...Yeah, I've decided to keep making jokes that reference the Persona series. It's surprisingly easy, considering how much both this game and the resent Persona games talk about trying to prevent some kind of doomsday scenario using the power of your relationships with other people.
Okay, gang, it's time to create our protagonist! Sorry for stalling so long, but I was close to finishing a run on a different file, and decided to finish it off and carry over my Renown for this. On the bright side, it seems that we've decided on a gender for our main character: female! But first, let's take a brief look at the introductory cutscene; the one that plays before the title screen and the 'press any button to begin' message.
So, there's some kind of blue...thing (thing with a blue aura?) flying through the clouds, before circling a castle a few times and then getting into a brief race with Philemon. Well, not really Philemon, but it's a blue butterfly and they talk about bonds and fate a fair bit in this game, so it probably references destiny in some manner. Our lighty-thing then gets sucked into the ground an army then tramples over. There's dramatic music! Their strides are imposing! They're...all wearing blue, the colour of good guys in Fire Emblem games. Then there's ashes in the wind and a horde of zombies riding horses and swinging swords, followed by the blue army dying from a rain of arrows. The butterfly and lighty-thing then gets chased by a bunch of darky-things through a burning village, which quickly and briefly cuts away to a giant, six-eyed, purple flame-spewing monstrosity. A young figure, looking suspiciously like Marth from Super Smash Brothers Melee...I mean, Shadow Dragon, while wearing a mask that looks like the blue butterfly, attempts to escape this grim world by racing towards a blue portal inside of a doorway. The main Fire Emblem theme kicks into high gear, and we're treated to a lot of important future plot scenes in a row (accompanied by our butterfly and lighty-thing), such as "Marth" and Chrom (our leading Lord) dueling, zombies falling from an eye in the sky, a lady with a pseudo-halo as part of her outfit standing on a really precarious cliff, and Chrom & the Pegasus Knight possible love interest standing before a crowd while holding an infant. The montage ends with Chrom, "Marth", and a mysterious hooded figure all drawing swords against the evil monster dragon from earlier, followed by panning up the legendary blade Falchion and a quick shot of the legendary Fire Emblem shield with five gemstones.
...We might need a team of psychologists to work out all of the symbolism in the above paragraph.
Anyways, now that we're at the title screen, it's time for me to start pressing a few buttons! After I choose the difficulty (choices are Normal, Hard, and Lunatic; I pick Hard because I want a bit of challenge without going into hair-pulling territory) and the mode (choices are Classic and Casual; I pick Casual for the mid-battle saves, though I always reset instead of taking advantage of the no-permanent death feature), it's time to build our protagonist! Our first choice is Gender, and we (by which I mean my two viewers, one of which was willing to change to end the tie) have selected Female. Next up is the character's Build: option #1 looks like a young adult, #2 looks even younger but is still (probably) of legal (well, fantasy-world legal) age for things like marriage and drinking, and #3 is an older adult with a noticeable...'bust' is an acceptable term, right? We also have five options for Face and for Hair that change depending on Build (Face #5 with Build #1 has a circlet, while on Build #2, it's an eyepatch), 20 options for Hair Color (that include white, black, blue, and a light shade of violet), and three options for Female Voice (#1 and #3 were both voiced by Michelle Ruff, and #2 was voiced by Wendee Lee).
On the next page of options, we're allowed to give our creation a name, though the default for both genders is "Robin". We can also select our protagonist's date of birth, which is only important for one minor feature that we won't even have access to until the fifth battle of the game. Finally, we can choose which stat will be our Asset and which will be our Flaw. The choices you make here affect both growth rates and maximum stats, so if you had a character that had Defense as an Asset and Speed as a Flaw, you could be able to take a lot of hits but also be bad at dodging them. Once those choices are set, you're given one final chance to confirm your selections before the game thrusts you into the Prologue battle.
After some tinkering about (and some light snickering when I saw some of the hair options clip through our protagonist's default outfit), I've created our leading lady. And considering that I've already made a few Persona jokes thus far, plus the fact that both female voice actors have voiced characters from the Persona series, I've decided to name and model her after Yukari, the 'Lovers' Social Link and an important party member from Persona 3. Oh, and of course, the whole 'love and bonds are an important gameplay mechanic' thing I may have already mentioned. Below are the settings I used to make our protagonist, in case anyone wants to know:
- Appearance Details:
- Build: 1 (average)
- Face: 4 (alert, slight scowl)
- Hair: 2 (short & slightly messy)
- Hair Colour 19 (kinda auburn)
- Female Voice #1
- Name: Yukari
- Birthday: October 19 (just like Persona 3's Yukari)
- Asset/Flaw: Magic/Defense (Persona 3's Yukari was a Squishy Wizard and healer)
And...wow, that's a lot of text so far. Plus, once you confirm your settings, you get a save prompt. Put the two together, and this seems like a good time to end this installment! Tune in next time (which will hopefully be in just a few hours from when I upload this), when we actually get into our first two enemy encounters, and where paragraphs of explanation will be replaced with brief summaries! Thank you for your time, and have a wonderful day!
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