Fire Emblem

Yikes, the Battle for Altea is hitting me hard. There's an island in the northwest, just north of Arran and Samson's villages, which is full of forts where arseloads of reinforcements spawn quite early in the battle, plus the three Dracoknights keep going for Julian.

Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, chapter 16: The Battle for Altea

Having failed to obtain the Falchion from Gharnef, Marth takes the army to his homeland to liberate it from Grust.

I bring along my standard cavalry of Cain, Abel, and Hardin; my full air force of Shiida, Minerva, Palla, and Catria; an infantry squad of Nabarl, Ogma, and Merric; plus Lena for healing and Julian to break into the prison.

This was a hard one. Altea consists of several islands connected by bridges, and the Grustians have some impressive units; the fact that you can't choose how your units are deployed in this game is particularly frustrating here, because they're rather spread out and I wanted my ranged infantry closer to the prison.

As soon as the battle begins, there is a conversation between Marth and Nyna. Marth explains that Altea fell two years ago but his sister, Elice, distracted the invaders which bought him time to escape. Now, he has returns to rescue her.

To start, my infantry moves south toward the prison, making sure to keep Julian out of range of the Grustian Dracoknights. Minerva and the cavalry forms a line on the north bank of the river, the rest of the air force sheltering behind them; Lena follows along with them. This lures out the Dracoknights, and they are dispatched with a little difficulty after a few close calls.

Next turn, Julian unlocks the prison and Marth rushes the Hero on the other side of the door, nabbing a Hero Crest for his victory. With the enemy Thief fast approaching the villages, Lena warps Shiida over to the west village, where she fends him off, and my cavalry and air force advance west; a homeowner tells me there's a feud between two local villages, and if I visit one, the other will shut their gates to me.

In the east, the prisoner approaches Marth and introduces himself as Xane, a Chameleon from a distant land who can take the form of any other individual. The Doluna Coalition tried to get him to use this power for evil, and locked him up when he refused; in gratitude for being released, he'll lend this ability to Marth. To test this out, I have him copy Nabarl, and I do indeed get a perfect double, complete with damage.

In the west, I position Cain and Abel to guard the bridges on the northern island, then send Hardin and the air force to intercept the enemy cavalry. With Beast Killers, they acquit themselves well despite a few close calls when the enemy Horsement get close. As my infantry circle around from the southeast and take out the other Horseman, my mounted units move back north to intercept enemy reinforcements.

Knights, Cavaliers, and a Horseman spawn in the numerous forts on the northern island and while Cain can survive, Abel takes a battering; in the end, I'm only able to win by parking Minerva on one of the forts to prevent the Horseman from spawning. When they're taken care of, moves south to rejoin the infantry, while Marth comes northwest to visit the villages and Merric and Nabarl deal with the Cavalier and General who come down from the central island; as they do so, a homeowner tells me a rumour that there's a prisoner named Xane who has some sort of special power. My air force visits the central plaza where Catria buys some new weapons and uses the Talisman I got a map ago to permanently increase her Res, becoming my official mage killer; a homeowner here tells me to beware of the devil sword, another is glad to see the return of the Altean knights, and a third tells me that Princess Elice was taken away by Gharnef. I also send Nabarl to the central plaza to pick up the Hero Crest and promote.

At the villages, I ultimately decide to visit the east village because people seem to agree Samson is the better unit. Samson happily joins me, but tells me that due to the villages feuding, the other one will have closed its gates as soon as they saw me entering Samson's home. Sure enough, when I send Marth to visit the west village, I just get a message that the gates are closed. I kind of love the implication here that the villages have lookouts constantly monitoring each other's gates, and when they see somebody enter the other, they immediately go "Well screw that guy!" and bar him.

Anyway, Merric, Minerva, and Ogma work together to take down the boss. Marth seizes the castle, and delivers a rousing speech thanking his loyal knights, allies, and comrades, but saying the battle is not over yet for Dolunan forces still hold the castle. Onward!

New units: Xane, Samson

Levelups: Marth, Cain, Abel, Nabarl, Ogma, Shiida, Minerva, Catria, Palla, Hardin, Merric

Promotions: Nabarl

Previous instalments: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 -15

Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, chapter 17: Star and Saviour

The Grustian occupation force has been ousted, but the castle is still garrisoned. Marth rallies his forces in one more push to free his homeland.

I have now settled on a core group consisting of Shiida, Cain, Abel, Gordin, Ogma, Nabarl, Hardin, Minerva, Palla, Catria, Merric, Linde, Lena, and Maria, so I bring them all along, as well as Julian to raid the treasure chamber.

As soon as the level begins, the boss taunts me, saying he has killed my mother and sent my sister to Gharnef. Oh, it is on!

From the start, I send Cain and Abel north to block force the enemy Thieves to take the long route to the treasure. Along the way, they take on the Dolunan Manaketes, emerging injured but victorious. Marth goes to the storage to leave his weapons and take some stat boosters, as he is at level 18 and I don't want to waste any Exp. Along the way, a homeowner tells me there are secret shops accessible only with a membership card, but where could they be?

Meanwhile, the bulk of my army goes west to intercept the main Doluna force. Their Thieves are quick by I am quicker, and by careful positioning I manage to kill both Thieves before they reach the chests. The rest of the western forces fall easily enough, and none of my guys have died. Julian raids the treasure chests and finds some nice goodies, including a Knight's Crest, so Cain promotes to Paladin.

My army regoups and pushes into the north room, where my ranged units engage the enemy forces on the other side of the wall. I send my Heroes, spellcasters, and cavalry north around the throne to attack the enemy Clerics while Julian unlocks the door just north of the throne, revealing... nothing. Just a single blank square. Hmm.

My northern forces come into the eastern chamber, where reinforcements pour in for like 40 turns (no exaggeration). They manage to kill the Clerics and one of them drops the membership card; when Marth steps on the blank square with this, I do indeed find a secret shop and this one is run by Anna! I pick up some Physics and Worms, while the western forces take the opportunity to get in a ridiculous number of kills, grinding up my non-flying units to the point that Linde and Hardin both hit level 20, and Cain altogether stops taking damage.

Marth seizes the throne, and the people gather outside, chanting "Eternal glory to star lord Marth!"

Levelups: Shiida, Cain, Abel, Hardin, Minerva, Palla, Catria, Merric, Linde, Gordin, Nabarl, Ogma

Promotions: Cain

Takings: 15,000 G, Knight's Crest, Dracoshield, Secret Book, Warp, Devil Sword

Previous instalments: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 -15 - 16

previews of songs in an upcoming FE arrange album

ITS GOOD

I'm really wishing I had played Shadow Dragon at this point. Then again the title alone brings the fact that it grandfather clauses the entire plot pretty readily.

Love the meeting theme medley, as usual.

Edited by ShirowShirow on Jan 20th 2019 at 3:56:46 PM

Shadow Dragon just felt very...basic and kinda uninteresting to me. People say it has some of the best strategy gameplay (being player phase focused as opposed to enemy phase like a lot of more recent games) in the series and some of the localization has some clever wording, though it can eventually be cheesed with Warp and such, but I really dislike the visual style and animation. Just feels bland to me. Plus the majority of the characters being meaningless blank slates and the unit balance being pretty poor. And it introduced reclassing. Ick.

I could never finish it as a result. I get that it was a straight remake of the first game without too many bells and whistles, but...meh. I had been spoiled by the later titles by that point.

NM corrected a lot of problems, and introduced a major one, but I much prefer it to SD though neither Archanea games are all that interesting to me, just because there are a lot of standard fantasy trappings. Marth is adorable though, so that's a plus.

I saw a video of a guy talking about what he wants in Three Houses, and one of them was a good idea:

Getting rewards for A-Ranking supports for characters.

Not just stuff like A+ing characters in Fates, but being able to learn skills or use weapons or new class access or whatever depending on which characters are A-ranked. It would all be character-specific of course.

Like Lucina's siblings being able use Falchion after A-ranking the two. (Imagine Male Morgan with Falchion...he'd be even more broken!)

(Unrelated note, what Fire Emblem games don't have a dragon as a final boss besides Conquest?)

Radiant Dawn...Sacred Stones...and I think Thracia?

Geneaology, Thracia 776, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance (arguably; the final boss is riding a wyvern but is not himself a dragon), and Radiant Dawn.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Jan 20th 2019 at 5:46:31 AM

x3 Falchion thing: I think previously established plot/lore should prevent anybody but Lucina from wielding it. Granted it's never fully clarified, but Marth is the only person capable of wielding it in his time after his father's death, so I imagine it works on a similar system as the Jugdral Holy Weapons, where you get one wielder a generation. Then again, going from previous lore maybe Lucina shouldn't even be able to wield it, since it's implied it was a gender-based inheritance in the Archanea days, with Marth being the last male descendant of Anri and that being important and implied why he was the only one capable of wielding it. Plus the Aum Staff being only usable by princesses...

But Lucina changes things up completely. Then again, Awakening plays a bit fast and loose with the lore established earlier since it was meant to be the last game.

Final Bosses: Thracia's final boss is Travant, human. Sacred Stones' final boss is a demon lord, not a dragon. The final boss of Path of Radiance is Ashnard, human. The final boss of Radiant Dawn is Ashera, a light goddess. We've had a decent amount of 'em.

EDIT: Technically the final boss of Genealogy is human, but he's dragon-posessed, so idk if he counts specifically.

EDIT 2: Clarification

Edited by ILikeRobots on Jan 20th 2019 at 3:06:23 AM

Thracia's is Veld, not Travant.

And if Julius counts as a dragon final boss, then so does Takumi.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Jan 20th 2019 at 5:45:27 AM

Ah, my mistake. And yeah I'd argue that dragon-possessed pretty much counts as dragon, so I'd disqualify both Julius and Takumi.

Did you not read the Lucina sibling supports? (They are the same for every sibling, even though they really only fit Cynthia) At the end, Chrom finds a log split perfectly in two by the sibling.

Yeah? I brought up that lorewise it doesn't make a lot of sense based on what had been established before.

x5 Except in Lucina's and Morgans' sibling A support, Morgan cleaves the log clean in half, but plays if off as a miss (which fools Lucina, but Chrom comes in and is all, "The hell happened here?"). Since Falchion is supposed to be dull for anyone who can't properly wield it, this means it has simultaneously accepted Lucina and Morgan. Of course, for gameplay reasons, Morgan keeps that to himself, but it could have gone the other way if the devs so desired.

EDIT: Ninjaed and I think I read that wrong. I interpreted it as a commentary on Chrom and Lucina. I see you were applying it to the siblings instead.

Edited by KuroiTsubasaTenshi on Jan 20th 2019 at 4:54:58 AM

It was mostly just going "the rules of the Falchion inheritance are a bit weird and by Awakening seem to have have changed completely from Archanea's time without much explanation." But the game as a whole is a bit loose with the previous stuff, so it's not too much of an anomaly. It was meant to be the last game so they probably weren't super concerned with accuracy anyway.

Well the former "male exclusive" part would explain Inigo, Brady, and Male Morgan wielding it, but not Cynthia and Kjelle.

If we're looking from a Watsonian perspective, it's possible that it's just a coincidence that all of the previous chosen ones of the Falchion from Anri's time and on were male, which is what made people think it descended purely through the male line, but I don't now what the odds of that are.

But Awakening seems like female wielders are, if not commonplace, known to be possible and accepted, though any previous wielders of the blade we hear about in the past were male, including the faceless, mysterious First Exalt. I wonder just how it chooses those worthy of wielding it, since it was incredibly selective during Marth's time apparently. Maybe Marthlike personalities? But that definitely doesn't really apply to most of the kids who are capable of wielding it as implied in Awakening.

Making things even more confusing is that IIRC Marth is in fact a distant nephew of the original wielder rather than a direct descendant.

Then again Lucina only has the face, but not the personality of a Marth so maybe looks play a factor here too (only blue hairs!).

Edited by MayIncon on Jan 20th 2019 at 4:07:58 AM

But didn't Alm also wield the Falchion?

A different Falchion than the one Marth used.

I went back and watched the video again and it turns out what I just posted was part of a comment rather than the video itself. Still, a nice idea, letting supports have an actual impact on the game itself (especially since most people don't want kids to come back for Three Houses unless it makes since plot-wise.)

Also, how would you guys feel about more limited S-supports? In both of the modern games with kids, any male can S-Support with any female. (With a few characters only being able to S-Support the Avatar.) How about we put a limit on it like how Chrom and Sumia could only marry a few other people besides each other? Because who would put Cherche and Ricken together?

Edited by Smasher on Jan 20th 2019 at 8:23:38 AM

I actually did put Cherche and Ricken together once, just to see what it's like. Ricken ribbing Gerome over "Minervykins" is hilarious.

I would like to see some characters only being able to get S-rank supports with characters of the same sex. Give us expies of Leon and Heather, and let them actually officially hook up with someone.

The crack pairings are like 85% of the fun.