Fire Emblem

I guess you could also blame it on the writers for not giving a peaceful option...?

Edited by dood9780 on Jan 7th 2019 at 6:22:57 AM

He does try a peaceful solution, or at least the player has the option of having someone talk to Selena. He kills some soldiers beforehand because he can't get to her to try that peaceful solution without making it past a bunch of people trying to kill him, and he kills some soldiers afterwards because talking fails and they fight to the last man. What else is he supposed to do?

If it were me? Send some sort of envoy first thing. Knowing her obstinacy I doubt it'd work, but I'd want to at least try.

How do you get an envoy alive through a crowd of people perfectly willing to gank unarmed nuns and dancers?

Edited by rikalous on Jan 7th 2019 at 7:33:37 AM

...okay, point.

I'm ashamed that my reasons for trying any other Fire Emblem game has come to see whether or not if the said character deserve such controversy or if the game even lives up to the hype everyone else making it out to be.

Just more evidence to myself that I was never really fan of this franchise to begin with

Edited by agent-trunks on Jan 7th 2019 at 9:48:04 AM

Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, chapter 8: Coastal Skirmish.

Pushing into Akaneia, Marth's army arrives at Port Warren, where a homeowner from a ways back recommended I visit to pick up some rare items. Unfortunately, the Grustian army is also here, so once again we've got a fight on our hands.

Enemy forces consist of Cavaliers, Horsemen, Knights, and Archers; one of the Knights is named Roger and has a portrait, so I know I can recruit him. This map is tailor-made for the rapier, and Marth is joined by his constant companions Shiida, Cain, Abel, Ogma, and Nabarl. I also bring along Barst, Bord, Cord, and Daros to give myself hammers for use against enemy armour, Merric, Lena, and Bantu, the last of whom is going to replace Draug as my stonewall.

As soon as the level begins, I gain Caesar and Radd, a pair of Mercenaries trying to defend the town. Caesar advises me that the western castle is well-defended, but it should be possible to take the eastern castle and weaken Grust's hold on the region that way. I'm never going to use these two again because I have Nabarl and Ogma. Still, they do have some use; to the east of their starting position is an arena, which I ignore, and three Armouries which sell rapiers, which I stock up on. There's also a new shop, to which I send Lena, and I found it run by... wait, Aimee? Seriously? Wow, I did not expect that. Since Anna is the go-to travelling merchant, I expected her to be the one to run the other shop, but no, it turns out Aimee also apparently exists across time and space all the way back to the beginning. She sells various useful items, so I pick up a new Heal for Lena, and Fire and Thunder tomes in case I need them later. Aimee also sells vulernaries and door keys, but I decline to pick those up.

Meanwhile, my army moves north, Marth and Abel taking the lead, and this time the enemy moves to intercept me before I get in movement range. My army advances just slightly, and the initial wave breaks on Marth and Abel. Next turn, my guys eliminate the enemy cavalry, and Cord manages to level up with a lucky hit from a hand axe. Careful positioning and weapon choice means that Roger does not in the enemy phase, when he attacks Marth and expresses regret at his actions.

Next turn, I have Shiida speak to Roger, appealing to his better nature and asking him to join the fight to end tears. Roger says his parents are dead and he has no wife; he doesn't want to fight, but can't just abandon his duty, Shiida understands, and refuses to fight, turning to leave as she does not want to cause him undue trouble from his comrades; since Shiida is a complete saint, Roger is overcome with admiration and decides to make a stand and fight for justice. Yeah, I'm going to permanently bench him after this battle because I have Draug and Bantu.

Anyway, the Archers quickly fall and I send Merric, Ogma, and the axe guys west to the island where the castle lies while Cain, Abel, Nabarl, and Marth head to forts to recuperate. Merric gets the boss down to his last couple of HP, and then all the rest have fierce trouble getting a hit in because axes are super-inaccurate in this game. Eventually, Daros lands the killing blow, but wouldn't you know it, a pair of Knights suddenly appear in the northern forts to attack me. Fortunately, Bantu and Nabarl are close enough to engage, and defeat them both in one turn thanks to Bantu getting a crit. Marth seizes the castle, and Mr. Exposition tells me that it's not safe to stay here. We should make for Pyrathi, the kingdom of dragons which is ruled by a Manakete named Mannu. Pyrathi is where that random villager got the Stone Bantu is using, so on we go.

New units: Caesar, Radd, Roger Levelups: Marth, Shiida, Cain, Abel, Cord.

Myrrh was almost an accidental envoy of sorts, anyway, in that her presence probably would have counted more than any soldier Ephraim could have sent to negotiate. Despite that, letting Myrrh leave was about as far as Selena was willing to compromise.

Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, chapter 9: A Wyrm-King's Wrath

This is as far as I got on my initial playthrough, but I'v been playing better up to now so let's keep it up.

This map consists of a series of islands linked by bridges, structured to consist mostly of narrow corridors. Mannu, the boss, turns out to not be remotely friendly, and declares that my guys will be burned as a sacrifice to the Salamanders. Right, time for another battle. After two maps where I have a nigh-invincible dragon under my control, now I'll have to fight against one.

As always, Marth is joined by his faithful and badass companions Shiida, Cain, Abel, Nabarl, Ogma, and Lena. There are three treasure chests behind two locked doors, so Julian is in. Daros comes along for his ability to walk on water, and Bantu and Draug for stonewalling purposes. Hardin is a worthy addition to my army with good mobility, so he gets in, as do Barst, Gordin, and Roshea to make up the numbers; soon after I started, I realised I should have brought Merric instead of Roshea, but oh well.

I begin by having Lena warp Marth over to the village on the northeast island, where I recruit Jeorge, a Sniper. Nice. Roshea visits a house where the homeowner tells me that I'll need a Wyrmslayer to kill Mannu, and the rest of my forces head south to meet the bulk of Mannu's army on the southwest island. Julian unlocks the door and goes to raid the bailey, while Abel seizes the bridge and softens up most of the army for the others to mop up, and Cain engages a group of Archers over a defensive wall. At the same time, Shiida and Daros fight Pirates in the water, and Marth and Jeorge steadily move down the northwest-to-southeast corridor.

When all the Pyrathians except Mannu are dead, my main corps strikes out east, where I am set upon by wave after wave of Pirates spawning from the sourthern forts. There are so many it's hard to keep my units alive, but hey, extra experience. A few go to attack the southwest island, but Draug and Gordin prove up to the task, Draug even managing to double most of the Pirates he engages. Jeorge manages to level up here... and he gains no stats. According to the wiki, his growths are pretty terrible except for HP and Weapon Level, and he doesn't need Weapon Level. Looks like I'll be sticking with Gordin and Castor for my ranged attackers.

Eventually, Julian breaks into the keep and swipes the Wyrmslayer, which he passes to Marth. Marth slays Mannu after a few rounds, which takes longer than expected due to Mannu being really good at dodging. Finally, the castle is liberated, and when Marth seizes it, I find Catria inside. Huh.

Anyway, in an ending cutscene, Catria explains that Medonite forces loyal to Minerva plan on rebelling against Doluna, but they can't while Maria is still a hostage. Catria asks Marth to free Maria, so obviously I'm going to help.

New units: Jeorge

Levelups: Marth, Shiida, Cain, Abel, Hardin, Daros, Barst, Draug, Gordin, Jeorge

Takings: 15,000 G, Goddess Icon, Wyrmslayer

Didn't Selena still own Myrrh's dragonstone even after she freed her, so defeating her was necessary to recover it? It's been a while since I've last played, but I think that was one of the reasons the battle was unavoidable.

That is correct. Selena still had the dragonstone.

Do we have any idea when to expect Three Houses news? I just got a Switch last night, and that’s by far my most anticipated game.

At this rate probably about one month after release.

The lack of Three Houses news seems a little odd to me. The most recent few releases had a ton of pre-release info months before the games released. I dunno. Maybe they're trying to avoid Hype Backlash or something?

It’s possible that we just haven’t really seen anything for post-Q1 this year outside of E3. Hopefully that changes in the next Direct.

Soo... Is anyone interested in beta and unused stuff? Well here is a pretty cool video on unused stuff from Path Of Radiance.

Some of the internal names are pretty damn funny, for example. Guess what the internal name for the Double Bow is? LONGLONGBOW

Edited by dood9780 on Jan 10th 2019 at 10:56:28 AM

I still think the Double Bow should've been called "Fail-not" as a reference to the bow used by Tristan, especially since Tellius has a lot of references to Arthurian stories.

Longlong Bow would've been a good name, though.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Jan 10th 2019 at 11:10:04 AM

I wish we got playable Greil, especially considering how significant he is to the backstory of Radiant Dawn. They went through the trouble of making his Aether animated differently than Ike's and everything. If only we'd gotten even a small focus on Greil's days as one of Daein's Four Riders, or even in the early days of the Greil Mercenaries and some of the adventures described in support conversations between the veteran members of the company. There's a lot of potential there I think.

Too bad Radiant Dawn and Path of Radiance came out so long ago. There's not much chance of an expansion unless those games get a Video Game Remake sometime in the future a la Shadows of Valentia.

Did you just put a spoiler tag for a 14 year old game?

Trust me, there are lots of FE fans who haven't touched the Tellius games yet (and they should!)

I like to practice good spoiler etiquette no matter how old the work is. I haven't played a lot of things "everyone has played" and thus am sensitive to other peoples' knowledge.

The Tellius games are also ridiculously expensive right now, so there are probably quite a few people who want to play them but haven't had the chance.

Edited by SapphireBlue on Jan 10th 2019 at 11:37:57 AM

Yup, finding hard copies of those games is a nightmare. I only picked up Radiant Dawn by pure chance on a used games shelf years ago for twenty bucks, and Path of Radiance I had to rely on emulation to play.

Yeah, I played them backwards and regretted it. I knew every plot twist intrigue ever from the first game, lol.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Jan 10th 2019 at 11:42:28 AM

To be fair, Radiant Dawn did ruin the plot twist about the Black knight's identity on its own.

Thus why Soren > Ranulf.

Yeah, I haven't touched the Tellius games because, quite simply, I can't. They are stupidly hard to find available for sale.

I remember that there's this long article on Serenes involving the BK's identity and picking out all of these things from Path of Radiance to make the case, and then RD just outright says it like nothing. Still funny to me.

Though some people don't like Zelgius and his backstory/personality as revealed in RD. It is pretty different than BK in the first game, but I dig the more nihilistic approach. Then again, sympathetic backstory Zelgius was the first iteration of the character I was introduced to, so maybe I'm biased.

And Soren is indeed the best just saying