Whose bright idea was this stupidity? This chapter would be fine if it weren't for the pitfalls scattered across the bridge. I know I could look up where they are and figure out how to deal with it easily, but damn it, I'm going to charge into this blind simply to show how annoying and dumb they are.
Ike gets Ragnell here. I'm not going to go too insane with it because he's at level 20 and can't level up until part 4, but suffice to say, he's ridiculous whenever he does see combat now.
Everyone moves forward. Enemies here are even weaker than in past chapters. Honestly, this is one of the biggest problems I have with Radiant Dawn. The different groups have such wildly different abilities. Some are weak and fight tough enemies, some are strong and fight utter wimps. The enemies are adamant about attacking my stronger units for some reason, as if they WANT to die. Maybe they do, I don't know. If so, they sure do get their wish.
We do get to see an enemy using a Rescue staff to help get its buddies healed. That's actually pretty cool. Also cool is Neph, who now has Adept and decides to pull an Adept and Impale on a guy she would have killed with one regular strike anyway. I wish this skills activated when I needed their help more than when they're overkill. Partway through the map Tibarn shows up with some buddies as NPCs and also Leanne for me to use. I should probably direct them to get out of my way but I feel like it might be fun to let Tibarn completely destroy this map, most of my units are getting pitiful experience anyway. So I leave them on Roam to see how he handles it. Pretty well so far!
I hit my first pitfall with Shinon. On a random tile on the edge of the bridge. Not even in a gap. WHO DESIGNED THIS STUPID MECHANIC?! Ike also hits one, right in a path through the blockades. "Fun"
Tibarns buddies do some decent damage but also take it hard in return. Tibarn himself destroys things. Looking forward to actually using him myself! Actually it looks like his buddies aren't too bad at all, it was just a magic hit that really dented one, otherwise they're eating like 6HKO damage.
Titania hits a pit in one chokepoint and then Oscar drops into one right nexto an enemy that was blocked off from the other direction by one of those shining barrier things. **** this game. Haar does not approve so he goes and kills a dude to prove he's not taking any of this BS pitfall stuff. And then just like that Shinon hits ANOTHER one, RIGHT NEXT TO THE ONE OSCAR IS IN. This is why I didn't use a map. You don't get the proper sense of how monumentously stupid this map is when you know what's coming.
At least Tibarn and his crew block off/kill some enemies to help my trapped comrades stay alive. Honestly can I just let Tibarn solo this map? Aside from the boss with his crossbow I bet he could do it.
**** this, Ike and Haar are storming the place, screw experience gain for other units, screw everything else, I just want this map over with. Titania gets caught in another one that is positioned such that attacking a certain enemy mage is impossible until Tibarn moves. I hate this chapter, fyi. There's pitfalls and a barrier arranged in a way that I CANNOT advance at all without my flying units carrying me until the barrier wears off.
Another hilarious chapter. If a unit is parked on top of a pit, the pitfall won't trigger, so if you move a flying unit on top of a pit that hasn't fallen yet, you can move a ground unit through that square. Also, the enemies with Rescue Staves? Sometimes can warp their foes onto pits, which of course doesn't trigger it. Just for lulz, I battle saved, then had a mounted unit kill the enemy on a pit, then attempt to move through that square that was just occupied and end up falling in.
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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?
ShadowHalo17 posted... From: nintendogirl1 | #209 Routing that chapter is the most fun ever.
Needs you to be incredibly aggressive though. I don't see how it's even possible.
That's what Laura's Sleep staff is for. Although it also helps if you intentionally set it up by equipping something other than Ragnell at the end of the last chapter in which you control Ike. Also, god help you if you're trying to get maximum story development and have been nurturing his support rank with Soren; probably should kill him first. (Personally, on my best run, I had Volug take the Beastfoe; it was amazing watching him tear apart his fellow beasts.)
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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?
Panthera posted... There are a LOT of reinforcements on this map. It's nothing I can't handle, but still. This ends up taking a bit longer than I expected because I forgot how many of them there are. Mopping them up isn't just a "move guys once, enemy phase suicide, yay" procedure. It's okay though because it lets Nolan gain some more levels. And Edward too. I'll have to compare him and Mia to see who gets to come to the grand finale with me. Maybe even both. In the meantime, Oliver recruits himself. It kind of saddens me that I won't get to see his amusing pre-battle conversations with some of the bosses in the tower. I do have him talk with Ike though, just because Ike's line "Look...would you mind rejoining the enemy?" is worth seeing.
One of the reinforcement sages has Meteor. You can't believe how much that pisses me off. Good thing I have battle saves, because that sniped Vika down. Not that I care about her, but I kind of want to recruit everyone (well, besides the two secret characters I'm already locked out of because they're either too much work or because I don't like them) and keep them alive. Other than that it's not too threatening a group, there's just way too damn many of them.
Still a fun chapter, even if the hordes of reinforcements slow it down some at the end. Only one more to go before we enter the Endgame series!
Yet another oddly interesting chapter, because Tormod is absolutely useless after being somewhat useful back in Part 1, but Vika of all units is actually useful here, still doing only chip damage but dodging pretty much everything when she's in her raven form and therefore serving as a wonderful decoy, also even doing chip damage gets plenty of HP. (You probably have to give her a couple of levels via BEXP first, though, or else she won't do any damage at all. I recommend making sure she's at least level 15; skill capacity for laguz goes up at level 15 and again at level 30.)
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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?
i wouldn't bother with BEXP on Vika really when it's easier to just have her run around hiding from enemies and using Shove. Muarim was the best of the bunch due to nice chip damage and still respectable durability, although I'm sure that on hard mode he'd get doubled too much to really achieve anything.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
Does anyone have any random questions/requests for lists of stuff and discussions of random things and all that crap? I should be able to get some playing done tonight or tomorrow but in the meantime random stuff to talk about is cool
Random trivia question: Without looking it up (yay honour system!), which game(s) in the series contain(s) no playable axe users?
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
From: Panthera | #355 Random trivia question: Without looking it up (yay honour system!), which game(s) in the series contain(s) no playable axe users?
I don't believe 1 or 2 do. I can't remember if 3 does or not. I know it's definitely not 4 or anything after it, though.
From: tcaz2 | #356 I don't believe 1 or 2 do. I can't remember if 3 does or not. I know it's definitely not 4 or anything after it, though.
I'm afraid I can only give partial credit! FE1 does have playable axe users (that's one I did have to look up myself before asking to confirm though, so it's not like I knew it for sure). FE2 does not; the only "axe" class in the game are Thieves, an enemy only class mainly seen early in the game, and there aren't any actual axe items in the game, it's just their default "unequipped" weapon is technically one. FE3 also does not have playable axe users, although there are axes in the game for enemies to use. The big notable thing here is that Silver Axes are found fairly frequently; they basically play the role of Gems in later games - you can't use them, so you sell them instead.
Then FE4 came along and I guess the developers were so amazed that Lex was still awesome despite how spectacularly TERRIBLE axes were that they decided to keep them around forever.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
From: MalcolmMasher | #358 Random stuff suggestion: Rank the main antagonists. Use your own judgement as to who qualifies.
Oh boy, this is going to get interesting, especially since I'm going to have to show some bias and include my favourite character in addition to the main antagonist from his game, because I'm cool like that. And also because I don't care much for most of them >_> Rankings in reverse order for suspense, of course!
9. Ashera (FE10) - Okay the main problem here is that she just kind of pops up in the middle of a story that was more interesting without her. Yeah there's foreshadowing for the whole goddesses business getting involved and all that but it still derails the plot and just conveniently provides a reason for everyone to suddenly be best friends. Plus she's a lazy boss fight, as I said earlier, I liked the "defeat the other targets to get at the final boss" routine a hell of a lot more when they were actual enemies, not stupid floating damage reflecting clouds.
8. Doma (FE2) - Can I even call Doma the main villain of this game? He just sits in his basement wondering when someone will seal him away and making the world suck because he exists. Meh. He gets to avoid last place because as some of you may have figured out by now, the music that plays when you fight him is amazing and I'm obsessed with it. His actual battle music is kind of weird though. Also he looks like a giant swamp monster thing.
7. "Lyon"/Demon King (FE8) - Would get to be a lot higher if the two routes weren't so inconsistent about him. On Eirika's route he gets portrayed as pretty much completely consumed by the Demon King, on Ephraim's, he's still mainly Lyon and just knows he'll get consumed fully once his plan ends. He's a terrible final boss too, complete pushover. At least Lyon himself has cool battle music.
6. Beldo/Berdo/Veld/etc (FE5) - How many different ways has this guys name been translated? Anyway he has a reputation for being a joke boss but he's actually not all that incompetent. Stone is a pain in the ass and forces you to have done 24x to cure it and 24x is horrible, and he is pretty durable. Still a bit weak but it's not THAT bad. As a villain he doesn't really do much but turn Eyvel to stone, but he does get to reveal he provided the information that allowed the second biggest plot twist of FE4 to happen, so he gets major villainy points for that.
5. Zephiel (FE6) - He'd probably be a spot higher if saving his idiotic ass in FE7 wasn't annoying. Or maybe not, he's pretty bland, but at least he shows up more than once.
4. Medeus (FE1, 3, 11, 12, 58, 99, 2001, 3.14159, I'll stop now) - He's a dragon. And he's EEEEVVVIIILLL. Yay? His FE3/12 battle music is ****ing awesome though and that is more than enough to put him as the first antagonist on the list I actually like instead of being indifferent or worse to.
3. Julius (FE4) - He's pretty generic, but he does provide a pretty good final boss fight, what with halving your attack power, delivering auto-crits that are essentially a guaranteed OHKO when his health is below half unless you have a certain skill, and having that annoying Meteor + Charge combo when you approach him. Also probably the most evil dude in the series, what with the whole "kidnap children, have them fight to the death and the winners will earn the right to be indoctrinated as my followers" thing.
<continued next post>
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
2. Nergal (FE7) - I like his backstory being hinted at in a way that tells you what it is without ever outright saying it. He's also a bit more active than most Fire Emblem main villains, although he loses points for his one big amazing moment (getting Ninian killed) is completely undone later.
1. Alvis (FE4) - Oh hey not the main antagonist but I don't care, he's the most interesting character in the series, a perfect example of how to make a proper sympathetic villain - one you can feel sorry for, respect, and understand the reasoning of, while still wanting to defeat him. His theme music is great. I feel like I'm forgetting something. Oh yeah. The end of chapter 5. Holy. ****ing. ****.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
Where's Ashnard (and honestly you could make a case for the Black Knight too in FE9)?
Or were you the guy that never played FE9 (lmao you if so)
And I always figured Lyon was the same on the other routes and just acted differently toward Eirika/Ephraim due to his different feelings towards them (with Ephraim he embraced the 'bad guy' act because he knew it would make him want to stop him more, but with Eirika he actually loved her so he couldn't bear to let her think he actually chose the path, and he probably did regret it a little).
Never played FE9, can't find it anywhere in person and I have godawful luck with stuff I order online not showing for months, if ever, and needing to call people to figure out if they ****ed up or if the post office did something dumb and so on and it's too much damn hassle.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
The problem with that theory about Lyon is that there are a few scenes of him where he's not around anyone else (except maybe Riev and Morva I guess) but in Eirika's route he's still doing the whole "rar i eat humanity" routine and on Ephraim's route he's still doing the "I'm going to save my country even if I get destroyed and I hope Ephraim stops me if I get consumed" thing.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
From: Panthera | #362 Never played FE9, can't find it anywhere in person and I have godawful luck with stuff I order online not showing for months, if ever, and needing to call people to figure out if they ****ed up or if the post office did something dumb and so on and it's too much damn hassle.
So why not just, you know...?
From: Panthera | #363 The problem with that theory about Lyon is that there are a few scenes of him where he's not around anyone else (except maybe Riev and Morva I guess) but in Eirika's route he's still doing the whole "rar i eat humanity" routine and on Ephraim's route he's still doing the "I'm going to save my country even if I get destroyed and I hope Ephraim stops me if I get consumed" thing.
I still don't see a problem with it. He interacts more with Eirika in Eirika's route and more with Ephraim in Ephraim's route, so it effects how he chooses to act. It's not really inconsistent, it's basic 'alternate route' stuff. Different situations cause different actions.
Haven't really given it much thought, I've assumed my laptop would not take kindly to it. Guess I could give it a try someday, maybe once I've finished this playthrough topic I'll look into it.
I still don't see a problem with it. He interacts more with Eirika in Eirika's route and more with Ephraim in Ephraim's route, so it effects how he chooses to act. It's not really inconsistent, it's basic 'alternate route' stuff. Different situations cause different actions.
I just don't see why he'd put on an act when he's completely alone.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
His dialogue with Morva though is a lot harder to explain. It's just the two of them, so Lyon has no reason to lie really, and yet on Eirika's path Morva immediately goes, "I know you're just pretending to be human, Demon King!!" and on Ephraim's path he basically goes, "Well, that was a stupid idea you had there, you can't control the Demon King" and Lyon tries to argue he's still the one in control.
In fact, if you listen to Lyon's explanation of it, "I saw two roads... one had me conquered by the demon king body and soul, in the other I was able to halt his possession and use that power to help Grado, etc." It almost makes sense if you take it as Eirika's path assuming the former happened, and that Ephraim's explores the other... only it still goes wrong there.
***End Spoilers***
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
It has been too long since an update, so let's get a chapter in.
Chapter 19xx, or 19x pt2 as the game lists it
Yay, fog of war with a variety of nuisances around to make it "extra exciting"!
So there's a little scene where Hector and Eliwood chat with the boss of this chapter, Teodor. He presents himself as an ordinary dude at first, but the fact that his sprite on the map is red should already kind of spoil the fact that he's an enemy <_< Also the conversation you have with him is kind of important to Nergal's backstory. I do like how it's handled, but hiding it in this super obscure chapter is kind of dumb.
The low deployment slots of HHM really bite you in the ass here. The thieves all having capped speed also kind of sucks since they can potentially steal stuff from you. And there's the usual archers in places you can't reach and general fog of war tomfoolery of having dangerous enemies hiding just outside your field of vision. By which I mean status staffs. That really sucks.
Canas hangs around the south to poke at archers for a while, Marcus goes charging after the dude on the ballista and we manage to lure the Sleep staff user close enough to get hit on turn 3, which is handy. Matthew takes a nap though, which kind of sucks. Then something amazing happens. Teodor actually hits Sain with Eclipse. I think that might be the first time I have EVER seen Eclipse actually hit someone.
So some Wyvern Knights show up from the throne room and Lucius nearly dies. Yay, our first introduction to Wyvern Knights harassing me from where I can't see them, that totally won't happen again in a desert, right guys? Anyway I get to the boss and then realize that Lucius cannot poke at him for anything useful because the guy has 20 resistance and Lucius can't even scratch him. So instead Hector smacks him a bit, runs away to get healed, and Raven attacks with a Killing Edge and ends up killing him with a critical. Hooray me!
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
I'll explain a bit why I think I put off this game for several days. I feel as though picking FE7 to play was a bad idea. Not because I don't like the game or anything, but because after two straight games that are fairly similar that I went through extremely quickly, it's getting harder to make interesting write ups, since this is the third straight game where most chapters boil down to "people move forward" with the occasional "**** this fog" comment. Gets a little repetitive. So I think FE4 will be the game I do after this simply because of the variety it will bring, especially since not many people here have played it so I can indulge myself in going into detail on stuff like mechanics and plot that I've just assumed everyone knows for these first three games. Anyway, that said, let's continue, we've still got a ways to go before FE7 is done.
Chapter 20
This marks the map where I'm phasing out Marcus. He's still kicking a fair bit of ass but I'd like to make sure all the other characters I plan on using long term can get deployed. Hopefully Kent picks things up, he's really dragging me down right now. He gets the Horseslayer in the hopes that he can get some easy levels from skewering dudes with it.
We get the usual routine of a few people going through the middle room while everyone else pushes through the open path that has an endless parade of horses along it. Hector is too badass to die and just lures in and softens pretty much everything that he can, allowing me to mop up, heal him, and keep advancing. In a slight hurry because of the need to recruit Legault, although I really don't think the timing is all that tight on that. The Thief with the Member Card is a bit more of a pressing concern, since Matthew has a fair bit he needs to be doing on this map. Legault might be in range to steal it when he gets recruited though, I'm not sure yet.
Okay this ends up taking a few tries because Legault ends up escaping before I can recruit him. One time I had him in range, but then the Member Card thief stood right in front of Lyn in a choke point, so there was no way to steal it without moving her, and that meant she wouldn't be able to get to Legault until he ran off. That was frustrating.
On the run that actually worked out, I decided that being stupidly aggressive was a good idea and it turns out it worked. Had to get some dodges in but nothing too implausible. Hector walled off a legion of horses and Sain cut the path to the thieves so I could steal/recruit what needed. It took forever to actually get all the treasure and kill every enemy except for one knight who was miles away from everyone. I didn't bother with the secret shops here since there's nothing exciting besides Physic, and I can pick that up in chapter 22 without having to waste more turns wandering to them. Not that I care about turn count on this particular run, but the time involved would annoy me.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
Man this game really spams fog of war for a while here. We get in 19xx, we get here, we get it again in chapter 23, and then again in chapter 28. Oh, and it's in Lloyd's version of chapter 24, which is almost certainly where I'll be going. Kind of excessive.
So how about that poison? Pretty annoying stuff. At least it fades away on its own, unlike in FE5. Anyway, Raven, Hector and Sain lead the charge due to having the best combination of durability and offense. Canas and Lucius kind of run around doing stuff, Ninian is now with me and that lets me do some fun things. Eliwood is forced on this map, and he sucks, so he just kind of hides from danger. Oh, and Florina goes on a village/shop tour to collect me some items.
It's really uneventful until I get to the boss. Raven, despite holding a Lancereaver (to deal with other enemies who I could see, whereas I don't have the attack range of the boss memorized), decides to land two hits, one a critical, and then promptly dodges everything else thanks to his forest bonuses. Pretty awesome of him. I realize I didn't bring a thief so I can't steal the Hero Crest, but it's not a big deal; I have one already and Raven is the only user of it that I'm making use of. So since he's close, I get what kills I can and then Sain finishes him off, hitting level 20 in the process (and hitting 20 strength too, nice little touch). Guess who will be a Paladin next map?
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
Oh look, a big defend map. Why do I get the feeling that I'm going to enjoy this chapter? Probably has something to do with the fact that I am.
Lots to do here, really. Got to recruit Heath and Rath, collect some treasure, visit a secret shop, and kill the boss to end the map early because cutting a path to Eubans and killing him is more fun and challenging than sitting back. Plus he has a Knight Crest, which I kind of need to get (not that Kent is doing much to deserve it)
So Eliwood recruits Heath, Legault wanders off to the secret shop, Florina goes to help get Heath and then pick off mages. Isadora joins them as well. Everyone else goes on one of the two paths to Eubans. The NPCs are annoying dicks who constantly get in my way. Oh well, such is life.
Again, fairly uneventful, although I do need to take several tries due to things frequently going wrong, and then because Eubans was displaying some oddly good AI, changing which NPC unit he would kill based on which of my units were near enough to attack each position he could end up in. Once I figured it out, Kent and Sain combined to kill him on the final turn. Killed every enemy, got every bit of treasure except...the 10000 gold which would have been a huge bonus given that I'm very low on cash, but oh well, I'll manage.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
OH HEY FOG AGAIN I'm getting a little tired of it by now. Also, desert. Thankfully not as awful as the FE6 desert, but still pretty annoying. Also, I need to gain lots of EXP to access a side quest. Yay for stupid, awkward requirements no one would ever find without a guide. And of course, buried treasure, because why not?
Very little detail to give here since I was keeping my eyes on a map of where to find the treasure instead of having this page in the background like I usually do. Heath and Florina flew around, Pent never got hit, Canas and Lucius kicked some ass, Hawkeye is awesome, etc. I really do hate this map and how stupid the side quest requirement is, but at least once you know it's there, you can have Serra spam Barrier/Torch/healing while Ninian dances and let mister underleveled Heath do a lot of work and you'll meet the EXP quota easily.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
You should definitely find a way to play FE9, the story is so much better than 10. 7 is still my favorite but I have been having trouble motivating myself to play it too.
I am almost at the end of a worst beorc units run in FE10, my endgame team is Leonardo, Meg, Fiona, Ilyana, Astrid, Rhys, Tormod, Sigrun, Heather, and Oliver. They are mostly fine by now but earlier it was horrendous. Meg, after reaching 20 speed as a sword knight, hit her speed cap of 22 one level after promoting. Yeah.
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Everyone has a right to sarcasm. It's like murder, except legal. - MYC
23x is a painful chapter with lots of unpleasant stuff being thrown at you and it's unpredictable because Kishuna is a dick about where he'll move so you can't always know which enemies will be outside his anti-magic field at a given time. I don't think I have it in me to attempt it on an empty stomach, so until I buy some groceries this is on delay <_<
To make this post have some content that actually matters, I'm going to rank the top 5 toughest/most powerful/difficult bosses in the series! Based solely on the boss themselves, not the chapter around them (although I'll likely mention that a bit).
5. Alvis (FE4) - Hey look it's my favourite character again. Not bias this time though! Okay I put him ahead of two other bosses in the same game who are roughly equal, but I think he deserves the nod because he's more "powerful" statistically (due to coming later in the game) and the hardest to kill. Anyway, this guy wields the second highest attack power of any unit in the entire series, a rather impressive 70 (I believe max strength Caineghis ties, but no other magic user comes close). Also, 80 HP. 40 Defense. 40 Resistance. 15 AS and 104 Avoid. 180 hit. 15 HP regained per turn. So you don't dodge him, he's a bit hard to hit for many characters, and you obviously need a ton of attack power to actually do meaningful damage to him. Oh, and you can't get critical hits on him or activate sword skills because he's got Nihil. The one thing making him less threatening is that you engage him entirely on your own terms, but the fact that only a few characters can even fight him due to his massive attack power and it takes several rounds at best to kill him makes him one of the nastier bosses in the series. Oh yeah, he has a Silver Blade too. He has 47 attack and 24 AS with it, but I doubt his AI will ever pick it, especially since it means dropping his defenses back down to the stat cap instead of 33% above it.
4. Dheginsea (FE10) - And here's the highest attack power of anyone in the series, a whopping 75. He's durable, fairly fast, regains a lot of health each turn, and has that annoying map attack. Also he's got Ire to instant-kill nearly anyone in the game if it goes off, so Nihil is a must. The fact that you can easily do substantial damage to him from 3 range where he can't counter does kind of drag his challenge level down a bit.
3. Kel (FE6) - It is rather disturbing to encounter an enemy with 27 speed in this game. It is especially disturbing when you realize he has 1-2 range (albeit the long range attack is fixed at 10 damage), and you can't surround him all that easily. And then you remember that FE6 weapons tend to have shaky accuracy, and it all adds up to a severe nuisance even when you do have characters that can fight him and do decent damage (and survive, of course).
<continued in next post>
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
2. Gomes (FE5) - Huh, a Warrior boss fairly early in the game. Doesn't seem like it should be all that scary, does it? Oh wait, FE5 thrones give the most insane boosts ever, fairly standard 30 avoid but 10 defense. So guess what, it's chapter 8x and you're fighting a dude with 22 defense and 46 HP. Oh yeah, 14 speed and enough Build to never be weighed down by anything. And 18 strength. And a Steel Axe and Steel Bow. Remember that this is a game where the stat caps are all 20. He is hard to hit, takes a ton of punishment to kill, and can kill your units extremely easily. You basically have to rely on critical hits, and attacking from whichever range he currently can't hit to chip him away, and if you don't have Asvel (because you missed his recruitment, or he's fatigued, or whatever) you can say goodbye to your chances of handling this easily. This guy is the number one reason I hate FE5 8x, because it is ludicrous for the game to expect you to deal with him without knowing he's coming.
1. Reinhardt (FE5) - Hey, another FE5 boss. And Reinhardt takes insanity to a whole new level. He's not hugely durable (against magic he is but physically he's...Gomes without the throne), although he does have Big Shield giving him a 20% chance to just ignore any given attack you throw at him. And he's also very slow with his main weapon equipped. So why is he tough? Well, that main weapon is Daimthunder, the personal tome his sister can use when she's on your team. You will likely have nuked some people with it already by this point, so you'll know what it does. It's a 15 might Brave weapon. With a bit of a crit boost. Brave tome is already unique, and with this guy packing a hefty 35 attack, you're not likely to survive. And he has Ambush so he will always attack first. That is a big, BIG problem. And he's a Mage Knight so you need to worry about his mobility.
So let's sum Reinhardt up. You need to find a way to survive his impressive attack power without eating a critical. You need to actually kill him past Big Shield. You need to be positioned right so he can't kill anyone and you then need to kill him before he gets another turn to use to kill whoever is nearby, since there's no way you can have many people who can take his attacks. And you don't have much room to deal with him because the bridge behind you gets broken. This guy is a bastard and a half. And here's where the rest of the chapter comes in - he has a brigade of Mage Knights with 20 crit with him. And this is chapter 22. Until you can make a certain other character leave, every enemy on this map (aside from Reinhardt and his crew, thankfully) are sitting at +30 hit/avoid. That is brutal. This entire map is a luck-based pain, and then halfway through they expect you to fight the most badass enemy in the entire series. There's ways to deal with him, true, but if you're not ready for it...yeah you're ****ed.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
Augh, HHM Genesis. I went into HHM not really knowing what to expect, outside how Battle Before Dawn gains a pure luck factor to it, and expected BBD to be the "worst" chapter for me. I totally messed that prediction up. Genesis is just a pain in so many ways. Give me Battle Before Dawn any time over Genesis.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
Genesis has the benefit of at least letting me see what's going on. It's a pain in the ass, but I feel better about getting screwed by bad luck against my own characters than bad luck against an NPC I can't get close enough to to help.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
I'll fully admit I got pretty fortunate on BBD and never had Jaffar get himself killed, while on Genesis things just basically became a nightmare, with status effects seemingly never missing and Luna's critical rating must have been dialed up to like 80% or something... which I have to think isn't the typical experience.
...I think I'd have to know the general probability of Jaffar dying before you can intervene to make a judgment call on which one I'd find objectively worse. I totally understand why Battle Before Dawn would be more hated for that though, personally it's one of my favorite chapters in FE7, if not my favorite, but if Jaffar went and ended my attempts over and over again while all I could do was watch helplessly, I could see my mind changing on that rather quickly. I'd probably let it slide a few times provided it happened sooner rather than later.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
Jaffar? I've seen him die I think once. He usually does pretty well. It's Zephiel who just dies and dies and dies because he gets doubled and 2HKO'd by some enemies and if enemies get close to him, he will RUN OFF OF HIS PILLAR sometimes because apparently getting extra evasion is too cheap for his tastes.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
...Hmm, maybe I got super lucky then, because IIRC, Jaffar had a high tendency of fleeing in Zephiel's direction to heal himself for me and effectively acting as a nigh-unbeatable guard. I was more worried about Jaffar running off on his own and trying to take on the entire army instead of keeping his HP up.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
Jaffar often does run south into the crowd of enemies for me, but goes north when he wants to heal. Amusingly, he often does best for me when he breaks his sword before the Swordreaver Fighter shows up to ruin his day.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
Throw my vote into the "BBD is worse" pile. At least once I realized that Ninian is the best unit ever during Genesis, which admittedly took me longer to realize than it should have.
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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma
Alright, enough fearing it, time to get our Genesis on.
Chapter 23x
Yay magic users. Time to bring out everyone I have that has good resistance and can still do damage to these guys (AKA Lucius sucks here despite being immortal, Canas with Luna can get things done though). I am eternally grateful for Hawkeye existing, because he can tank magic all day long and Hand Axe his foes to death. I bet I'll be feeling even more grateful once Cog of Destiny comes along.
I have Legault and Priscilla join Hector and Hawkeye while Canas, Florina, Ninian and Serra go along the other side. Kishuna gets to work on his magic seal re-adjustment right away but my units manage to dodge stuff. I make good use of Barrier staffs early here to ensure my characters can endure as much punishment as they can. Legault ends up killing a Bishop at one point that Hawkeye had missed and he gained a point of Res on the level up. Nicely done there.
Unfortunately Priscilla ends up getting hit with Silence shortly after Kishuna leaves. That is rather unfortunate. As in, REALLY unfortunate. What isn't unfortunate is Hawkeye's 52% crit rate with a Killer Axe. That is what we call some serious offense, and is part of why I like the guy so much. Then Legault gets hit with Berserk, and that is rather bad when your Restore staff user is silenced. But Hawkeye barely takes damage from him so it's no big deal.
I do kind of mess up on getting all the treasure and have to stall my attack on the central room to allow Legault time to get everywhere. Oh well. In the end this map was rough at times, but went a lot smoother than I expected. Had to try a few times, but I had feared it would be a hair-puller.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
Random story time: I was playing a Hard Mode No Restart run of FE8 a few weeks ago and was on chapter 14 of Ephraim's route, and was going into the last room. Unfortunately, I left an enemy priest with a silence staff alive by accident. So what happens?
Natasha gets silenced, and then one of the druids berserks Lute while everyone else was around her (and she was a Mage Knight, meaning extra movement). I have no other staff user because L'Arachel died literally right after recruiting Rennac, and Lute proceeds to absolutely slaughter everyone else on my team and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. Lost 4 units from that alone.
I DID end up beating the whole game but that was probably the single most unfair thing that has ever happened to me in an FE game.
Hey look, MORE FOG. I'm getting really fed up with this. Oh yeah, I'm at Lloyd's version, obviously.
The biggest problem by far here is recruiting Wallace, because he's very bad and can easily get killed long before I can do anything. So I am making an executive decision to deviate from my usual "recruit everyone, no deaths" policy and ignoring him. What's with generals being hard to recruit anyway? In FE3 (book 2) we've got Sheema, who won't join unless you don't kill any of her soldiers (thankfully they don't attack you). In FE4 there's Hannibal, who doesn't join unless you can bypass his army, go to another castle and get his son to march back to talk to him. In FE5 there's Xavier, who doesn't join unless the stars align and at least three deities smile upon you. In FE6 there's Douglas, who has to be kept alive throughout a lengthy and challenging map. Odd little tradition.
So the beginning is a bit of a pain, there's a Purge Bishop nearby and some ballista dudes who can harass you. Once you clean up everything nearby it's just a matter of luring in Lloyd, who starts quite nearby, and finding enough people who can survive a round with him to chip him to death. In this case, Florina, Canas and Hector all chipped in to kill him. Fairly simple chapter once you get the hang of where you can position people safely on turn 1.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
From: tcaz2 | #384 Random story time: I was playing a Hard Mode No Restart run of FE8 a few weeks ago and was on chapter 14 of Ephraim's route, and was going into the last room. Unfortunately, I left an enemy priest with a silence staff alive by accident. So what happens?
Natasha gets silenced, and then one of the druids berserks Lute while everyone else was around her (and she was a Mage Knight, meaning extra movement). I have no other staff user because L'Arachel died literally right after recruiting Rennac, and Lute proceeds to absolutely slaughter everyone else on my team and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. Lost 4 units from that alone.
I DID end up beating the whole game but that was probably the single most unfair thing that has ever happened to me in an FE game.
Also I'll probably get back to FE5 tomorrow <.<
Those Berserk staff Druids on that map have resulted in more than a few resets for me in the past. Nasty enemies, though I've never eaten it quite as badly as that. Looking forward to the FE5 continuation, you're at 4x or 5 now right?
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
Yay Hector Mode exclusive chapters. This is a nice easy one, but quite fun, especially since the whole "capture every castle" gimmick is a nice throwback to FE4, my favourite game in the series. Also I get to recruit Farina here, who has an interesting tendency to get ridiculously blessed by the RNG in my runs and end up several points above average in every stat, so I have a bit of a fondness for her, even though she's technically an awful character due to the simple fact that recruiting her costs several turns (she doesn't show up until 3 turns after you can finish the map).
Raven and Lucius head to the castle with the Warrior, Florina starts flying across the water and uses an Axereaver/Iron Sword combo to take out Pirates, Kent, Sain and Hawkeye all go north to deal with Pascal, and Serra, Priscilla and Canas tag along for lack of anything better to do. Hector stands around so he can recruit Farina and Ninian dances him for lulz because she can't advance much until the ballista are taken care of. Kent is finally turning it on a bit for me, his speed is still woefully short of what it should be but his strength has caught back up and his defense is growing nicely, so he's managing to carry his weight by virtue of absorbing a lot of hits now.
Raven absolutely mows down the axe users by the southern castle. Aside from the Warrior, who Lucius finished off, he completely destroyed them all. Not surprising, but still impressive. Florina destroys everything on the east for a while, then Farina goes over to help out. And by help out, I mean "gain EXP for herself". I stall quite a while feeding Kent and Farina kills because they need it the most. All in all, an easy chapter, but it was fun.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
One of these days I really need to do the Mine glitch so I can get the Uber Spear, as I've never actually acquired it. Won't be doing it this time either. Anyway, this is a pretty uneventful chapter usually, you just kind of hang around killing stuff, it's basically just a way of getting a bit of easy EXP heading into the gauntlet that is Battle Before Dawn/Night of Farewells/Cog of Destiny. The one bright spot is that we get Pent to join us here, and as you should all know, Pent is super duper awesome.
The lords all starting north with Pent and Louise is kind of annoying due to Eliwood and Lyn being less than stellar, but it's not too big a deal. Louise can deal with magic users quite well (12 Resistance is actually quite nice) and hurt fliers, and Pent is Pent. With Hector being good as well, they can bail out the other two, and it's not like I couldn't just send Florina and Farina to rescue them if I really had to. I do notice now that I'm low on staffs, so I'm going to have to get some risky business going here on the final turn to get to those shops, since I won't have another chance for quite a while. I'll probably have Hawkeye stand on a peak to lure Vaida away while Florina does the shopping.
I take advantage of the nicely placed forts on this map to make people pretty hard to kill. Florina visits the village, Farina flies around poking at stuff, Pent pretty much handles everything in the northwest while Louise stands around supporting him. Hector and Hawkeye defend against the hordes of wyverns that swarm around the castle, Hawkeye doing most of the work since Hector is already at level 20. Sain and Kent go after the southern enemies so Kent can try to hit level 20 before he promotes, everyone else just kind of wanders around. Like I said, this is a training chapter really.
Everything goes smoothly up until the Vaida lure part, since I'm not sure what her AI will do. I make a save state to test it out and after a couple of little problems like "the main character dying" I figure out a way to make it work. It mostly boils down to "Hawkeye is ****ing awesome". Also, Kent sadly came about 6 EXP short of hitting level 20 :( Guess he'll carry his Knight Crest into Pale Flower of Darkness so he can promote as soon as he smacks something.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
Hey, I got Kenneth's version. It's almost like I used 3 of the 4 characters whose EXP count contributes to it while only using one of the characters that contributes to unlocking Jerme's version! I think I've done the Kenneth version in all but one of my playthroughs.
The snow really sucks. Like, really, REALLY sucks. I despise this arbitrary movement reduction even if it is a nice visual change.
So anyway, Raven and Lucius work on clearing out the knights that start nearby since that General has a Speedwings and those are always great. Some folks go north, including Hector since I'll be wanting to recruit Harken. Speaking of awkward recruitment requirements, the Harken/Karel split is pretty unintuitive and I'll probably have to stall a bit on killing the Bishop to ensure I can get him. It's worth it though because he's a pretty spiffy unit.
There is a cluster**** of wyvern knights up north. Just saying. It's kind of funny to see. Anyway Kent finally gets to promote a few turns in, yay! I actually end up ****ing up and killing an enemy I shouldn't have, thus causing Karel to appear, and I don't want that idiot. "Woops". I get it right the next time around though.
Then I just march into the north part of the building and stab things until they die. I set up Farina to kill Kenneth because...I don't know, she's the only unpromoted unit I'm still using and I'd like to change that I guess?
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
Okay I was going to put the next map off for a while but then I realized something. Where I live, as I'm beginning this write up, it's still roughly half an hour until sunrise. Think about which chapter I'm about to do. The timing is too good to pass up.
Chapter 28
****ING FOG GO AWAY. At least it's the last time I have to deal with it. Unfortunately there's still stupid NPCs to contend with, so this will be a pain in the ass.
The mounted units go down Jaffar's side, the foot units take the other side. Might not be the truly best way to split it up but oh well. I bring some Torches/Torch staffs along because...do you really need to be told why?
The Paladin mini-boss here is insane. 21 resistance, only 12 defense, but 60 HP, 20 strength, 18 speed? Why is this guy so freaking badass?
Hey look, three turns in and Jaffar dies. So much for him always doing well in my playthroughs. This is already shaping up to be an unpleasant experience, I'm getting screwed over even before enemies reach Zephiel. On the next attempt, he starts heading up towards my units, which is kind of nice, although it will make getting him and Nino reunited a bit harder. Speaking of Nino, on one of her turns, she decides to move around and use an Elixir. That would be great, except for the part where she RAN RIGHT INTO URSULA'S BOLTING RANGE. What the **** kind of stupidity is this? If I didn't have units in place to bail her out (and Hector able to recruit her and survive a Bolting while Nino runs) I'd be screwed by the AI.
And...wtf. I think I just encountered a glitch <_< Florina killed a Hero, leveled up, and then was able to use the rest of her movement. All of a sudden I had console-style canto. Man now I want that in this game more than ever <_< Oh, Zephiel died to cause me some more grief and waste some more time. "Yay". There's a Mercenary that 2HKOs him even on a pillar with 69ish displayed hit. That is just beyond stupid to have to contend with. Guess I'm just going to try again and put the mounted units on the other side, maybe they can reach him faster that way, and maybe the stars will ****ing align or something.
Things go smoothly until Zephiel leaves his pillar to stand in the open. Seriously now who the **** thought this chapter was a good idea? So I try again and then Jaffar decides to die. Yeah. So I try again, and then BAM 2% critical wipes out Zephiel. Oh, guess what? It happened the next time too, even though I had done things slightly different so the RNG string would have been different. I'm almost at the point of just giving up on this now. But I don't, and my reward is...Zephiel dying. To a 2% critical. Again. **** that Mercenary, **** this chapter, and **** this game. I'll come to this and finish it later, I cannot tolerate another second of this. Remind me next time I rank my least favourite chapters in the series to move this even lower than it already was, I think at this moment I hate it even more than BRIDGE and FE6 desert.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
Oh hey so I decided to give it one last shot and things went pretty well and then I beat it. I still hate that ****ing chapter. Night of Farewells is next and it's also a pain, but at least it's not a ****ing dick about it.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
Hey, it's that disappearing/reappearing pathways gimmick like in FE6. It's also a big map with a ton of enemies all over the place and lots of nasty stuff to screw you over potentially. Taking it slowly does make it a lot easier though. Nino being forced here is annoying because she's just so freaking awful, but I'll manage to keep her useless ass alive somehow.
So flying units do their flying thing and kill enemies on the islands while the ground based folk follow the path. Hawkeye marches across the water because he's basically Jesus, just with more axes. Oh, Priscilla has 11 defense now at 18/5. That's higher than her 20/20 average. This is the second straight playthrough were I've had her be ridiculously blessed in defense, last time she made it up to 15 eventually.
Hawkeye gets put to sleep in the middle of nowhere, which kind of sucks. I miss 10 range Restore staff :( But he killed all the enemies I needed him to kill at the time so that's obviously quite the good news. He dodges a bunch stuff in his sleep anyway.
This map actually went surprisingly smoothly, my units had little trouble fending off large swarms of enemies all at once. I got all the treasures, Sonia herself was a bit of a pain in the ass due to her high defense but I had Pent use the Rescue staff to drag Hawkeye over and he took a bunch of health off with a Killer Axe crit, then he and Raven combined to finish the job.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.
Cog of Destiny time! The last major hurdle of the game, and it's a pretty damn big one. One of the biggest shifts from other difficulties is this map, since it switches to being almost exclusively magic users. This is kind of funny during the plot segments because it shows the map and you can see the units that are there in other modes, then when the battle begins they're all gone.
Just for reference, Luna Druids are nasty enemies. Valkyries and their 20+ AS are also very unpleasant. As are Bolting Sages. Purge Bishops are kind of annoying too. In fact, let's just say that every enemy on this map besides the monks are fairly serious threats. Adding to the problem is that this is one of those maps where reinforcements are triggered by your units waiting in certain parts of the map. You can be doing fine and then you stop somewhere and a bunch of new enemies pop out and it really ruins your day. The plus side is that I think if I avoid going into the northeast corner, I can prevent the Valkyrie hordes from ever spawning.
Hawkeye is once again a champ, standing on mountains to get awesome evasion so he can wipe out entire groups of enemies on his own. Harken is also pretty solid, since prepromotes have a tendency to come with much better Res than most units will ever grow. The exception is apparently Farina, who is already at 20 Res, way before she would reach it on average. See what I mean about her getting good stats for me?
So it turns out that when you know how to not trigger the northeastern reinforcements by just sticking to the middle of the map, this chapter gets a lot easier. I had to do some weaving back and forth to alternate between eliminating dangerous enemies and withdrawing to protect myself, but things all went pretty smoothly for me. Hector and a bunch of other folks stayed behind to recruit Vaida, who is basically a flying general (23 defense is pretty damn nice), while Florina, Farina and Raven all teamed up to wear Linus down and eventually kill him. I'm quite happy with just how well this map went for me.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
Yeah I clearly don't have a bunch of leftover ravioli still to be eaten, definitely don't have delicious, awesome pasta on the brain or anything.
Yeah I always wish she joined earlier too :(
I always have to question those late joining units with good growths but base stats so low they barely can fight a single enemy. They just never actually end up being worth the effort. I think the closest is Leaf in FE4, and he's kind of an exception since his stats aren't actually bad, he has a big chunk of free training enemies, and his promotion is about as hilariously overpowered as it gets.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
Cog of Destiny time! The last major hurdle of the game, and it's a pretty damn big one. One of the biggest shifts from other difficulties is this map, since it switches to being almost exclusively magic users. This is kind of funny during the plot segments because it shows the map and you can see the units that are there in other modes, then when the battle begins they're all gone.
Just for reference, Luna Druids are nasty enemies. Valkyries and their 20+ AS are also very unpleasant. As are Bolting Sages. Purge Bishops are kind of annoying too. In fact, let's just say that every enemy on this map besides the monks are fairly serious threats. Adding to the problem is that this is one of those maps where reinforcements are triggered by your units waiting in certain parts of the map. You can be doing fine and then you stop somewhere and a bunch of new enemies pop out and it really ruins your day. The plus side is that I think if I avoid going into the northeast corner, I can prevent the Valkyrie hordes from ever spawning.
Hawkeye is once again a champ, standing on mountains to get awesome evasion so he can wipe out entire groups of enemies on his own. Harken is also pretty solid, since prepromotes have a tendency to come with much better Res than most units will ever grow. The exception is apparently Farina, who is already at 20 Res, way before she would reach it on average. See what I mean about her getting good stats for me?
So it turns out that when you know how to not trigger the northeastern reinforcements by just sticking to the middle of the map, this chapter gets a lot easier. I had to do some weaving back and forth to alternate between eliminating dangerous enemies and withdrawing to protect myself, but things all went pretty smoothly for me. Hector and a bunch of other folks stayed behind to recruit Vaida, who is basically a flying general (23 defense is pretty damn nice), while Florina, Farina and Raven all teamed up to wear Linus down and eventually kill him. I'm quite happy with just how well this map went for me.
Wow. Going to have to remember this for when I inevitably end up giving HHM another try--last time I tried it, I barely got more than a few chapters in before getting frustrated and giving up on it. I'm actually working on my first Hard Mode playthrough of FE10 right now, though, and so far it's actually not going horribly.
And yeah, I've gotten random Canto in BBD also. Still, one thing that should be noted: whenever your first movement stops you on top of a lava tile (although none of those exist in FE7 Hector's Story, only in Eliwood's Story and in FE8), you always get Canto.
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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?
Cybat posted... man, how did I miss this topic for so long?
You should definitely find a way to play FE9, the story is so much better than 10. 7 is still my favorite but I have been having trouble motivating myself to play it too.
I am almost at the end of a worst beorc units run in FE10, my endgame team is Leonardo, Meg, Fiona, Ilyana, Astrid, Rhys, Tormod, Sigrun, Heather, and Oliver. They are mostly fine by now but earlier it was horrendous. Meg, after reaching 20 speed as a sword knight, hit her speed cap of 22 one level after promoting. Yeah.
Oh, g-d, this team...I once tried an Easy Mode run just to see if I could make the worst units usable, and Fiona still completely sucked no matter what I did with her. At least Meg was able to be slightly useful with enough babying.
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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?
From: TsunamiXXVIII | #398 Wow. Going to have to remember this for when I inevitably end up giving HHM another try--last time I tried it, I barely got more than a few chapters in before getting frustrated and giving up on it. I'm actually working on my first Hard Mode playthrough of FE10 right now, though, and so far it's actually not going horribly.
Best advice for HHM is to put up with the early chapters and don't shy away from leaning on Marcus (because you really need him against the first few bosses). It's pretty rough until about chapter 13x or so, then starts getting a bit more manageable, and by the time the late game tough chapters come around, you're a bit more used to the level of caution you need to use. The first few chapters of Fire Emblem hard modes are usually the worst, especially in Shadow Dragon (Chapter 1 H5 mode is an absolute nightmare).
And yeah, I've gotten random Canto in BBD also. Still, one thing that should be noted: whenever your first movement stops you on top of a lava tile (although none of those exist in FE7 Hector's Story, only in Eliwood's Story and in FE8), you always get Canto.
I seem to remember reading that before, I've never actually seen it action though. And it's good to know I'm not the only person who has had a random Canto pop up for no reason.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny