character has a chance at gaining a point in all their stats. Whether or not they do is determined by their growth rates, character-based percentages that are rolled each level up. Eirika hit her HP (70%), Skill (60%), Luck (60%), and Defense (30%). That Defense is a really nice roll, I’ll need that in the chapters to come, and it’s a bit hard to come by on Eirika. Map Complete!  They don’t have a screen for that in this one. I might have to make my own.  : What? Oh, no...I’m fine, Seth.: But you look so pale…: I’m fine… Fine. …This is war, isn’t it? : I never thought-I didn’t know it would be this...savage. Are words useless? Is strength all that matters? It’s so sad… Why would the Grado Empire do this? To what end would they start a war?I do like this bit a lot. It sets up Eirika’s character very well, especially in contrast to a certain other blue haired lord...in this game. I just realized how vague that could have been. : Princess…: ...Don’t worry, Seth. I won’t give in to sorrow. Let’s get moving. I’m not broken, and I won’t stop until I see Renais restored. Well, we’ve got a goal.  Next time we’ll get the hell out of Renais. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 20:34 on May 25, 2018 |
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May 25, 2018 07:17
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Torrannor posted:I swear I've read at least two Sacred Stones LPs on SA, but none by LordHippoman, so this will still be great. Much appreciated. I know SS is a fairly heavily covered game, but I haven't seen an LP make it all the way to completion in my time on the forums, so I decided to take a swing at it. And don't worry, there will be Con Complaints. Torrannor posted:I can't recall my Fire Emblems any more, is Best Character named Larchesis (sp?) or something like that? L'Arachel<-Name Spoilers if that like, bothers anybody. Lachesis is in FE4. Dance Officer posted:Stock gba fire emblem isn't very interesting anymore, imo. This is a totally valid opinion! I did toy with the idea of a challenge run of some sort, but I personally have never been a huge fan of them and tend to burn out. I also wanted to keep the LP fairly "basic", so if there are people reading who aren't familiar with FE in general, it would be pretty simple to process. I think there's a market for a more complex FE8 LP, I just don't think I'm the one to do it. If you want a really impressive LP that deals more with the technical aspects of the game, I'd recommend Melth's FE7 LP, or if mods are more your thing, Vilkacis' FE6 run is a thing of beauty. I'm overjoyed that you're here to establish a fan art section in like the fourth post, thank you again.  vilkacis posted:(Might I suggest flipping the character portraits so they face the text?) Whoops. Forgot a step in the portrait prep. Going to replace those files in just a minute here. Rabbi Raccoon posted:Imagine my surprise when not everyone got 4-5 stats every level up in that one. Years of DS Fire Emblem have made me embrace these levels with actual stats like they are water in a desert. My practice run Eirika did manage to get a 1 Point level in this map, though. After dodging every hit in the map. Luck is a non-renewable resource.
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May 25, 2018 12:50
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ZeButler posted:Also, I humbly request that we get gifs of crit animations, or at least the flashier ones, because they're one of the most satisfying/infuriating parts of playing Fire Emblem. I would love to. I'm on a new setup and it's currently having some issues with GifCam, but I agree that a lot of the crit animations in the GBA games are lovely. I'll do my best here. Scrap Dragon posted:Aw yeah, ground floor on a Hippoman FE LP Thanks, I forgot that was a thing in this game! Been playing too much Heroes, I no longer know what Dodge Chance is.
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May 25, 2018 20:37
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Wow, the feedback so far is good! Thanks for that! Fair warning, though, my update pace is likely to be a little slow, because this is currently kind of a secondary LP, and I do need to show some love to the primary one. RBA Starblade posted:For some reason I could 100% FE7 with no difficulties or real fatalities but in Sacred Stones it was a murdermill for my troops. I ended up with half of them dead and holding out for the next npc of the class that just died. I didn't grind much until it was too late. While Sacred Stones is, I think, easier overall than FE7, it has a few maps that can pretty easily take you by surprise and ruin your day. Mostly talking about Ghost Ship and Father And Son, which are massive spikes that can easily get a lot of your guys wiped out. Booky posted:FE8 was my first FE, so i'm real excited for this LP! though con was a garbage stat that no one misses. I don't have personal access to the OST, unfortunately, and I don't really want to embed stuff from a stranger's Youtube channel. Sorry! Explopyro posted:But hey, it's not like it's Shadow Dragon or anything. Somewhere Marth is weeping.
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May 26, 2018 20:41
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Carcino is the Pyrathi of obscure Fire Emblem locations.
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May 27, 2018 00:25
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Chapter 1: Wario’s Woods Well, Eirika’s got a lot of work to do before she can save her family, and none of that is going to happen if she gets impaled by Valter. So let’s escape to Frelia.  But things aren’t exactly great there either, apparently.   Milady, we lack the arms to defend this place. You must return to Castle Frelia. I can’t! Not yet. We haven’t found Eirika and her companions yet. Eirika is my friend, and she needs my help. I won’t abandon her. I know this is a matter of formality, but I like to assume that Blue Soldier thinks “Princess Tana” is just a title she gave herself and he’s begrudgingly accepted it. Yes, your Highness! Eirika, please be safe. And he rides off, leaving that one mercenary guy to defend the castle. Oh boy.   With that mustard armor, butt chin, and mustache, I think we’ve found out whose side Wario is on.  What are your orders, sir? Ha! Orders? You just stand here and watch. I’ll crush them myself! As you command, sir. Breguet’s 1% Crit here is impressive, but scripted.  Sorry, Green Guy. You never stood a chance.  WARIO’S NUMBER ONE!  And so the Grado forces spread across the map. Lovely.  (the blink animation has returned from its grave) Call off your forces and turn back, or you’ll have me to deal with! Is that so? And who might you be? Who-? I am Tana, Princess of Frelia. I will not permit you to abuse my country any longer. Frelia’s royal brat, huh? How convenient… Leave this castle immediately. If you harm me, my father and brother will chase you to the earth’s end.Breguet’s a knight, wouldn’t be that hard. Yes, I’ve heard of how King Hayden dotes on his precious little daughter. Let’s see how true that is. You’ll make us a fine hostage, my dear. Seize the girl and lock her up! I know we saw it last time, but I just noticed this game handles having three portraits on screen just fine. Yet Shadow Dragon and New Mystery had to constantly swap. Fire Emblem develops backwards. No! Let me go!  Princess, this place is perilous. We should bypass Mulan altogether and head straight to the castle. But we can’t just ignore this… You were there when Renais was invaded… You saw what I saw. You saw how the people suffered at the hands of Grado’s soldiers. Homes were destroyed, possessions stolen, women kidnapped… Anyone who resisted was executed without question, without hesitation.Either there was a bit of a time skip or those ten steps to Frelia in the last map were some real hardcore steps. … Please, Seth. I can’t allow that to happen here. I don’t want to see any more people harmed by Grado’s atrocities. All right, Princess. I understand. Perhaps we can retake Mulan. But, Princess, you must act with caution. Your people need you, too. Of course, Seth. Come on! Let’s go! This map has a new objective type, “Seize”. We’ll need to get our Lord (Eirika) onto that tile Breguet’s parked himself on.  But first, we’ll chat up a villager.   It looks like they’ve seized the castle gate, too. Smart work--the gate provides defense and heals wounds to boot. They must be fierce warriors to have taken the gate. Watch yourself.There was one guy there. Houses in this game provide advice or little story tidbits. They’re made to be missable, so there’s not really any great reason to try and hunt them all down. I’ll try and show a few off, though.  One other nice thing about houses is that they provide 10 Avoidance. Let’s park Eirika here to lure out the far right Fighter.  Time to talk about Weapon Stats. Weapons are a big part of Fire Emblem, and using them effectively can turn a battle to your favor. The number right next to the weapon’s name is its durability. Ater 31 more hits, Eirika’s Rapier will break forever. It’s good to conserve uses on valuable weapons, so keep this in mind! Normally there would be a rank next to “Sword” there, but this is a Prf (Preferred? I legit don’t know) weapon. That means a certain character, and only that character, can wield it. For Eirika that’s the rapier. Range indicates the number of tiles it can hit from. Weight is basically a “minimum Con”, you can wield weapons with more weight than you have Constitution, but they’ll slow you down. Might is added to your character’s attack stat (Strength or Magic) Hit is added to their hit rate. Crit is...added to their Crit rate. Some weapons possess special properties. The Rapier does, but it’s...not that. This is kind of a bizarre goof, and I’m not sure if it’s in the JP version. The Rapier does “Effective Damage” (Triple) against enemies who are armored or on horses. Not infantry.  Seth is just going to hide out of the way on this map again. You might notice the “Rescue” command here. An unmounted unit can “Rescue” another character, so long as they have a higher Constitution. For mounted rescuers, 25-Con has to be higher than the target's Con to rescue them. Unless you’re a Mounted Lady. Then it’s 20-Constitution because Con Is Silly. Rescuing someone briefly takes them off the map and lets them be “carried” around by the rescuer, but it incurs stat penalties. We’ll see that at work later, but for now, Seth doesn’t have to do anything.  Ha ha! It really is my lucky day! Fame and fortune ride to meet me! Move on, you slugs! Bring that girl to me! Whoosh! Good thing Eirika was hiding in some guy’s kitchen.  After the Fighter’s unsuccessful strike, our second turn begins, and some allies appear from the north.   But look-the countryside is crawling with Grado soldiers! Where’s the castle guard! Has Mulan fallen? Are we too late? Too tough to say from here. Princess Tana’s in no danger if they want her as a bargaining tool. We men of the Eastern Watch will see her to safety. Yes...Yes, of course. We mustn’t give up. We must retake the castle. Then, we ride forth to Princess Eirika’s aid.This is probably a bad time to mention I hear all of Franz’s lines in OVA Gordin’s voice. I’m sorry. I’ve stronger armor then you do. I’ll take the lead. Watch my back. And we now have control of Franz and Gilliam. They’ve got some enemies nearby, so let’s take them down.  Gilliam is an archetypical Knight. His HP and Defense growths are the clear standouts, and while they do take a tax on his other growths, it’s not a crippling one, simply being as big of a wall as Gil is a credit. That awful Speed will hurt him, but Gilliam can be a useful ally against physical foes, and he packs a decent punch. I like him well enough.  Gilliam comes with a single Iron Lance. Iron is a light and easy to wield type of weapon (D Rank), but it doesn't have much might. The tiers go Slim-Iron-Steel-Silver, by the way, at least where Swords and Lances are concerned. As you progress to "better" weapons, you'll generally gain Weight, but the added Might makes it almost always worth it.  Gilliam cannot double even the basic Soldiers on this map, a class so lovely they aren’t even playable, but they do almost no damage to that mint green behemoth.  We also snagged Franz.  Franz starts out a tiny bit weaker than our other units, but he’s certainly no slouch. The Cavalier is known for its high movement, but Franz can get a pretty high everything. Defense and Resistance aside, he has solid growths in every stat, and coming in at Level 1 and this early in the game gives him ample room to grow. Franz can become one of the most powerful fighters in the game, and he’ll outperform Seth in the late game. He does require more effort to use, though.  I decided to use the sword to finish this goon off, because there’s a nearby Fighter, and you can’t re-equip weapons after your attack, you’re stuck with whatever you struck with.  Unfortunately the game outsmarted me, and I didn’t realize the soldier was in range.  It didn’t really matter, Franz still doubled him for the one round kill.  The fighter instead went for Gilliam, which was a good choice.  Again, not that it saved him. It’s good to give Franz both kills here, he needs the EXP more than his knightly friend.  Eirika also puts an end to her opponent in the southeast corner.   Well, I don’t know what I did to please the RNG, but it has rewarded me.  This is also great.  Another thing units can do on their turns is Trade items. (Note the Fighter trying to hide behind the menu to sneak attack Franz. What a trickster.)  Seth relinquishes his Steel Sword to Eirika. It’s not as good as the Rapier on her, but I want to conserve Rapier uses, considering we’ve already burned through nearly half of it. Were I really trying to be tricky here, I’d take the Rapier off her entirely, which bypasses the whole attack locking your equipped weapon thing and automatically gives her the Steel Sword. But I forgot to do that.  Franz wounds the approaching Fighter.  This is a good day.  I could let Gilliam take out the rest of the Fighter’s HP, but he’s already at Level 4 with 20 Experience (nice). Franz is only Lv 2.  Go, my dorky hawk of vengeance.  Gilliam took an axe to the gut earlier, so I move him on to this Fort tile. The Fort not only has those nice terrain bonuses you can see in the bottom right, it heals any unit standing on it at the start of their turn.  Sometimes you’ll be able to trigger a conversation between units in battle. Here’s Eirika and Franz for this map.  Franz, you made it through unscathed… Y-yes, Your Highness! I met up with Sir Gilliam of Frelia and explained the situation in Renais. He told me that Princess Tana was in danger as well, here at Mulan. We rode as swiftly as we could.Picture Gilliam dashing full force through a field, keeping up with Franz, sparks shooting from his heels. Tana is here? Franz, we must hurry! Understood! Seth also has a conversation to be had.  Y-yes… and you as well, General. As long as you lead us, sir, the Knights of Renais cannot lose! Franz, you and I must work together to protect Princess Eirika. I want you to ride with us. Sir! With honor, sir! However, at the end of that turn, trouble shows up.  These are reinforcements, a recurring concept in this game. Additional enemies will sometimes appear from the borders of a map, or forts or stairs or things like that. Thankfully, they cannot move on their initial turn, so you have time to react. Unlike in SOME Fire Emblems.  The Fort patches Gilliam up. Look at him celebrate!  Here’s a nice feature, the ability to hover over an enemy and see their range. Unfortunately you can’t toggle it showing permanently yet, but this is enough information to tell me where to place my units.  These fighters have garbage stats, and so does the soldier, so our weaker allies should be able to down them easily enough.  Franz and Eirika take up countering positions.  And Gilliam heads to slay the final Soldier.   Both fighters get doubled down...and I continue to slowly chip away at my Rapier. Uh. Whoops.   Franz and Gilliam also make short work of their foes, and there’s nothing left but Breguet himself.  Not that he’s a pushover. That Gate is by far the best defensive tile on the map. In addition to those bonuses, it also heals him like a fort.  He can also hit pretty hard, and 9 Defense is walling out a lot of damage. So, how to deal with him?  Remember when I said the Rapier was effective against armored units? Guess what our pal Wario is.  But, again, I don’t attack on my turn. If Eirika didn’t kill him, the counter would bring her low enough to die on this turn. Patience is a wise choice.  He doesn’t have the same idea I do.   Meanwhile Breguet’s butterfingers are going to make me look like an overprepared chump.  Eirika crit him so hard the game doesn’t even want to show you. (Sorry, bad screenshot timing on my part.)  I’mma gonna win?  This is a pretty drat good Eirika, y’all.  Now that the map is clear, I have our heroes huddle up in a box.  Then I turn Autocursor off.  Then I spam the (end turn) button.  Until we hit Turn 50. I promise this has a purpose, I’ll explain it later, but we already had two mechanics dumps in this update.   Sir Gilliam… I’m sorry, I never meant to cause you such trouble. It was no trouble. I live to serve, Princess. …Eirika?!? Is that really you? Tana, what are you doing so far from Castle Frelia? I heard that Renais had fallen, and I was so worried… But I’m glad to see that you’re safe… Wait! Where is Ephraim? Is he well? I wish I knew. You haven’t heard from him? Oh, I hope he’s not been harmed… Come, we must go to Castle Frelia. My lord father may know something. Thank you, Tana. Here’s our first glimpse at the World Map. We can’t do anything here yet, though, because the game quickly segues into another scene.     : You’ve no idea how I worried when I heard you were under attack at Border Mulan. You are not to leave again without my permission. Do you understand? Don’t be mad, Father.  I like to imagine Eirika was just hiding behind Tana’s back and she just leapt out and did jazz hands or something. Ah, Eirika! It does my heart good to see you safe. Thank you. I was able to escape the castle before Renais fell. But I’m not sure if my father… Yes what? I… have received word of your father. Your Highness? Please tell me. Is my father well? This is devastating news and all, and while I do invite you to now start making guesses on how many of those leaders we saw in the intro will live until the end, there is a more pressing concern in this shot.  ...You know, we don’t KNOW exactly where Tana was when Fado died. I’m just saying. We didn’t see WHO killed him, but I present Exhibit A in my case. ...No, it cannot be… ……. Rest assured, Grado will be punished for its cowardly act. This is Frelia’s promise. Eirika, please stay here and rest. I cannot imagine how exhausted you must be. …… King Hayden. You know of Prince Ephraim’s disappearance, do you not? Yes, we hear the prince and his men hound Grado at every turn. It’s said that he’s led his forces into the empire itself. Reports suggest he’s crossed the border and now fights in Renvall. My brother… He fights on? Even now? Yes. My pegasus knights bought this information at a great price. Even though Renais has fallen, he charges into the enemy’s heart. He is truly Fado’s son… What a valiant youth. I wish I knew whether he remains unharmed, but I do not.Valiant is a word for it. Reckless, another. Perhaps stupid. But we’ll see more of ol’ Ephy later. King Hayden, I thank you for your offer, but I cannot stay. I intend to ride to my brother’s side with reinforcements. I cannot allow it. I know how you feel, but this plan is suicide. I would be betraying Fado’s memory if I allowed any harm to befall you. Stay here. Rest and mourn. Leave this war to the warriors. I know you mean well, Your Majesty. However, I have lost my father, and my twin brother is in peril. My brother, he is a part of me… I cannot rest here in peace while he risks his life. I dunno, they seem to be doing fine. I wish Frelia could provide you with support, with soldiers, but… My son, Innes, is on his way to meet the empire’s forces. We cannot spare a single brigade. Your own retinue of knights cannot possibly face Grado alone. Are you so determined to go? Yes...With apologies. ...As resolute as your father, eh? What am I to do in the face of such foolhardy determination? Vanessa. That hair. Moulder. That stache! Gilliam. That...guy we already know! You are to accompany Princess Eirika of Renais into Grado territory. I expect each of you to provide aid and support for her brother. : Hmm. Quite a grave responsibility you’ve given us. : No matter the obstacles, we will perform our duty. Our lives are yours. None of them are above level 4. They will, no doubt, prove themselves quite valuable on your journey. Remember, you are venturing behind enemy lines. You will need supplies. Stay awake, Eirika, we’re nearly done. It will remain at your side, no matter how far afield you venture. King Hayden, I… Thank you. No, save your thanks for your return… with your brother, Prince Ephraim. Yes, Your highness! Well, Hayden’s already proven himself a capable ally. Or at least a wealthy one.  I can’t guess how you must feel, but it’s just too dangerous. What would happen if you were captured by Grado’s men? Thank you for your concern, Tana. But I have no choice. Don’t you see, Tana? I have to go. Eirika… Oh, why is this happening? What’s gone wrong with the world? Tana... Why would Grado invade? Emperor Vigarde is a man of peace. His people adore him. And you and Ephraim are friends with Prince Lyon, are you not? What could be behind this madness? Why is this happening… I have no answers for you, Tana. I don’t want to believe it, but the reality is that we are at war. If I do nothing, I may lose my brother as well as my father. This is why I have to fight. It’s the only answer I have. Next time, few answers, but more fighting. Bonus Content So, Fire Emblem has a card game called Cipher, released only in Japan. Thankfully, the lovely Fire Emblem Wiki has scans of the card art! Let’s check some of that out.  The Princess of Renais, Eirika LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Jun 2, 2018 |
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May 28, 2018 00:07
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MightyPretenders posted:I think it's worth noting how the easy-mode tutorial in this chapter goes. When Gilliam and Franz come onto the field, Gilliam isn't actually at full HP, and doesn't care. Border patrol is rough work, you know, even when there isn't a war going on. Franz is nice enough to offer his spare vulnerary anyway. I may actually end up doing a short mini-update or at least a note, on some of the easy mode dialogue in the tutorial maps. There's a bit of fun stuff that helps establish the characters. FoolyCharged posted:I guess its worth noting that you don't actually have to remove the rapier from eirka's inventory for her to equip the steel sword. The game equips the top most equipable weapon in inventory after a trade. Yeah, that's my bad, I rephrased that segment like twice and forgot to put it back in. vilkacis posted:
I have been playing this game a lot lately and I legitimately did forget about slim weapons. They sure Exist. FPzero posted:Oh boy it's Fire Emblem time, and a GBA one at that! While I like 7 better overall, Sacred Stones is a very solid package and I've definitely recommended it to friends as an entry point to the pre-Awakening games in the series. It also has a surprisingly more powerful version of the GBA FE engine under its hood, though you'd never really know just by playing. I didn't know that engine thing, I completely just thought 6/7/8 ran on the same engine. That's very interesting. Blastinus posted:Oh hey, another Sacred Stones LP! Always good to see more people getting to appreciate this game. Hey, glad to hear this from you. I really enjoyed your LP of this game as well! I also don't have an issue with how good Seth is. Fire Emblem is always a punishing series, and Sacred Stones makes such a good newcomer's game partially because of things like Seth being able to bail you out of a rough spot. It also fits his character well, he's a knight in shining armor who dashes in when things start to go bad.
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May 28, 2018 03:39
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grandalt posted:Um, what was with that 50 turn wait? I remember the last lp of this game, played it myself and I don't remember anything about that. What Scrap Dragon said, I want to have some Supports ready to roll so I can put them in the next update. Trying to keep it to a minimum of two infodump mechanic explanations per update. bibliosabreur posted:Anyway, I seem to remember a Shadow Dragon LP that degenerated into bloodthirsty savagery and the Trial by Devil Axe. I think it fell into the archives. Was that LordHippoman, or someone else? I wish mine had that degree of Devil Axe in it. Regrets.
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May 28, 2018 05:59
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Chapter 2: Axe Me Anything Last Time:   And now, we’re headed back to the game. We have access to the world map now, but can’t do much of anything on it yet.  You can use the Manage Items command to swap inventories around. I used it to give Gilliam one of Franz’s two Vulneraries.  To reach the next chapter, we need to head to Ide here. It’s also our only possible route forward, so there’s no point in waiting around.  However, he does provide Eirika with a small but trusted party of vassals. Eirika is grateful for the king’s aid.  In case you weren’t paying attention to the opening geography lesson, Grado is the southwestern section of Magvel. The group’s first stop is the remote village of Ide, which was, until very recently, a part of Renais. Here, Eirika sees the destruction of Renais with her own eyes.  Seth’s route just says “go south”. We’ll travel south of Renais and pass through Serafew into Grado territory. Hmm...That would seem a sensible plan. Assuming, of course, that we can avoid any run-ins with Grado soldiers… Princess Eirika, may I have your leave to scout ahead? From the sky, I’ll have a better chance of spotting any nearby troops. We’re yours to command, Your Highness. Will you give your permission? Yes, of course. Eirika dropping some helpful gameplay hints in the exposition here. Yes, Your Highness, I shall. I shall prove myself worthy of the honor of your trust. She seems...very sincere. “Kind of a suck-up.”  Three shirtless guys in a triangle formation. Clearly villainy is afoot.    With all those soldiers preoccupied, we’re free to pillage as we please! Right, Bone–you’re in charge. Grab everything that’s not nailed down and bring it to the hideout. I’m on it.In proper Fire Emblem tradition, bandits are always burly ugly dudes with silly names. Still can’t compare to “Bug” from the last game.   That is some serious facial hair.  I’m getting you out of here, Ross. You stay close to me! Cut down anyone fool enough to get in your way. I’m heading west around the mountains to the other villages. Oh no, the horror of war!  Ross? What is it? What’s wrong? It’s nothing! It’s just a scratch! You’re a warrior, Dad, and I am your son. I won’t be beaten so easily. Don’t risk yourself so foolishly… We need to get you some help. Please! Someone help my son! I must report back to Princess Eirika at once! Thankfully she was right there. I have bad news. The village to the east is under attack by bandits. Bandits?! We have arrived at our first dilemma. We must move quickly and attract as little attention as possible, but… But I cannot stand by and watch innocents be harmed. Vanessa, how fare the villagers? I spotted one injured person. He appeared to be just a child. Father Moulder, can your staff help him? Well, yes, I can heal his injuries with my staff, but... Alright, who forgot to pack the Physic?   I like how Eirika just kinda slides out and Moulder has to tell her. Poor Vanessa’s already getting the royal cold Renais shoulder. Very well. I’m off. And we’re off too. This is a Rout map, meaning we’ll need to kill all of the enemies to proceed. Most of them are hiding down south. Let’s check out our new characters.   *Luck growth is 50, I’m not sure how I missed that. Vanessa is very much like our old friend Caeda, a classic Pegasus Knight. They’re very quick and skillful, and boast extremely high flying movement. They also, unfortunately, carry serious durability issues, compounded by the fact that Bows deal effective damage to them. Vanessa pretty much exemplifies all of this, but she has the distinct advantages of an early join time and plenty of room to grow. Vanessa will be a staple of most early game teams, and she can be extremely powerful later as well, so long as her growths don’t completely screw her over.   HERE HE IS. Moulder is our first healer, using Staves, which means he cannot attack (for now), but will be very useful in keeping our allies alive. He’s fairly solid all around, and boasts an oddly high Constitution of 9, because he is the boulder, so he can even rescue some units. However, his Magic growth is a bit lower than the other healer we’ll recruit, and his Luck is abysmal. He can, however, through the combination of his sturdy HP and decent base Resistance, become an okay tank against magical units. I personally haven’t had a ton of success with him, but he’s quite usable.   Ross and Garcia are across this mountain range, so we’ll need some help getting them to the main group. You’ll note that they’re Green. Green units belong to the “Other” faction, they’re allied NPCs. They take their turn after Enemy Phase. Ross is looking pretty beat up, though, and needs immediate rescue.  Thankfully, that’s what we have a Pegasus Knight for. Flying units like Vanessa ignore terrain. This does also mean they don’t get the benefits from it, except healing on Forts/Gates/etc. It does make her ridiculously mobile, which is what we need right now.  Mounted units also have this neat little ability, Canto. They can move the remainder of their movement after performing an action aside from attacking/healing. It allows Vanessa to flee to the safety of the mountains.  This map also introduces Villages. Villages can be visited, like houses, but unlike houses, they give you stuff.     Cool. The Elixir is like a Vulnerary, but it restores all of a unit’s HP instead of just 10. This is better later, once our characters get more HP, so it’s worth holding onto.  Any unit can visit a village (Unlike SOME Fire Emblem games), but for this one in particular, there’s a little extra dialogue if you use Eirika.   If we can’t find some way to protect ourselves, the village is doomed.  Hurry, before the bandits arrive! Who are you? You aren’t from one of the neighboring towns, are you? And your weapons give you away… You’re no peasant. c’mon don’t blow this  Stuck the landing. A mercenary named Erina, is it? There’s more to you than that, I feel. But don’t worry–it’s none of my affairs. I haven’t told you who I am yet, have I? I am Selena, a general in Grado’s army. Ah! Is something wrong? No...uh, nothing. It looks like these villagers have some bandit troubles. I would like to help, but I have orders… I’m to leave for the capital immediately, and I cannot stay. You’re armed, and you claim to be a mercenary. Will you help them? Um… Is there a problem? No! Of course I’ll help them! It’s just… You’re one of Grado’s generals...Why… These aren’t soldiers. They’re people. Should they suffer because their leaders fight? I’ve petitioned your aid. Take this as payment. …...I was going to make a joke about Eirika being utterly shocked someone isn’t a war criminal, but honestly it fits her pretty well. They’ve already established that Eirika isn’t really familiar with the concept of warfare, so stuff like this would naturally confuse her a little. I know a lot of people don’t like the writing in this game as much as Blazing Sword, but I’m on the fence because of touches like this.  Anyway, we get a Red Gem. This is like Bullion 2.0, you sell it for money, that’s it. This will fetch 2500g at any store.  Now that we’ve visited those villages, time to take a look at the rest of the map. These shirtless guys are a new type of enemy, the Brigand. Brigands are generally just like Fighters, low accuracy, axes only, but they can walk on mountain tiles. They also pack a nasty punch, so be careful with your weaker units. To finish the package, they’re capable of destroying villages if they reach them before you. You don’t want that to happen, there’s stuff in there. Someone will have to hit up that Southwestern village quickly. Maybe someone on a horse. A winged horse.  Once the enemy phase starts, the Brigand over there rushes Garcia.  It doesn’t go great for him.  Like, really, not great.  Now that Garcia’s holed himself up on the fort, I’m going to ignore him for the rest of the map. His son, though, will need to get off of Vanessa. While ferrying another unit, your skill and speed are cut in half, which is bad, of course.  You can drop off a unit in any accessible adjacent tile.  Let’s patch him up.  Heal staves will heal a flat amount, depending on the tier of the stave, plus the user’s Magic. It’s enough to get Ross back to full.  Then I make the brilliant decision of...forgetting to talk to Ross with Eirika. Oops. Franz is going to check out this Armory, though. Some maps will have shopping tiles on them, but they aren’t as big a deal in Sacred Stones, since we’ll soon get the ability to shop on the World Map.  Slim Weapons I totally forgot to address last time. They’re E Rank, and have a very low weight, as well as a hit/crit bonus attached. Unfortunately, it comes at a Might tradeoff, which I usually find makes them hard to use practically.  For the last move of this turn, it looks like Seth and Franz can have a chat!  Franz. How are you holding up? Fine. I may be young, but I’m every bit a Knight of Renais. I’ll fight to the end to protect the princess, just like you, sir! Good, good! That’s the spirit! You know, you’re looking much improved from when we set out. Hm. Do you really think so, General? Oh, definitely. You seem much more sure of yourself. All doubt has left your face. By the time you reach my age, you’ll be the finest spear- and swordsman around.You know, unlike most Jagens, Seth doesn’t look very old at all. I’m not sure how much of an age gap there really can be between him and Franz. Maybe he just uses great moisturizer. Honestly? Sir, do you really believe that? …I do… But we are in a battle right now, Franz. Concentrate on the enemies before you, and don’t get too cocky. Yes sir!!! You know I’d never let you down, sir! Don’t be too eager for success. Know your limits. Yes, sir! This is the Support System, a pretty integral part of many Fire Emblem games. As your units bond, you get special dialogue from them, can possibly change their endings, and unlock combat bonuses! For the GBA games, the method of building supports is...weird. First, units have to stand next to eachother on the battlefield. This builds support points. This is why I spent 50ish Turns doing absolutely nothing last time. Once they hit a certain threshold, different for each pair, you’ll unlock a Support conversation, which gives you the first tier of bonuses. Support tiers go from C through A, and a given character can have no more than 5 total conversations (You also can't raise a given support pair more than once per map). So, like, an A and a B will cap them out. The actual nature of these bonuses depends on the Affinity of the units involved. That’s that weird symbol you’re seeing on the profiles. Each of the seven affinities grants different bonuses. A fantastic write-up on that can be seen here, if you love the details: https://serenesforest.net/the-sacred-stones/characters/supports/calculation/ For the sake of this update not stretching too long, though, I’ll just go ahead and summarize: Since Seth is Anima and Franz is Light, they both recieve +1 Attack, +1 Defense, +2 Accuracy, +2 Avoid, +2 Crit Chance, and +2 Crit Evasion. Not bad for a permanent buff! And it’ll only improve.  Speaking of Seth, that Bandit south of him rushed us this turn. It was a very bad mistake. (Also, on my part. I should have equipped Seth with a weaker weapon, or no weapon at all, to try and let a weaker unit get the kill)  Garcia’s wrath, meanwhile, turns to the lone non-brigand on the map.  Unfortunately, me not talking to Ross means he is now trying to commit suicide by running forwards, and the Bandits receive reinforcements on their second turn. We could get hit from all sides here if the ranks don’t thin.  First of all, let’s get rampage boy under control. Eirika can recruit Ross here to our side.  My name’s Ross. Come on! You have to help me wipe those thugs out! Leave the villages to us. We’ll drive off the bandits. Seth, take the boy somewhere safe. No! Wait! I’m going to fight, too! But… My father is out there all alone, fighting those bandits. I’ve got to get back to him as quickly as possible! I’m the son of the great Garcia! All right, I can see you’re not going to be swayed...But you must promise that you will stay close to us. Oh boy. Trainees. Ross comes in extremely weak. His growths are pretty meh. But what truly makes Ross remarkable is that he is in a Trainee class. See, most classes level to 20, Promote, and then can level to 20 again. Trainees get 10 levels in their base class before they start that cycle. Ross effectively has fifty levels to grow. Not only that, nearly every class in this game gets two promotion options. Trainees do that on each of their promotions, meaning they have even more possible classes. Ross here can end up in any of three different classes! He’s not without his downsides. All trainees are somewhat tricky to level, especially on Hard, since they’ll need to actually get kills to level up, and they’re awful at first. This is easier with Ross than anyone else, by far, since you get him now, but it’s still tough. This is mitigated pretty heavily by Sacred Stones’ limitless EXP system. Ross takes a lot of work, and a little luck. But a good Ross will solo the final boss, cackling and critting all the way. Using Ross is quite a gamble, unless you’re planning on using the grinding maps. I probably will, just because I love him. It’s worth mentioning he comes with the special Hatchet weapon, which is a lightweight, less damaging Hand Axe, boasting 1-2 Range and letting him pick off foes from afar.  Anyway, there was a map going on? These bandits are getting too close for comfort, so Franz takes position on the fort. Vanessa hurries to visit the village before it gets ransacked.  : What? B-bandits?! Spread the word, everyone! Close the village gates! Thank you for your warning. Please, accept this small token. The Pure Water is a consumable item that boosts a unit’s resistance for a brief time, gradually dropping off over turns. Highly situational. Great in those situations.  The bandits can walk on mountains, but are still massively slowed by them, so Ross is safe here. That’s really the name of the game for now, keeping Ross alive.  Instead, the bandits are forced to attack our more competent units, which is fine by me.  Garcia also finishes his rampage. He won’t do anything else on this map.  Alright, let’s start fighting the last chunk of enemies. The Supply command is accessible by Lords, or units adjacent to Lords, and can be used to access the convoy where you store items none of your characters are holding. With only five item inventories, this can be a lifesaver.   Eirika uses it to snag an Iron Axe, which Ross moves down and trades her for. Now he should be able to smack that remaining Brigand down!  Oof. Uh, so, here’s the thing about Axes. Not only are they naturally inaccurate, they’re heavy as poo poo, meaning a little guy like Ross is going to have forecasts like...this for a while. This is the toughest part of using a Trainee.  So I don’t risk it. Franz deals with that little snafu.  Well, that sucks. At least it was Strength.  The reinforcement Brigands begin to attack Gilliam. These guys are using terrain to their advantage, as well as Weapon Triangle, so even our beefy Knight ally can’t outlast them for too long.  Also they jump. Like, look at that jump. Hot drat.  This is a bit of a gamble, but…  Moulder was right there anyway.  Here’s how I set up for the end of this map. Franz is our most damaging non-Seth warrior, so he parks on the fort and prepares for the boss and his goon. The last Reinforcement Brigand is capable of attacking Moulder, so Vanessa’s going to need to help out.  With a quick Rescue, she holds him over the mountains for safekeeping. I probably didn’t NEED to do this, but it looks cool and it’s my lp dammit  So uh, here’s Bone.  While Breguet was a substantially stronger foe than his minions, Bone is basically just another Brigand. Use the same tactics you have been for the rest of the map, and he’ll crumble.  Franz and Eirika are great choices here, especially if you can put them on Defensive Tiles.  Bone is basically just a big EXP balloon right now, so let’s get him within popping range.  He shoots!  He scores!   Someday, Ross...someday…you’ll be a god. Or it could be like my last Ross who got so RNG screwed that he turned out useless, but let’s not get too pessimistic.  Speaking of Ross (again), both brigands hitting him would be lethal. This Eirika/Gilliam wall means he can only be whacked by one.  Even then, it wasn’t pretty. if he were holding that Iron Axe, he might be dead right now.  Eirika’s doing better on that front.  And now, cleanup. Sorry you didn’t get to do any real combat this map, Vanessa, you’ll have your time to shine.  And that’s the brigands routed. I’m not a huge fan of how I played that map, I could have done things a lot less sloppily. Still, being able to pull up and correct your mistakes is a cool part of Fire Emblem. anyway  …Hold on a moment… This is a great nickname. You fought for Renais, didn’t you? …… Seth, do you know this man? He was a troop commander for Renais until around ten years ago. When I was a recruit, the soldiers used to tell so many tales about him. They called him a daring and fearless fighter for Renais. Master Garcia, you must know the peril our homeland faces right now… Can we impose upon you to lend your strength to Renais once again? I’m not a soldier anymore. It’s a decision I made long ago. Master Garcia… …When I was a soldier, I lived my life fighting for my country’s honor. I left no time for my family. I spent my life fighting for faceless, uncaring nobles. When my wife fell ill and died, I met the child she had left behind… At that moment, I finally realized what my duty had cost me. …… I stood at my wife’s grave and promised her I would be a father to our son. I’m done with armies. I’m done with fighting, except to protect my son. I’ve no regrets. I’m the boy’s father. …... Father, what’s all this nonsense I’m hearing? Ross! If you’re not going, then I will! I’m a fighter! I know I can do this!Technically he’s not a Fighter, yet. But he could be...that’s on you. Ross, what are you saying? I… Dad, please! Listen to me! I respect you more than any other man in the world. I know you gave up being a soldier for me. I know that! But how can you throw away such a big part of yourself? You’re a warrior at heart! You can’t give that up and be happy! ……There are SO MANY “......”s in this conversation. Look at me, Dad! Have you seen me fight? I’m not a child anymore. I’m a warrior, like you. You’re free to worry, but I can survive on my own! ...Ross. You want to challenge me, Father? I’m a fighter! The best in all of Ide! I’m absolutely positive there’s a joke to be made somewhere in here about that new God Of War game but I’ve never played it so uh, “boy”, I guess.  If these old bones of mine can still serve, I’d like to join you.“Old bones”, huh? I guess they’re still good for something. Dad… Looks like my boy grew up while I wasn’t looking… He’s tougher than I thought. He doesn’t need my help. I’ve raised him as best I could, but he’s right. I’ve nothing to fear. I should fight. I will fight. Dad!So, since we didn’t recruit Garcia mid-chapter, I’ve got his profile ready now.  Garcia is a safer choice than Ross. He won’t surprise you, but he’s unlikely to let you down. Garcia averages out solidly, with a monstrous HP growth and base and impressive Strength being sandbagged by his bad defensive stats and Speed. The speed is the biggest issue there, but it can be salvaged. Depending on how he promotes, Garcia can fill a few roles in any team composition. I’d call him a fairly average unit, but a trusty one nonetheless.  We would if we could, but we have much to do and far to travel. Your safety is reward enough. Ah, well… My, that is a splendid bracelet you’re wearing.Fado’s fashion senses are keen. Uh. Were keen. Sorry. Thank you. My father gave this to me. It’s a wonderful gift. But you should be careful, wearing such a valuable item so openly. Since Renais was invaded, things have become so dangerous around here. There are gold-hungry thieves and bandits everywhere. Name checks out. Somebody please make a Fire Emblem Bandit Name generator, where it just starts with a “B” and adds one or two random syllables. If you have something they want, your life is worth less than nothing. Just the other day they assaulted some travelers and…Oh, it was awful. I...I can’t believe such things… Oh, Renais is finished, mark my words. The Grado Empire’s stolen our future. Our only hope against them was that Prince Ephraim would prevail, but… Rumor has it that he’s on the verge of being crushed by Grado’s vast numbers. These are dark days. Travel with care.“Well, we’re all hosed, see ya, have a nice day!” ……. Time to reflect.    Ah geez, filters. Okay, I’ve trained for this.  Tell me, though: why do you want me to teach you to fight? I thought you didn’t care for violence… I do not like uncivilized behavior. I think one can solve one’s problems without fighting. And yet... And yet what? I’ve always relied on you to protect me, Brother. I would rather not be such a burden to you in the future. So, I thought maybe I should learn to protect myself... I’m your brother. Brothers are supposed to protect their sisters. It’s nothing for you to worry about. It’s no cause for concern. Yes, but… I am your sister. Sisters are supposed to worry about their brothers. So I would like to learn something of swordplay, if only a little. And maybe, someday, I can protect you in your time of need… So please, Ephraim. All right, all right. How could I say no? Honestly, once you get an idea into your head, that’s it. I might as well give in. It’s agreed. I’ll teach you, but won’t hold back because you’re my sister. And I want no complaining once we’ve started, Eirika.  Well, we’re out of the flashback zone now.   He scatters pretty quickly.  Y-yes...someone bumped into me is all, I was jarred. Hm? Your highness, where is your bracelet? My bracelet? It’s…gone. Where could it be? Did that man– I’ll find him!Oh, you are hosed now. Don’t worry about it, Seth. That bracelet was a gift from my father, but Ephraim needs our help. I can’t let sentimentality get in the way of my duty. You cannot lose it. Let’s go. We must hurry.Next time we retrieve our stolen jewelry. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Jun 2, 2018 |
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Jun 1, 2018 17:11
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theshim posted:Garcia is Dorcas 2.0, down to that 20% speed growth. I always bench him Dorcas rules and is a friend to all. The speed growth does suck though. EDIT: VVV Go ahead and talk about the Trainee mechanics if you want. There's more but I didn't want to infodump too hard, so if people would rather discuss it in the thread that's fine. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Jun 1, 2018 |
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Jun 1, 2018 17:41
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Dance Officer posted:That's a shame, because Garcia is one of the three axe users that I'd call good. His speed base is good enough to carry him for a decent while, can get +2 on promotion and of course there's Garm with it's +5 speed, for which he is an excellent candidate A fair amount of the people I know who've played this call Garcia one of the worst units, which I think is bizarre, because of what you mentioned. The game kinda fixes his biggest weakness for him. Weeble posted:You should train up all the Trainees, and put them into their unique 'Super' classes. Unfortunately it's a New Game + option and I'm running this on a fresh New Game. I'll talk about Super Trainees, but I can't use them. My apologies. vilkacis posted:Oh boy I want you to know how much I appreciate it every time you hit that X Button. vilkacis posted:Also if you're going to be using the trainees, please for the love of gently caress do something different with them, it'd really suck to see them go the exact same way as in the previous thread... I'm leaving the Class voting up to the thread, if that's what you mean. I don't know if I'll use all the Trainees, but I definitely at least want to go with Ross. It's up to you all if he goes Berzerker Ross or the mythical Not Berzerker Ross.
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Jun 1, 2018 19:23
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FoolyCharged posted:Good Lord hippo, it hurts to see you give boss kills to trainees. Just hitting a mook with his hatchet is worth 30ish exp to ross and killing a mook already gives him a full level. Fun Fact: I looked up the Trainee leveling mechanics after this update because I thought I was misremembering SOMETHING and welp  Cut from the screenshots is the footage of me sighing heavily at the screen but not restarting because I was going to dinner with someone who wouldn't understand if I said "Sorry, I needed to rerun this map, I didn't kill Bone with Vanessa." Lessons learned, though. I didn't know about the leveling to 10 on this map thing, but it seems almost impossible for that to happen. If you've done it, though, props. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Jun 1, 2018 |
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Jun 1, 2018 19:31
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Explopyro posted:(Of course there's a way around that problem too, but it's pretty much strictly worse gameplay-wise. Are you going to talk about that option, Hippoman?) Yes, but probably in a bonus update or something, since I'm on NG and not NG+. If you want to discuss it in the thread though, it's no skin off my nose. SonicRulez posted:The RNG kinda ensures that every one will be different in some way. I had a run of FE7 where Eliwood hit several caps and Hector sucked. I thought that wasn't possible. Your FE7 cart is haunted, sorry to break the news. Fionordequester posted:So, I'm just going to pretend I'm a Fire Emblem noob, for the sake of critiques. I do think you make good points here. I want the LP to be understandable even if you've never touched the games, but I've also got to balance that with not turning every update into a slog of mechanic explanations and formulas. Some of these things are just for brevity's sake (adjacent is quicker than "north/south/east/west", there is no good way to tell who can speak with who in this one (Yellow Glow didn't come around until PoR, IIRC) so I didn't mention it), but stuff like the eradication of slim weapons from my mind and the bad Constitution wording is just me making some mistakes. I'll go back and fix them, thanks for letting me know. I just want to throw out, for the whole thread, especially Fire Emblem newbies, if there's something you don't understand or think I forgot, feel free to let me know. I am far, far, far from perfect at LP (or, like, anything), and I am not an encyclopedia about this game. Heck, pretty much everything FoolyCharged posted here about Ross I didn't know. I'm doing my best to provide something that's fun to read but also informative, and if I'm sacrificing too much on the latter end, feel free to tell me and I'll take another look. No one can save my jokes, they are untouchably bad. Lots Of People posted:Ross Promotion Chat Don't worry, I'll put a formal(ish) vote up when the time comes. Though, if you want my opinion, as much as I love Rosszerker he is a little overdone. I'm pretty attracted to that Warrior option, and that would mean I get to show off Pirate anyway. But it's up to you. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Jun 2, 2018 |
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Jun 2, 2018 05:33
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Torrannor posted:I agree that berserker Ross is overused. But I think it's up to LordHippoman, and it's not as if we are in any of the crazy insanity modes where we can't afford plays and unit choices that are fun but weaker than others. I will take whatever the thread votes for me, and bungle my way through endgame, cheating with monster grinding if I must. (though I may be slightly cranky if you deny me swordmaster joshua)
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Jun 2, 2018 18:36
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RareAcumen posted:Yeah, sadly Vilkacis only exists when there's a Fire Emblem LP going on. vilkacis posted:It is true, I'm in a state of quantum exmblemcistense. This thread is actually only here to continue sustaining Vilkacis' life force, everyone, I'm sorry I fooled you into thinking it was an LP.
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Jun 3, 2018 19:26
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Chapter 3: Another Brick In The Wall Welcome back. We’ve got to hunt down that stolen bracelet, but first, we’ve got a new world map option! From the World Map, you can use the Armories on maps you’ve already cleared. Since I got my shopping done last time, I don’t bother, but hey, it’s there if you need it.  Our real next objective lies to the south.  After that Green Guy!   Eirika cannot ignore her countrymen’s pleas for help. She leads her group in search of the bandits’ stronghold.  “Borgo” could 100% be the name of an early Fire Emblem boss. Fits the criteria.  A few of them saw a lad matching the description of our bracelet thief. It seems a fair guess that the youth is one of these bandits.“He had blue hair and didn’t look like any of your six stock portraits.” Bandits…Here in Renais, our homeland. I had no idea… Burning out villages…Stealing from our people with no fear of reprisal? It wasn’t always like this. The knights used to protect the citizenry… However, with Renais in ruins and her army tattered, law and order are hard to find. It doesn’t look like the Grado army is interested in maintaining order here. If nothing changes, Renais will continue this sad plunge into savagery. …...   But are you all some sort of...mercenary troop? Why do you ask? I told him it was too dangerous, but he wouldn’t listen to me! Please, you must calm yourself. Start at the beginning, and speak slowly. All right…Sniff. I’m Neimi. I’m from… I used to be from a village named Lark… Except the village is gone. Gone? What do you mean?holy poo poo read the room eirika  The other villagers...the bandits attacked them and… …… Neimi, what are you doing here? Bazba’s Bandits… They have a hideout here in these mountains. That’s where Colm… Um, Colm’s my…uh…We’ve known each other since we were kids. He went to steal back something the bandits took from me… He went alone? That’s a very dangerous thing…She said that like four lines up, Eirika. Are you paying attention to this conversation at all? Yes, I know. Th-that’s what I told him, but he wouldn’t listen to me. Wait, please don’t cry. Don’t worry. We’ll find your friend and see that he’s not harmed. Really? Really and truly? Oh, thank you! Thank you!!! I...I don’t have much money, but...I’ll do anything to help. Your Highness? What will it be? If the thief we’re after has gone to the bandits lair as well… Well, it seems as though we share a common cause with Neimi. She is a citizen of Renais, after all. And isn’t it our duty to defend our countrymen? I’m only sad that we weren’t here to protect her friends and neighbors… So, yes, I feel we must help her. Very well, Neimi, I trust you can lead the way? Er, yes...It’s this way. I feel so… When I was little I used to go hunting with my grandfather. What I mean is I can- I’m not bad with a bow. Really? Uh-huh. I see. You should remain behind and protect Princess Eirika.I’m pretty sure Neimi could have said she was anything and Seth would have told her to remain behind and protect Princess Eirika. “Your juggling skills will safeguard Princess Eirika.”  Meanwhile, in the other corner...  : Let’s give ‘em a warm welcome, lads. You see a stranger, stick an axe in him! So, this is a Seize map, like Breguet’s. We’ll be progressing northeast to the boss.  There’s Bazba, but along the way we’ve got a lot of cronies to dispatch. Including a deadly new foe…  Wall! Walls are breakable terrain. A unit can deal their Attack in damage to a wall, but you can’t double it. This counts as your attack for the turn. I didn’t actually attack this wall, because I’m going to do something cheap with it.  We also picked up a new unit!  Neimi kinda...struggles on Difficult mode. Her growths, for the most part, are pretty good, with only Defense being really awful. 60% Speed is especially nice. However, her bases are awful, and until promotion, she can only use bows. Bows are 2-Range only, meaning she’ll get shredded by any melee unit with no chance to counter. Hell, even enemy archers will make short work of her with that awful defense, and upgrading to any sort of heavier weapon will slow her down with a constitution of 5. Neimi can turn out useful, but I don’t find it happening to me very often, and the effort required could be used on someone more reliable. If you really want a Sniper, though, you’ve only got one other choice.  So here’s some information about Ross that I totally managed to forget. As a Trainee class, Ross will gain some pretty massively accelerated experience, until he hits his first promotion at level 10. So killing the boss with Ross last map was actually kind of a waste, since any other unit (except Seth) would have benefitted about as much, and they’re harder to level. This time we’re going to abuse this by stalling out the map and letting Ross get as many kills over walls as possible with his trusty Hatchet.  Already, results. Not a great level, but it’s something, and any time Ross wants to actually hit Skill and Res is fine with me.  It looks, however, like we’ve got a locked door in the way of progression. Maybe we’ll have to bust that wall down.  The enemies don’t do anything on their turn, and at the end of it, this guy appears.  Ha! And not a soul saw me. These bandits are easy pickings. Huh. Chests, you say?   He opened the door!  As you probably guessed (or knew already), a quick glance at this guy’s status will tell us he’s Colm. Neimi was looking for him, so let’s let them chat.   I told you to wait for me, didn’t I? I couldn’t… It’s too dangerous. C’mon, let’s go home. We don’t have a home! Don’t you get it? Look, just leave everything to me. I can take care of it in a flash, but I don’t need a clumsy oaf like you tagging along. But...but... Oh, this is ridiculous. We’ll talk later. Don’t leave my side, Neimi. I-All right. And, with that, we recruit Colm to our side.  Much like Neimi, Colm has some pretty nice growths in stats that matter for him. Speed especially. Also like Neimi, he has rough bases, almost across the board, that will hamstring his early game usefulness, without the crutch of Ross’ early leveling ability. He’s also locked to a single weapon, Swords, even having to work his way up from an E rank. Combat-wise, Colm is pretty unimpressive, at least at the beginning of the game, and he doesn’t really have the great growths to scale into an endgame god most of the time. That said, Colm is mostly a utility character, and his utility is EXTREMELY good. Want to use him or not, you’ve...sorta got no choice for a while. Thankfully, he's pretty dodgy, so sometimes he'll survive situations he really shouldn't.  Here’s the Colm Problem. Even with that spicy 10 Speed, awful Con and Strength means he can’t even double, or do significant damage, to this generic Brigand. In his defense, this is Difficult mode.  So I don’t do that. Early game walling usually begins and ends with Gilliam or Garcia. Or Seth, if you want to go that route.  Especially when he manages to do stuff like this.  Just assume I’m doing this every turn. The poor Brigand here doesn’t know how to break the wall.  Now, witness the power of Neimi!   ...Archers, you have one gimmick.  Alright fine here comes the big guy again.  Well, let’s check out the reason to use Colm. As a Thief, he can open Chests and Doors. Unfortunately, doing this eats one use of his Lockpick. Don’t worry too much about it, they’re pretty easily replaceable. In fact, they might as well not exist! ...Again, just wait a couple games for them to figure that out.  This isn’t much of a treasure. But it’ll do.  dammit ross  This feels mocking, given the circumstance.  Before we start to move towards clearing this next room, it’s worth noting that the Archer can hit outside the room. So just leaving Colm open there might be a bad idea. I’m sure we can find a way around that, though.   Alright, there we go.  Huh. He had loot on him. Hang on…  What about this guy?  Ooh. Alright, so, if you see an enemy with an item highlighted in green, that means it will drop on death. The Door and Chest keys are consumables that allow you to open a...door or chest once.  One last underwhelming treasure for the road.  We’ve cleared out the west side of the map now, so we’re about to head into the heart of the bandit lair.  To do that, we’ll have to smash down a wall.   Gilliam and Neimi manage fine, and now…  I can just do this poo poo again. Rise, Ross, RISE!  Wait a second! That guy to the east is stealing my wall strategy!  ross please   Well, two can abuse Wall mechanics.  Franz with the Javelin here should be equipped to lure out that Archer and clear the way for Colm to start his picking.  Bait taken. Unfortunately, Franz missed.   Slowly but surely...but I’d like some Speed. Or Defense.  Now Ross has two keys!  Moulder patches Ross up after that Hand Axe hits.  This time Franz hits.  And the remaining ranged enemies converge on Ross. They are unsuccesful.  Oh thank God a good level my comments are justified now, HE’S GOOD, ROSS IS GOOD FOLKS  Look! He’s even a thief now! Kinda!  Alright, now I’ll stop stalling and move on into the last room. Second to last. Whatever.  Since the nearest enemy is a Thief, we’ll need someone to match his speed, and hopefully hold weapon advantage. Vanessa fits that bill.   With a slim hit on her turn, and swapping to Iron afterwards, Vanessa dispatches her foe.  The level up quality has been rapidly decreasing since that Breguet map.  With two Brigands here, we’ll need a beefy wall to lure them in. Garcia fits that bill just fine.  Ross finishes his career as an amateur thief with...a Javelin. I mean, it’s good, but I’d have preferred something I couldn’t just buy one town over.  I forgot to equip Garcia’s Hand Axe, like the brilliant strategist I am, so I use the Trading trick to make Eirika shove it in his hands.  Also Seth can one-shot a wall. I don’t do it, I just wanted to show it off.  garcia  Garcia.  Alright, change of plans.  GARCIA  Okay, so, this has gotten to be a sticky situation. With Garcia that low, our other units will have to dispatch at least this Steel Axe goon. Franz comes very, very close.  Eirika can sneak around and easily land the killing blow.  My wonderful, almost perfect Eirika, shattered. Well, let’s hope for the best.  Whoop! Not bad, Neimi.  Vanessa has no fear of Barrels. Barrels mean nothing when you have a flying horse. Indoors.  Look don’t worry about it she kills the guy. But this last goon seems...suspicious.  He’s not exactly a great Mercenary with that 11 Atk, but I didn’t come here to make fun of him. I came here to scope out that Antitoxin. It cures poison, not a great item, but it makes for a nice demonstration of another mechanic. It won’t drop on death, but I still want it. Let’s see if we can make that work.  First we lure him out.  Then Colm heads in. Here’s the Steal command.  If an enemy has an item, not a weapon on them, and Colm’s speed isn’t lower than theirs, he can take it!  Nice.  Unfortunately, he can’t attack on the same turn that he does this. Moulder can prepare him for a counter, though.  And that’s the end of the map’s last minion. Now for Bazba.  Unlike Bone, Bazba’s much more powerful than your average bandit. The combination of his Throne seating and powerful weapons makes him a force to be reckoned with.  Thankfully, Franz can still do some damage. I park him next to the Throne.  : Hope you’ve enjoyed your life, cause it’s about to end! They trade blows, and Franz comes out the worse for wear. Moulder will need to patch him up...but that puts Moulder in some danger from Bazba’s Hand Axe. Let’s help him out, with a little maneuver I like to call the Rescue Shuffle.  Garcia picks him up.  Gilliam takes Moulder from Gilliam.   Then he drops him out of range, safe from Bazba and able to move again next turn. I can pretty much repeat this as much as I want, and it really cheapens most of the non-moving bosses in the game. If you’re annoyed that I’m using this silly loophole, please imagine two burly men repeatedly hurling a mustached priest around the room, only to repeat the process, and you’ll feel better.  After another turn of this, Bazba’s low, and we can move in for the kill.  With Eirika and Franz combining their attacks, Bazba meets his final end.  I’m getting off of this map because I think it put me back in Shadow Dragon somehow.  But before that, Moulder can patch up some of our injured allies for some HP.  Acceptable enough.  alright gently caress borgo bye   I could’ve robbed these bandits blind on my own, thank you very much.Getting hit twice by any of them would have left him a smear on the floor. I was...worried... H-Hold on! I’m sorry! C’mon! Don’t start bawling! Aaah…sniff… No more…dangerous stuff… by yourself…Since this game doesn’t have any like, action markers or asterisks, it’s acceptable to assume Neimi just likes to say “sniff” for no reason. Fine, fine. I promise. But you have to stop crying all the time. All right? Uh-huh… Oh, yeah. Take a look at this. Hm? Remember how you cried when we left Lark? You thought you’d lost this. I knew it was your mother’s, and I knew those thugs had taken it. So I went and got it back! See what happens when you give me a job? Guaranteed results! Hey Wh-why are you crying this time? C’mon! Stop! Knock it off! Please, Neimi… SURPRISE SETH I think you’d best return Princess Eirika’s bracelet to her now.  Seth manages to unnerve Colm by leaning in uncomfortably close and looking very sternly at his shoulder. …… Tell me, boy, is this the path you’ve chosen for your life? If this girl matters to you, you must quit this dark road. Uh, yeah...Right.The Renais “Scared Straight” program consists entirely of Seth riding to your house and looking disapprovingly at you. We’re leaving. Do not expect to be rescued again. Farewell. …Hey, wait! Let us go with you. You can’t just leave us here. Pardon? Neimi and I… We’ve got no home to return to. No matter where we go, there’s just gonna be more fighting. You’re mercenaries, right? Well, then take us with you. I’m a handy guy to have around. I know I can help you out. I would prefer not, but I’ll agree with Eirika’s decision. Our duty is a grave one however. We’ve no time to waste shepherding you.Seth, don’t you ruin these free recruits for me! That’s fine with us.  Here you are, Princess. Thank you, Seth. You know...Father gave me this bracelet when I was a child. It only has one match in the world, and my brother wears it. Lady Eirika, you must take care never to lose that bracelet. It is the proof that King Fado entrusted the future of Renais to you, his children. Seth...what is it you’re not telling me?It’s nice that Eirika can read the foreshadowing pretty well. …I apologize, Your Highness. When the times comes, I will tell you what I know. Until then, I… I see. If you tell me it must wait, then it can wait. I trust you. Then we should get moving again. We’re safe from bandits for now, but I can’t guarantee for how long. This… This is just the beginning, isn’t it? If we hope to free out homeland, it will take battle after battle…About 20 of them. I’m afraid so, Your Highness. The day you and Prince Ephraim win back the freedom and honor of Renais will come. But I fear it lies at the end of a long and treacherous road. I know. I must fight for that day. In the names of all those I could not save, I’ll lead us home. Let’s go. My brother awaits! But before we meet Ephraim, we’ve got to do some peeking in on the VILLAIN ZONE.    Tell me, how fares the campaign in Renais? Signs of chaos abound. Brigands ride without fear, and the peasant’s cries fill the air.“so pretty much a success.” Hmm… If Grado’s troops do not enforce public order, the situation will only worsen. And still, His Majesty has given us no orders. Perhaps, just this once, I should take the lead…  Breaking our long held alliance with Renais–invading without warning… He’s never been this way before. He abhors violence. …… And have you noticed the recent promotions? Who are they going to? This is the medieval equivalent of jealous watercooler gossip. I feel this invasion is the prelude to a much larger war. I feel as though His Majesty is no longer the man we knew him to be. Glen, it doesn’t matter what any of us might think of our orders. Careful, Selena, you’re starting to get a little Camus on you. I know that, Selena. And yet… That’s enough. Both of you. His Majesty summons us. Let’s hope we can learn a little during our audience.   You are the hammers that drive the nails of the empire’s will… You will continue to operate...without hesitation...wherever I send you. By your command. In Your Majesty’s name. Yes, sire… …However, I know this… You, my Imperial Three, lack the strength to conquer the remaining nations alone. In the invasion of Renais, certain soldiers performed beyond expectation. Come. I know what you’re thinking. Those villains seemed pretty sensible. Well, let’s bring in the hateable ones.  Shadow Wrys.  I am Riev, given the name Blood Beryl by His Majesty. I know I am a newcomer, but I pray for your favor. ...Understood. Smugman.  Seems I’m to be called Tiger Eye… You’re a fine lookin’ lass, aren’t you? Yeah, I’m gonna love working with you. Sometimes the blink animation is a gift.  And a familiar face, I’ll save you worthless dogs from your own incompetence. You’ll thank me later. Valter… You scum! Peace, Glen.A team building exercise is desperately in order. Selena. Caellach. You will bring me Frelia. Yes, sire. Sure. Good as done. Riev. Duessel. You are charged with the defense of the empire. ...I will speak to you individually with more details later. Heh heh heh… Understood, Your Majesty. By your command, Sire. And me? Valter, Glen… I have other duties for you… Yes, Your Majesty? Renais has fallen, but Princess Eirika still eludes us… Her brother, Prince Ephraim, leads a resistance within our borders. Bring the siblings to me. Well, I guess we’ll still have that rear end in a top hat to deal with. Join me next time when we take a hard swerve into a completely different little subplot. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Jun 11, 2018 |
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Jun 7, 2018 07:55
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vilkacis posted:This is archer discrimination, I'm going to sue Oh, I will make no effort to conceal it, I am massively biased towards Ross. I just like him a lot, non-objectively, because I have the good luck to keep getting good Rosses when I'm playing this game and not recording it. Krumbsthumbs posted:I think Neimi is ok. She's no world breaker like Seth, but she's a starting archer so eventually she'll get to shoot a few things out of the sky, right? ...Right? There are a few very annoying flying enemies in this game that she can take down well, but they're unfortunately not all that common on every map. Blaze Dragon posted:Gotta give credit here: Gilliam getting Replicate several games early was one hell of an unexpected move. I've hidden a second Gilliam in every update so far, and whoever finds them all first will win the deed to my secret Fire Emblem themed chocolate factory. New Wave Jose posted:Sorry for the extremely dirty work, but It's all I could think seeing them like that: There is no need to apologize, I love it. Darth TNT posted:Also I can't be the only one who snickers at the simplified portaits in the corner. The Fire Emblem Wiki has a whole gallery of just the corner portraits and I'm sorely tempted to bring back the Art Gallery thing just for that. XainZero posted:I think a key part that makes Neimi and Colm not suck, at least for me, is how fast they support each other and how good their support bonuses are. They've been pretty reliable for me because of that. Neimi's Fire affinity is definitely a pretty big positive for her support partners. Also, yeah, I didn't show it in the update (because it's already like 140 pictures) but Neimi and Colm could support on this chapter, it's a ridiculously fast rate of support gain.
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Jun 7, 2018 18:26
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Camel Pimp posted:Oh, that's why you're posting fe8. Well, that would make sense. I mean, I'm happy to be, this is a pretty cool game. Endorph posted:that was a lot of words to just say 'i wish fe devs realized how important base stats are to a unit's usability' I mean they were good words that I agreed with, so it's cool with me. FPzero posted:Her bases are terrible, but at least she has an A staves rank, so you can do warping and poo poo. But yeah those bases are atrocious and force deploying her into a desert was awesome 10/10 design intsys. Everything about Nabata Desert is  and that is the chapter I would put money on IS changing if they do a Binding Blade remake. Then again, Nuibaba's Abode exists.
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Jun 8, 2018 02:16
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Nobody's mentioned Cecille yet, but she was a female Cavalier. Also Kris/Steve could go that route, as well as Robin/Corrin.
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Jun 9, 2018 16:45
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I ran into a problem while working on the character profiles for the next update and might need some thread wisdom. If Lute was on Twitter, would she post like Neil deGrasse Tyson? And what would her handle be? thank you in advance for helping me in this devastating quandary
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Jun 10, 2018 23:46
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Chapter 4: The Priest, The Prodigy, and the Putrefied Corpse (Prep) This time, we’re headed off to the Woods of bizarrely placeed apostrophes.  Passing through the ancient forest Za’ha brings them close to Grado’s border. As they near the town of Serafew, Eirika’s fears are assuaged by the lack of troops.  See ‘em? In the shadows of those trees? Terrors.  Or Horrors. You know, could go either way.   : Once we cross, we’ll be in Grado...Renvall won’t be much farther.: That is, assuming we can cross the border without mishap...Oh! Look! Over there! : Are they human?There is literally a giant eyeball floating over Seth’s shoulder there. : I’ve never seen anything like it. What could they be? Well, while they figure that out, maybe someone here knows.    Nope, doesn’t look like we’ve got any real detectives over here either.  : Lute, please, it’s dangerous outside the walls. Stay here in the village. : Those are revenants, aren’t they? They were the vanguard of the demon king in the days of darkness. Ah, just what we needed, a nerd. : You know of them?: Duh! I’m a prodigy. I can recall almost everything I see or hear. According to the book, revenants attack using razor-sharp claws. Sounds painful, wouldn’t you say?: Yes, er, well… Be that as it may, I must go aid those travelers outside. You should stay here within the safety of the village.: Very well. I don’t mind staying here. In fact, it seems the smarter choice. Magic is far more powerful than any monster’s claws. The thickest hide and the strongest armor are useless against magic’s power. Yes, I supposed I could have studied swords, but only magic is worthy of me. Lute doesn’t get too many lines in the main story, but you’ve probably already got a handle on her personality from this little ramble alone.  He got over here pretty quickly.  : Head south and pass through this place before the fiends surround you!: Who are you?: My name is Artur. The temple has assigned me the task of cleansing the forest of these…things. There are so many of the fiends, though. I wonder if I stand much chance alone. So if you would, please flee now while you have the chance.Artur’s either very brave or very resigned to death. Or he just wants all this EXP for himself. : Fiends? You’re not talking about the same fiends that served the ancient Demon King? That can’t be right… They’re nothing but legends and fairy tales…: Yes, I felt the same way when I heard. And yet here they are. This place is filled with them. I wonder how far they’ve spread...Surely they’re not in Renais alone.: But...why are they here? How?: Beware, Your Highness! Something approaches! As is Jagen tradition, Seth pushes his way in to stop the exposition before it can happen.     Artur doesn’t take kindly to this eyeball’s intrusion. You can probably see some of his strengths already in this plot battle, he doubles this monster and takes almost no damage from its magic. : We ought to help. He can’t fight them all alone. Do you have orders? And, from this map on, we’ve unlocked the Prep Screen! From now on, you can prepare for each map on a special screen. Like most things in Sacred Stones, the World Map makes parts of it somewhat irrelevant, but most of the options we have here will be pretty crucial. Well, some of them will be. From now on, I’ll be splitting Updates into Prep and Battle. If you’ve read either of my other FE LPs, you already get the gist and you don’t need to read the rest of this. Basically, I’ll do tactics chat, most promotions (when we get them), map overviews, and some bonus content in these Prep sections, and the actual gameplay will come in the Battle parts. So, if none of what I listed interests you, you can feel free to skip this.  The first option, “Pick Units” lets you select how which units will enter a battle. Since there’s a cap on how many units can participate in each map, we’ll have to make a few cuts. I dropped Neimi for now, because I think she’s the least useful character we have on our roster at the moment. It’s worth mentioning bows will do effective damage to fliers, and there are fliers on this map, but I wouldn’t consider them enough of a threat to justify Neimi over anyone else. Seth is going to sit out too, because this is a bit of a breather map with some less-threatening foes, and we won’t be needing his talents.  “Items” gives you the same options as managing items on the World Map. Most of these are pretty self-explanatory, but I should show off the Armory.  You can buy the most basic of each weapon type here. I probably won’t use it much, if it all, but it’s good to have. You can also sell stuff if you’d like.  The “Support” menu lets you see a list of a unit’s potential support partners, and how many support conversations they have left. We don’t have any of Eirika’s potential options but Seth yet, but they’ll be coming.  The most useful option on the Prep Screen is this one, “View Map”. Now we can rearrange our starting unit positions and survey the battlefield before each map. This map introduces a new obstacle, the Snag. Like the Wall before it, it’s breakable terrain, but instead of just disappearing, it makes a bridge over the river when destroyed. We’ve also got a bevy of all-new enemy types, but we’ll go over that later.  This map also extends down here, which is full of Forest Tiles and houses the enemy boss, that...buffer looking lump of flesh in the bottom right. Let’s see just what kind of opposition we have here.  Revenants are the Soldiers of the Monster units, in that they suck at everything. Their Rotten Claws are physical weapons that don’t fit into the triangle.  Bonewalkers are...also the Soldiers of the Monster units, I guess. But they do have different weapons, so you can employ a little more strategy in taking them out.  These Mogalls are flying mages, using their Evil Eye Dark Magic to pester you either from a distance or up close. Because of lower Resistance values on most of our units, I’d say these are far more dangerous than the other monsters on this map.  The boss is an Entombed, and it’s just a more powerful version of the Revenant. It packs a lot of HP, but that’s really it’s only benefit. It’s not too much of a threat if you play smart.  We also got a new ally!  Artur is our first Monk, and first offensive magic user in general. He uses Light tomes. Artur himself comes with some decent bases for a ranged unit, with the 8 in Speed probably being the standout. His Constitution is also solid enough to let him wield his Lightning tome without any weight penalty, making his effective speed even better. With his growths, Artur can become a powerful attacker with enough Res to challenge pretty much any Magical threats. His Luck will probably never breach awful, nor will his defense, but if you keep him away from physical damage, Artur is a good choice for any team that needs a little spark of Light. Bonus Content There are a ton of Supports in this game, and we won’t be able to see all of them. So I’d like to show off some in these updates. Just to clarify, I haven’t actually gotten these in the game, so they aren’t giving statistical benefits. I just want to let you read them. Thousand Yard Stare (Gilliam/Neimi A) : Neimi, I wanted to ask about your vision-training regimen.: Ah, where I stare into the distance and concentrate?: Yes, I’ve been trying it out myself, but...I’ve had some problems.: Problems? What do you mean?: Whenever I’m training, people start to avoid me. It’s not just that. Even animals run away from me when I’m at it.: And you’re just… You’re just staring into the distance?: Yes. Standing perfectly still, staring into the distance.: Maybe it’s...because you look scary… I used to get that a lot. [Spoiler Character] said I was frightening him. He thought I was angry at him.So this is a little weird. Neimi names another character in this support who we haven’t recruited yet. Cormag, for the many of you who have already played this. You can also get this conversation way before you get the character in question, so this is kind of a weird little slip up. : I look…scary? Hm… I have refined my stare to intimidate my foes in battle. You may have a point. No wonder people get scared when they see me glowering into the distance. You know, I might almost consider it a compliment of my knightly prowess!I feel like I’m just now acknowledging Gilliam’s extreme eyebrow game. : I have an idea...Perhaps if you smile, it might not be so scary.: ...Like this?: …I’d have made a paint.net mockup of this, but I feel like I couldn’t do it justice. : It’s still scary, isn’t it?: Uh… Maybe it’s because you’re crossing your arms. How about...holding some flowers instead? That might help.: You want me to stare into the distance...smiling...and holding flowers?: I think that would look good...: You’re just being nice, Neimi. Your keen vision is a gift, and your training may improve it… But I know I can never imitate it. It’s yours and yours alone. I place much faith in your sharp eyes and your steady hand.: Th-thank you, Gilliam! I won’t let you down!Cipher Art  The Silver Knight, Seth (I’d like to note that all Cipher artwork I’m getting from the Fire Emblem Wiki. Thanks for being the great community resource you are, FE Wiki) Next time we kill monsters.
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Jun 11, 2018 23:36
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Shitenshi posted:Apparently Neimi was supposed to reference Colm in that support convo, as spoiler character has no supports with her and it's never once referenced that they know each other. Just a translation error. That makes a lot more sense than the other option. Although said character IS weak to bows, so they have a reason to fear Neimi. Keldulas posted:I feel Artur's problem is that he's an inferior version of Lucius in a game where most of your characters are higher-powered versions of their counterparts in FE7. It's really not pleasant for him, but he'll still do work since he's a mage. Honestly, he's also incredibly forgettable, so that doesn't do him any favors either. The special skill Bishops have, especially once endgame rolls around, is honestly what I usually really value him for. golden bubble posted:FE7 mis-translated Excalibur. Merric forever getting powercrept from beyond the grave. vilkacis posted:A R T As soon as I mentioned that Gilliam thing while I was typing up the update I had a feeling someone would do it, and I'm glad you took up the call. By the way, thread folks, in case you were unaware, Nintendo's E3 Direct is coming in about an hour and a half (9:00 PT), and there is confirmed Fire Emblem information. So I'll be all excited about that, and if you are too, I don't mind you talking about it here, and there's also a Fire Emblem Megathread in Games that'll probably be discussing it as well.
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Jun 12, 2018 15:31
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Chapter 4: The Priest, The Prodigy, and the Putrefied Corpse (Battle) Let’s hop right into this next battle.  : If you can get there swiftly, I implore you to watch over her safety.Artur here is basically just sneaking in a tutorial about Villages. There are two of them on this map. Which is one less than Three. The typical number of Houses. gently caress I literally only made it one screenshot in, huh?  Ahem. Sorry. Anyway, I’m honestly not too concerned about reaching this village too early. You’ll see why. For now, I’ll just have Vanessa weaken this Revenant.  Artur can handle the cleanup. I want these two over here because they’ve got great Resistance, and can easily handle those Mogalls on the right side.  Everyone else just kinda inches forward. There’s not much else to do at the start of this map, but I put Garcia, Gilliam, and Colm in a Forest out in front.  That’s because a Thief in a Forest is honestly pretty much a tank unit in the GBA games. Dodging is much more generous in the GBA Fire Emblems than it was in the DS ones, so this is actually a fairly viable tactic, and a good way to squeeze some extra combat potential out of units like Colm.  Moulder isn’t a Thief. Whoops.  The facial expressions on the Bonewalkers are honestly my favorites in the game.  Thieves also get a little bonus experience, by the way. Not to the degree Trainees do, but enough to propel Colm to this new level after he dents the monsters.  Vanessa couldn’t quite double this Mogall, unfortunately, but with a Javelin, she can chunk it down pretty hard.  This one was just a tad slower. Too bad, eyeball.  This map has a couple packs of reinforcements. On Turn 2, three Bonewalkers emerge from the east side of the map.  Ross is getting up there with his damage. It is just a Revenant, but this is leaps and bounds ahead of where he was in his first map. I’m still holding out hope.  All those physical enemies will crush Artur, so he falls back. Vanessa sits up here, where the cliff makes it so only one Bonewalker can hit her at a time.  Again I’m cackling at the look on that loving Bonewalker’s face. He’s just so done with this.  It sure is a Gilliam level. Res is neat.  Thankfully Eirika is still kinda wrecking. Those great levels earlier ought to propel her through the early game.  Colm and Garcia team up and down the snag, opening access to the southwest corner of the map.  Hmm.  Uh. Whoops. I mean, I’m sure Ross has gotten bulky enough to take...one hit…  I’d like to note that although all the Bonewalker overworld sprites have swords, they can wield Lances too. Just check their status panels.  Two levels, two points in Strength? Vanessa, there might be room for you next to Catria yet.  Thank you for not getting slaughtered.  Oh, one of the Bonewalkers made it to Artur anyway. It went badly for it.  At the start of Turn 3, more reinforcements? Kinda? Who are these dorks?   : Those travelers are being besieged by the agents of evil! : I cannot allow this to happen! Uh. This doesn’t work on Pokemon rules.   : How about we find us a nice, gentle path down, hm?: Ah...Yes, well...Let us hurry nonetheless. I simply cannot abide those wicked beasts running amok! And they’re gone.  Well. Back to this I guess. Vanessa can keep holding the eastern front alone, so Artur gets to work clearing the bridge.  He hit Defense? Huh.  Well, let’s make sure he won’t need it.  Franz is still a much better wall against these guys, so he takes position. Now for cleanup.  okay NOW for cleanup  Thank you.  Vanessa’s making use of her vulnerary to keep herself alive. That’ll be enough to keep the Bonewalkers’ attention. Colm heads for the southern village.  The enemies bash themselves against Franz, but he’s already such a badass that I’m not really worried.  I hate post-commentary hubris.  Oh yeah, there are still a few enemies by the village. Thankfully, Colm is still dodgy as hell.  Unfortunately, apparently the Bonewalker is too.  Turn 4 brings our last set of reinforcements, four more revenants from the northwest corner. Well, we’ll worry about that in a bit. Let’s clean up the rest of this side of the river.    (This also puts Artur in Mogall lure range.)  Now, everyone over here can hang back and get ready for more Revenants. I really want Ross to hit Level 10 on this map, so he can promote on the next one. So I’m going to be trying to feed him kills.  I almost feel bad for these guys. Have they hit anyone yet?  Also, Res.   And that’s the end of that.  I just decided not to move anyone here. They’re already in positions that are fine with me.  Ross can get a kill, though.  Speed...please...speed….  Not on you!  Chugging a quick Vulnerary makes it so Franz can tank the remaining enemies down here.  The Revenants just kinda ineffectually smash against our stronger units. The AI likes to go for kills, so a dodgy unit in a forest can be an effective lure.  So close…  Franz has no such troubles.  Now then, let’s get ourselves a new unit.  : Hm?: Your flesh shows no sign of putrefaction. It seems you’re not a revenant. I’ve decided to join you in battle now. : They are, quite simply, no match for me. I am superior after all.This conversation is a little different if you send Artur in, by the way. Lute doesn’t introduce herself.  We got Lute!  Lute is pretty similar to Artur. She has an even better offensive growth spread, although her Skill is rougher, and she also struggles with Defense. On the positive side, Lute can drop some serious magic bombs with that growth, and starting at level 1, she has plenty of time to let it grow. She also starts with a C in Tomes, so she can immediately use a lot of great weapons. Sadly, those weapons are heavy, leading to what might be Lute’s biggest disadvantage. Her Con is 3. She is weighed down by every Anima tome in the game. Her Speed growth is decent, so that can help save it, but not being able to double will hamper her nuking ability, which is the best reason to use Lute. There’s a consumable item later in the game that can increase Con, though, and Lute might be one of the best choices in the game for it. Barring some speed screwing, Lute can become a pretty great unit, and if you need magical offense, there are few better places to look. Worth mentioning, now that we have Lute, is that Magic has its own weapon triangle. Anima>Light>Dark>Anima. If you consider Light Swords, Dark Axes, and Anima Lances, that’s a pretty solid way to think of it.   MONKEY’S PAW’D AGAIN  With Lute on our side, we’ve finished just about everything there is to do on this map for the moment. There are still a couple nuisances to down, though.  Dammit, he got a hit. The Revenants didn’t quite bat .000.  Y’all remember Chapter 1? I do. I sure do.  Alright, this should do it!  poo poo. Okay. What I’m about to do is not good play, really. It is, however, better for pacing the LP.  And by “about to do”, I mean “do after I remember to visit this village”.  Oh, my dude, you are a little behind the times. : Bet it would make a handy bridge if you could knock it over. Take a weapon to it and give it a few good whacks. That should do it. Here, take this and give it a try. It ought to do the trick.   So, with Franz’s nice defensive ability, he can lure the boss in safely.  also the boss sucks  I’ll take it.  This is such a waste of xp.  But I don’t care.  I am rewarded. We’ll talk about this at the end.  : Still, we’d best burn the bones to ash to be sure they don’t return.: I still can’t believe what we’ve been fighting here...I’d thought those fiends nothing more than myth and legend.: Those revenants are said to be the least of the dark creatures. Were we watching the same Revenants? : We cannot take this enemy lightly.: Oh, yes. There are much worse than those revenants and the entombed... Start taking notes, folks. : Why, I’ll bet you just about any creature of lore could be walking again. Yes, we’re in for some trouble. Even my fabulous power may not be enough.: O divine light, show me...Is this a sign of dark days to come? : Princess Eirika, perhaps it would be wise to return to Frelia and regroup. Pressing forward seems foolish in light of recent events. We cannot face both Grado’s forces and more of those terrible things.: Seth, I follow your point, and nothing would please me more then running for safety. But what of my brother? He and his men are still trapped in the same situation we are. I know full well that I may be leading us into even greater danger, but… Please try to understand.This is what Ephraim would want. Definitely. : I do, my princess, and I vow to see you through this safely. Oh hey! You guys!   : ……: Oh...Where are the monsters?: Well, we just finished…: Ah, glad tidings indeed! The heavens must be rejoicing! I am.. a tad disappointed however. After all, I did rush all the way here to show you the splendor of my might.  : Pardon me, but...who are you?: Me? Since you ask, please allow me to introduce myself.   : Stop! Lady L’Arachel, you mustn’t continue! You cannot reveal your true identity here!: Oh, yes, you’re right. Oh, I get so careless sometimes! : Uh...Right.: Fare thee well, strangers. Perhaps our paths will cross again. Come, Dozla! Rennac! We ride!: Gwah ha ha! Let’s go, Rennac!: All right, all right. I love them all so much. VOTING TIME Oh poo poo, it’s Promotion time for our boy Ross! All Promotions in Sacred Stones are split, meaning we have two options! In Ross’s case, we’ll get two more options later as well, depending on which choice we pick. So, here are the two classes available. The Fighter is what Garcia is. They wield axes, have high attack power and constitution, and miss a lot, unfortunately. Promoting Ross to a Fighter will give him +2 HP, +2 Str, +1 Skill, +1 Res, +3 Con, and +1 Movement. It is also the only way to make him a Hero later on, which will give him access to swords. The other choice is the Pirate. Pirates are...honestly very similar to Fighters, but they can also walk slowly across water tiles. This is a very situational bonus. They have less constitution, though. Promoting Ross to a Pirate will give him +2 HP, +2 Str, +1 Speed, +1 Def, +2 Con, and +1 Movement. This also gives him access to the Berzerker class down the line, who are axe locked, but get a handy extra 15% Crit on all attacks. No matter which choice we make, we will have the choice later to make Ross a Warrior, who are like Fighters but with Bow access too. Please bold your vote for either Pirate or Fighter. Don't worry about Warrior/Berzerker/Hero, we'll vote on that when the time comes. If you want my pick, I think Berzerker Ross is overdone, although I love it, and I’ve honestly never used Hero Ross, so I’m leaning towards Fighter, but I don’t have a say in this. I’m leaving it in the thread’s hands. Choose wisely, and I’ll tally the votes when I record the next update. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Jun 13, 2018 |
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Jun 13, 2018 05:39
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I should clarify, I'm only taking votes for Fighter or Pirate right now! I'll hold another for his Promoted Class when the time comes.
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Jun 13, 2018 06:05
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:I say we go the third route...have vilkacis hack this game too and turn Ross into a Shaman vilkacis posted:You think this is a joke? You think this is a mother loving game?! I'd like to keep the LP vanilla but I really must acknowledge that Vilkacis is an unstoppable force of good for Fire Emblem. The thread is so far leaning towards Fighter, but we still have a few days. I've gotta go play
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Jun 13, 2018 19:13
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"Weird changes from the JP version" is an entry on the new seemingly endless list of ideas I have for bonus updates that maybe/maybe won't/probably won't happen. There's some interesting stuff in there, like the inexplicable Seth Buff.Camel Pimp posted:Oh, speaking of Ross. So, uh, I tried to do a Google Translate hack of fe8 (I couldn't quite get it to work) and this is what Google Translate translated Ross's name as I feel like we're overlooking the beauty of Vulneraries being "Rice Crackers". ^ me when I put more stuff in the op Thank you!
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Jun 14, 2018 05:36
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Chapter 5: Serafeud (Prep) Welcome back. Now that we’ve cleared the monster infested Za’ha Woods,Eirika can press on to Serafew.   They’re not lying, this map’s a bit of a difficulty spike. I actually have a history of trouble on this one. I’m not great at this game, though. Still, she presses on despite the danger. Her will is strong. The town of Serafew, located on the border of Renais and Grado. The people of both countries have long used the town as a meeting place. It stands as testimony to the friendship the two nations have shared these many years. Now, however, Serafew is teeming with Grado troops.   Hey, you were in the intro!  : Perfect. My pocket’s feeling a bit light. I don’t see any-  Oh, that makes sense. He’s quite a catch.   She’s not even facing the right way yet, sheesh.   Better. : No, pardon me! I never meant to startle you. May I offer my apologies… : No, it’s not necessary… It was my fault. Excuse me, I must be going… Good day to you.: And there she goes. Not my lucky day...She was quite the beauty, too. Ah, such is life. I think I’ve still time to visit the arena, though. After our mysterious hat man heads into the arena, a very different conversation begins.  : I bring orders from His Majesty. Rumor has it that Princess Eirika of Renais is making her way to Grado. You are to find her and to place her in custody immediately. : Yes, sir!: One more thing… A traitor to the empire has fled Castle Grado. We’ve received reports she is hiding somewhere here in Serafew. While Glen is one of the more kindly imperial generals, he’s not all sunshine and rainbows either. : Yes, sir, General Glen! If she resists, do we have permission to execute her?: ...Yes. Permission granted.: Understood! Grado’s will be done. The Grado Empire will repay the debt of betrayal with blood!: …His Majesty relies upon you, Captain. Be sure his trust is not misplaced. That is all.: Yes, sir! : If only I could hold such conviction in the righteousness of our emperor. : No…Pay no mind to me. Come, Cormag. Let’s go. From here, we ride northeast, back to the fort. : Very well. : My brother and I used to pass through here en route to Grado. I remember the harmony in which the people of both countries lived. No walls divided our borders. No soldiers stood guard in high towers. The border town… It was to me a symbol of the trust between Grado and Renais. Wow, way to kill the mood, Seth. : The peace I remember in this city… It seems like something from another time. It seems lost now...Forever.: …The city doesn’t seem to be very heavily patrolled. They must feel it’s not worth guarding with Castle Renais under their control. We must try to not draw attention to ourselves. The west gate is undermanned… A mystery character! I don’t have a portrait for this!  Seth seems to kinda instinctively dart in front of Eirika when this stranger shows up. I know it’s probably just portrait limitations, but I’m taking it as a character thing. And you can’t stop me.  : Indigo hair? No...Sorry. : Hmm...Thank you. Sorry to intrude.: There was something very odd about that man, wouldn’t you say?: He did seem unusual. He didn’t strike me as a Grado spy, but...  Still no portraits for this!  : Come quietly, and you may have the chance to explain yourself before His Majesty.: No, you must believe me! The emperor is not himself. You MUST be able to see that!: Impugn the emperor at your peril! We’ve been ordered to execute you if you offer any resistance. But your words condemn you! : That cleric is a traitor to the throne of Grado? What madness is this? : Are you all right?: Who are you?: I’m from Renais. Why are these Grado men after you?: You’re from Renais...Oh! I have something I must tell you. It’s about Grado-: Wait-Grado soldiers are coming this way. So much for sneaking through town.  Ross decides to break the fourth wall and brag a little here.  So, this is Ross’ promotion. We went over this last time, so I won’t go into too much detail here.   Enjoy this look at Ross’ Pirate sprite. It’s the last we’re getting, because the thread has voted!  In a flash of lightning…(lightning not pictured)  Wow. He’s on the Ike diet.  13 Strength at level 1 is one reason I stick up for this guy so much. He’s still...lacking, in some areas, but if that Def and Speed shore up a bit, I think he’ll work out.  There’s not too much to do on the Prep screen this time, but we do have a new unit!   Natasha’s direct competition is Moulder, and they’re very similar. Moulder pulls ahead in HP and Constitution, Natasha has an advantage in Magic, Luck, and resistance. There are other minor differences, but honestly this choice is pretty much personal preference. They both heal perfectly well. Natasha’s likely to put out a little more damage at endgame, and she tanks Magic much better, but Moulder is beefier and doesn’t have to worry about speed penalties. Most people prefer Natasha, but I honestly could go either way.  Because Natasha is forcibly deployed for this map, I subbed out Moulder and added Lute. This...might be subject to change, because Seth is extremely good at weeding out the most annoying bits of this map, but I think I’ll be alright.  Speaking of, let’s check out the lay of the land. The red roofed houses are basically Villages, in that they give you stuff. Those are the important ones, so someone will have to head over there. Probably Vanessa.  The streets are packed with Grado’s goons. They all wield Iron weapons, so they won’t surprise you, but keep your guard up and watch the alleyways.  The boss of this map is located in the top right, so it’ll be a pretty simple northeastern journey to reach him. Someone can ride up that path on the west side to get there faster, if you want to do that.  Saar has a Javelin, which isn’t too scary, but it means that even your ranged units will be in trouble fighting him. Choose your attacks wisely. Bonus Content Level 98 Pegasus Knight (Lute/Vanessa B Rank) I know a lot of people are fans of the Lute/Vanessa supports, so I pulled my favorite of those. : Titania.: Um...No.Titania is the name of Vanessa’s pegasus. This is mentioned in their C Rank support, and since this is FE8 and not 9, no, this is not a reference, sorry. : I meant...Vanessa, right?: I’m happy to know that I’ve made such a strong impression on you, Lute… So, what can I do for you?: It’s common knowledge that pegasi have strong resistance to magic. I developed a new counterattack to that power, but it still needs refining. I guess what I’m saying is… Can I try it out on Titania?Lute figured out FE9 Wind Magic early. : What?! No! Of course not!: I was joking.: Sigh. You said it with such a straight face… You definitely had me fooled.: Thank you! That’s so sweet of you to say.: It wasn’t a compliment! Besides, you really don’t seem like someone who has much of a sense of humor.: Is that right?: Yes… And it seems like your magic is the real thing. When you defeated the enemy the other day, I saw a sharp flash of magic from above.: Gee, I wonder why that happened...: Because...you’re good?: Why, yes! You are 100 percent correct! For once.lute is pretty cool y’all : My point is, we don’t have enough mages in Frelia, so we’re counting on you. When I was growing up, I always wanted to be a pegasus knight like my sister. I was also interested in magic, but I just didn’t have the talent.: Well, you are a great pegasus knight, so it’s worked out fine. Besides, I am also interested in becoming a pegasus knight.: Where are you in your training?: I’m at 98 levels out of 158 levels total.Hang on, let me convert that to gameplay terms. Lute is a level 12.4050632911 Pegasus Knight! Shame they don’t let you reclass yet. : That’s very impressive… Anyway, let’s just do our best out there, shall we?: Of course.I would also be remiss if I didn’t exclude this exchange from the A Support: : Lute, did you know this? The wings of a thousand pegasi are an incredibly potent aphrodisiac.: I…I didn’t know that… OK, now I really need Titania’s help. Wait! Wait! I was just kidding! Hush, Titania! Hush! I was joking!: I see… I was, um, kidding, as well. Heh heh?Really the biggest question here is how the hell you even ingest a thousand pegasus wings. (And, although I doubt I need to say it, this awkward semi-flirtatious comment does not mean you can be gross about FE characters in the thread. If you do that I will get upset. Don't make me upset.) Cipher Art  The Matchless Prodigal Mage, Lute (I’m going to go back and fix the other Ciphers as well, I’m doing resizing to make them fit better.) LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Jun 19, 2018 |
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Jun 19, 2018 23:24
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Alxprit posted:This map suuuuuuuuuuuucks. The hardest part is getting up those initial stairs safely thanks to a certain thing that I don't think reveals itself until you start. You can't really take it slowly and you need to hit hard and fast, which totally goes against my style. You could be referring to either the recruitment or the reinforcement sandwich and I would agree with you on both. Chapter 6 is the Fog Of War Spider Map. PMush Perfect posted:I'm one of those nerds who always brings the Jeigan, weaponless, and parks him somewhere as bait. Not really hard mode when you've got exploits like that. I'm not going to say I won't do this at some point. Although, if I were, it would probably be on this map.
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Jun 20, 2018 01:14
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Camel Pimp posted:
I mean I'd dare say you're entirely right. Whose stat block did you use for that? vilkacis posted:And if we need to pick one healer, it should be Moulder. I mean obviously, right?! I mean, probably, but it's FE8 so I can do both if people want. Wayne posted:I assume they mean 1000 feathers, which as big as pegasi are probably would come from one (an eagle has 5-10k feathers from both wings). Farmers do actually grind up feathers for protein in fodder, so you could eat it or dissolve it into something and drink it. I hope the "side effects" are worth it because it doesn't look very appetizing! I know you and Like Clockwork are almost assuredly right, but the idea of Fire Emblem's "One Weird Trick!" being to eat a thousand Pegasus wings is entertaining. Darth TNT posted:Here, use this: He looks like he's giving a TV interview on how someone he knew committed a murder, and he has to protect his identity. What does the secret life of Wrys hold? Endorph posted:Incidentally FE8 has a decent amount of unused data too and a beta version just a couple of months out from release that has some radically different sprites/animations and even a few different plotpoints. Yeah, I'd recommend people who've already played this game look some of that up. There are some interesting changes (Tana was a General, IIRC?). Hunt11 posted:Is the issue of being weighed down really a problem for light magic considering just how light the tomes usually are? Not really, but she can promote into Anima as well.
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Jun 20, 2018 16:28
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Hunt11 posted:Moulder can, but Natasha will only ever be able to use light magic. Whoops! I totally forgot Valkyries were Light users in this one, and that there's actually a meaningful difference between Clerics and Curates/Priests in this one. That's my bad.
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Jun 20, 2018 17:45
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vilkacis posted:I mean, the correct way to play FE is however you goddamn well want to. By not soloing the game with Seth, you've already decided not to play optimally anyway. Roughly nothing that is the most efficient way to beat the game will happen in this LP. My endgame is "how many bad jokes per update can I cram" and "will GifCam finally decide to work for me by the end of this". Shiki Dan posted:FE7 actually had a lot more varied level designs than the previous games, especially FE6 where every level is pretty much "Haul Roy's rear end across this huge map" This is why I never finished FE6. (I'm lying it was Nabata Desert.) FPzero posted:You don't notice the 3x effectiveness as much in 8 because at the start the Rapier is relatively low power, on a low strength unit, and effective against relatively defensive units that usually hold lances. It's hard to see huge numbers on it. But let me tell you about the ridiculous numbers I've been pulling in Awful Emblem because we have an axe user with good strength wielding an effective axe that also has good strength. 35 damage against a cavalier was kinda crazy. We definitely had to nerf that thing's power because that was just silly. That 2x to 3x change sounds like it's actually a major balance factor. I'm kinda wondering how some of the late-game FE7 maps would play with 3x. Cog of Destiny/Victory or Death, mostly. I do want to throw out a quick note again, the pacing of this LP may be a little slow, and I do apologize for that, but my work schedule is somewhat volatile, and I've still got RF2 to finish up, so I'm trying to alternate updates. Also I got back into FFXIV so that's eating time up, but if you ever want to run Primals with a subpar Healer and slightly distract me from jamming Wrys into more images, let me know. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Jun 21, 2018 |
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Jun 21, 2018 06:10
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FPzero posted:If you're looking for a lightweight and pretty easy to use gif recorder, try LICEcap. I've had good luck with it for simple gif captures. Thanks for the advice, but apparently complaining about it was all I needed to do  I will try and grab gifs of some of the better animations from here on out. (Taking suggestions for what FPS to convert the gifs to because I've never done this before, whoops) LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Jun 21, 2018 |
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Jun 21, 2018 06:56
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Chapter 5: Serafeud (Battle) Let’s get into it.   First the girl, now the gold. It really isn’t my lucky day. Get back to the staging area now! C’mon, why don’t we both hit the arena? It’ll be good training, If you’re going to risk your life anyway, you may as well try to earn some gold.Joshua is exceptionally chipper about blood sports. I’m reporting you to the captain! You’ll be lucky if he just docks your pay! Don’t forget–You can be replaced in an eyeblink, you filthy sellsword! Don’t worry, little man. I won’t forget. Work’s work, but I don’t like fighting women… Now then, what’s the rest of the day got in store for me?  I must speak with one of the Grado soldiers. Oh, if only one of them will listen to my words… Please! Grant me strength.One nice thing about Sacred Stones is that they tend to make it pretty obvious how you recruit certain characters. This whole conversation is a bit of a flashing hint sign.  I hope you weren’t done with text boxes, because Vanessa can immediately hit up this house.   I’m sorry, but I just finished a few moments ago. Oh, by the way…Would you be interested in one of these items? A wealthy patron left me a small ransom in gifts after watching my performance. You can sell one for gold if you’d like or use them to improve your skills. I simply cannot carry all of this by myself, so please, take this one. Wealth is useless if you can’t use it to bring happiness to others, right? Thanks for dropping by. Perhaps we’ll meet again someday.That seems unlikely, mysterious Unique Portrait Woman From The Intro Sequence.  The endless war between Draco and Dragon marches on.  The Dragonshield is a consumable item that will permanently increase any character’s Defense by 2. It’s good stuff. These stat boosters can help to mitigate a character’s natural flaws, or to fix some unlucky leveling. So it would be good on somebody like Ross or Eirika.  Also worth mentioning, Joshua has entered the field.  This is his movement range. Keep it in mind.  This is a pretty simple opening setup. Franz and Eirika are luring enemies out of those entrances, while our heavier units prepare to tank the dangers of the east side.  Sometimes the screenshots in this game turn out very well.  Eirika didn’t double this guy, probably because the Steel Sword is weighing her down a bit. Thanks, Con.  Uh oh.  We’ve got Bandit trouble. These two brigands will destroy the houses if you aren’t quick about dispatching them. You also might notice that the soldiers are starting to march south. Some enemies on this map will rush you, which can result in some tricky positioning. (Fun Fact: If you check this guy’s status screen, he still has that portrait, but he doesn’t do anything special or have any other lines.)  I’m sorry Ross and Garcia have the same sprite now, but them’s the breaks. Anyway, Ross is an offensive wrecking ball, so this guy really never stood a chance.  It’s viable to send someone up the west end of the map, but I prefer having them down here, because the majority of the map’s action happens here, and most of the enemies up there can be dealt with easier near the end of the map anyway. We’ll need all the firepower we can get on this side.  These bandits hit pretty hard.  Also GARCIA.  On the third turn, I want to down the Brigands and Soldier, and get ready for the incoming Archer. We’re on a bit of an invisible clock here, because the Brigands aren’t done spawning, and those houses remain unvisited.  First things first, Hatchet!    This double team kills the Brigand, and it also puts Franz in a position to lure out the fighter east of Joshua. That’s another thing you’ll want to keep in mind, we want both Fighters flanking Josh to be dead before we enter his range, or things can get messy.  I honestly probably should have gone with the Mend here. Sorry I didn’t mention that when we got Natasha, a Mend Staff is just a Heal Staff but better. Restores more HP.  And then I was going to do another double team with Lute, but Vanessa just crit-skewered this poor bastard.  maybe we should use vanessa  That changes my plans a little, because now I can do this. Sorry, rapier uses, but I’m not passing up the free opportunity.  For an easy Lute kill. That’s one Archer dead.  Whoop.  The Archer hit Artur, but it wasn’t too big a deal. Things are looking a lot cleaner now! That Fighter coming around the side might be a little annoying.  When enemies don’t have much Defense, Pegasus Knights can really shine.  And, again, this lures another Fighter.  Franz cleaned up that fighter for a very nice level. I’m a little worried about his Resistance, though.  And now, Lute can abuse the wall to poke at this incoming goon.  Vanessa’s hurt pretty bad, but the Fighter has it worse.  Hey buddy  I’ll take it.  The other fighter meets a similar fate. Once our spell slingers start doubling, they’ll be slaughterhouses.  Alright. Time for operation Joshua Extraction. Many Fire Emblem games have a Myrmidon early on who is obnoxious to recruit, and this is no exception, but Joshua is pretty easy in comparison to some. EDIT: As was mentioned in the thread, Joshua will not attack Natasha. You can use her to talk to him, but he will not approach her either, so it takes a little more time. Choose whichever fits your playstyle more.  First we give all of Gilliam’s usable weapons to Franz. If you brought Seth, he’s better for this. You can also just shuffle the inventory around so a Vulnerary is on top and he won't equip a weapon, but you can't directly unequip stuff in this game, so if he only has a lance, you can't do this.  Naked Gilliam waddles into the woods.  Vanessa visits a house. This actually has nothing to do with Joshua. I just wanted the stuff in the house.  Serafew’s got Renais citizens as well as Grado, but it’s been hardest on us. They’ve singled out families from Renais for the most awful atrocities. Please, traveler, take this sword. It’s an armorslayer. It’ll cut through even the strongest armor. Take it and strike down that blackheart, Saar. This is a very nice gift.  The Armorslayer is a Sword that is effective against Armored enemies, like Knights. It’s pretty handy against many early bosses, since a lot of them are Knights. Kinda like Eirika’s Rapier.  Last step, and this is important, make sure Natasha is nearby. Alright, let’s go.  He strikes twice.  If these had both been crits, Gilliam would have died. This is why I advised Seth if possible, since I don’t think he’ll get doubled. I know it doesn’t look like there’s a high chance that’ll happen, but remember. This is Fire Emblem we’re talking about.  Oh, also more Brigands, but we’re on track to deal with them.  Let’s make that easier. Natasha talks to Joshua.  Are you here to capture me? You’ve been hired to silence me, haven’t you? Yeah, Grado’s paying the bill. They want you dead, you know? But don’t feel bad. It’s not personal. Wait, please… It doesn’t matter what happens to me, but you must hear my words. The emperor of Grado is changed. He is not the man he once was. The other nations must be warned before he extinguishes all light from out lands. Hey, no offense, but I’m just a mercenary. I don’t care about Grado or its emperor. Everything you say may be true, or it may be lies. I don’t care either way.Josh here isn’t exactly a shining example of heroism. Still, he’s less bloodthirsty than that other myrmidon I know. Better haircut too. But that’s… Even so…killing a beautiful lady like you would leave a bad taste in my mouth. Tell me, do you like to gamble? What?! Let’s have us a little wager. If you win, I’ll believe you. Heads or tails, you call it. You can’t… This is no time for games… Would you rather I get on with the job I was hired for? …...Um, heads...No! Tails! All right. So I’m heads, and you’re tails. Here we go…There’s no animation for this, but if you Google “Coin Flip”...  You’re welcome, Nintendo  ...Which...Which is it? Just...just pretend the GIF stopped earlier. Well, Lady Luck has spoken. Guess I’m on your side now. Are you serious? Yeah. Sure, I might cheat, but I never worm out of a bet. It’s a rule of mine. Oh, thank heaven! Thank you, blessed light, for your protection! I got nothing against heaven, but I’m right here if you want someone to thank… No? Well , get behind me then. I’ve got to take care of these fools. It’s Joshua!  Joshua is a great Myrmidon. What that means is that he’s ridiculously fast and kitted out to hit some very powerful crits. He’s also got a pretty respectable HP growth. Joshua’s troubles come in the form of bad defensive stats and a pretty serious disadvantage against high Defense units. Basically, fighters and brigands will get mowed down before him, but knights can cancel out most of his strengths. Lance users will always give him a little trouble. That said, Joshua is a powerhouse in many situations, making up for a somewhat low strength by almost assuredly doubling his foes. Use him carefully, and he’s a wrecking ball, and a serious candidate for endgame sword user.  However, before we send him into the fray, I give him one of Franz’s Iron Swords. The Killing Edge is an extremely valuable weapon, with a massively boosted crit rate.  I don’t want to blow it on these generic Brigands.  and then he immediately gets hit because the game is mean like this.  Okay, it worked better on the second guy. Both of these were doubles, so both Brigands are already near death.  Oh, there was also a Soldier here, briefly. Please appreciate the Fighter pose.  Oh thank god, Defense. Now Speed just needs to poke its head out.  And that’s another village freed up.  The wiki didn’t have a portrait for the old man. Wait, hang on  I’ve even crossed blades with one of Grado’s most famous generals, I have. Ah, but I’m an old man now… I’m starting to worry… What if I die without passing on my techniques? So I decided to write down what I’ve learned in a book. I have it here. You seem like a strong warrior. I’d be honored if you would accept it.He’s always there when I need him.  The Secret Book is another of those consumable stat boosters. This one is for 2 Skill!  There’s also a Vendor on this map. It’s like an armory, but for magical equipment and consumables.  There’s nothing really worth noting in this one. I got a Vulnerary, though. Can never have enough of those.  Meanwhile, Ross gets ready for some Hatchet cheese.  Speaking of Vulneraries, Vanessa’s patched up for next turn, now. Gilliam’s in position to start luring the enemies next to Captain Saar. I need to keep up the pace, we aren’t done getting jumped yet.  Case in point, the final set of Brigands in the northeast there. And they’ve got a clear shot to the final village!  You get out of here.  Well...I mean...at least it was Magic.  This is rude. (it also missed)  Here’s the formation I set up. Gilliam and Joshua can lure some enemies in, while Vanessa’s in position to trick one of the Brigands into running south here, instead of west to the village. It’s worth noting that Saar doesn’t move, so if you aren’t within two squares of him, he’s a non-factor.  He took the bait! It wasn’t pleasant for Vanessa, but he took it!   Unfortunately, these two were smart enough to go for their advantageous matchups. Well, nothing we can’t deal with.  First off, get outta here.  Now for this. Sorry you keep getting screenshots like this, but the key to this map is really just analyzing how many enemies you can kill each turn without putting any of your units in potentially fatal situations. Also pushing forward quickly, and getting Joshua, and...yeah, this one is a bit of a step up from the field full of lovely Revenants.   Thankfully, this part is just cleanup.  It’s a Very Joshua Level Up.  The double magic attack removes this Brigand, and the other one is blocked off. It should be smooth sailing from here on out.  T O T A L L Y S M O O T H  I got sick of Ross missing this guy.  Here’s the ultimate disrespect.  Okay, I deserved that.  Last village is ours!   Let’s see, I’ve got vulneraries, antitoxins… Oh! And I can’t let myself forget torches for when it gets dark. Yep! I’m all set! Now I just need to get to the capital. I’ll be the finest soldier the Grado army’s ever seen! I swear it! Blink Animation serves to enhance this scene as Vanessa smugly steals random poo poo that person left lying around.  ...Ah, gently caress.  Here’s an item any Fire Emblem fan dreads seeing. Should have let the Brigands get this one. You’ll see what this does soon. Unfortunately.   The armory is a fair bit more interesting than the vendor on this map was. It has Steel weapons! I got one of each.  There’s one other facility on this map I can’t just pass up…  It’s the Arena!  These are a pretty classic element of Fire Emblem that’s gone by the wayside in the newer games.  In the Arena, you’re given a wager automatically. This wager determines the strength of the enemy inside. The higher it is, the more dangerous the foe.  When you go inside, a fight starts. Your unit is equipped with a basic weapon of their type, no taking the endgame swords into the blood sports.  Then a battle starts. Each unit continues to take turns until one dies. If you hit the B Button, you can back out. After the current turn ends. You’ll lose your wager, but…  ...Did I mention death in the Arena is as permanent as any other death? So, uh, if this goes really bad, we’re down a Lute.  Okay, we’re good.  Delicious, delicious speed.  So yeah. The Arena is a high risk way of leveling your units and making some money. The appeal in it with the older games mostly came from the infinite EXP...but that’s already in Sacred Stones. With the World Map skirmishes. Which are far safer, because you can control them much more. Because of that, I don’t use the Arena much in this game. It’s still a viable option, if you’re a risk taker, but keep the danger in mind. Resetting is no fun.  Anyway, here’s the boss.    That was the boss.  Okay, I’m just not going to talk about Speed anymore.  Yes, yes it was… Thank you so much. I don’t know how to repay- You’re from Grado, aren’t you? Yes...My name is Natasha. I was a servant of the people at Grado’s Imperial Temple. Then why the trouble with the soldiers? Would you tell us your story? Of course… A few days past, my mentor was arrested without warning. They executed him. They said he was a traitor… But those were false accusations. The emperor had him killed–a holy man!–to keep him silent. Keep him silent? Yes. My mentor told me with his final breath. This isn’t exactly too shocking. I do like the plot of this game, but it’s a bit cookie-cutter. Sometime, I’d like to see a Fire Emblem that goes for some really out-there twists and  i take it back (logo is from Serenes, thanks again for being you, Serenes) The Sacred Stones? Destroy them? As you must know, the Sacred Stones drove back the power of evil long ago. Even now, each of our nations is home to one of these legendary treasures. There’s one in my homeland, Grado, and one in your Renais… Yes, the Sacred Stone of Renais is still housed in our royal temple. The emperor plans to destroy the five stones, one by one… Why would he do such a thing? Legend says the Sacred Stones are even now all that keep evil at bay!: I cannot begin to guess his motives… Before my mentor died, he said the keepers of the Sacred Stones must be warned. I tried to slip across the border, but the soldiers spotted me… Is that what happened… What do you think, Seth? I think we can trust no one from Grado. Not in these times. Not without proof. However, if what she says is true, we cannot ignore the danger we face. Destroying the Sacred Stones… We cannot allow that to happen. I agree. If only we knew if there were some reason for the emperor’s actions. I must tell you, her story chills me to the bone. I pray it is false…You only get this next section if you saved all of the villages on the map from the Brigands.  Princess Eirika?Her name is Erina the Mercenary. I am.Dammit, Eirika. : Oh… Thank goodness you’re safe! I can’t tell you how happy I am. And please accept my gratitude for driving off that Captain Saar. That Saar treated all the citizens of Renais with such contempt and brutality…. Not here...not in this city. My brother and I spent such happy times here with Lyon.... I beg your pardon, but it will not be long before Grado sends more troops. Please, you must go quickly. I’m so sorry. There’s nothing I can do for you now. Please forgive me. Do not be troubled. Princess Eirika… We will survive and wait for the day of liberation to come. There will be a day when you, Prince Ephraim, and all of Renais rise up… Until that day of glory comes, we will wait unbowed and filled with hope.What an inspirational generic NPC.  Also, a reward! This is a promotion item for magic users. We’ll talk about these...much later. That’s the end of Serafew.  Next time, weren’t there two people on the cover? LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Jun 22, 2018 |
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Jun 22, 2018 18:25
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Krumbsthumbs posted:I'm not 100% certain of this, but I don't think Joshua will move to attack Natasha. She should be able to walk up and recruit him with no real issues if you get rid of his buddies. I am entirely scarred by Matthis and forgot to check this, although it was mentioned to me. That's my bad. If so, that's a viable solution, but it does mean moving Natasha fairly far forward, when the Brigands will spawn in soon if you're on the same pace I was. Probably still very doable. Trasson posted:Also, while unequipping everything from Gilliam was cute, you should have left an Iron Lance on for safety. Giving Joshua weapon triangle disadvantage would actually make it that little bit less likely he'll double hit and crit. My thought process was "Well, I really don't want Joshua to take the damage because I'll immediately use him on the Brigands", entirely forgetting that you recruit him with a healer who can just staff him right then and there. I was playing up the Joshua thing a bit for comedic purposes, but I really do still make a lot of mistakes in these runs. I've updated the post to account for the alternate strategies that have been mentioned. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Jun 22, 2018 |
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Jun 22, 2018 18:54
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vilkacis posted:
Behind the scenes note, I have a good friend who loves this game but has never had a good Franz, and just insists Franz is poo poo because of it. I've messaged him every good Franz level at this point.  This is a Spite LP now. (He also hates Abel, I'm justified.)mandatory lesbian posted:i like to think he takes it off before every battle so it doesn't get dirty, and then puts it back on as fast as he can so none of his friends see Thread Canon.
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Jun 23, 2018 07:41
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Camel Pimp posted:I, however, have no compunctions Beautiful. Thank you. On the topic of unit balance, don't worry too much about what I say in the updates, tbh. A lot of it is personal preference, based mostly on my experiences/those of others I'm close with, and honestly I'm not ever going to be pushing Low Turn Count/Ironman runs or anything like that, so this LP won't be touching on or focused on any of that. I'm not going to be providing any cutting edge insight onto the future metagame of FE. I may cut the unit "ranking" bits out of further character bios and focus more on the concrete stats. I'd like people to play this game and pick their favorites themselves. (although it seems most of the thread has already played FE8 so that's a bit of a fool's errand, but I am a fool.) I'm pretty entrenched in the position of "use whoever you want", but tend to gravitate towards Dark Mages (the 25% of the time they exist) and Paladins.
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Jun 26, 2018 07:55
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Chapter 5x: Castle Crashers (Prep) Last time we were met with a mysterious new chapter! There we go. These maps are called “Gaiden Chapters”. Typically they’re optional side-chapters unlocked after fulfilling some set of hidden requirements. FE7 was full of them, and they would fill out a hidden side story. Sacred Stones doesn’t do any of that. This is basically just Chapter 6, but it’s...different. It’s required, and it’s the only gaiden in the game.   We start in the throne room of Castle Renvall, where you may recognize a familiar sprite…  Read this with as much dripping sarcasm as possible, trust me.   : No. Prince Ephraim still fights in the lands north of Renvall.: And why is that? What has happened to all those mercenaries you hired?: They’ve proven to be less then adequate. Ephraim’s clever. His band strikes quickly and then vanishes into the woods. We more than double his numbers, and yet he uses the terrain wisely to fight us. He has no army–just a small force of knights loyal to Renais. Prince Ephraim’s reputation as a superb strategist would seem to be well earned.The game really wants you to think Ephraim is cool. He is pretty cool. : Hmm… How interesting. The lad’s beginning to whet my appetite. Tirado…Bring him to me as quickly as you can, will you?: As you command. Just grant me an army, and I’ll bring him down swiftly.: What sort of plan do you have?: Master, I am your loyal adjutant, and you are my general. This is such a bizarre thing to say. I’d say Tirado’s bullshitting him were the next, like, four lines of dialogue not about to happen. : Really? Well then, let me hear them.: Very well. First, you and I will leave this fort and head north. I love the phrase “leafy playpen”. This map has a lot of good lines. : Do not worry.  (gonna take this opportunity to remind you, use spoiler tags for story stuff!) : When the time is right, our friend will move on our behalf... Meanwhile at the Leafy Playpen…    : Our weapons are in bad shape, and we’re running low on food. We can probably restock at a nearby village, but– : No, that’s not an option. We’re in enemy territory. I will not involve innocents if I can avoid it.: Yeah, I knew you’d say that. I mean, it’s because of stuff like that that we’ve stuck with you so far. But eventually, we do need to face reality. What are we going to do?  : I’ve heard the capital has fallen.: Hm…So soon… Still, my father is in the capital, and he won’t surrender easily. Forde, Kyle. Our mission here is to harry the troops, to distract their eye. Hopefully, we’ll be able to give my father and Eirika time to escape.Poor Magvel hasn’t invented fantasy cell phones yet.  : No word yet, and it’s about time he returned... Oh hey he returned.  : I can confirm Grado presence at several points around our camp. Also, a large battalion of soldiers has been dispatched from Renvall. We shouldn’t tarry here any longer than necessary…: I see.: Seems as though we’ve certainly caught Grado’s eye this time. Should we retreat back to the capital, Prince Ephraim? : Wh-what?!? And smash cut to Renvall.  : Alright, let’s go. Another good line in this map. : We’ve an entire army after us, and you want to charge their stronghold?: Forde, watch your tongue! This is our prince you’re addressing!: Kyle, please, it’s all right. We’ve heard nothing from home, So what harm could a little reckless besieging cause?: Prince Ephraim…: Don’t worry. I haven’t lost all sense of self-preservation. Renvall holds an important place in Grado’s national defense. If we can get the upper hand and take control of it, then Grado will waste many valuable soldiers trying to take it back I hope our attack proves useful to my father and Eirika.: I understand what you’re saying, but… can we do it with our current strength?: Every soldier in this area is trying to find us. The enemy has us vastly outnumbered. Attacking the castle is a ridiculous idea. Ephraim’s plan is literally “this is so dumb they will NEVER see it coming” : You have a point. I’m sure Renvall won’t expect us to attack with these numbers. Either way, we can’t run forever. And we’re running out of supplies. What’ve we got to lose? Shall we get ready to go?: Yes. If we don’t move quickly, we may never get another chance. This has become sort of a pseudo catchphrase for Ephraim over the years. : Yes, sir!Valuable input, Kyle.  The place is looking much livelier than it did earlier.   : To arms! Prince Ephraim’s circled around and brought the fight to us! If we capture the prince here, we can line our pockets with gold! Do you understand? We’ll be rich!  : Your wounds still haven’t healed from that last battle, have they? Don’t push yourself. If we’re defeated, you must return to Frelia. Understood?: Understood…: Let’s go! Kyle, Forde! So, this map doesn’t have a real Prep screen, I’m just using the first turn as a pseudo version.  I forgot to mention this before, but you can press Start to bring up this little minimap. It’s honestly not all that helpful because it doesn’t give much information.  This map is pretty standard for an indoor level, though it’s bigger than Bazba’s hideout. There are some locked doors and chests, but we have no thief!  Thankfully, some of the enemies are carrying keys around. The enemies on this map are fairly weak, to make up for you only having four units, but if you play smart, this is a big bonus because several of them are just kinda...bags of EXP.  Here’s an enemy we haven’t fought before. A Shaman! They wield Dark Magic! It doesn’t really matter right now, but they’ll be a bigger deal later.  We’re fairly close to the throne room already, but this pool of water blocks off any entrance. We’ll have to circle around.  Anyone having flashbacks to the spiral map from New Mystery, rest easy, there are actual enemies and things to fight in this one! It’s actually fun!  This hallway is pretty rude, be careful in it. That Archer and Shaman can light up anyone who steps inside.  And then we’ve got the boss.  Zonta’s got a pretty interesting weapon type. The Blades are just sword variants with higher Weight and lower hit rate. I think this is the last game they appeared in, so say hello and goodbye. (Whoops, Alxprit reminded me, they're in Radiant Dawn too.) He’s not too tough. Now then, what you were probably really waiting for...   Ephraim is Very Good. Look at those growths. Look at those bases! The only one of these that isn’t at least “okay” is 25 in Resistance, and even THAT is higher than most units get. Ephraim will have some trouble with Magic Users, if he doesn’t just immediately disembowel them. You pretty much can’t go wrong with him. His Prf weapon, the Reginleif, is like the Rapier but for Lances. And a little stronger. It’s good stuff.   These next two units sort of belong in a pair. The traditional Red and Green Cavs are here, and here’s Kyle is pretty beefy. His strengths lie in his great physical abilities, with a pretty ridiculous Con for a cavalier and one of the best HP growths in the game. He has similar magic problems to Ephraim, though, and his Skill tends to fall pretty far behind, making it a bit of a gamble to hit, especially if you spec him into a weapon type that isn’t swords.   Forde is similar to Kyle, but with a tad bit less of that beefiness. He makes up for it with minor advantages in stuff like Skill and Speed. You might note that he’s pretty drat similar to his brother, Franz, so if he’s not working out for you, Forde makes a fine replacement. Or if you just really want horse units.   Orson might remind you of Seth. Orson isn’t QUITE Seth. He’s still a Paladin with great stats for his joining time and some really fantastic Growths (except luck, which is unfortunate), but he’s a tough nut to crack. Still, giving him experience might be a bad idea. The others need it more. If you’re struggling a lot in this map, though, using Orson to prop yourself up a bit can squeeze you through the rough patches. Bonus Content  Prince Of Renais, Ephraim LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Jun 28, 2018 |
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Jun 28, 2018 02:30
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Alxprit posted:Monster maps are kind of like the "gaidens" of Sacred Stones, anyway. I always forget the Radiant Dawn stuff. That was my first FE (Well, that I played, I watched someone on YouTube play through all of FE7 first) but I don't remember nearly enough of it. I remember Double Bow, at least. PMush Perfect posted:Oh, Hippo, you are really dropping some cheeky hints, aren't you?  I spent like 20 minutes trying to come up with one of those. It originally said "Most Likely To Have A Turned Coat" but that was a little too on the nose.
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Jun 28, 2018 03:13
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vilkacis posted:The great hero Axebeard McBeardaxe may have been forgotten by history, but his bloodline lives on! I just realized I didn't put it in the OP. I will correct this oversight. (also agreed) AradoBalanga posted:Anyhew, given how some of the previous Fire Emblem LPs turn out, I look forward to seeing if our Christmas Cavaliers want to swap roles (read: Kyle hits the growths you'd expect Forde to hit and vice versa) for no explainable reason. I have never really had Forde turn out to be anything other than what he is on the box. I got a weird God Kyle once, but I don't expect it to happen again. chiasaur11 posted:Of course, that also implies Ephriam is notably younger than Severa, which feels a little odd.) Severa does seem like the kind of person who refers to everyone as "kid" or "punk" even if they're like, older than her. She's kind of a jerk like that. Note: I did take a look at Serenes and through his supports, and it looks like Ephraim's age is never confirmed, aside from being the same as Eirika because, y'know, twins. Hilariously the only totally canon SS age is...Dozla at 47. Bless you, Dozla. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Jun 29, 2018 |
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Jun 28, 2018 06:50
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