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My Framme was the go to character for “I want to dance this character multiple times in one turn and absolutely annihilate something”.
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Mar 31, 2024 21:52
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Fortunately, some Emblems in this game are so powerful that if there's a character you particularly like, they can carry their own weight regardless of their stats simply by being an Emblem caddy. It's how I kept Vander useful throughout the game in my last play. Engage gives you a shitload of resources to invest in characters as you see fit, and it's mostly a question of how much you want to invest in a given character to make them useful.
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Mar 31, 2024 21:53
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Can't you level infinitely in this game till every stat hits the cap by switching classes, like awakening? Doesn't that essentially invalidate this kind of discussion since Modern Emblem heavily incentivises using everyone equally for the sake of supports and the like?
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Mar 31, 2024 23:28
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Technically yes but in practice no, I'm not sure if it's cool to be talking about mechanics the lp hasn't talked about, though. Also, basically every unit in the game needs at least some help/investment, even the good ones, so in practice you do end up having to focus on a core set of units.
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Mar 31, 2024 23:35
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MythosDragon posted:Can't you level infinitely in this game till every stat hits the cap by switching classes, like awakening? Doesn't that essentially invalidate this kind of discussion since Modern Emblem heavily incentivises using everyone equally for the sake of supports and the like? Supports are pretty disincentivized in this game since the primary way of gaining support levels requires pretty specific positioning. Grinding also scales to your progress level and not the original map, which means grinding is as much of a risk as continuing to play the game.
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Mar 31, 2024 23:58
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MythosDragon posted:Can't you level infinitely in this game till every stat hits the cap by switching classes, like awakening? Doesn't that essentially invalidate this kind of discussion since Modern Emblem heavily incentivises using everyone equally for the sake of supports and the like? Modern Fire Emblem absolutely does not encourage using everyone equally unless you’re insane, playing on a low difficulty, or not engaging with the game and just grinding nonstop instead on lower difficulties.
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Apr 1, 2024 00:51
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Honestly, it would be much funnier if you could get game overed by mom.
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Apr 1, 2024 01:10
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MythosDragon posted:Can't you level infinitely in this game till every stat hits the cap by switching classes, like awakening? Doesn't that essentially invalidate this kind of discussion since Modern Emblem heavily incentivises using everyone equally for the sake of supports and the like? most people don't level their characters infinitely until every stat hits the cap, and most of the games in the series outright forbid it. people usually talk about units in the context of 'efficiency', which is a very nebulous term that has been argued over a lot, but it usually includes the following: - you try and complete chapters in as few turns as is reasonable. this is the most complicated one because LTC (low turn count, aka completing the game in as few turns as possible) is another common point of discussion, but most people play at a more relaxed pace than LTC. this mostly means 'don't stand around wasting time to squeeze out every last drip of xp etc'. - you don't grind in skirmish maps. the ability for any unit to infinitely grind skirmishes would indeed invalidate the discussion, so the terms of the discussion exclude this so that the discussion can happen. it's also a consequence of the above rule, because skirmishes necessarily mean taking more turns. this dates all the way back to The Sacred Stones, where the various mediocre trainee units could all go to the Tower of Valni to catch up with your other units, but you could also just send your other units into the Tower of Valni too. for unit comparisons to make any sense at all, you need either no grinding or infinite grinding, and no grinding is closer to the 'normal' gameplay experience for nearly everyone. - units are judged in their context. this is especially critical in Fire Emblem Engage, because every unit in the game is really good if they have the right Emblem Ring, but only one unit can have an Emblem Ring at a time. If unit A is pretty good with Emblem X but unit B basically solos the game with Emblem X, that's taken into consideration when comparing unit A and B. and if unit A doesn't benefit from Emblem Y but unit B is still a really good unit with Emblem Y - so on and so forth. this also applies to stat boosters, weapon forging, and getting the exp needed to level up, though those resources are varyingly less contested. again, all of this has been argued to death because defining the criteria can get very complicated. the games themselves have had varying attempts at encouraging or obliging 'efficiency', usually by spawning a giant wall of enemies that you're not supposed to kill behind you when you start fighting the boss of a Kill Boss map. the hardest difficulties of the games released in the last decade have also had a variety of mechanics designed to make these weird grinding loopholes harder or impossible, usually by limiting how much exp or other resources you can gain by fighting any given enemy. it's a fair indicator that the designers don't think you should be grinding until you cap every stat.
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Apr 1, 2024 02:42
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Excellent summation here, ungulateman. Thank you for taking the time to consolidate the thoughts on unit comparison here. My personal feeling is that the unit comparisons also see more relevance on the higher difficulties, due to the fact that it puts the characters through the wringer. You get to notice some glaring shortcomings in this kind of environment that may otherwise not be a problem. For example: Clanne. This little mageling might have good speed and a great passive for reliability landing a shot when you need it, but in addition to his abysmal magic, on Maddening, his durability is also noticeably inadequate. Even as a Mage Knight, he risks getting one-shot by a good deal of enemies, which really hampers magic's usefulness with 1-2 range. And while he technically has a strength growth in the context of reclassing, the opportunity cost and the bad bases he works with ends up with the question of 'why bother'. As for the other characters: Alear: Lord character, mandatory. Oddly terrible in the beginning because without the Marth emblem, they suddenly stop being able to double most of the time. But has the opportunity for much support utility and gimmicky build setups as well. May as well give them the initial bulk of the exp, mandatory after all. Framme: Zero investment, no opportunity cost, good utility, doesn't take combat experience. I don't think her stats are actually good persay, but that really doesn't matter, she at least avoids getting killed most of the time if she ever has to take an attack from someone. Vander: Yeah, the bases and people already mentioned the problem with his internal level. Opinions here are Maddening based, as mentioned above.
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Apr 1, 2024 03:21
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Yeah Clanne is the only one of the starters I’d call outright bad. Vander serves his purpose on Maddening and helps take hits and get you through the first few stages, and Framme is staff utility when nobody else can do it. Staffs in Engage are the strongest they’ve been since Thracia and are worth a shitload of credit.
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Apr 1, 2024 03:37
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Yeah Clanne (and another character who shows up a bit later that's the inverse of him with high mag growth in a physical class) can theoretically be good as a physical unit longterm but you have to first reclass him which you can't do until at least post-ch8 and then catch him up from a position of bad bases while other characters who start off way better start joining. That other character has an interesting niche that can make them worth using despite the issues if you want to invest in them, but Clanne doesn't really have anything going for him to make doing that worth it over using any of the very strong physical units who don't have his issues. He can also be okay as a fast mage knight but he is straight-up worse at it than at least two other characters unless he gets very lucky with his growths. He is, at least, extremely valuable for the first few chapters as a unit who can reliably double and hits resistance instead of defense, which is lower on most enemy (and player) unit types. If nothing else 2 range chip damage is always useful when you have limited units available.
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Apr 1, 2024 03:40
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I think the big thing Clanne has going for him is that mages are very good early game and he doesn’t have too much competition for a decent bit. If he gets lucky with his growths, you can stick with him, but there’s a lot of good mages in the back half of the game so he’s easy to replace if he peters out. I honestly never really entertained the idea of reclassing him into a physical class because there is a far greater number of units that blow him out of the water on that front.
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Apr 1, 2024 03:50
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Yep. Magic is so good in this game and there are relatively fewer characters who are any good at it that even a bad mage like Clanne is going to do a decent amount of work.
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Apr 1, 2024 03:51
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ungulateman posted:most people don't level their characters infinitely until every stat hits the cap, and most of the games in the series outright forbid it. people usually talk about units in the context of 'efficiency', which is a very nebulous term that has been argued over a lot, but it usually includes the following: Yeah obviously no one should choose to grind like that, my point was just that, unlike Classic Emblem, theres no limits in Modern Emblem, so the intended way to play is basically do side stuff a bit to keep everyone relevant. Especially for the 2 that feature child units, since you'd only really get them in post game playing normally. And for the rest of it, I just kinda assumed trying to play Modern Emblem like Classic Emblem was insane in a way no one would do, but it seems to be pretty common around here.
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Apr 1, 2024 04:32
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MythosDragon posted:Yeah obviously no one should choose to grind like that, my point was just that, unlike Classic Emblem, theres no limits in Modern Emblem, so the intended way to play is basically do side stuff a bit to keep everyone relevant. Especially for the 2 that feature child units, since you'd only really get them in post game playing normally. And for the rest of it, I just kinda assumed trying to play Modern Emblem like Classic Emblem was insane in a way no one would do, but it seems to be pretty common around here. I mean i think awakening (and fates except Revelations, though I don't fates revelation is THAT impossible to do that way) it's not THAT hard to get all the child characters without using skrmishes on the "reasonably balanced" difficultly levels (especially since the paralogues give you more opporunties to raise support levels and stuff). Awakening Kids having stats based on their parents and promotion level ready creates something of a "catch up mechanic" and fates has the kids catch up mechanics built. On an asside, I will say I on some level miss old school "characters you have to work for" in FE, very few characters are truly easy to miss since like awakening, my best guess for this is more along the lines of "We paid for voice actors, more distinict face models and like a bunch of base mechanics and dialogue just for them, we're not gonna deny players those characters jsut because they didn't stand on a specific tile with Lethe or Mordecai", I wouldn't be suprised if a theorticasl FE4 remake just outright removes the substitues since having functionally two different versions of most gen 2 characters that require different voice acting and models (and at least one case a female version of a class that does not appear with any other playable character or major NPC (Forest)) when the majority of players will only see one and will infact will try to avoid see the others. (I'm guessing they will just make the Gen 1 women retreat ala Awakening and say they marry generic guys who don't matter (Heck Nanna and Delmudd's father could be Eve if Lachesis is unpaired as a reference to the most obscure fact about janne and Tristan) and like if they didn't properly join (for Ayra or Erinys) just don't it explain or just slap a one line of dialogue for that scenerio, demands of accounting outweight the demands of the plot)
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Apr 1, 2024 05:44
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weso12 posted:I mean i think awakening (and fates except Revelations, though I don't fates revelation is THAT impossible to do that way) it's not THAT hard to get all the child characters without using skrmishes on the "reasonably balanced" difficultly levels (especially since the paralogues give you more opporunties to raise support levels and stuff). Awakening Kids having stats based on their parents and promotion level ready creates something of a "catch up mechanic" and fates has the kids catch up mechanics built. Man that sounds reasonable and likely, but it's also sad. All of my knowledge of them comes from the wiki since I only played 4 once, but the substitutes seem to have a decent enough amount of personality to them I'd love to see them shine in a remake too.
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Apr 1, 2024 05:59
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 Chapter 3: Hostilities   Queen Lumera seem so kind and caring. I'm sure she was a wonderful mother. If only I could remember those days...   You know, I'm sure that's nothing. Everyone has dreams where they turn a nice shade of Evil Red™ and burn down their home, right?  What was that? Was that me? I was. But yes, I'm all right. Were you here this whole time? You were wearing my ring when you went to bed. Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot to take it off. That's all right. Keep it on. Then if something happens, I will be able to help. Besides, after a millennium together, I would feel uncomfortable if we were separated now. Hmm... You knew me back then. You must be able to tell me something. Well... You were kind, as you are now. There's no need to remember everything at once. Take your time, ease back into your memories. Lumera advised that too, didn't she?Clearly Marth got a crash course in PR from Caeda at some point, because that is some next-level dodging the question. Yes, she did. Sorry ─ I don't mean to be impatient. It's all right.*rumble from offscreen* What was that? I'm not sure. An enemy raid? We had best take a look. I'm worried about Lumera and the others. Agreed.  Ah, Divine One! Thank goodness you're safe. What's happening? Tell me. Some enemies busted right through the castle walls like paper. Suddenly, BAM! They're here! What's worse, they fought their way into the Ring Vault. If you ask me, they're trying to get their hands on the Emblem Rings! Even as we speak, Queen Lumera is defending the vault. We must fly to her aid! Sounds like a plan. Follow me! A quick intro this time! Don't worry, we'll pay for it later.   Peg Knights! They're weighed down a little by their lance, but they're surpisingly tough to knock down at this early stage, and naturally they can fly (with all the complications that comes with). The standing pillars are solid walls, but anything else is fair game.  The boss is our first enemy knight, a class that is more exaggerated than it usually is for Engage. In a lot of FE games, knights are annoying, but can still be smashed through with a little persistence. Here, you need a minimum of 14 damage to even scratch them, let alone make any headway.  Our starting position is...not great, to be honest. Both of these mercenaries will take a couple whacks to take out, and the soldier is conveniently right next to one of them, which means Vander is in trouble if we send him that way. That pair of peg knights off to the right will immediately be on top of anyone that goes up the right side, and they'll shrug off anything Clanne tries to throw at them, which is a problem because that's the only place he can really reach. The safe strategy is to bundle up the gang and move everyone off to the left to get through the first couple turns; the difficulty is definitely front-loaded here, and if we make it through that, it'll be smooth sailing for the rest of the chapter. But I like to play a little aggressively, so let's instead opt for Plan B: They can't hurt us if they're already dead.  On one hand, engaging is very powerful and you absolutely should be holding on to it to get the maximum benefit out of a limited-time buff. On the other, there's a pile of emblem energy sitting right there, and the opening turns are by far the most difficult part of the map. This sort of thing is exactly what it's here for.   This is exactly what we're looking for in the early-game. Strength, speed, and defense are everything Alear wants right now, and Break Defenses is a really useful add-on to get some free damage for something you're going to be doing anyway.  "Wait, what the hell is 'Breaking enemies'?" I hear you asking. Well, it turns out that after Three Houses downplayed the weapon triangle, we are BACK. If you have WTA when you attack an enemy, you will Break them.  When you break an enemy, you negate any attacks that they haven't yet done in this battle. They also lose the ability to counter the next attack that they receive. A free follow-up attack is a big deal! And there are very few enemies that can't be broken, the vast majority of them being armored enemies.  There isn't much we can do without putting Clanne and Framme in the line of fire, so we'll let Alear and Vander take the brunt of the punishment here.   Through this door, right? Yes. This is the one. Then let's go. I hear voices. Someone's coming. Made it! And not a moment too soon...  Prince Alfred of...Firene, you said? Could it be? Are you the Divine Dragon Alear? You finally woke up?! I did, yes. That's amazing! You know, I've waited ages for this to happen. There's so much to talk about. Later, of course, after we've taken care of these scoundrels. Who are they, anyway? We're not sure. They attacked so suddenly. Well, let's do this quickly ─ pin down whoever's in charge and get some answers. Lead the way, Divine One!A few extra sets of hands is welcome here, so let's meet the gang.  Base Class: Axe Fighter Class Type: Backup Personal Skill: Moved to Tears - If an ally joins a chain attack when Boucheron attacks, Boucheron deals +2 damage. Base Stats: HP: 29 (85% + 25%) Str: 10 (20% + 20%) Mag: 0 (0% + 0%) Dex: 8 (50% + 5%) Spd: 7 (45% + 10%) Def: 6 (35% + 5%) Res: 3 (20% + 0%) Luck: 5 (15% + 0%) Build: 9 (20% + 5%) Boucheron is an odd one. Similar to Clanne, the class growths for fighter are doing a lot of heavy lifting to keep him afloat, but it's not really clear what he does want to do. In a lot of ways, he's already there? For better or worse, he's reasonably fast with a ton of build - you can very easily make up for a lack of strength growth by equipping bigger and heavier axes, even if it's not a perfect fit. He's definitely going to need some help to get over the promotion hump, but Warrior Boucheron was one of the MVPs of my last playthrough.  Base Class: Noble Class Type: Cavalry Personal Skill: Self-Improver - If Alfred waits without attacking or using an item, he gains +2 Str for one turn. Base Stats: HP: 27 (65% + 15%) Str: 9 (40% + 15%) Mag: 2 (5% + 0%) Dex: 10 (35% + 5%) Spd: 6 (40% + 5%) Def: 8 (40% + 20%) Res: 5 (20% + 5%) Luck: 8 (40% + 15%) Build: 6 (10% + 0%) All of the royal characters have their own special class which is obviously just a normal class with a small bonus - in this case, Alfred is just a lance cavalier, but with better growths. I admit, I've never actually used him, but it seems like Alfred's destined for Great Knight or something similarly tanky - his HP is solid, and a 55/60 Str/Def growth is pretty hefty (our actual knight who joins next chapter is 55/80 for reference).  Base Class: Archer Class Type: Covert Personal Skill: Energized - When Etie recovers HP with an item, she gets +2 Str for a turn. Base Stats: HP: 21 (45% + 10%) Str: 10 (40% + 15%) Mag: 0 (0% + 0%) Dex: 11 (25% + 25%) Spd: 6 (35% + 10%) Def: 3 (25% + 5%) Res: 2 (30% + 0%) Luck: 8 (25% + 5%) Build: 4 (5% + 0%) There are, generally, two schools of thought regarding archers. The first is that barring some shenanigans, you're not going to have an enemy phase to work with, so you should put everything into making goddamn sure that the one hit you DO get counts - the Warrior approach to bows, if you prefer. On the other side, you have units that forego strength for speed, making up the raw damage by always striking twice and either trading that speed surplus for stronger, heavier weapons or picking up damage skills. Etie is squarely in the first camp with a very good base, 55% Str growth, and a personal skill that boosts it further. Her speed is only so-so and her build is so low that's she gets weighed down by an Iron Bow, but both of those things can be patched up with Emblems, and really, does it matter when she casually one-shots another pegasus for 150% of its max HP?  My arrows are perfect for knocking airborne enemies out of the sky. With these muscles, I'll have those fliers dropping like flies! Yeah, that'll do girl.  If I'm near an enemy you're fighting, I can jump in and land another hit on them. Call on me if you need some extra oomph. Boucheron is a Backup-type unit, which requires a little more explanation but the short version is that it works a lot like Fates' Offensive Pair-Up. For now, we just need to get him in position - note that even though we have WTD, we're not going to be broken by this guy. That's a privilege that only attacking units get.  When we get Alfred in position, we see the Chain Attack show up. The important things to note here are: A) Every backup unit that is in range and capable of contributing will. If we could somehow surround this guy with four Boucherons, we would get three chain attacks with every combat engagement. B) Each chain attack does a small, fixed amount of damage at a flat 80% accuracy. There are ways to improve it (Heroes do two chain attacks if they're at full health, for example), but they're few and far between. This is because chain attacks completely ignore defenses. The utility of this is generally more for the enemy than you, but it is there, and we'll cross that bridge in about...8 chapters or so.  We're just shy of knocking this peg knight out. This is about to be A Problem™.  Framme is going to sneak into this pocket to top off Boucheron. What could go wrong?   Well, they could have a javelin, for one. Should I have reset at this point? Probably, we're only two or three turns into the map. But instead consider: You don't need to heal if you never get hit.  The north side of the map has the boss, a couple mercs, and a couple pegs. The pegasi will reach us long before anything else in this group, so realistically we just have to contend with the mercenaries and the boss.  First, though, let's take out the trash down here.  Yeah, that's a Clanne level alright. If we're going to use him long-term, he'll appreciate the strength, but it's not what we need right now.  Vander and Boucheron will be handling the pegasi, while Alfred deals with the mercenary and Alear gets an EE recharge.    In retrospect, I should have had Boucheron kill the second pegasus instead of Vander but whatever, it's one kill. What's important is that the boss can really only swing at Vander now, which will hurt, but not nearly as much as it would against anyone else.  I have my orders. No one reaches the vault. Vander does his job. If we leave her alone, she'll pop her vulnerary, so let's not give her a chance to do that.  Mages are the traditional answer for knights, as Clanne amply demonstrates. Fortunately, there's so little left here that we can spread some exp around before dropping the hammer.    Alright, for real this time. gently caress her up, Clanne.  End of Chapter   So surrender now. If you refuse, I will stop you. *she teleports behind Alear* Ah! But how?! Do I detect a hint of fear? Of course I do.   Look out!  Now, why don't you hand the rings over to me?  Hm.  I am shocked. Shocked! That they would kill off Lumera like this. Well, okay, not that shocked.   Huh?! What's the matter? My staff isn't helping her. She's hurt really bad, and... It's her Divine Dragon powers ─ they're almost totally wiped out! ... A Divine Dragon losing their power... It's the same as losing years of their life. The thing is, there's no reason Queen Lumera should be drained like this. It doesn't make any sense! But why? All the years you were sleeping...healing...I was transferring my Divine Dragon powers to you. I hoped it would be enough to bring you back to me someday. But now, it would seem that I am completely spent... Oh no, this is my fault! I did this! No, my dear... You have to push those thoughts away. There is nothing a mother wouldn't do...to see life return again...to her beloved child. But I... I had...so hoped to give you the ring I made, as well...but that's not possible now... Listen to me, child... Those who invaded here... I sensed the power of the Fell Dragon within them. ... You must not allow them to capture any more of the rings. Please...I beg of you... Gather together all 12 rings. And...when your scattered memories return to you, you must fight on with the utmost divinity. I believe in you, my child! I understand. I'll collect the rings. I swear to you! And I'll fight. I'll do whatever you want. But please...don't leave me...Mother! Ah... Ah, young one...how I've longed to hear you call me that... All those years...I held out hope. My heart is fuller than you could ever know. It can't end like this. You were going to give me that ring once my memories came back... You promised! And there...there are so many things you haven't told me yet! You said that we would talk! I did... There's still so much I wanted to say to you... Being your mother ─ becoming your mother ─ has brought so much happiness into my life. I know...and I'm happy to be your child, in this moment ─ here and now ─ and a thousand years ago. I am. Don't go... Stay with me until I remember again! Please, Mother ─ I need more time! Haha... Oh, my sweet one. I'll be with you always and forever.  Mother... No! Please! The Divine Dragon Queen... She has left us. Mother, please wake up... You promised you'd stay by my side... You have to... You have to keep your promise!
Artix fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Apr 1, 2024 |
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Apr 1, 2024 21:52
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I know literally everyone saw this coming, but I gotta admit, this scene did touch me. Alear's voice actors (both versions) absolutely knock it out of the park. You really should click the video link if you haven't seen the scene in action.
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Apr 1, 2024 22:10
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I do like how the early game maps of Engage actually do test your battle sense a little, the very early chapters of FE games can all too often be formality tutorial maps, even on the harder difficulties. I've never been able to get Boucheron going, he has just the wrong bases and just the wrong class for me to ever want to explore his full capabilities. Huge fan of Etie though, she was my preferred anti-air. Alfred is good early game but boy he does he plateau hard and get overshadowed by later joining mounts. He's far from useless but he was one of my early game heroes who ended up getting benched when he just couldn't secure those 1-round kills anymore.
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Apr 1, 2024 22:12
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The death scene is well done in theory but really does not work at all in the context it's given in, because it's so abrupt. You aren't given enough time to care about her enough to justify what is intended to be a huge emotional moment imo. Alfred, Boucheron, and Etie are very weird characters. Alfred is tanky but doesn't really have anything else going for him, Etie is very good for killing early fliers and getting in safe chip damage but she has the worst overall stats of any character in the game, and Boucheron has the worst offensive growths of any character in the game but is beefy enough to be serviceable for the first several chapters and backup units are always helpful especially once you get him a hand axe.
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Apr 1, 2024 22:24
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Fajita Queen posted:The death scene is well done in theory but really does not work at all in the context it's given in, because it's so abrupt. You aren't given enough time to care about her enough to justify what is intended to be a huge emotional moment imo. This is my feeling. Yeah everyone sells it pretty well, but the player has only known Lumera for about ten minutes and if you're familiar with the narratives common to the genre, at least in my case I actively declined to get invested in what little I saw of her because it was so obvious that she was going to die for cheap emotional points.
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Apr 1, 2024 22:42
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getting only one chapter with Mom is really lame, even by FE standards. Greil and Jeralt got a couple chapters at least
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Apr 1, 2024 23:03
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If Lumera had about 6 chapters to establish herself and maybe was a cool ally unit in a single chapter, the death would have landed better. As it is, it’s just going through the motions in a bid for pathos.
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Apr 1, 2024 23:04
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Etie is sort of like Clanne in reverse. Your other native archers are better in a lot of ways, but they're often lacking for strength; the one most people swear by ends up at like, 16 str at 10/20 in fixed mode. Etie is kind of second seal bait because she really wants to be a Warrior, but in that role she functions; having a fat longbow is all you NEED, really. Alfred has the best growth total in the game, but his bases are bad even for an earlygame unit. You wouldn't expect a unit with a 50% speed growth when promoted to be slow but he's DIRE, and the worst victim of build being a serious problem in this game. Boucheron, on the other hand, is singlehandedly justified by not falling into that trap. Man's got build for days. He can swing around the heaviest weapons unencumbered with AS to spare. What a guy. What a funny guy. As for plot, uh.... yeah. Silly, but it's at least sold by Alear putting everything into their tears. Especially Laura Stahl.
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Apr 1, 2024 23:23
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Boucheron has the best supports in the game so he's my favorite character.
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Apr 1, 2024 23:33
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:I know literally everyone saw this coming, but I gotta admit, this scene did touch me. Alear's voice actors (both versions) absolutely knock it out of the park. Both Alear's do a lot to carry the game with their performances.
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Apr 1, 2024 23:58
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It's already been repeatedly mentioned, but yeah it's kind of hard to have much gravitas when you've gotten a whole 1 chapter with them before "whoops, they're dead." Anyways... Etie has the second lowest growth total in the entire game, with a whole 5% more than Vander. VANDER. Her growths are basically a gimmick, with high STR growth and terrible everything else. And as an early game unit she doesn't have starting stats to fall back on. She's... usable in the early game, and retains usefulness a bit beyond that against fliers exclusively, but bar getting lucky with level ups or very much favoring her she's just not going to turn out well. Faillen Angel posted:Alfred has the best growth total in the game, but his bases are bad even for an earlygame unit. You wouldn't expect a unit with a 50% speed growth when promoted to be slow but he's DIRE, and the worst victim of build being a serious problem in this game. ??? Alfred doesn't have close to the highest growth total in the game. Hell, Alear's got a higher growth total and they're nowhere near the top either. As a wry addition though, he does have the same STR growth as Etie, without sacrificing everything else. edit: For anyone interested in seeing where our current characters stand, putting up a heat map of growths below. Anyone not recruited yet is blacked out, but sticking it under a spoiler if you want to be surprised. 
Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Apr 2, 2024 |
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Apr 2, 2024 01:28
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Etie is pretty funny to use and her growths are a bit misleading since all that matters is she is hit something reliably really hard, but she’s not good. Alfred is also really bad and just struggles to do anything meaningful even if you invest in him. Boucheron is actually quite reliable at his job because Backup is so good and he’s probably the best of these three goobers.
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Apr 2, 2024 01:50
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Boucheron's problem is that all of the axes that really make use of his build are also super expensive in money and/or resources, because they're high-rank weapons. So if you want to use him, you're making investment twice over, especially since other people generally aren't going to want the Boucheron weapons. He's an expensive unit to drop. Meanwhile, speed is surprisingly easy to boost up later with skills, so Etie does fine long-term. Strength or magic are way more problematic to patch. I think the Lumera death lands kind of BECAUSE it's so soon; Alear's lines are all about how this can't happen when they still don't even really know her. She's dying a stranger to them and they have no idea how to handle that.
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Apr 2, 2024 02:15
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Lumera’s death is handled decently well but it’s really undercut by the scene directly before it. The hooded figure demonstrates that they have the power to take down a loving Divine Dragon, effortlessly evades her counterattack, and instead of pressing their advantage they just… leave. And drop an Important Plot Trinket (probably) while they’re at it. Like… what? What is even going on here?
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Apr 2, 2024 02:24
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Boucheron is a personal favorite of mine. He's got the best in the game growths for HP, Dex and, Build but has the lowest combined strength and magic. Class bases and growths can do a lot of the heavy lifting. He's one of the better options for an early promotion because the promotion to warrior/berserker gives very good bonuses and as a warrior he'll have a ton of options for effective weaponry. Eventually his sub par strength catches up to him but at that point you will have some options to help him out. Conversely Etie was too frail and Alfred too slow for my liking. Alfred's personal class is just so unspectacular and he's one of the few units to actually get a negative modifier to where his expected stats would be (its in his speed of course).
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Apr 2, 2024 02:43
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I'm not going to comment on the death scene since people have already said what I'd want to say about it. I'm actually a fan of this map because it's actually a bit threatening. It's not that hard, but you WILL lose a character if you get careless, which I think is the perfect balance for an early game map. As for the characters, Maddening is rather unkind to all of them, really. Alfred: His bases suck too badly. His serviceable growths have to pull him out of way too deep a hole, he gets doubled by nearly everything and 8 defense is not nearly enough to pull him out of that deficit. People compared his growths to a later armor knight, but that kind of ignores the fact that said armor knight starts with 17 defense... Etie: A strength archer is a fun idea, but its one that comes at the sacrifice of literally every other stat. She's less durable than Clanne due to having no res and less defense, and also risks getting doubled by nearly everything. Better than Alfred early because of the mostly accurate 2 range damage, but that's not a high bar. Boucheron: Probably the best of the bunch due to having enough HP and speed to soak hits, he'll never encounter a unit who'll kill him from full unlike the other two. Still not great mind you because his damage is middling and his bulk is compromised by his bad defense. However, Hand Axe chip and backup means that he'll work perfectly fine anyways for as long as you have him.
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Apr 2, 2024 02:44
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Etie at least has the fact going for her that her cheese grater abs (not particularly visible during normal gameplay) are matched by a decent STR growth, unlike Rinkah from Fates.
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Apr 2, 2024 02:47
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Etie is my personal favorite of these three just because she has something she is complacently good at and as a ranged attacker her flaws are easy to work around with good tactics. That said, when it comes to physical ranged attackers, there’s a certain Papaya lover who joins not too long from now that really puts her to shame. Still fun to try and make work though, and she’ll always be able to delete pegasus knights.
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Apr 2, 2024 02:55
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Lord Koth posted:Alfred doesn't have close to the highest growth total in the game. Hell, Alear's got a higher growth total and they're nowhere near the top either. As a wry addition though, he does have the same STR growth as Etie, without sacrificing everything else. My bad, I meant in his unique promoted class. I'm still wrong, mind, but he's still very close to the top; matched by three, and beaten by three (technically four but the fourth doesn't count.) The class itself also has the highest growth total.
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Apr 2, 2024 05:15
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Boucheron (and Backup classes in general) will always be useful just for the extra damage that you can pile on with them, and I appreciate that the combat forecast factors them in. Saves the headache of having to remember if your Backups are actually in the right location to provide assistance. Also, echoing the sentiment that, while Dragon Mom's death could be seen from a mile away, Alear's VAs still pour their hearts into the scene. They almost sell it on the performance alone.
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Apr 2, 2024 15:41
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I think the consistent opinion I've heard of Engage is that the plot is insanely goofy and basic, yet the VA performances are excellent and they're giving their all into the Saturday morning cartoon script.
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Apr 2, 2024 17:51
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So: Alfred is slow but bulky, which unfortunately means that he's not actually bulky because being doubled is usually more damage than not being doubled. Etie is a strength archer in a game where strength is irrelevant on archers. And Boucheron doesn't really have strength or speed so he's kinda here entirely for the provision of earlygame backup. They'll all get replaced out pretty quickly.
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Apr 2, 2024 18:04
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Boucheron is basically coinflip from what I can tell. 40% Str growth and 55% Spd growth means there will be runs where he flops and runs where he's blessed and goes on a killing spree, similar to prior fighters like Vaike.
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Apr 2, 2024 18:49
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 20:41 |
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It’s a bit tough to judge some of these units in the context of the whole game because class has a much larger impact on your growths in Engage compared to the minor bonuses they gave in 3 Houses. Clanne and Boucheron can probably wildly swing in usefullness with a Second Seal, but whether or not they’re worth that in the early game is up to the individual player. There’s enough flexibility on Normal and Hard to clown around with the more abundant resources late game, but Maddening can pretty heavily damper the potential of the starter crew.
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Apr 2, 2024 19:05
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