Fire Emblem

Bows are rarely placed in a good way to threaten fliers, unless IS goes the brute-force way and just goes, "Okay, 50% of the map is bow users." The AI just tends to not move in ways that properly cover their allies—especially when the Tellius/3H version of Canto is involved (and especially especially when 3H players can simply outrange 95% of enemies).

Picking up the Triple Cat-astrophe again. Working toward that first Lethe appearance. Meanwhile, Muarim helps give at least some feline presence.

The only time I remember bows being a big issue is in Radiant Dawn where one map is just filled with as many archers as possible simply to stop Elincia winning in, like, two turns

Of course, because of the way Radiant Dawn's AI works, clever positioning lets the boss ram into Elincia early in the EP, and she can still win the map in two turns before any of the Crossbows can target her. I used to do it all the time in draft competitions.

Three Hopes demo listing on Nintendo's website.

Speaking of Radiant Dawn and Elincia, remember how the game gives her a skill that makes her unable to kill people and doesn't tell you about it? Whose bright idea was that?!

Wasn’t there another random boss with a really good crossbow on a level where you have to keep Tibarn alive? IIRC he’s literally the only enemy in the game apart from the last three bosses with any reasonable chance of defeating a Royal Laguz.

Mystery of the Emblem is actually the game that introduced dismounting. It also hits dismounted units with penalties across all stats and forces them to use swords instead of lances. And dismounting is mandatory on some indoor tiles.

x3 Yeah, that's a little weird. It's pretty good if you want to feed some of the weaker units, but it's definitely a nasty surprise if she's supposed to actually kill stuff.

x2 That'd be the bridge chapter. And yep, because of how crossbows interact with effectiveness, that guy can one-shot Tibarn at the end of an hour-plus chapter. It's somewhat low chance (especially factoring in Tibarn's Pavise), but it's kind of a dirty, "Haha, you left the Ally faction on Roam." surprise. On the other hand, the player has an entire chapter to do the math and realize that the boss is pretty deadly to Tibarn.

EDIT: The 3H version has only extremely token drawbacks to dismounting, though. I've seen some people refer to 3H Canto as Super Canto. Comparatively, 3H also has Super Dismounting.

Edited by KuroiTsubasaTenshi on Jun 2nd 2022 at 11:47:02 AM

Triple Cat-astrophe in Part 2. I only have Lethe so far, and her grass habit is already almost too much.

Doesn't Elinicia get that skill after her interaction with Zelguis and his army?

Edited by Deathcon on Jun 5th 2022 at 5:30:30 AM

Yes, which basically means Part 4 because she's not playable again until then. And enemies there are really strong, so someone might really want her to delete something, only to fight out she won't.

Triple Cat-astrophe in Part 3. Waiting to get Lethe back. There might not be any grass left for Lyre and Ranulf by the time we get to them, though.

Some ways into Book 2 of Mystery of the Emblem, and the story is a lot more interesting than Book 1.

• The Grust Expedition: I get a whole bunch of new characters plus Gordin, Draug, and Arran, yet the map is structured to that only Marth actually gets to fight the bulk of the Akaneian army. I understand why, but 'tis a little irksome. Still, the rest of my guys at least get to deal with a cave the vomits forth a bunch of Thieves.
• Rebellion of Medon: I get off to quite a number of false starts due to the sheer number of enemy wyverns and hunters, Warren requires Catria to recruit, and Ryuke isn't a Stationary Boss. Eventually I manage to pull through by very careful positioning (and abuse of save states), and regain Linde.
• Abducted Princess: Whoo boy. Michalis is alive and apparently a good guy now? A lass in a village mentions that a sorrowful man recently passed through, and she could tell he was handsome even though he wore a mask. The structure is interesting; there's a drawbridge that leads straight to the enemy, but if you want to recruit Matthis, you need to go the long way round. I leave the bulk of my army to guard the drawbridge while Marth, Catria, Mallesia, and my archers go around the mountain, and for some reason aren't attacked by the enemy wyverns. Palla joins the battle and single-handedly holds the north, climbing from level 10 to 18; I'm going to bench her when I get a chance so that other characters can gain some EXP. A bloke in a village gives Marth a silver axe, saying it will fetch a good price in the shops. Team Marth joins up with Palla and recruit Julian, then they slowly advance to the south to draw out the enemy cavalry. Matthis attacks Marth, but Julian objects that was uncalled for and the two reconcile when Julian claims he isn't actually Lena's boyfriend. This gives my cavalry, Draug, and Linde the room to cross the drawbridge and take out the enemy artillery, then Marth and Linde team up to take down the boss, granting me a Taurus. Also, I love Jeigan and Lang's interaction here, and we're really getting to see Marth's strong sense of justice.
• Joy and Sorrow: Yay, Ogma's back, and he brought the children with him! This map mandates the use of Yumina's rescue staff, so I teleport over Marth and Luke. Marth visits the village and recruits Castor, who at this point it's unclear if he's pulling some sort of scam, or if his mother really is sick and he's just overly dramatic. Ogma holds the bridge, Luke assisting him with his javelin and sharing vulneraries. Eventually, Sirius crosses the bridge and talks to Ogma, joining my side when he sees that Ogma means to protect the children. Meanwhile, the bulk of my army takes out the eastern forces, then gathers around the forts to grind on the reinforcements. Ryan proves to be the MVP here due to the enemy preferentially attacking him, and he climbs up to level 8. Rody, Matthis, Cecil, and Catria also manage to gain some decent EXP, though by this point my weapons are starting to wear out. Team Ogma grinds on the reinforcements at the eastern fort, then take out the last few vikings with the help of Catria and Palla. Yay, Shiida's here!... Oh boy.
• Liberation of Grust: The Altean army comes to save Grust from Akaneia. What a world we live in. This one has so far kicked my ass because Julian starts off just one space short of being able to recruit Rickard, who runs away to destroy the village. Also, Sirius isn't in quite the right position to be able to prevent him from getting to the bridge. Serenes Forest indicates I need Julian to be the 14th character I select in order for him to start in the right position, which makes Rickard's recruitment one of the biggest Guide Dang It! moments in the entire series. Jeorge is also here and an enemy, but apparently he's not yet recruitable, so I need to stick close to the mountain to avoid his snipers. Oh, and Doras goes all Michalis and actively pursues me from the south. This is definitely an interesting map.

Honestly, I always feel kind of bad for not using Catria and Palla more in New Mystery - they’re really strong, but I always kind of default to Caeda once I get her, and you need Minerva for the endgame too, which is kind of the number of flyers I like to stick with, at least with the units I like to use.

Maybe I’d use them more if I played Old Mystery.

Tibarn and Elincia in the same army is basically "this is why flying units are OP"; they can end Izuka's map in a single turn

Flying units are something you want as many as possible in New Mystery if you are fighting outdoors.

It's funny how Princess "Noodle Arms" Elincia got so buff between the two games.

This is Fire Emblem, we all know that royalty have superpowers. Elincia just got more superpowers in Radiant Dawn because she became queen.

And Radiant Dawn Amiti is probably one of the best unique weapons outside of Genealogy, since it's basically an unbreakable brave sword with extra power.

Hey, I never claimed to optimize my playthroughs!

And I did use them for, like, the desert maps. I'm just...like, I'm the kind of guy who enjoys that little "tink" from when a Knight gets hit for no damage, you know?

Rare sighting of Tellius Counter actually being useful. My only regret is that there was no crit.

After finagling the assignment order, I was able to grab Rickard on my first turn. After that, the rest was relatively easy. Sirius ran north to take out the other Thieves while Rody, Catria, and Marth guarded the southern bridge against the castle defenders and the rest of my army intercepted the northern forces. Jeorge lived.

Marth, Rickard, and my archers went north to join up with Sirius and lure out the wyverns on top of the mountain, while Luke and Rody took out the enemy artillery surrounding the castle and picked up a Gemini for their trouble. The next part was frustrating. I s l o w l y moved Sirius across the far north of the map to lure out the enemy wyverns, but as I was doing so, some Thieves appeared in the south, and it was really hard to take care of them without drawing the wyverns south to where my troops are not equipped to deal with them. Eventually I came up with a way to position my cavalry just beyond where the Thieves appear without luring the enemy wyverns south, but for some reason this cause the Thieves to not appear at all until after Team Sirius had dealt with the wyverns.

Ah well. I picked up a Hammerne in the village and sent Marth south. I also spent a couple of hours grinding up my cavalry and air force in the arena. Luke's total stats are not looking good; he's quite a ways behind Cecil and Rody at the same level, but at least he has noticeably better Def. I use my winnings to pick up a bunch of new weapons, a whole lot of Heal staves, and some vulneraries and Fire tomes, and also have Rickard pick up a Skydrake Whip from the secret shop so that Palla can promote later. Malliesia reaches level 12 by doing, like, all the healing, so next map I'll likely bench her and bring along Yumina for healing duties.

Next up, into the nest of vice.

I find it kind of darkly hilarious that the entire second war in the Archanaea games is caused by Bishop Boah being kind of a sexist ass. He was convinced that the people wouldn't accept a woman as ruler - even if that woman was in fact the rightful heir - without ever really explaining why he believes this, and so he hitches up Nyna and Hardin in a loveless political marriage, and cue the Disaster Dominoes...

If not for that, the cause would have been something else. Also, it’s more like the people being sexist since Minerva faced a massive rebellion that still saw Michalis as the second coming of Iote.

Hey guys, considering how expansive supplementary information for Genealogy of the Holy War that doesn't exist in the game, we should catalogue them to be added to the page. In fact, I was watching Mage Knight 404's Awakening stream and I learned from a comment showing a tweet of a high god named Yudu/Gran, who was never mentioned once in the game.