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SapphireBlue from California Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#85426: Feb 25th 2020 at 7:53:25 AM

I remember Blazing Blade being mentioned in an “if you like this, you might like these too” flyer that was packaged with Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, along with Golden Sun and Sword of Mana. I think that was the first place I heard about it.

RedHunter543 Team Rocket Boss. Since: Jan, 2018 Relationship Status: Barbecuing
Team Rocket Boss.
#85427: Feb 25th 2020 at 7:54:16 AM

I still remember a time when the only ads FE got was word of mouth.

I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.
SapphireBlue from California Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#85428: Feb 25th 2020 at 7:57:47 AM

Same. I don’t remember any advertising for anything between Blazing Blade and Awakening. I do remember talking to a friend in middle school about how that Fire Emblem game on the GameCube looked really cool and hoping it’d be out soon, and my friend telling me it already was. As far as news went, we had the Internet and nothing else.

Edited by SapphireBlue on Feb 25th 2020 at 7:58:00 AM

Aleistar Since: Feb, 2018 Relationship Status: Hugging my pillow
#85429: Feb 25th 2020 at 8:06:22 AM

[up]x4 Something something Melee something something Advance Wars.

Edited by Aleistar on Feb 25th 2020 at 11:09:22 AM

KuroiTsubasaTenshi Streamer from Twitch Since: May, 2011
Streamer
#85430: Feb 25th 2020 at 8:08:57 AM

Sothe should be your main meat shield. As soon as you get him, have him pass all his weapons to other characters and send them to the convoy as soon as the map ends. Again, enemies will preferentially target him when he's unarmed, but he's so far above them that he'll never take more than 1 damage if they can even hit him, and won't gain more than 1 XP even if he gets a kill, so it's best to just let him soak up the hits and have everyone else get the kills. Have him steal everything your enemies aren't holding in their hands to maximise his XP; either he or Laura should get Paragon as soon as it's available (Laura will probably benefit more). And yes, both Sothe and Laura should get BEXP priority.

The 1XP-per-kill thing lasts maybe one chapter, even on Hard. It's also a really good idea to feed Sothe as much as possible because most of the rest of the Dawn Brigade are either unreliable in stat growths or nearly unsalvageably bad without unreasonable BEXP abuse. I've done enough draft runs to know that the least headache-inducing way to deal with the Dawn Brigade is to abuse Sothe with forges and then raise one other unit (who hopefully doesn't get trash binned by growth RNG). Black Knight should also absolutely be used to clear problem enemies out of the way, especially since Micaiah complete failure to have Authority Stars basically ensures the Dawn Brigade will have garbage Hit rates in 1-E.

Silas is rebalanced because he's the boss of the chapter you recruit him in. He joins with the same stats he had as a boss, which is why he's so good.
The games have never been shy of changing stats around for characters, so this is still a hilariously silly case.

those are pretty interesting options for dancers Ngl. As you said not necessary but definitely worth considering. My issue is that getting to S/S+ riding in a timely manner (on Maddening) might take too long, but I guess if your dancer forsakes every other weapon rank it could work.
Move +1 is A+ Riding. You're thinking of the effectiveness Null skills.

Speaking off, how was the Tellius games's ads?
I don't even recall seeing anything. Only got the games because I walked into the store and saw them on the shelf.

FE:3H Maddening Banes Only 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Valkyria Chronicles 4 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi
MEKristian Since: Nov, 2009
#85431: Feb 25th 2020 at 8:24:35 AM

Wonder what the over/under is on the next game being to Three Houses as what Fates was to Awakening.

CaellachTigerEye FE 7 Trash from Betwicks thine rock and yon hard place Since: May, 2010
FE 7 Trash
#85432: Feb 25th 2020 at 8:38:28 AM

Blazing Blade was a success because it was a good game with a great story, and no matter what anyone says I will defend it against FE 6 apologists who claim it was a poor prequel (on the contrary, I’d argue it’s how to DO a good prequel!)

I mean, The Binding Blade does have excellent characters and maps, but the story is more generic and peters out when Zephiel is defeated; I do like Idoun, but does anyone even find Jahn all that interesting? I’d be more interested if they’d fleshed his and Zephiel’s partnership out, and maybe if that part of the story was longer and more in-depth - think like how in Suikoden II, after Luca Blight is killed, there’s still about a third of the game left; it focuses on the post-war chaos and the PC needing to resolve their conflict with Jowy, which is kind of the heart of the plot in reality rather than the war. Similarly, freeing Idoun and restoring her heart is important because not only was she the source of the artificial dragons, her state is systematic of how broken the Scouring made Elibe at its core, and undoing the damage is the ultimate repudiation of both Zephiel’s misanthropy and Jahn’s disbelief in inter-species harmony; the fire dragons corrupted her out of desperation, Zephiel further abused her for his inane crusade, and Roy in the end sets things right where Hartmut had failed... I’d love if we’d had a longer quest after Zephiel’s death, building up Jahn and his motives, fighting the remnant’s of Bern’s loyalist army (and maybe the Ilian/Sacaen bosses left over from the route you didn’t traverse), culminating in finally facing Idoun to restore her to normal at the end).

I dunno, I appreciate when getting to the seeming end reveals there’s more story, and it delivers in more content. Maybe that’s why I’m sore over how “Fates” didn’t handle its main two routes well, the potential for such a “final phase” campaign would have been great. 3H also cops out with its handling any fights after Edelgard as being rushed with just two chapters of endgame content (and it could have bewn ecen better than it already was... sigh).

HamburgerTime The Merry Monarch of Darkness from Dark World, where we do sincerely have cookies Since: Apr, 2010 Relationship Status: I know
The Merry Monarch of Darkness
#85433: Feb 25th 2020 at 8:56:16 AM

AH POOT POHSEN EN IS MUTTON!

The pig of Hufflepuff pulsed like a large bullfrog. Dumbledore smiled at it, and placed his hand on its head: "You are Hagrid now."
NoName999 Since: May, 2011
#85434: Feb 25th 2020 at 9:08:34 AM

Xenoblade is also going through this.

XBC 2 sold well because it was advertised and wasn't on a fucking dead console. And yet Nintendo, a major corporation, doesn't understand this. Hell, it's bad enough that fans don't understand this. lol

ILikeRobots Aspirant Creativity Wizard from the worlds of my imagination Since: Aug, 2016 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
Aspirant Creativity Wizard
#85435: Feb 25th 2020 at 9:27:30 AM

I think when people call Blazing Blade a poor sequel, they mean in the gameplay department. Blazing Blade’s design and general lack of difficulty is what a lot of Binding Blade fans don’t like.

I can’t really criticize the story too much personally, since prequels are a bit awkward to write, especially when you have lots of foregone conclusions and characters who by all logic should be there in-universe but aren’t because they didn’t exist when Binding Blade was made.

Adventurers: homeless people who steal from tombs and kill things.
VampireBuddha Calendar enthusiast from Ireland (Wise, aged troper) Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
Calendar enthusiast
#85436: Feb 25th 2020 at 12:44:57 PM

To be fair, The Blazing Blade was the first Fire Emblem game to be released outside Japan and Nintendo intentionally made it easy to ease in potential new fans.

Ukrainian Red Cross
Watashiwa Since: Dec, 2009
#85437: Feb 25th 2020 at 5:24:21 PM

[up][up][up]There's a lot more to it than that. Xenoblade X did a lot of heavy lifting in building the series profile, with presence in multiple Directs, the Treehouse showings, and deep-dive mechanical showcase videos (only half of which made it overseas...). The game showed up at The Game Awards though it didn't win anything and reviewed very well. The problem is that it released on a dead console. (Fake edit: Also Shulk was in Smash)

With Xenoblade 2, you come off of the critical success of XCX, deal with the major complaints about the character models/faces, and gin up a partial/overblown controversy about the main artist's hentai career (note: this is exceedingly common in Japan), which is free coverage for the game. And speaking of free coverage, the devs correctly assumed the gacha nature of the Blade system would result in a bunch of free social media attention, so you had people talking about it for months longer than new games usually have. Add in a pretty great yearlong DLC campaign and free updates and you have a recipe for legs. Helps that the game's good in its own right and scratches the BOTW itch.

Xb 2 didn't have much of an advertising presence. About the same as XCX: youtube ads and so on.

So, Fates. It was a huge commercial and critical success, in part because it doubled down on Awakening mechanics, the cracks it made in the narrative notwithstanding. It was a huge mechanical shakeup, remains the most accessible FE, and had an entertaining streetpass function. I will never admit how much time I spent on that damn castle. Coming off of the original Waifu Emblem, its success makes perfect sense. I'm just glad that Heroes boosted the series profile high enough that future games can sell even better without unnecessary mechanics like split versions and child optimization.

mrsunshinesprinkles Forever Gorgeous from Somewhere, crying Since: Jan, 2012
Forever Gorgeous
#85438: Feb 25th 2020 at 7:20:52 PM

@kuroi: oh that is way more reasonable.

@Sothe discourse: Haven't played RD but I do know of Sothe's viability and I wanna extend this sentence to almost every Jagen/Earlygame prepromote in general- you are actively gimping yourself when you don't let them fight.

Of course don't solo the game with them but a kill or two won't damage the longterm growth of your squad. FE 6 Marcus, on hard mode, is probably going to kill quite a few enemies in earlygame (in particular the Cavaliers in Ch 4 are only really damaged by his silver lance) but it doesn't mean your squad gets no experience; there are still plenty of scrubs to go around.

You want to use your best tools when they are at their best; they aren't needed but they help you go through the early parts of the game in a faster and (in my opinion) more fun way. This isn't even getting into the Jagens that stay good for the entire game, like FE 7 Marcus, Seth, Titania and (to a lesser extent) SD Jagen.

Reducing RD Sothe to a meatshield, in particular, is a pretty terrible idea. Even if you are still paranoid about XP hogging, most of the Dawn Brigade don't even have really good long term endgame potential and he will be your only halfway competent combat unit in the ealrygame, besides Nolan and Zihark (on high difficulties at least).

Edited by mrsunshinesprinkles on Feb 25th 2020 at 11:40:28 PM

"Curry killed the pussy hoping that I could kill the hate in you" - Curry, D. "TABOO | TA13OO." TA13OO, PH, 2018
KuroiTsubasaTenshi Streamer from Twitch Since: May, 2011
Streamer
#85439: Feb 25th 2020 at 7:41:09 PM

Sothe can actually get away with nearly soloing the Dawn Brigade stuff because it's easy for him to stay well ahead of the curve and the other free Jagen-y units can fill in when it comes to a map where he can't be everywhere at once (of course, the single raised growth unit can easily take the place of the other Jagen-y units instead, or even supplement them so there's even more coverage). Like, between Sothe, Zihark, Tauroneo, Tormod, Maurim, Volug and Black Knight, it's pretty easy to just never, ever touch a Dawn Brigade growth unit after the first handful of chapters (and the team will, hilariously, often be more successful for doing so). Sothe does, unfortunately, need to eventually get swapped out for someone else (there's a billion pre-promotes who conveniently show up as he falls off, though) because he eventually hits that 20/20 cap and gets walled from his third tier for far too long. His endgame potential also goes straight into the trash because Whisper caps (and Bane) are a huge joke. My typical role for him in 5-E is to unequip his weapon, drink a Pure Water and stand on Wardwood. This will typically pull all Spirits onto him, letting the others move around freely (even the units stuck with 1-range weapons equipped—unless their Res is super garbo).

Edited by KuroiTsubasaTenshi on Feb 25th 2020 at 9:42:47 AM

FE:3H Maddening Banes Only 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Valkyria Chronicles 4 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi
erazor0707 The Unknown Unknown from The Infinitude of Meh Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
The Unknown Unknown
#85440: Feb 25th 2020 at 7:44:16 PM

Volke also exists as another point against Sothe, but the latter has more availability.

A cruel, sick joke is still a joke, and sometimes all you can do is laugh.
mrsunshinesprinkles Forever Gorgeous from Somewhere, crying Since: Jan, 2012
Forever Gorgeous
#85441: Feb 25th 2020 at 7:45:38 PM

It is really bizarre. It is like IS knew that the Dawn Brigade growth units are comically terrible so they gave you crutch after crutch after crutch.

[up] From my knowledge, Sothe in the bigger picture is way better than volke. A unit's worth is more than endgame potential and Sothe is your strongest character at a point in RD where you are swarmed by garbage.

It is like the Marcus vs Miledy FE 6 debate (though Volke is no Milady). Milady is your undisputed best unit for 60 percent of the game but Marcus is your best unit at the hardest part of the game. Which one you value more is subjective, really.

Edited by mrsunshinesprinkles on Feb 25th 2020 at 11:52:15 PM

"Curry killed the pussy hoping that I could kill the hate in you" - Curry, D. "TABOO | TA13OO." TA13OO, PH, 2018
KuroiTsubasaTenshi Streamer from Twitch Since: May, 2011
Streamer
#85442: Feb 25th 2020 at 7:57:55 PM

Volke shows up way too late to be relevant. He's not really any better than a Trueblade (whose Str cap makes things a little iffy against the super bosses' huge Def stats), anyway.

Yeah, it is kind of funny how many crutches the Dawn Brigade gets. Not that they're the only ones. The Crimean Knights have Haar and sort of Geoffrey. Elincia certainly isn't a slouch—once she ditches the useless Slim Sword. Haar then transfers over to the GMs (who also have Ike, Titania and Shinon). Ranulf comes in pretty overpowered for the point in the game he joins. Tibarn also decides to hang out as a green unit on a map where only a single enemy remotely threatens him. Then Skrimir and the royals are there for every team (and the endgame team).

FE:3H Maddening Banes Only 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Valkyria Chronicles 4 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi
mrsunshinesprinkles Forever Gorgeous from Somewhere, crying Since: Jan, 2012
Forever Gorgeous
#85443: Feb 25th 2020 at 8:12:21 PM

No doubt it was to ensure that you couldn't softlock yourself at any particular point in the game. With the way RD did its rotating roster, typical "growth" units have a hard time keeping up the pace. Pretty much every "long term" unit in the game has a great start (maybe with the exception of a Jill that wasn't pumped with favoritism).

"Curry killed the pussy hoping that I could kill the hate in you" - Curry, D. "TABOO | TA13OO." TA13OO, PH, 2018
KuroiTsubasaTenshi Streamer from Twitch Since: May, 2011
Streamer
#85444: Feb 25th 2020 at 9:44:39 PM

Quite possibly. I think it would be pretty hard for the Greil Mercenaries to softlock, simply due to the sheer volume of maps they get, with a fairly gradual enemy curve, to boot. I'd actually be most worried about Crimea, since they get next to no maps and enemies don't give a ton of CEXP in a lot of cases. The Dawn Brigade falls into the trap of having a lot of bad units that might end up raised by players and useless, but there's at least enough EXP there that smart usage and allocation could let a couple growth units comfortably flourish. Still, I'm dead serious when I say that Sothe is almost enough by himself, if only the player actually uses him.

FE:3H Maddening Banes Only 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Valkyria Chronicles 4 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi
VampireBuddha Calendar enthusiast from Ireland (Wise, aged troper) Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
Calendar enthusiast
#85445: Feb 25th 2020 at 10:57:53 PM

mrsunshinesprinkles: For someone who hasn't played Radiant Dawn, you talk with considerable familiarity.

I haven't played The Binding Blade, but my understanding is that Marcus is calibrated to injure the enemies just enough so that everyone else can kill them. Sothe is not - for the bulk of the Dawn Brigade arc, he is going to kill any enemy he fights, and he'll only get 1 EXP for it; plus, if that enemy has a stealable item, you're missing out on equipment (and EXP for Sothe, becaue using Thieves as thieves in the Tellius games grants EXP). So sure, you can certainly have him solo to maps. Or you can use him as a meat shield, in which case he will get more EXP due to being in repeated battles, and your other units will also get a nonzero amount of EXP by actually fighting and killing enemies.

Speaking of Jagens in general, using the original Jagen as you suggest really is shooting yourself in the foot. His growths are worse than those of my first-run Lysithea or Kuroi's Raphael, and Cain and Abel will surpass him even before promotion. Using Jeigan really does shoot yourself in the foot unless you're willing to risk an arena; his best use is to hand his silver lance to Shiida so she can do some damage, use him as an item mule for the first few maps, and then bench him as soon as you can.

Ukrainian Red Cross
KuroiTsubasaTenshi Streamer from Twitch Since: May, 2011
Streamer
#85446: Feb 25th 2020 at 11:15:50 PM

Sothe really is best off just getting through the Dawn Brigade maps quickly. A few lost EXP from not farming out meat shielding isn't really going to make a difference for him. And at least half of the Dawn Brigade growth units aren't really worth using due to IS making extremely poor growth allocation decisions. For anyone dead set on raising more than one, though (I typically do it if I want the run to be harder), Sothe can easily fulfill the softening Jagen role by swapping over to a Bronze Knife (not Dagger). It drops his Atk just enough that enemies are left with 4-6 HP (on Hard, anyway), making it so that someone else can easily take the kill.

The original Jagen can be used to soften. It's like using Fred on Lunatic(+). Yeah, you don't want to be using him forever (Fred stops being useful around mid-Valm if he has a Falcon Knight wife), but he's good for spoon feeding his allies kills (or offing dangerous enemies on whiffs or where the sheer enemy quantity risks in threat range someone dying).

FE:3H Maddening Banes Only 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Valkyria Chronicles 4 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi
RAlexa21th Brenner's Wolves Fight Again from California Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: I <3 love!
Brenner's Wolves Fight Again
#85447: Feb 25th 2020 at 11:19:11 PM

[up][up]I can't speak for NES Jagen, but that is not true for DS Jagen. In Shadow Dragon the most relevant stats are weapon rank and movement which Jagen has in spade. He is easily the second best combat unit after Caeda. By the time Jagen loses his effectiveness, it's because the map is crawling with dragons, which even Caeda isn't keen on fighting.

In all games I've played Jagens are at least high-tier (Arran) to top tier (Seth).

Edited by RAlexa21th on Feb 25th 2020 at 11:24:01 AM

Where there's life, there's hope.
mrsunshinesprinkles Forever Gorgeous from Somewhere, crying Since: Jan, 2012
Forever Gorgeous
#85448: Feb 25th 2020 at 11:40:25 PM

@vampirebuddha: tis because I don't have the means. I've watched a lot of Radiant Dawn on the absolute highest difficulty though and Sothe murdering shit is usually the way to go.

Marcus in Binding Blade is good at softening, not killing enemies, but a kill or two won't hurt. Also in specific chapters like 4 on HM, not letting Marcus kill things is a fool's errand. Those cavaliers are disgustingly strong and he is the only one who can 2hko them with the silver lance.

Funnily enough Jagen is fantastic in every game he is in, barring heroes (lol). [up] is super right: Pure stats in Shadow Dragon matter less than in other games. Weapon ranks are life or death because of effective forges. As a result, Jagen usually more than carries his weight for the bulk of that game, because the Ridersbane is disgustingly broken and there are a shit ton of horses.

Meanwhile in the NES, stat boosters are hilariously broken so Jagen can hypothetically scale really easily if you want him to.

Edited by mrsunshinesprinkles on Feb 26th 2020 at 3:43:06 AM

"Curry killed the pussy hoping that I could kill the hate in you" - Curry, D. "TABOO | TA13OO." TA13OO, PH, 2018
KuroiTsubasaTenshi Streamer from Twitch Since: May, 2011
Streamer
#85449: Feb 25th 2020 at 11:55:18 PM

You know, that's funny, because in Heroes, the one thing that Jagen can possibly be good at (without going into whale-ish builds) is killing dragons, thanks to his absurdly high Res, and Glacies giving him a way to deal high damage based off of it.

FE:3H Maddening Banes Only 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Valkyria Chronicles 4 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi
asterism from the place I'm at Since: Apr, 2011 Relationship Status: Hoping Senpai notices me
#85450: Feb 26th 2020 at 4:42:34 AM

If you really desperately have a need to use Sothe in the endgame, give him Adept.

Weight of the World (GBVS)

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