Romance! Intrigue! Honor! And WAR!! Let's Max Rank Fire Emblem 4!!

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Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

In an age beyond living memory

A devil's shade cast upon our world

Plunging it into the deepest darkness

And condemning us to endless grief.

In vain we prayed to the bleak heavens.

Twelve gods descended from above

To lead the charge against the great evil.

Invoking holy light, the gods smote the devil,

And granted us our lost hope once more.

We and our world were thus reborn.

And so,

As time flows endlessly on,

The nightmare has faded into legend...

And title drop! Yes, like I was saying, the Fire Emblem series is not JUST about the gameplay. Each one also puts a heavy emphasis on having an extensive plotline, on having lots of dialogue, on having many unique and colorful characters, on having an interesting backstory...basically, on having an actual plot.

Unfortunately, this particular game in the series was never released in America. In fact, NONE of them were until the 7th game, shortly after a certain character called Roy appeared in Super Smash Bros. Unfortunately, Roy was the main character of the 6th game, so we never actually got his game. But oh well...

Anyways, I AM using an English patch for this game. But, while it is actually pretty well done (as far as translation patches go), it did not translate ALL of the dialogue, only most of it. There is someone named "BookofHolsety" doing another translation patch, but for now, I'll have to settle for using his script for whatever parts weren't translated.

Now then, let's start our game!

Oh, wait, nvm, another opening crawl. Gotta have that backstory

Boy...wonder why this never made it into America...

Yeah, some of the middle part of that timeline was alluded to in the opening we watched. You don't really need to know it, but it's a neat little thing to keep in mind, just because it adds some flavor to the story

Now then, after that, we get a nice isometric map of the world of Fire Emblem 4. Every time you complete a map, you're going to be treated to one of these segments, accompanied with text to inform you of the current situation, being faced by both the world, and by your main character (who is always some sort of military commander in these games).

Unfortunately, the text itself consists of a long string of sentences scrawled across many, many text boxes. And considering each of them can only contain two short lines of text...I'm not going to try to catch all the text in screenshots. Instead, we're just going to transcribe it, and include the occasional screenshot so that you don't get lost. Now then...

Grandbell rests in the centre of the Jugdral continent and was founded by Saint Heim, one of the 12 Crusaders.

Heim�s descendants, the Royal Family, were joined by six additional duchies, each with their own Crusader lineage. Each duchy possessed large territory and military holdings, and exercised partial autonomy while serving under the Royal Family.

Assisting the prince was his confidant Lord Bryon of Chalphy, and Lord Ring of Jungby.

Prime Minister Reptor of Freege felt his position was being undermined. Calling on the avaricious Lord Langbart of Dozel, the two formed a coalition opposing the prince�s authority.

Actually, this screenshot contains a small error in the English patch script. See, Reptor's loathing wasn't something that just started recently. According to BookofHolsety's shiny new script, Reptor had been hating Kurth for a good while before finally starting stuff with Langbart at his side. Anyways, mugshots.

And now for the next person on our list...Alvis!

The young Lord Alvis of Velthomer, commander of the Royal Guard, had little involvement in governmental affairs.

"So all those other important guys? He's not one of them, he just some guy. Some guy who does...stuff, I guess....Yeah. Don't know why we even mentioned him really."

:keke:

Okay but seriously, what the game is SUPPOSED to tell you is that Alvis is extremely busy with his duties as Commander of the Royal Guard, and THAT'S why he isn't involving himself in the current situation with Kurth vs. Reptor & Langbart. The original translation patch just missed that tidbit.

And unfortunately for us, HE'S not going to be in the plot for another 10 hours, so that...doesn't really help us much :geno:

. So that's it for all the Dukes and Duchies. But wait, there's more!

Just as this drama was beginning to unfold, news of calamity arrived from the east.

We then scroll northeast.

The peaceful town of Darna, located in the Yied Desert, came under siege by Isaacian barbarians. Reports told of a massive slaughter taking place.

We then we scroll back to Grandbell.

Back in Grandbell, public outcry began to grow, and before long the decision was made to subdue Isaac. Acting on his father�s behalf, Prince Kurth departed for the front commanding the lords from each duchy. There at his side, a warrior in his own right revered for his heroism and bravery, was none other than Lord Bryon. Only a handful of soldiers remained in Grandbell. Owing to a diplomatic alliance with Agustria to the west...

...and the Verdane Kingdom to the southwest...

...fear of any kind of aggression was virtually non-existent. However, that trust was betrayed all too soon. Verdane Kingdom�s massive army, spearheaded by Prince Gandolf...

...crossed into Grandbell territory unnoticed and laid siege to Jungby Castle.

Entrusted with the protection of the kingdom by his father, Lord Bryon, Sigurd...

...stayed behind at Chalphy Castle. With only a few soldiers at his disposal, he was rightfully terrified when news of the invasion reached Chalphy. Sigurd cried, �Those barbarians aren�t laying a hand on Aideen!�

Creative Liberty #1: The original text just has the narrator speaking the entire time, while this one quotes something Sigurd said.

So yeah, unlike most other fan translations, this one actually has had some creative liberties taken with it! And a lot of them actually work out pretty well! This one, for example, brings some much needed spice into what is otherwise a long info-dump about Grandbell and it's politics. Pretty neat eh?

Having known Aideen since childhood, he was left with no other alternative. Sigurd promptly made the decision to take up arms.

Gran calender � 757. It was this very turn of events that cracked open the door of fate. No one at the time could have recognised this forewarning to the disastrous events to follow.

Oooh, that sounds ominous.

Birth of a Crusader

Here's the Chapter title screen, written in lots of complicated looking Kanji! I've taken beginning Japanese, but I can't even HOPE to translate that myself! Not without a dictionary!

So here's that massive army the game was talking about. Man, looks like it's in deep trouble doesn't it?

And here's a look at the conversation going on in Jungby. You're going to be seeing this kind of thing very often in Fire Emblem 4, with every different faction talking about what's going on, and how they feel about the proceedings, and things like that. Quite neat, that.

Aideen: Please save yourself. I want as many of you to get out of this alive as possible!

Midir: None of us are going anywhere, my lady. We�re here for you till the very end. Even if it means our lives.

Aideen: Oh� thank you, Midir. I�m so sorry to put you through all this.

Pretty nice woman, huh? You can really see why everyone's so concerned about her :3:

Meanwhile, at Castle Chalphy...

Here's Sigurd!

Sigurd: Aideen is in trouble. Gandolf�s army has laid siege to Jungby Castle. Noish, I�m going to go and see if I can do something. You�re in charge while I�m gone.

Noish: Sir� You�re not planning on going alone, are you!?

Sigurd: Grandbell�s military is already en route to Isaac. There really is no one left to call on. Verdane�s army may be full of barbarians, but it�s huge. There are bound to be casualties. I can�t get you involved.

...uh, yeah, isn't that EXACTLY WHY THEY SHOULD get involved?! Sentiment is nice and all, but how are you going to save Aideen and everyone else if you're fricken DEAD :stare:

Noish: Excuse me, sir!?

Yeah, excuse me? Noish and Alec may stink at fighting (as we will see soon), but...surely they don't stink THAT badly...right?

Noish: We were born into the knighthood and are prepared to die fighting! We�d be a disgrace to let our master perish out there all alone. We�re going with you. Alec, you�re with me on this, aren�t you?

You tell him Alec!

Alec: But we�d better swing by the villages before going to Jungby Castle. Those barbarians�ll loot the place, kill everybody in sight, then burn it all to the ground. We�ve got to beat them there and get the villages to strengthen their defenses.

Sigurd: Point well taken, Alec. We mustn�t overlook our duty as knights to protect the people.

Alec: Actually, Oifaye takes credit for that one. I tell ya, that kid�s a strategist in the making. Takes right after that famous grandfather of his, Lord Sesar.

In some ways, it does seem a little strange to take such a detour when Jungby, one of the six major duchies of Grandbell, is in danger of being conquered...but actually, this is pretty smart if you think about it. One, you really do need the support of the common people if you want them to fund your war as willingly as you'll want them to, and secondly, Verdane's army is kind of all over the place. So if you just try and charge straight toward Jungby, like Sigurd may have otherwise done, there's a very real risk that he and his men would have just gotten themselves surrounded, flanked, and then killed.

But by doing this first, they're not only eliminating that risk, but they're also taking out a good chunk of Verdane's army while it's still scattered, unorganized, and not as adequately prepared to deal with Sigurd's army. So good on ya Oifaye.

Sigurd: I don�t know, Oifaye�You�re still pretty young. You think you�ll be okay out there?

Oifaye: I�m already 14, sir.

Whoa fourteen! That's like, all the way into your tweens :cheeky:

Oifaye: I know I�m not ready to fight yet, but I can still help out. Please� let me go with you.

Sigurd: Well, it has been a good two years since you began training for your knighthood under me. You�re probably ready for some battlefield action. But no fighting� not just yet anyway. Why don�t you come along as my personal advisor?

Oifaye: You bet! Thanks, sir!

So Fire Emblem 7 had Mark the Tactician, and now we have Oifaye. Quite a bit younger than Mark, but hey, at least he talks :keke:

Noish: Sir, have you considered leaving someone behind to defend the castle? It would be too risky not to. We would be finished if we lost our base here to the enemy.

Alec: Hey Noish� you KNOW who�d be perfect for that job! Isn�t that right, Arden?

Ardan: Why me, Alec?

Ok, so I've given the Translation patch some grief in regards to a few mistranslations and some untranslated dialogue. And trust me, there's going to be more issues as time goes along...

But do not be fooled. In terms of reading well, reading like it was written by an actual human being, this is BY FAR one of the best patches I've ever seen. It's not (usually) overly literal, it's easily to understand what the characters are saying, the names were localized faithfully while still sounding like actual names, the characters personalities are still mostly retained (though the translators DID take liberties with some of them...like Trabant and Ardan, and it's really obvious that whoever the translators were, they had a very good sense of humor.

Seriously, it's very rare that you'll find an English patch like this. Obviously the localization isn't quite as good as the kind you'd find in any of the FE games that actually came out in America...but it's still head and shoulders above almost every other fan translation I've ever seen (exceeded only by the excellent FE12 translation). Heck, it even reminds me of Woosley's FF6 translation in some ways, though BookofHolsety certainly doesn't think it's anywhere near comparable in quality...

But still, it's an extremely nice change of pace after fan translation after fan translation containing dialogue so stiff and natural, it hardly even feels like a human wrote it. So I like it at least. Anyways, let's see some more of that dialogue, shall we?

Sigurd: Ardan, can we count on you? You�re the only who can aptly handle the castle�s defense.

Ardan: Alright, I�ll do it. But you gotta promise to take me to battle with you sometimes.

Sigurd: Will do. Alright, let�s make our way to the villages, and then we�re off to Jungby!

And there we go. All of Sigurd's forces are assembled, and we are ready to kick some butt! But first, let's use the R Button to scan one of the enemies...

Alright, so we're seeing a whole lot of numbers and stuff. But if you're new to the Fire Emblem series, I'm guessing you're not too familiar with any of this stuff, so let's go over it real quickly, alright? Now then...

HP: This here is the most important stat of all. This represents your health, and the number on the right represents the maximum amount of health any unit can have. The number on the left represents how much health you have currently, and this number will start to go down if the unit starts taking hits from an opposing unit. And if it goes all the way to zero...well, I'm...sure you can imagine what happens then :nervous:. So do NOT let that happen to your own units!

Lev: We'll get more into this later...but for now, just realize that this plays a crucial role in how many of the other stats you have.

Atk: This here represents how much "Damage" your unit can do to another unit's HP. See, like Chess, each faction in this game takes turns. But unlike Chess, each and every unit on your side gets to move before the Computer gets a chance to move it's unit. Then you have to wait till IT moves all of it's units before finally getting to take your next turn.

In addition, unlike Chess, you can't just attack a "piece" and expect to just instantly K.O. it no matter what. No, in order to "kill" a unit, you have to take off ALL of it's HP, and the "Atk" rating represents just how much HP you can take off at any one time, assuming that your opponent has 0 Defense/Resistance. If your opponent DOES have Defense and Resistance however, then your Atk will be subtracted by however much Defense or Resistance your opponent has. "But wait', you might ask. 'Why do you keep saying Defense OR Resistance as opposed to both?" Well...you'll see, but for now, let's move on...

Hit and Evd (Evade): Represents how accurate a unit's attack is, and how likely it is to "dodge" an attack. Yes, not only can you NOT kill a unit in one blow, but you're attack may not even do ANY Damage at all! Basically, take the "Hit" of your unit, and subtract it by the "Evade" of whatever enemy unit you want to attack, and you'll have your percentage of how likely you are to hit.

So if one of your units has 80 Hit, and you subtract it by this guy's -20 Evade, that means you have a 100% chance of hitting this guy! But if your unit has only 10 Hit, and you subtract it by this guy's -20 Evade, then that means you only have a 30% chance of hitting this guy. So you're going to want to have REALLY high Hit and Evade ratings in this game if you want to do well!

Str (Strength), Mgt (Might) and Def (Defense): So now we know that "Attack" determines how much damage you can do...but what determines how much Attack your unit has? Well, actually, it's quite easy to find out. Just add this unit's "Strength" rating to the "Might" of it's weapon, and there you go! 5 Str + 14 Mgt = 19 Damage! As for those two stats, a unit has a fixed amount of Strength that it just naturally possesses, but it's Might depends on what exact weapon it's using. Right now, this enemy only has a weak Iron Axe, but later enemies have multiple Weapons that it can use depending on what they feel like doing. So keep that in mind for later...

As for "Defense", this is the stat that protects you against your opponent's attack. So if this guy attacks your unit, and your unit has 14 Defense, then that means this guy will only do 5 HP worth of damage rather than his full 19. So that's pretty simple I think...

Mgc & Res: Now these stats are like Str and Def, except, they only into play if you or your enemy decides to use a book of magic, like a Fire Tome or a Thunder Tome. Yes, in addition to knights and bandits, there are also wizards and sorcerers here too! And if one of those guys decide to attack you with magic rather than a weapon...

Then these stats will determine how much damage you take from their magic spells. So if your opponent has 4 Mgc and their Thunder tome has 14 Mgt, then that means that they have 18 Atk. Then if your unit has 5 Res, then that means your opponent does 13 Damage to you. Because 18 - 5 = 13. So that'll add a bit of a new dimension to things, once we actually get magic using units and stuff.

Skl & Acc: Now then, these two stats are what are used to determine your Hit rating. The formula is Skl x 2 + Weapon Acc = Hit. This guy's Skl is 0, and the Acc of his Iron Axe is 70. So, 0 Skl x 2 + 70 Acc = 70 Hit.

Spd, Wgt and Lck: These three stats are what determine your Evd. The formula for this is (Spd-Wgt) x 2 + Lck = Evd. This guy's Spd is 7, the weight of his weapon is 18, and his Lck is 0. So, (7 Spd - 18 Wgt) x 2 + Lck = -22 Evd.

That said though, Spd actually has an EXTREMELY important second function, which we will get to...now!

See this screen here? This is the second part of each unit's stat screen. So first, let's start with...

Personal Data: "Move" represents how many squares a unit can move per turn, Gold allows you to buy stuff on later maps, and "Lead" is a passive bonus Hit and Evd bonus that some units can give to others if they happen to be within 3 square of them. 2 Star units give 10+ Hit/Evd, 3 star units give 20+ Hit/Evd, 4 star units give 30+ Hit/Evd, and finally, 5 star units give 40+ Hit/Evd. So if you have the opportunity, it can sometimes be REALLY helpful to have your other units fight within three squares of wherever Sigurd is. As for the rest of the Personal data, those are all only situationally relevant, so we'll save those for later. For now, let's move on to...

Weapon Level: Here we have every kind of weapon in the game represented, both regular and magical. And there are 4 Ranks you can get within each category. You can have either a C Rank, a B Rank, an A Rank, or an "*" Rank. Each one is better than the one before it, to the point where having an * in, say, Axes, allows you to wield each and every single Axe in the entire game, including the very best ones to exist. But if you only have a C Rank, then that means you can only use extremely weak, extremely ineffective axes. And obviously THAT'S no good! And finally...

Special Skills: Oh boy. This here is one of the simplest, yet probably THE most important mechanic in the game. Remember what I was saying at the beginning, when I said that each character had their own unique attributes and traits? Well, this here is a large part of that!

See, "Special Skills" represent abilities that only certain characters have. Some, like Sigurd, only have one, but others can have as many as FIVE Special Skills! And there are as many Special Skills in this game as there are Pokemon in the Pokemon series! Some can sometimes allow a unit to hit an enemy up to 10 times in a single fight, some can sometimes allow a unit to have DOUBLE the amount of Atk they would normally have, some allow you to take an enemy unit's Gold from there...you get the point.

Unfortunately, Sigurd here only has one Special Skill. But the one he DOES have is probably the very best one in the game. If you click the R Button in order to check it out...

Whoa! Look at that! This baby allows Sigurd to attack an enemy unit not just once, but TWICE so long as he is faster than them! How can you tell if he's faster? Well, take his Spd...

...subtract it by the Weight of his weapon...

And you'll see that the resulting number (or Attack Speed/"AS", as we Fire Emblem 4 players call it) is 9. On the other hand, the Iron Axe guy has 7 Speed, and wields a weapon that has 18 Wgt, so 7 Spd - 18 Wgt = -11 AS. So yeah, Sigurd is DEFINITELY fast enough to hit the other guy twice when he attacks with his Steel Sword! And since Sigurd has 24 Atk compared to the other guy's 5 Def, he'll not only do 19 Damage per hit, but he'll deal TWO hits instead of just one during a round of combat. And since the Axe guy only has 36 HP...

...

Yeah :cool:

. Clearly you see see just how amazing skills are. And best of all, each and every single unit you have, and will ever get, will ALWAYS have at least one skill, while the enemy units usually have none. Pretty AMAZING eh?

So I know this all sounds pretty tedious, and it sounds like it involves a LOT more number crunching than is actually fun to do...but actually, it's not as bad as it sounds becaaaaaaause...

Because of this. Don't be fooled by the "Acc" rating here. Unlike the "Accuracy" rating we already talked about (the one that belongs to individual weapons), this number is generated AFTER the game subtracts the enemy's Evade from however much Hit you have. So actually, the game already does a lot of the math FOR you. Because if you decide to have your unit attack an enemy, but then decide that you don't like the numbers displayed her, you can actually CANCEL your decision instead of actually going through with it.

As for why the enemy's hit is so much higher when Sigurd uses a lance, even though Sigurd didn't suffer that sharp an Evasion drop...that's because there's a little something called the "Weapon Triangle" mechanic in this game. Basically, if you attack an Axe-Wielder with someone using a sword, you get a 20+ bonus to your Accuracy and Evade. But if you attack said Axe-Wielder with a lance, then you get a 20 point penalty on your Accuracy and Evade. Same bonus applies for if you attack a Lance-Wielder with an axe, and the same penalty applies for if you attack said Lance-Wielder with a sword. And then of course, I think you can guess what happens if you use a lance or an axe against someone using a sword...

But man, that is a HECK of a lot of words I just threw at you, isn't it? This game must sound like some boring board game or something, huh? Well, actually it's not. In fact, before I end this update, let me show you just a little taste of just how exciting it can be...

Yeah, LOOK at those awesome animations! Look at how fast that went! Yeah, that's part of what makes the Fire Emblem series so great. Because of the story, the unique characters, the (usually) well done graphics, and the animations, the series itself is FAR more dynamic than a lot of other Strategy RPG's. Because of this, the games are able to be appealing even if you're not the kind of guy who'd be willing to, say, sit down at a Dungeons and Dragons game for 3 hours. Or something nerdy like that. So once you get the mechanics down, these games are seriously a ton of fun to play, so don't be intimidated by the epic mechanics-dump I just gave, alright?

So, anyways, I think I'll call this a day. We've went over a LOT of ground today, and I've already given the mother of all info-dumps. So then, how will Sigurd save the fair lady of Jungby? What will be done about Gandolf? Will he have to stop the Verdane army all alone? When am I going to start talking about what a "Max Rank Run" looks like? And...just what does the game mean about "cracking open the door of fate"? Find out, on the next EXCITING episode, of Let's Play Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War! Have a nice day...and God bless you

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Sep 1, 2020

# ¿ Jun 17, 2015 05:31

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 03:33

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

vilkacis posted:

Narrator is a bit of an ungrateful prick, isn't he? I mean I don't know what he was expecting, but twelve gods is a pretty good result in my book.

! Vilkacis, you are a funny man! I've gotta show that to BookofHolsety xD!

vilkacis posted:

And you still have that broken smiley and Gandolf:'s army

Heh...well that was careless, wasn't it? Oh well, I fixed it now!

vilkacis posted:

Anyway I'm interested in seeing where this goes, I never managed to play the game myself for long and wasn't around for the previous thread.

Aw, thank you Vilkacis! Next update will be tomorrow, and I'll even be bringing two co-commentators who've already agreed to come on board. See you all then!

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Jun 25, 2015

# ¿ Jun 20, 2015 09:04

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Einander posted:

It's kind of funny that you talked about Sigurd being stupid to go off fighting alone, because Sigurd solo runs are significantly easier than normal gameplay. Some of this game's mechanics are really, really dumb.

Heh heh, yeah. Actually I was going to make a joke about that at some point I think. Maybe I still will :cheeky:

Einander posted:

Looking forward to this either way, though. I know absolutely nothing about the ranking mechanics and requirements in this game!

Wonderful! Speaking of which, the next update is almost ready to go. I already finished saying everything I had to say, but I decided to have two co-commentors join me, and now I'm just waiting for them to finish their commentary! So look forward to it!

# ¿ Jun 22, 2015 03:28

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Hello everyone, and welcome to Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War! Today we have two co-commentators joining us today! We have MartyTheDemonSlayer, who has done numerous AAAA Ranked Runs and other kinds of special runs...

Yeah, mostly what he said. Check out my FE4 0% Growths playthrough if you want to see more efficient Fire Emblem Play.

...And we have Grandmaster Arcturus, who is new to the Fire Emblem series, and will be here to give a fresh perspective on everything that's going on. Marty's text up there will be bolded, and GM's text will be...

Italicized like this.

And in case you're wondering who GMActurus is, he's the one in charge of the ongoing Kingdom Hearts thread. So then, with that all said...

Why the heck am I getting vibes of Final Fantasy Tactics from this song? - GMArcturus

Alright then, let's get started! First, I have to introduce our new units!

Level 2 Social Knight
As opposed to the Unsocial Knight that spends all his time alone playing MMOs when he isn't on the field of battle - GMArcturus
HP: 32 (70%) Spd: 10 (30%)
Str: 9 (30%) Lck: 4 (30%)
Mag: 0 (5%) Def: 7 (30%)
Skl: 9 (40%) Res: 0 (5%)

Move: 8
Weapon Ranks: Sword (B), Lance (C)
Items: Iron Sword, Iron Lance
Skill: Pursuit, Awareness

First of all, those percentages that are listed in parenthesis are what you call a characters "Growth Rates". What are those you ask? Well, remember last update when Sigurd killed that Axe guy, and got 22 "Exp."? Well, that "Exp." ties back into a unit's "Level". Basically, once a character gets 100 Exp. or more, they receive what is called a "Level Up". And during that level up, all of their combat stats have a chance of increasing according to the percentages listed. So Alec here has a 30% chance of getting an extra point in Strength once he gets a level up.

In addition to that, your character's Level also increases by 1. That's good in one way since most characters get something very special when they get to Level 20, but it's also bad because the higher your level is, the less Experience enemies give you. And if you want the exact formulas for how that all works, here they are!

Experience from doing damage = 10 + (enemy�s Level � Level)

Experience from defeating enemy = 30 + [(enemy's Level - Level) x 2]

So basically, you get more Damage from defeating an enemy rather than just damaging one. And the lower the level of your unit, the more Experience you get from enemies. Finally, the enemies themselves also have levels, and the higher THOSE are, the more Exp. they will give your units when they are damaged or defeated. Pretty simple, right?

Now onto Alec. First of all, Awareness is...something I guess. Basically it nullfies �sword skills� (we'll be seeing those), the Critical skill, and even �Effective Weapons� (weapons specifically designed to double your Attack Power against certain enemies). So that's nice, but...we don't really fight a lot of those enemies anyway, so it's one of those skills that just doesn't really do anything for us, for the most part.

So really Alec is just kind of unimpressive. You see, in addition to having a weapon triangle, this game also tends to give different types of attributes to each weapons. So swords are really light and have a lot of Accuracy, but they're also lacking in power. Axes, on the other hand, are exactly the opposite. They pack LOTS of Might, but are also extremely heavy, and don't have much Accuracy. And then lances are like axes, except they trade a little bit of Might in exchange for being much lighter and a bit more accurate.

So since Alec is stuck with only a C Rank in lances, he can't really use any strong weapons until much later. Combine that with his middling Strength growth, and the fact that he already has lower Strength than anyone else in the group, and you've got someone who kind of hits a wall once Chapter 2 starts.

Furthermore, his Defense and HP growths are merely decent, not great. So he also falls behind the others in terms of durability. So the only thing that stands out about him is his Speed. And actually, that will be handy in this run, but it's not going to make him amazing or anything...

But for now, the enemies here have almost no Defense, the ones next Chapter aren't much better, and Alec has the almighty Pursuit. So in spite of his later problems, Alec can still kill most enemies in two rounds, and is still strong enough that he can take 3 hits before dying.

So at the end of the day, the guy's kind of like Yamcha from Dragon Ball Z. He starts off decently...but then starts to taper off, to the point where he's just about worthless by the time all is said and done. That said though, we still have to train him anyway for the sake of max rankings, so he will be getting some use if you're doing such a run. Otherwise though, use the guy a bit for the Prologue and Chapter 1, but DON'T focus too heavily on giving him too much Exp.

For reference, please see any of Yamcha's scenes in Dragonball Z Abridged. For example, see this scene.

Alec is pretty much mediocre. The one thing worth mentioning is that upon promotion he gets a +5 boost to magic, which in conjunction with the magic ring [item that grants 5+ to Magic] and a sword you get later allows him to one round a fair number of enemies at one to two range. Since having a promoted unit soak up a bunch of kills in a ranked run this is useless for the purposes of this playthrough, but Alec can find some niche uses in other types of runs.

Level 3 Social Knight

HP: 33 (80%) Spd: 8 (20%)
Str: 11 (40%) Lck: 4 (20%)
Mag: 0 (5%) Def: 8 (40%)
Skl: 7 (30%) Res: 0 (5%)

Move: 8
Weapon Ranks: Sword (B), Lance (C)
Items: Steel Sword
Skill: Critical (sometimes doubles Attack Power), Charge (Can activate 4-19 extra rounds of combat)

So obviously I didn't give a very flattering review to Alec. So maybe this guy is a little better, right? Well...unfortunately, the answer is no.

First of all, Noish doesn't have Pursuit, which means he doesn't have the ability to double attack like Sigurd and Alec. Oh sure, he has the Critical skill, but that doesn't activate every time like Pursuit does. In fact, the formula for it is (skill + weapons kill bonus)%. And Noish doesn't have a weapons kill bonus yet, and he's not going to get that without a lot of help. So really, Critical only has a 9% chance of activating for him at any one time. So despite starting with more Strength, and having a higher growth in it, he is actually weaker and slower than Alec under most circumstances, which is bad enough already. But compounding that problem even further is Charge.

The reason for this is that, by activating another round of combat, Noish also allows the enemy to attack again. So, say Noish has like, 25 HP left, and he attacks someone who does 13 or more HP of damage back to him, but doesn't have Pursuit (so basically, most boss fights). Normally, he'd be able to safely attack that person, and then maybe face another enemy without fear of death. BUT, because Charge activates another round of combat, his enemy might very easily KILL him anyway, even though he normally wouldn't attack twice!

Now, fortunately, the chance of Charge activating is pretty low because it's activation rate relies partially on your current HP. In fact, it won't even work period if Noish's HP is below 25...But still, the problem itself is still there. I simply cannot use Noish against anyone really strong without risking his demise. So that's a problem!

Even without that issue though, Noish simply isn't that good. He's basically Alec with slightly more Strength and Defense, but no Pursuit. So if Alec is Yamcha, then Noish is Chiatzu, a character who doesn't really have ANY time to shine... [Ha ha ha. this is so perfect here. - GMArcturus[/i]

That said though, there ARE ways to get around Noish's weaknesses. In fact, there's even a way to give him Pursuit. And once you do that, his decent HP and Defense growths will help to make him a far better combat unit. Of course...we have to do quite a bit to make that happen, things that would never be worth it in a regular playthrough. But since this is a Max Ranked run...well, I suppose you'll have to wait and see what I have in mind

!

Yeah... he's pretty bad... He can be very good with certain resources, but those resources are all better used elsewhere.

Level 3 Sword Armour
Does this mean there is a Shield Armour class? - GMArcturus

HP: 36 (90%) Spd: 4 (20%)
Str: 13 (50%) Lck: 3 (10%)
Mag: 0 (5%) Def: 13 (40%)
Skl: 5 (10%) Res: 0 (5%)

Move: 5
Weapon Ranks: Sword (B)
Items: Iron Sword
Skill: Ambush (Attack before enemy even when enemy attacks first, as long as you have less than half HP)

Hoooo boy...you wouldn't think there'd be a character worse than Noish, but...here he is :sigh:

. Or at least, he's useless for most of the game. See, as I said earlier, most characters get something special when they get to Level 20. Once that happens, they get the option to undergo a ceremony called "Promotion" as long as they are inside their home castle. And when they "Promote", they'll gain some stat bonuses when they do. Some units only get those bonuses, but OTHER units also get new Skills, and even receive a significant upgrade to what kinds of weapons they can use...

And Ardan is one of those units. In addition to getting some extra stats, his promotion also DRASTICALLY improves his weapon selection. Instead of only have B Swords, he'll have A Sword, A Lances, B Axes, and B Bows. So yeah, he goes from being stuck with swords, to being able to use like half of the weapons in the game. PLUS, he also gets Big Guard, a skill that has a chance of completely nullifying an attack. And it activates pretty often, since it's activation rate is (User�s Level)%. So that's neat...but, does that actually make him good?

Once again, the answer is a resounding no, because even WITH those bonuses, he still has two major problems. One, no Pursuit, and that's bad enough already. But secondly, he only has 5 Move! 5 Move! And to give you an idea of how much of a hindrance that is...here's the map we're on right now (thank you NomadicGirl for making these maps for Serenes Forest)...

Yeah, good luck getting him across that! Alec wasn't kidding when he was talking about how slow he is! He can't even keep up with you half the time! And even if he could, his combat is still subpar! He's got high defenses, and his Strength is good...but he's locked to swords and he doesn't have Pursuit. As for Ambush, it's neat, but still doesn't do much without good offense to back it up.

So if Alec is Yamcha, and Noish is Chiatzu, this guy here would be Yajirobe. He's literally so weak, that he never even bothers to show up for any of the fights, ever. Hey, at least Yajirobe fought off one of Piccolo's minions in Dragonball. - GMArcturus

Level 5 Lord Knight

HP: 35 (110%) Spd: 12 (30%)
Str: 14 (50%) Lck: 7 (40%)
Mag: 0 (5%) Def: 9 (40%)
Skl: 11 (50%) Res: 3 (5%)

Move: 9
Weapon Ranks: Sword (*), Lance (B)
Items: Steel Sword, Iron Lance
Skill: Pursuit

Alright, so here is our main character, Sigurd himself! How good is he? Is he any better than his men? Well, actually, he is pretty good. No, great actually! Superb even! Wait, even that's not good enough...so how do I put this...? Oh, wait...I know. How about this?

Sigurd is, without a doubt, the absolute best unit in the entire game. I mean, first of all, just look at that Strength! It isso high, that Alec can literally gain 16 Levels, and STILL be one point weaker than Sigurd is...AT LEVEL FIIIVE!! HIS STARTING LEVEL!! And units can only go up to Level 30, so even counting promotion bonuses, there's no way Alec is ever passing him up. In addition, Sigurd has Pursuit as well, so neither of those two even come close to him. Oh, and he's got a B Rank in Lances, and a * Rank in swords. So even if we don't count his 50% Strength growth, he's already way better at hitting things than his three buddies will ever be.

And then finally, we have those growths...those beautiful, beautiful growths. First of all, that 110% growth is amazing. Basically, if you have a growth rate of over 100% in any area, you are not only guaranteed a 1 point boost in that stat every level, but you could even get a 2+ boost there! That's right, Sigurd can actually get 2+ HP per level if he gets lucky!

Furthermore, the rest of his growths are also amazing. They're like if you took all of the best qualities from Alec, Noish, and Ardan, and then put them all on one character, with none of their weaknesses!

Because of that, if Noish, Alec, and Ardan are Chiaotzu, Yamcha, and Yajirobe...this guy would be Goku. So he doesn't care about his kid and dies a lot? - GMArcturus He's always way ahead of everyone else, useful in literally ever possible situation, is always getting stronger and stronger...and he even inspires others! No really, he's got two leadership stars, so he even gives a 10+ Hit and Evade boost to anyone who's within 3 spaces of him! So use him, love him, and never leave the castle without him!

Undoubtedly the second best unit in the series after Robin in FE13. He obviously has great stats, growths, and movement, and with b lances and * swords he can use pretty much any weapon you would ever want him to use (axes are bad.) To give a bit more detail on how amazing his stats, with no growths Sigurd remains a powerful cavalry unit until the end of chapter 3. Yes, his bases only start to fail him two thirds through his part of the game. And he has amazing growths. What a guy.

So all that gushing aside...let's talk about the Rankings for a bit, in a little section that I'm blatantly stealing "homaging" from Melth's LPs of FE6 and 7...

The War Room, Part 1 (What Is Max Ranking About?)

Yeah, about time I talked about this. Can't very well get invested in a "Max Rank" run if you don't even know what that looks like, right? So then, when you play all the way through to the end of the game, there's going to be a scoreboard where the game basically tells you how well it thinks you did based on these four items...

Survival: This one is pretty simple. Get every single playable character (not everyone is gotten automatically like Sigurd and his gang are), and then have every single one of them alive by the end of the game. Do that, and you'll get an A Rank, the highest rank you can get! Otherwise, if 1 dies, it's a B Rank. If 2 die, it's a C Rank, and etc. etc.

Tactics: So remember how I said that you and the A.I. take turns attacking each other? Well this judges you on just how many turns you took to beat the entire game. So if it took you 399 Turns or less to beat it, great! You get an A Rank! But if you took 400-549 turns, then you get a B Rank, and if you took even more than that...well, you get the idea.

Honestly, this is a really easy category to do well in, because even the A Rank requirement is pretty lenient. It's so lenient in fact, that I've even seen people exceed it by more than 120 turns!

I watched a nicovideo playthrough where someone exceeded the requirement by 239 turns (but with A LOT of rng abuse.) Needless to say, this is pretty lenient.

Indeed. The next one however...

Experience: Now here's where it starts to get tricky. This ranking judges you based on how many Level Ups you got by the end of the game for all the different characters. If you got 1000 or more level ups, you get an A Rank.

The problem with that though is that you actually don't really have that many levels available to gain to begin with. In fact, between all of the characters in the game, they only have 1165 total levels. Not unreasonable at all, certainly, but it still doesn't leave that much wiggle room for being lazy, even if it means...*gulp*...training Noish :gonk:

...

That there is one of the biggest challenges in a Maxed Rank run. I don't have to use absolutely everyone...but I do have to use many of the worst characters in the game, so I have to somehow find ways to make them usable despite all their problems.

Eww we have to train Arden?

:shrug:

And then there's a second problem. This is getting into slight spoiler territory, but this game is actually divided into two distinct halves in terms of plot. Right now we're in the first half, with Sigurd and friends, but after Chapter 5, there's going to be a time skip of about 17 years. So at the start of Chapter 6, we're going to have a whole new cast of characters. And the only Generation 1 character who's actually going to join the Generation 2 cast is a guy called Fin. So if you don't get at least 487 non-Fin levels by the end of Chapter 5, you'll have already failed the Exp. rank, even if you get everyone in Generation 2 to Level 30.

And actually, for all intents and purposes, the cut-off point for a good Exp. Rank is Chapter 2, because there's a LOT of important stuff that happens there, like getting a ton of optional items you won't get anywhere else, getting tons of Gold, and even leveling up a character that's only fully usable for that one chapter. So you really CAN'T just take a "learn-as-you-go" approach to Max Ranking this game. No, you have to have things fully figured out by the time you get to Chapter 2, otherwise you're at a real risk of never recovering from a disastrous Chapter 2 run.

That said, there is some good news. If you DO get past Chapter 5 with all the levels you need, and in a decent amount of turns, you're already going to be in a pretty great position to A Rank Exp. Because for reasons I won't get into just yet, the Gen 2 cast are WAY stronger than the Gen 1 cast! Plus, you have a lot of valuable, overpowered items at the start that you don't have right now, and enemies are much more numerous, and much higher leveled! So it's not like the Exp. Rank is that grueling, you just have to be careful, that's all.

Combat: Oh boy...here's the most jerkish rank of them all. So, the Exp. Rank is tough but manageable. But this is just unfair. Basically, you can't have more than three deaths by the end of the playthrough.

At first that sounds redundant since there's already a Survival rank, but there's more to it than that. Suppose you saved your game (you can save at the beginning of every Turn in this game), and one of your units die. "No big deal' you may think. 'I'll just reset the game, and then my character won't be dead! Problem solved!" Except no, that's not the case. Because in this game, each character has their own personal score for how often they've "won" a fight (meaning they killed someone) and how often they've "lost" (how often they've been killed). And even if you reset the game, the game will still remember that your character lost, and will keep penalizing you for that until you restart the Chapter itself.

"Ok, that sounds annoying...' you think in response to this. 'But hey, I have a clever idea! How about, every time I save, I keep using a different file each time! That way, if someone gets killed on Turn 11, on File 3, I'll just switch to File 2, where I saved on Turn 10! That oughtta work, right?" Well, let's see how that works...

...

........

Yes, that's right. The game designers were so cruel, that they actually made the game track deaths that you suffered on other files!! Or at least, other files you saved on within the same Chapter. So the only way you can erase those Losses is by restarting the entire chapter, no getting around it.

At this point, you're probably getting desperate...you're just SO angry at this requirement, that then you have one more hare-brained idea. "Suppose I get into combat with someone who will kill me...but I reset, BEFORE that person actually lands the finishing blow? Like, if I redid that fight between Noish and that flying thing, but then reset the game right at...'

'...this point here. Might that work?" Again, the answer is no. Because apparently, all of the battle calculations and all that are done BEFORE any of the animations ever play, so the only way to avoid a "loss" is to avoid that fight altogether.

Trust me. When the game tells you "do not ever die"...it REALLY means, "do not ever die"! And that's part of why I created this specific route to make getting the maximum ranks as easy and efficient as possible. This route isn't going to involve many of the fancy tricks found in all the other completed AAAA Rank runs, but it WILL be easily replicable AND quick!

So that's our first little "War Room" session over. But of course, there will be more, as these will be the segments where I explain how to more effectively play the game, just like in Melth's Max Rank runs! So back to the game...

Playing Through

If you press the A button on any space with no unit on it, you'll get these menus. Most of these aren't too important, but you'll note the "Save" option. As I alluded to earlier, you can save your game at the beginning of your turn as long as you don't actually move any of your units. Once that happens, you have to wait until your next turn to save again.

Then here's the Configuration menu. Message speed decides how fast text boxes go, Enemy Speed determines how quickly the A.I. moves it's own units when it's turn comes (so don't worry, the enemies themselves don't get any stronger), and then Auto Cursor makes it so that the cursor starts on Sigurd every time your turn begins. Otherwise, it just starts at whatever spot it was at when you ended your previous turn.

As for Auto-Save, this is pretty important. Turning this on means that at the beginning of every turn, you'll get a prompt that asks if you want to save on the specified file (in this case, File 4). As you're going through this game, you're always going to want to be saving every turn, that way if you slip up, or decide you want to redo something, you can just load up your turn, and try it again. But at the same time, you don't want to mess yourself up by not giving yourself a chance to go back to an earlier turn as well. So here's what I do...

Basically, I keep a save at the very beginning of the chapter. Then every time I conquer a castle before the end of the map, I create a save point at that specific spot. And then File 4 is the one I'm saving on every turn. This system here will allow you to reset if you incur a "Loss" while still giving you some flexibility to fix whatever mistakes you made without having to restart the chapter.

As for Normal vs. Hard A.I., Hard A.I. Is a setting that you unlock after beating the game at least once. It's supposed to make the game more challenging...but really, all it does is make the enemy more predictable. To give you an example, suppose you're fighting 8 enemies, and all of your units are at full health, except for Alec. On Normal Mode, the enemies will choose who they attack more or less at random, with some guys attacking Sigurd, some guys attacking Noish, and etc. But on Hard Mode, every one of those guys will immediately dog pile on Alec until he's dead. Sounds bad...

Except, you really shouldn't be risking low health units like that anyway, especially on a Max Ranked playthrough. So because of stuff like that (there are other A.I. changes), all that happens is that the enemies become easier to manipulate, because now you know exactly who they're going to attack, rather than having to guess at it. Because of that, I actually think Normal mode is the harder mode, at least for me. So that's what I'm sticking with.

So let's like, actually play the game, shall we?

Turn 1:

Now then, normally you'd want to put Sigurd on the forest tile (the tree) near him, because those give you a 20+ boost to Avoid. But not me! Every move I make from now until Turn 4 is one specifically designed to take advantage of the Random Number Generator (that's what handles "random" occurences in this game) in order to give Sigurd awesome level ups! So if you want to follow along with me, follow the pics to the letter. Otherwise, just head to Jungby with Sigurd, save the villages with Alec and Noish, and remember that Forests are awesome!

FionordeQuester doesn't like to manipulate the random number generator so it won't be too important for this play through, but I'll explain a little bit more about how it's "random." The RNG is deterministic, meaning that if you play the game the exact same way multiple times the same random numbers will be generated and the output will be identical. The AI uses random numbers sometimes to decide who to attack, seeing whether attacks hit or not uses random numbers, as does checking if skills activate, and level ups use RN's to see which stats are gained. In every chapter with an arena (ie any chapter other than the prologue and 6) you can abuse the arena to rig whatever outcomes you want, but you won't see any of that here.

Well, you might see teensy, tinsy fragments of it, since winning Arena fights is so important to A Ranking experience. But yeah, if it is there at all, it's going to be EXTREMELY minimal, to the point where half of the Gen 1 route is me going out of my way to make it unnecessary. Now then...

There we go. Remember, the colored arrows are color coded to each character. Since Alec is the green knight, he gets a green arrow, and since Noish is the red knight, he gets a red arrow!

So now it's the enemy's turn.

And hey, more story!

Gandolf: Never mind, I�ll do it meself!

Gandolf: But I've gotcha now. Die!

Yeah, dude never really had a chance, did he? I mean yeesh, did you see the Defense Gandolf had? I mean, yikes! Sigurd is literally the only guy on our time who actually has a fair chance against Gandolf right now! Craziness I tell you!

Uh oh.

Gandolf: Hell, we may even press on to Barhara. There�d be no one to stop us if we did! Make yourselves at home here, boys. Anything goes!

DiMaggio: Heh� you can count on us for that.

You know, I always have to question Gandolf's intelligence here. The whole reason he's attacking Grandbell in the first place is because most of it's military is currently stationed in Isaac. And that's fine for right now...but, just WHAT does he plan on doing when said military gets back? The game hasn't really made this clear yet, but Grandbell is basically the local super power on the continent. It is to the world of Jugdral what the United States is to the rest of our world. It is so strong in fact, that Sigurd and his men, alone though they are, are still going to be strong enough to drive them back. And the game literally just got through saying that they're only a tiny fragment of Grandbell's army...

So who cares how far Gandolf and his men go right now? Yeah, they're doing good NOW, but they're doomed the moment Lord Bryon and the rest of the military gets back! These guys are going to get slaughtered so hard, they're practically going to be scraping blood n' guts off the walls by the time Grandbell is done with them! And once that's done, WHOOP, there goes Verdane! Because if the people were SO upset at Isaac just for attacking an Isaacian town they felt some kinship with, there's NO WAY they're going to let THIS incident go!

Methinks these guys didn't think very far ahead -_- ...

Yes there's a point to the above image.

Well, that's a very Gandolf thing to do isn't it? Dude's living up to his name :cheeky:

Gandolf: She�s my booty! I�m takin� her back to be my wife. She�s a keeper, wouldn�t ya say?

Gerrard: Yeah, she�s makin� my mouth water.

Gandolf: You wipe that grin off your face! You�ll get your needs met once Grandbell is ours. Show a little self-control till then.

Not technically a mis-translation, but this patch actually downplays the horrors of what Gandolf and Co. plan on doing. BookofHolsety's script? That one has Gandolf saying that Gerrard would "get his pick of all Grannvale" once they're done conquering it...

:gonk:

Aideen: You�re all animals� Dear Lord, please instill these people with a little decency.

Gandolf: What�re you mumblin� about!? We�re goin�! No fallin� behind this time!

Yeah, the game doesn't flat out tell you this right now, but Genoa is where Kinbois and his men are, and...it looks like it should be pretty far away, right? Yet Gandolf's just casually strolling there in just a few seconds?

Really, that's one of the most hilarious things about this game. Just about EVERYONE in it has this inexplicable ability to just haul rear from one end of a kingdom, all the way to the other, and then to another corner of it, and then RIGHT back to where they started, all in less than a minute. Heck, that's what Gandolf and Aideen just did, going from Jungby all the way to Evans in like what, 10 seconds?

I can only imagine that if Gandolf were ever to wake up one day, and decide "you know what? I feel like jogging to the opposite fricken end of the continent, where Ganeshire is. Because that sounds like fun"...it might take him like, 5 minutes, tops. And if he were to then decide to run a lap around Jugdral? 25 minutes, maybe 30 if he decided to take Aideen along, and she felt like taking a water break at some point. Funny stuff man.

So time to deal with these lovely human beings...

There's one now!

Dang, 10 Damage? At 25% hit rate? That's too bad! Except not really, because that's actually exactly what's supposed to happen if I want those three awesome levels for Sigurd :cheeky:

.

The RNG is configured at the beginning so that someone is almost guaranteed to get hit despite the barbarians' low hit rates. This can be seriously annoying in drafts.

Now if ALEC had been hit, well, THEN that would've been bad. But he wasn't, so that's good. It's just too bad he can't do more damage to that Axefighter. Yeah, he two-rounds him, but these are literally the weakest enemies in the game right here :P ...

Now in addition to regular Axefighters, there are also enemies called "MBandits", whose sprites look a bit different than the other Axe dudes. THESE guys won't ever actually attack your units. No, instead, they go to Villages, and then start torching them the way this guy is doing.

As for what Villages do, each one you visit can give you a Maximum of 5,000 Gold if you visit them. But unfortunately, you lose 500 Gold off of that amount for every time a village gets attacked by an MBandit. So we'd best kill that MBandit quick!

So it is now the start of our second turn and...

Ah, look who's here! More blue guys!

Lex: He�ll sure be happy to see us. You just can�t stay out of these things, can you, Azel�

Azel: Yeah, but with the military on engagement to Isaac, Grandbell�s completely strapped! Sigurd and the few soldiers left in Chalphy are out here fighting for their lives! I can�t just leave them hanging�

Lex: Oh really� I�m not quite buying your story, Azel. What aren�t you telling me?

Azel: Wh�what�re you talking about!?

Lex: I�d surmise that you�re all worked up about Lady Adean of Jungby. I know you like her.

Azel: Y�you�re nuts!

Lex: A-ha! Face is getting red there, buddy! You little player you.

Creative Liberty #2: Original script is more like "Ha! You're so cute" on that second sentence :3:

Azel: Lex, knock it off! Now come on, let�s get going.

Lex: Hahahaa� Alright, let�s do this. Finally, a chance to kick some rear end.

And kick butt we shall :black101:

! But first, let's cover our new characters!

Level 1 Mage

HP: 30 (70%) Spd: 9 (50%)
Str: 0 (10%) Lck: 2 (20%)
Mag: 10 (40%) Def: 2 (20%)
Skl: 7 (20%) Res: 6 (10%)

Move: 5
Weapon Ranks: Fire (B), Thunder (C), Wind (C)
Items: Fire Tome
Skill: Pursuit

Well, he's certainly...specialized, isn't he? Gets a ton of Magic and Speed but not a whole lot of anything else. Combine that with his low HP and Defense, and you've got yourself what we RPG gamers like to call a "glass cannon". Someone who can dish out a lot of punishment, but can't take much back...

Or at least, that's what Azel would be if Fire Magic didn't STINK! Yeah, just like the Weapon Triangle I mentioned last update, there's also a Magic Triangle. Thunder beat Fire, Wind beats Thunder, and Fire beats Wind. But the problem is, unlike the Weapon triangle, where each type of weapon had it's own pros and cons, Fire magic has NO advantages over Thunder or Wind. Each kind of magic has the EXACT same Might, and the EXACT same Accuracy. The only difference between the types is that Wind Tomes have a weight of 2, Thunder Tomes have a weight of 7, and Fire Tomes have a weight of 12.

That is literally the ONLY difference between them. So basically, despite having high starting Speed and a nice Speed growth, Azel actually ends up being even slower than Ardan because of how heavy Fire Magic is! So while he can still double a lot of these beginning enemies (they're pretty slow after all), he can't Dodge very well at all. So in addition to having the Ardan problem of having only 5 Move, you can't really even use him without constantly having to protect him! So I guess that would make him like Tien. He'll slam you with one or two really, REALLY good attacks...but then drop like a fly the moment his foe actually gets to attack. Because he's so fragile, he may as well be made of styrofoam...

Things do eventually get better for him though. As you can see, he's got some mastery in Thunder and Wind magic as well, AND his offense is actually really good, so he DOES actually have a niche. Plus, he even gets a horse upon promotion! So eventually he'll get better...at like, Chapter 4. Till then, he's...not gonna get a lot of use :sigh:

...

Yeah. If he started mounted he'd be great but... yeah... Azel is actually good when promoted because not many physical units have strong 1-2 range in this game, but getting him there is an ordeal. And fire magic is just bad.

Level 4 Axe Knight

HP: 33 (90%) Spd: 11 (20%)
Str: 10 (40%) Lck: 8 (20%)
Mag: 0 (5%) Def: 9 (50%)
Skl: 10 (20%) Res: 0 (5%)

Move: 5
Weapon Ranks: Axe (A)
Items: Iron Axe
Skill: Ambush (Always attack before enemy when less than half HP), Elite (Doubles Exp. Gained)

This guy right here is the exact opposite of Azel in terms of growths, and he's got Ambush. In fact, he's basically Ardan, but on a horse, and with powerful axes rather than weak swords. And that's not a bad way to be actually. Already that makes him at least kind of decent, since it solves one of Ardan's main problems, and makes the other one a little more bearable.

What REALLY makes him though is Elite. Yes, when I say it doubles Exp. gained, I mean ALL Exp. gained! This guy actually grows TWICE as fast as everyone else on your team, which is exactly as amazing as it sounds. So if he gets lucky on his Defense growth, you're going to have someone who's as durable as Sigurd, if not more so!

Only thing is though, he doesn't have Pursuit. He's one of the few units in the game who still manages to be useful despite that weakness, but that still cuts into his offense a lot. But that's ok. He's going to be getting a very special weapon very soon, one that allows him to execute TWO attacks! And unlike Pursuit, this weapon allows him to attack consecutively, so if he's strong enough to kill someone in two hits, they won't even get a chance to attack! And once he combines that weapon with his high Strength and Durability...dude's gonna rock your socks off! At least until Chapter 5, where his offense starts tapering off slightly, but Gen 1 is basically over at that point.

So I guess I'd compare the guy to Piccolo. He starts off just good, but then becomes AMAZING the instant he gets the power up that he needs. And then after that, he pretty much always remains strong. Definitely use him, immediately!

Very good, and Elite means you essentially don't have to worry about his experience. Essentially a mounted and spiked brick wall.

Oh, and save first of course

So if you did exactly what I did on Turn 1, you'll want to have Noish attack this MBandit from this spot here before you do ANYTHING else, because...

He'll activate Charge and kill him outright! Seems a bit contradictory considering I dissed it so badly, but trust me, there ARE quite a few ways to make it useful on units who don't have Noish's weaknesses.

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Jun 24, 2015

# ¿ Jun 24, 2015 02:00

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Now then, one amazing thing about Social Knights and other mounted units is that in addition to their high Move, they can also move AGAIN after attacking an enemy! But they can only move by the amount of unused movement squares they have. So if Noish here had traveled just one square to attack the MBandit, he'd be able to move 7 more squares after attacking. But if he has to use 7 squares just to reach the MBandit in the first place, he'd only be able to move 1 more square after attacking.

Even still though, it is perhaps one of the most useful abilities in the game. In fact, it may even be TOO good. Because combine this with the giant maps, and the high Movement that mounted units have, and you're creating a situation where foot units like Ardan and Azel pretty much HAVE to have awesome stats and skills just to justify their usage. Rather unfortunate, that...

Fortunately though, Azel already starts really close to the action, so let's use him a bit, shall we? One neat thing about Magic is that it's a 1-2 Range weapon, meaning that it can attack from either 1 square away, or 2 squares away. And if you attack an enemy from 2 squares away, and that enemy only has a 1 Range weapon...

You can pretty much kill them without risk of harm! Of course, that only works out if he's not in range of a ton of other enemies as well. If he is, he'll probably die due to everyone doing like, 20+ Damage per hit to him. Still, he IS relatively useful for this small part of the Prologue.

Still setting up for those awesome level ups, hence this seemingly nonsense move.

Alright, now it's time to defeat the archer! Speaking of archers, they are another physical class, except they use bows and arrows rather than the other three weapons. These weapons can shoot from 2 squares away, but unfortunately, they CANNOT shoot from 1 square away. So if someone like Sigurd attacks them from 1 square away like so...

They have the exact same problem as the MBandit did against Azel. They can't counter-attack at all!

Also, another benefit to being a mounted unit. You can also do THIS!

Yeah, you can actually change weapons on the fly! Technically, foot units can do this as well, but they can't do it immediately after attacking someone like mounted units can. The minute they attack someone, they're stuck with whatever they attacked with until your next turn. But if you're, say, Sigurd, you can use the Iron Lance on archers to conserve Steel Sword uses...

And then switch right back to swords, making it so that the Axefighters still can't easily hit him! Pretty neat, and part of what makes Sigurd so insane actually. Dude is just so useful :allears:

So that's the turn. I didn't do anything with Alec or Ardan because they would mess up the awesome level ups.

Fortunately, the Axefighter is dumb, so he all but throws himself upon Alec's blade. In fact, almost ALL enemies will fight to the death, no matter HOW hopelessly outmatched they are, which is...kind of odd, to say the least. Speaking of suicidal enemies...

Two more enemies get themselves killed trying to take on Sigurd, and gives him just enough Exp. to finally reach Level 6! So here's the first of three awesome level ups I've been hyping so much. What will it look like?

It looks awesome of course! Would've been nice to get Defense of course, but Speed and Strength (especially Strength!) are especially great things to get this early in the game. In fact, part of the reason I'm manipulating the game like this is because I want Sigurd to get at least 2 points of Strength before he takes on DiMaggio and his gang. And of course, since we don't have very many units right now, and since this is right in the beginning of the game (the Random Number Generator will ALWAYS generate the same string of random numbers every time you start a new game), manipulating level ups like this is much simply than it would otherwise be later on.

That said though, if I really wanted to, I could have just literally made a turn-by-turn guide for literally the ENTIRE game. After all, why not? Like I said, the string of random numbers generated by the game when you start a new file is exactly the same every time, so I could theoretically do that. But obviously that wouldn't be a lot of fun, so we're going to stop doing this once Sigurd gets to Level 8. But for now, this will help to make the Prologue go a little more smoothly, for reasons you will see later on.

If you don't get two points of strength on Sigurd you can work around it by having him use the iron lance instead at one point. It has two higher might than the steel sword which makes strength procs unnecessary, but then it's a bit of headache to manage Sigurd's health, so doing it this way is better.

Back to the game, one thing you will find here is that Magic Tomes and Bows aren't the ONLY way to attack from range. No, there are actually weapons called Hand Axes and Javelins that can attack from 1 square away AND from 2 squares away, which also means that when you equip them, NO one will be able to attack them without getting hit themselves. There is one weakness to them however...

For however useful they can be at times, they have TERRIBLE stats! For reference, the Iron Axe, the second weakest axein the game, has 70 Hit, 14 Might, and 18 Weight. Even with just those stats, it is fairly inaccurate and very heavy compared to other weapons. But the Hand Axe? That has 50 Hit, 10 Might, and 20 Weight! And the Javelin is even worse compared to the regular Iron Lance. That doesn't suffer a Might drop, but it makes up for that by having 18 Weight as opposed to the regular 12 Weight.

So if it weren't for their 1-2 Range capabilities, they would be the worst weapons in the game, by far.

Now then, Azel dispatches an Axe Fighter that tries to attack him.

And then the Sigurd pain train continues as two more Axefighters pointlessly kill themselves! Then at the end of the enemy phase...

Three more new playable characters show up! Awesome!

Ooooh, we're getting more magic are we :allears:

Ethlin: I�m sure I can put my Live Staff to some use around here. I�m sorry to pull you into this, Cuan. I know I�m no longer a Chalphy, but I can�t just sit back and do nothing. On my brother�s behalf, thank you so much for coming.

I'm bolding this particular point because this part expresses an...interesting thing about Japanese culture that kind of gets lost in translation when translated literally. You see, Japan is definitely a wonderful culture in many ways. I love the messages that are always being touted by their anime, I love their culture, I was inspired to become a martial artist because of them...heck, I'm even planning on learning their language, and have already taken Japanese 1!

But, every culture has their warts, and in Japan's case, it is...more than...a little sexist. Or at least, sexism has been a problem in the past for them, don't know if that's already gotten better for them or not. But the way it relates to this is that, when you're a woman, and you marry into your husband's family...you're apparently supposed to kind of cut ties with your original family. It's like you get assimilated into your husband's family, to the point where they're supposed to be a bigger priority than the family you came from. As expressed by an anecdote that I once read from one of BookofHolsety's proofreaders...

Amellion posted:

The literal meaning behind Ethlyn's words is a pretty big deal if you're familiar with Asian sexism. When my aunt (dad's brother's wife) brought back treats from America for her siblings' children, her husband said, "Why are you still thinking of them? You're not a Zhou anymore, you're part of the [my last name] family now."

So yeah, I'm pretty sure Ethlyn's line is ... that thing.

So that's pretty messed up I think. Count that in with Gandolf's plans for the Grandbellian women, all the stuff that happens with a very important, plot critical female later on, and some other stuff we'll see in the future, and the story makes it pretty clear that Jugdral is not a safe place for the women who live on it. I mean, nothing really bad happens on screen (nothing M-rated anyway), but there's plenty that happens off-screen.

Which is actually the case for MOST of the world even today...but I digress. Don't worry, the game doesn't dwell on it too much, and in fact, most Fire Emblem games are a little more child friendly as far as that goes. This one just happens to be a little more mature than most of them. So anyways, back to our plot.

Cuan: You don�t need to thank me, Ethlin. You know Sigurd and I go way back. Not to mention that he�s my brother-in-law now. Besides, I can�t have you fighting alone.

Ethlin: I sure appreciate it, dear.

Fortunately, Cuan is a total bro about the whole thing, so none of the stuff I mentioned ends up being a problem

???: Forgive me for interrupting, but we should hurry. The battle is just up ahead.

Yes it is, blue-haired guy. Yes it is. Actually, what's your name again?

Level 1 Lance Knight

HP: 32 (70%) Spd: 10 (30%)
Str: 9 (30%) Lck: 8 (50%)
Mag: 0 (5%) Def: 7 (30%)
Skl: 8 (40%) Res: 0 (5%)

Move: 8
Weapon Ranks: Lance (B)
Items: Iron Lance
Skill: Pursuit, Prayer (When under 11 HP, Evade rises by [(11 - HP) x 10] for one turn)

Oh yeah, that's right! Fin! Anyways, Fin is basically Alec, but with Prayer instead of Nihil, and access to stronger weapons. No, seriously, look at his growths! They are literally the exact same, aside from Fin having 20% higher Luck!

In spite of that though, Fin actually is a lot more helpful than Alec is, partially due to having access to stronger weapons earlier on (before the really powerful swords start showing up), partially due to getting free gifts that Alec doesn't get (you'll see later), but mainly due to the fact that Prayer is absolutely AMAZING if you know how to use it right.

You see, since Lances have a lot more oomph to them than Swords (at least for now), Fin actually does pretty good damage to people in spite of his weaknesses. And if you can get him in a situation where he's dropped to say, 1 HP, while he's surrounded by enemies, he will literally gain a 100 point boost in Evade, dodge every single attack, and then kill every single enemy. And this is something that is EXTREMELY useful to have as you go through the game, especially in Chapter 2. And what's more, this guy actually WILL show up for Generation 2, which means you're going to get more use out of him than most of the other characters.

So, I guess the guy's kind of like Gohan. Pretty young, but also pretty good at fighting. Not AS good at it as some of the other hitters...but still better than a lot of the others. Plus, he's got one HECK of a second wind, one that he WILL unleash on you if you push him into a corner (though it only lasts for a short time).

Absolutely amazing. Prayer is ridiculous if you plan things right. Seriously. Even DEIDRE [a later playable unit] can be made useful with prayer.

Level 5 Duke Knight

HP: 32 (110%) Spd: 10 (40%)
Str: 16 (50%) Lck: 5 (10%)
Mag: 0 (5%) Def: 10 (50%)
Skl: 10 (30%) Res: 0 (5%)

Move: 9
Weapon Ranks: Lance (*)
Items: Steel Lance, Javelin
Skill: Continue (Sometimes allows a consecutive attack. Activation Rate = (Attack Speed +20)%

So, you may have thought that Sigurd was the best character in the game. You may have thought that nobody was as broken as him. You may have thought that no one as strong as him...And you'd be right, but this guy definitely takes second place (yeah, I know there's Holsety!Levin, but he really only gets to flex his muscles in Chapter 5 if you're moving at a decent clip).

I mean look at that Strength! Even Sigurd doesn't start with as much! Plus, he has access to almost every single lance in the game. What this means is that his attack is so absurdly high, that he's one of the few units in this game who can not only survive, but thrive, even WITHOUT Pursuit. But if he DOES get it...oh baby!

Plus, the guy's Defensive growth is also through the roof. So essentially, this guy actually manages to be an even stronger version of Lex, the same guy who is already one of the strongest Generation 1 units you will get. Oh, and Continue is awesome of course. I mean, check it out.

BAM! Instant death upon activation! Basically, Continue is like Pursuit, except, it actually allows you to attack twice BEFORE the enemy ever gets a chance to hit you. Of course, as you can see, it doesn't activate nearly as often as Pursuit (which is 100%), so of course you can't build strategies that rely upon it. But when it DOES activate for Cuan, you can pretty much say goodbye to whoever he's fighting.

So really, Cuan's only issue is that he's exclusively a lance user, when almost every enemy here and in Chapter 1 use axes. But he's tough enough to take the hits, he has enough Move to get out of danger, and he's already got a Javelin to snipe with, so it's all good. All in all, this guy is Vegeta, except without the attitude. He's not quite as good as Sigurd, he' never that far behind him, and he is the ONLY guy in all Gen 1 that can actually say that.

Beast.

Level 1 Troubador

HP: 28 (60%) Spd: 12 (30%)
Str: 5 (30%) Lck: 8 (20%)
Mag: 8 (5%) Def: 4 (20%)
Skl: 11 (30%) Res: 6 (10%)

Move: 8
Weapon Ranks: Sword (A), Staves (C)
Items: Slim Sword, Live Staff
Skill: Critical (sometimes doubles Attack Power)

So Ethlin...yeah, she has swords, but she's definitely not made to be a front-line unit :sweatdrop:

. But that's ok though, because she can do this!

"Whoa! You can actually heal people in this game?" Why yes you can! You see, staves are magic items that can actually heal people by varying amounts depending on what kind you use. For example, the basic Live staff heals units by Restores ally�s HP by [10 + caster's Mag], but later healing staves will be even better than that. And then OTHER staves will have some offensive purposes, like nullifying enemy magic, or putting enemies to sleep, or even reviving dead units (without removing their recorded "Losses" of course)!

There are other ways to heal people, but staves are far and away the most convenient and effective way of doing so, ESPECIALLY when the one using them is on a horse, like Ethlin! And really, that's all she needs to make her one of the most useful Generation 1 units you can have. So basically, she's Bulma. She can't scrap the way Sigurd and Cuan can, but she is SO insanely useful as a support unit, that she's still one of the best people you have anyways, so you will ALWAYS want to be using her...

No but seriously, Bulma probably contributed way more to saving the world than most of the Z fighters ever have. Seriously, she invented the Dragon Radar to help get the Dragon Balls, she made the ship that allowed everyone to go to Namek and revive their friends, she found Dr. Gero's lab, she and Trunks were one of the main reasons why Vegeta eventually became a good guy, she invented the remote that would've instantly shut down #17 and #18, and INVENTED A FRICKEN TIME MACHINE (the ONLY reason why the Cell Saga had a happy ending)!! When you really stop and think about it, Earth probably would've been destroyed like 17 times over if it weren't for her.

Another perk of Ethlin is that she gives Sigurd and Cuan +10% to evade and hit rates due to sibling/lover supports. Essentially, if you are within three squares of a sibling/lover you gain a +10% bonus to evade/hit, and this stacks with leadership/other bonuses. A unit also temporarily gains the critical skill if they attack while adjacent to their lover/sibling. Anyways, if Ethlin, Sigurd, and Cuan are all within 3 squares of each other Sigurd and Cuan get a +20% boost to hit/evade and Ethlin gets a +30% boost, which is ridiculous. Furthermore, the AI likes to attack Ethlin way too much, which can be incredibly helpful to sheild more vulnerable units. She is weak defensively, but with weapon triangle advantage, high evade to begin with, and a +30% boost Ethlin is extremely dodgy. Definitely one of the best units in the game, she has so many uses.

So back to the game. First, let's put Noish back here so he doesn't get in the way of Sigurd's level ups. Like so. And then we come to yet another mechanic in Fire Emblem 4 (don't worry, I promise this will be short).

WHOOA!! LOOK AT THAT MOVEMENT RANGE!! But, isn't Cuan only supposed to have 9 Move? So what in the world is this :stare:

?

Well, in addition to Forest terrain, which I covered earlier, there are also Road terrain, Village Terrain, Mountain Terrain, and other kinds. And Road Terrain is peculiar in that it can actually BOOST your movement depending on how many Road squares you can step across with your natural movement. Basically, if you can manage to step across 3-4 Road tiles total, you'll get a 1-Square boost to your movement. If you step across 5-6 Road tiles, that will give you a 2-Square boost instead of just 1. If you step across 7-9 Road tiles, that gives you a 3-Square boost. And then finally, if you step across 10+ Road tiles, that will give you a 4-Square boost. After that, no more movement boosts are available, no matter how high you pump your Move.

Note when I say "step across the tiles", I'm not counting any Road tiles your unit is already standing on. Those won't do anything for you. But fortunately, you don't have to go through the tiles in order. If you have a 6 Move unit who steps across a Plains tile, then a Road tile, then a Plains tile, then another Road tile, and etc., they'll still the 1-square boost to their movement...

At least, I firmly believe that this is how it works. I know it's not a purely linear formula due to the fact that the boost caps off at 4 squares, but I don't have the official (Japan only) strategy guide or anything like that. I worked this out purely based on trial-and-error. So then...

I put Cuan right here, and then equip him with a Javelin so he can fight a nearby Hand Axe guy. And then...

I move the rest of my units like so! I'm not having Lex or Azel pick up any of the villages, partially because they don't need it, and partially because they've still got more villages to save. Now as for Sigurd...

He moves right here and equips the Steel Sword immediately after bumping off the archer in his way. Now let's see how the next enemy phase goes!

Well, seems everyone has things well in hand. Let's see what level up we get this time!

2+ HP! 1+ Skl! 1+ Str! 1+ Spd! 1+ Lck! 1+ Def!

Ha! Now THAT'S a level up! And that Strength boost right there is the last one we really need in order to make the rest of the Prologue a joke for Sigurd, because now, this guy literally kills EVERYONE! Well, except the Hand Axe guys. Technically DiMaggio as well, but, now we can kill him in just 3 hits instead of 4. So as long as Sigurd dodges just one of his attacks, he'll be essentially in the clear!

In other news, these three MBandits have reached the villages, and are now putting them to the torch! I sure hope we can make it there in time :ohdear:

. Maybe if we got some more allies next turn?

Nope! Looks like the game's finally done giving us new units for now. Looks like we'll just have to push on through!

Now then, as I said earlier, the last Sigurd level up we got was the last perfect one we really needed. In fact, it's the last one you're going to be able to get if you're playing on Hard A.I., since the A.I. moves it's units a little differently in that mode.

That said though...we're going to go ahead and get one last perfect level up, just because it's easy, so why not? To that end, we'll want Azel to go where he is now, and then NOT ATTACK. Repeat, move him 2 squares west of this guy, and DO NOT ATTACK!

And then move Lex exactly one square west. I repeat, move him exactly. One. Square. West :cheeky:

Then move Fin here after he kills the Axefighter...

Then Alec and Ethlin move like this, with Ethlin healing Fin...

Sigurd kills one of the three guys guarding DiMaggio (they don't ever move just so you know), then parks himself right in front of him...

And then Noish heads on over to the nearest village. Because you know, we're KIND OF supposed to have started visiting them a while ago? Guess we kind of forgot about that :shrug:

Now then...here we go...

Azel dodges...

Gets a one point level up to exactly the stat he needs most...

And finally, he narrowly avoids death as he turns the Axefighter into a crusty cinder.

Cuan shows another Axefighter how long ranged combat is done...

And then two more Axefighters are kill by Sigurd. And that's all the small fry out of the way.

Yeah, Sigurd can also use an iron lance here to kill this barbarian at base strength, but unless you plan very carefully he will probably get hit, and there are so many enemies near Dimmagio that as good as Sigurd is things can get dicey.

AND NOW! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WELCOME TO THE FIRST, ANNUAL FIRE EMBLEM DEATH MATCH!! IN THE BLUE CORNER, WE HAVE SIGURD, COMING IN WITH 13 WINS AND 0 LOSSES! AND IN THE RED CORNER, WE HAVE...DiiiMAAAAAGIO!!

Oooh, and the trash talk has started ALREEEADY! Sigurd doesn't say a word, but you can practically feel the tension in the air! He looks like he could pounce at any minute!

Who will win this fight? Does Sigurd have a chance? He's made an explosive entry into the Jungby scene, but can he procure his first win here in the Holy War division? Let's find out in 3...2....1...

GOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Oh, Lord DiMaggio is starting off with his patented crab-walking technique!

And he follows that up with a VICIOUS barrage of haymakers! If Sigurd doesn't start hitting back, it looks like he could start getting into a LOT of trouble here!

Oh, wait, looks like DiMaggio's stopping to catch his breath, and it looks like Sigurd is going for a feint. He's going to have to be VERY careful here, because if he miss-steps...

WHOA!! Look at that transition! Sigurd has rushed in on the back swing, right as the axe was at it's lowest point! That's the problem with axes! They've got a lot of power behind em', but once you choose a direction, it's hard to have to redirect yourself, and...

OOOH! THERE HE GOES, SIGURD, SWINGING FOR THE FENCES, AND WOW! He keeps going, just TEARING into DiMaggio with every shot he makes! Looks like going on the offense was a bad move for DiMaggio, Sigurd, using his speed and form to dominate this match! It looks like we may have a winner here!

2+ HP! 1+ Skl! 1+ Str! 1+ Lck! 1+ Def!

Ha ha, and another awesome level up! So back to being serious for a moment, this here's the end of my RNG shenanigans, as I think this is about as far as I think I can actually remember. Like I said, I want the route to be easily replicable, that way you don't need a spreadsheet or a word document just to figure out what you're supposed to do. Plus, we're about to get yet another companion, there's going to be a ton of new enemies after facing DiMaggio, and things are just generally going to be getting a bit messier.

Sigurd is love, Sigurd is life.

So now, as of this turn, we're doing things fair and square.

First order of business, kill DiMaggio here. I made him look like a chump, but this guy is actually pretty scary if you're doing things "legitimately", and are trying to kill him by Turn 5 or so. I mean he hits like a truck AND you're getting bombarded by his minions while trying to stand up to him. So if you decide not to follow the RNG manipulation route I took for the first 4 turns, then be careful not to wait too long before pressing Reset, alright :ohdear:

Alright then, DiMaggio is killed, and the castle is ours!

Sigurd: Hey, isn�t that Midir!? Come on, Midir� pull it together!

Midir: Uahhh� Sir Sigurd??

Sigurd: Midir, are you okay!? Where�s Aideen?

Midir: I don�t know. Gandolf was here though�

Sigurd: Is that right� Well, don�t worry. I�ll get her back. Give yourself some time to heal up.

Midir: No, Sigurd. I must join you. I can�t begin to tell you how worried I am about her!

And for good reason!

So there's that...rather abrupt end to the conversation. And Jungby is captured! But what about Aideen? Has she managed to keep herself out of harm? Can she find a way to hold out until Sigurd gets there? And what of Gerrard and his men? Can Sigurd and Co. find a way to ford the river without a working bridge? And even if they do, CAN THEY DEFEAT Gerrard? Or will he prove to be too powerful? And when is the rest of Grandbell going to get back? FIND OUT, on the next explosive episode, of Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War! Have a nice day, and God bless you all!

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Jun 27, 2015

# ¿ Jun 24, 2015 02:01

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Alright, SO, it turns out the title of Alvis's theme is kind of a spoiler...any way of changing the Tindeck title without manually downloading it, and then re-uploading it? I'm getting all the Tindecks from WindGodSety's old LP. And while I'd usually just go and download it manually, my Anti-Virus software is telling me that the link I get when I try to do that isn't safe.

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Jun 27, 2015

# ¿ Jun 27, 2015 07:20

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Indeed. Although some of the decisions they made are just bad balance in general, like Fire vs. everything else, and having ALL of the Holy Weapons be the exact same Might. That's just absurd right there, and actually kind of contradicts what they usually go for with the weapons. Also mounts vs. foot soldiers and etc...

Anyways though, looking through BookofHolsety's script, there are actually two more creative liberties the patch writers took that I forgot. As follows...

Creative Liberty #2: Instead of saying "you know that Sigurd and I go way back", Cuan actually says "Sigurd is every bit as important to me as he is you, remember?" instead. Pretty interesting change, since the new line kind of goes for the same thing, but is less exaggerated. Plus, it also kind of demonstrates a difference in BookofHolsety's writing style and the path writers in that, BookofHolsety tends to be a bit more emotional, and the patch writers tend to be a bit more Hemmingway-esque (shorter and simpler sentences, not quite as expressive, a little cruder, a bit better about using active rather than passive voice, etc.). As for this particular line, I kind of it better, considering Cuan's personality in general...but there are places where I prefer BookofHolsety's take on things as well. Both of them have pros and cons is what I'm saying.

Creative Liberty #3: Ethlin's line, "I'm sure I can put my Live Staff to some use around here" is much more natural than it is in the original script. In there, she literally just flat out says, "I want to do all I can as a healer to help and save lives...". So, the patch script isn't quite as clear about what Ethlin's role in combat is...but on the other hand, it's much less expository, and therefore, I like it better. Besides, it's not like I couldn't have figured that out on my own :P .

That said, would you guys prefer I point these out in the updates themselves, or just put these in their own separate posts (as to not break the flow)?

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Jun 27, 2015

# ¿ Jun 27, 2015 21:27

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Hello everyone, and welcome to Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War! Last time, we won our first boss fight, got a ton of extra allies, and even managed to recruit Midir, whom we thought had died against Gandolf! So, let's start off by talking about the guy, shall we?

Level 2 Archer Knight

HP: 32 (60%) Spd: 9 (40%)
Str: 9 (30%) Lck: 3 (10%)
Mag: 0 (5%) Def: 7 (30%)
Skl: 7 (30%) Res: 0 (5%)

Move: 8
Weapon Ranks: Bows (B)
Items: Iron Bow
Skill: Pursuit, Charge

So, remember when I was talking about Alec? How his middling Strength and Defense growths and weak weapons severely limit him? Well, this guy has that exact same problem. In fact, he IS basically Alec, except he uses bows rather than swords and lances...

And yet...he's still a teensy bit more usable. In fact, Midir is actually kind of interesting character. See, I dissed Charge last update for the fact that it was a double-edged sword, but for guys like Midir...that's actually not necessarily a problem. After all, activating more rounds of combat is not a bad thing when you're attacking in a way that the enemy CAN'T counter-attack you, like Midir can to anyone who doesn't have 2 Range. So Charge actually works to his advantage in a way that it doesn't for Noish.

Plus, there's a weapon called a Killer Bow that weighs only 3 Weight (compared to 8 Weight for most other bows), automatically gives the Critical skill (yes, items can actually grant you skills when you have them equipped), and has a pretty good amount of Might! Granted, it's something that technically belongs to a future ally, but said ally is only a 6 Move foot unit. So in a normal playthrough, the Killer Bow is better used for Midir...

In a ranked playthrough however, that 6 move foot unit is good enough to greatly contribute to the Exp. Score, so he actually wants that Killer Bow until Chapter 4. And unfortunately, the Killer Bow is EXTREMELY expensive, so I can't just have the two toss it back and forth between each other. So until then, Midir is kind of in the same boat as Azel, but for opposite reasons. Whereas Azel is strong but slow, Midir is speedy but weak, to the point where feeding him kills is pretty tough. Still, just like Azel, there's also a great opportunity to train him later on, so he'll still be gaining levels. Just not right now.

So...I guess this guy is basically Krillin! He can occasionally do some neat stuff, and catch you by surprise by pulling out a cool trick or two out of his hat...but he's still too weak and fragile to actually DO much of anything to his opponents. And as a result, his crush gets taken away by some ugly monster, and there's nothing he can do about it. Quite sad, that.

With the killer bow and his high movement he has some nice contributions to a low turn count playthrough, but in a ranked run he's just another middling unit who requires a bit of investment to get levels. He also sometimes has accuracy problems later on (made worse by the one RN system), which can be annnoying. However, he's still a solid unit. One of his more surprising uses is for AI manipulation, as the enemy has an unhealthy obsession with attacking him, sometimes over better targets. Also, for some reason the hand axe enemies in the prologue and chapter one often attack him at two range even though they can attack him at one and avoid a counter attack, so sometimes Midir can help with AI manipulation.

...Wow, really? I...actually didn't know that! Thanks Marty!

Alright, let's start Turn 6! Now seeing as how Midir is so fragile, we'll want to position him so that he won't get killed. So to check where enemies can and can't attack, you'll want to press the A button on them. The green squares are how far they can move, and the orange squares represent the edge of their attack range.

Also, remember what I said about roads last update? Well, it does seem to apply for if you make your full movement on roads, but, according to my calculations, this guy SHOULD be able to go 3 east and 5 north (8 spaces) since 5 Road tiles should give him a flat 2+ movement rate, and he's got 6 Move to start with. And yet, he's only able to go 3 east and 4 north instead (7 spaces). So perhaps the moment you step off the road, the movement bonus kicks in, and does NOT stack linearly with whatever available movement you already had? Hence why this archer can only wander 2 spaces away from road rather than 3?

In addition, it turns out that moving across 3 Road tiles is not enough to gain ANY boost to your movement. No, you have to walk across 4 tiles for 1 space, and then 5-6 tiles for 2 spaces...so, there you go. I guess the take away is that even I don't fully understand the mystery of Road terrain...but oh well. What I said earlier should still be enough to keep yourself out of dangerous situations

. Anyway...

This is about as far away from the action as I can get Midir. If I'm unlucky, he'll still be reduced to 10 HP, but, at least he'll be safe till Ethlin can get in there and heal him. As for Cuan's group...

Alec helps to damage the Hand Axe fighter near Cuan himself...

And then Cuan kills him before going west, along with everyone else.

And then Azel and Lex go west to liberate the next village...

And finally, Noish visits one of the villages, at long last! What happens when you do that? Well, let's check it out!

Here�s a small sum of money we all pooled together. Use it how you see fit. Please help out the other villages if you can. They�re sure to appreciate it.

Whooo! Not only do we get some neat flavor text, but we even get some Gold as well :whoop: ! Actually, you know, what, I DO believe that this calls for another Waaaaar Roooooom!!

The War Room, Part 2 (The Elite Ring, the Arena, and Why We've GOT to Have, Moneyyy...)

So let's talk about money, shall we? In all Fire Emblem games except the 2nd one, you always had Gold that you would get more and more of as you went throughout the game, whether it was given to you in a story event, whether you got it from a chest, or just got it through some other way. And in most games, all the Gold was stored in one place, meaning that you could visit a shop with ANY character, and still have the same amount of Gold to throw around.

THIS game however (and maybe FE5) is different. Instead of the money all being pooled in one place, each character has their own stash of cash. For example, Cuan, Lex, Azel and Sigurd start with 5000G, Ethlin starts with 4000G, and all of Cuan and Sigurd's cronies start with 2000G...

So here's where things get tricky. In fact, we're going to be jumping ahead a bit in order to talk about a lot of nuanced things that aren't going to become relevant until Chapter 2. So if you're new to this LP, and you don't fully understand everything I am about to say, that's ok for right now. In fact, you can skip all of this until Chapter 2 if you want. As long as you follow the LP until then, you won't miss anything at all! But, if you HAVE played this game before, but have not done an AAAA Ranked Log, then this War Room here will be perhaps the most important one you can possibly read before trying to do one on your own.

Now then, for the purposes of this playthrough, we need to make sure that almost all of our guys can raise up to 40,000G or more in order to level them up effectively. Why 40,000G exactly? Well, it's because there's one specific item, the Elite Ring, that happens to cost that much. And this item is SO critically important, that your Exp. Rank will be all but determined by how well you use it, and how often you are able to pass it around for everyone to use. Why is that?

Well, whoever has this in their inventory will gain the Elite Skill for as long as they have it, doubling their experience gain. However, the Elite Ring is also VERY expensive, costing 40,000G in a game where the Gold cap for each unit is 50,000G. So passing it around isn't something you can do just like that. No, you have to plan things EXTREMELY carefully, so that everyone can have a turn with it while still making sure that they have enough money for it in the next chapter. And considering that most characters will start with just 5000G (at best)...well, getting everyone that kind of money will be very tricky.

So let's go over all of our options, shall we?

1) Every chapter besides the Prologue and Chapter 6 has something called the Arena, a fighting pit with 7 opponents in it. Each time you beat an opponent, you get a progressively larger sum of money, getting 1000G from the 1st opponent, 1500G from the 2nd opponent, 2000G from the 3rd opponent, 2500G from the 4th opponent, and so on and so forth. But you can only beat these guys up once for each character you have. So what this means is that each character can win up to 17500G from each Arena they fight in...

Not only is this by far the most lucrative way of gaining money, but Arena enemies also tend to be extremely high leveled. In fact, they are SO high leveled, that most units can literally gain five whole levels just by beating every enemy with the Elite Ring on! So THAT'S pretty cool...

Except, clearing the Arena is much easier said than done. Because the thing with higher level opponents, is that they ALSO tend to have much higher stats, especially once you start getting to the later opponents. And while units like Sigurd will still be beating them with ease, units like Noish and Alec will spend pretty much the entire game struggling just getting past the 4th opponent if we try to make them fight as they are!

So due to their limitations, we also need to make sure they're properly geared up with awesome weapons and everything. But that in itself costs even MORE money! So if our weaker units are ever going to have any hope of consistently clearing Arena's, they will have to resort to alternative means of raising money, like...

2) Visiting villages the way Noish just did. Villages give a maximum of 5000G to whoever saves it, but will give 500 less for each and every turn that it's attacked by an MBandit. For example, that village Noish could only give 4500G since we couldn't stop the MBandit from attacking it at least once. What this also means is that a village can be attacked 10 times before it's finally just reduced to rubble, so you don't actually HAVE to rescue them immediately. It'd just be preferably to rescue them sooner, that's all.

Anyways, I'd consider this one of the easiest and most profitable ways of gaining cash...but Villages don't exactly grow on trees. In fact, Noish here will literally visit almost every single one of them this Chapter, and STILL only get 15,000G! So villages alone will not be enough for us.

3) Our characters can sell their weapons and items for half of their buying price. Not very lucrative, and the penalties are obvious. BUT, it also means that each character will get back 20,000G for every time they have to sell the ring to someone else, so that's pretty nice!

4) Each and every character will get 1000G for every castle we're able to protect from the enemies. For example, we liberated Jungby by "Conquering" it with Sigurd (which only he can do). Therefore, if we end the Prologue with it intact, each character will get an extra 1000G at the start of the next map. However, if an enemy manages to get to Jungby's entrance, they will level it to the ground just like this...

And, one thing I forgot to mention, your Tactics rank will automatically drop for each and every castle that's destroyed. Plus, if they do this to your starting castle (Chalphy in this case), then that's an automatic game over. So that's bad :ohdear:

!

Fortunately, as Ardan and DiMaggio have already demonstrated, you can choose to have someone Guard the castle, meaning that no one can capture or destroy anything until said unit is defeated. What's more, whosoever guards the castle will get a 30+ boost to their Evade, and will ALSO get to gain back 20% of their maximum HP per turn.

So this here is the easiest way of gaining Gold. But the downside is that the Gold it does give is minimal at best, and therefore, nowhere near enough to solve all of our money problems. Still helps though

!

5) Later in the game, your male units can become married to one of your female units in a purely monogamous relationship. THAT is something we will get into later, but for now, just know that when they tie the knot, they gain the ability to use the "Give" command on each other, which allows one of them to give the other all of their Gold. However, even if you manage to pair the right units with each other (which is in itself an exercise in planning), they'll still only have the ability to Give to each other, and not to other units.

6) There's also a unit class called a thief that can use the "Give" command on anyone (though no one but their Lover can "Give" back to them), and can also steal whatever Gold an enemy unit has just by attacking it once. Plus, there's a C Rank weapon called the "Thief Sword" that allows anyone who can wield it (like Alec) to do the same. However, we're only getting one thief for each Generation, and both of them are very weak and fragile. So actually GETTING them money without them dying can be a problem.

The method I used to get thieves money in my 0% growths playthrough (where they're even more pitiful than usual) was to have them attack bandits, who all have a rather hefty 5000 gold. Axes are so bad that no matter how strong they become your thieves should be safe.

Well...as long as they can't one-shot them. That's not generally a problem anyway due to the save system, but considering the Combat Rank, I still end up having to do some fancy stuff to cut that risk out of leveling Dew in Chapter 1.

So anyway, there's all our options. And despite the problems that come with each one, we'll still be using every single one of them to use the Elite Ring the way we want to. For example, when you combine the 17,500G that comes with Method 1, the 20,000G that comes from selling the Elite Ring in Method 3, and the free Gold that comes from Method 4, that's enough for units like Cuan to buy the Elite Ring every Chapter, WITHOUT any help...But not everyone is Cuan. In fact, Generation 1 specifically has seven different units that struggle to accomplish anything in the Arena, and they are as follows...

Alec (Needs a Speed Ring in Chapters 1 and 2, and wants a Defense Ring in Chapter 3. Benefits from an amazing weapon we'll be getting.)

Noish (Needs the Speed and Pursuit Rings, and wants the Defense Ring in Chapter 3. Benefits from an amazing weapon we'll be getting.)

Ardan (Needs an amazing weapon we'll be getting, and a ton of kills in Chapter 3 or 5)

Azel (Needs a Wind Tome from Chapter 4, and a ton of kills in Chapter 3)

Midir (Needs a Killer Bow and a ton of kills in Chapter 4)

Dew (Needs an amazing weapon we'll be getting.)

Beowulf (Needs to rig two points of Speed in Chapter 2, and wants the Defense Ring in Chapter 3. Benefits from an amazing weapon we'll be getting.)

So out of those seven, we need to pick at least 5 of them that we want to train. Me personally though, I'm going to invest in all of them instead, but only because I think it's faster to do that rather than grinding Sylvia (a later character) up to Level 30, or getting EVERYONE in Gen 2 up to Level 30, or doing something like that. So that's our plan as far as they go.

Playing Through:

Now, back to the game...

Gerrard: Prince Gandolf won�t be pleased. drat it all! Go put th� bridge back up over Jun River. Let�s get it right this time!

Wait wait wait, Gandolf specifically told you NOT to do that. Not only that, but you're literally giving up one of the greatest advantages you have in this fight, BEFORE Gandalf has even gotten back with Kinbois and his men? And you're insulting DiMaggio for his worthlessness? Methinks you ought to be looking at yourself first :colbert:

Anyways, Gerrard spawns a huge army to attack you with...but the enemies are just as weak as before, so really they're just more fodder for Sigurd's blade.

As for the rest of DiMaggio's men, they try, but they only succeed in chipping Alec's HP before getting more of themselves killed by Sigurd.

Sadly though, even Sigurd can't stop yet more 500G chunks from going down the drain...

But wait! Is that...is that a green unit? What is HE here for? What could this possibly mean?

So wait, are you talking to Lex and Azel, or are you talking to yourself :raise:

Alvis: His majesty wants me to check on things... The savages sure aren�t going down easy. Sheesh...Sigurd, you don�t impress me much.

... :sigh:

...

Ok, so I like this translation patch...but this particular line here? This is a really weak translation for what's actually supposed to be a pretty powerful line. Instead, it really should be more like "So, this is all you ever amounted to." Or, "It truly is sad, witnessing just how worthless you really are." Or maybe even "Well now, it seems we have found your ceiling...and it is the exact width and size of a pack of empty-headed mongrels. How sad."

Combine this with the fact that he's standing around trash talking, all while Sigurd and co. are still fighting for their lives as we speak, and...yeah. He's...kind of a jerk, to put it lightly :reject:

. I mean, I don't know what what he was expecting, but soloing almost the entire army by himself seems like a pretty big point in Sigurd's favor to me. So unless he's got like the greatest stats ever, I don't think he's in any positi-

Alvis: You were saying?

....heh...HEH...HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!! WELL! That's uh...um...yeah, so this guy is pretty much immortal. And he's got 70 Attack in Magic Power, an amount so high, that he can literally one-hit K.O. GANDOLF of all people! GANDOLF!! And that is absolutely insane!

And fortunately, he's on our side, so just in case there was ANY doubt that you could complete this Prologue...yeah. The moment you beat DiMaggio, you've basically won.

So, now that we've conquered our first castle, I take a moment to make a save on File 1, that way if we make a mistake while auto-saving on File 4, I can still go back and fix it without having to start the chapter over (though I'll have to do that anyway if one of my guys gets killed).

Now then, when we Enter a castle...

We get access to some cool options here! The Fortune Teller will tell you how many Wins and Losses a character has (Wins being how many enemies a character kills), the Pawn Shop (where a character can sell their junk for another character to buy), Storage (where a character can clear inventory space by storing one of their items), and also the Weapon Repair shop (where you can fix your weapons). As for the two blank slots, the left one is where the Arena will be once you get to Chapter 1, and the right one will be where you can access the Item Shop, where you can buy ALL NEW items that you didn't have before!

So for now, the only thing we need to do is visit the Weapon Repair shop, and get our Steel Sword fixed up. You see, when a character has a weapon or staff, they can't just use those as many times as they want. No, almost every weapon has just 50 "Uses" that you can get out of it, which means that when you hit an enemy with it 50 times, it will break. And when THAT happens, it will become a "Broken Sword/Lance/Axe/whatever", and have 0 Might, 30 Hit, and 30 Weight. So basically, it becomes completely worthless, killing your Attack Power, Attack Speed, and Accuracy all at the same time.

Fortunately we can fix that! Just have this guy look at it, and then restore all of it's uses! Of course, the flip side is that you have to pay 2% of it's buying price for every use that has to be restored. So if this Steel Sword has 40 uses left, you have to pay 600G (20% of it's buying price) to give it 50 uses again. But if it only has 1 use left, then you'll have to pay 2940G (98% of it's buying price) to give it it's 50 uses.

Anyways, Sigurd starts off with 5000G, so he's got more than enough to fix up his sword, meaning that now he can go and solo the rest of the map

So after he moves out, Ethlin heals Alec up...

Midir and Alec take care of their respective enemies, with Alec going to protect the castle from the lone Axefighter...

Fin goes and kicks the Axefighter around a little...

And then Lex, Azel, Noish and Cuan go further west before closing off our turn.

That said, nothing much happens. An axefighter futilely attacks Alec, the MBandits keep trashing the villages, and people just move around a little.

So basically we just spend our next turn mopping up the remainders of DiMaggio's men while killing two MBandits and getting ready for the next wave. Also, we get a level up for Alec!

1+ Strength!

Ok, so it's not a very GOOD level up...but at least Alec got a point in one of the areas he struggles in :shobon:

.

Due to the terrible balance of the weapon triangle in this game sword users actually don't need a huge amount of speed relative to other games to double lots of enemies. Lances and Axes are so heavy that unless a sword user is really bad they will always double lance and axe users.

Yeah. To be fair, it still does kind of work in this game, since a lot of the weaker sword users have trouble doing good damage...but yeah, Pursuit + Axe Weight really tends to mess up axe users, ESPECIALLY as you get further into the game. Lances are still pretty decent though.

Anyways, this Village has got something particularly special for Alec, so this will be the only one I'll be feeding him this Chapter. So let's see what it is!

I KNOW RIGHT?! Oifaye tells us we gotta save you, and then it only takes us like, 4 Turns of running around to actually do it! Crazy huh :haw:

I thought we were doomed! I�ve got a ring for you in appreciation. It�s called the Speed Ring. Slip her on for a little boost in speed. Go ahead� put her on! Your enemy�ll have a tough time hitting you now!

And there we go! This baby gives you 5+ extra points to Speed for as long as you wear it, which for Alec, means that I won't have to rig points of Speed in order to have him clear Chapter 1's Arena! Quite nice that!

Rings in this game are ridiculous. Stat boosters that just give +2 to a stat already can make a huge difference in other titles, and these not only give a +5 bonus but can also be moved around your units.

Oh, and we've got more Gold, and that's always nice.

Speaking of Gold, here's a Church tile. When you have a unit stay on it for a turn, they'll automatically get back ALL of their HP as long as they 5 Gold for each point of HP restored (trust me, that's more than a reasonable price).

Also, more Gold for Noish! And some flavor text of course.

Swords are stronger than axes, axes are stronger than lances, and lances are stronger than swords. Keep that in mind when you�re in combat. And if you find yourself hurting, the church is your one stop to full recovery. But it ain�t free, mind you. The going rate is 5 gold for each hitpoint.

And there you go. Just some review about stuff we already learned, but oh well, it's still a good refresher

One more turn village. One more turn, just make it through this Enemy Phase, and you'll finally be free :ohdear:

Alright, time for some fun!!

Yeah, look at THIS awesomeness! Sigurd literally soloing the ENTIRE mob, all by himself! It looks risky, but Sigurd's Defense has literally gotten so high, that these guys only do 6-8 Damage to him, so they would have had to have hit him three times, at just 8% accuracy (28% for the archers) in order to do him in.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Sigurd is a complete monster. He's not just "decent", he's not just "adequate". No, he's completely broken, and he's about to get even MORE overpowered very shortly :keke:

So then, now it's our turn, Ethlin heals Sigurd...

And now we get a new Command, the Talk command! Like villages, you'll get some flavor text, but UNLIKE villages, you won't always get anything from it. Sometimes you'll get a new item for someone, sometimes someone will get a permanent boost to some of their stats, but mostly the Talk command is just there for flavor text. So let's check it out, shall we?

Ethlin: I was so worried when I heard about Verdane�s invasion. I�m just glad you�re okay.

Sigurd: You didn�t think I�d lose to Verdane, did you?

Ethlin: Yeah, but I heard you only had a few soldiers in Chalphy. And I know you, Sigurd. You are always jumping into this kind of stuff without thinking. Especially with Father being away...I knew I had to come.

Yeah that's the truth. We all saw how suicidal "self-sacrificial" Sigurd was feeling when we started this Prologue. Though to be fair, it's not as though Noish and Alec are that great anyway :cheeky:

Sigurd: Heh heh...you�ve always had your head on straight, haven�t you...You know you did a great job filling mum�s shoes after she passed away. When you married into Lenster�s royal family, I swore we had a lady on our hands. But you�re still the same old Ethlin. Poor Cuan! Hahaha!

Ethlin: Sigurd! If I�m a nag, it�s because of you and dad! If both of you weren�t such slobs!

Sigurd: ...Yeah, you might have us there. But we still appreciate everything you�ve done. Ethlin, I�m sorry you had to come all this way. I can�t thank you enough.

Ethlin: Sigurd...

:3:

So yeah, that's all pretty neat. Every Chapter you go into, you will have units who can talk to other units in order to have conversations like this. In order to find out who can talk to who, just bring up the menu...

Click on the Unit option...

Then press left until you get to this screen, and there you go! And it turns out, Azel, Lex, and Cuan can ALSO talk to Sigurd, though none of them actually give you anything but flavor text. Oh well though, we'll still go through em' anyway

So anyway, Cuan weakens this Axefighter here for Midir to kill.

And then Midir gets a level up!

...Uh...I got nothing.

:o ...SUNNOVAGUN!!! He didn't get ANYTHING! And considering how weak Midir already is...yeah, this isn't helping him.

Alright, so Midir totally bombed that one...

So let's see how you do Sigurd!

1+ HP! 1+ Skl!

... :sigh:

. Alright, so there's the downside to having all of your level up bonuses operate on percentages rather than fixed amounts. Sometimes you will get really awesome level ups...and then some level ups will be complete garbage, even for Sigurd.

Oh well though, at least he'll get to do some more killing by moving to this exact spot. You see, this one Hand Axe fighter to the left will never move off of that spot. But that specific spot is the only place where archers and Hand Axe fighters can attack Sigurd from 2 Range! As a result, Sigurd WILL be able to kill the Iron Axe fighters without having to risk getting hit by archers, or having to wait until the next turn to beat them!

And to top it all off, we FINALLY get to kill the last MBandit, which means that all the villages are safe now! Absolute NO ONE will be looting them now!

So after doing all that, and then moving Lex, Alec, and Fin closer to the main group, we end the turn.

Once again the enemies all but attempt to swallow Sigurd's sword (to no avail)...

And then the computer, not knowing what else to do, just kind of throws an archer in front of Sigurd, even though it cannot actually attack Sigurd from 1-range.

Units in a squad have a very specific order that they move which is always the same. This can be useful in situations where you want a unit to be hit by some enemies but not others.

So in return, Sigurd takes advantage of this monumental display of stupidity...

And then Lex and Cuan do their best to kill the Hand Axe fighter in Sigurd's way, to no avail (Cuan didn't activate Continue like I was hoping).

But Cuan gets a level up! Let's see what he gets :popcorn: ...

1+ HP! 1+ Skl! 1+ Spd!

Okay, kind of decent I suppose. Hey, at least it helps him activate Continue!

Anyways, more healing is done (from now on, just assume that I'm doing this off-screen, for the sake of brevity)...

Noish keeps moving to get the other villages...

And here I have a decision to make. "Do I put Midir in range of the archers and the Hand Axe guys, and risk getting him killed via the Charge skill? Or do I keep him away, and pass up a chance at some experience?" Ultimately, I choose the latter, as the Combat rank is FAR too unforgiving to take risks like that, and really, this bit of lost experience won't make such a big difference anyways...

Anyways, Sigurd gets yet another level up on the Enemy Phase...

1+ HP! 1+ Str! 1+ Luck! 1+ Def!

An AWESOME one btw

�

And then Alvis moves a bit closer, no doubt intending to insult Sigurd for "only" getting up to 18 Strength as opposed to like, 29 or something crazy like that.

That said though, he's also got something very valuable to give us, and will automatically use the Talk command on us when he gets next to Sigurd. So I make sure that he can reach him at the end of the next Enemy Phase.

Now, I'm going to skip over the rest of the enemies on this turn and the other ones, just because the commentary is getting slightly repetitious now. So just know that from now until the end of the Prologue, I...

1) Keep healing people with Ethlin

2) Visit both of the remaining villages with Noish.

3) Try to give the most Exp. I can to Cuan while also trying to snag some for Midir and Lex.

So there you go. Now let's talk to Alvis, shall we?

Just LISTEN to that music! Alvis may be a dork, but he's got a great song playing on his iPad!

Alvis: His Majesty was worried, so he sent me to assess the state of the conflict. He also sent this with me. It�s for you.

Sigurd: Whoa...a silver sword! He wanted me to have this? What an honour! Lord Alvis, please express my sincerest gratitude to His Majesty.

Alvis: Will do. By the way, I heard my brother Azel has joined your army.

Sigurd: Yeah...sorry. It sounds like he came behind your back. I couldn�t just turn him away. If at all possible I�d like him to stay with us for a bit longer.

Alvis: Well, keep him safe. Azel�s my only brother. We may have different mothers, but he still means the world to me. I wish he and I got along better, but that�s the way these things go. Sigurd, I�m leaving him with you in good faith. Show him the ropes, okay?

Sigurd: I�ll do that. I�ll see if I can get him to return home once we finish up here.

Alvis: I appreciate it. Well, I need to get back to Barhara to watch over His Majesty. Don�t let me down, Sigurd.

So, I slammed the patch writers earlier for their weak translation of what should have been a pretty powerful line from Alvis...but putting that aside, they actually did a really good job of writing Alvis here, aside from making him just a touch more plainspoken than perhaps he should be.

I mean, look at his dialogue. Notice how terse and to-the-point he is. Notice how he's never actually asking anything from Sigurd so much as he's commanding things from him ("Don't let me down" as opposed to "Please watch over Azel". Or "Well, keep him safe" as opposed to "Could you please make sure to look out for him?"). He's not necessarily impolite, but he's very direct, and doesn't waste much time with social niceties, which is exactly how he is in the original script.

Combine that with the high and mighty music that plays for him, and you get the impression of someone very regal. Very stoic. He comes off very cold, and sort of arrogant...but he CAN actually back it up, as seen by his stats, and his position as Commander of the Royal Guard. Also, this is the dialogue you get when Azel is alive...but what happens if you got him killed before Alvis arrived?

Alvis: Sir Sigurd, how�ve you been?

Sigurd: Lord Alvis!? What�re you doing here?

Alvis: His Majesty was worried, so he sent me to assess the state of the conflict. He also sent this with me. It�s for you.

Sigurd: Whoa...a silver sword! He wanted me to have this? What an honour! Lord Alvis, please express my sincerest gratitude to His Majesty.

Alvis: I will. By the way, I heard my brother Azel has joined your army. Is he alright?

Uh....

Sigurd: Well...Actually Azel was...

Alvis: He got himself killed, didn�t he...

Sigurd: I�m so sorry. There was nothing I could do...

Alvis: Azel...you fool...

Still more of that steely stoicness...I think we can guess just what character archetype Alvis is.

And then he just...leaves...yeah...I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and say that he wants to be at Barhara, just in case Agustria decides to invade as well. Still, he couldn't have at least stuck around to help us with the rest of the Verdane army? I mean we don't really need the help now, but still, as long as he's here...

So just in case Sigurd wasn't broken enough...

Yeah. He gets a Silver Sword. Which only he and Ethlin can use (and Ethlin won't be using it). It's just like the Steel Sword, except it has 4 more Might, without ANY downsides whatsoever. Because you know, Sigurd clearly needed the boost, right?...

...

Did I mention that this game might have some slight balancing issues? Anyways, Gerrard's men are basically dead now, and Noish is about to snag the last village...so how about those other conversations? Might Azel have something to say about Alvis?

Azel Talks to Sigurd

Now obviously the game expects you to have had this conversation BEFORE Alvis had talked with Sigurd, hence why he just walked right by Azel on the turn he arrived, despite supposedly being worried about him :cheeky:

Azel: Lex and I came to help you fight Verdane. We came as quick as we could. Please, let us fight with you.

Sigurd: Geez, I could never ask you to fight. Does your brother, Lord Alvis, know that you�re here?

Azel: Er...no, I doubt it. He�s back in Barhara commanding the Royal Guard. Actually, he specifically forbade me from stepping outside the capital.

Sigurd: I bet he did! Have you considered the consequences of leaving like you did?

Azel: Yeah, but...I shouldn�t say this, but Alvis scares the living hell out of me!

:stare:

Azel: I don�t think I live up to his expectations. I...I feel like I�m just a burden on him.

Sigurd: Well, you have your reasons. I�m glad you came, Azel. You stay as long as you want.

Azel: Thank you, sir!

(Sigurd leaves)

Azel: Wow, he�s just like everyone said he was! I wish Alvis could be more like him...

...Wow. Alvis. You know you're cold when even your own brother is scared of you. Yikes.

Lex Talks to Sigurd

Lex: Actually, Azel, that little punk...he dragged me here.

Sigurd: You�re too much, Lex...haha. Does Lord Langbart know you�re here?

Lex: Hell no! No offense, sir, but my father can�t stand yours. No way in hell he�d consent to me helping the Chalphys. I�m here by my own reckoning. Sir, just so you know...I�m not here for your little mission. Azel�s just a good bud of mine.

Sigurd: Er...I see. Well, all the same, I appreciate you guys coming.

Lex: Well, we�ll do what we can. Those barbarians have had their way long enough.

Langbart, in case you forgot, is this guy on the right...

The opening narration describes him as the "avaricious" (it's words, not mine) Lord of the Dozel Duchy. He's formed an alliance with Prime Minister Reptor, resents the righteous and good Lord Bryon, and has the angriest looking set of eyebrows on the meanest looking face you can have...

But fortunately, it looks like Lex is a different sort of person. Which is good, because otherwise we would be out one VERY valuable unit!

Cuan Talks to Sigurd

Cuan: We heard about your skirmish with Verdane. We�re here to fight.

Sigurd: How about Lenster? Don�t you have Thracia to keep an eye on?

Cuan: We do. That�s why I only brought Fin. My father took command of the Lance Ritter.

Sigurd: I see...Geez, sorry to drag you in to all of this, Cuan.

Cuan: Sigurd! Did you already forget about our pact?

Sigurd: Huh?

Cuan: Remember the academy? We all met at the military academy back in Barhara. It was the three of us. You, me, and Eltshan. We were talking late that one night. And we took a vow to help each other out if one of us was ever in a bind.

Sigurd: That�s right. No...I haven�t forgotten.

Cuan: Ok, then. Let�s get to work and rid yourself of this little nuisance. Don�t forget, Sigurd. I�m always here for you. Especially in times like these.

And finally, we have an unused conversation between Midir and Azel. I'm not entirely sure why the game designers cut it out (or if they even meant to), but, I think it's kind of neat myself. So let's check it out!

Midir Talks to Azel

Midir: Azel...

Azel: Hey, Midir. How are you doing?

Midir: Azel, I�m so sorry about Lady Aideen. I really blew it this time.

Azel: Naw, it�s not your fault. Don�t let it bother you.

Midir: Yeah, but I know that she means a lot to you.

Azel: Yeah, but that goes for you too, right?

Midir: How�s that?

Azel: ...look, we�re both hurting. Let�s work together to get her back.

Midir: Yeah, let�s do that.

Hmmm, that's interesting. So, Midir has some feelings for Aideen as well? Guess that's part of the reason why he fought so vehemently to protect her.

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Jul 1, 2015

# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 23:20

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Now, lest we forget, Noish still has two more villages to visit, so let's see the flavor text for this one too!

It�s no surprise as the Chalphys are all descended from Baldo, the God of Light. If we just had Lord Bryon�s Holy Tyrfing, those barbarians wouldn�t have a prayer!

Yeah, that's the truth! The Tyrfing is a sword that has 30 Might, 7 Weight, and 80 Hit, but also gives a free Prayer skill, and ALSO boosts your Skl and Spd by 10+, and raises your MDef by 20+! So when she says that these barbarians wouldn't have a prayer...trust me, that's no hyperbole.

Now then, there's just one more village, and Gerrard's day has come! Technically I could just end it all with Sigurd on the next turn, and clear this Prologue by Turn 12...but, Noish isn't going to reach his last village until Turn 13, so instead, I'm going to have my weaker troops grind Exp. by tinking Gerrard a bunch of times. To that end, Lex is parked in front of him, and Sigurd is in a spot where he'll be giving everyone his Leadership Bonus. Now let's see how this goes!

Owch. Not only did Gerrard take off more than 75% of Lex's health, but he even managed to dodge the counter! Yeah, it's easy to miss but, Gerrard is actually really tough for this point in the game. I mean, we were all amazed by Gandolf's 60 HP, 17 Strength, 18 Speed, and 16 Defense...but Gerrard actually isn't much weaker than that. Dude's got 55 HP, 14 Strength, 16 Speed, and 14 Defense...and he even manages to make up for his weaker Strength by having a Steel Axe in addition to a Hand Axe. So actually, just in terms of raw attack power, he's actually stronger than Gandolf!

I mean, obviously he's still no match for Sigurd and his Silver Sword, and Azel can still chump him and his lack of Res...but even so, Gerrard's actually pretty impressive, especially when we count in his castle's 20% HP Regen and 30+ boost to Evade. That said though...

He's also has an EXTREMELY high level, coming in at Level 20 at a point where most enemy units are only Level 1. What that means is that all of our units get 25-30 Exp. just for hitting the guy! They don't even need to kill him, they just need to hit him! Combine that with Lex's Elite skill, and the guy actually gets 54 Exp per hit!

1 Str! 1 Def! 1 Res!

And a pretty nice level up to boot

! Oh, and the others get some as well...

1 HP! 1 Def!

1 Str! 1 Luck!

Why yes, Ethlin DOES get Exp. for healing people, in case I didn't mention that before! Right now she's only using the basic Live Staff, so she only gets 15 Exp. per heal. But later on, we're going to be getting staves that give WAY more than just that!

Also, Midir has a special conversation with Gerrard if he attacks him...

Yeah...I actually kind of wonder if Midir was originally supposed to be recruited at the beginning of the Prologue rather than after Jungby's capture. For one thing, there's that unused conversation between him and Azel, and plus, DiMaggio does NOT have any ranged options like Gerrard does, so his whole "WHAT, YOU'RE ARROWS?! YOUR A CHEATER!" comment would make a lot more sense. But oh well.

Now then, Noish will be getting the last village next turn, and Gerrard, for however strong he is otherwise, has a crippling weakness to magic attacks, so he's definitely not long for this world. So after some further weakening...

Azel finally put him down once and for all!

Like so!

Gerrard: Prince Gandolf's got her.

Yeah yeah, whatever you say. Let's check out Azel's level up.

1 HP! 1 Skl!

:sigh:

And now with all the enemies dead, we get the "you've almost won!" theme, which will play until either you've conquered the last castle, or until more enemies show up. Now then, once last village, and then we're done!

Duke Ring had himself twin daughters and a son. However, Lady Adean�s twin was abducted by pirates as a youngster. The son, Sir Andrei, joined his father on the campaign to Isaac. You didn�t hear it from me, but there seems to be quite a bit of friction between the two.

Yeah, in addition to Lord Bryon, Prince Kurth also has Lord Ring as his other trusted advisor, as the intro said. These two aren't relevant now, but, they will be later. So after finally conquering Evans...we've got more story!

Oifaye: Verdane must have taken her away before we arrived. I hope she�s alright.

Sigurd: Grr! I�m hunting those bastards down! We�re getting her back!

And then more green units arrive!

Finally, Sigurd gettin' some respect around here! Stupid Alvis, he don't know WHAT he's talkin' about!

Filat: His Majesty is exceedingly pleased and has ordained you a Holy Knight of the Kingdom.

Sigurd: I hardly deserve such a great honour! I pledge my allegiance to His Majesty.

Hey don't let Alvis get you down Sigurd, you did fine. Trust me

Filat: We gravely need your help in protecting these castles. You will be duly compensated. Of course the sum will go down if the castles incur any damages. Please continue to be vigilant in the ensuing battle.

Will do! Like I said, Castle funds may not be very much, but they're still valuable!

And now we have reached the end of this update, at long last. And yet, our princess is still in another castle...so then, can we get her back? Can we find Aideen before something awful happens to her? Are we going to be able to make peace with Verdane? Or will we have no choice but to level it to the ground? And what of Alvis? What role will he end up playing in the events to follow? Just what DID the Prologue mean when it talked about an "oncoming storm" coming as a result of our actions here? And CAN I get all of my guys through the Arena next Chapter? Find out, on the next EXCITING EPISODE, of Let's Play Fire Emblem 4! This is Fionordequester, signing out. Have a nice day, and God bless you all!

Turns Taken: 13 Turns (A pretty good amount. A good Prologue clear should never be any longer than 15 turns, but trying to get under 11 is a little much).

Turn Surplus: +20 (This game has 12 maps, and the A Rank requirement for Tactics is 399 Turns, so you need to get an average of 33 Turns on each map. And on this one, I beat it in 13 Turns, so I've got 20 turns to spare

!)

Time Taken: ~36 minutes and 25 seconds. The animations were on, however, from testing a fight, I've found that No Animations vs. Animations only saves about 1 second, so I don't think that should matter much.

Things I Regret: The fact that Noish had to hang back as I rigged levels for Sigurd. Had it not been for that, I might've been able to get some more money from some of the villages

.

Translation Tidbits:

Mistranslation #2: When Azel's telling Sigurd about why he came, Sigurd is...actually pretty happy about this in the original script. Instead of saying "Geez, I could never ask you to fight", his line is actually more like "Huh, awesome! More people to help me out! But wait, does your bro know about this?" And THAT'S when Azel's all "Well, uh...actually, my brother...kinda...sort of, in no uncertain terms, forbade me from coming...(embellishment of course)". Then Sigurd's all "Dude, big bro is gonna yell at you..."And then when Azel tells him how much Alvis scares him, Sigurd's basically all "Alright, alright, I'm sure you've got your reasons! So if you think you're ready, I'd be REALLY glad to accept your help!".

So basically, Sigurd's kind of curious about why Azel's here...but at the same time, he's really just kind of happy to have more help, so to imply that he has any misgivings about the whole thing goes against the point of the original script. To be fair though...BookofHolsety made that exact same mistake before one of his proofreaders corrected him :cheeky:

.

Mistranslation #3 (or at least, I think it's one given that BookofHolsety's script differs, and none of his proofreaders contradicted him): When Filat is saying why defending the castles is important, he's not actually saying that we need to protect the castles in general. He's saying that Evans specifically needs to be protected because it's a valuable foothold into Verdane territory. That said though...I do actually prefer the "mistranslation" just because it's more valuable from a gameplay perspective. It's clearer about the fact that you'll get paid for protecting ALL of the castles, not just Evans. Plus, there's always the possibility that the patch translation is more correct, just because the Japanese language can sometimes be somewhat vague about whether someone is referring to one object, or many objects.

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Jul 2, 2015

# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 23:23

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

vilkacis posted:

Verdane Army theme is pretty catchy

And weapon repair shop seems like it changes the typical FE dynamic quite a bit.... if not quite as much as infinite use weapons, of course.

IF you think THAT'S catchy, just wait till you get to the Chapter 2/3 and Chapter 6 themes

! And yeah, FE4 game balance is...pretty interesting, to say the least.

vilkacis posted:

Hey, FF ~~is not lame~~ was not yet lame when this game came out

Well, it most definitely is not lame. Whether it's still GREAT or not though...well, that's another question entirely, isn't it :cheeky:

vilkacis posted:

He's the Oifaye!

Hmm...I dunno, he's a little too strong to be an Oifaye. But maybe an Athos, or a Tibarn? Maybe THAT'S what he could be. Who knows.

vilkacis posted:

And this bothers the hell out of me, especially with names like Sigurd and Tyrfing flying around. Is it really not supposed to be Valhalla?

Yeah...that IS definitely what it's supposed to be a reference to, though obviously it'd be a little anachronistic to just flat out call it that. On that note, BookofHolsety's upcoming patch calls it "Belhella" instead, so look forward to that.

vilkacis posted:

e: Oh yeah, and you ran into the smiley limit in the first part, so maybe split it earlier? You're only allowed to have so many of them per post before they stop working, see:

Wow, there's actually a smiley limit? I...never knew that. And I already (mostly) completed my 7th Saga and Dragon Quest 1 LP's...so...does this mean that this update here actually has more smilies than in ANY LP Post I ever made? Wow, we're setting records here folks :keke:

!

Now then, one thing I forgot to plagiarize "reference" from Melth's LP...

Turns Taken: 13 Turns (A pretty good amount. A good Prologue clear should never be any longer than 15 turns, but trying to get under 11 is a little much).

Turn Surplus: +20 (This game has 12 maps, and the A Rank requirement for Tactics is 399 Turns, so you need to get an average of 33 Turns on each map. And on this one, I beat it in 13 Turns, so I've got 20 turns to spare

# ¿ Jul 2, 2015 03:16

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Twilkitri posted:

Assuming that this is one of the patches done while I was maintaining it, it's using Barhara because that's the name embedded into the world map and I didn't want to have the game inconsistent with itself if possible. If/when it became possible to alter that text then it would have reviewed, although this wouldn't have guaranteed it being changed to Valhalla. A distressingly large amount of reference hunters seem to feel that all referenced names need to be exact copies otherwise they don't count or something, which I'm sure will come up later. Not to say that Barhara is a particularly good example.

I want to say that Belhalla is used somewhere in Awakening, but I'm not completely certain on that.

Twilkitri! YOU'RE HERE?! Whoa, that is just awesome! I'm definitely looking forward to whatever other commentary you might have

! In fact, there is one thing I've always wondered about...in terms of the Reparation Patch 0.87d (which I'm using)...how much of the dialogue was done/revised by you, and how much was left over from the old translation patches?

For those not in the know, the original translation patches were done by a group called J2E Renegade (who may or may not have been responsible for the extremely flawed Final Fantasy IV translation patch), with two people called "Jay" and "Boo" doing the dialogue. But then they quit about 80% of the way through, stating that the patch they left us with was "not to be enjoyed" (due to a variety of game crashing bugs and the like).

Then another group started the project up again, and Twilkitri got involved with helping them before going ahead and doing "Reparations" to the patch after the second group also quit. When that happened, he fixed some stuff up, and solved most of the game crashes (including two particularly hilarious instances in which he inserted "filler" dialogue into textboxes that didn't have translations available for them. He could've made it boring, but instead, he made them jaw-droppingly hilarious :keke:

!).

That said though, I'm not sure how much of the dialogue we're seeing here was done by him or someone else, and how much of it was done by Jay or Boo. So, do you remember the answer to that question Twilkitri? Or, has it been so long that you just kinda forgot :cheeky:

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Jul 3, 2015

# ¿ Jul 3, 2015 01:39

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Twilkitri posted:

I'm going to assume that 'Belhella' was a typo for Belhalla until confirmed otherwise.

http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/Belhalla

...Huh, what do you know? Looks like Twilkitri is right! My bad :cheeky:

# ¿ Jul 4, 2015 00:36

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Personally, I find what you're brought up to be pretty interesting Vilkacis. Because on one hand, I think the same way in terms of references, but on the other hand, it's not always fun to have a reference be so straightforward. Like, the Super Mario Bros. Super Show once had a character whose name was a clear reference to Indiana Jones...but that wasn't his name. No, his name was Indiana Joe instead, much funnier than it would've been if they had just flat out called him Indiana Jones. And sometimes when a reference is more hidden, it makes it all the more gratifying to realize that there even was a reference there in the first place...

I guess it's all about middle ground, isn't it? Unfortunately, "Belhalla" vs. "Valhalla" can still very easily look like a romanization error due to the Japanese language using "B" sounds in order to transcribe "V" sounds. For example, "Vegeta" is pronounced "BAY-Jee-Tah" in Japanese, because they didn't really have any kind of "V" sound until very recently (or at least, by the time FE6 came out)...

So that said, I dunno. I used to prefer Belhalla, but thinking about what Vilkacis said, I think I actually would prefer Valhalla, if for no other reason than the fact that it sounds cooler to me.

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Jul 4, 2015

# ¿ Jul 4, 2015 08:48

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Cake Attack posted:

didn't they call it Belhalla in awakening, and the new patch is always going with awakening when possible?

Yes. That is correct.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2015 17:56

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Alright guys, almost done with the next update. Just gotta finish it up, then get Marty's commentary. That said though, are these updates a decent length? Or could they stand to be shorter? I think they're just right, but I want to know what you think!

# ¿ Jul 6, 2015 23:47

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Let's Max Rank Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War! Last episode, Verdane tried to conquer Grandbell while most of it's military was away, but then we beat them back! But we still have to rescue Aideen, so how will we accomplish that? Hop on in and find out!

"In other words, your princess is in another castle"

�In the past, Verdane�s frequent encroachment of the border earned them the label of barbarians by the people of Grandbell.

And yet Grandbell still trusted them enough to send their entire military away

�Under the reign of King Batou, Verdane witnessed a cessation of all fighting along the border. The amiable monarch succeeded in maintaining the peace with Grandbell, while pacifying his zealous sons.

Just HOW he managed to do that is entirely beyond me, given that he's an old man, and Kinbois and Gandalf are as savage as they come. �In fact, how does he even stay in power anyway?

�However, that very peace was ultimately violated by none other than King Batou.

Otherwise, Batou would have totally risen up, grabbed his sons by the neck, and choke slammed them into the ground if they tried anything. �Yeah, I'm sure things would've been WAY different if Batou had kept on being all for love and peace

�There was Kinbois of Genoa [to the upper right], the eldest son, Gandolf of Marpha [to the lower left], and Jamka, the youngest of the three [in the middle].

�Where had Aideen been swept off to? And what incited King Batou to invade Grandbell without warning?

�Chapter 1 - The Spirit Forest's Maiden

Well now. Could we possibly be getting a new, female character? Let's find out!

Huh...I don't remember this character. For that matter, I don't remember Nodion either. Where was that supposed to...

OH! So Nodion is an Augustrian Duchy! And it looks like it's RIGHT on Verdane's border, near Evans. So it seems this blonde-haired dude seems to want to watch what's happening between Grandbell and Verdane. Interesting.

Anyways, blondy goes to Evans, and he and Sigurd have a little talk...

�???: You're not formally attacking Verdane, are you?

�Sigurd: Eltshan, thanks for coming! Verdane has taken Lady Aideen of Jungby hostage.

�Eltshan: So that�s what�s going on...I wouldn�t leave this castle unattended if I were you. There�s no telling what the lords of Agustria may do...I�ll watch your back, Sigurd.

Oh wonderful. So now we may have Agustria on our butts too

...

�Sigurd: I sure appreciate it, Eltshan. Let�s you and I meet up when this is all over. We�ll find a cozy little spot, have a little wine...just like old times.

�Eltshan: That sounds nice. May you be victorious, Sigurd!

Eltshan, if you don't remember, is the other person Cuan mentioned last chapter, when he talked about how he, Sigurd, and Eltshan all made a pledge to support each other in their time of need. Pretty nice that they already set that up before introducing him, isn't it

?

Strangely enough, you never see the often mentioned friendship between Cuan and Eltshan. They have no on screen conversations.

Oh yeah, huh... that's too bad isn't it :sigh:

Anyway, bad guy time...

Hmm...this wouldn't happen to be our "Maiden of the Spirit Forest", would it?

Kinbois: Heh... Look, he�s all yours once we�ve gotten Evans Castle back.

�Aira: You better not double-cross me, Kinbois. Because I�ll hunt you down...and put your head on a stick! Even if it takes me to the ends of hell! Got it!?

Kinbois: Whoa-woa!! Fer such a pretty face, you sure can spew some filth! Just relax. I�ve no plans of making an enemy with someone of your swordsmanship.

�Aira: Shanan, stay strong. It�ll only be for a little while.

And then with all that said...

Kinbois bellows a war cry...

And then summons a sizable group with him leading from behind. Interestingly enough, Kinbois is NOT the one guarding the castle. The guy who IS guarding it is just a generic Warrior, while the Warrior on the top-left is actually Kinbois himself. And that makes for a rather interesting fight, as you'll soon see.

And now it's our turn! Now, if you move your cursor over to the entrance like this, and then press A...

That will take us INSIDE our own castle, where all of our units wait for the call of duty. �If you want them to join the fray...

You will want to select the Sortie command here. Now, all of you Fire Emblem afficionados may be wondering this. "How many playable units can you have out of your castle at once?" And the answer?

EEEVERY�OOOONE!!! Yes, that's right, there is NO limit whatsoever in this Fire Emblem. You can use as many, or as few units as you want, without fear of any kind of penalty. And that's the case for ALL the Chapters, not just some of them. Not only that, but if you decide you don't want them fighting anymore, you can actually move them back inside! And once inside, they will recover 1/5 of their HP per turn...at a cost...

HP recovery from castles x 5 [gold]

Yeah. You may get healing for every turn spent guarding or resting inside a castle, but it's NOT free! You spend 5 Gold for every point of HP recovered. So, say Azel is inside the castle, has a max of 32 HP, but has been reduced to 1. He has 15,000G to start with, but every turn, he's going to recover 6 HP, which means he'll lose 30 Gold per turn. Which really isn't that bad. It's so minimal in fact, that I never even knew that mechanic existed until now. But still, do be careful

!

Yeah... even when I was aiming for super precise item management in my 0% growth run, the cost of castle healing never really ruined my plans. I don't even know why it costs anything, it's such an insignificant amount of money.

So let's check out the Arena!

In other Fire Emblem games, you're forced to use an Iron Sword/Lance/Axe/what have you, but in THIS game, you can go ahead and use whatever you want. And as for me, I'll want to go ahead and use my Iron Lance, since that's the cheapest. Plus, I'll want Sigurd to have lots of money for later on in the game.

TIME TO DIIIIIIE!!

1000G, on the house. And that number increases by 500G for each Rank in the Arena you get to, and it doesn't even need to be done all at once either. Again, unlike other Fire Emblems, if you leave the castle and come back, you'll still get to fight the next guy after Gazak, and get 1500G from beating him.

So let's fight the second guy now.

Second verse, same as the first...

And if you feel like switching the Weapon you're using at any point, you can simply select "Weapon" and switch to a different one.

Level up achieved...

�1+ HP! 1+ Luck!

.......

Don't worry, Sigurd hardly even needs level ups to be a monster.

I suppose :sigh:

...

Anyways, another thing you can do in the Arena. If it looks like a fight is going south, you can press the B Button in the middle of it, interrupt the match, and get this screen...So not only do you NOT have to pay to use the Arena, and not only can you use whatever weapon you want, but you can actually give up AND change weapons on the fly! Of course, you have to wait until the current round of combat resolves before the B Button will take effect, but still! Plus, even if you DO die in the Arena...your character doesn't actually die. You'll just get this screen...

And then get dumped right back inside the castle, at 1 HP. In fact, losing in the Arena doesn't even affect your Combat Ranking, so really, the Arena is actually a FREE source of Exp. and Gold that you can visit each and every Chapter! And of course, it only has seven guys that you can beat per chapter, so it's not unlimited...but still, it's pretty neat!

There IS just one downside the Arena though. For some reason, the level ups you get here tend to be much worse than the level ups you get outside of the Arena. It was theorized that this was because fights tend to last a while in the Arena both due to how much tougher the enemies are, and due to the flat 20+ Avoid boost that both combatants get. Because of that, we thought, the game could actually run out of random numbers to use when calculating, say, how many stats you get per level up. As a result, it was possible to get 0 stat bonuses even in areas where you have a growth rate of more than 100%! And that's the theory I always accepted...but, it seems Marty has this to say...

I'm not actually sure if this is the reason or not. In my 0% growth run of FE4 I went through some long fights (such as a thief killinga final general with a broken sword) and my RNG display script never stopped showing new numbers. I guess it's possible that this was a flaw of the script I used (which worked perfectly otherwise), or maybe there's some other cause for this.

So, there you go. I don't know what's up. But, what I DO know, is that there is a way around this! If you press the B Button and go to the resulting screen, that will allow the game to refresh it's string of random numbers. So essentially, if you know you're about to get a level up, you'll always want to press the B Button before actually landing the finishing blow. If you do that, you'll actually get BETTER level ups than if you don't do that. And that I DO know for sure, because I tested that myself numerous times.

So after that run, we buy these two weapons for Sigurd. I'll bet it's obvious what the Javelin is for, but as for the Slim Sword, well...see these stars here? Let us talk about that, now, in our next War Room section.

The War Room Part 3: (The Kill Counter, the Critical Skill, and Powering Up Your Weapons)

Those represent a kill counter. For each enemy you kill, 1 point is added to the star. But, it's NOT just for show. Once you get past 50 Kills on a weapon (ANY weapon, even the ultimate ones), that weapon will automatically grant you the Critical skill for as long as you have it equipped. Plus, you'll actually gain a 1% increase in your chance to activate Critical for EVERY further kill the weapon gains, up until the counter caps at 100. Then it won't increase anymore.

So yes, not only can you gain the ability to sometimes DOUBLE your Attack Power, but you'll also get up to a 50% Increase in your ability to do so just by using the same weapon over and over! But of course, the flipside to this is that getting that many kills on any weapon requires a bit of planning, especially since enemies are usually finite. Plus, it often forces you to not use as many characters, unless you want to hemorrhage money playing patty cake with the weapon you're using.

Because of that, you'll want to figure on only being able to get three weapons up to 100 kills by the end of the game. And if we're that limited, we need to spend some time figuring out the weapons we want to super-charge. And as far as I can figure, you'll generally want to create these three weapons...

1# - A super-charged version of something that can be used by almost everyone, like the Slim, Iron, or Steel Swords. This way, you can give a much needed boost to characters who otherwise do not have much in the way of attack power, like Ardan. And by doing that, I can help them to defeat enemies (like the Rank 6 and 7 guys in the Arena) that they would NEVER otherwise be able to beat on their own without lots of resets. So this weapon is first on my list.

2# - A good ranged weapon. The Javelin and Hand Axe are obviously flawed due to their extreme weight, but later on you'll get a variety of magical swords that use your Magic stat to attack from range, and your Strength stat to attack from close-up. Of course, physical units like Sigurd get almost no stat boosts to their Magic stat, but once you get 100 kills on one of those swords, and then throw on a Magic Ring (5+ to Magic)...well then you're really in business! Sigurd's not just soloing Brigands, but also Javelin users, Hand Axe users, basically EVERYONE except mages. �And because swords don't weigh a whole lot, Sigurd's not even sacrificing much in the way of speed or accuracy while using one of those weapons. So after forging that Uber Slim Sword, I'll be forging this one along with...

3# - An Uber Hero Sword. What is the Hero Sword? It is a weapon that allows you two consecutive hits per attack, allowing you to hit your opponent FOUR times with Pursuit, rather than just twice. Not only that, but it already has 2 more Might and 20 more Hit than a Steel Sword, so once you plop on an extra 50% chance to activate Critical...owch. This one is the lowest priority one, just because most regular enemies aren't nearly strong enough to warrant such an obscene weapon...but many of the bosses are in a league of their own, so this weapon is meant mainly for them. �Plus, Weapons 1 and 2 aren't always going to cut it for killing some particularly stubborn enemies.

So there you go. There's my master plan for accomplishing much of the stuff that I would normally need to RNG Abuse for. And if we want those weapons in time, we'll need to start building them up right away.

As for which weapon I'm forging to be Weapon #1, I'm going to be taking this Slim Sword, and turning it into an Uber Slim Sword! The reason for this is because it's flat out better than the Iron Sword, and it has several important advantages over the Steel Sword despite having 2 less Might. To start with, it's a Rank C weapon rather than a Rank B weapon, which means that ANYONE who can use swords can use it.

This is very significant because there is a thief we're recruiting in this Chapter that otherwise can't accomplish anything in the Arena. But, as stated in the previous War Room, thieves have the ability to give money out to anyone, not just their lovers. And this particular thief ALSO has the added ability of being able to buy everything at half price, which is exactly as abusive as it sounds. �But I can't take full advantage of all of that unless I can fetch him 17500G per chapter in Arena gold. �So the Uber Slim Sword will be great for him...

But even disregarding that, it also has a Weight of 1 rather than a Weight of 3. This may not SOUND significant at first, but guys like Noish, Alec, Ardan, and Beowulf have a real problem trying to outspeed some of the Arena fighters. For example, Rank 4 of this Chapter has this guy, Shark...

And he is a jerk. In fact, you get the impression that the designers custom made him to be the wall that none of your weaker units can get past on their own. �The dude has 13 Speed and wields a Steel Sword, effectively giving him 10 AS. �And since Alec and Noish only start with 8 Speed and 10 Speed even WITHOUT weapons...that's going to be an issue. To top that off, Shark has Pursuit and an Attack Power of 20, so the guy will wreck a lot of our men.

There's always that one sword fighter in the arena who very few people can get past... Swords OP.

But that all changes the moment, say, Alec, gets a Speed proc. When he has that and a Slim Sword, that makes it so that his AS is also 10, meaning that he nullifies Shark's Pursuit. And both Noish and Beowulf run into a similar case in Chapter 2 where they literally NEED to exceed 12 AS in order to compete with Bachnin and Keimos (Rank 4 and Rank 7). So just for situations like that, the Slim Sword's lesser Weight makes all the difference in the world. Plus, it's more accurate, so battles won't be quite as luck based either. All in all, I just think it's the superior choice for training your scrubs up to a decent level.

The EXP rank in this game is extremely stringent, and if you're playing for reliability it can be very hard to train units. Essentially, not doing well in early arenas can start a vicious cycle, where once a unit is finally powerful enough to do well in the arena, their poor early performances means they don't have enough money to buy the elite ring, making it very difficult to reach the EXP requirement. Normally this issue can be worked around by RNG abusing or just having your units fight in different orders. In a run where neither of these options are allowed, I think a high kill slim sword might be one of the best ways to let chumps like Arden and Dew get far in the arena.

Indeed. And while I will sometimes use the two other options, they're really slow in terms of real time, while forging an Uber Slim Sword will only take about 40 minutes and 22 Turns the way I'm doing it. That may sound like quite a bit, but because it's so early in the game, the Uber Slim Sword more than justifies the time spent making it over the long haul.

Playing Through:

Anyways, Sigurd now has the Slim Sword for training and the Silver Sword for sheer power, so, the Steel Sword is now redundant enough to sell to this weird looking man. So let's check the Unit menu now, see if there are any conversations available!

Ah, what do you know? Seems Cuan wants to talk to Fin about something!

�Cuan: I appreciate it.

�Fin: Of course, I am still only an apprentice. I doubt I�ll be of much help to you.

�Cuan: Yeah? Then let�s use this opportunity to teach you a bit about the art of war. Here, Fin. Take this lance.

�Fin: Thank you very much, Your Highness!

And contrary to what was implied, Fin does NOT get a new weapon, but instead gets a single point boost to Strength, Skill, and Defense. Which is still pretty awesome!

The Lenster theme is beautiful.

Anyways, we're going to be using every mounted unit except Midir to push through Kinbois's men, so Lexy here is gonna get...

The Steel Axe! With 18 Might! WHOOOOO

!!!

Still an axe 3/10.

So here's our formation at the end of our turn. Actually, Midir would have been good to have as well, just in case someone needed more help killing something...but whatever. �Anyways, Sigurd and Cuan are there to kill stuff, Ethlin is there to heal, Noish and Alec are there to train, Lex wants a Hand Axe from Kinbois, and Fin is gonna help Lex get it. Because you see...

Some boss units will have weapons or items that have this bag icon next to them. When you see that, that means that whoever kills the boss unit will get that item! But Kinbois is no slouch. With 50 HP, 14 Strength, 13 Defense, a Hand Axe, and a Silver Axe, the guy is a 1-2 Range unit who hits even harder than Gerrard, is almost as durable, and can actually move around instead of being stuck to a castle. And while that's bad enough...there's also a rather unfair advantage that the A.I. has that you'll see in this GIF...

Yeah, that's right. Unlike your units, enemy units can switch their weapons on the fly. It doesn't matter what weapons they have equipped when you attack them. If you execute a ranged attack, they'll automatically switch to whatever ranged weapon they have. But if you attack them from close-up, they'll automatically switch back to the most powerful weapon they have, ranged or otherwise.

So with all that stuff going for him, Kinbois is quite the speed-bump on a Chapter that is otherwise little more than a one-sided butt stomp in favor of your forces. And we still want that Hand Axe of course. So getting that for Lex while still surviving and getting to Genoa is going to take some co-ordination, and all of our mounted units except Midir (although, as I said, it would've been a good idea to bring him).

So watch this now. Pay attention to how our enemies move...

See this? Notice how the A.I. moves all (or almost all) of one unit type before moving any of the other unit types. And then it moved Kinbois himself last? Well, the A.I. will always do that, because it has a pre-selected list of what order it will move it's units in. And most importantly, Enemy Commanders will always move last. So if we are aware of this, we can do strategic maneuvers we wouldn't otherwise be able to do.

"Meanwhile, at the Fortress of Evil..."

We have two blue units and a red unit marching out of Marpha. Please don't tell me this is going to be an execution

...

OH! So it's a prison break instead :woop:

Jamka: Gandolf is going to find you guys. Now move it!

�Aideen: Prince Jamka, you�re not joining us?

Jamka: No. I can�t go against my father� even with all the mayhem my brothers are causing. I�m going to Verdane to see my father. I have to get him to see the wrong in all this.

�Aideen: Yes, indeed. This war has gone on long enough. Prince Jamka, you�re our only hope. Do your best to persuade the king to end this war.

Aw c,mon! Don't you mean "persuade the king to 'end this destructive conflict'�? You guys missed a perfectly good reference there!

�Dew: Aideen, we gotta move now! It�s gettin� too hairy �round here. Gandolf�ll rip out my tongue next time they find me!

Jamka: Dew, you were just asking to get locked up, you little thief. You�re just lucky Aideen pleaded for your release. No more stealing, am I correct?

�Dew: Look, I promised Aideen, too. I�m finished with the thievin� business, OK?

Jamka: I�ll take your word, Dew. Now you two get going!

And then Aideen and Dew run away while Jamka heads back. But before he leaves...

His heart really isn't in this, is it? Unfortunately, there is naught we can do for him now...

�Gandolf: You bring the woman an� that litlle thief back here. If they resist ya, do �em in.

And here is...one of the most idiotic plot points in this Chapter. Frankly, out of all the Chapters in the game, I think this one is one of the most nonsensical if you really think about it, and here's one of the reasons why. Last chapter, Gandalf made this big deal about how he was going to go back and "get Kinbois and his men" before returning to lay further seige to Grandbell. In fact, that was the whole reason why he didn't stick around...

Well, here he is back in Marpha, not doing a blasted thing to help, despite having this MASSIVE concentration of guys with him. So really there's only two ways to spin this scenario. Either Gandalf doesn't know that Grandbell's arrived, and he's decided to just lay around and let Kinbois do all the work against the most powerful country on the continent. Or, he DOES know Grandbell's invading, but is choosing to be an indecisive dolt rather than either choosing to surrender, or combining his forces with Kinbois's in order to defeat Grandbell.

So either way, he's being an idiot! Either way, he's pointlessly spreading their forces thin at a time when they really need every man they can spare! And either way, this drastically undercuts all that time spent in the Prologue building him up to be this really scary customer! It's frankly quite ridiculous I tell you.

Anyways, Gandalf's men are divided into two groups. The first group consists of the men near the castle. They won't move until you get in range of their attacks, so they're harmless for now. The right group however is going to go after Dew and Aideen for the whole map, so that's a problem.

But fortunately, they don't move till the next turn, so we've got a chance to breath a little. Anyways, now that Aideen is on the field, let's see how many guys she can talk t-

Whoa! Check out Ms. Personality here

! Yeah, it's very important to check this screen every time you either liberate a castle, or get new party members, because these Talk opportunities WILL slip by if you don't get them quickly. In fact, this Chapter alone will be having us recruit two new units by using Talk, so...yeah, pretty important I'd say.

But as for Aideen and Dew, they're already on our side. So let's cover them real quickly!

Level 3 Priest

HP: 28 (70%) Spd: 9 (30%)
Str: 0 (20%) Lck: 11 (60%)
Mag: 13 (30%) Def: 1 (20%)
Skl: 8 (20%) Res: 10 (5%)

Move: 5
Weapon Ranks: Staves (B)
Items: Relive Staff
Skill: (Empty)

Ah, our second healer. And while she loses to Ethlin in movement, she has more magic power to heal with, and can use far more potent staves. In terms of a normal playthrough, that's not so critical, but in an AAAA Ranked run, it means that she can use staffs that give up to 100 Exp. rather than the 15 Exp that Ethlin receives from her Live Staff. Because of that, Aideen is what we like to call a Staff Bot.

Yes, the staff bot. This unit is one of the most important kinds of units you can have. With staves that give tons of Exp per use, they can effortlessly get up to Level 30 without using the Elite Ring or the Arena. And once they hit Level 20, all staff bots will gain magic on top of their talents with the staff, so money is hardly ever a problem for them once they get going. Of course, combat does not tend to be something staff bots do well, given their inferior offensive stats and lack of Pursuit. But that's ok, because their contributions to the Exp rank are more than enough to make up for that.

So, I'd compare Aideen here to Dende. Can't do much fighting, but she can heal people instantly and immediately, which more than justifies her presence.

Staffbots gonna staff.

Level 1 Thief

HP: 28 (50%) Spd: 15 (40%)
Str: 3 (40%) Lck: 12 (40%)
Mag: 0 (10%) Def: 1 (40%)
Skl: 6 (40%) Res: 0 (10%)

Move: 6
Weapon Ranks: Swords (C)
Items: Iron Sword
Skill: Steal (User takes enemy's gold), Solar Sword (Skill%=Chance to Restore HP equal to damage done to enemy), Bargain (Buy and Repair things for half price!)

And here we have another of the most important characters, and well as one of the most interesting. At first, he looks like complete trash, packing the SAME Defense and HP as Aideen, and Strength so low that even Alec and Midir are laughing at him. And though his growths are otherwise solid, his HP growth means that he's going to be struggling with durability for a while...

So what if I were to tell you that this guy probably has an easier chance of clearing Arena's than almost anyone else on our team? Once he gets going I mean? Really though, the Bargain Skill alone allows him to trivialize much of what he faces by getting awesome stuff like the Elite Ring, the Speed Ring, and other such things. And he doesn't even need to really pay anything for those either, because he can sell items at the SAME price as he can buy them.

But what REALLY puts him over the top is the Uber Slim Sword that I'm fixing to make. With that and the Pursuit Ring on him, he goes from someone who can't hurt people at all, to a ridiculously dodgy murder machine who can generally kill things MUCH faster than they can kill him. With all that going for him, and the Thief's innate ability to Give away all their gold, he's practically a walking, talking ATM machine that doubles as a death machine! And if giving away ALL of his Gold seems counter-productive, remember, units can store their items.

So, suppose Dew has 50,000 Gold, and we need to give 10,000 Gold to, say, Midir. He doesn't have to give up ALL of his money. Instead, all he has to do is buy 40,000 Gold worth of stuff, Give the remaining 10,000 Gold to Midir, and then sell all the stuff he just bought to get his 40,000 back. Plus, with all these Axefighters and Bandits around, Dew can get to Level 8 even without the Arena, allowing him to put his awesome growths to use. And of course, he's got an awesome promotion so...yeah.

The guy is a little like Gotenks then. He's a goofy, impulsive, air-headed little kid who's always getting himself in trouble and is...frankly not a whole lot of good to anyone. Not at first anyway. But given a little time, he goes from zero to hero and becomes one of the most helpful allies you can possibly have...as long as you aren't relying on him to be saving any worlds

.

A very underrated unit. Though he never becomes too much of a fighter, bargain on a theif is so useful. In an AAAA rank playthrough everyone needs a lot of money to afford the elite ring, and no matter how judicious you are with village allocation, units can slip through the cracks, and in these situations, Dew does a lot. Plus, some units need a cash dump to get going.

So here's what I do with them for now. Aideen can't fight, and Dew actually gets OHKOed by the Captain of the squad, so they're going to be spending some time on the run. But right now, I'm still putting Dew in a spot where he would be targeted by two of the goons. This decision may cause me to Reset if one of the two hurt him, but on the other hand, Dew needs a level as soon as possible if he wants to be able to survive a hit from the Captain. So I think that's worth the potential time lost in resets.

So here's the current situation. Cuan has attacked the Mbandit, Sigurd has killed the topmost Brigand with the Slim Sword, and everyone else has gotten into preparation on the outside of the enemy's unit range. Now, Sigurd will solo the Brigands, and the Axefighters...

And Kinbois is forced to attack Sigurd from close-up, in addition to the three Axefighters who would've otherwise used their Hand Axe. Normally, if given the chance between attacking a melee character from 1 or 2 ranged, enemies will attack from 2 range so long as they have a 1% chance or more of hitting. However, knowing the order that the computer moves it's units, and the fact that Kinbois and the Axefighters would go after the archers, I've moved Sigurd in such a way that they had no choice but to get in his face...

Still, things don't go perfectly. Kinbois takes off more than half of Sigurd's HP in one blow, so both me and him are sent reeling from this round of combat...

Other than that though, things went off without a hitch for Sigurd and Co. Will Dew and Aideen manage the same luck?

Yes, c,mon...

Yeah, there we go!! Got 28 Exp, didn't get hit...

And now Dew is 2,000 Gold richer than we were before! Now I just hope Aideen and Jamka don't get too mad

In case you're wondering, the reason I couldn't get Dew onto either a Town or Forest tile is because the Brigands only have a 16% chance of hitting him on Plains. Stack a 20% Evade boost on top of that, and the Brigands will literally just walk right by Dew, knowing that they have no chance of hitting him. But the Captain will still be on his butt. And he'll still be strong enough to kill Dew in one hit, so it's actually more dangerous to stick Dew on a Forest than it is to do what I'm doing. So...

Next turn, Aideen and Dew the same thing as last turn...

Cuan kills the Mbandit attacking the northern village...

�1+ HP! 1+ Str! 1+ Mag! 1+ Def!

And he actually gets Magic, and also the REST of the left side of the screen!

After that, Ethlin kills a heavily injured Bandit, though she might not have been able to if she or Cuan had ended up any weaker than they were. And THAT'S why I say that having Midir along might've been a good idea, just in case that happened. Oh well though, no biggie.

Now, we have to take care of Kinbois, but there are still archers blocking him off. So, Alec weakens one of them...

And then Noish finishes that one off!

Alright Fin, let's see what you can do!

...Yeah he beat up Kinbois pretty bad, but look at that Damage! Whatever is he to do now?!

1+ Luck!

Well, first of all, I think that is just about the unluckiest Luck level I have ever seen.

But anyways, it LOOKS like Fin is in danger here...but remember, he has the Prayer skill, which raises his Evade by 10 for every point of HP under 11 he's at for one turn. Now let's see how much Hit the archers have...

Ah, only 70! So as long as Fin stays off the Roads, he's invincible! And yes, this was all precisely arranged so that that would happen. Because now the archers will most likely attack him since he's technically got one foot in the grave, distracting them from everyone else.

And then Lex kills Kinbois! And for that, he gets...

1+ HP! 1+ Skl! 1+ Str! 1+ Spd! 1+ Def!

An amazing level...

And a shiny new 1-2 Range weapon, just as planned!

Alright, time to get dangerous.

See this? Aira and the three Axefighters will normally stay frozen in place, but once you get in their range, all bets are off. And while the three Axefighters are as pathetic as always...

Aira is kind of in a league of her own. First of all, she's a sword user who uses an Iron Blade, which is basically an Iron Lance, but with half the weight and 20 less Hit. But more importantly...

She's got this skill here, perhaps one of the most overpowered offensive skills in the entire game. Seriously though, that thing there is almost always an instant reset if it she hits someone with it. Not only that, but it's activation formula is equal to how much Skill the user has, so this thing has a 16% chance of activating per attack. So actually, since she has Pursuit, Aira's hitting her opponent ten times, not just five! That said though, she's a little on the fragile side, and Sigurd's got the Slim Sword, so Sigurd COULD actually reliably kill her as long as he's at full health...

But here's the thing. You don't have to do that. In fact, you can actually get her, and other enemy units, to switch sides as long as you fulfill certain conditions. Usually it's as simple as talking to them with the right person, but in Aira's case, (and only in Aira's case), it's more complicated then that. You not only have to conquer Genoa without killing her, but then you ALSO have to talk to her with Sigurd, and only Sigurd. Otherwise, she'll just head back to Genoa, destroy it (along with anyone else who gets in her way), and then come running back to you, screaming bloody murder the whole way through...

And what makes it worse is that there's almost nothing in either the game OR the Japanese instruction manual that actually tells you that you can convert enemies to your side with the Talk command. The game doesn't tell you that you can do this until Chapter 6 (at which point you've already permanently missed four characters), and the Japanese instruction manual just has this...

The circled section talks about the "Talk" command. But even there, all it really says is something along the lines of "Under certain conditions, your units can talk to other Allied units. Also, you can use the Talk command to convert enemy units to your side, and also get some items from some of your other Allied units."

...

And that is it. That is literally... It. Those are the ONLY places in either the game OR the manual where it tells you how to recruit enemy units. Of course, there are at least subtle hints that Aira's supposed to join you at some point, like that whole thing about her not wanting to serve Kinbois, as well as this portrait of her on the lower right...

But even then, the game tells you almost nothing about HOW you're supposed to recruit her, or anyone else. For all you know, she'll just automatically join you at the end of the Chapter, regardless of whether you kill her or not. Or maybe you have to find a way to keep her alive for the whole Chapter while you go knock down Kinbois, Gandolf, and whatever other bosses you fight. Or maybe recruiting her is something that happens after you kill every enemy unit but her?

It's just one of those things that's not quite a Guide Dang It moment, but is still needlessly obscure. After all, this could be someone's very first Fire Emblem game! And there's always that chance, where by the time you realize your mistake, you'll have already saved your file in a way that forces you to restart your game just to get her. Pre-tty unfortunate game design, if you ask me...but oh well, I still love this game :shobon:

Now then, Aira has two exact ways she can move when you move Sigurd into aggro range, depending on whether or not you have ANY units other than him past those red lines. If you do, she'll move like this...

But if you make sure NOT to have anyone but Sigurd past those red lines...

She'll move like this. So now we can capture Genoa without having to fight her!

Now let's see how this goes!

Alright! Nice dodging by Fin (and no, the battle screen does NOT show the results of Prayer)...

This axefighter suicides himself on Sigurd since he's too dodgy for a Hand Axe...

Dew continues to run circles around Gandolf's men...

And here comes Aira!

Or...not. The A.I. can be funny sometimes, can't it

So Sigurd gets started on the Warrior guarding the castle...

And then he scampers off JUST outside Aira's attack range

Cuan continues his journey to the next village in need of rescue...

And then I help Noish kill an archer before sending him to save one of the other ones!

�He has attacked our village on numerous occasions. It's been dreadful. And things had been so peaceful under the reign of King Batou... Anyway, were all so glad that you've come!

Shucks...well, we're all here to help :shobon:

So Alec gets another level...

�1+ Str! 1+ Skl! 1 Luck!

And WHOOO! Strength on Alec! Now that's what I want to see!

Anyways, Dew retreats to another point where he'll fight two Brigands, Aideen goes as far as she can go without getting attacked by Aira...

And then the rest of the units finish off their turn by following Cuan as best they can. Nothing much happens on the enemy's turn...

So let's skip to ours! Aira is dangerously close, but don't worry, that will not be a problem because...

Sigurd kills the one guarding the castle...

And then conquers it, thereby freeing Shanan from Verdane's clutches! Now let's see what they have to say!

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Jul 11, 2015

# ¿ Jul 10, 2015 20:51

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Shanan: .....

Sigurd: What's up? Why aren't you talking? Who locked you up in there?

Shanan: ...Aren't you Kinbois men?

Sigurd: We took care of Kinbois. You're safe with us.

Shanan: Really? Then Aira doesnt have to fight anymore! They're makin' my auntie fight against her will! Please, you gotta help her!!

Sigurd: That swordfighter out there? I thought something was different about her. I'll go let her know you're alright. So what's your name?

Ah, so there's one of your clues about how to recruit her. Of course, that assumes that you didn't already kill her first...though actually, you're supposed to get the hint even if you HAVE already chopped off her head. But due to some English patch shenanigans...well, let's just see how the rest of this plays out first.

Shanan: Shanan. I'm... er.. prince of the Kingdom of Isaac.

Sigurd: YOU are the prince of Isaac? You're serious, aren't you? I bet you've been through a lot. You're best to stay with our troops for now. Just be patient for the time being. You'll make it back to your country someday.

And then Shanan leaves, and Oifaye pops up again.

Sigurd: Oifaye, that war has nothing to do with this child. I don't care where he's from. We'll find a way to get him home. For now I just want to keep him safe.

Oifaye: Understood.

For reference, back in medieval times, times were a bit...rougher back then. When your kingdom had defeated another in war, it was common practice to not only execute the enemy king, but also his entire FAMILY, including granddaughters, grandsons, uncles, grandfathers, mothers, cousins, pretty much EVERYONE who had even a drop of the enemy king's blood inside them. And according to at least one FE4 guidebook, that was the case in this game's universe as well. And obviously Sigurd and Oifaye know this, hence that brief exchange between them at the end...

So really, what Sigurd's doing here isn't just a random act of generosity. It's yet another defining moment of him as someone who truly is every bit as kind-hearted and self-sacrificial as you'd expect a Holy Knight to be. Sigurd is not just a bro (though he certainly is that

), he truly is a good person, and someone who obviously has a lot of sympathy for the weak and helpless. So that was all pretty cool, and there's of course, nothing obviously wrong with the script there...

But, what if things had gone...not so well? How would Shanan react if Aira was dead? THAT, my friends is when things take a sort of...interesting turn, in a conversation that has to be seen...to be believed. Though at least we've got one of my favorite themes in the game to go with it.

Wait for it...

I'm sorry, but, Jay and Boo...just when exactly did you decide to turn FE4 into a black comedy? Out of ALL the things you could have had Sigurd say, you choose "Geez, I'm sorry! I had no idea!"?! Because...not only does that line completely kill the scene, and make Sigurd look like a heartless dastard...but it's also, completely, and utterly, NOT correct!

See this screen here? It's the exact screen as the "Geez, I had no idea!" line...except wait, there are no exclamation marks in what Sigurd says, is there? Because what Sigurd is actually actually supposed to say is something along the lines of...

"I'm sorry Shanan, if I had had any idea, ANY idea at all, I promise you that I would've done EVERYTHING in my power to save her..."

So this line is completely incorrect, hilariously out of place, AND gets rid of one of the ONLY HINTS YOU HAVE THAT SIGURD IS SUPPOSED TO RECRUIT AIRA!!. And it's not even like the sentence was something really hard to translate or anything, it's clear as night and day what Sigurd's supposed to be saying...

So I don't know what happened here. Maybe Jay and Boo were just clowning around with this scene, and were intending to go back and fix it later when they got the rest of the patch done? Or maybe they thought the original dialogue was boring? Perhaps they got a bad translation from someone who wasn't as competent as them? I don't know. But holy cow...holy cow is this a stinker. A turd. Or, perhaps it is, what one might call an...

Epic Fail - #1 (Because unfortunately, there WILL be more of them...)

So, Genoa's captured. Let's check the ol' Talk screen again...

Ah, look at that! Dew's got something to say to Aideen!

Here's a nice spot. Technically any spot will do, but Dew's already got 84 Exp, I want to conserve his sword uses for the Captain, and forests reduce Brigand hit chances to 0, so, there you go.

�Dew: I can't get it t'do nothin, so there's no point in me keepin' it.

�Aideen: Oh, this is a Warp Staff, Dew.

�Aideen: Where'd you find it?

�Dew: Umm... It was... over there! Yeah, that's where I found it. I betcha one of the gods dropped er outta the sky just for you!

�Aideen: Yeah right, Dew. Well, it will help out around here to have it. �Thanks.

So see this Warp Staff? It'll warp you to ANY castle you happen to own, as well as give the user 60 Exp per use, and it even has 10 uses on it! And yes, it can be repaired, so as long as you have 1,000 Gold per use, you can spam it for as long as you want! So this here is helpful both for zipping around entire maps, and ALSO for grinding to Level 30, so it's quite lovely really! Thanks Dew!

And speaking of neat gifts, Aideen's got one too!

�Aideen: Thank you so much. I'm ever so grateful. Here, please have this staff. I'm sure you'll get more use out of it than I.

�Ethlin: This a Return Staff, isn't it? Thank you, Aideen! I'll put it to good use.

And now we've got the Return Staff, which is...basically a worse version of the Warp Staff. Instead of being able to choose any Player controlled castle, it can only warp you to your starting castle. And instead of giving 60 Exp, it only gives you 35. So Ethlin will be wanting the Elite Ring before she does any Staff Spamming with this...

That said though, at least it's C Rank! And it's only worth 5000G instead of 10000G, so it's easier to repair than the Warp Staff. Because of those things, it's still pretty helpful for Exp grinding some people who can only use C Staves (which there are actually quite a few of).

The best part about the return staff is that troubadours can use it, meaning that you have at least some mounted warpeen. Aideen is too slow.

I agree completely Marty. So then, I suppose that's enough for now. Genoa has been conquered, Kinbois has been done n' dusted, Aideen has gotten out with Dew and Jamka's help, and things are looking good. But can we recruit Aira on time, before anyone else gets hurt? Will she listen to us? Or will we have to beat her down in combat first? Will we be able to defeat Gandalf while he's still in his stupor of stupidity? Or will he get his act together and pull out some nasty surprises? And what about that Slim Sword? How am I going to get 100 kills on it in time? Find out, on the next exciting episode of Let's Max Rank Fire Emblem 4! Have a nice day, and God bless you!

Translation Tidbits:

Epic Fail #1 - I cut the explanation of what's wrong with "Geez, I'm sorry! I had no idea!" a little short, since it seemed like it broke the flow of the update a little too much. But I've got more to say on this. Because there's one more thing about how Sigurd talks to Shanan that's important to get across. See, he not only states that he would've done everything in his power to help Aira if he had known she was innocent, but also talks to Shanan in an unusually tender way that's normally reserved for close friends...

I say that, because instead of saying "I'm sorry" as in "すみません" (the formal way of saying usually used by the Japanese), he says it as "すまない" (the informal way of saying it, normally reserved for friends). If that seems confusing, the Japanese language has sort of a "ranking" system attached to it. So instead of just calling someone "Thomas" or something like that, you usually address them with some sort of honorific. Like...

"Thomas-san" - (what equals say to each other)

"Thomas-sama" - (basically the equivalent of calling him "Mr. Thomas" instead)

"Thomas-chan" - (a cutesy way of saying someone's name, like calling the guy "Lil' Tom Tom" instead of just "Thomas". Can be either affectionate or derogative, depending on whether you're talking to your kid, or stealing someone's lunch money)...

And you get the idea. So, it's a little like the way we call some people "Mr." and stuff, but the rules are far more complicated in Japanese. Instead of just attaching said honorifics to proper nouns, you have to attach them even to your verbs when talking to people. So "すみません" (I'm sorry) becomes "すみませんございます" instead when, say, apologizing to your Japanese 1 teacher. So Sigurd could speak to Shanan in a diminutive, demeaning, or even just distant manner, since he's not only a kid, but the prince of the very country Grandbell is at war with...

But he doesn't. Not only does he not do that, but he even talks to him in a way that implies that he considers Shanan a friend. In fact, Sigurd does that with almost everyone in the story, always acting warm and friendly to people, even when they're complete strangers. That's a big part of why Azel was so enamored by the guy, and why he wished Alvis was more like him. So IMO, this scene may not be THAT important in the grand scheme of things, but it's still a real shame that Jay and Boo stuffed it up here. Oh well though. Aside from these kinds of moments (which there ARE more of in this patch), I still consider their patch to be at least the best FE fan-translation we have. Heck, I might even go as far as to say it's the BEST fan-translation we have, since even FE12's English patch struggles a little with being overly literal.

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Jul 11, 2015

# ¿ Jul 10, 2015 21:04

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Kacie posted:

Looks like the translation mistook the "I'm going out of my way to be your friend" with the "I talk informally like I'm a commoner not a prince."

Maybe...who knows? Honestly, it wouldn't even be so bad, except Sigurd then follows it up with "Look after Shanan until he's calmed down a bit". No exclamation marks, no ellipses, no emotion...if anything, he comes off more annoyed at Shanan than anything else.

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Jul 11, 2015

# ¿ Jul 11, 2015 08:24

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Lotish posted:

Agreed, it's a cool thing.

edit: I forget, do wins in the arena increment your kill counter?

Unfortunately, they do not :shrug:

Keldulas posted:

From a thematic standpoint, I LOVE the crit with enough kills idea on the weapons. It's like, how do weapons get famous? They get used in many battles, or epic/important battles. It's like the favored weapons of these warriors get infused with soul and subsequently cut through their opponents like grass. Feels like you're creating your own legendary weapons, especially with what you're telling us of your plans.

Huh...actually it is pretty cool when you put it that way, isn't it? I always had a slight problem with it since it kind of makes the game even easier to crush and steamroll with one guy than it already is...but a lot of that probably has more to do with some of the other imbalances this game has I guess. Actually, I never really thought of it from your perspective before Keldulas. That's pretty neat

# ¿ Jul 11, 2015 23:28

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Alright guys, Marty should get done with the end of his commentary by the end of tomorrow, so look forward to the next update, then!

# ¿ Jul 15, 2015 00:01

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Hello everyone! Last time we covered the Arena, defeated Kinbois, and dodged the deadly blade of Aira herself! And it seems Aideen has managed to escape from Gandolf's clutches. But Aideen is still being chased by a mob of Gandolf's men, and Aira still does not know that we have rescued Shanan! Can we save these wonderful, pure-hearted women before they're made to shuffle off the mortal coil? Can we end this destructive conflict once and for all? Find out, TODAY, on Let's Max Rank Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!

Alright, let's see what our enemies do!

Well, nothing from the Captain or his men. With Dew in the forest, nobody even TRIES to hit him. The Captain WOULD attempt something, but, well, he's only got 6 Move.

Then Aira gets her turn, and is she mad!

So much so, in fact, that she'll actually ignore anyone who's not either directly in her path, or right next to her, and instead just sprint right back to Genoa. And if she captures it before we've recruited her...

Aira: They�re dead!!

She'll into the Incredible fricken Hulk, and SMASH that castle :haw:

! And then she'll attack anyone and EVERYONE in her path! So obviously don't let that happen...actually, speaking of Aira, it turns out I made an incredible mistake last episode. You see, I railed against how obscure the enemy recruitment mechanic seemed...but, it turns out that while the game does not FLAT OUT tell you how to recruit people...it DOES give some very strong auditory hints as to who can and cannot be recruited.

To begin with, whenever one of your units dies, the game will play either a male death cry, or a female death cry depending on the gender. But as this video shows...

FE4 Female Death Cry

That sound byte will play for recruitable ENEMY units as well! And Aira is one such unit! And no, NO other kind of adversary will ever do that, no matter how sympathetic they may be in the story. ONLY the enemy units that can be recruited! In addition, if you happen to have animations on, this unique theme plays...

Aira: Feel my Meteor Sword!

Yes, Aira actually says that. But yeah, all that critiquing I did? Turns out I was dead wrong. If anything, the game might even be just a little TOO obvious...or maybe not. Despite all these strong visual and audio cues, I still found quite a few posts from FE4 newbies claiming that they accidentally killed Aira, not knowing that they could recruit her, and wondering if they should restart the game because of that. Plus, the game STILL doesn't tell you that the Talk mechanic can be used to recruit enemies so...maybe it's a wash?

But the point is, the game actually does a better job of explaining itself than I thought it did...it just took an unusually roundabout way of doing so. But I digress. Anyways, we pass the turn...

AND THEN MORE ENEMIES!!

Elliot: Ok, here�s our chance. First we take Evans, then we�ll shoot straight for the border!

NOOO!! I already sent my main force away from Evans! WHADAREWEGONNADOOO?!?

Yellow NPC! Help me!

Or Eltshan, sure, why not? ANYONE'll do at this point!

Well now...this is quite unfortunate, isn't it? Look how close they are to the castle! However will I defend myself from all those guys? Ardan, Azel, and Midir certainly can't hack it. I guess I could put the Return and Warp Staves to use, and try to send back Sigurd and some other guys, but are they even strong enough?

Well, their stats are definitely lower than ours, but...

They're still packing some serious heat! I can still double them easily enough, but Sigurd doesn't have WTA (Weapon Triangle Advantage) over them, so he's facing approximately 44% hit rates against guys who not only have 23 Attack, but can also move out of the way after attacking. Even Sigurd can't survive EVERY hit...

So how am I going to beat these guys? And why in the world would I still send off almost all of my army, despite knowing that this would happen? Well that's because I've still got...

FIIIIIIINN!!

That's right! The day will be saved by none other than our blue-haired boy wonder! He's got Pursuit and 22 Attack with his Iron Lance, but MORE importantly, he's also got Prayer, the 30+ Castle Evade bonus, and 8 Defense. And by the time Elliot gets to Evans, Fin will have already regenerated 12 HP, and will have 16 HP as a result.

So, if two of Elliot's men, with their 23 Attack, hit Fin...that'll reduce him to 1 HP, and THEREFORE, grant him a 100+ boost to Evade. Mix that all together with the 5 Evade that Fin already has, and he effectively has 135 Evade for one enemy phase! So he has NO risk of death, and a 100% chance of killing everything but Elliot himself. And even Elliot'll be so weak, that I can just feed him to Azel afterwards.

Quite nice eh? The best part is, I don't even need to raise him at all! Just make sure he stays at base level till he already talks to Cuan, get him slapped around by Kinbois, and that's it! Nothing to it!

So then, moving on...

Our Slim Sword's getting a bit rusty, so we got get some fixin' done on 'er...

And I guess Aira would be good to have, so let's see how this goes.

Sigurd: Prince Shanan told me that you�re the younger sister to the King of Isaac. He also said that you�d be hostile towards us since we�re from Grandbell. But consider the facts. You have a young prince to protect. Is this war really worth risking your life over!?

Aira: My brother, the king, was prepared for death when he entrusted Shanan with me. We�ve come this far... But you�re right. I can�t risk my life for Verdane! I must see Shanan through until he�s old enough to become a respectable king.

Sigurd: Then put down your sword. As a descendant of Baldo, the Crusader of Light, I will not betray you.

Aira: ...Consider your trust reciprocated then. That�s the way of the Isaacian warrior. For now I consecrate my sword to thee. But I still view Grandbell as my sworn enemy. Just so you�re prepared for the day when that enemy may include you.

Sigurd: War sure can be cruel. Aira, warrior of Isaac... I pray that day never comes.

Yay! Meteor Swo-, er...Aira, is one of us now! So, let's see how she stacks up...

Level 4 Swordfighter

HP: 32 (70%) Spd: 17 (30%)
Str: 11 (30%) Lck: 3 (20%)
Mag: 0 (5%) Def: 7 (20%)
Skl: 16 (60%) Res: 1 (5%)

Move: 6
Weapon Ranks: Swords (A)
Items: Iron Blade
Skill: Pursuit, Awareness, Meteor Sword (Skill%= Activates 5 continuous attacks (10 with a Hero weapon), can not activate Continue or another sword skill simultaneously)

Ah, Aira. Or Ayra, or Ira, whatever you want to call her. She is...a very hyped up unit. That's mainly due to Meteor Sword, but also because she has pretty good bases, A Swords, and a very offensive stat spread. Because of these advantages, she can probably kill just about anything in the game with enough luck. And there's no denying the worth of someone like that...

But here's the thing. Having a walking murder machine sounds amazing...but we already have galloping murder machines like Sigurd, Lex, Fin, and Cuan. And those guys not only have excellent offense, but also have excellent Defense, excellent Move, early 1-2 Range, AND the ability to move again after attacking, while Aira really just has the excellent offense.

First of all, if you haven't picked up on this by now...

This game's maps are absolutely GIGANTIC, and Road tiles benefit mounted units more than they do foot units. So even just GETTING to the battlefield before the fighting is over is a real challenge for any foot unit. So Aira's got that against her. But even if she could, you'd still have to be careful with her because her durability is simply "decent", not great. She can survive about 3 hits in Chapter 2, but her lack of Canto (the term we use for the ability to move again after attacking) prevents her from being able to be too aggressive without exposing herself to heavy enemy fire.

Like I said though...she's still not too shabby either. If you're willing, you can also get her the Steel Blade from Chapter 2's item shop, which gives her 16 Might instead of just 12. So even if she doesn't get any Strength procs, she's STILL strong enough to kill just all but one unit type in Chapter 2 with just her raw stats. And for the more stubborn enemies? Well then she's essentially got a 34% or higher chance of instantly killing THOSE enemies with Meteor Sword! Plus, you CAN always give her the Prayer Sword, a female-only sword that grants the Prayer Skill. And Fin's already proven how awesome THAT is, right?

So if nothing else, she's a darn sight better than Alec or Noish will ever be. And her extreme offensive abilities help her to clear the Arenas easier than just about anyone. But even still, she's kind of like a high school Quarterback trying to compete in the Olympics. She's good...but she's just not good enough to stand out. She's neat to have...but she's not really NECESSARY, if you get my drift.

And as far as DBZ goes? I'd say she's basically Android #18, a female fighter who's very strong, and absolutely ruthless in battle. She starts off as an antagonist, but ultimately, she's too good of a person to stay a bad guy for long. In addition, in a show where almost everyone is either completely amazing, or completely worthless, she's one of the few people who manage to be somewhere in-between. As a result, she's far above all the scrubs...but she's still just not good enough to compete with the other heavy-weights.

Astra seems really cool, but against pretty much anything but armor knights it's huge overkill, which is really just as good as normally killing. Her defense is kinda an issue, but by the time she promotes she's dodgy enough to be ok as long as there are other units to also soak up some hits. She is always limited by being a foot unit in FE4, but in situations where foot units are useful, [since knights sometimes have to backstrack], she's a valuable contributor.

Anyways, her and Alec are just going to chill near Marpha. We don't need to use her this Chapter, and Alec's guarding Marpha for a reason. See, unlike with your home castle, your units can't inside Marpha. They can enter, fix their weapons, visit the fortune teller, go to the pawn shop, and all that, but they can't rest inside of it. No, instead, the castle just spits you right back out the minute you're done navigating the menus. And eventually, Sigurd's going to want to sell the Slim Sword to Alec, so if I move Alec from the top of the castle, he doesn't waste a movement square when he otherwise would.

As for Dew, one attack against the Captain will get him the level he needs, but, I need to make sure he procs Defense on that level. So, I set things up so that next turn, Dew can safely fight the Captain via Forest Tile and Leadership Bonus. Then I can reset with minimal time loss if I don't proc the point of Defense I want.

Also, Cuan gets prepared to attack the southern Mbandit next turn (he's razing the village right now)...

And then everyone else moves out of the way of enemy fire before the start of the next Enemy phase.

Wherein yet MORE Brigands run into Sigurd's sword, and feed him level ups the way they always do.

1+ HP! 1+ Skl! 1+ Lck! 1+ Def!

And hey, it's a pretty good one this time!

Again, no one can really hit Dew, so none of the remaining enemies really know what to do with themselves.

Except for that annoying Mbandit, who's stealing OUR Gold even as we speak :mad:

! And then...

Back at Nodion...

Turns out Eltshan is aware of the situation!

Eltshan: Hmm... Elliot just couldn�t stay out of this, could he... Lachesis, watch the castle. I�m going to backup Sigurd.

Eltshan: His troops shouldn�t pose much of a problem, but do stay alert.

Aw yeah, Eltshan's laying down the gauntlet!

Eltshan: Just pull out right now. I know you�re not ready to face me either.

Elliot: Eltshan, are you mad!? Don�t tell me you�ve sided with Grandbell!

Eltshan: Don�t you realize you�re running in direct violation to our superior�s orders? The reverent King Agusty has no desire to wage war against Grandbell.

Elliot: Only you would be foolish enough to take that old man seriously anymore. Besides, all the lords of the dominion have already unified against Grandbell.

Eltshan: Not all of them! Anyway, a war now would incur huge sacrifices on both sides! Our past is a testament to that. The noble class aren�t the ones who suffer in the end. It�s the powerless citizens who suffer, and I�m not about to let it happen!

Elliot: As always your head is in the clouds, Eltshan. I knew it�d come to this sooner or later. Let�s settle this once and for all. Men, Nodion is now the enemy! I want Eltshan dead!!

Goodness. Elliot must be pretty brutal if he's just going to kill off one of his fellow Dukes, just like that...so let's see how Eltshan and his men d-

How...HOW in the holy HECK do Eltshan and his men have THAT much HP?! And, if that's how much they have...just...just how many other stats do they have?!

Ok...and Eltshan himself?

Oh, OK, so Eltshan...is not quite as amazing as Alvis...but he's still REALLY good! Compared to Sigurd, he's a bit lower in Strength, but ahead everywhere else! So needless to say...

Things don't exactly go as planned for Elliot.

So in case you haven't guessed by now, that whole plan I described, with Fin killing everyone and Azel getting the finishing blow on Elliot? I was just kidding around with you all for the sake of avoiding spoilers. Oh, don't get me wrong, Fin would've destroyed them all if he'd been given the chance, but unfortunately, he was not. I just warped him back to Evans because I didn't have any further jobs for him to do.

SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE

So, nothing to worry about but these guys here.

Sigurd kills one of the Brigands, and Dew gets on a Forest within three spaces of Sigurd to get both the Forest and Leadership Evasion boost. With that, the Captain will not have any chance of hitting him, but he'll still THINK he does since the computer doesn't take Leadership bonuses into it's calculations.

Finally, Cuan tries to hit the Mbandit...

...Aaand then whiffs his attack. Cripes!

Oh well. As long as Aideen and the others are staying out of range, she can get 20 Exp per pop just by healing. In fact, she'll have to use the Relive staff a few times since I'm plan on promoting her in Chapter 2. Then she can start clearing Arena's as well

Now how many resets will it take for Dew to get what he needs?

1+ HP! 1+ Str! 1+ Spd! 1+ Def!

Huh...none at all...and that's like, all of the most important stats right there!

And then the Captain's men all convert themselves into rust on Sigurd's blade. Speaking of which...

Eltshan and his knights clean up the rest of Elliot's squad. But as for Elliot himself...

He still lives. Not only that...

But he then breaks the rules of the game in order to go past the Cross Knights. C,MON ELTSHAN! I know you're all honorable and everything, but you couldn't at least take Elliot prisoner? Maybe have him tried for trying to incite a war with Grandbell, against the King's express wishes? Honestly now...

Oh, and before I forget, you actually CAN have your own units attack Elliot and his men, though they're not really worth it. They're only at Level 1, and they tend to prioritize attacking Eltshan's group rather than your guys, so you're still not getting much Exp from them. Still, if you DO attack Elliot, he actually does have a battle quote...

Elliot: drat it, Eltshan! Always have to play the good guy! I�ll end this grudge today!

...Exactly why DID he think he had any chance again Eltshan anyway? The guy has a legendary weapon for pete's sake! Yeah, any time we see a 30 Might weapon, like Alvis's FFlame (Fala Flame), or Eltshan's Mistoltein, you can always assume that those are one of the 12 Legendary weapons. Speaking of which...

War Room Part 4 (Holy Blood is Thicker Than Iron)

You see this Holy Blood wheel right here? This is a third screen accessible by heading down to this screen...

And then pressing the A Button. Now, for most units, the wheel will look like this due to a lack of Holy Blood. But for those who ARE descended from one of the 12 Legendary Heroes, and therefore DO have some Holy Blood in them, their wheels will look like this instead...

See that blue dot on each of their screens? That signifies that, while they don't have a TON of Holy Blood in them, they do have SOME. Or, as we FE4 vets say, they have "Minor Holy Blood", which means they have higher growths, and they're better at wielding a specific weapon type. So without their minor Holy Blood, Lex would only be able to use B Ranked axes, Azel would only be able to use C Ranked Fire Tomes, and Aira would only be able to use B Ranked swords. Plus, these units also get a slight boost to a few of their growths. Which growths are boosted? That depends on what kind of Holy Blood they have, so here's a table for your convenience...

http://serenesforest.net/genealogy-of-the-holy-war/miscellaneous/holy-blood/

So that's minor Holy Blood...now here's MAJOR Holy Blood!

Now MAJOR Holy Blood works the same way, except it's boosts are much higher. First of all, whosoever gets it will get an * Rank in their respective weapon, meaning that they can use the Legendary Weapon related to their ancestor (for example, Sigurd can use Tyrfing since he has Baldo blood). In addition to that, they can use whatever OTHER weapon they happen to have an * Rank in, except for other Holy Weapons (so Sigurd cannot wield the Balmung or the Mistoltein, the ones related to Odo and Hezul blood). And in terms of growth rates, people with Major Blood get DOUBLE the bonuses of their Minor Blood counterparts...

Which is actually part of the reason why guys like Sigurd and Cuan are so overpowered. WITHOUT those bonuses, Sigurd would lose a lot of HP and some Str. And then Cuan would be hamstrung by a loss of HP, Str, Spd, AND Def!

So there's your lesson for today. Holy Blood = Awesomeness, in most cases, and Elliot is absolutely stupid for even ATTEMPTING to do anything to Eltshan.

Now then...

Normally I'd chump this Captain here...but there'ssomething I'm planning on abusing, and I'm not going to be able to do that if this Captain dies. So for now, I'm just going to use Dew to pull him to the left, that way he doesn't get in our way.

Also, since Cuan failed to hit the Mbandit last turn, and since he wasn't able to activate Continue on this turn, the Mbandit's going to live for a bit longer. On the plus side though, at least Sigurd can feed the Slim Sword yet another kill.

Now after some more unit positioning, it's Marpha's Turn!

And as you can see, Dew now has NO chance of dying! Before, he could get one-shotted by the Captain, but now he'll survive one blow, which then allows me to simply reset if he gets hit. In addition, units will ALWAYS do at least 1 Damage per hit to those they attack, even if their opponent's defense is higher than their Attack. Combine that with the Captain's high level, and Dew is actually getting 18 Exp per round of combat, which is quite nice!

I once used a Celice with 10 Str to kill a late game boss (name removed to avoid spoilers, what a dastard though) with 40 defense. This mechanic can be fun to play around with.

Also, Eltshan's done for the day. Now that we've had our tutorial on why we should always have someone guarding the castle, they're just going to chill at Nodion. Which I don't mind. They'd just steal the Exp anyways.

Turn 9: Now then, at this point, there's a lot of dead air that I'm skipping through, So next turn, Sigurd goes to aggro all the stationary enemies at Marpha...

And the rest of our units do the same as they did last turn. With that out of the way, Gandolf FINALLY gets off his duff, at long last.

Gandolf: Don't let them near the castle!!

WARNING: Next GIF is two minutes long

And here we see what I like to call, the �Conga Line of Death�, where every one of Gandalf's men decide that they're just tired of life. But no worries, they'll be back! Because these aren't just normal enemies, they're infinitely respawning enemies :haw:

!

Heh, seriously though, all nine of these guys will crawl their way out of H.F.I.L over and over again, as long as their dear Captain is alive. And in fact, the same thing would've happened with Kinbois and his men had I allowed him to live (though in his case, he'd need to go inside Genoa first). Quite a useful mechanic really, because this is how I'm going to turn my Slim Sword into an Uber Slim Sword! A few rounds of this, and Alec, Noish, Dew, and Ardan will be all set to kick some bacon!

Also, the rest of Gandolf's men also aggro onto us, and do not have any more luck than the others did. Well ok, one of the archers manage to do 6 Damage, but that's it. And unfortunately, these guys won't be re-spawning

It's just as well though. The Slim Sword's almost broken anyway, so Sigurd's gonna have to head back to Genoa to get it fixed.

Turn 10: Now, Dew's succeeded in drawing the Captain to some place safe, so Aideen can Warp Sigurd back and forth without any interference.

Then Gandolf's dudes head back to Marpha now that there aren't any more people in their range. Unfortunately it takes 3 Turns for enemies to start re-spawning, so that adds even more dead air.

Turns 11: Alright, so on this turn, we run into an issue.

Dew got hit! Oh noes! What are we to do?!

Well, just reset, load your file...

Then have someone (I don't care who) enter the Arena...

Burn some RNs...

And there you go! Now Dew has dodged the strike this time!

Now then, Sigurd's only got one use on his Slim Sword, so it's time to Warp back to Genoa!

And we get this cool menu as we do so...

And this cool animation! Look at that Exp gain!

After ending our turn, Dew gets a level up and...

1+ Str! 1+ Lck! 1+ Def!

Hey, it's a pretty good one isn't it? Actually, we're going to get quite a few level ups, so that's something to look forward to.

This dew is ridiculous.

Turn 12: So next turn, Sigurd fixes the sword...

Aideen gets a level up...

1 HP! 1 Mag!

And then more reinforcements...

1+ HP!

Turns 13-15: And then more Sigurd killing (and now I'll be skipping the rest of the levels until the end of this grinding segment)...

More reinforcements...

More Sigurd killing...

Turns 16-40: And with 56 kills on it, our Slim Sword has finally gotten the Critical skill, and has become an Uber Slim Sword! Guess it's high time for someone else to train with it. But first, a conversation with Aideen.

Aideen: Oh, I�m terribly sorry to bring all of you from Chalphy into this.

Sigurd: No worries there. Everyone will just be glad to know that you�re alright. We have things under control here, Aideen. Why don�t you head on back to Grandbell?

Aideen: No, I�m staying. There�s bound to be more injuries further along. I want to help others in the service of the Lord.

Sigurd: Aideen... Didn�t you leave the knighthood to become a nun? I think it suits you perfectly. I�d do well to learn a thing or two from you myself.

I think you already did. Harboring the son of the country you're currently at war with? That's a pretty "Aideen" thing to do in itself! Then again, since this Talk option came up before we rescued Shanan...heck, maybe Aideen was the one who gave Sigurd the idea.

Aideen: Actually, the sole reason I joined the nunnery is... Well, it�s to aid the chances of finding my sister.

Sigurd: You must mean Briggid. She�s been missing since your childhood, hasn�t she... You still believe you can find her, do you?

Aideen: That�s correct. And when I do, I must give the Holy Bow Ichival to her!

...Ok, so that wasn't one of the more subtle exposition dumps we got in this game, though it IS a rather helpful thing to remember for the future. But yeah, for as good as this game's story is, it DOES have a real problem with handling exposition smoothly. Like, this occasion wasn't TOO bad, but oooh it gets worse :cripes:

So after getting Warped back to Genoa, Sigurd fixes and then sells the Uber Slim Sword for Alec to use...

But before racking up more kills, Alec decides to put his Speed Ring in storage. This way, his Avoid with the Slim Sword will be 29. Put him on a Forest tile, and count in his triangle advantage against Brigands, that drops their hit chances to just 3%. But then add Sigurd's Leadership bonus on top of that, and they're now unable to hit him at all! But again, the computer doesn't factor in Leadership bonuses, so they'll still TRY!

Because of that, grinding up the rest of the kills is as easy as pie. So I'm going to skip the rest of the grinding segment, but, if you're playing along with me, I want you to do these two things.

Alec won't always be able to get back from Genoa that quickly, so sometimes you'll have to put Alec on this Forest all the way back here. And since that is the case, Dew will want to move to where he's at now, that way you don't risk the Captain running off somewhere else instead of playing Tom and Jerry with Dew. And one another thing...

Make sure you visit this village with Noish, cuz he still needs money.

That sorcerer, Sandima, is behind all of this. Everything began going downhill the moment he showed up. Aside from the youngest prince, Jamka, Sandima has them all wrapped around his finger. Please, I beg of you... save our kingdom!

Sandima eh? I'll have to investigate that...but for now, one thing I want to say. Alec wasn't the only person who killed respawning Brigands. If he gets unlucky with the Critical skill, he's not always able to kill all the Brigands before the next wave spawns, so for just a few of those cases, Noish picked off some of the stragglers. As a result...

1+ HP!

Noish got a level up. A TERRIBLE level up, but, what can you do :shrug:

? He needs all the stats he can get.

Anyways, that all takes 27 Turns and about 50 minutes. If 50 minutes seems like a lot, trust me, it saves SO much than that in the long term. In fact, just with the Rank 7 Arena foe alone, it allows Dew to kill him in just 1 minute and 20 seconds, instead of the 4 minutes and 4 seconds it would've otherwise taken (you'll see...).

Needless to say, a 100 kill slim sword is practically a holy weapon.

Indeed. And Alec gets like, 11 Levels from that whole thing.

7+ HP! 4+ Str! 4+ Skl! 2+ Spd! 3+ Lck! 4+ Def!

Could've used a bit more Speed, but on the other hand, Alec's doing wonderfully on Strength!

Ehhh, he doesn't need speed anyways, swords OP!

Turn 37: So now it's Gandolf's turn!

Gandolf: First my girl escapes, and now my castle�s under attack! Why am I so unlucky!?

And yeah, after all that time in the Prologue, Gandolf is...frankly kind of a let down when you finally do get to him.

I mean even besides Alec's 64% chance of taking off half his health with each hit...he's still only got his 27 Attack, which at this point is just not enough to be a threat. And from a story perspective, he basically spends this entire Chapter just freaking out at every little thing. But at least he's got some slightly amusing battle quotes with Azel and Midir...

Gandolf vs. Azel

Gandolf: Who�re you? Ya got a lot of nerve to attack me, ya little brat!

Azel: So you�re Gandolf... How dare you take Aideen!

Gandolf vs. Midir

Gandolf: What? You�re that arch knight from before!? Man, I blew it! I can�t believe you�re still alive!

Midir: Prepare yourself, Gandolf! I�ll never forgive someone like you!!

I'm guessing "Arch knight" is the result of replacing every instance of the original class name with one that had to be abbreviated in order to fit the menu text boxes. But that's just my guess :cheeky:

Turn 38: So Dew kills the Captain, with just one use of his Iron Sword to spare...

And obviously Gandolf doesn't last too long...

1+ Skl!

Shucks...

Oh well, we conquered Marpha, and that's all that matters. So let's see what happens now!

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Jan 6, 2016

# ¿ Jul 15, 2015 22:43

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

DiMaggio!! IS THAT YOU :aaaaa:

?!?

???: Please... just let me be on my way!

DiMaggio's Twin?: Grr! Sweetie, you best just shut your trap!

Sigurd: That�s right, so get moving! Nothing gets under my skin more than scum like you! You apologize to the girl and then get out of my sight!

DiMaggio's Twin?: Alright already. Er... Sorry, miss. I�s just havin� a little fun.

Sigurd: Er? You know who I am?

???: Yes, I met a woman here in the castle a little while ago named Aideen.

Sigurd: Aideen said something about me?

???: She did. You�re just how I imagined you to be.

Sigurd: What�s ah... your name?

???: I�m sorry. I... I must go!

Sigurd: Hey... hold on! I just wanted to talk...

???: I�m sorry. I�m glad we were able to meet.

Sigurd: Wha- what�s the problem? Wait! Sheesh!

Ah Sigurd. Once again you've proven what a master wordsmith you are.

Sigurd = Shakespeare

But sadly, after looking back just once...he mysterious woman retreats off the northwest corner of the map, just as Jamka did previously.

And Sigurd is still there, reeling from the conversation.

Old Man: Ahh, yes. That�d be Deirdre. She�s a shaman of the Spirit Forest.

Sigurd: Deirdre... She�s so beautiful.

Old Man: A-ha! Even a man of your caliber falls readily fer a pretty woman. Perhaps it�s love at first sight!

Sigurd: Sir, please. I�m serious. There was something about her... I hope to meet her again.

Old Man: That might be a tad difficult. You see, the villagers of the Spirit Forest do not involve themselves with the outside world. Moreover, that girl you�re so fond of is strictly forbidden from associating with men. The villagers believe a great catastrophe will befall us if that were ever violated. I�ll get right to the point, Sigurd. Resign yourself of that girl.

Sigurd: That sounds like superstitious nonsense to me. No one should be forced to live like that. Deirdre... we must meet again.

Sigurd, resigning herself of the beautiful, mysterious woman? Pfft, as if we don't know how THIS always turns out :keke:

! Although, you do kind of have to wonder how she managed to live in this village without, I dunno, getting forced into Gandolf's harem or something. I mean she WAS in contact with Aideen and everything, so...

Anyways, that's Marpha done n' dusted. Just one more castle left to go...

Man, look at all those Forest tiles :sigh:

...

This is the worst designed castle in all of FE4 in my opinion, but I will save that tirade for the next update!

Jamka: Gandolf and Kinbois have failed, and the enemy�ll be striking here before you know it. Commander Sigurd of Grandbell is by no means a bad person. Please, withdraw the troops!

King Batou: Originally, Grandbell was preparing to strike us! That�s why I allowed Gandolf�s raid. I never intended for it to get this out of hand.

Minor mistranslation here...but we'll get into that.

Jamka: That sorceror Sandima is behind all of this, isn�t he... You, Gandolf and Kinbois have trusted him far too much. He has deceived all of you!

Ah, so Sandima's behind it all! HE'S the one who's been pulling the string!. Alright then, let's see this Sandima dude! Let's see for ourselves who could possibly be so charismatic...so trustworthy...so eloquent, that he could possibly charm his way into the King's-

...You know what? I give up. Let's...let's just hear what this, puppy-dog looking man has to say.

Sandima: I believe you, as prince, have an obligation to command an attack on the enemy. Your negligence to do so could have grave consequences on the kingdom�s future.

Jamka: Father!! There�s just no convincing you, is there... Alright, I�ll do it. But if I make it back alive, Sandima, I�m taking you out!!

And so Jamka, the red bow and arrow guy, joins up with the rest of the pack. But as for Batou...

King Batou: It was you who said that Grandbell was conspiring to take my kingdom.

Sandima: What�s that? Here I thought Verdane would workout somehow... You�re just a bunch of savages. I�ve no longer any use for you. I�ll be taking command of the troops from here on out.

King Batou: What�re you doing!? Guh! Uuaaaaahhh...!

Sandima: Hrmph... wretched old fool.

And then...someone else shows up.

Sandima: I can just tell them the king has fallen ill.

Manfloy: So be it. How are things otherwise? Is everything running as planned?

Sandima: My humblest apologies. Our invasion of Grandbell has met with unexpected difficulties. A nuisance by the name of Sigurd keeps stirring up trouble.

Manfloy: Well, how about the Loptian blood link? Have you located Sigyn�s daughter yet?

Sandima: Well, as of yet nothing, but I...

Manfloy: You imbecile! Well, the boy... Sigyn�s son is in Barhara at the moment. But he�s of no use to us without the girl... Allow me to explain. Sigyn was a descendant of Prince Maira, the Loputo Emperor�s younger brother. In short, Sigyn was the only surviving descendant of the Lopt Clan. Now Sigyn broke the Maira Decree by bearing two children. You follow me, Sandima?

Sandima: Yes. By uniting the blood of her offspring, the Dark Lord Loputousu shall be revived!

...Are...are you serious game? Did I really just hear Sandima correctly? Am I to understand, that the whole plot of this game LITERALLY revolves around a bunch of cultists trying to find a woman, kidnap her, and then have her sleep with her brother so that he can sire Satan...is that seriously what you're saying?

Manfloy: Precisely. Now in order for us, the remnants of the Lopt Empire, to once again enter the world stage, we must awaken the Dark Lord at any cost. Sandima, you know as well as I what we�ve been through. We�ve spent the last hundred years in hiding deep within the Yied Desert, suffering extreme hardships, dreaming the day would come for us to rebuild the Empire. Well, that day is now upon us!

"Also, as your good and faithful friend, I am pleased to see that you are doing well in your duties involving the manipulation of King Batou. That is very good, a far cry from a month ago, when you were found cheating on your last girlfriend, with a woman, named Gomer, who then dumped you for that other young man, a Mr. 'Henry Beavis', if I recall? Anyways, go and get that girl, will you?"

Sandima: Understood. I will see my mission through, even if it takes my last breath!

:sigh:

Now then, what will happen now? Who exactly ARE these new, insidious characters who've shown their ugly mugs? What exactly do their plans involve? And was King Batou their only puppet? Or does their long, shadowy hand extend elsewhere? Can we defeat them? Can we even defeat Jamka? Or will Sigurd and friends finally meet their demise? Find out, on the next EXPLOSIVE episode of Let's Max Rank Fire Emblem 4! Have a nice day, and God bless you all!

Translation Tidbits:

Mistranslation #4: When Eltshan denies that all of Agustria had joined against Grandbell, what he's actually saying is that HE has not turned heel on Grandbell, and THAT'S why Agustria isn't ENTIRELY against it. So actually his line is more like "You're wrong Elliot! Not everyone in Agustria has turned against Grandbell, because they still have ME!"

Mistranslation #5: When King Batou says that he didn't expect things to "get so out of hand", what he really means by that is that he didn't expect Grandbell to do as well as they did. He any delusions that war would NOT bring a whole bunch of chaos. Instead his line is more like "I didn't expect Grandbell to come this far".

Mistranslation #6: When Sandima says "Hmmph, and here I thought Verdane would work out somehow", what he's actually saying is more like "Oh, so now you're finally questioning me? Huh, whatever, no need to keep you around then."

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 10:21 on Jul 16, 2015

# ¿ Jul 15, 2015 22:44

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Alright, one thing to keep in mind. From now on, any levels I get while Warp/Return Spamming will all be tallied up, and then given at the END of each update rather than how I've been recording every other level up so far.

Also, here's something fun I've thought of. I want you all to pick your bets. Just HOW far will each character get in the Arena? Who will be beating up all the big behemoths, and who will fail to even get past Shark? That is my challenge to you readers! For reference, here are the stats for each Arena fighter...

http://serenesforest.net/genealogy-of-the-holy-war/miscellaneous/arena-data/

# ¿ Jul 18, 2015 05:08

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Alright then guys, next update should be posted later today, or tomorrow, as soon as Marty's done with his commentary.

IthilionTheBrave posted:

Edit: By the way, I'd just like to say that I'm loving this LP. FE4 isn't one of my favorites, per se, but it is one I enjoyed playing. I also enjoy just how hilariously unbalanced the whole thing is. Weapon Triangle? Forget it, the sheer weight advantage of swords, especially when combined with sword users typically being among the fastest classes, makes swords the best physical weapon most of the time. The best sword user has an effective 29 speed, fastest axe user can't even break double digits with the average axe, and the fastest lance user can get 18 (but can also use swords for another 27 effective. Next fastest lance user gets 12, third gets 10). This is excluding crazy stuff like the Master Knight class or legendary weapons that boost speed. Magic is even sillier since those don't even have Mt differences to justify the weights.

Indeed. Honestly, that's part of the reason why I do enjoy playing FE4 in spite of it's quirks. There's just something so satisfying about seeing just how high you can pump the stats, or just seeing what kind of ludicrous skill combos you can set on the children characters. Plus, in some ways, a lot of the endgame boss fights end up being pretty epic since THEIR stats are really high as well, so they do actually feel like boss fights.

As for the weapon triangle...I think the unbalances there might've actually been intentional, depending on just how much realism Kaga was going for. I mean, the sword is basically a nobleman's weapon (part of the reason why most of the Lord characters probably use swords), and in a fight, it is typically much better than an axe at least, since you can do a whole lot with a sword that you can't really do with an axe. In fact, the only real advantage that axes had over other weapons is that they were very easy and inexpensive to mass produce (since it's basically just a stick with a hunk of sharpened metal at the end), and were also easy for even peasants to use (I mean, all you do with an axe is raise it up, and then let gravity do most of the work).

Swords on the other hand required a lot of training to use effectively, and were very expensive. That was because, one, it took a high level of skill to forge a good sword, so you needed to pay top dollar for a good blacksmith. Two, a sword is made almost entirely of iron, unlike an axe, and iron was a valuable commodity back then. But then once you DID get all that, swords were absolute dynamite. You could stab, you could slice, you could whack people with the sharpened part of the blade, you could slam you hilt into someone's head, and most of all, swords didn't weigh a whole lot, so they were much quicker than axes, where you couldn't very easily redirect the force of your blow if you went to hit someone, and then missed.

With all that said, I THINK that's what Kaga was going for. Heck, in the first three Fire Emblems, axes were even worse than they were here! They were basically joke weapons, and you only got four party members who used them in 1 (not sure about three). And they couldn't even promote! And of course, the enemies that used them were absolutely pathetic, to the point where they outright stopped showing up after the first few chapters. And in FE2? Well there you just flat out didn't even HAVE anyone who used axes at all.

So I think what's happening here with FE4 is that they're FINALLY starting to think that maybe axes should be a viable weapon...but they're still struggling to shake off their old habits. As for the Magic Triangle though...well, THAT I have absolutely no clue about :cheeky:

# ¿ Jul 20, 2015 22:02

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Rigged Death Trap posted:

Honestly if there was any realism the spear would be >>>>>>>....> all. And then Cavalry would do effective damage against infantry.
Have a long enough sharp stick and a horse and you might as well crown yourself King of one on one battle.

...Aren't cavalry pretty much already super-effective against infantry anyways? I mean really, you have to draw the line somewhere...

# ¿ Jul 20, 2015 22:42

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Hmm...now here's a conundrum. I actually changed my mind about who to pair Aira with. For reference, I was originally going to pair Dew with Aira since that pair is by far the best pairing for an AAAA Ranked run...but then I decided I wasn't comfortable pairing a 13 year old with anyone. So, she's gonna get hitched to Ardan instead...except, I already completed the Chapter now. So, I ask you, would you all mind if I hacked their love growth to where it would've been had I kept the two together (305 out of 500 points)? And then I'd put a blurb in the previous posts about what I should've done?

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Jul 21, 2015

# ¿ Jul 21, 2015 04:02

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

NOTE: I changed my mind as to who I'm pairing with who. Instead of pairing Aira (17 years old) with Dew (13 years old according to the manga), I decided to pair Aira with Ardan instead, to make things not so creepy. However, I believe that Dew X Aira actually IS the best pairing her children could possibly ask for, for reasons that I'll get into later. Don't worry, this won't significantly change anything. In fact, it may even work out better this way since Ardan gets more support, and because I can set up a rather cool strategy in Chapter 7 and the Epilogue with Ambush...but anyways, if you wish to pair Ardan and Aira...

You can set this up by Turn 7 or 8, and gain a ton of lover points, enough that they'll fall in love by Chapter 3. But if you wish to go for Dew X Aira, then you can put the two together by about Turn 40 or so, and then get THEM to become lovers by Chapter 3 by abusing something called the Jealousy system. And for those who are nervous about this decision, don't worry. I promise that this is the one and ONLY time where I'll ever sacrifice efficiency for my own personal tastes. Everything else you will read from now on is still as efficient as I could make it. So, that all being said...

�
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Let's Max Rank Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War! Last time, we found the woman of Sigurd's dreams, a lovely woman named Deirdre, whom he rescued from DiMaggio's reanimated corpse. But afterwards, we happened upon a disturbing plot being enacted not just by Sandima, but by a man named Manfloy, and a whole other sect made up of the remnants of the Lopt Empire. And they are all dedicated to reviving Satan by any means necessary, including...incest. Yes, it seems that though the graphics are bright and colorful, and the characters charming, there are some dark, insidious forces at work behind the scenes...
�
Oh, and we have to fight Jamka too. So then, can we defeat the last of the Verdanian forces? Will we be able to find Deirdre before Sandima does? Can we defeat him? Find out, TODAY, on Let's Max Rank Fire Emblem 4!
�

�

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Alright then, let's see what'll happen this turn!
�

�
So, Alec had plenty of time with the Uber Slim Sword, so now everyone else wants a turn with it. But first, a little trip into the Arena, as well as an abject lesson into the sheer POWER of the Uber Slim Sword!
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Alec Time Chapter 1!
�
Now, yes, obviously Alec had more than just the Uber Slim Sword on his side. He also had the Speed and Skill Rings as well as a TON of extra levels he wouldn't usually have achieved...but trust me, this Uber Slim Sword is practically a gift from above in an AAAA Rank run. And the further we get into the game, the more you will realize that. So here's what he got there...
�

Arena Completed, 1 Level gained, +1 HP, +1 Skl!
�
Yeah, I'm going to be changing the format of the levels to this, just because it seems easier on the eyes to me.

Well... I guess he has an easier time critting now? Not that he needs it...
�

�
Alright, so now Alec's sold all the sweet swag he had, giving the Uber Slim Sword back to the cause, and getting a nice 20,000G for selling the Skill and Speed Rings. Don't worry, he's got the stats he needs for Chapter 2's Arena, and he's going to promote on that Chapter anyway so...

.
�

�
Everyone in the main group moves west, with Aideen healing whomever she can with Relive for Exp (again, assume that I'm doing that every opportunity I get from now on).

Aideen is so easy to train with staff exp, that once I did an AAAA run where I almost completely forgot to train her until chapter four and still got her to level thirty no problem.
�

�
After that, Dew heads back to Genoa, where he'll eventually clear the Arena, and that ends my turn.
�

�

�
Not that much really happens on the enemy phase. Out of every part of this Chapter, this last assault on Verdane is definitely the most irritating of all. It's not really hard, because you've got a whole bunch of sword users, in a forest, fighting against a bunch of slow, pathetic axe users. They're SO pathetic in fact, that they won't even try to attack Sigurd if he has a sword on. I end up having to equip him Sigurd with his Iron Lance in order to clear them out in a timely manner. And even then, Sigurd STILL ORKOes them at 100% Hit rates, and STILL takes minimal damage from them! All I have to do is occasionally heal him with Ethlin, and he's all good to go!

And yet, in spite of that, it just takes so long to accomplish anything. Because every square is a forest, even Sigurd and Cuan can't move more than 3 squares. And I need to get Aideen up there to recruit Jamka (oh c,mon, as if that's a spoiler), so that's even MORE time wasted trying to drag her all the way up here...sigh. Oh well, at least Sigurd gets a level out of it...
�

+2 HP, +1 Str, +1 Skl, +1 Spd, +1 Lck!

I was going to complain about this, but you beat me to it. But on second thought I would like to take back a comment I made in the last update. This is only the second worst castle in the game. This castle is badly designed at the right time, whereas a future castle is badly designed at the wrong time. I still love this game though, even if sometimes I have no idea what the designers were thinking.
�
I see. I wonder what castle you're referring to? Anyways though, as for Jamka, he's pretty strong, but, it's also pretty obvious that we can recruit him. I mean, the game like, told us that he had reservations about the war and everything! And as we all know, the best way to tell if someone can be recruited, is to use this simple, but time-tested method...
�

�
Work every time

! So let's check out ol' Jammy real quickly...
�

�
Hmm...ok, so he's got pretty decent stats, but he doesn't look THAT bad. I mean, 25 Attack is good, but it's still...
�

�
Oh whoa, hold up now! This thing grants the CRITICAL skill?! Shoot man, that means his Attack Power has a 14% chance of spiking up to 50 instead! So, obviously we don't want to get careless...but still, Sigurd's faster than him, and the Forest Tiles + Cuan and Ethlin Bonus + Leadership Bonus (yes he gets it too) pushes Jamka's accuracy to a mere 39% per attack...

Plus, the thing's got 3 Weight instead of 8 Weight, like most other bows. So if this guy's got Pursuit, we probably won't want Sigurd getting attac-
�
�

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...ked...
�
...
�
Oh. Oh my. Look at those skills. This guy seriously has Pursuit, Continue, Charge, AND Critical all rolled into one?! So...so basically he's got...
�
1) A 14% chance to double his Attack Power to 50 per attack.
�
2) A 31% chance to activate Continue, during any given attack. And that gives him ANOTHER ATTACK.
�
3) A 100% chance to activate Pursuit, and get a guaranteed extra attack against anyone who has less than 11 AS.
�
4) Around a 19% chance of activating up to 2-20 extra rounds of combat, thereby making him all that much more likely to activate both of the OTHER skills mentioned above! And since none of my units have good ranged attacks right now, there's not a darn thing we can do to fight back!
�
So, the guy sounds pretty tough, right? Well, he is...but he's also completely locked to 2 Range, which means if he get up in his face, there's absolutely nothing he can do about that. And considering how dumb the A.I. can be...
�

�
Setting up the kill is actually pretty trivial. But of course, we don't actually want to do that. We want to recruit him, like so!
�

�
It's pretty easy really. And that's because he will NEVER attack Aideen, even if she's at 1 HP, and is directly in his range. And as for the Brigands, they're as pathetic as always. Again, just equip Sigurd with his Iron Lance, maybe set Cuan and Lex up in a way that they can get some action too, and the enemies will quite literally take care of themselves.

So, just remember that Jamka can move 3 Squares in this terrain, and that he can attack from 2 Squares away...
�

�

�
And there we go, Jamka has been recruited!
�

Aideen: I thought you went to talk to your father! Now you're fighting? What is going on!?
�

Jamka: I don't know. Something was real odd about him. He just wouldn't listen to me. Everything's been upside-down since that Sandima showed up. My father and brothers have done anything he has asked them to.
�

Aideen: So why does that bring you into battle? Please Jamka, don't do this! Lets return to Verdane and speak with the king once more. We're stopping this war! Sir Sigurd did not come here to invade your country. He was merely fighting to rescue me. Please, Jamka, listen to reason!
�

Jamka: Alright, let's give it one more try. And I'm exposing that traitor once and for all. But no one lays a finger on my father. That's my one condition.
�

Aideen: I'll see to it no one does. Thank you, Jamka. You really are a good person.
�
And whooo! There we go. And for reference, here's the quote when you're fighting him...
�

Jamka: You don't have to die. Just leave the country at once!
�
And here's the quote for when he dies...
�

Jamka: Father...
�
And for completions sake...
�
FE4 Male Death Cry
�
Yeah. Fortunately, we did not had to kill Jamka. Instead, he's now doing THIS!
�

�

�
Hehehehehe

...

LTC runs used to always butcher Jamka without mercy. General Horace actually discovered a while ago that you can get the minimum turncount in this chapter while still recruiting Jamka, so I apologize for all the times you died.
�

�

�
So anyways, Aideen's now done her job, and Jamka isn't really needed for anything, so Ethlin sends the both of them back to the castle. This way Aideen can start Warping outside Evans for 60 Exp a pop while Jamka Waits right next to her. Why would I have Jamka do that? And why have Aideen Warp Staff spam outside, when I can easily have her spam inside with less time and effort?
�

�

�
Because in this game, you can get your male units to marry some of your female units, and their children will make up most of your army in Generation 2. Not only that, but the husband's and wives will pass actually pass down all their unique skills, their weapons and items, some of their growth rates, and whatever Holy Blood they happen to have, so pairing your females with the right husbands is an extremely important part of Gen 1.
�
I'll get into the specifics of how all of this works next update, but for now, just know that until Turn 50 comes around, males and females will make more progress towards getting hitched if they spend their Turns right next to each other rather than apart. And they can't do that inside Evans, even if both of them are in there. So that's why I'm setting things up like that.
�

�
Speaking of marriage, maybe we could try finding the lovely Deirdre while we're working on Sandima. Maybe Alec could go and ask the locals how to do all this?
�

�
Huh, that's interesting. Please, go o-
�

I used t'live there once upon a time in a village hidden deep within th' forest. Th legend goes that Saint Maira was exiled by his fellow Lopt clansmen for allying with us humans. That village is where all of Maira's descendants holed up t'avoid persecution. While I was there, a beautiful girl named Sigyn was living under th' villages custody. That was due t'her bein' th' last remaining descendant of th' Lopt prince. But Sigyn grew tired of th' forest life. She up and left thus breaking village law. She returned several years later expectin' a child. She gave birth to a little girl, but tragically didn't survive. Apparently, the village fortune-teller took after raising the child. I wonder where the child is now. If she's livin' she'd be around 17 or 18 I imagine.
�

...ok, clearly that was a bad choice of words on my part. And despite all that exposition, we're still no closer to killing Sandima OR finding Deirdre...
�

�
Not only that, but this guy also dodges me since I've trying to attack him from those orange Forest tiles (40+ boost to Evade instead of 20+ Evade)...
�

�
And on top of all that, we're trudging through all Forest terrain, where even Sigurd is moving like a snail. Man, some days really are the worst, aren't th-
�

�

. DEIRDRE!!!
�

Sigurd: Deirdre, is that you!? Ah, so this is the Spirit Forest! I'm so happy to see you! I thought we'd never meet again.
�

Deirdre: Sigurd, listen to me. There's an evil priest at Verdane Castle named Sandima. His black magic is deadly, so don't even think of approaching him...Please!
�

Sigurd: I've put everybody in enough danger as it is... I'll go this one alone.
�

Deirdre: ...Then I'm going with you.
�

Sigurd: You're what!?
�

Deirdre: I have a Silence Staff with me. I can block magic with it as long as my magic power can overcome his resistance. I'll silence that Sandima... you'll see!
�

Sigurd: Whoa! Sounds like you could take him yourself! Wh... why are you helping me?
�

Deirdre: I tried putting you out of my mind, Sigurd but I just couldn't. Oh, I don't know what I should do...
�

Sigurd: I don't know why you're so afraid. If we both feel the same for each other we've nothing to fear. I... I believe I've fallen for you, Deirdre.
�

�
WHOO!! Deirdre has joined our party now! Now see that red dot? If Sigurd goes either on that dot, or anywhere past it, Deirdre automatically comes onto the map and will either go on the space directly north of the red dot, or will go 2 spaces north of it if Sigurd's already sitting there.
�
One interesting implication of that is that if you really wanted to, you could actually kill Sandima before getting Deirdre as long as you don't send Sigurd onto or above that dot. And if you decide to do that, the conversation will be like this instead...
�

Deirdre: Sigurd... wait.
�

Sigurd: Deirdre, is that you!? Ah, so this is the Spirit Forest! I'm so happy to see you! I thought wed never meet again.
�

Deirdre: Sigurd, I heard of Sandima's death. I was so worried he'd find me. He was a black priest sent by an underground religious sect to find me.
�

Sigurd: Underground religious sect? What's this all about?
�

Deirdre: Well, all I know is what the woman who raised me told me on her deathbed. She said there exists in this world a religious sect who follow the Dark Lord Loputousu. The Dark Lord was presumed dead, but they've been secretly planning his resurrection.
�

Sigurd: I've heard something about that, too. So why are they after you?
�

Deirdre: The Dark Lord lies dormant within my blood, and through me they can resurrect him. I was told they must never find me. I am also forbidden to be with a man.
�

Sigurd: Geez... you must always be on the run. You were avoiding me earlier, weren't you?
�

Deirdre: I was afraid I'd fall for you, Sigurd. I tried putting you out of my mind, but I... I just don't want to lose you. Oh, what am I to do...
�

Sigurd: Deirdre, I can understand why you're scared. But there's no reason to let this ruin your whole life for you. Deirdre, I vow to keep you out of harms way. I won't let anyone hurt you. If we both feel the same for each other, then we've nothing to fear. Dear Lord, if you deem our love for each other to be a sin, I beg of you... punish me! I wont regret it... even if it means a thousand slashes upon my heart! I only ask that you watch over my beloved Deirdre... unto all eternity!
�

Deirdre: Sigurd...
�
Oooh Sigurd. I really do love your character

.

After playing through this game at least fifteen times, I have never seen this conversation. While on the one hand I think so much exposition so early is bad, this develops Sigurd quite well... no idea why they designed it so that practically nobody would ever see this.

Well, I guess killing Sandima without Sigurd is just such an accomplishment for that point in the game, that the game designers felt you deserved a cool little conversation like this? Anyways, let's get to covering our two new characters, shall we?
�

�

�
Level 6 Bow Fighter
�
HP: 36 (90%) Spd: 14 (30%)
Str: 11 (50%) Lck: 4 (40%)
Mag: 0 (0%) Def: 9 (30%)
Skl: 14 (10%) Res: 0 (5%)
�
Move: 6
Weapon Ranks: Bows (A)
Items: Killer Bow
Skill: Pursuit, Continue, Charge
Holy Blood: None
�
So, here's the thing with Jamka. Obviously his offense is amazing, right? I mean, Pursuit, Continue, Charge, AND Critical are guaranteed to kill just about anything...and yet, in-spite of all of that...Jamka's still not a very good unit.
�
This is because he's got all of Aira's problems, but also has the great misfortune of being in the game's very worst class, the Bow Fighter. Why is it the worst? Because it is literally one of the only classes in the game that has no 1-Range options whatsoever. It's locked to 2 Range, in a game where most of the enemies you fight not only can attack from 1 Range, but travel in very large packs of like, 7-10 or so.
�
So yeah, Jamka can most likely kill just one enemy on his Player Phase, but then he's helpless! It will be open season for his enemies! I mean heck, just look at how easy it was for me to set up the kill with Sigurd and Cuan! And they were just two guys!
�
So at best, Jamka will kill an enemy, and then be safe as you form a protective wall around him. More likely, you'll be too busy protecting him to actually get much out of him. And at worst? He won't be able to even get to any of the battles because he's still a foot unit with only 6 Move! I mean sure, Midir isn't doing much better, but at least he's got 8 Move and Canto! He can at least outmaneuver a lot of your enemies, even if he can't actually drop them!
�
Which is a bummer, because were it not for that one problem, he'd probably be a really, really good unit. Because unlike Aira, he's actually got pretty good defensive growths. I mean he's not Lex, Sigurd, or Cuan, but then who is? And I will also say that he IS pretty helpful on an AAAA Ranked run on account of how good he is in the Arena. This makes it extremely easy for him to get money. But otherwise, he's even more redundant than Aira is.

And as far as DBZ goes, I'd compare him to Android #16. He's part of a trio of villains, and yet, despite being the most powerful of them, he is by far the kindest, calmest, and most peaceful one in the gang, to the point where he's the first one to join the good guys. Perhaps because of that, he is the ONLY one in that group who has any common sense, the only one who isn't constantly making stupid decisions. But unfortunately for him, in-spite of all those advantages, he still fails to save the other two from their own idiocy.
�
[img]http://lpix.org/2139834/Deirdre(profile).jpg[/timg]
Level 3 Shaman
�
HP: 32 (70%) Spd: 17 (10%)
Str: 11 (10%) Lck: 3 (10%)
Mag: 0 (70%) Def: 7 (10%)
Skl: 16 (20%) Res: 1 (70%)
�
Move: 5
Weapon Ranks: Light (*), Staves (B)
Items: Aura Tome, Silence Staff
Skill: Awareness
Holy Blood: Major Narga, Minor Loputousu
�
Oh wow, those growths...MAN that's bad

! Heck, the only reason she even has those 70%'s is because of all the Holy Blood she's got in her! Without those, she would literally have just 40% HP, 20% Skl, and 10% everywhere else! YEEESH!! So she's got horrible growths, does not have good skills, has only 5 movement, and probably THE worst availability in the game (more on that later). Oh, and she's loaded down by this stupid thing...
�

�
Yeah. That's right. Her Tome has 20 WEIGHT ON IT, making it even heavier than most axes! She actually has -6 Attack Speed, and only 10% on her Speed growth! Looking at all this, she practically looks like a joke character at first glance! Most FE4 players you talk to will probably refer to her as the worst character in the entire game...
�
But I won't. Because for however glaring her faults are, Deirdre actually CAN be really useful, even aside from Silencing Sandima (though believe me, that's good enough as it is). And of course, she's another Staff bot, meaning that she can pull down an instant 27 Levels for the Exp Rank. Plus...
�

�
You can win this li'l beauty from Sandima. Of course, I'm not going to be giving it to her, but if you DO decide to go that route, you can very easily get Deirdre up to 48 Attack Power and OHKO EVERYONE in Chapter 2. Or at least, everyone who is not either an Armour unit, a promoted enemy, or a boss. So that's a nice niche right there...but more importantly, she's got this...
�

�
See that Circlet? That is a unit that cannot be sold or broken, and will automatically give not just the Prayer skill, but also Live (5-10 HP automatically restored per turn). Live is pretty convenient, but Prayer is the real hero here. So in spite of her normally horrible Evade, she can literally OHKO an entire squad of enemies near one of the castles in Chapter 2. Again, neat...but as Marty says...

The issue is that even with prayer unless you get her knocked down into the really low bounds of HP she'll still get hit a fair bit. I did manage to use it in my 0% growths playthrough, but in a ranked run there's no reason to do this as you should never waste combat experience on a staffer.
�
Indeed. And what pulls her even further down into mediocrity is the fact that she's only got one Chapter to really do anything. After Chapter 2, Sigurd just asks her to stop coming to anymore maps...so yeah, kind of hard to make any real impact there. Again, to her credit, she can easily clear Arena's with Prayer, give Sigurd some free gold, and can also fetch you 27 free Levels...but otherwise, you're just not going to get much use out of her. And it's not because she's actually worse than, say, Noish or Ardan, it's because she doesn't really have the opportunity to do anything. Rather a shame, that...

So, I suppose she'd be Chi-Chi. She's the main character's wife...and that's about it. Cooking him a nice sandwich is about all she usually ever does to help him save the world, because she REALLY does not do a whole lot elses.
�

�
Now then, Cuan's got no further jobs here, so he gets Returned to Evans, where he...
�

�

�
Kicks the crud out of Ranks 1-5 in the Arena...
�

�
But then gets stymied by this windbag here. This woman...Aye aye aye. First of all, LOOK at these stats...
�
HP: 42
Mag: 11
Skl: 10
Spd: 13 (18 w/Speed Ring)
Def: 2
Res: 9
�
And Elwind has 14 Might and only 2 Wt. First of all, this give Emmile an AS of 16. For reference, that is so ridiculously high for this point in the game...
�

�
That fricken Aira is getting outsped! AIRA! The very woman who's supposed to be our resident speed-demon! But even SHE can only manage 14-15 AS if she uses anything but a Slim Sword! And 25 Damage per hit, when your units barely have any Res at all? Yikes! Even Sigurd has trouble with this woman! And the only reason Alec managed to beat her was because he had two different stat rings, the Uber Slim Sword, AND had gained 11 Levels before facing her!
�

�
So needless to say, even Cuan's gonna have to bow out of this one. But even if he didn't...
�

�
Dulles, the last opponent, would still give him a good challenge, not due to high stats, but due to Big Guard, which MORE than makes up for his inaccurate Steel Blade. Basically, Big Guard activates at a rate equal to the level of the user. So since Dulles is Level 19, has a 19% rate of activating per hit. Furthermore, it doesn't just activate once per round, it has a chance of activating EVERY time someone tries to hit Dulles.
�
And yes, Big Guard will completely nullify EVERY attack, no matter how much damage it would've done otherwise. So you could literally get Alvis in here, with his 70 Attack Power and everything, and Big Guard would STILL completely negate whatever damage Alvis would've done.
�
That said, Dulles still isn't QUITE as bad as Emmile. Anyone who has a chance of beating Emmile definitely has a chance of beating him too...but again, I don't think it's really worth trying to fight him for most weaker characters. Yeah, most of them will win eventually, but the rewards aren't THAT worth it for most characters.

So, here's what Cuan got from the Arena, and his time outside...

Arena up to Rank 6, 2 Levels gained, +2 HP, +1 Spd, +1 Def!
�

�
And after that, Cuan sells his Steel Lance...
�

�
So that way Fin can buy it. After that, he goes through Ranks 1-3...
�

�
And then gets kicked around by Shark, who's basically a much weaker Emmile who has Pursuit. So...
�

�
Fin has to beat a brave retreat for now. But that's ok, because...
�

�
Whatever damage you take in the Arena carries over unless you win your match (in which case, all your HP is restored). Because of that, Prayer allows just about everyone who has it to trivialize the Arena completely, provided that they can survive at least survive the first round before quitting. So Fin's actually doing just fine

.
�
As for the main group...
�

�

�
Well...frankly this part is just so boring. I've only got four units here now, the enemies are so weak, and Sandima's going to be trivialized soon, so...here's the cliff notes version of everything that happens.
�

�
Lex gets a level...
�

+1 HP, +1 Str!
�

�
Fin abuses Prayer to beat Shark...
�

�
Then prepares to do the same to Bacchus in a few turns time...
�

�
And then comes the big moment, where Deirdre prepares to Silence Sandima with her 10 Range staff. Why is that necessary? Well, just LOOK at the guy...
�

�

�
Yeah, the guy seriously has a 3-10 Range Tome that gives him 32 Might. And then if you try to attack him, he'll just switch to Jormung, giving him 38 Might instead! For reference, that's actually enough to OHKO ALL of our 15 units except Sigurd, Alec, Cuan, Aideen, and Deirdre. Yes, he can literally one-shot almost 75% of our army! But fortunately, Deirdre puts a stop to all that with an animation that's simply too good to cover with just GIF...
�
Silence Staff Animation
�
Yep, when you Silence someone, the soundtrack itself suddenly gets muted! Nice touch Intelligence Systems :d:

!
�

+1 HP, +1 Mag, +1 Res!
�
And Deidre gets a typical "Deidre Level", no shocker there.

Now then, Sigurd himself will now get started on the last enemies. The archers are pathetic, only doing 4 Damage to Sigurd at horrible hit rates in return for getting 2HKOed by him. But the Axefighters can be a problem. They've got 29 Attack Power, and while they only have 10% Hit rates on Silver Sword!Sigurd (Sigurd equipped with Silver Sword), they'll do 15 Damage to him if they hit. So that spot where Sigurd's at is where he's going to rest for the turn.

Because with the Silver Sword, the Forest tile, and his own Leadership Bonus (yes, he gets to enjoy it too), the archers will whiff every attack while one of the Axefighters will just march up to him without even TRYING to hit him, the perfect set up for killing him next turn. Also...

[img]http://lpix.org/2141285/Deirdre]

Deirdre regenerates an HP with the Live skill!

And then Sigurd kills the Axefighter...

Before going out of range of the next one (they move 3 squares in this large forest) and switching to the Javelin. Now, Sigurd will be 2HKOing archers while dodging approximately 67% of their attacks

Anyways, Deirdre is done silencing Sandima, so off to Evans she goes! And Ethlin gets another level...

+1 HP, +1 Skl!

And then she and Lex start heading east towards this point here...

You'd never know this unless you read a strategy guide, but if you have Lex wait on this exact spot, some random person will give him something called a "Hero Axe". In case you don't remember, Hero weapons allow their wielders at least twice before their opponent, four times if they also have Pursuit. And it's the only Hero Axe you will ever get in Gen 1, so needless to say, Lex REALLY wants this weapon! And then Ethlin can Return him after he's gotten that.

Now then, Turn 50 has arrived, which means no more Lover points can be gained, so, Jamka goes here...

And then Aideen warps him from the castle entrance, THAT way she can enter the castle itself on the same turn! Not really necessary here, but it's a very handy maneuver to remember for the future.

Fin pulls out his strongest Prayer against Bacchus...

Gets EXTREMELY lucky against Emmile (normally I have to wait a few turns, then abuse Prayer again)...

But then is finally chased out of the Arena again by Dulles, the last opponent.

Next time Dulles...next time...

So next enemy phase, Sigurd starts beating up all the archers. And then...

Sigurd finally destroys the 2nd Axefighter, getting a level up in the process!

+1 HP, +1 Str, +1 Skl!

And with those two swept aside...

The rest of the archers will all be joining them soon!

So after Ethlin and Lex travel further on eastward...

Fin finally defeats the last opponent...

Arena Completed, 3 Levels gained, +3 HP, +2 Spd, +2 Lck!

And then Deirdre gets to beating up some guys in the Arena, but gets stymied by Weissman, who outspeeds her...

So, she's gonna have to wait two turns for her HP to go up enough. So, in the mean time, let's get her some help.

Aideen's already gotten to use the Warp Staff seven times...

So now it's Deirdre's turn to use it...

Inside the castle! Neat!

And now we got the Hero Axe, and the following conversation!

Holy Woman: You are very honest! As a reward for your honesty I present you with the Hero Axe. Farewell, Lex...

Lex: ...?!

And YES! Sigurd's FINALLY taken care of the last archer!

Now all that's left is Sandima himself. Better hurry though...

See what his "State" says? This here means that you've only got 2 more turns until Silence wears off, and if that happens, Sigurd's not going to be able to safely kill Sandima. But fortunately...

Sigurd cleanly ORKOes Sandima at 90% hit odds. And even if he whiffs one of those attacks, you can simply reset and burn some RN's via the Arena. So if you've been following this guide up till now, you have nothing to worry about :d:

So then, Ethlin returns Lex to Evans...

And look! Deidre's got 19 HP now, which is JUST enough...

[img]http://lpix.org/2142816/Aura]

To make her immortal against Weissman.

Darn shame then that Shark kills her afterwards

Now for Deirdre, staying at Evans only heals 5 HP per turn. HOWEVER, if she spends her turns outside, then her Live skill will usually allow her to regenerate more than that. And since we're already on Turn 53, well, I do want to end this Chapter at SOME point, right?

So, she's going to be Warping people OUTSIDE instead of INSIDE Evans. That said though, she's down to just one use on her Warp staff, so first...

She sells the Silence Staff for money, since there aren't anymore opportunities where it's handy...

And yikes, pretty expensive huh? For reference, that's why I had Aideen use her Relive Staff every chance I got. But now Deirdre's "Live"ing it up outside, and Warping people left and right, so while I'm waiting...

I go and FINALLY put an end to Sandima. For reference, here are his other quotes...

Vs. Most Units (His quotes won't activate if he's either silenced already, or if Deidre is Silencing him as opposed to actually fighting him)

Sandima: Heheheh... Feel the horror of my dark magic!

Vs. Deirdre

Sandima: What? You�re a shaman...? You must be Dierdre... The cursed maiden...

Vs. Jamka

Sandima: Heheheh... You�re too late, Jamka. Your father is already dead.

Jamka: W, what!? Sandima! You...!

Well Jamka, if it's any consolation, he's dead now. Plus...

We get a Magic Ring off of him! And yes, that actually WILL be helpful to have on Sigurd, you'll see why next chapter.

But for now, let's finish our business on this one.

So then, after getting up to 14 HP outside, Deirdre's gotten to the point where a turn inside Evans will allow her to survive an attack from Shark, SO, I use this trick again.

And then Shark is forced to fight a valiant, but ultimately fruitless battle against someone who 2HKOes him while facing what are effectively 6% hit rates from him (still dangerous enough to warrant a save mind you, but still). After that, everyone else goes down like so...

Yeah Emmile has no chance against Deidre's insane Res, and Bacchus and Dulles actually doom themselves by taking off almost all of Deirdre's health in just one attack

And now look at all that Exp and Gold Deirdre's won! Quite a bit eh? And of course, her Lover is Sigurd. No need to build up Love Points there. So now here are the total amount stats she gained!

Arena Completed, 5 Levels! 4+ HP! 3+ Mag! 2+ Skl! 1+ Spd! 1+ Lck! 5+ Res!

No, we're not counting the level we got from Sandima. If we do, Deirdre's actually gotten six levels since joining us! Now let's see what the rest can manage, with an icon yoinked from Miacis's Binary LP!

Arena up to Rank 7, gained 2 Levels, +1 HP, +2 Str, +1 Skl, +1 Def!

Yeah, Ardan was lucky to have gotten a point in Strength before fighting Emmile. Because of that, he could literally OHKO Emmile with an Uber Slim Sword crit. Throw Ambush on top of that, and he was guaranteed to win eventually, even if it did mean getting beat like 7 times first. Had that not been the case however, I would've just left him at Rank 6. Which is ok, because he would still have the money needed to thrive.

I think this is the first time I've heard "Arden" and "thrive" in the same sentence.

Arena up to Rank 4, gained 1 Level, +1 HP, +1 Str, +1 Skl, +1 Def!

Now don't misinterpret these results, Noish could've easily defeated Shark if I was willing to potentially spend 10 minutes on resets. I mean, he has just enough durability to survive 4 hits...but I just didn't think it was really worth the trouble. We don't have the Elite Ring, so Exp gain is still pretty minimal in this Arena, and there are enough villages next Chapter that Noish is still going to be able to buy everything he needs anyway.

So, I didn't feel like getting him further was really necessary. In fact, I didn't even bother giving him the Uber Slim Sword. I just gave him the Iron Lance for Weissman, and then sold that and his Steel Sword to give him ~27,000G (which becomes 30,000G when starting the next Chapter).

Arena up to Rank 7, gained 4 Levels, +4 HP, +2 Str, +1 Skl, +1 Spd, +3 Def!

Man Elite is awesome! And Lex actually got a lot of Def procs, so he actually had enough power and durability to take down Shark in-spite of his 40% hit odds. And of course, Emmile was easy pickings for him, same as she was for Ardan.

Arena up to Rank 4, gained 1 Level, +1 Str!

...No comment.

Arena Completed, gained 2 Levels, +2 HP, +2 Str, +2 Lck, +1 Def!

Pursuit + Continue + Charge + Killer Bow absolutely destroys

Arena up to Rank 4, gained 1 Level, +1 HP!

And Midir is as weak as I said he was. Dat level...

Arena Completed, gained 2 Levels, +1 HP, +1 Skl!

Bad levels, but it doesn't matter. Just LOOK at how thoroughly she destroys things with the Uber Slim Sword!

Aira Time Chapter 1

Look at that offense! Yeah, her levels are different from what was recorded, but that's because I re-recorded this Chapter run-through a few times, and this was recorded before the final version of it. Anyways though, Emmile is the only one who could kill Aira, but even then, you just have to keep trying until Aira either gets lucky with dodges, or procs Meteor Sword. And now, one of my favorite performances, and a perfect demonstration of why the Uber Slim Sword is so good...

Arena Completed, gained 2 Levels, +1 Str, +1 Mag, +1 Skl, +1 Spd, +1 Def, +1 Res!

Dew Time Chapter 1

You see how the Dulles fight only took 1 minute and 20 seconds? Well without that Uber Slim Sword, Dew would've taken 4 minutes and 6 seconds instead, so even on that one fight, we gained almost three minutes back from the 50 minutes it took creating it. And we've still got a LOT of game left, so I definitely think it was worth it!

No Arena fighting, gained 4 Levels, +1 HP, +1 Str, +1 Mag, +2 Skl, +1 Spd, +3 Lck!

And of course, here are Aideen's levels. Like I said, I'm just going to record all of her levels at the END of the update rather than throughout, because staffbots get a LOT of levels REALLY quickly, so it'd get redundant recording all their levels as they come. Plus...

Her levels don't really matter. She can still staff no matter what.

Indeed...speaking of Aideen, I still haven't recorded her talks with Midir and Azel, so here they are!

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Jul 22, 2015

# ¿ Jul 22, 2015 00:58

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Midir Talks to Aideen

Midir: My lady! You're alright! Ahh... What a relief! My humblest apologies for all you had to go through!

Aideen: Midir, I'm just happy that you're not hurt. Lets put this all behind us. You did your very best, and that's all I could ever ask for. Do me a favour, Midir, and stay with Sir Sigurd's troops.

Midir: I'd be more than happy to. I am greatly indebted to him for rescuing Jungby Castle for us, and you as well!

Azel Talks to Aideen

Azel: Lady Aideen! You're not hurt, are you?

Aideen: Azel of Velthomer? You've been helping out as well, have you?

Azel: Yeah, when I heard that you had been kidnapped, I couldn't concentrate on anything! I came as fast as I could.

Aideen: Your brother is Lord Alvis, isn't he? Did you get his permission before coming?

Azel: Nope... And hes not going to be happy with me either.

Aideen: Then why did you do such a silly thing? Besides, I thought you hated fighting.

Azel: Well, I, uh...

Aideen: What's that, Azel?

Azel: Er... nevermind.

The interesting thing about both of these conversations is that unlike other conversations, they will actually boost the amount of progress made towards making your men and women fall in love with each other. So in this situation, having Aideen talk to Midir makes it more likely for them to marry each other, and the same goes for her talk with Azel. Note that this does not apply to every conversation between males and females, only some of them.

For example, this next one doesn't have that at all!

Aira Talks to Cuan

Cuan: Hello, Im Cuan of Lenster. Sigurd tells me that you're Princess Aira from Isaac.

Aira: ...Nice to meet you.

Cuan: I'm sorry, but I just have to ask you. Why did Isaac attack Darna? You had to have known Grandbell would get involved. I just can't fathom why King Mananan would do something like that.

Aira: You actually know my father, Cuan!?

Cuan: No. Not personally. But my father did. He had a very high opinion of your father. He also thought your brother, Prince Maricle, was a fine young man.

Aira: He said that, did he... That makes me proud. They were both highly respected soldiers. Neither would ever condone an attack on a defenseless people. The leader of Rivough... Hes the one who besieged Darna, not my father.

Cuan: You're kidding! Why hasn't Grandbell been informed of that? Prince Kurth would surely reconsider his offensive if he knew that.

Aira: My father thought so as well. After executing Rivough's leader, he left for Grandbells frontline, head and all, to explain everything. However...

Uh oh

...

Cuan: What?

Aira: My father was assassinated at the Grandbellian front. When Isaac heard word of the kings death, the people went into a rage! Maricle thus proceeded to launch a full-scale attack against Grandbell.

Whoa, what happened THERE I wonder?

Cuan: Whew... I just cant imagine Prince Kurth acting so rashly. Does Sigurd know about all of this?

Aira: No. Sigurd has his hands full here as it is. Besides, I don't think Maricle...

Cuan: ...survived? Prince Maricle knew he would perish in battle, huh...

Aira: He believed the future of Isaac rests in Shanan's survival. My job is to make sure Shanan grows up safe and sound.

Cuan: I see... Well, don't lose hope, Aira. Someday the truth will come to light. In the meantime, Ill try to help you out however I can.

Aira: Thats very kind of you, Cuan.

Pretty unique conversation there...and pretty disturbing. I mean, we already know that the Loputousu clansmen have been manipulating everything here in Verdane...so who's to say they're not doing that everywhere else as well? We'd best get some more info on them...

Anyways though, we've completed every objective on this map now, so at long last, this map is finished! Now, one thing that's unique about Deirdre. She's a very important character to the plot, so if she dies on any of the maps...well, she doesn't actually die, she just gets captured. And if that happens, you'll get this additional screen when you finish the map...

No other dialogue, that's all they say to each other. Note that Deirdre's "death" still counts as a Loss as far as the Combat ranking goes, and you can only afford 3 "Losses", so we still need to keep her alive. Anyways...

Oifaye: He has sustained heavy injuries. He's very likely beyond our help.

Sigurd, don't even bother, Sandima killed him long ago, and Manfloy himself confirmed him dead, so there's no chance that he's going to-

King Batou: Urgh... Sigurd, my apologies for all you had to go through.

Ok, WHAT THE HECK SANDIMA?!? Are you seriously SO incompetent, that you can't even kill an old man?! Then again, Manfloy also thought he was dead, so...what, was Batou playing dead or something? I guess...I mean, that's most likely not too hard when you almost ARE dead already...

King Batou: This was all Sandima's doing. He deceived me while conning my two sons in an attempt to take control of the country.

Sigurd: Yes, I'm aware of that. Please, don't overexert yourself. You just need some rest.

And now things really get dumb.

] King Batou: No, I'm already done for. But before I die, I have one last thing I must tell you. The evil that's rearing its head across the continent is all the work of the Dark Sect. They're out to destroy all that's good and hasten the revival of the Dark Lord Loputousu. Sandima incited our attack on Grandbell solely to further their cause. They have infested the world, Sigurd. You must stay sharp and not be led astray! Please absolve my failure to keep my citizens from harms way. S... Sigurd, I beg of you...

I bold these lines here, because this pretty much destroys ANY wiggle room there may have been for Batou NOT being a naive dummy. I mean c,mon man, you invade a country, let your sons run wild, cause all this mayhem, do all this bad stuff...and you did it all on account of a man, who you KNEW was part of a group called THE FRICKEN DARK SECT!!, who you KNEW was specifically dedicated to REVIVING SATAN!! YOU KNEW THIS!! Obviously you knew this, or you wouldn't be telling us this!

And yet, you still honestly thought he was working for the good of your country? WHY?! HOW ARE YOU THIS NAIVE?!?

I think he was drawn in by Sandima's hip fashion sense.

Man...I guess so :sigh:

...

I guess this statement here renders Deirdre's alternate conversation with Sigurd non-canon. That, or she talked to him about it afterwards. Actually that'd make the most considering that Deirdre is most likely looking to Sigurd for protection. Heck, now that I think about it, the Dark Sect is probably one of the biggest reasons why she's doing this. She KNOWS Sigurd can protect her, and she KNOWS that she's just going to continue being hunted, and eventually caught, by the Dark Sect if she remains in the Spirit Forest. Never thought of that before...

So then, on that somber note, we now close out on this update. We have now completely subdued Isaac, Aideen has been rescued, and we have finally found Deirdre. But, will this be the end of Sigurd's troubles? Or will we run into more problems with the Dark Sect? And just how far does their reach extend to? Will Isaac start to become a problem for Sigurd soon? And what of Elliot? Has Eltshan put an end to his antics? Or will be find ourselves haunted by him again in the future? Find out, on the next exhilarating episode of Let's Max Rank Fire Emblem 4! Have a nice night, and God bless you all!

Turns Taken: 56 Turns (Could've done it much faster were it not for Uber Slim Sword grinding and getting Deirdre through the Arena, but whatever. I've got everything under control

).

Turn Deficit: -3 (Be prepared, we're going to be running deficits for a while until about the mid-game. Then turn counts will start getting exponentially lower)

Time Taken: ~2 hours and 42 minutes. Funny thing is, this is STILL below what I estimated it would take, even accounting for Uber Slim Sword grinding.

Things I Regret: The fact that Noish had to hang back as I rigged levels for Sigurd in the Prologue. And in Chapter 1, I should've brought Midir to guarantee that Kinbois's men would be taken down without issue. In addition, I would've had Ardan standing next to Aira for 42 turns or so, except, I didn't change my mind on Dew X Aira till it was too late (no gameplay reason for that, just decided not to pair a 13 year old for anyone, and Aira's children won't find it to be any big deal). So I had to cheat their love points.

Translation Tidbits

Creative Liberty #7: When Sigurd calls for God to put "1000 slashes upon his heart" if he's sinning, that's not actually in the original script. In the original script, he just calls for God to "visit unbearable agony and pain" upon him or something like that. He doesn't specify WHAT kind of agony.

Creative Liberty #8: The first half of Sigurd's ending line of "King Batou...No...What IS the Dark Sect anyway...?" is a bit different in the original script, and somehow even sillier. In the original script, Sigurd literally says something along the lines of "King Batou...What sorrow..." or "King Batou...What a pity." Either way, it's still evident that the writers weren't even trying with this scene :cheeky:

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Jul 22, 2015

# ¿ Jul 22, 2015 01:06

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

vilkacis posted:

Soooo approximately how much trouble could we have avoided if he had been struck down by a lightning bolt from a clear sky after this?

...Actually, that's kind of hard to say, all things considered. I mean trust me, Sigurd's actions will definitely result in shenanigans...but this actually may very well have been the best thing that could've happened, depending on how you look at it, and whether or not the Dark Sect would've eventually found Deirdre anyway. I mean, it's clear they have a ton of resources all across the continent, and considering Sandima was already hot on her heels....

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Jul 23, 2015

# ¿ Jul 23, 2015 00:16

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

theshim posted:

The back end of chapter 1 is a slog, unfortunately. Chapter 2, on the other hand, wastes no time at all in telling you to hurry the hell up

Indeed. Although, that's actually one of the reasons why it happens to be one of my favorite Chapters in Generation 1 (the other being Chapter 5, for different reasons). It's one of the only Gen 1 maps that actually has multiple moving parts that you've got to worry about, and gives you good opportunities to use your foot units effectively, and that's pretty nice. Plus, there're just SO many good things you get :haw:

# ¿ Jul 23, 2015 00:33

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Phew...alright guys, just got Chapter 2 done...boy what a map. It's one of the best maps in the game, but BOY is it a nasty one for how early it is in the game. In fact, it really almost seems like it and Chapter 3 should've traded places :P.

But still, I managed to beat it in 36 Turns. And here's a preview screen of all I accomplished in that amount of time...

Also, expect a War Room update on the Pairing mechanics soon. This one, I think, will be important enough to be a mini-update all on it's own.

Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jul 24, 2015

# ¿ Jul 24, 2015 03:18

Fionordequester: Dec 27, 2012; Actually, I respectfully disagree with you there. For as obviously flawed as this game is, there ARE a lot of really good things about it. The presentation and atmosphere, for example, are the most immediate things. No other Yu-Gi-Oh game goes out of the way to really make

Alright guys, War Room time! And this time it's so big and important, that I figured I'd put it in it's own separate update. But before we get into that, I've got some good news. First of all, I managed to work out how I wanted to change my pairings, with Dew getting hitched with Sylvia (she's like 14 at the start of the game), and Aira getting Lex (rather than Ardan), so that's all good. And secondly, with all the new ideas I've been finding (aside from changing the pairings), I did another "test" run-through up until Chapter 5, and it turns out, my strategies gave me enough levels so that I don't even NEED to train either Midir or Azel, like I thought I would. So THAT'S pretty awesome. But most importantly, I have my strategies all locked down for sure now, so there won't be anymore sudden changes.

So then, sorry for that bit of inconvenience. Anyways, let's get started!

The War Room Part 5: My Pairings, The X's and Y's of Romance, Inheritance, and the Jealousy System

Alright, so as I've alluded to, you can pair your females up with whatever strapping men you want to. But the results of this aren't merely cosmetic. No, whichever male you pair up with your female units will pass down not just their DNA, but also some of their growths, all of their weapons, all of their "Civilian Skills" (more on that later), and even whatever Holy Blood they happen to have.

Furthermore, every you have will give birth to TWO children, not just one, so if a pairing is well made, you greatly benefit TWO of your future units in Gen 2, not just one. And of course, the flip-side of that is that a badly made pairings will mess up two Gen 2 units instead of just one. And on top of all that, almost your entire Gen 2 army is made up of children characters, so if you somehow mess ALL of them up...hooo boy is your AAAA rank run going to suffer.

So then, in order to figure out HOW to make good pairings, let's first talk about the...

INHERITANCE OF SKILLS:

First of all, look at the first screenshot here...

See how Pursuit is listed as a "Soldier" skill? Now compare it to Jamka's two other "Civilian" skills...

What is the difference between the two you may ask? Well, basically, "Soldier" skills are skills that just naturally belong to every unit of a certain class. So for example, Sword Fighter and Bow Fighter units will ALWAYS have the Pursuit skill, and Thief units like Dew will ALWAYS have the Steal skill, even if said units are generic red enemy units. But civilians skills, on the other hand, are skills that are NOT naturally occurring for those who have it. So for example, for Jamka, Pursuit is a Soldier skill since he's a Bow Fighter who naturally gets it. But for Alec, Pursuit is a Civilian skill, because Social Knights like him do not normally have Pursuit.

Most importantly though, Civilians skills will be passed down to the children characters, but Soldier skills will NOT be passed down! So, say Jamka marries Aideen. Aideen gives birth to someone named Lester, who is an Archer Knight like Midir, and someone named Lana, who is a Priest like Aideen. But unfortunately, Archer Knights like Lester do NOT naturally have the Pursuit skill, and unlike our Gen 1 characters, Gen 2 characters have skill sets that are ENTIRELY defined by their parents. So basically, Lester will NOT get Pursuit if Jamka is his father! He will only get Charge and Continue instead.

But if Midir marries Aideen, then Lester WILL get Pursuit, because for Midir, Pursuit is a Civilian skill, not a Soldier skill like it is for Jamka. So that's the difference between those two kinds of skills. As for how the skills are inherited...well, take a look at this...

See the six stars? What this means is that any given unit can have up to SIX skills at once, even though none of the units on out team now have more than three. So basically, when I say that children characters get all of their parent's Civilians skills, I really do mean they get ALL of them. The only exception to that rule are the Meteor Sword and Lunar Sword skills (we haven't seen the second one yet), which can only be passed down to children characters that can use swords. In most cases, this doesn't really matter, since most classes CAN use swords...just, don't try to be pairing Holyn with Aideen.

So, essentially, if you were to say, pair Lex up with Aira, who gives birth to two Sword Fighters (Lakche and Skahasa), you would get these skills...