All Comments

Okay, this looks interesting. It's a very succinct style, which I think works well with strategy-heavy games such as this. Not a lot of action, but this is only the first chapter; nothing really exciting ever happens this early in a narrative. Also, from your table of contents, I like your character picks; decent support bonuses, plus the fact that Soren and Stefan are usually two of my own best units. All in all, I wish you luck in this endeavor, and I'll likely be ready, willing, and able to respond to anything you ask of an audience.

Thanks for commenting! I actually got the format from Hamburger Time, who used to post fairly often in the Fire Emblem thread, since it was pretty good for this kind of game, as you said. I hope you enjoy the later chapters!

Well, until the chapter is beaten and keeping such wonderful stats is guarenteed, I usually become quite nervous and even more careful because the stakes have definitely increased. Once I'm in the clear, though, I usually let out a sigh of relief, utter how awesome this is, and perhaps do a fist-pump if it's one of my favourite characters.

I think the only time I ever got a perfect level up was with Sothe, though, and I have the Blossom skill to thank for that.

Sothe is pretty awesome on his own, but he suffers from a lack of class changing, which means he can't get stats above 20 in his main combat stats, so he falls behind the others. I also most definitely agree with your anxiety when a good level up happens early, so you hope beyond all hope that nothing goes wrong.

I think that the fine line between a fun challenge and an obnoxious obstacle is how much the game makes you suffer for it. By this point, even if you're not using all of them for the majority of the game, you've got enough units to evenly disperse amongst the choke points. Plus, the types of enemies that are sent after you is roughly balanced. But if, say, you had Knights attacking from all sides, you weren't aware of that fact, and only Ike had enough power to defeat any of them, best of luck trying to predict the actions of an artificial intelligence...

You know, I don't think I ever alerted the guards in this chapter. Then again, that's because I always relied on the same guide, too chicken to try and guess my way through a stealth section. One of these days, perhaps if there's ever a draft run of this game on the forums, I should purposely alert the guards just to spice up the playthrough.

Seriously? Wow, so you've never gotten Brom or Kieran? The stealth section itself isn't really guessing. Anyone with 6 or more movement will be able to slip their way out of the guards sight range, and so long as you check to see exactly how far a guards sight range extends, you should be fine. The only reason I got caught was because I forgot Mordecai on a space just at the edge of a guards sight.

Oh, I've gotten Brom and Kieran before. I've opened their door, had (I think) Oscar initiate brief conversation with Kieran, and then left the two huddled in a corner and out of sight while the other guys slip past the guards and make their escape. As long as the door's open, it doesn't matter if you order them to head towards the exit or not.

Oh, okay. I wasn't aware that it was possible to open that door without alerting a guard. I thought they were alerted simply upon seeing an open door. I can make use of this next time...

It took me something like 35 turns but I managed to get everyone out without being detected—that includes Sephiran (despite not being necessary for anything) and Kieran (used the Direct command)—, all the treasure, and the boss dead on my replay.

I think your VS Sections thus far were quite well-done. Characterization seems splendid, and they're certainly apt descriptions of how each boss encounter went. Additionally, while I've already stated that a summary of most things in as Strategy RPG is best, fleshing out major conflicts such as the boss fights adds thrill that makes your blog unique, and allows the audience to feel connected with the characters.

This VS Section was especially nice, as Jill's inner thoughts would never be known to the player, but what you've written clearly matches up with what she must have been feeling and her motives for joining Ike. I also enjoyed Soren's actions back in Chapter 7, when the opponent failed to score even a point of damage. Here's hoping that more wonderful battles such as these will await us viewers in the future!

...Oh, and happy holidays!

Happy holidays to you too! I'm glad you enjoyed reading these, and I'm hoping I can make the other sections more in-depth with the character like this one. Hopefully now that supports are starting to develop, that'll be able to be fit in better. Thanks for sharing!

Playing this on Hard now, just thought of coming back to your blog to see the early chapters (such as this one which I just finished amazingly without any deaths, although Marcia and Jill both came really close).

Rolf was technically my MVP, and he did his part, but I'd say Soren adepting all over the place and Jill criticalling an enemy who would have killed her on his second attack were probably the best.

I'm glad you're enjoying this game. Good job making it through this chapter without any deaths, as it can get tough if you don't know what to expect.

On the subject of MV Ps, I never remember to add those to these updates, aside from this one...

I always disliked this chapter's requirements for bonus EXP. On the other hand, it makes for good drama and story-telling (or it would, if they showed more closely the horror that this fight actually is)

And then there's Stefan... Worst recruitment ever.

Anyway, now starts what is, plot-wise, my favourite part of Po R (The "Oliver Arc", so to speak). Loved everything about it, from the Bird Tribe politics, to that battle at Serenes Forest. Sure, the most interesting part is outside of the gameplay and of Ike's perspective in general, but details.

Indeed, the Oliver Arc is one of my favorites as well. Day Breaks is a bitch and a half on an Ike Solo though, but that will come up later.

I'm guessing Stefan is "worst recruitment ever" because of how out of nowhere he is? I actually really like him, both as a character and as a unit.

As for the chapter itself, I don't mind the Bonus Experience requirement, though that is mostly because I usually ignore it. I plan on following it from now on to make the chapter more interesting, though I might not have everyone hide in a corner with Stefan in later runs.

Yeah, I was referring to his recruitment, not the character or the unit. While I don't use him much, I like the fact that there's a world-weary branded on the cast, always a refreshing sight. Plus, the theory that he is a direct descendant of the great hero Soan already made it into my headcanon :p

I only learned of his recruitment thanks to a Nintendo Power I read where Path of Radiance was the cover story. His recruitment is pretty counter-intuitive, so I could see why someone might not notice it. It is alluded to in the base by a guy who mentions "strange figures in the northeastern dunes".

As for him being the descendant of Soan, I'm pretty sure that's implied canon, especially since his Japanese name is Soanvalcke. Fun Fact: he is the only character in the game to join with a Mastery Skill.

Oh, so this is the game "Serenes Forest" comes from. I guess when/if I ever get to play it I'll learn why it's significant.

I was wondering, since this is going to be a collection of all your Fire Emblem liveblogging, are you going to link to your draft?

I probably will be including a link to my Draft liveblog in the Table of Contents at some point.

Random note you will probably never see: so I hear Shinon can be re-recruited if you talk to him with Rolf, then kill him with Ike...

Apparently, after Stefan this is the most Guide Dang It one in the game, which is why I checked to see if you did it.

I'm aware of it, although it took me about 3 playthroughs of the game to actually find out about it (which I only learned of through Gamefaqs). I didn't get him on this run since I wasn't planning on using him, although I plan on using him in a later playthrough of the game.

Well, if it's my first time playing through, I usually avoid those guys like the plague. I've spent a lot of time getting to know these characters, and it can be risky to send even your best units against certain opponents. However, if I'm playing through again out of pure enjoyment of the game rather than watching the characters develop, then I'm all for giving myself an extra challenge to make things interesting.

Honestly, even as super tough foes go, Naesala is a doozy to fight. I probably won't fight him in every file (hell, I only decided to fight him now because I knew Soren could hurt him enough that I could reliably kill him with other units help). I only fought him since I wasn't planning on using the Knight Ring he usually gives, so there wasn't much use in sending him off using the other birds when I could get a good fight out of it.

I'd imagine the Oscar/Boyd/Rolf triangle attack can devastate Naesala, since it's an effective damage critical with 100% accuracy. I might try it out if the brothers' stats are up to it, only a chapter away.

I'm fairly sure you're right, and on a run I use the brothers, I might fight Naesala to see how effective it is. Of course, I'm likely going to use diplomacy more often than not, since the Knight Ring is a pretty cool item.

I've used Jill, and I must agree that it's kinda cruel to use her in this battle. Even if she's formed strong bonds with your team, the idea that their protection is worth fighting against the person that cares for her the most kinda leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Yeah, pretty much how I feel. I also avoid it because if she fights any of the enemy wyvern knights, they start up a conversation with her, so it means she does in fact know these people personally, and is going to have to kill them if she's there. Less than pleasant, I have to say.

Well, long-ranged magic is definitely something to keep a tight grip on, and there's a couple of staves (like the one you can earn in this chapter) that would be wasted on any battle other than the final one. I also tend to hoard Katti swords, and if there's a weapon with limited uses that's only meant for a single character, I tend to continue to hold onto them even after they become useless. Marth and Eliwood's rapiers, Hector's axe...you get the picture.

I'm going to have to find a particularly good use for that sleep staff in the future, because it could really mess up the entire enemy set up if used right. I agree with you on all counts though, and I actually still have Ike's Regal Sword in his inventory, despite it never getting any use anymore.

The part in Sword of Seals (final chapter of Sacae route) where I got fed up and broke out all the previously Too Awesome To Use stuff was hilarious.

It's not really hard, once you know the trick just long-range stuff, like two Boltings, two Killer Ballistas, a Berserk, and a Physic, with ranges hitting just outside your starting zone yet in inaccessible areas. Which you don't realize at first because fog-of-war.

Warp/Rescue Staves should not be left to rot in inventory. Once I did that it became absolutely trivial. Like seriously the easiest map in ages. Legendary weapons pale in comparison to how they can break levels.

That aside I'm oddly attached to unique myrmidon-type weapons. The Mani Katti, sure, but I've even used the Hammerne on Wo Daos before.

Is the chapter you're talking about the obscenely devious Desert Fog of War chapter I've heard so much about? If so, then it just got a lot harder.

Warp staves aren't too available, but I can never avoid using them when I have them, and have used the obscene number of them in FE 11 to absolutely break it (What was that Medeus? You had an enormous army? Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sounds of me warping to you and crushing you instantly). Never really found a use for Rescue staves though, unless you have a flying healer or at least a Valkyrie.

Nah, desert is chapter 14, I was talking about 20. I never understood the complaints about the desert map on either mode, thought the ratio of fun-to-difficulty was good.

The use I found for the Rescue staff was to let you abuse Warp even more, since with a Dancer I can send somebody in, assassinate, and pull them out again before the enemy reacts.

I also have, as of chapter 20 Po R, 7 uses of the Regal Sword left. Ike never seems to be the one fighting the knights and cavaliers other knights.

Wow, that Warp/Rescue combo actually sounds really awesome. Warp your best unit into the enemy lines, slaughter some mooks, and when the going gets tough, get them out of their and make use of the chaos to allow your other powerful units to crush the remaining foes.

Rath's unit in FE 7. Unlike other potential examples there aren't enough of them to get in the way (defending the apostle comes to mind).

Tibarn and co. in Po R, although I was briefly worried about losing the Adept scroll if they killed him or Oliver first. Does Reyson ever dance for his allies or is he just there?

Rath's unit is pretty useful, isn't it? And plus you get Rath back, which is also quite nice.

Tibarn and company strike me as so competent, they're almost a pain, since they just wreak utter havoc on the enemies. As for Reyson, he doesn't chant for them, and sort of just hangs out while they smack around the enemies.

Now that I've played this chapter, yeah, they're pretty great. I do wish the Valkyrie would actually heal people though, so two of the archers wouldn't have spent most of the time running around trading vulneraries.

The Valkyrie healed people a couple of times in my run, although she didn't do too much otherwise.

You must have been a speed demon to reach the top before all the boulders had been pushed.

Falling rocks did more damage to the boss than I did—I think three of them hit, then Ike borrowed Tanith's forged Ghostblade and Cherry Tapped him. Everyone else was too injured to risk attacking, so that was quite fortunate. Thanks guys!

Actually, I just had Jill kill Gromell and kill the boulder pushers on one side, while the others stand out of the way of the boulders fall paths, and climb their way up.

I've seen the enemy themselves kill Gromell with a boulder, by having Tanith fly up with the Sonic Sword, knocking his health down to below 10, and putting the two of them into a boulders path. I'm sure you can guess what happened next.

It's a bit of a shame that those bishops undid all of Ike's hard work...but at least the battle is in the past now, and the end of this war is close at hand. Good luck!

Indeed. I was pretty pissed when that happened, but I suppose it's only fair since Mist was able to help me in this fight. Ah well, I wasn't going to use either of the dragons anyway, so there wasn't much need to win that.

And so, your playthrough of Path of Radiance is complete. And while one adventure behind you, there is another just over the horizon. Congratulations on your progress thus far, which was certainly a fascinating read, and best of luck on the trials to come.

My, feeling poetic, are we? Thank you very much for reading, and I hope you enjoy the later updates!

Any deaths? I find it impossible to believe you beat the hardest Chapter in Tales of the Fragile-As-Shit Brigade with no casualties

I have trouble training healers. I guess it's because while the offensive units can kill and gain more EXP for the kill, all healers can do is heal (I usually save all the fancy staffs for special occasions), and as the offensive units get tougher, they need healing less and less. If that makes sense.

It makes a lot of sense, and is pretty much the crux of most issues when it comes to training healers. Since I like to keep my unit groups small, I usually end up with a bunch of super tough fighters, which makes healing harder when they aren't getting hurt since the stomp everything so easily.

I actually thought the personality you gave her fit rather well. It's a pity that some of the new characters in Radiant Dawn got so little development, I would have liked to see something like that in canon.

Unrelated, but I've always wondered just what getting hit with Light or Dark magic actually felt like. The VS section made that come to mind.

I figured Dark magic just directly made you feel pain in one way or another, while Light magic either blasts you with solid light, or acts like a laser. I went with solid light, because the games showing of it doesn't really bring laser to mind.

As for Laura, I'm glad you liked it! I was being kind of drastic with it, and wasn't sure if I had gone overboard, but I think I struck a decent medium for what little we're given in the game.

To me, Dark Magic, and Light Magic too, feel like pain. Not any type of pain, not like being set on fire, being frozen, being cut, or anything like that, but raw pain throbbing through your body. If it kills, the pain causes a heart attack or something of that nature. If that makes sense.

That's pretty much the same way I see it, though Light magic is more solid light being used for blunt force. I imagine a dark magic kill would send the victim into shock or something, though a heart attack sounds like it could work.

Well, I suppose support conversations would be a good way to show character development, in addition to those wonderful VS sections you've been creating. And while one of the strong points of this format is that it succinctly summarizes minor events, I think it would be worth having longer entries in order to get the most out of these characters as we can.

Cool, thanks for the input! I'll make sure to add supports into the chapter entries as they happen.

Oh yeah, I've had someone liked that. Gilliam in The Sacred Stones. The only thing that could hurt him were Draco Zombies (unfortunately, when they hurt him, they hurt him)

Ah yeah, Gilliam is one tough cookie, ain't he? I remember Oswin being super hard to kill in Blazing Sword as well on my first run, and Hector and Lowen both held that spot in my Draft run.

As for Draco Zombies, they do indeed hurt, since they're pretty much the Fire Dragon from Fe7, but with severely dampened hp and slightly lowered damage.

Mia in my second Po R run, when she might not have evaded Vantage + Guard/crit/Brave Sword usually took care of it. Good thing too since at 20/20 she still had only 11 defense or thereabouts.

Are you sure putting Jill on the G Ms side was the best idea?

No, I doubt it was the best of plans, but I just can't really see people like Jill and Zihark fighting against the Laguz Alliance, when not only are close friends of theirs on the other side, but they both know that what they're doing is wrong, and yet are still doing it.

Plus, it allows me to build up Mist and Jill's support faster, as well as giving the remainder of the experience to Aran and Laura, seeing as they have far less availability, so they need to make the experience count.

I thought it was a bit too cluttered, and I agree, it didn't flow very well. It was like, Aran is "fighting" the sleeping Ike, Laura is fending off laguz, then Aran is fending off Laguz, then Laura is fighting Ike, then Aran again. I guess what I'm saying is, it's a bit too cluttered and unfocused? If that makes sense.

Though I did like the "only reason Ike survived is because Soren saved his ass at the last second" thing, instead of the "that battle didn't count" vibes his defeat in the game itself gave.

Thanks for the feedback! I did feel that it felt pretty cluttered, but I wasn't quite sure how to fix that without leaving out something from the fight. I'll mull over that bit and see how I can do that kind of thing better in the future.

I'm glad that the ending bit worked well enough, since I didn't like how that seemed to work in game. I'm somewhat worried about how I'll go about it in other files, where Soren isn't around to fix the issue...

You could always interpret it as "Titania comes in and saves his ass at the last second", since she does come in during his defeat quote regardless of if she is on the battlefield or not.

That could work. That, or some other GM that I happen to be using in the file could save him, who knows. Regardless, I'll have plenty of time to mull over what to do about that in later files, since I won't be immediately repeating this game right after this run, as that would get stale.

Ironically enough, the first time I played 4-P, Naesela just kept getting hit half the time instead of evading anything and everything like he usually does. And he never activated Tear even once.

Not only that, but he recruits himself upon meeting a heron, and Ike asks him after some ellipses to please go back to the other team. I laughed when I saw it.

Honestly it's pretty tolerant of them, letting a slaver and the guy who tried to kill them for two or three chapters in Po R stay on.

Oliver's self recruitment is both awesome and hilarious. Ike's reaction to it just seals the deal.

I always bring Nephenee along with me for this level, yeah, stall.

It's a 1-2 range lance with +3 luck, why the hell should I let it be abandoned?

What is a Blind run?

I haven't played FE 6 before, so if that gets picked, I'll basically be playing the game blind, and what I'll write about will likely be a bit different.

FE 6 Blind? Merciful Lord, I'd wish you luck there: that game pulls so many underhanded tactics to those who aren't prepared for that a blind run almost ties in terms of difficulty with the trickery of Thracia's core gameplay...

Also, compared to the other options, your possible Sacred Stoned run sounds like it might need a better handicap...

Always be wary around the edge of maps and staircases due to appear-and-move-immediately reinforcements. Oh, and always check weapons because Silver starts showing up in like chapter 7 and there's a lot of generics with Killers throughout.

Really I'm glad I was doing an endurance run both times because I think I would have gone insane if I restarted every time someone died.

Since we'll be doing that SS draft soon you might want to choose one of the first two options for variety's sake. I don't have any experience with Shadow Dragon; kind of curious how a bow-only run could work.

So that's two votes for the FE 6 run, I take it?

As for the Sacred Stones being kind of bland, it's basically the vanilla option. The run itself would work like the previous run of the Tellius games, where I pick out a team, and then go through the game with it. Normal meant that it was just a normal run, not a run on Normal mode (which is something I likely should specify).

I vote for FE 6 as well. I like watching blind runs, plus the game is still fresh on my mind.

By the way, FE 6 is a game where sticking with your team at all times may not work out so well.

Alright, so three votes for FE 6.

I'll keep the team warning in mind, although since I'm only passingly familiar with some of the characters, I won't really have a set team of units.

Marcus is absolutely essential in Hard Mode, not as much in normal.

Both times Alan turned out better than Lance for me and then was himself outmatched by one of the best prepromotes ever.

This game hates knights and I commend you if you manage to use Bors or the other two for long, although they get a triangle attack which is reason enough I'll probably try to train them seriously next time.

Merlinus, unlike the sequel, has absolutely no reason to be brought on the map once you can ditch him, so I suggest doing so (chapter 6 I think).

I know you want to do a blind run but I highly recommend looking up the gaiden chapter requirements since without reaching all 8 you'll miss, in addition to them, two chapters and the best ending, not to mention otherwise you'll feel like "What? That's it?" since it cuts off kind of abruptly.

You'll usually know if you'll miss the gaiden requirements though. Chapter 12's has a soldier talk about sealing off the cave for Armads and Chapter 14's Fog will clear up.

You probably won't miss 8 if you're used to keeping everyone alive. 16's is probably one of the more difficult chapters to unlock because it involves making sure an enemy does not die.

I would also say that Wendy is a lot like Amelia except for the fact that she has to contend with a lot of axe users in the chapters after she joins you so she's a little harder to train, but better than any of the other possible Generals.

Why doesn't Merlinus need to be brought? Can I just send stuff to the convoy so long as I have him?

I will be keeping an eye on the Gaiden requirements, since I want all of the chapters.

As for the units, I've heard of Marcus' usefulness, and I'll likely keep him handy until my units get some really good stats, and I've also heard of the knight triangle attack, although I wasn't aware all of the knights were as bad as Bors.

Yup which makes him infinitely better than FE 7 Merlinus.

Well, I hear Wendy grows up to be the best, but she starts at level 1 with bad bases and the next several chapters of the game are axe country. The triangle attack could probably help with that which is why she's not completely hopeless.

Barth is a good wall when you get him. I didn't try to seriously use him so maybe he turns out decent. I dunno, he just didn't interest me.

Barth is basically garbage. Yes he'll get HP every level up and Strength is rather likely, Defense pretty average, but everything else is garbage. 20% Speed, 20% Luck, 25% Skill, 2% Res. He won't dodge anything, ever, and if he gets Defense screwed, well, crap.

2% res growth? That's amusingly specific. Constantly being able to send stuff to the convoy will be nice. Wendy is the best of the lot, eh? Might try to use her, although if axes are everywhere, I doubt I'll have the patience.

Heh, it's too late for me to say, but it's always a good idea to use both Alan and Lance in the first few chapters, just in case one of them gets screwed in stats. Sounds like Lance is doing fine, though.

Also, a support with Roy benefits either cavalier, as it is fast, and mitigates their problems.

And ditching Bors was a good move :P I wasn't so wise the first time I played this game...

Roy can support the cavaliers? That'll be helpful. Lance is doing fine so far, although I worry he might get strength screwed if I'm unlucky.

Good to know my decision to avoid Bors was good then. Hopefully I'll get a unit with good defense later on, but at least the units I've got are decent at dodging.

You don't actually have to recruit Lugh with Chad, although you can see their conversation if they meet up later.

Chad has pretty awesome growth rates IIRC and can be a great fighter for a while, but yeah, no promotion.

Theory is that Lugh and his brother you'll meet later are Nino's kids and the priest taking care of the orphanage may have been Lucius.

I don't think Lugh and his brother being Nino's sons is a theory, though Lucius being the priest definitely is. Her paired endings say that she gives birth to twins and well, it's hard to deny a family resemblance.

I'd heard about the twins, and damn if they don't look like Nino. They're even about the same age as she is when she joins, so it just goes even further. Sadly, even with good growths, Chad suffers from the same problem as Por!Sothe. No promotion making those great growths essentially useless after a certain point.

I've noticed that they are basically throwing characters at me. I've already got a party of about 13 or so people, and I've just reached chapter 4.

Yeah, that's going to continue basically the entire game.

2 in chapter 4.

None in chapter 5, surprisingly.

3 in chapter 6 and the first part of a multi-chapter recruitment.

3 in chapter 7.

4 in chapter 8 and the second part of that recruitment, out of three.

Gaiden.

2 in chapter 9.

And then route split number one. Speaking of that, good luck getting everything on 11A/10B.

A route split after chapter 9? Wait, number one means that there is another later on? Damn. Well alright then, this is going to get interesting.

2 RN. Rutger and Clarine make a great support pair, with great evasion and crits. Neither are extremely powerful, but Rutger has one of the highest Skill growths and decent HP. Clarine gets a lot of Speed, Res, and Luck, making her fairly hard to hit.

There's a Myrmidon later who is stronger, but not as resilient.

Wait until you get your third Staff-user before you plan to ditch Ellen: if by then the Cleric didn't take advantage of having the second best Magic growth in the game, she'd be a lost case. Also keep in mind that, unlike FE 7, if you want a good Light Magic user, you have to promote him/her.

Parallely, Clarine's strength doesn't come from her growths (as a healer, she makes a better Blink Tank): it comes from the fact she makes a monstrous Support Triangle with Rutger and Dieck...

Remember, Swordmasters and Berserkers get a higher-than-normal crit boost in this game. You should definitely take at least one; I used both in Hard mode and they kicked butt.

Dieck is awesome, and I'd say him, Rutger, and/or Miledy are probably the best units in the game. You should continue to rely on him for everything. The other Merc later has better growths though and is also a terrific unit when trained.

Clarine will never deal much damage but will be an amazing dodge tank after promotion. And with Thunder and an A support with Rutger she can churn out a decent number of criticals lategame to make up for low Magic.

I find Rutger somewhat overrated (on Normal Mode, at least), but other than that, I agree with the advice that has been given.

You mentioned the Hero Crests, and you would be right to think of them. By the time your units reach Level 20, you'll have found, like, 2 or 3 of them, for a ton of useful units that use them. And Pirates also use Hero Crests in this game.

Also, I thought FE 6 used a 1 RN system?

They stopped after 5. It's harder to tell simply because your hit is in the 60-80 range more often than in the later games, with more enemies being at least 30% which still gives their True Hit a decent chance to connect. The engine is too similar that I doubt they would reprogram the RN for a game that would come out in a year as opposed to the 5 years and console change from 5-6

So it is 2 R Ns. I guess Rutger just got less than lucky the first time around huh. I may use him, since I have heard he is quite good, and I do like me some Swordmasters. I'm also glad to hear that Miledy is pretty good too, since I figured I'd recruit her, and I like dracoknights.

As for Light mages, I'm gonna need to promote for one? Darn. Well, hopefully Ellen's magic growth kicks in, because that 1 base isn't looking so good, although she's only gotten one level so far. I've now noticed I'm also going to need a good number of Guiding Rings, although I remember those being far more liberally given out in the other games, so hopefully that applies here.

In a single playthrough, there are 4 Guiding Rings, but the Secret Shop in chapter 16 sells them, and you'll hopefully have found the Silver Card in Chapter 14. Same goes for Hero's Crests. There are 5, although you can get a 6th if you go to Sacae, Knight's Crests. 2 or 3 Orion's Bolts, the 3rd coming from if you go to Ilia. 4 Elysian Whips, which is exactly enough.

Thanks for the info, and I'm glad to know there is a Silver Card in chapter 14 (that's the desert, I'd assume), since I'm likely going to be supplying far more units than I normally would in this game.

I'll try not to spoil too much since you want to play blind, but I'll offer you one hint that I hope won't be too specific: if a chapter looks particularly climactic to you, for instance if the boss is an important villain or it looks like a plot twist or Reveal is coming up, it's probably in your best interests to finish it as quickly as possible.

Those kinds of chapters lead to Gaiden's I would assume? I won't need to worry about those, since I will be looking at a list of Gaiden chapters so that I don't miss any, since I want to get all of the chapters.

I'll just go ahead and list them. I'll try to avoid as many names as I possibly can.

• 8X: Lilina survives Chapter 8
• 12X: Complete Chapter 12 in 20 turns. Bard must be alive if you went B route for 10 and 11
• 14X: Complete Chapter 14 in 25 turns. Sophia must survive
• 16X: Douglas (enemy) must survive Chapter 16
• 20X Ilia: Complete Chapter 20 in 25 turns. Yuno and Zealot must be alive
• 20X Sacae: Same as Ilia, but all Nomads must be alive
• 21X: Complete Chapter 21 in 30 turns. Miledy and Zeiss must be alive
• 23 on: Complete Chapter 22. All Divine Weapons must have been recovered and still intact

Cool, and I get a Divine Weapon per gaiden? Gonna be packing some serious heat come endgame, I must say.

Yup, but they only have 20 uses each. However, they are vastly more usable than Blazing Sword because A) the Divine Weapons only require S Ranks, and in 6, units can have multiple S Ranks, B) their weights are much lower. Durandal only has 12 Weight compared to 16 while Armads weights 13 as opposed to 18. Forblaze may as well not weigh anything.

You forgot about Fa being alive for 23 on.

Alright, supports first:

Unlike FE 7 and FE 8, the limit is on how many support points can be built up per chapter rather than conversations per pair. According to serenes it's 120, coincidentally exactly the number needed for two C supports or one B.

So if you want one support really fast it can potentially reach B in a single map (the minor upside), but if you're trying to support multiple people it will probably take a few chapters (or a lot for some pairs with a +1 growth since others will be sucking up all the points) and then you'll start unlocking several at once.

Gant's Lance: it and two later items (Al's Sword and Tina's Staff) are a reference to the FE 6 manga, which I haven't read. They're basically an in-between phase of iron and steel weapons (or Heal and Mend) with more durability.

The gate is actually under your control as hinted at by the villager, just send a unit next to it. I've never had the courage to open it before the top group got around the bend, too much risk of getting swarmed. So congrats!

Ah, the support point limit explains it. It'll be slow going then, it seems, but it looks like it'll be worth it.

So the specially named weapons reference the manga, alright then, cool. The weapon itself looked pretty good, so I think I'll be making use of it in the future.

Gant's Lance is pretty darn good. I'd give it to units with less Con (thus being ineffective with Steel)

Here's some more advice on getting around a couple Guide Dand It situations, again being as vague as possible because you want to play blind:

There's a map where you can get a certain powerful enemy character to come to your side, but only before a certain turn. If you try to go to him, you probably won't reach him, but it's entirely possible to bait him into coming to you, so make sure your bait can survive his attacks if you want him! As to who you recruit him with, I'll only tell you it's the last person you'd probably want to plonk down next to a powerful enemy, and you'll probably be able to guess who it is by the connection between the two units. The guy joins automatically in a later chapter, but recruiting him in this one is necessary for the best reward from the chapter.

There are three maps where reaping the best rewards requires keeping NPC generics alive, as well. I believe these are in fact the only maps with generic NPCs.

Finally, one map features an extra reward from a certain house if you visit it with a certain character. I'll tell you that it's someone you have now but who you don't seem to be using, and that the person inside the house wears the same color clothes as the person who needs to talk to her. There's a huge number of houses on this map, too, and if you save them all from bandits, you get a bonus item.

All of those hints are really cryptic, but I'll keep them in mind for future events. Thanks for the tips everyone!

Hamburger, I'm not even sure who you're talking about with the first clue. I might actually be talking about the same person though, but there is a character you will see in Chapter 13, that while you can recruit him, it's best to wait until 15. For several reasons: A) Takes less time. B) Much easier to reach him. C) His group, which will become NP Cs upon his recruitment, are easier to keep alive. If you were playing Hard Mode, then he would only get HM bonuses if recruited in Chapter 15.

If you can't tell, Sue is Rath's daughter. The Silver Wolf is Rath's father, as mentioned in Rath's ending.

Good choice on the Goddess Icon, I ate so many single-digit-chance criticals in both playthroughs and Rutger's definitely the one it should be most likely to happen to, other than maybe Saul. Nice bit of irony since he or the other myrmidon will be dishing out the most. Although the RNG likes to screw with me and, say, kill Dieck with the Armor Knight boss of chapter 7 and I will never forgive it for that.

Uh, anyway, Cath is the character that takes multiple chapters to recruit, so I hope you didn't kill her. She'll reappear in various levels, talk to her with Roy enough times and she'll join.

Also stealing lockpicks in this game is great fun, and Cath shows up with a fresh one each time. You will never run out, what with their 30 uses.

I figured Sue was related to Rath somehow, what with calling the Silver Wolf her Grandfather. So far she is turning out quite well, and I love the nomad class.

As for Cath, I let her be once I spoke to her and she didn't take my treasure, though I didn't know I could take her lockpick and have her come with a new one each time. I'll certainly use that. 30 use lockpicks are a great thing, and I'm now retroactively sad that the other games didn't keep them that way.

Sounds like you got through this one pretty handily, despite it being one of the more difficult/luck-based maps.

The main sticking point here is keeping Treck alive and/or Zealot from haring off after enemies at the top of the map, which would eventually lead him into the boss or the large group that spawns near Devias, and nobody who can recruit him has enough move to catch up.

I only used the arena once in FE 6—much further on Fir was level 19 and I got impatient to class up.

They were actually pretty stable in where they went. Zealot ran around a bit, but so long as I let them deal with the majority of the enemies on the side they come from, they'll stay in their little village area, and I can get Noah over to them and recruit one of them who can then recruit the other.

As for the arena, I'd noticed my units were a bit underleveled and inconsistent as well, so I wanted to even them out. I'm likely going to do little arena stuff like that whenever I see one in a map when it's convenient.

Level 12 is a pretty healthy number

I figure it gave my healers enough time to gain some levels, and it means I won't be thoroughly outmatched by any foes for at least a few chapters. Mostly, I wanted to help Clarine and Ellen catch up, since healers tend to drag in experience, especially when you use two of them.

I must say, I am impressed. This chapter is the source of many headaches for me. That you managed to clear it without resets, and healthily abusing the arena, is impressive.

I usually hire the Ilian mercs easily, though. Never understood why so many people have trouble with them (maybe it's harder in Hard Mode, but still)

You thinking of training one of the mercs? Zealot is as good as Marcus (minor differences between both), but the others have potential.

On Hard Mode there's an extra wyvern rider, and Zealot can aggro him by accident. Once attracted to their position Treck is of course the juicier target.

I actually didn't manage to save him, just kept going anyway.

I used Noah as my second cavalier instead of Lance, he turned out pretty well.

Speaking of wyverns, anyone else find it odd that only one of Bern's three Wyvern Generals actually rides a wyvern?

I may use one of the mercenaries, but none of them are really up to snuff in levels (mostly because I hadn't trained them in the arena like the others), and I'm fairly happy with one Cavalier for now.

In the translation I'm using, the Wyvern Generals are the Dragon Generals, so it seemed more like they simply have it as a title denoting power by association (Dragons are strong, so people with the title Dragon General would thus be strong too). Of course, if the correct translation is Wyvern General, then yes, it is really odd.

Also, I will say that I got really lucky in this chapter, since there were at least three points someone could have died, but either the mercenaries distracted the enemies or a lucky dodge saved their life.

The official English translation of Blazing Sword uses "Wyvern General," and indeed does so specifically with reference to Murdock, who is a General.

Lilina will be needed in a couple chapters to recruit someone, and then a few chapters later to recruit someone else.

I'm not the biggest fan of her. She definitely has a high Magic growth (75%), Luck is a at an acceptable 50%, but everything else is very low.

Thanks for the info, since I likely would not have thought to bring her for later chapters. I'll keep that in mind.

As for her growths, I'd heard she had good magic and luck, but I didn't know her other growths were low. That's really too bad, since I would have liked to use her if Lugh wasn't doing so awesomely right now.

I think asterism said it best. She put all of her points into Magic and made everything else her Dump Stat.

Thrones are so ridiculous in this game. Have fun hitting the next boss btw. Ignore any thoughts of weapon triangle advantage if using a sword, Henning equipping the steel blade is actually better for you since it weighs him down.

I think I made it apparent already that I'm a Lilina fanboy, no need to say anything. It'll be interesting to see how Lugh turns out, since I haven't used him.

Heh, thanks for the warning, and yeah, thrones are ridiculous. +3 defense and +30 avoid is crazy, especially when you have the weapon disadvantage. Hell, even with WTA, you still lose out on 15 hit!

I follow the throne sentiment. Thankfully, Dieck exists.

Also, in my first run, I trained both Lugh and Lilina. I ended up prefering Lugh more, due to his speed, as it means his effectiveness and damage output is higher overall.

Don't forget +5 Resistance!

Elen technically is a Priest. If I recall, FE6 doesn't specify the male and female healers as separate classes.

Alright, so it was a specific choice by the translators. The patch I got makes some... interesting choices (Seize is Conquer, Dragon Generals instead of Wyvern Generals), but none of them are technically wrong, and I don't mind them.

Well, the patch does have some goof-ups here and there: Whoever in charge of translating took literally the Clerics' original name in the Japanese Version...

That group of four near the end is the only really irritating part of the mission for me.

They don't come to you, but can move at some trigger I'm not sure of, and the lava tiles + their weapons + probably not being able to reach and kill all of them in a turn makes it likely someone will be in danger.

Lost Barth here on my Hard Mode run, actually, the Armorslayer guy sat obliviously where he was for a turn while I cautiously poked at people, so I thought it was safe to have my knights participate in the melee. As soon as an effective damage target came in range he dashed for the OHKO.

Henning's tough to beat because of that avoid but there's no rush, I can wait while Roy/Rutger/Dieck/Oujay grind him down.

Oh, uh, I don't know if this is something I should have told you previously or not, but that pair of villages controls the first route split.

Berserker bosses are the worst, that extra critical Swordmasters and Berserkers get in 6 means they can, in fact, kill you with a hand axe.

Fir, like Rutger, gets absurd bases in Hard Mode, and the neverending waves of pirate reinforcements are a great time to train her or any of your other sword users.

Shit, seriously? I did not know that, but hey, that's the fun of a blind run, eh? Let's see what this earns me then.

Scott isn't the fruity bandit of the game. They come later. It just so happens that what would later become the standard fruity bandit portrait was in this game, just one among many of the constantly reused boss portraits. I guess the fruity guys caught on, so they are the only ones who get the appearance in later titles.

Compared to Sue's growths, Shin trades some speed and luck for strength and HP.

Also, from the sound of it, it seems you'll be hitting the Western Isles' B Route.

Speaking of which, the split is quite simple: In both routes, you get two maps (one seaside, one town-like), recruit a Pirate, a Brigand/Bandit (the only playable one in the GBA games), a Sniper and a Pegasus Knight, and need to keep the latter two's squads alive in the map they appear for a free Orion's Bolt and Elysian Whip (those help with picking the next split). The differences lie in when you get each map, whether you rescue a Dancer or a Bard at Chap. 10's end, whether the pre-promote ally in Chap. 11 is a Hero or a Warrior and whether the Bandit gets a massive advantage over the Pirate. (pro-tip: the last one doesn't happen on your route...)

If you're going B route the next map is the obnoxious one with too many objectives, rather than the one after that.

I believe you have three hostile NP Cs to recruit, two squads of hostile NP Cs to keep alive for the promotion items Astra mentioned, and you get a Hero Crest (which are few in number and greatly in demand) if you save all the villages, some of which are rather far away from you.

Also, one of the hints I think Hamburger Time dropped earlier is on this map: the two upper-left villages give a better reward if visited with Lot or Ward. More complexity!

So yeah, this map or 11A on the other route are IMO the most difficult in the game if you're trying for everything. People moan about the desert map but it's nothing by comparison.

I was wondering why Scott acted differently from the other fruity bandits.

As for the route split, I'll keep the differences in mind, so thanks for the information.

You'll need to bring along Fir for Chapter 11 so you can recruit a familiar face.

First, Gonzales and other Brigands will come in from the north on turn 6. Lilina needs to talk to Gonzales. A few turns later, Klein and his Archers come to the southeast on Turn 8, and Clarine or Roy needs to speak to him. On Turn 10, Tate comes along and she needs to be recruited by Klein. Thany can talk to her, but she won't become an NPC unless you have already talked to Klein.

The Archers from my experience become immobile once they become NPS, which sucks since Cavaliers will come alond and kill them very soon. Tate's Pegasus Knights are fairly aggressive, but I think they try to leave the map.

Actually, I just finished the chapter, and yeah, Tate's pegasi are pretty aggressive. Klein's units do move after becoming NPC's, and they leave the map (which was welcome, since I rushed to kill the boss, thinking they'd kill themselves attacking him). Thanks for the warning on Fir though, since I didn't know about that.

Well done.

In the other route's version of this map, one of the problems I consistently encountered was Gameplay And Story Segregation—Tate and Klein and their units will happily slaughter each other if only one group has been converted to NP Cs.

The second issue is a village on the far right, which is pretty much hopeless to save without Marcus or Zealot dashing for it from the start.

Also, do the cavalier reinforcements here have a guy with a Killer Lance? Because they do in 11A, and I lost Geese both times dealing with them.

In Hard Mode there's a named Paladin with a large amount of HP and a Silver Lance who shows up a few turns after the cavaliers (the only additional boss, I believe, and they stuck him in this chapter -shakes fist-) but if you're not ready to Seize by then you've probably lost anyway.

No cavaliers with a killer lance in that group, thankfully. And very thankfully no additional boss paladin.

God this chapter put me through the wringer. Hopefully the next one is a bit less taxing, and I don't have to resort to slaughtering units I'd normally keep alive just to get through it.

The next one's a bit of a breather. Other than being the introduction of the ballista which might restrict flying a bit, you shouldn't have any problems...I think, last time I played the B route was my aborted first try at Sword of Seals a year ago.

Something that I love in Sword of Seals that I think was taken out of Blazing Sword was an arrow counter for Ballista.

The southern Ballista is not very problematic, but the western one you may just want to bait to run out.

There's an arrow counter for the ballistas? Thank god, I hate how that was missing in Blazing Sword, and I always had to guess how many arrows were left if I wasn't directly trying to bait the shots.

How did you figure out Lilina is the one to recruit Gonzalez if you're playing blind? There's literally no indication of this (nor is there any for the other character she has to recruit later on).

I mentioned that I heard this was a chapter where I needed her to recruit someone, since those who've commented were generous enough to tell me how to recruit him, what with the complete lack of information on who to recruit him with.

Yeah, sorry if I'm spoiling the experience for you, I realize I probably say way too much about upcoming events in the comments. I'll shut up any time if you tell me to.

Also, spoilers: you're never going to meet Bishop Oro. He's the boss of the equivalent chapter on the other route.

No need to worry Montago. Your tips have been quite helpful, although recruitment related things (aside from the aforementioned Lilina recruitments, since they aren't hinted at all) could be left out of the tips.

Not really spoilers if it's something that won't happen, eh Hamburger? Thanks for the info though, since I was expecting to fight him on this route.

I've heard that Geese is pretty good...but I don't recall where I heard it. Sorry.

The zero resilience is so Druids later on can screw up your plans as much as possible. I'm not sure if the status staves, Fenrirs, or Nosferatus are the worst.

I saw you weren't taking Fir and worried for a bit, but then you recruited Bartre with Roy. Forgot you could do that.

You might get something for keeping Bartre's militia alive but I don't remember that either.

Klein has decent growths and supports with a lot of good units, such as his sister, Dieck, and an awesome dude you've met in a cutscene. On Normal the other prepromote Sniper is probably better though (however I used them both, because I am biased toward any offspring of Pent).

Oh, forgot to mention: Gonzales—on the other route he comes as a level 5 unit. With the same bases. Yep.

You will need Elphin one more time in the game. Not going to say when or why; unlike his counterpart Lalum though there're enough cutscene clues you might be able to guess it.

I'll keep the Elphin bit in mind, and also the bit about the druids, since that is going to be... problematic.

As for Klein, I'm likely not going to use him since I've already got Sue, and aside from her low strength (which the energy ring I just got will help), she's doing really well.

At least according to the Wikia, no, there's no reward for keeping Bartre's people alive.

Geese is the younger brother of Geitz from Blazing Sword. Most guides recommend training him or Gonzalez due to their off-the-charts critical percentage once they promote.

The guy giving orders to Morgan is Mining Director Arcard, the man responsible for Etruria's mistreatment of the Western Islanders. You'll see (and be annoyed by) him a lot throughout this game.

I knew about Geese being Geitz's brother, and I think I'll use him, since I do like berserkers, and Geese seems to have more room to grow than Gonzales in this run.

Gonzales' low Skill (15%) is always going to be a pain, but you'll be glad to know that the promotion gains for Skill for Brigands and Pirates are +5 and +4 respectively. However, he's going to be decently fast, and have a very good chance of maxing HP and Strength early.

Geese has some problems with Skill (35%), but not to the same extent as Gonzales. He's also probably not going to be as fast, but still faster than most enemies. Strength and HP growths are only slightly lower. Luck is a little better.

I used Geese once. Not bad, but he does need the Hero Crest to promote. Gonzalez I never used, but I hear he has a harder time hitting things.

Also, colour me surprised: Bartre can be recruited by Roy? I thought only Fir could do it!

I imagine situations like this are meant to be your rationale for bringing Merlinus. Unexpected boss switch (twice)! Good thing I can still pull out the Wyrmslayer I didn't know I needed!

But mages are so good at fighting dragons you can get by anyway. Forblaze ends up being slightly redundant because of it.

Try not to use Aircalibur too much until 14. You'll really need it then.

As for Ray. Lugh, but with better damage and a little less Evade.

And Ray is a shaman, so there's that. Not much difference besides that stuff, eh? Thanks for the tip on the Aircalibur.

I could see the who dragon scenario being a rationale for bringing Merlinus, but I doubt I will be faced with random dragons that often, and even if I am, ol' Lugh can simply blast them with magic.

"I doubt I will be faced with random dragons that often"

Ha. Alfric made a funny.

@hnd: I honestly don't know why Alfric ought to save Aircalibur, I can't think of any pressing need for it on 14 and the new recruit has one in their starting inventory anyway.

Also, yeah, that was the last boss dragon until endgame...

And if the Unexpected Boss Switch caught you off this chapter... oh boy...

You haven't seen the Real Bait and Switch Festival yet.

Can new character get around very easily? No.

Of course, I meant you could trade with her, sorry I wasn't clear.

Though she needs to be able to hold her own too. Just because she's not very good doesn't mean she can't put up a good fight. Besides, Aircalibur is Lugh's most powerful weapon at this point that happens to be essentially weightless and he isn't known for high Magic growth. And he's going to need it if he wants to hit decently hard on anything with good Resistance.

My Lugh so far has had decent magic, with 17 as a level 1 sage after promotion bonuses, but I wouldn't say it's his best stat. I'll keep Aircalibur in mind, but I'll try to conserve it unless I really need it, since I doubt they're exactly plentiful until later on.

As for the dragons, at least I know Lugh can take them down pretty well, and eventually Clarine and Ellen too once they promote, so they shouldn't be too big of an issue. Plus I'll be able to see any Manaketes just casually waiting on the map, and bring a wyrmslayer to take them down.

Also, more bait-and-switch bosses? That doesn't sound at all fun for me, since I kind of like preparing to kill them in advance.

FYI, there's a person next chapter you can recruit, but it's pretty hard and mostly for bragging rights since you get another much easier opportunity later.

Thought you should know you so you don't feel you have to retry if they leave.

Alright, thanks for the tip, since I likely would have retried if they had left.

A small word about the character you recruited last chapter: his name's not actually "Ray," it's supposed to be "Lleu," pronounced "lay," which is a reference to Celtic Mythology. Lleu was the Welsh name of the Celtic culture-hero also known in Ireland as, you guessed it, Lugh! By the same token, "Narshen" is supposed to be "Nacien," which is an Arthurian reference.

I thought something was odd, since you always called him Nacien, but I'd read Narshen a couple of times before, so I figured it was just a translation based on preference. I've got to say though, while Nacien is more proper due to the reference (although considering in mythology Nacien is a holy hermit, I find the comparison... odd), Narshen sounds more fitting to me, since it sounds more rough and grinding to say, while Nacien is smoother.

I was also wondering why Ray's name was so much simpler looking than Lugh's. I would not have expected them to be the same reference, but in different languages, though. The fact that they're twins is a pretty awesome mythological pun.

Grero isn't the fruity bandit either. They are still yet to come. You will notice them when you see them.

As for Nacien, I always assumed that his name was meant to be ironic, since he is more or less the opposite of his Arthurian counterpart.

As for Lleu, my guess is that they can't write the Welsh in Japanese, so they went with "Lay/Ray", the closest they could get. Lucky for us, the Romanized name "Lleu" shows up in some of the official material, or we would have probably completely missed this one.

Oh I know Grero wasn't the fruity bandit (there was only one of him, for one thing), but he acted wacky enough with his odd speech patterns that I figured he earned an honorable mention.

Fuck the Irish and fuck the Welsh, Ray is way easier to remember than Lay.

If there was one thing Sword of Seals does very well, it's making huge battles, and this chapter, 16, 21, and 22 are probably some of my favorites of the GBA games just because of the scale. Blazing Sword and Sacred Stones can't even make maps as big as this game can, they're that huge.

Also, next chapter is the desert, so bring along a couple Thieves, fliers, and magical units that aren't Clarine. It's tough, but there's lots of good stuff to dig up like the Silver Card and Warp Staff. <25 turns and Sophia survives are the requirements for 14X.

My opinion of Miledy: Excellent unit. She has some trouble evading and sometimes doubling (in part due to the criminally low Speed cap for Wyvern Lords (23) and taking magical damage, especially in regards to Aircalibur, but she has very good Strength, CON, and Defense.

Thanks for the tips and warnings (glad I got Miledy since a desert is coming up), and yeah, the only maps in Sacred Stones or Blazing Sword that I can think of to match this are Victory or Death, Cog of Destiny, possibly Father and Son, and Scorched Sand.

I'm guessing Sophia is forced, if she must survive, eh? Well, I at least have a flier in my ranks, as well as a couple of magic units, hopefully a torch staff or two, and a few thieves to bring. I think I'm set on motion, though Fo W desert is still going to be tricky business, especially since I need to guard Sophia and finish it in 25 turns or less.

Forced and level 1 with bleh bases. It's up to you if you think she's worth training. She becomes pretty powerful and an excellent magical tank somewhat quickly, she just has the same low Defense, Speed, and Skill problems that Lilina has, albeit with a little more HP. Shaman is sort of a double edged sword. On the one hand, very powerful magic. On the other, heavy tomes and the lowest hit of the triangle.

Congratulations on recruiting Percival! Those bases mean he'll probably stay ahead of your trained cavaliers for the duration of the game in several stats (although not necessarily at max level).

The reinforcements on this map are some of the most obnoxious in the game if your team is too spread out. It should go without saying this was the case in my first run.

The second time though I was prepared and I echo hnd's sentiments re: huge battles.

Miledy died? Wut.

Kidding. For one thing that steel lance is a horrible starting weapon for her. But once she gets in a few levels, and especially post-promotion she'll be one of your most invincible units. Also, personally I think Miledy's the most attractive character in 6, for whatever that's worth.

There's a Guiding Ring in the desert that Sophia, and only Sophia, can dig up near the area you need to Seize. Which can be slightly frustrating because there's an enemy that in my experience always Sleeps her. Are you looking up treasure locations btw?

The Warp Staff is important. Obtain it.

Sophia getting put to sleep? What path are you taking? Whenever I've done the map that Staff is either out of juice or the guy with it is dead long before most of my army gets around the plateau. Then again, I think my strategy for 14 is kind of weird.

I'm just going to use the Treasure Map as the chapter map for the desert, so yeah, I'll be looking up treasure locations (definitely gonna dig up that guiding ring too, since Ellen and Clarine are nearing level 20).

Miledy looks like she's going to turn out well, but her speed seems like it might lag behind a bit.

Last time IIRC I had Miledy, Lilina, Roy, Cecilia, Sophia, Clarine, Rutger go along the bottom toward Arcadia, while Klein, Dieck, Fir, Echidna went top, and Tate and Thany ferried Astohl around.

That doesn't sound quite right, I might have listed somebody who didn't actually come along. Eh.

See, I have Tate, Thany, Cecilia, Saul, and Chad stick around the center to pick off some of the Mages, Clerics, and Bishops, while also digging up the Boots and Silence. Astol goes south for the Speedwings and then he, the rest of my magical infantry, and Miledy go around the west side of the bones to take on the enemies around there, while also picking up the Talisman and Silver Card. It's about that time that the two groups meet at the north end of the plateau with the Mercenaries. I'm not in any particular rush to clear the map as I can probably kill the boss by turn 23 or 24 and still able to get the last three treasures.

The Sleep Staff guy always goes for Sophia, for me (she goes east immediately with a competent escort, as she can survive an attack from a mage, and she's safe for a couple of turns until the Wyverns arrive). Not a big deal, though.

Alfric, if you feel Miledy is lagging behind, you don't need to have any qualms about promoting her early. Her promotion gains are worth it, and she caps her stats easily.

Thanks for the tips about Miledy, since she is currently having some issues dealing with the enemies in the desert, although I want to give her a few more levels if I can. I might feed her a few stat boosters, although I'm miffed that they can't be used in the base. The Sleep guy is indeed going for Sophia (writing this as I do the chapter writeup on a separate tab), and he caused Miledy to die since I didn't know he started so close to the opening area.

I hate the upcoming gaiden with a passion. I enjoyed the desert, as I do all FE desert maps. I am a weird Fire Emblem player.

Remember Night of Farewells? Well, same thing here, except it's a spiral map. Including the Bolting Sages.

I honestly don't see much trouble with this gaiden.

Night of Farewells had you dealing with intricate paths and islands, and there was a Berserk Druid to complicate things. This gaiden has Boltingx2, which is more than manageable. The disappearing tiles are somewhat predictable as well, unlike in No F.

Also, good chapter for you to promote/train Miledy.

Looking at the map itself, it doesn't seem too bad, and certainly no Night of Farewells, but I do think it'll be problematic. Miledy will be quite useful here though, assuming there aren't too many mages or archers running about.

I think Night of Farewells is a lot easier than this because of the intricate paths and islands, which give you more options, but I realized a few things after my second run that might help in the future.

Namely, not to trust the displayed Bolting ranges because, after all, neither of them move, and second, to ignore the pirates at the beginning and Leeroy Jenkins down the path before anything starts to vanish.

You missed the Guiding Ring.

Also, exactly what was your logic for not training a dark magic user?

No restarts from low-Res people dying to Bolting?

I assume you remember Igrene as Hawkeye's daughter, mentioned in his support with Louise.

You will be quite glad to know that the next chapter is a joke compared to everything around it, especially the boss. Also, bring Lilina, again.

I will say that I've never managed to both recruit the character here and save the village.

You'll have it easier since you acquired Percival early and he can just charge in. Normally you'd recruit him this level and it would take a few turns for him to catch up. So I guess this is where that pays off.

Other than that, yeah, this chapter's a piece of cake.

I've never really had trouble with getting the village and I recruit Percival as late as turn 4. Of course I'm throwing caution to the winds and rushing to pick off the Sniper and Archers that make up the first big wall.

I had difficulty clearing out the horde quickly enough for Lilina to approach safely, so both times she ended up not in range to recruit the bandit while he was in range to destroy the village, and for whatever reason my mounted units were also out of range, had been used to kill stuff, or were on too little health to risk being a berserker's target.

Since Alfric will have both Percival the Invincible and his bard, normally used to recruit Percival, available for the front lines...

@Montago: Nope, I was able to sponge boltings for long enough that they never endangered anyone and the tomes were gone before I needed to advance. I was not aware that Igrene was Hawkeye's daughter, having never read that support. Makes a lot of sense though, given she has the same title of "guardian of Nabata" as him. Percival will also be quite helpful, and will finally have a chapter he can join in after the one he was recruited in. Thanks for the tip on Lilina, by the way.

@Hnd: Good to know this chapter is a bit of a breather. The recent chapters (save 13, which was actually pretty tough) have all been kind of annoying, since they went right from a desert map to a water temple map. Good to know I won't have to worry about extra stuff too much, aside from the now added baggage of Lilina.

Sleeping Garret? Hmm, why didn't I think of that? Anyway, now you can break out the Divine Weapons with a margin of safety, unless you have another plan for the Hammerne. Myself, I used it on the Warp staff all three times.

Normally Percival has a conversation with Douglas prior to the map and starts as a hostile NPC in the northwest corner with some cavaliers, recruitable with Elphin or Lalum, same as 13. You get a Knight Crest if they all survive, which is easy unless the wyvern goes for them. I had Miledy deal with it.

I'm likely going to see if I can't make good use of that warp staff now that it can be repaired. Time to put these two staff users to work!

Big, big chapter coming up. Bring a couple thieves and your Silver Card, as the Member Card and Secret Shop are here (very top left corner). There's two characters to recruit, one being incredibly obvious who you'll need, though the other, Hugh, requires 10,000 G if you want him to have good bases. If you don't need him, you can just steal his Member Card and kill him. To get the side chapter, Douglas (enemy) must not die, so you may need Clarine and Rutger to dodge tank him for awhile while everyone else goes on ahead.

You can save a little time for recruiting the other with the Warp Staff since he's behind a breakable wall.

The Warp staff can also be useful in dealing with a siege tome user near one of the start zones.

Don't kill Hugh! THE HUMANITY!!

If you had Lalum she can stall Douglas in a chokepoint, since he won't attack her. Doesn't work with Elphin AFAIK.

I suggest stealing one of the boss's items. Or even two of them!

They are some very good items.

About Hugh: He's a balance between Lugh and Lilina. Not as fast as the former, not as strong as the latter, but still decent. Surprisingly decent Defense and the best CON of the three. Of course, being So S, that really only matters with Bolting and Forblaze since everything weighs practically nothing.

It took a while, but by endgame Hugh was overall superior to Lilina since they both capped Magic and he was more balanced in everything else (of course I paid full price for Canas' son!).

I assume you didn't steal Narshen's Blue Gem because you're loaded down with arena gold.

One of the two Secret Shops was on the square Zeiss stood on, by the way, so you'll not get an opportunity to use the Member Card until chapter 21.

Hugh's stats decrease for every time you negotiate a lower price. How much did you pay?

I didn't steal the blue gem since Astol only had one free space in his inventory and Cath was too slow to do so. Plus I'm loaded on arena cash.

I didn't know where it was (blind run means I won't look up anything but the alternate routes and the obligatory chapter maps), and being chased by Douglas made me not really care about searching for it that much. I'm guessing it carried promotion items, such as a guiding ring that Ellen could have used?

I paid full price for Hugh, and actually hadn't read your comment about him in the previous chapter. I don't really see the family resemblance to Canas aside from the purple hair though.

Yeah, I was short on Hero Crests so I think I bought one here. It also contains Angelic Robes, and Lockpicks (as if you don't have enough to last two playthroughs by now).

The Secret Shop in 21 has every stat booster available for sale, as many as you want, including Boots. I never had a surplus of gold so I couldn't take full advantage of that, but perhaps you will.

If you can guess its location, that is. I'll give you a hint, you need a flying unit.

Thanks for the advance warning on this, since every stat booster for sale is the best thing ever, and my extra money needs somewhere to rest once the game nears its conclusion. Sadly, I don't know when I'll get my next guiding ring, but hopefully it's sometime soon...

Very likely to be Chapter 20 for you...

Wait what. Jeez, does this have to do with the second route split that is apparently going to happen? Gonna be a long time until Ellen can use those light tomes then...

Chapters 17-20x take you to either Ilia or Sacae depending on if Sue+Shin or Thany+Tate have gained more levels.

Sacae's difficulty is...well, the classes associated with Sacae..., and a couple of infuriating map designs.

Ilia has a lot of status staves and druids.

The Ilian recruit is worse than the Sacaen recruit but lets you perform the triangle attack.

Apparently Sacae is death on Hard Mode, I wouldn't know since I intentionally took Ilia on account of not having been there yet.

Sacae also has two Fog of War chapters, one at the beginning and one near the end. You will be really glad that you have the Delphi Shield for Miledy.

Seriously? Two fog of wars? Ah well, gonna be swimming in nomads for a while it seems, once I finish this gaiden chapter.

Say, while this is actually more pertinent to the last post, am I the only one kind of surprised, given their personalities, that Arcard and Roartz can fight? I sort of feel the same about Lundgren from Blazing Sword, as well. Do you think it would've made more sense from a story perspective to, say, have a powerful Dragon character be the boss and then have Arcard and Roartz captured in a cutscene as NPCs?

It's not really sensible in story, but it is certainly more cathartic to kill those cowards.

I was kind of thinking the same thing, since they're both total wimps personality wise (I wish Arcard had the stats he did at chapter... 12, I think it was? With the first dragon), where his stats were really low for his level. It'd make sense since he's a wuss, while still letting you smack him around a bit. Roartz could also work like that, though I'm sure he'll just be a strong boss as expected.

Rather than wait for the gate to open, I went around the sides and broke open the walls, splitting the enemy forces.

Of course most of them swarmed one side anyway.

...There were breakable walls? Didn't even notice, to be honest. Probably would have found them if the gates didn't open on their own soon enough. Also, can the gate be opened by a thief? I almost brought Astol, but the sheer number of enemies discouraged me from doing so.

Thieves can't open the gate.

Berserking the Swordmaster was a nice touch.

Despite the dialogue I never saw any enemies going after houses, the central cluster was too busy fighting me.

I don't know if you noticed but in this game Light Brands always deal 10 damage at range. Which means the one you get at some early point can be quite useful for any weak characters, and later on makes a couple of bosses like Gel easier to tackle.

So that is why it hurt Clarine and Miledy for the same amount of damage. They have basically reversed defenses, so I was really confused as to how it worked in this game. That's a good thing to know, thanks.

Next chapter is full of seizable points, but only one is the correct one. The others release several not very powerful enemies when captured.

Seriously? Y'know what, I can respect that. It's a pretty odd trap, but a cool one nonetheless.

I was out of Bolting so I used Warp excessively here.

Niime has Nosferatu access so durability isn't that big a concern. High staves rank and high magic is a good combination (allowing her to both use the really powerful ones and have good range/hit with them), especially when you consider the legendary Dark tome grants +5 MAG.

I didn't reach the next gaiden on my first run, due to Shin perishing on 14x, and the second was Ilia route, so this'll be new to me.

Warp's also nice because the Snipers behind the walls have stuff. I know one had an Orion's Bolt.

Oh. Well darn, at least I didn't need that one. So glad I got a Guiding Ring this chapter, since Ellen was starting to become a bit of a weight. Let's see her put that magic growth to use now!

How many Paladins and Wyvern Lords did Intsys place on the next map?

Enough that not all the reinforcements can spawn because the map unit cap has been reached, that's how many.

Huh, Sue appeared in your cutscene? Shin appeared in mine. Must be related to the levels.

30 turns, Miledy and Zeiss must be alive, though not necessarily present, to get to 21X. Lots and lots and lots of dudes to fight. It's also one of the largest maps in the game. In addition to the best turn themes in the game.

I'm guessing the nomad who appears is the one you used, and if you used all three, they all might speak. That, or it's relevant to who is the highest in level.

I'm looking forward to the next chapter, given what you guys have said, although with all those dudes, it might be tricky to finish it in 30 turns.

You'll have no problem getting through under the time limit. I mean, I only nearly missed the deadline because I kind of just relaxed from turns 14 through 22. At that point, I was already near the end. Sophia was about as powerful as your Ellen, everyone else was really high level. You're sticking with a small, strong team so there's no worries.

Oh! I forgot to mention that back when you got her, but Niime is Canas's mother (and thus Hugh's "sick" grandma).

I knew about Canas's connection to Niime, and by extension Hugh's after I learn he was related to Canas. His support with Pent has him share the fact that he's Niime the "Mountain Hermits" son.

Miledy and Zeiss can both talk to Gale before fighting. Also some oddity for me: I left Yodel by the start and Gale's forces all surrounded him, but did not attack.

Murdock is a serious Worthy Opponent, and a great example of a good guy on the wrong side (plus, he helped get rid of Desmond, which is always a perk). Characters like him are why I wish the whole "capture" mechanic wasn't confined to just Thracia.

If you talk to Gale with Miledy he won't fight you. I think the same occurs with Zeiss.

The same oddity happened to me, though in different circumstances.

He actually surrounded Yodel several turns before Miledy caught up to him though.

Oh, and Jodel isn't the Gotoh. The Gotoh comes in the third-to-last chapter and will probably be familiar to you. You'll have to bring along some dead weight (specifically of the Hot Chick With A Sword variety) to get him, though...

You could also bring Pops if you wanted. And agreed on the Gotoh since Yodel fits more into the Norma archetype.

I figured Gotoh were always powerful magic units with good staves who come at level 20 and assist you near the end of the game (I sort of assumed he was the Gotoh since chapter 22 is the "normal ending" of the game, and I was on chapter 21). I'll keep the forewarning of third to last chapter in mind though. Fir or Bartre to get him? Bartre is a bit less dead weight, so I'll bring him along.

I probably should have tried to talk to Gale, but eh, that's how the cookie crumbled.

Just a heads up (since this chapter is such a drain on your Legendary Weapons), don't break any of the Legendary weapons, or else you can't see the true ending (the game doesn't check to see if you did the Gaidens, it only checks to see if you have the weapons)

Also, yes, the reinforcements in this chapter are location-triggered. My Zeiss kept being killed by those reinforcements when all I wanted was to visit the Secret Shop. After checking where the triggers were, I simply waited a bit before advancing.

And Wyverns have weird AI in this chapter. I warped in Dieck to kill Murdock with an Armorslayer, then Lugh to deal with the southern Wyverns...and the Wyverns simply circled Lugh. At first I thought they were smart, preventing Lugh from moving so that the rest of the wyverns could attack Dieck, but they didn't do that, either.

In addition, even though Killer weapons have better hit, next opportunity you get, buy lots of Silver weapons if you want to conserve your Divine Weapon uses during the last several chapters.

I haven't used my divine weapons much yet, the only uses being against Murdock and Gale. I plan on saving them until I run into other superhuman foes, but it shouldn't require all 20 uses of any of them. By the way, if I begin going down the "true ending" path, whenever that starts, would I still need to conserve the weapons during those true ending chapters, or would I be able to use them with impunity at that point.

I do have myself a good amount of silver weapons, so hopefully I'm pretty solid here, but thanks for the warning.

Finish Chapter 22 with all of them unbroken and you're good.

Alright then, I'll keep that in mind.

You didn't open the chests? Well, you were right about them being the trap; I believe three contain dragons that pop out and stand on an open square next to the chest (no idea what happens if all spaces are filled).

Wait three of them contain dragons?!? I thought they'd just spit fire or something! I mostly left Astol behind due to party limitations, but I'm now really glad that I didn't risk that. I didn't even prepare for dragons in the slightest, so that could have screwed me hard.

Man, am I disappointed you didn't try to go for the chests. Are you sure you're playing this blind? :P

Also, it's not 3 of them that contain Mamkutes: it's randomized. You either get an elixir or a Mamkute.

I almost brought Astol, but the party limitations (Percival is sort of the odd one out in my group, so he has to get benched for stuff like this) and the stuffed convoy (I had to resort to giving some people leftover items) made bringing a thief to get treasure a bit less appealing. I also knew that these gaiden chapters liked to screw with you with traps, so I didn't want to risk it, since they just sort of put them in front of you, daring you to open them. Suddenly, silence druid seems a lot more devious with that in mind...

Randomization just makes it better if you know in advance, since it's like "awesome healing item to prepare for endgame, or bloodthirsty flame spewing reptile that can crush most of my people in a couple hits? Might as well try it—-HOLY SHIT IT WAS A DRAGON!"

Why DIDN'T you train any dark mages on this run, may I ask?

Mostly because I already had a fairly large team at the time that Ray appeared, and didn't want to put in too many people, and also due to having a lot of frail people, and not wanting to have to cover for one more. Lugh, Ellen, and Clarine (though she's a non issue since he insane speed and luck, plus her supports with Dieck and Rutger make her the ultimate dodge tank) are all really fragile, and I'd rather not throw another glass cannon into the mix, since I could probably only fit one, maybe two people max into the party.

Neat fact: The Sword of Seals can be used as an item to restore 30 HP. Not sure why they don't tell you this, but something you might find helpful.

I had issues in both runs with the reinforcements in Zephiel's throne room, sounds like you handled them easily though. Good job!

By the way, I'm not sure what you know about the Sealed Sword, but it can attack at range and is usable as a healing item for 30 health (although this damages it).

It really is a shame it has such a low number of uses. I think I saved one Hammerne charge for it my second run.

I noticed that it could attack from afar, and while I never used it (due to saving it for Zephiel and being wary of it's low uses), it seems like it could be really helpful. I think I still have a hammerne use, which would be pretty helpful so that Roy can slay dragons with ease.

I did not know it can be used to heal 30 hp, which is pretty neat, although I won't use it too much, I don't think.

The reinforcements could have given me trouble, but I had enough people who could move far and also deal with them, that they weren't able to show up and wreak havoc.

Trivia time: Exaccus is actually a mistranslation of Eckesachs, a legendary sword used by a German Hero called Hiebschwert. It was apparently described by a guy called Bern, hence why it ended up the royal weapon of Bern in this game I guess.

Really? How on earth do you pronounce that? Perhaps it's pronounced like Exaccus, only with the different lettering, hence the translation error.

Looks pretty cool, though. Nice little bit of information too.

To clarify, the mistranslation is solely in the fan translation. I am pretty sure the Japanese and the in game coding says Eckesachs.

And no, I have no clue how to pronounce that.

I know it's the fan translation that botched it, of course, others might have gotten it correct. This one has it's odd moments, and it still feels odd to "conquer" the castle/throne/gate/what have you at the end of each chapter.

Karel has 100% or greater growths in every stat. Too bad he's so close to the level cap, but enjoy seeing all those +1s (or +2s) if you get him there.

What? That is... Damn. Despite the years mellowing him out, he's gotten to be crazy strong, even compared to his FE 7 self, where he was pretty awesome already.

If you can't tell, Jahn is Zephiel's creepy hooded accomplice from the Blazing Sword epilogue.

Also, sorry about tipping you off re: Karel, it's just that having to visit a village with one or two specific characters to get something is very rare and there's no indication that that's what you have to do here.

Oh, no issue about the Karel thing. I'm honestly glad you told me, since having to reset to get someone to recruit him when you have no idea that he's there in the first place is just really annoying.

Also, I honestly don't remember seeing Yahn in Blazing Sword (kinda blanked out when it comes to the epilogue), but that's a pretty cool bit of info.

You probably don't need me to tell you the trickiest requirement for the best ending, but I will anyway. Next chapter is the final boss. You want to make sure to land the final blow with the Sealed Sword. The game will all but tell you to do this when the chapter starts, but it's [i]just[/i] possible that a less savvy player won't take the hint.

In other news, Yahn might be the best source of knowledge about the end of the Scouring, but he's a delusional bastard otherwise. I'm fairly sure several elements of Blazing Sword's plot were added in just to contradict his argument.

Yeah, despite his whole "too cool for emotions" spiel, he seemed pretty biased against humans. What plot points would contradict him, if you wouldn't mind sharing?

Also thanks for the warning, though if it's as explicit as you say, I'd likely have noticed it. Better to know then not though.

I didn't feel Jahn was biased against humans. Maybe a bit bitter that his kind lost, despite what he says, but he seems fine with the outcome because, as he said, it was a battle to see which species would survive, and his species lost. Now, he is still a dragon, and has pride in his race, so when Zephiel comes along and says that the humans were wrong, the dragons were right and that he was going to more or less reverse the outcome of the war, of course he'd jump on that.

Of course, it is possible that at this point, Jahn is a bit crazy. While the rest of his tribe left through the Dragon's Gate, he was left alone in the temple, which no one to speak to until he sought out Zephiel. It is possible that while he originally didn't hold any grudges against humanity, his time in isolation caused his resentment to grow and grow, and he didn't notice because, well, who was there to tell him? I am just wildly speculating now though.

I get what you're saying, and the grudge you mentioned is what I meant by bias, which was a phrasing error on my part.

Maybe "Contradictory" was the wrong word, however...

If you went by FE 6 alone, then the implication is that Jahn, the War Dragons, and Arcadia are the last survivors of the Scouring - and Arcadia is almost too mixed to count. But FE 7 reveals that a lot of dragons - representatives of two races are seen - fled the dimension altogether through the Dragon's gate. Once retreat was revealed as an option, the idea of the Scouring being a fight for survival is negated - it's still a fight for a home, but it really came down to whether the dragons kept control of Elibe or not. This change in context makes Jahn into (more of) an extremist willing to commit unforgivable sins, despite the fact that the dragon race in general was perfectly fine with leaving. While he claims to be pretty mellow about the whole thing, if he was really so cool-headed he would have left with the others!

Then there's the option the player has of retconning Roy into a quarter dragon, further disproving Jahn's belief that humans and dragons can't coexist.

Ah yes, the Dragon's gate. I think Yahn (Is that a variable translation, or did my translation patch get this one wrong as well?) may not have known of the dragons gate, since as he fought in the war, he got wounded and rested in the temple.

Eliwood being with Ninian does sort of disprove Yahn's theory as well. Of course, Roy's quarter dragon-ness is never mentioned, so it's sadly stuck with being a retcon.

It's a variable translation. If I remember correctly, Yahn is the romanization used on his official artwork.

I suppose that with the information scattered, it's possible our so-called last dragon wasn't aware of everything.

Other way around. Jahn is the romanization used in the official artwork.

The Dragon's Gate is a retcon, true, but the impression I got was that most of the dragons fled through the Dragon's Gate after they had already lost. Basically, once their leader died and the Demon Dragon was sealed, it was either go through the Dragon's Gate or die. I know there are a few exceptions to this, like Ninian and Nils maybe though.

But yes, it is possible that Jahn doesn't have the complete story (aside from what Zephiel told him about Idenn), as he didn't get the chance to go to the Dread Isle and flee through the gate, being too wounded to leave the temple. When the temple was sealed off, he was sealed with it.

Of course, he technically is the last dragon, in the sense that he is the last dragon in Elibe who isn't either part human, artificially made, or a Divine Dragon. (I am not sure why the game considers him the last dragon when the Divine Dragons exists, but eh.)

I vote Sacred Stones.

...I want to see you do FE 4 blind actually. Since FE 4 is so different, it might be fun.

I liked the style you used for the RD playthrough, with he versus sections and such, but this was nice too.

I enjoyed following your adventures with a game I have knowledge of, kind of wish I'd been playing the Tellius installments while you blogged them. Either format's fine with me!

To contradict that statement, Shadow Dragon or Genealogy would be cool since I haven't played them. (The difference being that you haven't either; well, Genealogy at least.)

So 1 vote Sacred Stones, 1 vote Genealogy, and... Which game would you prefer I do of the two you'd like to see, Montago?

I'll go with Genealogy as a tie-breaker in case no one else votes.

Alright then, so Genealogy with 2 votes and Sacred Stones with 1.

Voting is going to be open until I finish the RD draft, whenever that may be (at least a week or two more, if I had to put out an estimate), so there's still plenty of time.

I'd like to see Genealogy too. And just like with this run, I'll probably play kind of alongside you, even though I've never played before.

The whole our runs coincide wasn't intentional, it just kind of happened.

I vote Genealogy, mainly because it's my favorite Fire Emblem, and the fact that its blind means that I'll be sure to peek in every so often.

Having finished my RD Draft today, I'm going to be starting my next run soon. Voting is thus over, and Genealogy wins with 4 votes. All things going smoothly, I should be able to start the game tomorrow.

One thing I know is that this game's version of the Arena is inside the castles. Since you didn't mention it I'll assume it's unavailable in the prologue, but you might want to check again later.

I should try to start this sometime soon so I can follow along.

That was probably one of the greyed out icons then. Cool, I'll try that out in later chapters, namely for Ardan, since he isn't gonna be killing much, although I could lug him over to the second castle and have him take on the boss, since he seems pretty good, just really slow moving.

I think you can only have 7 arena fights per unit per chapter

Ah darn it. Well, Ardan (and some others) can level up with that, and then hopefully do stuff.

Also, anyone have any idea what Duel does? Is it possibly a name change? I know Pursuit is just doubling, and Adept is obvious (Serenes says that it used to be Continue), but I have no idea what Duel does. Noish didn't seem to use it, opting to critical people for surprisingly high damage, given that it apparently doubles damage.

I have a feeling Duel is Wrath on Serenes. Always critical when HP is below (Max/2)+1. Pursuit happens as long as your Attack Speed is greater than theirs, Continue treats weapon as a Brave weapon. Nihil (Awareness on Serenes) nulls all criticals, all enemy skills, and all effective bonuses.

Critical bonuses are x2 and effective bonuses are treated as criticals, unlike later games where's it's triple damage and triple might respectively.

Duel is speed related, and has basically the same description as Pursuit. Thanks for the elaboration on criticals though. I was wondering why Noish was doing so much damage with them.

Apparently killing 50 enemies with the same weapon gives it innate critical chance, or something. I hear that Silver Sword can be an awesome hand-me-down to the second generation if you do so with it.

Shame you didn't see Alvis's blood-wheel-thing before he left.

Not related to anything, my birthday is tomorrow! Yay! And I'll be continuing my FE 8 draft. I think once I play another 3-5 chapters I might start this; I actually downloaded an emulator, rom, and translation patch several months ago.

Oh? I'll make good on that and have Sigurd ravage people with his Silver Sword then, and then have him repair it.

As for Alvis, I'm guessing he is Bright-Fala since he's related to Azel and is said to have a different mother, which I think is a trait that lets people wield divine weapons. I'm not sure if Lightly-glowing relations (I really need an easier way to refer to this) can wield them, but I'm guessing both types of relations get some boost to growths or something upon passing their genetics down.

And to finish, I hope you have a happy birthday tomorrow! I also hope you enjoy the game, since it's quite the long haul.

Minor blood holders can't use the Legendary Weapons, they just get growth boosts and a increase in weapon rank of that Crusader's preferred weapon. For example, Alvis can wield the Falaflame (I have no clue why they had it as just "F Flame" Was Falaflame really too cumbersome?) but Azel can't. Alvis has a star rank in Fire magic, while Azel has a B (which is one rank higher from the C that Mages normally have)

Also note that there is no weapon experience. What weapon ranks they start with are what they get until they promote. (Of course, this makes Holy Blood holders, Minor and Major, even more better than everyone else)

Okay, so it's called holy blood, and is split between minor and major, that'll be good to know for the future. Thanks for the explanation! I think perhaps Falaflame broke the character limit or something? I know the translator changed Resire to Nosferatu, and it got shortened in the weapon screen to Nosfratu, so perhaps Falaflame was a similar case.

I also was unaware of the lack of weapon experience. This is good, since I almost wanted to train Sigurd in lances, when I could hand it to someone else and let him crush people with his swords. The holy blood also explains the Star rank in swords that he has.

That reminds me, you can't directly trade weapons. I think what you have to do is, using what you said as an example, have Sigurd sell his Lance to the pawn shop, then have someone else buy it from the pawn shop. It's really strange and I am not sure why they thought it was a good idea, at least IMO.

I think you might want to have Sigurd keep the lance anyway, as this game is the first to use the weapon triangle.

Weapon triangle dis/advantage is a bit larger than later games being +/- 20 as opposed to 15. However, there is no damage bonus/penalty.

I noticed there seemed to be a larger bonus to hit depending on the situation, though I thought it was 30.

As for the possible trading, couldn't I put the item into the castles storage, and then have someone else pull it out of storage, or would that not work? I was thinking of passing Noish's speed ring to Azel with this method, since Azel needs the speed to make himself useful, and Noish has no good speed related skills (a skill ring would be pretty cool for him though).

Adean isn't Blaggi, but Ulir. The Blaggi fellow comes later.

Also, Dew is a guy.

If I recall, the "versus recruitable enemy" theme is a dark reprise of the game's recruitment theme, which is probably why you recognize is.

Word Of God says Jamka is actually the grandson of Batou, but this doesn't jive with the in game dialouge. My guess is that his father died when Jamka was young and Grandpa Batou raised him as his own son, but that is just me speculating.

Oh? I thought Blagi was staff dude, and Ulir was bow dude? Regardless, Adean seems like she'll be pretty useful, though not quite with as much utility as Ethlin, simply due to lacking a horse and the ability to fight.

As for Dew, I could have sworn I changed the earlier things after deciding he was more likely a guy. Ah well.

Ulir is a bow dude (or lady. I am honestly not sure). Adean isn't, but she is linked by blood to two later important characters who are. And that is all I will say because (minor) spoilers.

Ah, I see, makes sense. Too bad she can't make use of the bow skills she naturally possesses.

I believe, from earlier research, this is the chapter Lex can have an encounter that obtains him a Hero (Brave) Axe.

You could check serenes for details, or not, since that's not something you'd likely naturally find on a first playthrough.

That is a juicy little bit of information. Since Lex isn't busy at the moment, I may decide to try and hunt down that axe, since a Brave Axe would be sweet for someone without pursuit.

More Story Trivia: According to Word Of God (though Thracia 776 implies it) The Rivough lord that King Mananan slew and attempted to offer his head to Grandbell as an offer of peace? His own son-in-law, what with him being married to Mananan's older, unnamed, daughter and all. Of course, as we learn in Thracia 776, said lord and royal daughter had a son...

Also, why is Adean just carrying around the Jungby holy bow? Doesn't her father who is on the front lines in the war against Isaac need it? Whatever...

Really? Thracia sounds interesting, and it's connected to this game as a side story to.

As for Jungby's holy bow, perhaps her father can't wield it either? The only reason I can think of, aside from her dad simply forgetting it at home, which would look really awkward...

More boring backstory details: Maira is actually a rather major figure in the backstory, but I am not sure if the game goes into the majority of it. As mentioned, he was the younger brother of one of the Emperor Galles (another long story there). What wasn't mentioned was how he actually opposed the oppressive ways of the Lopto Empire and tried to benevolently harmonize the Lopto Church with the old religion, by placing Loptous among the high gods of the old religion. He and his followers went around saving people from being sacrificed, and eventually started a rebellion, but were defeated and exiled.

Maira himself would eventually pass on (as people do) and his descendents would hide in the Spirit Forest, with a vow to only have one child at most (as Maira had Minor Loptous, and thus if he and his descendents only have one heir per generation, some crazy Archbishop can't bread two Maira heirs to revive Loptous.) His followers would continue to rescue people from the Empire, one of which being the future Crusader Blaggi...

...I swear, I won't be getting into lore rambles with every post. Sorry.

I don't mind, those are all quite interesting, and it makes Manfloy's plot a bit more discernible.

I might be wrong, but I think Ethlin can speak to Diadora and get the Light Sword this chapter. Since Ethlin and Cuan have reversed inheritance for their kids, Leaf will inherit Ethlin's gear, so it might be nice to pick up that sword and start working on getting kills for it.

It might be a good idea to try and stick Ethlin with Cuan and, to a lesser extant as I know it might not be possible due to Sigurd's horse, Sigurd with Diadora. If two lovers are standing next to each other, they get an instant critical when they attack, if I recall.

Boring Backstory Time: Like Eltshan and Lachesis, Chagall is a decendent of Hezul, but doesn't have any Holy Blood. The reason given for this is that Hezul's eldest son, who got no or minor Holy Blood, inherited the throne, but it was Hezul's youngest daughter, who married into the Nodion family, who got the Major Blood and thus the Nodions got the Mystletainn. In return, they swore eternal loyalty to the "main" royal family, which may explain some of Eltshan's stupid actions in this chapter and the next.

I saw Ethlin's ability to speak with Dierdre (it's actually Dierdre to Ethlin, if I recall correctly), but since I needed to rush to Nodion, I didn't have time to get them to talk. I plan on them chatting later on, and due to talks in this game generally giving me cool stuff, I always keep an eye out for who can talk to whom.

Also, is that "instant crit" thing you mentioned like the Triangle Attack, where they always criticals, or does it provide them with the critical skill that they can use. Either way, thanks for the tip.

I looked it up to double check and I was wrong: it's only a 20% boost to the critical rate. Better than nothing I guess. I want to say it's the only way to get a critical without the skill in this game, as it would make no sense to have it if it did nothing without the skill. I could be wrong though. Try it out I guess, and if it doesn't do anything without the skill, then I apologize for wasting your time.

I want to say siblings (in the first gen, this is kept to Sigurd and Ethlin for now, though you have half of another pair and the other half comes next chapter I think?) also get the same critical boost.

Sorry, I feel really dumb now.

No boring backstory trivia here, as I think this is one of the major backstory bits that the game explains in significant detail. Also, it seems they held the mystery of Levn for all of two seconds. Wow.

If I recall, this is the last chapter you can use Diadora in, and her stats, along with Sigurd's, do determine what Celice's starting stats are. So try to use her as much as you can while you still can.

Also, the Power Of Love comment meant the Lovers Bonus Critical with Cuan worked, right?

Yeah, Levin stayed a secret for almost no time at all.

Also, this is the last chapter with Dierdre? Thanks much for the warning. I'll definitely make sure she is as strong as I can make her, and I'll also put her through the arena again before seizing the final castle.

Yeah, Power Of Love is what I will call Lover's Bonus Criticals. Cuan used one to destroy Boldo, and Ethlin used one to destroy Macbeth.

It's possible that they were searching for Levn the whole time, and just now got to searching in Agustria. Jugdral is a big place and they have no idea where Levn could have gone.

Also, I usually don't comment to translation choices, but I will argue til the end of days that "Fury" is a dumb name for Ferry and question why they thought that would be a good idea.

My feelings are the opposite; I've never heard of a real or fictional individual called "Ferry" but Fury has precedent.

On the other hand Fire Emblem has Aerith And Bob naming frequently so whatever. Actually, now, saying that, I'm not sure why I prefer Fury. Rule Of Cool / Names To Run Away From Really Fast?

Honestly, despite her name, she doesn't have much in the way of anger, but I could see her being a "ferry" in the sense that she is used for transport, ala rescuing in later games. Of course, that doesn't actually happen in this game, but that's the only way I can see the name working.

Purely as a name, I think Fury sounds better, but I feel Ferry is technically more fitting to the character.

I find it kinda interesting that this is the first chapter to have a Baron as a boss, while the second gen has a Baron as a boss of the very first chapter. I am not sure why this amuses me though.

Also, get used to seeing Zyne a lot. His portrait is the most reused in this game.

Out of curiosity, how is the love situation going anyway?

Baron's strike me as an entirely boss related class, what with their weapon mastery and such. Also, I'll be sure to note about Zyne, so that I'm not surprised by all of the recolors (still doesn't beat whateverhisnameis from Sword of Seals. He's not just one boss recolor, he's six!)

As for the love situation, I'm pairing Sigurd and Dierdre (duh), Cuan and Ethlin (also duh), Aira and Holyn (they will make amazing Odo blood myrmidon babies), Jamka and Aideen (passing Ulir blood to an archer with awesome skills seems like a pretty solid plan), Dew and Lachesis (thief skills, sol, and charisma strike me as good for support on the battlefield), and Levin and Fury (no matter what kind of kids they have, major Holsety blood kids with pursuit, adept, and critical is a pretty solid combination).

As for how far they are along, I don't know, but I've made sure Aira and Holyn were always pretty close for the entirety of this chapter, and Aideen and Jamka generally stuck together as well. Levin and Fury joined part way through, so they didn't hang out together too much, but they've got a couple turns under their belts.

Yeah, I think the English website for Blazing Sword and some old Nintendo Power magazine article had Celice's name as "Serlis" and the translators followed suit...for no reason. They don't try to match up the names to any official sources in any other instances, to my knowledge (Note that Sigurd is Sigurd and not Siglud or Zigludo) I suspect Serlis was just trolling.

Also, this is the last chapter you can use Cuan, Ethlin, or Fin. So if you want to pair Fin up, do it fast. Also, I think you can have Cuan talk to Ethlin to get the Gae Bolg, the Legendary Spear of Lenster, Noba's weapon, etc. However, don't sell Fin's equipment, as if he is paired, it passed down to his son, but if he isn't paired, he keeps it when he reappears in the second gen. Likewise, don't sell Ethlin or Cuan's equipment either, as they pass it down as well.

I figured Serlis was wrong.

Also, yet again, thanks for the warning about the Lenster group. As for the two talking, I'll take a look, since I actually didn't this time. The Gae Bolg will definitely come in handy if any other legendary weapon wielders show up.

Spoilers: You are going to fight Eltshan. However, if you talk to him with Lachesis, you don't have to fight him. And that is all I will say to avoid spoiling the rest of the plot of the chapter.

Sorry if you wanted to keep it a surprise. But the chapter is named after him after all, and he does look a bit like Camus.

I figured I'd have to fight him given the chapter title, and I also figured I'd be able to talk him down with his sister, but thanks for the assurance.

That reminds me, have you promoted anyone yet? (Or rather, can you?) I think you can promote in the main castle once you reach level 20 (Levels don't reset, so promote as soon as you can! The max level is 30 btw)

Sorry, I might be talking about this too soon.

I'm well aware of the promotion being available, but until now, since I think both Sigurd and Holyn are level 20, I couldn't promote. Hopefully I'll be enjoying a super sweet swordmaster and... whatever Sigurd promotes to (actually, I forgot to check that when he warped to Agusty) soon.

Sigurd is a prepromote actually. He is already promoted (so is Cuan, FYI).

Also, Holyn promotes to Forrest (basically, a renamed Hero). It's Ira who becomes a Swordmaster.

Bishop is actually a separate class from High Priest, but it's enemy only. I think you fight a Bishop boss early in the next chapter.

You probably noticed, but the Valkyrie Staff broke. Being a healer, Claud doesn't have the money to fix it unless he gets paired with someone who can get a lot of money. I don't recall if the staff needs to be intact to be passed down, but I wouldn't risk it.

Time For Backstory: Remember Maira? Remember how I mentioned that his followers saved Blaggi from being sacrificed? Blaggi was raised by the Maira Lopto guys and one day went off and became a Crusader. When it was all over, he went back to the monastery where the Maira guys had raised him, and saw that the Lopto Empire had burned the place to the ground and killed everyone. Blaggi had a tower (the Tower of Blaggi) built on top of where the monastery stood to honor Maira and his followers, who sacrificed their lives to save people from the Empire, and to show that there were people within the Empire who tried to help people. However, over time the inscription of the Tower faded away and the Tower's purpose was forgotten.

Ah right, I remember fighting a Bishop in chapter 2. Clement or something was his name, the dude who guarded Mackily in chapter 2 and used the sleep staff on people.

Yeah, it broke, but I plan on giving Claude a tome (somehow) and having him blast through the arena if possible and get some more money to repair it before he passes it down (how, I don't know, since I'm not sure who I'll pair him with).

Also, that backstory info was quite interesting. It explains why only Claude seemed interested in the tower (dude related to the crusader it was built for would likely know something of it's history), and learning more about Maira is a cool way of learning about the Lopto empire.

I believe thieves can give money to others, as well, as an alternative method to get that staff repaired. Not sure though.

Taking a while is fine, since I've been on the road and away from the internet for a week. One less thing to catch up on!

Yeah, Dew can hand off money to anyone, but his supply is a bit low since he's not been able to fight these more powerful enemies.

Dude, you missed an opportunity to give Dew (and Delmud) the Wind Sword, as well as a chance to boost Midir and Briggid's relationship points.

The "Mage Hero" is a Mage Fighter, one of the promotions of the Mage, the other being Mage Knight. Mage Knights have horses. I have no clue why the fan translators made it "Mage Hero" in this latest patch.

The Four Angelic Knights of Silesia are Mahnya, Ferry, Deet'var, and Pamela. I have no clue why they all have green hair, as only Mahnya and Ferry are related. I think Pamela got her hair made blue in one of the manga versions.

Time For Backstory: Deet'var has a daughter, Misha. Misha is a playable character in Thracia 776.

...I didn't say it was in depth backstory.

As for other story trivia, since Maios and Daccar don't have Holsety blood, I've assumed for the longest time that the blood was on Rahna's side of the family. But Word Of God says that King Silesia had the Holy Blood, but his brothers have nothing...for some reason.

This is especially odd, as Gen 2 has several minor bosses with Minor Holsety, but it's never explained why. So these minor bosses from presumably some branch family can get minor blood, but the siblings of the major blood holder get nothing?

EDIT: Oh! As I don't know how much the next entry will cover, once you capture Silesia, have Levn enter it. Trust me. It's a good idea.

Ah yes, I've heard of mage fighters. Okay, makes sense. I don't get why they'd change it to Mage Hero, perhaps to let it fit into the character limit?

Oh, Fury's an Angelic Knight? No wonder she turns out so powerful! I just assumed Deetva's coloration was on a whim, and had nothing to do with relation, like how Fin has the same blue hair and eyes as Sigurd but has no relation to him, unlike Ethlin, who has pink hair and brown eyes.

On the holy blood note, that is a bit odd. Maybe it's Gameplay And Story Segregation meant to stop them from wrecking you with awesome wind powers or something? I dunno, to be honest.

I've noticed Mini-Bosses seem to be cropping up fairly often in these chapters, so I'll keep wary of ones with holy blood in the future.

As for the edit... Normally when someone says "Trust me. It's a good idea" but don't specify, I feel obligated not to trust them, but since you're likely just avoiding spoilers, I'll do just that! Plus, what's the worst that could happen?

Interesting note, aside from the boost from her Shield Ring, the only difference statwise between Deet'var and Pamela is HP, despite Pamela being two levels higher. Mahnya is superior to Pamela but that is why Andorey is there I guess.

Yes, you do get to kill Andorey next chapter, which is the final chapter for the first gen (not the penultimate like you said)

I thought having the random border patrol guys keep you from going to help seemed kinda lame, but I can see why they didn't want you getting in the way of story.

I figured their stats were basically the same, what with them being same-class recolors in the same chapter meant to be in the same group (you'd think someone would mention how similar they looked, but no).

Good, Andre is going to feel all of the wrath. If I can without her dying, I may just have Fury kill him, because I'm spiteful.

And yeah, the border patrol keeping my out seemed silly, but I was more worried about Mahnya's incoming demise than the border patrol dudes complete lack of priorities (I can save your kingdom, and one of your strongest knights! Just. let. me. through!).

If anyone knows, is that six-critical Levin rampage actually programmed to happen after Mahnya's death or was it just a coincidence? Either way, awesome.

I doubt it was programmed in, since that would be kind of broken on your end. Levin just has a lot of skill, and for the couple of times he used Holsety, that is boosted by 10.

Honestly, he and Aira are without a doubt the strongest people in the party, far surpassing even the very powerful Sigurd, Lachesis, Lex, Jamka, and Brigid.

Azmur is in fact Diadora's grandfather. He is the father of Kurth, who, if you remember, is Diadora's father.

Also, pay attention to Azmur's order to Alvis about bearing a son and ruling only until that son comes of a suitable age to rule. This will cause problems later.

You didn't comment on it, but Andorey mentions his son Scopio in his death quote. You can guess who will be showing up in Gen 2.

I figured there was an actual relation, but I wasn't sure of the family tree past Azmur -> Kurth, so I was a touch skeptical.

I'll keep Azmur's order in mind.

I figured Scorpio was one of his soldiers and I'd fight him later. Great, I was hoping that idiot hadn't bred, but it seems I'll be dealing with mini-bow-douche later on.

According to Thracia 776, Manfroy (and Thracia's final boss, Veld) is behind the deaths of Cuan and Ethlin as well...though how is not specified, as you saw, it was pretty much Trabant being a dick. He probably manipulated Trabant the same way he did Alvis or something.

I think he may have hired Trabant (through Alvis, likely providing the incentive to do so to him) and played on his dislike of Lenster to get him to go and kill him.

Honestly, since it said Alvis hired them, I doubt Veld had anything to do with this. He was a pathetic villain, and I believe he was just trolling when he said that.

Actually, the T stands for Thor. Some people write it as "Tor" arguing "Tor as in Tordo" but Tordo and Thor are written noticeably differently in Japanese (I checked!)

Also, I forgot to mention this before, but Word Of God says that Claud and Sylvia aren't actually siblings, but cousins. The "Claud's missing sister" thing was a fake out I guess (and technically unresolved...)

And while I am on the subject of ill fitting trivia, Aida and Alvis have a son, Cyas, who is a major character in Thracia 776. He looks to be about 20, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was born before Alvis married Diadora. I don't think he is ever fully explained. Also, Aida dies protecting Cyas from the Lopto Sect between the generations, so if you thought you were going to get vengeance against her, sorry.

Also, just curious, but did you know about the twist before hand? I've been trying to not spoil it in these comments.

Oh, okay. Thorhammer is a badass spell name, I won't lie, although it's animation was kind of tame for a divine weapon. Just an exploding circle of lightning, nothing really crazy.

Alright, good, so I'm not having them become incestuous. It's just a distant bloodline sharing, sort of like Holyn and Aira.

Ida dies protecting a son we don't know about within a time frame that is likely to be left mostly as background info? Talk about a lame way to go. As for beating her, I honestly don't mind her. She really just sends us to Alvis, who does all the dirty work, and she tried to help us a bit with Reptor, so there's no big issue there.

I didn't know about the twist, although I had a hunch. I was wondering what was going to cause the future to be in the hands of everyones kids, and when Cuan and Ethlin got smoked, I got the feeling my guys weren't long for this world. I was actually kind of hopeful when Alvis welcomed us back, thinking maybe Manfloy's plot was simply going to expand after Alvis had his kid or something, and then everything would go to shit, but no, Alvis immolates everyone.

Scathach is more commonly known as Skasaher and I will probably refer to him as such. The thing that bugs me is that they made Skasaher into Scathach, but not Lakche into Luchtaine. If you are going to change names to match the mythology, don't half ass it. Geez.

As for Adean living, if you paired up every female in the first gen, I think the only one who isn't implied to have survived Barhara (even if they died later) is Ira. For some reason. Levn has a reason why he is still alive too, in case you are wondering, but it's spoilers.

As for Yuria (Julia, whatever. This one doesn't matter) the next castle you capture will which starting tome you get for Yuria. After you take the castle, Celice will be able to talk to Yuria. Taking Isaac first gets her Resire, while taking Sophara first gets you Aura. It is recommended to go for Resire.

On the same note, Luchtaine (I am so calling her that now) can recruit one of Johan and Johalva, but not the other. I think it is possible to recruit one then take the other castle to pick up Yuria's tome, but eh.

Ah, so it's another funny little translation thing, eh? I think I'd prefer their "incorrect" names, since they roll off the tongue easier (though Lakche and Luchtaine are both rather odd sounding) rather than their mythologically correct names, although I admit I prefer how their correct names sound.

Oh, so all the paired girls live save for Aira? That's nice to know, even if they did die later on. I was wondering why Levin lived, but thanks for not sharing since it's a spoiler.

So I should aim to get Isaac first then? Resire is Nosferatu right? I can see why I'd want to get that. Thanks also for warning me that the brothers are mutually exclusive. I'll look them over and see which one strikes my fancy.

In case you are wondering, the reason Danan doesn't have Swanchika is because his third son Burain has it, and Burain is back in Dozel. In hindsight, I am not sure why Danan didn't take it with him. I can get the out of universe reason, the boss of the first chapter with a Holy Weapon would be overkill, but still.

If I remember correctly, if you recruit one brother while the other is still alive, the other will get pissed and charge after Luchtaine and the recruited brother.

I wasn't wondering solely because of that reason, since I doubt they would be malicious enough to give the first major boss a Holy Weapon.

Alright then, I'm glad I took out Johan before I got to see his ugly side. Rather a shame that you can't recruit them with each other, but I can see why that wouldn't work.

Interesting that the Lopto guys have a Freudian Excuse. Of course, this is just a cycle of hatred. The Grandbellians punish the Yied folks for what the Lopto Empire did, so when the Yied folks become the Lopto Sect and come into power, they moved to punish the people of Grandbell...by more or less becoming the Lopto Empire they were accused of being. This will probably justify the Granbellians hatred of them and so on.

So Levn has good advice here.

Yeah, Levin has it right to try to break this little cycle of violence between the groups, and Serlis will hopefully keep that in mind for future reference.

Time For Backstory: How did Aless end up with Jabarro, and how did he end up with the Mystletainn? Heck, wait, Eltshan was married? Well, he was. To a woman named Grahnye, who happened to be from Lenster. Once shit started going down in Agustria back in Chapter 2 and 3, Eltshan sent Aless and Grahnye to live with her relatives in Lenster. After Eltshan died and Barhara happened, Lachesis made her way to Lenster and, among other things which I will probably get into later, gave the Mystletainn to Grahnye (who, naturally, wanted nothing to do with the woman who indirectly got her husband killed). When Lenster fell, Grahnye was killed, the Mystletainn fell into Aless's hands, and Aless was adopted by Jabarro and eventually joined his band of mercenaries.

Also, Ishtore has silly hair.

I was thinking about those, but just sort of assumed it was backstory info, and that you would share it down here. It's quite interesting to read about that though, and I'm more surprised that Lachesis had the Mistoltin, since Eltshan apparently died with it in his possession. I guess she made the trip back to Agustria before heading to Lenster, eh?

And I agree about Ishtore, his hair is ridiculous, even by the standards of a Fire Emblem game.

It's possible that she picked it up after Sigurd and pals killed Chagall and captured the castle he was in, and didn't bring it up because neither she or anyone else could use the thing anyway. Kinda like how Adean was apparently carrying around the Ichaival for most of the first gen.

Ah Aideen and her bow hording tendencies. So very useful. Joking aside, I agree with that idea, and it would explain why she didn't mention it.

Time for backstory (though one I probably should have mentioned before): As I said last time, Lachesis ended up in Lenster. In the end, she joined up with Fin, and gave birth to Nanna while there (though if she was already pregnant with Nanna when she showed up in Lenster is not clear. Maybe?). When Lenster fell and everyone was forced to go from ally to ally to protect Leaf and such, eventually (as you heard from Nanna already) Lachesis got the bright idea of "Hey, I am going to cross the desert filled with Lopto mages and see my son". She was never seen again.

...Or was she? Fin's ending in Thracia 776 has him going to the desert looking for her but coming back empty handed. Rumor has it that there was a side mission about saving people turned to stone, and Lachesis was among them. According to Kaga's dream scenario, the ideas about the game that didn't make it into the final cut, among them a "gen 3" (though this was just the gen 2 guys meeting up with the surviving gen 1 guys, it's a long story), Lachesis was captured by the Lopto guys and taken to a prison in Agustria, where she cared for the kidnapped children there. She was rescued when Delmud and Aless liberated the country.

Now for relevant crap: Teeny's recruitment really gave you trouble. She caused you to restart 3 times? Geez.

Oh wow, some of that extra stuff (the saving people turned to stone) sounds like it would have been really cool. Too bad it couldn't be fit into the final cut of either game.

As for Tinny, yeah, she gave me far more trouble than she was worth, mostly due to her hanging out with those mage triplets, who were damn near impossible for anyone save Julia to last more than one round with. And the one time they are all dealt with and it seems like it'll work, Tinny suicides onto Julia! Fin lured her out since she tends to hang out near the back of the lines, but it would have been really big trouble if anyone followed her, so I consider myself lucky in that regard.

Some trivia: I think this upcoming chapter more or less covers the same territory as the last 4 chapters of Thracia 776. Basically, according to Thracia, after repelling Bloom's attempts to retake Lenster, Celice and his forces went towards Conote and Bloom, while Leaf and his gang went to Manster (which is helmed in that game by Leidrick and Veld, the villains of that game) I am pretty sure the two stories don't match up perfectly, but eh.

Oifey criticaled and took out Ishtar in one shot? Wow. That is beyond luck. That probably made the whole chapter much easier than it would have been otherwise.

Yeah, Oifaye saved me a lot of luck based crap with that critical. I'm very thankful for it, since my basic strategy was "have Oifaye hit her, hope he doesn't get adepted and die, have either Fin or Lester use their brave weapons, hope they hit twice with 40-50 hit chances, or else they will die", since due to a miscalculation of movement, neither Aless nor Shanan could actually reach her, so I didn't have the brute force of a divine weapon to take advantage of her low defense. Oifaye is just a BAMF in general, and basically counter-screwed the RNG.

Coruta is a boss in Thracia 776 with more or less the exact same role as here. Like I said before, the later chapters of Thracia 776 match up with this chapter....vaguely (you'll notice that the fate of Manster is almost completely different.) Coruta got promoted from "Zyne recolor" though, so good for him.

Oh, Coruta gets promoted from a recolor? Indeed that's good for him, although I suspect I might have paid him more mind had I not just gotten Sety and allowed the sage to wreck his shit.

Of my god I just know Sety is going to be the coolest dude ever, I can already tell.

The big mass of villages in the corner of the map sure is strange isn't it? Well, if it's any help, the location of the big mass of villages is the location given to Tahra in Thracia 776, though you can only tell this by comparing the world map of that game to this chapter.

Also, Trabant is a dick, isn't he? I guess that always bugged me. They try to cast him as sympathetic, yet he does awful things like the Yied Massacre and shows no remorse for them.

Ah, I was wondering about those, but figured they were just there to show a sort of "city" area.

Trabant seems like his morality begins and ends within the Thracian borders. He sincerely cares for his people and family, but everybody else are just casualties. He's like a douchier Naesala, almost.

Those wyverns really hate Aless.

So, enemy leaders can call reinforcements from their castle. Interesting. I thought I read that in one of your earlier entries, wasn't sure though. Do they run out eventually?

Yeah, they didn't seem fond of him.

I mentioned it a couple chapters ago, in the first of the Manster/Thracia chapters, when dealing with Blume for the first time. Leaf was fighting some armor knights, the captain ran off, and then came with more mooks. I doubt they run out since the idea is to encourage being thorough and targeting the leaders first, I'd assume. That obviously wasn't going to happen with Hanibal being the leader, but hey, it helped in the end.

Musar has minor Holsety blood. I don't think it's ever explained why.

My guess is that he might be the son of Maios or Daccar, considering his backstory (a Silesian knight in your army killed his father) but Maios and Daccar didn't have any Holy Blood...and technically no one in your army is a Silesian knight. I guess Phee is? I don't think he reacts to her at all though.

The Hel tome is basically the instant death tome of the game, reducing HP down to one if it hits, but otherwise does no damage if they are at one. However, in Thracia 776, it kills them if the HP is already at one.

According to rumor, Hilda was going to be Alvis's sister (presumably a bastard child of Victor?) but in the final game, she is just a noble of Velthomer and has Fala blood. Being a bastard child of Victor isn't ruled out I guess...

Oh, time for backstory: If you didn't pair Tailto, her sister Ethnia more or less takes her place (did I mention this before? I am not sure where I could have brought it up) I wouldn't be surprised if she suffered abuse alongside her as well, but, well, the canon status of the replacements and plot elements associated with them is ambiguous at best.

Oh, I am not sure how much info the next part will cover, so I will mention it now: There is an event for Celice that grants him a Life Ring. After defeating the last boss of this chapter, move Celice next to a nearby water tile.

Yeah, Sety, Fee, and Nanna experienced the tomes effects when they were taking Rados, but having three healers meant it wasn't an issue.

I didn't even look at her holy blood. I thought she was a Freege royal from her relation with Ishtar and Tinny, but I supposes that explains Bolganone.

Ethnia is one of Titlyu's kids replacements then? Alright. I knew that the kids got replaced if there wasn't a paired parent for them, but it seems they get their own little plot things as well? Kinda cool, I suppose.

Thanks for the warning about the event, since a Life Ring sounds helpful, although I think he already has one. Life is the healing ring right?

Oh, sorry if I wasn't clear. The replacements for Tailto's kids are Amid and Linda. Ethnia is Amid and Linda's mother and Talito's sister, but she goes unmentioned unless you don't pair Talito. I think it's not so much a separate plot as it is just adjusting the existing plot for the fact that the kids in Arthur and Tinny's place aren't Talito's kids. For the record, I think after the second fight with Hilda, there is a conversation where Amid and Linda talk about how Ethnia joined Sigurd's army after Talito's death. (Of course, this raises some questions if you kept Talito til the end but just didn't pair her...)

However, I think some of the other subs have their own more unique plots, for example, Radney is uncomfortable around men, and Asaello and Mana have a bit of a complex about their status as commoners (compared to folks like Celice who have Holy Blood and such)

Yes, the Life Ring is the healing one.

Oh okay, still, that's an interesting bit of info.

Radney is Lakche's substitute right? That'd make recruiting one of the axe brothers a bit more amusing, I'd guess.

Alright, so then I guess Serlis is going to either have two (I wonder if they'd stack...) or he's gonna pawn one off to someone else.

Good job on taking out Ishtar so quickly again. Her and Yurius running around would probably just be a nightmare for me and my "no one dies" thing.

Poor Alvis. Despite all the awful crap he did, I can't help but feel sorry for him. I am not sure how they managed to make the guy who backstabbed and massacred Sigurd and co sympathetic, but it doesn't seem as forced as with Trabant. But that could be just me.

Ishtar was a lot less luck this time, since I actually have people who could put up a fight, namely Sety.

I get what you mean with Alvis. He's a bastard who was able to taunt Sigurd with his brainwashed wife, slaughter Sigurd's entire army, of which included his own brother and likely at least a few of his friends, all for the sake of taking the throne and avoiding being persecuted for his blood. His goal though was noble, attempting to end persecution due to being a prime target for it himself, having Lopt blood and all, and if not for his monster of a son allowing the Lopt sect to rise to power, due to Alvis's own goal of ending persecution, he wouldn't have been a half-bad ruler, judging from his personality at least.

To be completely honest though, a good 90% of the crap that went on throughout the game, including basically the entire second generation and the war and such, were due to Manfloy and his little group. He blackmailed Alvis, kidnapped and mind wiped Dierdre, talked Verdane into attacking Grandbell, led the rise of the Lopt Empire back into power, kidnapped Julia, and used Julius to subvert basically all of Alvis's power, leading to the tyranny of the second generation.

Yeah, Manfroy and his group are more or less behind everything that happened. I guess that does make Manfroy seem impressive as a villain, as despite Sigurd and later Celice fighting off every step of his plan, he more or less succeeds. Loptous is revived through Yurius, and the Grandbell Empire is on it's way to become a second incarnation of the Lopto Empire.

However, unlike Alvis and to a lesser extent Trabant, Manfroy isn't sympathetic at all. One could make a case that the other Lopto Sect guys followed him due to how they have been persecuted and they wanted revenge, but Manfroy seems to want Loptous revived and the world sent to hell...for the hell of it. They aren't even going with the angle that he wrongly views Loptous as a savior like the others are implied to in the Yied Shrine scene; he seems to know that Loptous is pure evil and he wants to revive him anyway.

So yeah, while I like Alvis in both his bastardy and his sympathetic nature despite that, I am conflicted on Manfroy: On one hand, he's been pulling all the strings, has adjusted his plans to deal with Sigurd and Celice's actions and more or less wins (or at least comes extremely close)...yet his character is almost completely flat and one note and he has no clear motivation aside from doing it For The Evulz.

But I've rambled for long enough, sorry.

Otherarrow, it's said between the lines that Manfroy's motivation for reviving the Loputo Empire is as revenge for over a century of persecution and suffering from the world as a whole, having their members executed publicly and exiled to a dillapidated fortress/shrine in the middle of a harsh desert. As the story expands, we quickly learn how justified this is, with witch hunts, Maira being exiled to Verdane even after he saved Jugdral, and people being burned at the stake simply for being descended from the bloodline of an evil god, regardless of the kind of people they are. You really think The Dog Bites Back isn't a justification?

Time For Backstory: This is basically just elaboration of what was said this chapter, but hey. In case it wasn't obvious, the distant land Galle went to was Akaneia, and Loptous was an Earth Dragon. The Loptous possessed Galle returned and formed the Lopto Empire, as stated, with each ruler of the empire being the vessel of Loptous and being referred to as "Emperor Galle". I mentioned before that Maira was siblings with "one of the" Emperor Galles? Yeah, I was referring to that.

Naga's appearance as a human female just seemed kinda "huh, yeah OK" at the time, but the DS remakes of Marth's games imply and Awakening outright shows that Naga is actually female.

One more thing, while I am on the subject of Naga: According to lore, Naga and Heim ended up in a position similar to what Levn is in now...

...and yeah, good luck trying to take on Yurius without Yuria. It's possible, but very hard.

Oh, I was actually unaware of that. That's really cool! I also didn't know Loptous possessed Galle, I thought he just did that to other descendants since they weren't powerful enough to handle it or something. I forgot about the "one of the Emperor Galles" thing actually, but that's pretty cool.

I figured Narga appearing as a human female was meant to hint towards Julia, but Shadow Dragon did bring in Nagi (although I don't remember mention of Narga). I'm super hyped for Awakening, and the expansion on series lore is most definitely one of those reasons.

What would that situation Levin is in now be? That he has to take a back seat to the action while others fight the war?

And as for Julius, I'm aware of how insanely broken he (or rather, his tome) is, and also how hard he is to beat without Narga. I'll take a whack at beating him without Narga, but if that proves too difficult and people start nearing death or getting killed, I will definitely just have Julia blast him.

Oh, another question, do ring effects stack? Like, if I were to give someone two magic rings or something, would they get +10 magic instead of +5? Or can people not where two of the same rings?

As for rings, I honestly don't know. Sorry. Did you notice ring effects stack for Celice when he had both of his rings?

As for Levn, no, not that. The mention was basically talking about something that doesn't get revealed until later in the final chapter. You've probably noticed that I've done previous stupid attempts at foreshadowing before, sorry.

As for Nagi/Naga, the connection wasn't explicitly stated, but it was implied. For example, if you use Nagi against Medeus, he refers to her as a dragon who was also revived and seems to be familiar with her...

Drat. Ah well, I'll just do some experiments then. As for Serlis, he was full health when he got his second Renewal ring, and then he pawned it off to Altenna, so I'm not sure if they stack.

Ah okay, and no issue on the foreshadowing bit.

Oh? I've never used Nagi before so all I know is from what I've read. That sounds fairly interesting though, so I might look it up.

Hilda having Major Dain is a glitch. She should have Minor Fala, as you saw in the previous chapter.

Meng, Maybell, and Bleg are not mages, but Falcon Knights, and they can do the Triangle Attack like the mage trio could.

Time For Backstory: OK...we don't know what the exact deal is with the Dark Warlords, but they are 12 undead warriors loyal to Loptous and Gimle, and they served Galle during the creation of the Lopto Empire. They also appear in Thracia 776 and Awakening, but it's probably not the same Warlords each time. You see, Thracia 776 reveals that the Warlords are created using the bodies of other people, and indeed, several of your playable characters in Thracia can end up enemy Warlords if you let them die.

You can't recruit Yuria until you kill Manfroy, just a warning.

Oh, I see.

Yeah, I thought Ishtar was calling those three mages, since they worked for her before and I don't remember them getting perma-killed. I noticed they were falcon knights afterwards.

Oh, I figured the Dark Warlords were just children Julius had personally put through his fucked up training and now used. This actual reason is arguably worse. That Thracia 776 stuff would be hella creepy.

Thanks for the warning! I wouldn't have attempted to finish off Manfloy first, and she'd have destroyed me. Now I'll be sure to end him as soon as I can.

...You'd think since they made this improved patch with all the silly/inconsistent name changes, they'd get around to translating the ending as well. This just seems...odd. I think there is a ending generator (as the ending changes based on various factors) on Serenes Forest's forums somewhere. It's pinned in their NES and SNES section, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.

Well, I guess I will have to tell you what I was foreshadowing with the Naga/Heim thing: For all of the second gen, Levn was sharing bodies with Holsety. You see, Manfroy murdered Levn during the battle of Barhara, and Holsety revived him. It's a bit ambiguous as to where Levn stops and Holsety begins, but this explains his change in personality between generations.

Time For ....Trivia?: Some of the Dark Warlords have Holy Blood. When asked about this, Shouzou Kaga mentioned the possibility that they had stories of their own. We know that the Warlords are made from the corpses of fallen warriors but...who were these people before they were turned into Warlords? We may never know.

Alright, I'll get to looking for the ending generator thing, and then get to writing the final chapter for Genealogy.

Oh, so Naga/Heim is like Loptous/Julius, where the spirit of the weapons maker takes residence inside the body of the wielder? I see. But when does Manfloy kill Levin in the Battle of Barhara? I see what you mean about the personality change, though I had just brushed the change off as him feeling horrid for what happened at Barhara and Silesia following, and thus wanting to win the war as much as possible. It does explain why he's so harsh when speaking with Fee on Light and Dark though.

I didn't even check that. That's actually pretty cool, although now I'm curious as to who they were beforehand. Their German Number designation seems to fit with the German themed enemy troop names (Rot Ritter, Beige Ritter, Gelben Ritter, etc.), so I doubt those were their original names.

If I recall, there are various demos (you know, those videos that play if you dilly dally at the title screen?) The demos you start with are minor stuff, but once you beat the game you get spoiler stuff like Alvis killing Sigurd, Yurius killing Diadora, Manfroy killing Levn, and Holsety reviving Levn. As for when, I always presumed either Manfroy personally killed him during the battle, or he slipped away but was tracked down and killed by Manfroy shortly after. Within the general timeframe though.

The Dark Warlords are always named after the first twelve German numbers, so no, those aren't their birth names.

Oh, those show that? That's kinda cool actually, although including important information in title screen demos seems rather odd.

Ah I see, well regardless, I wouldn't mind learning more about them and how they came to be Loptous's servants.

I think an ordinary run of The Sacred Stones could be a nice breather after the massive FE4, but at the same time, I want to see how a bow-only run of Shadow Dragon would work. Gah, I dunno.

I'd probably fine with whatever the rest decide to pick.

I haven't commented in a while, but I've been reading along and quite enjoyed it.

Whichever you think you'd have the most fun with! Learning about Shadow Dragon could be interesting, but I also have incomplete playthroughs of the GBA titles that a blog might spur me to continue...

How many bow units are there in Shadow Dragon anyway? And is that the one where characters need to die for the gaiden chapters?

It is, but I think the only of the gaiden characters who can use a bow by default is Ymir...who is agreed to be one of the worse. Well, you need to kill off one person extra in the prologue to get Norne, but the only other bow wielder in the prologue is Gordin, so I don't see much of a problem.

Oh, would reclassing be included in the all bow run? Because...that might take the fun out of it IMO. Just reclass all the good units to bow usage and bench the actual bow guys!

Reclassing would likely be included, though I plan to limit the reclassing a bit. The rules are basically only use bow users, use at least one unit from every class who begins with bows, (they don't need to stay as their base class, but someone must fill that spot later) and have at least one of each bow wielding class.

Voting will be going on until the end of Thursday, so there's plenty of time to vote. As for the current ones, I'll be counting both towards Shadow Dragon, since they were mentioned as possible decisions, and SD is higher on the list, and thus gains priority. Votes can be changed if anyone changes their mind, of course.

I vote for The Blazing Sword. I wouldn't want to see something so limited as a one-weapon run and Blazing Sword has much more to cover than those other two. Besides, it means we're going back to the beginning of the translated ones.

On the subject of limitations, what's the strangest and/or most difficult Self Imposed Challenge you've heard of or done in a Fire Emblem game?

A Hard Mode Ike Solo (or somehow doing Maniac mode, though that can only happen in a Japanese Po R) sounds like it'd be pretty tough. I've only done one on Normal mode.

I also once did a run of RD using only Ike, Elincia, Sothe, and Micaiah (outside of some meatshielding during the prologue chapters, and using people on chapters where those four aren't available), although that was on easy mode.

Another really cruel one is the Hard Mode Casualty Run, where in any game, you play through on Hard Mode, but at random (decided by a person chosen to use an RNG as a third party) any given member of your party save your lord(s), a designated healer, and I think one backup unit, is killed off every chapter.

Ouch. Even with my ridiculous FE 6 casualty rates, that sounds tougher. At least if I really needed someone to wield a Legendary weapon/Warp staff/recruit people later I could keep them mostly out of harm's way in-game until then.

Interesting fact: the only characters to survive in both my Normal and Hard FE 6 runs were Roy, Zealot, Lilina, Miledy, Sophia, Percival, Hugh, and Niime. Somebody who was awesome the first time around tended to die like a chump to RNG spite the second, and vice versa.

Alright, now that it is Saturday morning, voting is closed, and I will soon be starting the next liveblog run, which with two votes, is Shadow Dragon! Hope you all enjoy.

What exactly does a Ballistician do other than operate Ballistae?

You should count Ballisticians. They kill flyers and you need all the help you can get, besides.

@Montago: not much, but due to them being archer exclusive siege weapons in almost all other games where they aren't their own class, I was wondering what you guys thought about the idea of including them.

@Doctrain: Mostly, I want to include them since this seems like the only group they could really be part of save for possibly a "Misc." units group, but that would only include them, Xane (Woo, a third ballistician, since where on earth will I get another dragon stone for him to use?), and the dragons. Honestly, I'm not terribly concerned about them, but if most people would be fine with their inclusion, I think it'd be fun to bring them along as well.

I count Ballistician as bow units, though this is mainly because in games where they aren't units, other bow units use the ballista.

Xane can't imitate Manaketes anyway.

Time for Trivia!: The bow you got from the village was probably Norne's.

Cain (or rather, the canon sacrifice, Frey) lives btw, but this wouldn't be shown until the sequel...which we never got! Huzzah!

Alright then, I think I'll use them then. Thanks for the input!

I suppose that makes sense. He's apparently a manakete who can't shift anymore, like Gotoh, so it'd be kinda cheap if he could just mimic one for the same effect.

Yeah, the conversation from that village basically mentions Norne, now that I think of it.

Oh, they do? That's pretty cool, and hey, the translation patch for New Mystery of the Emblem will be finished soon, so eventually we will get to play it.

I remember when I spent 50+ turns on this map when I played it ... nearly every time, actually. I am that set on powering up Gordin early on.

I only spent so long on that map (about 30 turns) because the archers spent about 10 turns killing the boss, and they needed another bunch of turns to heal on forts. Norne and her ridiculously low 1 base skill helped that. Seriously, what is that?

I probably could have legitimately boss abused this guy, since he's such easy pickings, but I figured I wouldn't waste the resources when there are plenty of other bosses like this, and many arenas later as well.

What level are Gordin and Norne at anyway? I think it could be cool if you kept us up to date on the levels and such of at least the bow users (adding folks as you reclass them of course)

I really should do that more, to be honest, especially since after the boss gets killed, I get to sit around and do whatever, so I can look at the levels and share them. Gordin is at level 6, if I recall, and Norne is at level 4 or 5, I think.

If what you say about Archer growths are true, yeah, Nabarl will be a scary dude.

A question: Are you going to use any of the gaiden chapter characters? Athena would probably fit as an Archer just like Nabarl, being a myrm and all.

I'll be honest here, I am afraid that you might be getting a bit too used to having the non-bow guys to fall back on. I hope this doesn't become a problem.

Yeah, Archers actually have a higher inherent speed and defense growth by 5%, but lose out on 10% hp. Nothing too major.

I may use some of them, and I'm pretty much required to use Ymir since he is the only warrior I can think of. I plan on going to all of the Gaiden chapters, so there isn't too much fear of missing out on them.

No need to fear, since I've actually done this before, although I allowed for a healer and all of the things that that provides, so the other run was much less restrictive. The transition is always rough, and I admit that until I get Sedgar and Wolf, things will be shaky, but I'm sure I'll be able to pull through with some effort.

Hmm. Glad to see that the first bow only stage actually went pretty well, and everyone seems to be coming along nicely.

I am actually kinda amused that Barst is the one who is a total beast.

Yeah, aside from the cavaliers, things went fairly well.

And as for Barst, I'm surprised too. All of his combat stats right now are 10 or up, and if he keeps growing like this, he'll probably turn out about as well as Sedgar and Wolf!

Oh no, Wendell! Who will break up Merric and Elrean's feuding in Mystery of the Emblem now!

I am glad to see that everything is going smoothly.

...Julian? Thieves are allowed? Eh, I don't mind.

Oh, he's actually relevant later? Didn't know about that.

Yeah, now that the archers are stronger, they can actually stand up to the mooks and survive more than a turn or two of combat.

Julian is only allowed for thief-y things. He can't be attacked or do any sort of fighting, and will remain unarmed throughout the game. Plus, I plan on using Marth for chests after this chapter, and will only bring him if he's needed for something like doors.

I think just for recruiting Elrean though. I wouldn't worry about it.

Ah, so thieves work as they would in a draft then? OK.

Oh, okay I see.

Yeah, in any game where a thief isn't a part of the main party, the first thief you get is usually used for collecting treasures. I might not even bring him much later since Marth gets the Fire Emblem and can open treasure chests with them, so that issues out.

For some reason Generals using bows seems odd to me. I know they could in a several games, like the Jugdral games and such, but still.

Believe me, it took me by surprise as well, since Generals couldn't wield bows in any games that came to America up to now. I discovered it partway through my first run of SD, and was really confused.

Since you are doing a bow only run, was there any point in recruiting Bantu? Or are you going for Tiki regardless of the run?

Anywho, good to know everyone is getting up there in the levels.

I'm just going to get Tiki since I just can't bring myself to kill her, seeing as she's one of the more entertaining characters in the game.

And yeah, everyone's fairly high in level, so I can't wait to get some master seals for when I can start promoting people.

Alas poor Caesar and Radd. You died so we could make a quick buck.

At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if you reached 20/20 by the time you get to Medeus.

Also, you are actually planning to use Jeorge? Neato! I was afraid you might reclass and axe him like you did Castor.

Yeah, they sadly had to die, but hey, at least I didn't just throw them at some scary dude and let them get impaled, right?

I'm planning on it, since 20/20 is hard to get without any sort of arena abuse sadly.

Yeah, I do plan on using him. Castor was unfortunate since his growths aren't that good (he's even with or even possibly worse than Gordin, from what I recall), and there were much better units coming that fulfilled the criteria. Archers don't really have that, so Gordin, Norne, and Jeorge are all gonna be used. Ogma's likely gonna be the only actual Horsemen though, unless I reclass Wolf or Sedgar later, since Barst will likely reclass to Warrior to fulfill that, having started as a fighter.

I'd be down with you going right into New Mystery, though a gimmick run like this might not be as fun.

A question on the here and now though, are you planning on eventually killing off Minerva and Maria, or will you just keep them on the bench like other plot important units like Sheeda, Hardin, etc?

I was going to suggest that, but I couldn't think of a polite, non-entitled way to put it. I'd love for you to cover New Mystery. Maybe you could tell us the best My Unit combination? I'd be really interested in that. Also, the general strategies, since this is shaping up to be a really tough sequel.

Off-topic, but is the "Levin Sword" a reference to FE 4?

@Otherarrow: I plan on letting them live, though that means I'm probably gonna need to kill off Lena and Merric, since I'm running out of non plot important people who are also on the bench. Worst case scenario, I may need to sacrifice these two, though I hope it doesn't come to that.

@Doctrain: Yeah, if I were to continue into New Mystery (which, since there seems like a decent amount of support, seems likely), I'd probably need to be more detailed in the strategies, since even up to where I am (chapter 7), there has been a fair amount of challenge so far. As for My Unit, it'll probably be a bit different each time, since there doesn't seem to be a "best" combination, although there are obviously better ones for certain classes and such.

@Montago: I think it is, although why the thunder spewing sword references Levin, I don't know. I'd assume it's just there as a random little call back, like the Gant's Lance and the like in FE 6.

The Levin Sword is the localization of the Thunder Sword, and the shout out to Levn is probably a coincidence (but who knows). Remember, Levn was more associated with Wind than Thunder.

Oh, so it was just called the Thunder Sword in Japan? Makes sense, and actually Levin's association with wind was what confused me, since that seemed like a random reference.

Good to see you're accepting Ballisticians in this run. We shall hopefully see good things from the RNG's boyfriend.

What was the plan for Merric and Lena anyway?

Also, woo! Jake! Show them the power of inconsistent hair colors!

I was hoping Merric and Lena could act as a distraction for Jake's shots, since they have lower defense than Caeda, but sadly, his super-effective damage meant that didn't matter, so he went for Caeda over the two of them.

The promotions are coming!

Also, you let Tomas die? Kinda surprising considering Bow Run, but with reclassing...yeah you don't need him. I think he sucks anyway.

Yeah, and it'll be glorious.

And as for Tomas, I sadly had to let him die. As things stand, I still need to kill one more person even without him, and I won't be able include anyone else lest I need to resort to killing other people. Plus, my party is basically fully made right now, and all that is needed is promotions and access to more ballistae for Jake (I'm probably gonna have to recruit and then sacrifice Beck for his Thunderbolt, as things stand). And also, he's kinda bad, yeah.

I've never encountered any SD gaiden chapter (and, given my attachment to characters, it will likely stay that way), so I'd like to see what those chapters are like. Otherwise, I don't care.

I think you mentioned going for Ymir before because Warrior, but if you don't want him, no need to waste the time.

Of course, I do think that this is something you should have decided on ahead of time. Maybe poor Caesar and Radd and Wendell and Midia and whoever else you had to kill off would still be with us.

But yeah, I can see why you did it in the first place (more EXP)...but also see why you are changing your mind (not enough EXP to be worth it in the long run)

@Doctrain: In other runs with smaller teams, I'll likely be going to them (and I know I'll be going to 17x come my mage run, since the unit there is pretty much one of a kind), but the bow team turned out larger than expected, so things got a bit crowded.

@Otherarrow: Yeah, I probably should have decided this in advance, but I hadn't expected to have such a large team, since I didn't really plan this party out in advance. I think I'll still go to them, since I've already started, and the extra experience and items can be nice, although there is no way I'm going to 24x. I'll probably pick up Ymir (it helps that he appears on the last typical Gaiden of the game, so by the time I get him I won't need to kill anymore units), though I may or may not use him.

Are there are elephants in this one or am I misunderstanding?

The Pachyderm weapon that the boss uses was called Elephant in the Japanese version. He was just making a reference to that.

Actually, Pachyderm also refers to Elephants (it's one of their scientific classifications, not sure what though).

So his weapon is named Pachyderm? Odd.

I wonder if there will ever be war elephants in Fire Emblem...

And now you will trudge through an area with huge movement costs, filled with the only enemies in the game that have a double-digit chance of killing Sedgar and Wolf. Good luck.

At least you were lucky with Jeorge and the Javelin. It's odd that AI can possess a mix of intelligence and stupidity that humans simply cannot replicate on their own.

Yeah, that's the worst part, no doubt. Sedgar and Wolf simply can't take that kind of punishment like they can take everything else, and Gharnef is gonna be hounding us for a few turns as well. Not gonna be as easy as some of the earlier chapters.

I am still mystified by that. I had thought I understood the AI attack priority, but apparently they value small amounts of damage more than their own lives.

Hardin!! Palla!! Catria!! No!

Also, Beck died I guess.

Pretty lucky with Jeorge and the javelin Dragoon. Seriously, what was with the AI there?

Also good to know that Jake was useful!

Yeah, I really wish I didn't need to kill Catria, Palla, Beck, and Hardin, but those darn Gaidens are sadly a thing.

Yeah, I have no idea what they were thinking. I suppose they prioritize " higher damage" over "unable to counterattack".

Yeah, Jake's pretty solid. If only I could actually buy him weapons... I'm torn between giving him or a Parthia wielder the Starsphere to help with weapons and such. Probably a Parthia wielder in most cases, but he might borrow it for certain scenarios.

For some reason it pains me to see Jeorge doing so badly. I knew it was coming, yet it still somehow pains me.

I think it's because Jeorge is a cool guy.

Yeah, I was hoping Jeorge would turn out at least somewhat good in this, but sadly he's woefully average. It's rather disappointing, since he is pretty cool. Thankfully, he's much better come New Mystery, and I know he's gonna get a spot on my team.

Of course, it's implied that Xane was sent by Gotoh to keep an eye on Marth, so his having the same death quote as an enemy could be seen as him commenting sarcastically. "So long princey...it's been fun, you killing me and all".

Anywho, good to see that that went smoothly and good to know that soon the last promotion will happen!

Ah right, forgot about that. That sort of makes some sense, at least more than him just suddenly lamenting how fun it was to work with Marth. Still weird though.

Yeah, once Navarre promotes, I'll be good to go for The Sable Order, where I will get everyone raised in the arena to a higher level so as to deal with the increase in enemy power beyond that point.

Etzel, no!!! ;_;

Also, wow, everyone is going to make it to 20/20? Even Jeorge? How are they doing stat wise?

They are doing decently (save poor Jeorge), and yeah, they will all reach 20/20, since I always use The Sable Order as the power leveling chapter, since experience is a bit too sparse to 20/20 a full party, and the enemies become pretty darn tough around Camus the Sable.

Also, I do really feel bad for Etzel. He's a cool dude, and absolutely rocks that monocle of his.

Wow. It's really good to know that everyone except Jeorge turned out really great. I guess that is to be expected at 20/20 but still.

I take it the rest of the game is going to be a cake walk?

Sedgar and Wolf are Generals with 60% Speed growths. I have no idea what the programmers were thinking or if it was on purpose.

Every level with an arena surrounded by item shops I used up tons of time. I was very disappointed that Tiki could not use one. It was a bit hard figuring out the best money amount as for risk vs. reward.

Shame that two among Jeorge, Jake, or Norne are going to bite the dust. These gaiden chapter runs are depressing. I'm stil not sure if I'll ever get around to doing them.

Yeah, Sedgar and Wolf are just generally ridiculous. And yet, they somehow don't utterly break the endgame solely due to having low bases that prevent them from capping most of their stats. Still crazy awesome units throuhg.

I used about 174 turns for this chapter. I'm fairly sure I'd have given an LTC'er an aneurysm from my flagrant misuse of countless turns. I also ended up with over 300,000 gold, though that's just due to how long it took. I will admit though, that I used savestates after someone finished their run of the arena so as not to lose all of that work.

And what's this about Jeorge, Jake, or Norne dying? I would kill off Caeda and Tiki before letting them die, since they are party units (also, why Norne? She's awesome!). I'm gonna sacrifice Maria and Minerva on chapter 20, which saddens me, but is a necessary evil.

The game up until about Camus the Sable will be a cakewalk, and that is around the point that the enemies start posing some amount of threat again. The actual Finale and a couple chapters before may prove fairly tough.

I take it Starsphere is too valuable to make into Starlight?

I guess it doesn't matter. Going by your run, I doubt you will use it or the Falchion anyway.

Oh most definitely.

Yeah, Falchion will only be used should a "swords only" run of this game come to pass, since it would be the invincible weapon needed. Even on a magic run, the Starlight isn't that impressive a spell (Excalibur and Thoron match it in might, and Aura just dwarfs it), so the Starsphere would be better off kept in our hands. Too bad it loses that effect in New Mystery, though awesome stat boosts are also nice.

[Takes off hat.] Truly a great man has died. It is always a tragedy when great and honorable men defend unjust regimes because of their misguided loyalty towards their nation.

Also, good for Jake! It's a shame that there's no upgraded Ballistician, as going to level 30 doesn't nearly make up for it.

Yeah, I always feel bad killing Camus, because the entire point of his archetype is someone who you'd think you can recruit, but who you are completely unable to.

Yeah, it's rather sad that he can only reach level 30, but hey, he's a support unit, so he won't need the levels as much as a frontline fighter.

Spoilers: Camus lives.

Anywho, wow Gordin just killed Camus in two shots! I know he was maxed out, had both the Parthia, the Starsphere, and the Lightsphere, but still! Geez!

Good to know that Jake is getting up there.

...Minerva!! Maria!! No! ;_;

Yup, he comes back as Sirius, though that practically isn't a spoiler, since he didn't even bother to change out of those sweet threads of his (I can see why not, but it's not really conducive to being a spy).

The Lightsphere doesn't do much, but it's nice not dealing with lowered hit chances from forests and such. But yeah, I expected Camus to be a bit stronger than that, though I give him props for being able to deal a decent amount of damage (12 is pretty good compared to every other foe) to Gordin.

Yeah, Jake is steadily progressing in levels. He gains exp fast, and since his weapons can only eat up one use per turn, he doesn't have to deal with them running out too much.

Technically, he came back as Zeek first. Camus's plot is a plot that touches on all the Akaneia games.

Oh, huh. Is his disguise any better, or is he still just wearing his usual outfit and a mask?

Actually, he is unmasked (and thus has the same portrait as in FE1)

His outfit is red instead of the usual black.

The catch is that he didn't know he was Camus until the end of the game.

Oh, so no one goes "holy shit Camus, you're alive?" Or does that happen and his amnesia make him go "Who?"

His outfit is red now, so I suppose his outfit would be black as Zeek, if Fe2 got remade.

I'm curious how he discovers this fact, since that sounds fairly interesting.

The only other characters from Akaneia in Gaiden are the Whitewings who are 1.in the other story route (Zeek is in Alm, the Whitewings in Cellica) and 2.not associated with Camus anyway.

According to his ending, he recovers his memories during the war after joining with Alm.

EDIT:Oh, no. Camus's outfit is still pretty dark now, even if not actually black anymore. Zeek's outfit is a much lighter red. Kinda like, Cain red or enemy red.

Oh. Looked it up and apparently it takes place in a different area altogether. Makes sense why they show up then, since Camus is gonna be wandering around a lot and the Whitewings can fly.

I see, so that explains why after returning he dons the mask, so as not to be found out. Makes sense.

Okay, I see.

Will Jeorge be any good soon? Also, this may be too slow a response, but I'm surprised Barst was so good if serenesforest's growths are to be taken seriously. Even accounting for RNG it's bizarre.

Are any of the gaiden characters better than the main chapter characters you could have gotten?

Everyone except Ymir and Jake are at 20/20 (or 0/20 in Jeorge's case)

Jeorge is sadly rather underwhelming, but he isn't a liability, since his 10 strength is dealt with by the Parthia, and he has a usable speed and skill stat. He's frail as hell though. As for Barst, I wasn't expecting him to be that good either, but he's turned out to be a pretty tough fighter, and makes a fantastic warrior in the party.

I think Athena is about as good as Navarre, or at least close. Etzel is the only natural sorcerer, and is the only really good one to be honest, save for possibly Draug and Caeser. Ymir is okay, but not as good as a trained Barst, Bord, or Cord. Horace is just bad in this game, and Nagi is basically a trained Tiki, so that's always helpful.

What does Rienfleche mean? Should I know that, as a Fire Emblem fan?

You know, Michalis is an oddly handsome villain, despite being kind of a scumbag in this game. It's not often in Fire Emblem that you can't immediately tell that someone's evil (occasionally, you get conflicted and therefore pretty bad guys).

The Rienfleche was the S rank bow from Blazing Sword.

Good to know that Ymir is proving himself decent btw.

It's just the name of the S rank bow of Blazing Sword. I'm naming the forged weapons after other super weapons from other games, hence the Double Bow and Rienfleche.

Yeah, Michalis is stylish as hell, but he's also a roaring douche in all of his appearances. Murders his father, threatens Gotoh, tries to kill you even though you just want to go to Dolhr, is perfectly fine with murdering his sisters... Not a pleasant person in the least.

Good to know that Jake made it to max and turned out decent. Also good to know that Ymir is coming along nicely.

For those who don't know: The Ichival is the Jugdral holy bow. What is left anyway? Nidhogg, Murgleis, Lughnasadh and...uhh...Does the Astra Bow count?

Wait, you still have the replacement guy?

Yeah, Ymir actually is pretty solid as a unit, even without any stat boosters to help him.

Something like that. I'd actually forgotten the Lughnasadh, and had a different name planned for a ballistae for Jake.

Yup, he's still truckin' along. Gonna see if I can bring him to Endgame, along with any other generics who join, though I won't restart if he or any others of them die along the way.

That reminds me does everyone have a forged weapon now? Well, someone has the Parthia, so they don't need it, but yeah.

Not yet, and I don't think I have enough time to get one forged for everyone. Jeorge is gonna get the Parthia, since he's the only Archanean here, but I hope to get one done for every Sniper, and hopefully Ogma, Barst, and Jake, though it seems unlikely that everyone will be finished by the Finale, even if I were to kill of Tiki (which I won't) and got chapter 24x.

Ressurectory is, like, the best name ever. In Disgaea, reviving dead guys means paying a tiny sum at a hospital. In Fire Emblem, a super-special, one-time magic item to revive one person requires its own temple with silly name.

True, it is pretty cool. Of course, Fire Emblem's permadeath is a bit different from most personal character SRPG's, so that's probably why.

I find it funny how top rank revival staves are so rarely used. I know there's one in Shadow Dragon, New Mystery, and Genealogy, but there isn't ever one in any of the other games I've played, which instead use the "Total healing to entire party" basis, such as the Latona, the Ashera Staff, etc. Probably because death is generally avoided in the games, and so people would rarely just leave someone to die, leading to there being very little use to a revival staff.

You brought someone back to kill them again? Harsh. Was that for a gaiden?

Wait what? No, I brought him back because I felt I gave him a raw deal since he was a bow unit from the start, and I reclassed him to make room for others. Castor's alive and well, and will be by the time I finish Medeus, and then continue into New Mystery.

Wait, so for all the people you could have revived, all the cool plot important people like Hardin and Minerva and Maria and so on and so on, you brought back Castor?

What.

They all come back anyway, and hey, I probably would have used him if he didn't have bad growths in this game, so he technically wouldn't have died.

But to be honest, it's probably because there were so many of them, that choosing would have been rather tough, so I just went with the reclassed bow wielder.

What is a Hunter?

Light armored bow unit that promotes into a horseman. They are male only, and generally stronger and faster than archers, but they lack the skill and defense that tends to be associated with the class. Both classes are pretty good, and I don't hold any strong preference either way.

I remember killing the bastard in two turns with Marth, no deaths, just a Falchion and Warp staff.

Gender doesn't matter, I don't think. I don't like the idea of another bow-run, but ehh.

Well that was pretty fun, and I am glad everything turned out OK. Good show!

I am not sure if a bow only run would go as smoothly in New Mystery though. If I recall, New Mystery is much harder than Shadow Dragon. But if you want to, go for it.

Girl Archer for My Unit, if you want.

@Doctrian: Yeah, warp staves just break the game, and when you can one-round clear the endgame chapter and final boss, you know that's overpowered. Still fun as hell though.

As for the bow run thing, I'm continuing this run from Shadow Dragon into New Mystery, which is why I'm continuing the bow only restriction. To account for Otherarrows point about the increase in difficulty, I will make a few concessions about the Bow only thing, so hopefully that will spice it up a bit.

And that's one vote for Archer.

The link doesn't work for me. Also, I can imagine a soldier wanting to get away from it all and live by themselves. It's harder for me to imagine a noble being a hermit, though.

Good to know about the better weapon variety. I also agree about the better face portraits. Strange, as this was released on the same console.

Oh, darn. I thought taking a screenshot would work, but apparently not. I'll try to find some way to get an actual picture or something. Sorry about that little mix-up. I'll probably replace the link with a short description until I figured out how to actually add the picture, either just as the image itself, or through a link.

Yeah, some of the later chapters would be really tricky to do using only bows, and it adds some spice. Apparently, the better portraits is due to a different shading style used for them or something.

I liked that headband. Even though, with her purple hair and bob haircut, it made me confuse Cecile and the Avatar a bit.

I tend to use the characters introduced in this game (or the gaiden chars from last game), unless they're unambiguously weaker than the returning chars. It gives me a bit of a change of pace.

The Headband is cool, but I tend to like the hair on the MU normally. I might keep a certain special hairstyle change later in the game, though, just because I think it fits.

I try to make use of some of the newer characters as well, since they all tend to be pretty good.

I think the main reason why I don't use Archers is their pitiful movement. An attack range of two does not make up for a move range of five. It's hard to get Archers to the enemy before my other units finish them off. And their speed isn't good enough to dodge melee hits. Mages have the same problem. That said, Snipers are surprisingly good and used a lot by me.

It's always so hard to decide who to promote, but the Archers => Snipers is a good bet. I really liked how Tellius games promoted you automatically at level 21, without need of a Master Seal. It's a shame that wasn't brought over to Awakening.

Yeah, their 5 movement surprised me upon first playing Shadow Dragon. I was so confused as to why they made their movement so slow, considering every other bow unit had at least 6 move. Seems so stupid.

Thankfully, Master Seals are really plentiful in this game, so that isn't too much of an issue, although I do wish they kept the auto-promotion at level 21 form the Tellius games, since that was so much simpler. Of course, if they did that, they would need to remove all types of grinding possibilities, since otherwise you could have insanely powerful units by the earliest point that you could grind.

Personally, I always saw it as ambiguous as to if Lorenz killed himself or just died of his preexisting wounds. He was already heavily wounded when Marth got to him and all.

Also, yeah, wow, Lang is so openly a dick.

Oh he was? I could see that from his dialogue, but I didn't really notice that myself. That's fairly interesting.

I am not sure if he is wounded in game (it would be a nice touch if he was), but in story, yeah. At the very least, in Mystery it's at least shown through his equipment that he is on his last legs: his only weapon is a Broken Lance.

I know there were the prologue chapters and all, but everyone is already at 10? Warren is already at five?

Then again, this is a chapter with multiple flying promoted units. Of course, for chapter 2, that is kinda overkill.

It helps that the final prologue chapter (as well as one or two chapters before that) is populated mostly by thieves, which give the kind of experience a promoted unit would.

Yeah, Warren only reached level 5 because of the dracoknights, but I can agree that it's kinda overkill.

I wonder why thieves give off 50 XP rather than the usual 30. Nearly any unit can easily shrug off the damage they deal, so they're not difficult to take down. Besides, you're already properly motivated to kill them before they escape with loot or destroy a village before Marth can get there.

I think it's because they can't promote, but they can reach level 30, so they are treated as promoted units, and give an amount of exp similar to promoted units. That's the only thing I can think of to explain it.

You mean you turned down Bald My Unit? :P

Good thing that Alfric will be covering gaiden chapters that I can actually play ans see for myself. Forcing myself to kill characters in Shadow Dragon would have killed part of my immortal soul, that's how bad it would be.

I went on serenesforest and found that Ryan is superior to Gordin in basically every way. Good thing I used him a lot. I also learned there that Warren is useful.

The Gaiden's in this game are infinitely more forgiving to enter. I've never even had to try to get one, since the alternate conditions are so easy to fulfill that you don't even have to try for turncount, and most of the time I'm still under the turncount anyway.

Yeah, Ryan's growths outmatch Gordin's by quite a degree, but my Gordin appears to not want to be outdone. So far they're both doing well, and Warren is indeed quite useful.

I never used Julian in SD, so I tried him here and was surprised at how good he was. According to serenesforest, Rickard's growths are still good, but not nearly as good as Julian's. Besides, we might not need two thieves on our team. So, you might be right about his uselessness.

Growth rates seem to be much better than in SD. In fact, growth rates in general seem to have gradually gone up in series' history. Not that it matters, since enemies are also stronger.

Ah, Samto. It took me a while to figure out how to recruit him, even with serenesforest's recruitment guide. I was like, "Where's this 'Samto' guy? The only person with a portrait I see is Navarre, in the corner." I eventually found out that 'Navarre' is Samto. Guess the joke's on me that time on relying on a guide, when someone playing blind would immediately think to talk to Navarre.

Yeah, that's the one situation where the guide can mess with you, since they don't mention that Samto is actually "Navarre". I'm just glad there is generally always a talk about any characters that can be recruited in the base, or I'd likely have missed a few people here or there, simply out of not knowing how to recruit them.

OK, I laughed at Lang giving Cancer.

And yeah, I never got why the guides don't point out that Samto is Nabarl. Do they expect folks to just know?

I think they would expect you to figure out "Navarre is mentioned -> Ogma/Caeda join you -> Samto needs them to be recruitded -> Navarre is Samto", but it seems to require a bit of a logical leap for that to be gained. I do note that "Navarre" is acting a bit strange, since he seems scared when Ogma is mentioned, but aside from that, there isn't much to show he isn't the real Nsvarre.

What is the deal with Roro and his "brothers" anyway?

Hell if I know. Jagen mentions that they are children who've had their soul destroyed or something after your final encounter with the true Roro at the end of 10x, but I'd need to reach the chapter to get all of the information.

So...Dahl is a massive hypocrite. You have to remember, he was also looting a ancient temple at the time. Murder and pillaging is OK if he does it!

Basically. Honestly, I like that he's actually a challenge, but his dialogue is just so hilariously hypocritical that I can't help but laugh.

I had trouble with this the first time I played. I kept Marth on the wrong end of the map for too long, so he got killed easily. This game keeps throwing little surpises like that.

Yeah, my first runthrough this map wrecked me a couple of times. It just generally isn't forgiving, especially when Hardin sends his men after you all of a sudden.

I would prefer if you hold on covering Awakening, since I'm buying that game when it comes out and would like to be familiar with it by the time you do cover it.

A Gotoh character named Yodel? Now you just reminded me of Star Wars.

I forget if it's this map, but there was one with an arena next to a (red roof) shop. I wanted to build up my characters there, but reinforcements arrived soon after, forcing me to quickly get Marth to seize the castle. Very annoying, and I hope the next arena + shop map doesn't have that. Then again, maybe it's one part of the increased difficulty.

Yeah, I'd hold off on Awakening until folks, including yourself of course, have actually played it and are more familiar with it. Liveblog it later.

Trivia: The Fire Emblem Museum over at the official Japanese site romanizes the FE6 character as "Jodel".

Alright, I'll lay off on covering Awakening until a while after it has come out. That's good though, since it'll give me a chance to get used to the game as well as the apparently very free form roaming and stuff.

@Doctrain: I've just now noticed the "Yodel -> Yoda" comparison, and that's honestly pretty funny. As for the Arena, I was hoping to be able to use it a bit, but archers with their lower movements couldn't make it through the desert safely and quickly, so I couldn't do it, because Astram came out and started doing damage. I was able to level up a few people a couple of times in previous runs, but not this time.

@Otherarrow: I knew I was close. The translation I used was a bit iffy, so perhaps they just went with Yodel over Jodel, though who knows.

I think it should be "Ell-rain", since thet's the Japanese pronunciation. Funnily enough, I called Caeda "Kai-duh" for a long time until I started calling her "See-duh". These spellings can get really confusing.

I pronounce it "Ell-rain" myself now, but I used to pronounce it "Ell-rey-on", and I've heard "Ell-reen" which is why I asked.

I also called Caeda "Kai-duh" for a while (still do, on occasion), since I didn't know how Caeda got the "see" sound until someone brought up "Caesar". Of course, considering the proper pronunciation of that name is debated as "Kai-Czar" in some cases or something similar, that's also debatable. Still, "See-duh" is closer to Shiida/Sheeda in sound, so I'd say that's what they are going for.

I always used "El-le-reen" for Ellerean, though I read "Elrean" as "El-reen"

I pronounced his longer name as "El-air-Ian" the first time I read it. Now it's "El-le-rain", to fit with my current pronunciation of it.

This has the weirdest title for any Fire Emblem stage I've ever played. Not that I pay too much attention to stage names.

You mean "The Mask Laughs"? Yeah, it's an odd chapter title, although fairly fitting, given who you're dealing with in it.

I always thought "The Mask Laughs" sounded really cool...

I agree on that. It's very fitting for Roro, and I think it sounds cool, I just think it sounds weird as well.

Interesting Trivia: Jake replaces what in the original Mystery was the game's sole Berserker. Oddly enough, Berserker in Old Mystery was basically a Hero with a different map sprite, if I recall.

So Darros didn't return in Old Mystery? Or was he a different class? Of course, I could see the former situation being more likely, since he just decides to show up in the middle of a dragon infested cave, which seems rather odd.

Yeah, Darros, Wrys, Jake, Beck, and Roger weren't in Mystery. Like, at all. They weren't even in Book 1.

Tomas, Radd, and Caesar weren't in Book 2, but were in Book 1.

There are probably some I am forgetting, but like I said, I forgot who they were.

Huh. That's pretty odd. Obviously, the Gaiden characters from Shadow Dragon also didn't show up in Old Mystery, but I wouldn't expect so many previous units from the original game to be no-shows in Old Mystery.

Hey, these people can stare down dragons and fight through hundreds of Barbarians and Sages. I think they can take some nippy water. That does make me wonder if rivers that sap your health would be feasible in this sort of game.

True, these guys are likely made of some hardier stock than most. I'm sort of curious about that too, sort of making it a voluntary trap tile; it deals damage to you, but you can cross through it for a shortcut.

A boss armed only with a bow? I kinda thought they didn't have those. After all, most anyone could simply waltz up to melee and take her out with no repercussions.

Well, she's not actually a stable boss. She hides in the fog of war, and when you get too close, she approaches and attacks you. She'd likely have been more threatening if there were a few more enemies near her to hold me off, her stats were better, and my army didn't consist of people who could counterattack her.

Yeah, Evil Girl Kleine seems like the type of boss (ranged, moves, in Fog of War) that could have been tough and scary to deal with...if she wasn't so weak. Then again, your guys could just be overpowered.

I think she is one of the harder bosses on the harder modes, for the reasons I mentioned.

My guys probably are a bit overpowered for this point in the game. Hard and Lunatic mode would likely make her quite a bit more dangerous, especially because she is liable to ambush you and knock you out without much warning.

I know what you mean about thieves, but I wouldn't really call dragons easy experience.

Seremesforest says that the Binding Shield (or Shield of Seals, as they calls it) "banishes Earth Dragons", but i have no idea what that means. Also, I'm disappointed that the Again Staff has 3 uses, as that makes it severely less useful than Feena.

The "banishes Earth Dragons" refers to the final chapter (and I think Chapter 20?) where Earth Dragons spawn on the enemy turn, but the Shield of Seals causes them to despawn on the player phase.

I think it is "Binding Shield" both for space reasons and as a shout out to the Brawl name for FE6.

@Doctrain: That's the fun thing about archers; Dragons can't do anything to you when you fight them. Well, except Earth Dragons. Yeah, the Again staff is basically useless unless you need to clutch something with a mage available, or you aren't using Feena.

@Otherarrow: I could see that being the case, since Shield of Seals wouldn't fit into the character limit, if I recall how many there are. Not sure about the reference part, but if it is, that's pretty cool.

Wait, you killed Willow in one hit with a Bamboo Sword of all things?

One critical hit, and it was from Warren (22 strength as of this writing), so with Willow's 6 defense, even a throne wouldn't save him.

You know, I wonder if Katarina and Horace have a support? Probably not, but I think it'd be interesting, considering their similar conditions (guilt over treason, being spared by their new lords despite asking for death). I know their cases are otherwise completely different, but I am reminded of Horace in Katarina's recruitment.

Now that you mention it, I can see that. I doubt they have a support (although it'd be cool), but I can definitely see where you're coming from in regards to their similarities.

It's too bad that serenesforest says that Katarina only supports with Avatar, Marth, and Cecile. Supporting with Horace would've been nice.

Oh, she supports with Cecil? I suspected she supported with Marth and Avatar, but supporting with Cecil is a bit surprising.

Who what? Who what? What does Frost do?

Well, I know what he does, but you should probably fix that. Sorry for joking around.

Heh, no problem. Didn't even notice that.

Oh, is Sheema going to be part of your final team? Rad.

Yup. She seemed interesting, and I figured I might as well use her, since the Drill Grounds are available. She is likely to be the last party member though.

Are you using Wolf full time, or is it just because you had room?

Full time, assuming I have the room. He's the first to go if I don't, but he will be joining me permanently for all chapters where he can fit in. Sedgar won't though, since I lack the resources to build them up together right now.

Hey now, Gharnef also has the whole "take over the world" thing that Manfroy didn't (well, not directly at least)...but yeah, Gharnef is basically a big ol massive prick for the sake of it.

Though, I think by the time of New Mystery he is all "fuck it, burn the world!"

All and all, a major douchebag. The game wants us to think he used to be good?

True, Manfloy just wanted to revive Loptous because he thought it'd be a hoot. Gharnef at least has ambition, even if it's generic.

Being a vengeful ghost will do that to ya, I guess.

I think he was originally supposed to be okay, but ran into the same problem as Hardin; when in a weakened state, he encountered the darksphere (in trying to create Imhullu to surpass Aura), and it corrupted him. Unlike Hardin, his case has left him permanently corrupted, even outside of the sphere's influence, and thus we get the douche we know today.

If you brought Minerva and had her perch on the village before Marth visits it, it activates a scene where she basically convinces Michalis to live. And then he joins you at the end of the chapter.

...Yeah, it is probably for the better that you missed this one. It doesn't really fit the story too well.

Michalis does not deserve such good treatment.

Oh, didn't know about that. I remember hearing about Michalis joining, but figured he just comes back due to some other thing. Still, that seems a bit random, though I guess it makes sense; Michalis finds and saves Minerva when she is near death, and later she finds him and talks him into living. Narratively works, but is a bit odd nonetheless.

Fun fact: In Old Mystery, these last three chapters are all called "The Dragon's Altar" as they were three parts to one final chapter.

More fun facts: Awakening localized "The Dragon's Altar" as "The Dragon's Table".

EDIT: Not the Japanese version! This game doesn't have an English version! Derp on my end!

Oh, so it was a multi-part chapter? That's pretty cool.

Y'know, these places do look pretty similar, now that I think of it...

Wow, your units have come along nicely. They are all really strong, from what I can tell. Good job!

I admit part of it is that the units in this game actually have really good growths (probably meant to make up for the ass-tacular growths of Shadow Dragon), so they all grew well. I will say that I liked how usable everyone was, even the usually lackluster Jeorge and Horace.

I would like for you to do a run of Sacred Stones. I would prefer you go with Eirika. Partly because everyone says she has the better story, partly because I always go with her when I play it. Also, I hate Ephraim in general.

I second The Sacred Stones and Eirika. I like her path better in terms of plot, and she doesn't get ghost ship.

I would like you to do a run of Sacred Stones and Eirika. Her story is a lot easier, mostly because she doesn't have three That One Levels in a row.

Terribly sorry that I haven't commented for quite some time. I'm truly impressed at how much time and effort has gone into this project, and I do hope that it continues for quite some time. As far as voting goes, I think I'd like to see Sacred Stones. It's a unanimous vote so far, it seems, but I think that Stones is an interesting title that introduces some cool ideas, but is underrated when compared to the rest of the series. As for the lord, I'd suggest Eirika, so that Innis and Saleh get proper introductions (and perhaps to see what happens if you don't recruit Amelia the first chance you get).

Alright then, with four votes, it seems like Sacred Stones (as well as Eirika route) have been chosen rather unanimously. I note that ordinary runs work like the Tellius game runthrough, where I pick a party after the game is chosen, but before starting the run.

@Endark: No issue with regards to commenting. I'll admit I need to catch up on your liveblog as well. And I agree about Sacred Stones; it's sort of the oddball of the series (although Awakening has given it some vindication, given how much it draws from it in some regards).

You should probably skip the Tower. The game might be decently challenging without it. Same with the Ruins, as recruiting the characters will need a new game and I can't see much point to it otherwise.

Skip the tower.

As for the ruins, I'd do it after the main story, but I don't care if you do it or not. So it's your choice. I am pretty sure you can't completely finish either until you beat the game, but I may be wrong on the tower.

Alright, so I will be skipping the tower, as expected. Since it seems the ruins aren't drawing much interest, I might skip those in the liveblog as well, it depends on how things are at the end of the game, but I'm leaning towards skipping them. Thanks for the input.

I made Franz a Great Knight, though I can get Paladin to avoid the weakness to Armorslayers and the like.

However, I liked Great Knight Franz.

Also, the same way Garcia auto-joins if you didn't recruit him during the chapter, Lute will join at the end of the chapter if you didn't recruit her during the battle.

Alright, so Franz will become a Great Knight.

Yeah, I knew about that. It's quite convenient, in case you didn't have time (by killing the enemies too early) or forgot about the house, so that you don't lose out on a good character.

When it comes to promotions, I tend to focus on getting at least one of every class in my roster. I've never actually cleared more than seven battles in this game, but it's the reason why I'd send Ewan down the Dark Magic path, even though he doesn't have a crazy personality to go with it.

With Franz, a Great Knight, a Paladin, and two other cavaliers join during the main plot, so it's not as though there's a role that only he can fill. Then again, you are limiting yourself to certain characters...

Oh, I'll just vote Great Knight, since I can't really decide between his two promotions and it's already been voted for once. But when it comes time to talk about someone like Neimi, I'll be ready, willing, and eager to vote!

Cool, glad to hear it. And yeah, with my relatively limited parties, I tend to forgo class coverage with weapon coverage, so I'm liable to miss out on some classes, especially in a game like Sacred Stones, with so many classes available.

A shame that you're meeting up with Ephraim, but good that you got Joshua. The Navarre-clone in this game is especially powerful and Navarreish.

Also, you didn't mention the arena.

Congrats for your first support of the game! I assume that it will take ages to actually get a pair to A-Rank (especially if the system is akin to the other GBA games), but with your focus on only a few units, they should all end up as the closest of comrades by the time this war is over.

Speaking of supports, I can't help but wonder what pairs will be formed. You have seven key units at the end of this, and while I don't know the limit you're putting on yourself, I don't think it's possible to get all A and B Ranks if there was only one more recruit. Perhaps if you allowed yourself a force of nine or ten units (preferably ten, so that one person isn't stuck with two B Ranks, and so I can more easily guess your future party members), both Neimi and Eirika could have a back-up support, but there is no possible eighth unit that could support them both...I'm over-thinking things and running my mouth off again, aren't I? Well, whatever couples are formed by the end of this, I hope that they serve you well.

@doctrain: I didn't use the arena this time, since I don't like to use it unless I'm playing SD, where it's needed to cap out your army. And Ephraim will be dealt with shortly enough, since there aren't any party members with him.

@Endark: Supports won't take too long, so long as I try to get at least one on every chapter with some downtime. As for the A and B rank setup, I don't plan on getting everyone maxed out, support wise, but if I remember my setup correctly, everyone will have at least an A support. Also, Eirika isn't part of the party, so she won't be supporting (she's only here because she has to be, so I mention what she does in passing).

Really? Well then, that throws a monkey wrench into my foretelling shenanigans. I thought about what two non-lord characters you have yet to recruit that could fit niches in your group (no Anima magic wielder, already one bow user, etc.), and I actually found a duo that would lead to everyone having both an A and B support. But if Eirika (and probably Ephraim) would only be there due to the plot forcing them upon you, and if you might not have every unit supporting two other units, then I have absolutely no way of knowing who you'll recruit until they're announced. Oh, how I feel like a young child at Christmas, brimming with anticipation and eagerly waiting to see what surprises will be unveiled in the days to come!

...I'm sorry if that last sentence was a bit too dramatic for a simple liveblog. Anyways, best of luck in the Ephraim battle!

Heh, no problem. Everyone will be supporting with someone, but they might not get a full 5 conversations, though everyone will get an A rank with someone, if I remember my setup correctly. As for Ephraim, I will only be giving him a passing mention, since none of his people are in the party. The next entry will be focusing mainly on Eirika's next chapter.

With this game, I discovered that actually playing Fog of War stages are not fun. An opinion that it seems every Emblemite shares.

I'd go with Ranger, since it seems to have better promotional gains, especially the movement. Sure Strike isn't too useful in this game.

I had a feeling that Josh and Natasha would support each other when I was trying to foretell your future party members. On a slightly-related note, trying to find someone that could support both him and Ephraim (since the lords can support each other) was essential to tying up all the loose ends. Of course, now I know that neither lord will be a major player in this campaign, but it's nice to see that some parts of my theory haven't been debunked.

And now, let's talk about Neimi! How I`ve been waiting to analyze this choice! According to my research, she is the only archer in the game, and thus the only character that an Orion`s Bolt can actually be used on. Additionally, this will make her the only female Sniper or Ranger in the game. There is a male sniper that we will be introduced to during Eirika`s story, and it's possible make a Mercenary into a Ranger. Should the latter occur (though you probably won't want more than one person focused on archery), the already-recruited Garcia and Ross could take up the positions of Hero and Warrior, and a later recruit comes as a Berserker.

Now, to briefly look at statistics. It seems that Neimi does get rather good gains when becoming a Ranger. But at max stats, compared to a male Ranger, the only stat that will be better is her Resistance, and neither her Strength and Defence will be quite as good (a whole 2 points less in both categories, if my resources are accurate). As a Sniper, on the other hand, the differences are a bit more even, with small penalties in strength and defence being balanced by resistance and speed.

With all of that said, with my main deciding points being endgame statistics and the fact that all promoted classes will still be available to you (not that you'll use them), I'd suggest turning Neimi into a Sniper. My apologies for tying up the vote and creating a wall of text. Have a nice evening!

...Oh, one last thing. [CENSORED] having to play through Fog of War stages.

Neimi for Ranger. Horse, plus Sword use, plus already getting a decent prepromote Sniper.

Also, the Sniper skill is near useless on the playables. Even the prepromote doesn't need it. I really don't see much reason to make Neimi a Sniper. Unless you think the stat differences between the two make that much of a game changer or really like Ballistas for some reason, go Ranger.

@Neimi: Seems that, with 2 votes to one, Neimi is going to be a Ranger this time around.

@Doctrain: Yeah, I haven't heard from a single person who enjoys Fog of War stages over normal ones. I'm sure there's someone like that out there (heck, I can respect what the stages are trying to do, but there are just some aspects of it that make it too tedious to enjoy as much), but I haven't met them.

@Endark: I'm impressed by all the work you put into that analysis, I must say. Sadly, while Garcia is with us, Ross will not be a member of this party. I'll also note that this party is going to be relatively small, only numbering to a total of six people once all is said and done, since this run is of the same style as the Tellius run, being just an ordinary run with a preset party of units.

@Otherarrow: Yeah, Sure Shot is pretty much useless given the accuracy of bows and the high skill of the two possible snipers. Rather sad too, since all of the other skills in the game are quite good to some degree.

@Alfric: I think that Great Shield is useless for the same reason as Sure Strike: Generals already have the best defense in the game. I guess it can work against magic, but the General will be far away from them.

Pierce can freeze the game with ranged weapons, but other than that it's great.

@Doctrain: At the very least it can provide some decent longevity for when you want to tank all types of enemies. It is probably the least useful of the non-Sure Shot skills, though, since Slayer wrecks monsters (a large portion of the enemy force), Lethality insta-kills (always nice, especially for a class with a 20 strength cap), and Pierce is basically Po R/Genealogy!Luna, which is always appreciated.

I already assumed that Ross wouldn't be a member by the fact that he hasn't been mentioned since he was recruited, but mentioned him to show that having somebody in every class would be possible. On a related note, your grand army will consist of only six people? My, that's far less than I assumed. Then again, my first assumption included the lords and Seth in more prominent positions...I should really stop assuming things at this point, but it's somewhat addicting.

Well, best of luck with the next few chapters. Going in with about half the number of people you're allowed to bring will be tricky, but considering how well you've handled various Fire Emblem games in the past, I'm sure that you'll pass with flying colours.

@Endark: Ah, yeah, I understand now. Yeah, my armies tend to be rather small unless I'm playing a game I haven't played much before (like Sword of Seals and New Mystery), since I want to try out a lot of people, or are playing Genealogy, where you generally have to use everyone.

Poor, poor Natasha. I'd suggest promoting her as soon as possible and then pouring stat boosters into her to make up for skipping ten levels, but I don't remember this game being as generous as Awakening in that regard. At least she has two men competing for her affection. Will it be Franz or Joshua that eventually wins her over? My guess is on the latter, since there's one possible party member that can support both Franz and Neimi...though at this point, reality conflicting with my estimates seems to be a running gag.

As for Garcia...well, the choice is between Hero and Warrior. Warrior has a higher Strength cap, but Hero has a higher Skill cap. Hero can use swords (just like Franz and Joshua), while a Warrior can use Bows (just like Neimi). In a play through that utilized every party member instead of just six, as Neimi was voted to be a Ranger, Garcia could be either class and it would still be possible to have every last-tier class in your army at once.

Now, looking at your party thus far, you have some skillful and speedy units (Neimi and Joshua), and Garcia really specializes in strength. Plus, while you already have one bow specialist, it couldn't hurt to have a second person whittling down enemy health from the other side of a wall every once in a while. So, I'll vote for Warrior. Best of luck in rescuing Ephraim, by the way!

I vote to turn Garcia into a Warrior. I like its promote gains better and it improves his ax usage.

Yeah, Warrior.

On that note, I always pictured Hero as the class Garcia had before he retired. Not sure why. Maybe because it seems younger and more "professional" than the Fighter or Warrior.

@Garcia: Alright then, warrior it is! I was expecting something like this, since Warrior!Garcia is pretty good, and makes better use of Garcia's good strength growth.

@Endark: I'm sure your inference is correct, given that there is only one person with anther support that can fit into this situation.

@Otherarrow: That's an interesting theory, and it's nice to think on the backstories of characters. Plus, axe heroes are pretty cool.

You know, I really like how this chapter's map and the battlefield of 5x fit together so well. They take place in the same general area, but 5x reveals the northwestern corner and urges you to approach the throne from the passages surrounding it, while Chapter 8 takes away that route but reveals more of the south, focusing more on separation into an eastern and western force that reunites in front of the throne. There's even a wall that's cracked in 8 that's perfectly fine in 5x, showing how Ephraim's struggle has taken its toll on the structure.

As for Natasha...her choices are Valkyrie and female Bishop. They both wield staves and light tomes, but Valkyrie gets additional movement an constitution from riding a horse, and Bishops deal additional damage against monsters. You might not be doing the Creature Campaign stuff or any of the monster-filled bonus dungeons, but there are also monsters encountered during the main plot. But on the other hand, the majority of your foes will still be regular humans, and it's always nice to have a healer that doesn't lag behind the rest of your force. Plus, while Natasha is the only possible female Bishop, only one other person can become a Valkyrie, while both Moulder and Artur could be Bishops in a run where every character is used. So in the end, I think it would be best of Natasha was a Valkyrie.

I think that this run is going quite well thus far, and I wish you the best of luck in the battles to come.

Bishops get Slayer and are generally cool. Valkyries get horses and are generally cool...

I'd go Bishop. Monsters show up enough in the main story where a monster buster might come in handy, especially in the later chapters.

The Draco-Zombies will haunt my dreams.

Oh a tie. Darn. Hm, for the sake of breaking this, I will defer to the class which I use less often for her, which in this case is Valkyrie. If another person places a vote towards one or the other, then I will of course note that that solidifies the decision, but until then, Natasha will be a Valkyrie upon promoting.

@Endark: I never noticed the shifted symmetry between the levels, I will admit. I've noted some similarity before, but didn't even think about how it affected the actual thematics of the level, such as how it now leads towards the center, or how the wall shows damage. Very interesting, I must say. I note that I probably won't do an "every character run" since I feel I wouldn't be able to give enough attention to everyone, but I do still view the classes in terms of who can become what, so I still note that aspect of your analysis.

@Otherarrow: Yeah, Slayer does prove quite useful (although I find it funny that the Ivaldi is basically useless on bishops because it only does double damage, while Slayer is triple, making Aura just as effective, if not more. And I can agree on the Draco-Zombies thing. They are the worst, what with their defense piercing and high accuracy leading to high damage on just about anyone.

Ah, Joshua, you magnificent Myrmidon. It's nice to see that he's already capped two stats (and unless Franz gets lucky, the only one to cap two stats in a base class), though it will also mean that his last four levels could be a bit underwhelming. Still, your party as a whole looks like it can handle the tough battles ahead, and I have confidence that you will perform excellently.

Are you sure that this is the battle where Josh and Natasha got a B Support? Because I'm rather sure that you posted that conversation back in Chapter 8 as well. Did you accidentally die after viewing it then and forgot to watch it again? ...Well, either way, it's good to see that at least one guess I'd made is verified, and that everyone but Garcia and Josh will have the support of two comrades in all of the battles ahead.

As for Ameila, I recall hearing somewhere that she has a decent Speed growth rate. Considering that Speed is usually something an armoured unit could use more of, and that the game gives you plenty of horsemen but only one other knight, I'd suggest making the final member of your squad a General. Great job so far, and best of luck with Innes's chapter; he's one of the two characters that only gets a formal introduction in Eirika's route, and he comes with one heck of an entourage!

Oh so it did. Must have happened when I had accidentally brought Forde too close to Tirado for the talk, and had to revert to an earlier savestate because he got killed from earlier wounds. Thanks for the info. I must have put that in but forgot to re-watch it in game after the death, so I'll be editing it out of the earlier one, since the convo actually happened here during this chapter.

Swordmaster. I never found much use for the Assassin class and find Silencer more unreliable than no, while the Swordmaster hits harder and gets a crit boost.

Yeah, Assassin isn't that good in this game, to be honest, and ya gotta love that crit boost. Josh is probably gonna be a Swordmaster then.

Ah, L'Arachel. Back when I thought your party would include more people, I assured myself that she would have been your last recruit, giving Joshua and Eirika more supports and becoming the only Anima magic-wielder in your squad after promotion. But times have changed, and I'm just glad that Joshua can find happiness with a messy-haired girl that can stumble upon a mount in the middle of a poorly-lit fort.

Congratulations for boosting the lowest-levelled member of the party into her promotion. Best of luck with Saleh, who (like Innes) doesn't get this kind of focus in Ephraim's story, and have a nice day.

EDIT: Yes, I meant to say "Ephraim's story", not "Eliwood's story". My mistake.

I'm just glad I got Natasha promoted this chapter, since it'd be a pain to force healing for a couple more chapters or so. And did you mean Ephraim's story, in regards to Saleh?

I guess it is worth noting that in the beta, Saleh's dialogue in his first appearance (which was not in Chapter 5, but rather showing up to autokill beta!Novala-stand in in Chapter 6) implies that Myrrh and the "Great Dragon" were traveling together with Saleh sent to find them, but Myrrh were presumably separated from him like in the main story.

As you probably know, the "Great Dragon" isn't Myrrh, but a character we will meet much later. My guess is that this conversation is mostly unchanged from the original draft, which is why the elder (her name is Dara btw) seems to refer to the two interchangeably.

...I should have brought up the beta stuff sooner, I am sorry.

So, your small but powerful army is in need of some Crests. If my research is correct, then your problem will be partly solved at the end of the next chapter, and completely taken care of very shortly after that. Considering how well you've powered through all challenges thus far, I doubt that waiting another battle or two for an upgrade will be a difficult undertaking.

Best of luck with Chapter 13, and have a wonderful day!

@Otherarrow: Oh, that is quite interesting. I find it funny that Saleh would just waltz on in and own Beta!Novala rather than showing up unobtrusively. I admit to being unsure as to whether Myrrh or the other person was the Great Dragon, but I figured it referred to the other one. I also didn't remember the elder being given a name. Is it in one of Saleh's supports? I admittedly haven't read too many of them, so I might have missed it. And no biggy about not bringing it up. It's always fun to hear about the side stuff that I wouldn't have noticed, and Genealogy was a lot more interesting for having learned it.

@Endark: Yeah, Aias carries a Knight Crest, so Amelia will be good to go from there, and some random goon in chapter 14 has the Hero Crest I need, solving Garcia's problem. And yeah, not much trouble to wait, but I'd like to get started on their new weapon levels more than anything. And a wonderful day to you too!

Yeah, it's mentioned in Saleh's supports. She also has unused data as a Druid (specifically a male Druid, but this is probably because they didn't get far enough with her to consider implementing the female version)

The beta really...doesn't have much. I think most of the completed story scenes were early game, only a handful of portraits are implimented, and most of the bosses are generics.

The only other interesting tidbits (aside from changed names and some characters having portraits that would later belong to others) is that proto!Tana, who is actually proto!Amelia with the name "Tana" belonging to a probably unrelated General, was a Prohibition Flier, basically a Trainee Pegasus Knight. Proto!Cormag was actually closer in concept to Joshua, being a coin flipping mercenary (he was even a Merc and everything) and the role of recruitable Wyvern Rider went to a guy named Nate. I am not sure if Glen existed at this point in the concept though, and Cormag didn't have his portrait yet. (Joshua does appear in the beta as a prepromote Swordmaster btw) Kyle and Forde were a Cavalier and a...Ranger, for some reason. Innes was a...Monk.

The main story bit is that there were apparently seven Grado Gemstone General Guys, and Duessel wasn't going to be Obsidian. Instead, it was a guy named Jude Rubert, who seems like he was planned to be fought, or at least introduced, where Tirado was fought in the main game (but the boss in the chapter where he appears in the beta was a generic)

Oh wow, some of that stuff sounds pretty cool. Seems they played with a lot of different concepts before they reached the final consensus on what was going to be in the main game. Flier trainee class would be pretty cool (it could probably become either peg knight or wyvern rider, and then go on from there, which is a pretty reasonable split). Monk!Innes just strikes me as hilarious for some reason. I wonder who the seventh general would be, assuming everyone still held their positions or had an equivalent replacement, ala Jude Rupert (surprised he has a last name, to be honest).

I don't know for sure, but I don't think the beta omits Duessel, but whether he was one of the Seven Generals at this point is unknown, as according to Serenes Forest, story events stop happening after Chapter 8.

I wouldn't be surprised if Jude was basically proto!Tirado, but this is just me guessing wildly.

I can't help but think that the reason the elder think's Myrrh is the great dragon is because she's too caught up in her own religion to notice. She probably thinks that the two of them are the same being taking different human forms depending on the occasion.

Interesting fact: had you not recruited Amelia a few chapters ago, she would appear in this chapter. She'd still be an enemy Recruit you can convince to join you, but a few levels higher. She is the only character you have two opportunities to recruit, and it only happens if you play Eirika's story. Not exactly auseful fact, since you recruited her at the first opportunity in order to complete your team, but it's still somewhat interesting.

Best of luck in the next chapter! And don't forget to bring the Troubadour along! I mean, unless you weren't planning to save your money for things like newer and stronger weaponry later down the line...

Yeah, on my first runthrough, when I didn't know who recruited Amelia, I moved too slowly and didn't get her on Chapter 9. I only noticed I could recruit her on this chapter as a fluke because I saw that Franz had a talk with her at one point.

Yeah, I'll be bringing L'Arachel along all right, since Rennac asks for a crazy sum of money for mercenary work if I remember right.

You know, I always found it interesting that in this chapter and the one before, as well as the opening for the Ephraim version of Scorched Sands, Lyon seems to be travelling specifically with Caellech, when he isn't teleporting around and all.

I guess he is a nicer alternative than Riev and Valter, but I always found this fascinating for some reason.

Interesting fact: to the left of where Carlyle was fought, in an out-of-the-way patch of grass, was the first Secret Shop of this play through (accessible only with the Member Card that Rennec carries). Of course, since half of its inventory is promotion items, I can see why it would be skipped.

Speaking of promotions, congratulations on having your whole army reach their final classes! It'll certainly help with the next challenge, especially when there's three allies you may need to help out quickly. Good luck, don't forget to pick up some rare items along the way! Almost every Desert chapter in a Fire Emblem game has 'em, after all.

@Otherarrow: Yeah, it is kinda interesting, now that I think about it. It is probably a bit more pleasant than Valter or Riev, given their... eccentricities.

@Endark: I think I might have actually visited it and purchased some of the Blades and killer weapons there, but I didn't mention it. My bad.

Yeah, I'm glad everyone can continue leveling up. It always feels wasteful having someone fight without earning experience, but also just as wasteful to have them not do anything at all, so promotion is a nice thing for them. And I know about desert chapters, with the only two I can think of that doesn't have them being FE 4's, because traversing that and grabbing treasure would the be worst thing ever, and Awakening, because the deserts are less large and more long. I don't like the deserts much, but I can tolerate them with no complaints since they are at least kind enough to give me cool things when going through them.

The subplots involving Joshua, Cormag, and Saleh are the reason why I and many others prefer Erika's route.

OK, I thought that Garcia's sympathy for Orson and his comparison to regrets concerning his own wife was a rather nice touch. Good job.

Thanks! I try to include a more character based element to the VS Sections, and sometimes it works out, while other times I feel it's a bit tacked on. I'm glad this time it panned out.

On the plus side, incompetent and weak AI units means they can't steal as much EXP. You may say that doesn't matter this far in a game where you can actually level grind. And you'd be right. But it's still worth considering.

True, but I'm still utterly amazed at how utterly useless these guys are. Armor Knights are not supposed to do less damage than mercenaries and myrmidons and then get doubled. That just feels so wrong. But yeah, I admit, with the smaller amount of exp to go around in Sacred Stones, since it's a shorter game (assuming you don't grind), having green units take more of the exp would be rather annoying.

Zealot and Treck's imitation of Leeroy Jenkins in FE 6. Incompetent strategy more than incompetent stats.

I stopped reading this blog for a long time since I was so far behind, but I think I'm just going to pick up from here now.

Yeah, I hate recruitable allies who actively seem to want to die. Astrid from Po R is a good example (though she can be reached pretty soon to prevent her from getting wrecked, thankfully), since she can die so easily and just picks fights with people when she's an ally, though canto helps.

I can understand why, since I began blogging a couple games you didn't want to get spoiled on. Glad to know you're reading again though!

I've suspected that Myrrh and Morva were the last remnants of a group of Elibian manakete who were separated from the greater population during their retreat through the Dragon's Gate.

On a related note, I also think that the Demon King is a creature from between worlds who trailed them to Magvel. These theories would explain why they had mixed feelings about helping humanity the first time around.

A rather interesting theory. In this case, what may have separated them from the others in the Dragon's Gate could very well have been the Demon King, who targeted them and eventually tracked them through the Dark Temple, where the Demon King is slain in Magvel.

I don't think that the Magvel Manaketes are specfically related to any other tribe. The same way that there are Manaketes in Elibe unlinked to the Manaketes in Akaneia, there just happens to be Manaketes in Magvel. They probably all share a common ancestor somewhere down the line, but I do doubt that they are specfically offshoots of each other.

It's worth noting that Myrrh and Morva's dragon tribe doesn't bear resemblance to any incarnation of any other tribe. The closest is to the "classic" version of the Akaneia Fire Dragons, but the DS remakes make an already slight resemblance even slighter. So we don't even know what tribe they are.

...Though, personally, between both Myrrh and Morva being referred to by the title, and them having similar properties with the Divines ("monster busting" properties and god-like power; after all, aside from his fate in the game itself, Morva is probably the closest to a Magvel Naga equivalent) my guess is that Morva and Myrrh are...Great Dragons.

No clue what the Demon King's deal is. With all the mythology around dragonkind, having non-draconic (un)holy beings (such as the Demon King, Mila and Duma, even Ashera and Yune) always makes me a bit confused as to how it all works out. He could just be an evil god who rules over demon kind I guess?

Yeah, the lack of resemblance does seem to make them distinct from other Manaketes. I'd probably place them as the Magvelian equivalent to Divine Dragons, with Great Dragon seeming a decent title for them.

As for the Demon King, I'd say that certain high-tier magical beings (notably the ones you mentioned) are roughly equivalent to Divine and Fell Dragons in terms of power, and are simply the being that took the spot of top dog in their home continent. Ashera and Yune were the top in Tellius, Morva (draconic, but acts as the opposing force to the Demon King) and the Demon King (who I'd suspect fits your general description; a demonic deity that other demons obey) in Magvel, and Mila and Duma (two gods similar to Ashera and Yune, but not directly connected, simply opposing forces) in Baronsa (sp) and Sofia.

Valentia, which is split between Zofia (Mila) and Rigel (Duma).

You were close though. Barensia is the Japanese term for the continent, and Sofia for the country.

The only way it could be more pathetic if he was a throne boss armed only with a bow. But that would be overkill.

There's just one issue I had with the ending...

The Demon King's soul has been sealed away, and he cannot return to his own body.

But on the other hand, the Demon King's soul was not killed with his body, and he can possess other people just like he did Lyon. Meanwhile, the last Sacred Stone is corrupted and can no longer be used without risking... well, a repetition where the next generation is worse off.

Am I the only person who thinks that the ending would have been happier if they hadn't bothered with the sacred stone and just killed the demon king without sealing him first?

Actually, L'Arachel says this after the stone takes the demon kings soul "The Demon King’s soul has been bound once more. But, Eirika, it’s not over yet. The Demon King’s soul rages against its prison. We must return it to its proper place—and quickly. But first, we must defeat the Demon King’s soulless body!". (From Serenes Forest) Basically, they damage his body to the point that it fades, and then at the last moment, shove his soul back in so that it fades alongside it's body.

By "proper place", she meant "inside a shrine".

Doesn't matter to me. It's your choice, not mine.

Whichever one you feel like playing! Are there any you haven't yet?

Whenever I continue Genealogy I'm going to reread your blogging of that and leave more comments. I think I was almost finished with chapter 2...which doesn't sound very far, but those maps really are enormous...

Alright, so I think I'll keep them separate. They don't rely on each other enough for me to want to go from one to the other.

@Montago: Yeah, the maps in Genealogy are ridiculous at points. Thank god for turbo buttons, since otherwise everything would take forever. I guess that's what the save system is for, so that you don't have to continue playing for the whole time, but damn if it isn't still quite the long haul.

Didn't you already do Sword of Seals for this liveblog though? Another run through might come off as redundant IMO.

True, but since that was a blind run, I figured a more prepared run wouldn't be an issue. Still, you do have a point, and I've already decided not to do a followup So S liveblog.

If I recall, Kishuna actually has a unused battle animation. Naturally, the only movement he does is dodge.

Yeah, I heard about that. Given his choice of dress, I suspect it would've looked like a less scrawny shaman or druid, given the whole "encased in thick robes" thing he has going on. It's always jarring not to enter the battle screen when I attack him, even if adding an animation that only dodged would have been a bit silly.

I don't know if I enjoy encountering deserts or dread their arrival. It's a toss-up between unique treasure and horses (including some of my best units, like Astrid or Oscar) trudging across the sand.

I'm alright with deserts. So long as they pay me off with fancy treasures, I can't bring myself to hate them (especially since they are interesting in how they make you use your units), but if you have a few cavaliers to train, the deserts can be a huge pain.

You know, Ninian blanking out here doesn't really make sense. Sure, she's a Mysterious Waif Manakete, but the only times she ever had eyes like that is when she gets mindwiped by Nergal. Of course, the whole Kishuna subplot is gibberish to begin with, and only serves to give up 19XX.

Yeah, I don't get why Ninian freaks out about him. He's completely irrelevant to her, outside of connection to Nergal, and it seems silly to try to shoehorn a connection between the two.

Of course, 19xx is it's own can of worms with it's annoying triggering requirement, but then, it doesn't really seem to have much to do with Kishuna.

Do the wyverns in your game also have an obsession with swarming over the castle rather than chasing your army?

Usually the supposedly-pursued protagonists have an easy time while the "rescuers" in the bottom struggle (because I'm pushing to reach the village/steal the Knight Crest).

I remember that from Hector Mode, but there weren't enough in Eliwood mode, nor did they ever live long enough to start.

Maybe it's a bit of bad luck and the fact that Lyn's group was the more fragile one, but they got hurt more. Legault and pals just sorta pushed right on through the enemies, while Lyn's group got smacked around a bit by wyvern riders. I do agree with you in regards to Hector mode though. The heat is off the lords in that, and so they really don't deal with too much trouble.