Liberal Arts Major
...This is like, one of the easiest games I've played in a while.
And yes. The Gold Skultula's just weren't worth doing. About the only useful thing from that was the 200 rupee purse.
Oh and
fuck those damn poes.
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Liberal Arts Major
So, write-ups of varying length and quality~! I know way too much about the plot/characters although I don't know everything so we'll see what happens!
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Pre-Prologue and Character Creation, click to show]So, I have to make an Avatar. I choose Male and basically keep all the first pre-sets because whoa those other ones no thanks. Except hair color, I changed that. I might have changed the voice too, but that doesn't seem too important. It felt like two of them were the same, or really close, anyway.
Asset: Speed (THE BEST STAT) Flaw: Luck (THE WORST STAT)
man too easy. speed op and luck not op. what could go wrong.
Oh, and Hard/Classic because I heard Normal is basically Easy Mode. Classic because hell, why not take advantage of the one playthrough I have no clue about reinforcements. No Battle Saves ****ing terrible though and almost single-handedly swung my decision.
Hey, this is pretty good music. Feels like Chrom and I should have brought back-up. But what the hell we're level 20 we got this. Spend some time trying to figure out controls and stuff. I read the manual but I was speed-reading more or less. Sword/Tome best weapon-set. Anyway, we win effortlessly and then Avatar kills Chrom. BEST END. Chrom not even mad either. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Prologue, click to show]Oh, I guess BEST END was too good. Avatar has a funny version of amnesia based on what he remembers and the order of it. Frederick knows his anime cliches and immediately identifies Avatar as evil. Chrom however is like, "Nope, it's cool." This will make quite the awkward conversation once we catch up to BEST END. Oh, and a village is under attack. It's Avatar, Chrom, Lissa, and Frederick. I pair up Avatar and Lissa and Chrom and Frederick. Can't trust healers ever so what better decision than to literally attach the healer to Avatar. Anyway, we breeze through this for the most part as I try to figure out more mechanics. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Chapter 1, click to show]Chrom and Avatar already BFFs. I feel bad for Frederick, he really has a point here how is it at all rational to appoint the amnesiac as tactician this quickly? Anyway, looks like we arrived just in time for the zombie apocalypse. But then Marth, who is totally Marth and not at all ANYONE ELSE, shows up and bails out Lissa. Avatar and Frederick show up and presumably berate Chrom and Lissa for wandering around in the woods alone. And Marth somehow teleports out because how did they lose him there? Sully and Virion show up. Sully makes sense but like wtf is up with Virion? They do basically nothing because Chrom and Avatar are too strong. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Chapter 2, click to show]Frederick tries yet again to tell of the dangers of Avatar by appealing to the one person who outranks Chrom. He fails. Meanwhile I get Stahl, who will go on to be one of the most competent members of the army. Miriel who might be competent but is outshined by the rest of the team. And Vaike who is literally incompetent. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Chapter 3, click to show]Diplomacy is serious business here. Chrom tries his best, but he can't actually succeed because then we wouldn't get a fight! Sumia joins yay pegasus knights! I recruit Kellam too and despite my dislike of his class, he's a helper because dat defense. Chrom/Sumia pair up because it lets me have Chrom baby-sit her when things are tough/there are archers. Anyway, this went pretty smoothly too. Split into two teams to take both sides. Chrom/Sumia and Kellam/...Frederick, I think took one end. Avatar/Lissa and Stahl/Sully the other. Oh, and I think Avatar "figured out" Pair-Up here. Which is strange since I've been using it since the prologue. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 1, click to show]Always time for sidequests! Not like we were doing anything important! More bandits. One day they'll learn these fights just aren't winnable. ...Although, in their defense, they actually caused me character deaths because I got lazy and didn't think Miriel could be doubled like a scrub by everyone. Thankfully this was Turn 1 shenanigans so nothing really lost. Thief AI still fantastic in that they will choose to fight Chrom rather than steal more treasure. Donnel levels up two times and lmfao what a beast. Aptitude OP, he got everything but RES both times. Mind you, Aptitude not really OP given reclassing gives you infinite levels but wow crazy good for right now. Donnel joins the team because he proved himself. Or rather, he proved that being paired with Frederick can turn anyone into a battle-hardened soldier. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Chapter 4, click to show]tournament arc let's do this.
oh it's less a tournament and more a "instant finals" contest.
Marth is our opponent, but what a scrub. I'm sure having the exact same sword as Chrom is a coincidence. I'm also sure Lissa's fangirling won't also loop around back to hilarious later on. Anyway, Chrom/Sumia, Avatar/Lissa, and Stahl/Frederick came along for this. In retrospect, shouldn't have taken Frederick. Stahl doesn't need him and all it led to was Frederick kill-stealing Marth on a dual-strike. that jerk always gets those when i don't want him too. [/spoiler]
Then I opened up the Outrealm Gate and was all ready to get DLC which was the entire purpose of my playing that far for that session and lol eShop been down all day. Still seems to be having issues according to Nintendo's site!
Kinda of wanted to square that away before continuing, but I also thought for sure it'd be cleared up by now. it's 4 AM EST nintendo what's the deal
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Editor
They affect other stats too, in a system that is never explained to you, makes no goddamn sense, but thankfully is largely irrelevant. So by making Luck your flaw you dropped your STR and MAG growths too. I think SPD/RES is the "best" choice. But yeah this is extremely minor so no worries.
No Battle Saves ****ing terrible though and almost single-handedly swung my decision.
Haha oh man.
Future!xp is going to be so mad at you.
And Vaike who is literally incompetent.
Vaike is the most competent.
OR he's just your choice if you want to use axes on non-promoted characters right now.
all it led to was Frederick kill-stealing Marth on a dual-strike. that jerk always gets those when i don't want him too.
This is the true power of dual strikes, your characters will awesome themselves to less EXP a lot more often now. Also, to death.
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"You're childish. What are you getting? Are you getting strawberry? Ha! That's such a childish flavor, only children eat strawberry."
Liberal Arts Major
always a catch
I can see picking Classic coming back to haunt me, yes. I'm sure it'll be fun!
Axes the inferior weapon choice. Actually, I should more closely check the exact stats on all the weapons to make sure there weren't some adjustments that are messing with my perceptions. I'm so used to FE7-FE10 weapon stats that I just assume a bunch of things to be true, and a few of them definitely aren't here. Weapon Triangle Advantages definitely seem to be different here. I don't think they cause as big a disparity in hit as they used to. It used to be +15/-15 and I'm pretty sure that's not true here.
Frederick's dual strike chance is Displayed 25%, True 0% when I'd be okay with it/actually would prefer it, True 100% when I don't want it.
And I could totally see some hilarious main plot implications here. Avatar/Lissa were already A-Rank in Chapter 4. I imagine her fangirling over Marth would just be fantastic if they were at S-Rank. Although, presumably this would require close to Avatar-solo'ing with pair up. Or grinding or something. If you can grind with Spotpass. I did that too, but haven't fought/summoned anyone.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
took a while to get back in, and i spent the time freaking out that maybe something stupid happened like it didn't add it but it now thinks the card is used up
seems like it added though, balance said $20.00
got out of there though, the other $40 can wait and so can the actual DLC not trying that again until things are totally, totally okay. i hope.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Editor
Regarding weapons, one change IIRC is that bows are mad good now. I mean, they're still garbage on enemy phase, but they're fantastic for when you absolutely want something dead right now no matter what. Other 2-range physical weapons are nerfed in addition, which means axes are super useful because javelins can really only do chip damage. Magic swords are the most useful, but pretty rare even by endgame, so yeah.
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"You're childish. What are you getting? Are you getting strawberry? Ha! That's such a childish flavor, only children eat strawberry."
Liberal Arts Major
[Spoiler for Fire Emblem Awakening Chapter 5, click to show]This went pretty smoothly, although most of my party still feels like fragile glass so wyverns kind of scary. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for Fire Emblem Awakening Paralogue 2, click to show]aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I'm surrounded by incompetence
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
The number of restarts I had here is so high. Some were my fault, but aaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Competent units: Chrom, Avatar, Lon'qu, Sumia, Lissa
Incompetent: Everyone else, but especially Anna
It doesn't seem like I needed Anna to survive here, but I totally did for my peace of mind and omfg she is such a scrub. Like her AI is so bad. And she can't dodge if her life depended on it (which it does!). god just camp on the village entrance and spam potion you scrub. Instead, she constantly died before I could even get there to bail her out. Finally managed to get her to survive and almost had a minor heart attack when the boss started moving because if my moves had been slightly off I'd have lost one of my own scrubs since I eventually got mad and sent everyone competent at Anna in a futile attempt to save her, leaving my own scrubs behind to mop up things. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for Fire Emblem Awakening Chapter 6, click to show]This on the other hand was fun, even if it did go off without a hitch. Didn't think 'Marth' would be outed as a girl this quickly!
Frederick is lucky he wasn't there for that though.
'Marth': The exalt is in danger.
Chrom: That's not possible.
'Marth': Yes, it is, I'll prove it. I'm saving your life... from that guy!
Chrom: Well, I trust you now. In fact, why don't you guard the door to my sister's room?
chrom lucky 'marth' is legit and that wasn't staged because he practically gave emm to 'marth'.
I saw this map and was like, "Defense map?" and then it said rout and I was like, "Nope, we defense map."
Anyway, the army got divided into 3 groups here. Chrom/Sumia took the left side because they had to recruit Gaius and I trust them to handle themselves. Avatar/Lon'qu took the middle because Lon'qu is a ****ing beast and can handle things by himself. In fact, by the end of this I think he's on a three-in-a-row streak of levels with 6 stats up or more dating back to Paralogue 2. And paired with Avatar he dodges everything somehow. Meanwhile the right side was defense by committee with Stahl, Kellam/Ricken (Ricken may have been with Stahl for this map, I forget), and Vaike/Donnel throwing axes from behind. Lissa started on the left side so I could see if she could talk with Emm (nope) and basically ended up running to the right side to bail them out, dropping a heal to Lon'qu as she passed. I tried to work Panne into things, but she followed Chrom/Sumia at a distance and never really got a chance. Once everyone did their jobs Validar rushed, saving me the trouble of marching down there. I set up a kind of pincer because I wasn't sure which way he'd go. Towards Emm or towards the heart of my army (now kind of mostly in the middle) He picked Emm. And Sumia ended up killing him with a crit.
way to go everyone we saved the future from BAD END yet again
nothing can go wrong now [/spoiler]
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Editor
Except during gameplay.
Panne is also kinda tough to use correctly. Right now she's pretty bad. Then she'll hit full-on god mode in ~10 chapters. Then she'll go back to being pretty bad by endgame. Still more useful than most Laguz were though!
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"You're childish. What are you getting? Are you getting strawberry? Ha! That's such a childish flavor, only children eat strawberry."
Liberal Arts Major
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Chapter 7, click to show]Another pretty straightforward map. Cordelia joins and this is fantastic news because she almost immediately becomes a top-tier unit. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 3, click to show]Oh god, NPCs. Let's see, I'll just split up my army and we'll see if we can't cover them-oh my god they're mobile. why are they going that way that is stupid. whatever if they stay there or ideally move north behind me we can-OH MY GOD ALL UNITS THIS IS A LEVEL 9 ABORT, I REPEAT SITUATION IS RED, ALL UNITS LEVEL 9 ABORT! why would defenseless npcs rush away from my army into the SW corner full of enemies? have they given up all hope? they... they could have just ran behind my lines and been safe. Well, Peg Knights double them and that's the end of that because under my initial deployment I can't abandon my original set-up fast enough to save them. all three die in one turn because that was some of the worst judgment i've ever seen displayed.
So we reset and design a new plan. A plan where Cordelia/Lon'qu and Sumia/Gaius rush the SW corner to take out the Peg Knights and whatever else they find. Stahl/Lissa follow on the ground and also provide healing to the NPCs. Avatar/Chrom take the other way to cover them and Kellam/Ricken pray they can survive the initial starting point's enemies with a single vulnerary. Everyone succeeds in their mission, although Kellam only barely does, and we get a bunch of trash items. >_> [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Chapter 8, click to show]A desert, yay. And villages to save. I think. I forget what enemy types can wreck them, or if Awakening changed that, so we rushthem anyway. Rather Sumia/Gaius take left, Cordelia/Lon'qu take right and everyone else heads down the center towards Nowi and Gregor, who themselves move up towards the group. Once they join up, Nowi is able to contribute better than an embarrassing amount of my army.
Also, somewhere in here (as in this session, not necessarily this chapter), Chrom/Sumia reached S-Rank. Gaius became a beast. As did Cordelia. [/spoiler]
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
MOM IS A TOTAL PSYCHO.
Those tutorials were annoying.
Overall I like the game!
The game doesn't exactly say, but what's the difference between Skulls and Mages?
What is this "bonus list" that pops up when a stage is cleared?
<->
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Liberal Arts Major
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
*taps gangrel's name - "former king of plegia"*
woah
woah
woah
what the hell game
did something happen?
spoiler. alert.
And then Gangrel (and Aversa) run away. Well, the group moves down to recruit Libra and we almost get into trouble when a bunch of enemies including Tharja as well as reinforcements from behind both appear and move simultaneously to surround me, but we manage.
After the fight, our entire plan fails because we failed to anticipate warp staves. Which, to be fair, have yet to show and may in fact not exist in this game. Then I'm given a ~choice~ over Emmeryn. Or rather, what has to be a fake choice. I don't really believe the game would give a meaningful story branch here, and so for my choice to mean nothing, it means Emmeryn is probably a goner. Nonetheless, Avatar thinking about the big picture here tells Chrom that we came here for a mission, it's time to finish the fight. Gangrel is right there. although really that mission was to save emmeryn so really telling chrom we have to abandon her is questionable. Anyway, Gangrel spouts some BS and Chrom ends up overruling me because he wants the BAD END to happen. However, Emmeryn decides to overrule him and walks off the ledge. At least someone was listening to Avatar.
"Marth" chooses now to show up from nowhere and laments that the FUTURE HAS REFUSED TO CHANGE. but that doesn't make much sense. I figured what "Marth" was trying to prevent back in Chapter 6 was less Emmeryn's death and more the theft of the Fire Emblem, it's just the two events were linked because Emmeryn had it. But now Chrom does. Granted, "Marth" may not know this, but Chrom has his army, right there so "Marth" could be like "Yo, this is a really bad time to say this, but we need to rush Emmeryn and loot the Fire Emblem" and then someone could whisper to her, "yo dawg no worries we got that"
Instead, "Marth" like... wanders off or something. I don't know. It's weird because apparently that's a super hostile area even we had to run from, and "Marth" isn't with us, so how'd she leave? Well, whatever! I didn't think we had to leave either! [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 4, click to show]Well, fleeing from the Plegian capital sounds like a perfectly good time to break immersion and run to the other side of the map for a paralogue! Oh, hey, it's Anna again. Maybe we should just leave her in response to the Paralogue 2 disaster. This map goes by pretty easily, though it nearly became a disaster. I sent someone (probably Cordelia) ahead of Anna's position (NOW she stays in a forest and heals herself god DAMMIT) which draw an enemy towards her, which in turn drew Anna up towards it and dangerously close to rushing the boss and his pals. Had to rush Chrom the **** up there while leaving that enemy alive as long as I could to try and manipulate Anna from going anywhere worse. It works out though. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Chapter 10, click to show]Okay, back to our escape. Somehow we're back in Plegia despite clearly having been totally safe on the other side of the continent a moment ago. We also find the one decent human being in Plegia as our opponent. Also, "new" preparation menu music and Don't Speak Her Name is the persistent map/battle theme. The team splits into a few groups here to hunt down all the thieves and also to not get in the way of the others leveling up. Reinforcements almost cause a disaster because I wasn't paying enough attention apparently and failed to notice there were forts on those cliffs, but yet again, we manage. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Chapter 11, click to show]We found Gangrel. Which is really weird because story-wise I thought the whole point of the Chapter 9 aftermath was he successfully outmaneuvered us since Aversa can summon and warp in Risen, so why the hell is he out in a wasteland in the middle of nowhere and not his capital city? Well, whatever. Gangrel's name this time indicates he's currently the king of Plegia.
...
what the hell game
that makes the chapter 9 thing even worse spoilers.
...he's coming back? why else would you even have that then?
Anyways, there's a single thief here and two treasure chests. I note that I almost definitely can't beat him to the first (right) one so I'll have to intercept before he reaches the second (left) one. I also promote Chrom to Great Lord and Avatar to Grandmaster on the field for dramatic/narrative appropriateness or something. In spite of my prior observation, we basically have two teams. Cordelia/Avatar head for the left chest and everyone else goes for the right chest. Team Awesome (Cordelia/Avatar) handle their end, but Avatar comes out of it pretty banged up, so I'm forced to switch to Cordelia to finish the thief (who chose to skip the first treasure.) And that's when things got... fun.
The reinforcements behind me, I expected, after all, what else was I to expect from an isolated island in the NW corner with three forts on it? Mobile Gangrel? Mobile Gangrel who rushes despite being well out of his range? Did NOT see that coming. And he's coming right for Cordelia/Avatar who are now both in pretty bad shape after effectively solo'ing somewhere between a third and half the map. Chrom immediately breaks formation to intercept because this could be a problem! We do successfully intercept, and thanks to Eirika's Blade being pretty silly, Chrom finishes off Gangrel (someone else hits Gangrel because Chrom by himself is 1 HP short but I engineered it so Chrom get the final hit again for the sake of the narrative.) This stops the reinforcements and makes me wonder if that was a mistake because one of the guys from the island reinforcements had a Speedwing. I like those kinds of reinforcements! Anyway, with Gangrel down, we're basically safe, and the rest is a combination of a mop-up and a stall so Gaius can get to the second treasure before we complete the rout.
After the fight, we skip ahead two years because we prevented the BAD END and everyone lived happily ever-oh right THE FUTURE REFUSED TO CHANGE thanks "marth." Chrom and Sumia have a daughter, Lucina and we head off and learn about the Emperor of another continent (i knew there was something there!) has named himself the Conqueror, got bored after beating everyone there, and is coming to fight us because that's what you do when you're called "The Conqueror."
Anyway, some more global updates. These happened at various times during that session.
Stahl/Lissa reached S-Rank
Cordelia/Lon'qu reached S-Rank
Gaius/Nowi reached S-Rank
Basically everyone in the core group reached Level 20. Cordelia promoted to Dark Flier because a flying unit with lances and magic tomes? where has this class been all my life
Lissa, Lon'qu, Gaius, and Sumia are all sitting at Level 20. Nowi is at Level 15. Tharja somehow got to Level 19 or so without me noticing. Stahl is around Level 17, IIRC.
I think that's everything in terms of S-Ranks/Levels. [/spoiler]
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
[Spoiler for , click to show]I'm about an hour+ into the game. It's all been text and storyline.
One gameplay segment involving walking down a hall and a 30 second battle, and that was like... 10 minutes into the game...
Chie's voice acting is fucking terrible.
Yukiko seems suspicious
I have a feeling your character committed this murder. Somehow.
heh Yosuke is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal. [/spoiler]
<->
http://www.backloggery.com/kodan882
Liberal Arts Major
And yeah, Chie got a new VA for Golden and while I've only heard her Golden VA from watching various videos from Golden I preferred the PS2 Chie by a pretty considerable margin.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
I have 8 and it lets me throw out 8.
<->
http://www.backloggery.com/kodan882
Liberal Arts Major
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
The only other SRPG I've played in this style is Final Fantasy Tactics Advance which limits you to 6.
<->
http://www.backloggery.com/kodan882
Liberal Arts Major
...LET'S NOT WORRY ABOUT IT AND GO TO SLEEP INSTEAD OF RUSHING OVER TO HER PLACE AND MAKING SURE SHE'S OKAY. NAH, SHE'LL BE FINE.
OH NOW SHE'S DISAPPEARED THE NEXT DAY!? WOW! WHAT A STRANGE COINCIDENCE!
...Adachi is voiced by Johnny Yong Basch, aka Ichigo. Aka he's a high paid actor. He's either a main party member, or he's the one throwing people into the TV. He's also shifty as fuck. <_< (Which is why i assume he's the villian) [/spoiler]
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Liberal Arts Major
Lissa promotes to Sage.
Lon'qu promotes to Swordmaster.
Sumia promotes to Dark Flier.
Gaius promotes to Assassin.
Tharja promotes to Sorcerer.
I also buy one for Stahl, who's on the verge of reaching Level 20. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Chapter 13, click to show]We head to Plegia because who better to turn to when dealing with invading armies? We meet with the new king who is... Validar? What the hell? How did we not know this? Furthermore, how did we allow this? We chat with him and he decides to be a bro while Chrom and Avatar both exchanges glances and go, "Dude we killed this guy back in Chapter 6? ...Didn't we?" Then he brings out Avatar's doppleganger, apparently just to troll. Then he kicks us out before we can figure out wtf that was about. Later he decides to telepathically contact Avatar and reveal that he's Avatar's father. After Avatar has his brief obligated, "No! That's not true, that's impossible!" moment over that and his apparent role in something "glorious" Chrom comes and Validar is like "god why don't you two just resolve that romantic tension" and bails. Then the Risen warp in to give us a fight.
This almost became problematic because I intentionally was letting reinforcements spawn for more EXP because trying to cover the weaker units on the team like Olivia and Donnel (mostly Olivia though, since Donnel was paired with Tharja and typically only out when he was safe) is a bit trying but we manage yet again. Until a cutscene happens after we win and Chrom is about to be defeated by a single Risen like a total scrub. "Marth" shows up and apparently has the time to run over and block whereas Avatar just chilled and didn't help apparently. Then "Marth" talks with Chrom and tells him she's his daughter, Lucina, from the BAD END. Avatar and Sumia are in the area but comically misunderstand until the matter is cleared up. Lucina talks about having come from the future with "others" and a bunch of paralogues open. Which signals to me that it's intermission time and my new objective is to marry all my units off. So, I start summoning weak SpotPass teams to give myself enough battles to do so. And that's where I am now.
Stahl promotes during Chapter 13 to Great Knight too.
Also, I think this was a support between Avatar and Lucina but bears mentioning.
Avatar: Hey, Lucina. Can I ask a question?
Lucina: Sure.
Avatar: Chrom died in your time, right?
Lucina: ...Yep. He was betrayed by his closest friend.
Avatar: Oh. Well, that sucks.
man these two apparently overlooking the fact that it's totally avatar. i mean him and chrom? bffs.
the road to the BAD END still on. [/spoiler]
Might take a small delay over the next day or two. Remember that time I said I was going to marathon Breaking Bad? I did, but Netflix didn't have the last 8 episodes because augh. Well, AMC decided to answer my prayers and marathon the whole series, which means I can finally watch the end of the series. So, that's what I'll be doing.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 5, click to show]Mind you, it'll all be under this tag because it was primarily the finishing of said support grinding.
Pairings were, in addition to the previous ones, IIRC:
Lucina/Avatar
Olivia/Gregor
Tharja/Donnel
Cherche/Henry
Panne/Frederick
Maribelle/Ricken
Miriel/Libra
Sully/Kellam
Lucina also ended up getting promoted to Great Lord during all this, because she (and Nowi, being an "unpromoted" unit as well) basically did most of the work during this.
Anyway, after this, I had a bunch of Paralogues. From 5 to, I believe 16. My standard protocol has been to do all available protocols before returning to the main story, so this could be a while. Although, if it turns out these end up becoming too hard because they're levelled much higher, maybe I'll back off for a bit. Hopefully not though.
We start at Paralogue 5 and Owain. Lissa, I am sorry to report that Owain has some serious issues. This is a pretty easy battle, I notice I can talk to people here, and Owain ends up getting a Prf weapon that is misspelled and clearly not what he wanted, but he doesn't know the difference. Then I misjudge the boss AI and end up getting Cordelia one-shotted by the boss's Silver Bow. I had the all enemy range thing up, and put my army on the edge to test it and nothing happened so I then moved closer so I'd be ready to swarm the boss and his pals next turn.
turns out the ai was "everyone moves once you enter the boss's range" silly mistake on my part. Doesn't help that I'm used to Cordelia dodging everything, and being able to tank bows even when she does get hit.
We restart and fix that. [/spoiler]
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
got wrecked
Then tried cutting that down to two teams, one for each filer group.
still lost.
Then I sent everyone to the south fliers to pick up Inigo, wipe out that flier group in time to turn around and beat the north flier group which just arrives as this happens. This did work, but then I died in the fort because Inigo makes some comment about killing 5 or 6 guys and the amount of babying this will require caused me to do some crazy things at the fort and I died. Take that away and I'm confident I win outside bad luck.
Rather than brute force this, I decided to bail for now with the intention to come back later. Augh if only I picked Casual I could battle save before the fort or something. Oh well. I also never went 100% here and used optimal pair-ups to maximize my army's power, so there's that. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 7, click to show]This is where we find Brady, Maribelle's son. This paralogue is also complete bull**** because it's entirely fake difficulty. Well, if you want to save all the NPCs, and I do. And this is entirely because this must be the least defendable structure in the history of mankind. Also because some of these NPCs stand in places where longbows can rip them apart. I tried defending that place and that never really worked out correctly. Sending out some units on a more offensive mission was more successful... until the longbows came.
In retrospect, I'm thinking a mix of that last tactic plus a Rescue Staff could do it (although that means Lissa is not blocking an access point to this building she otherwise could be augh), but again, I got annoyed and bailed on this.
not the most promising start [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE Awakening Paralogue 8, click to show]Here we find Kjelle, Sully's daughter, and when I look at this map I see the class of enemy is way down so I'm a bit relieved. However, I also see Kjelle is all by herself, as an NPC, on the other side of the map and that is terrifying. The plan thus is quite clear. Rush to her position with Chrom and recruit her to put her under my control and also to save her. We do this, and the map goes pretty smoothly. Kjelle could have finished the boss but I decided she didn't deserve it and let my team do it. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 9, click to show]This map has Cynthia, Sumia's daughter. And the first time the character I'm trying to recruit an enemy and not an NPC out of this batch.
Also, Cynthia wtf are you doing. How do you think that guy is Chrom. Chrom is your father, you should know what he looks like. Actually, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and maybe Chrom died in that future before you really knew him/can remember. Lucina is your sister and she clearly can identify Chrom. did you never in your life ask her what your father looked like.
all she had to say was "he has hair the same color as us" and we could have avoided all this.
Anyway, the team splits up again. Cordelia/Lon'qu and Nowi/Gaius go right, most of the rest of team goes left towards Cynthia. We recruit her and smash through the enemy lines. Meanwhile, the boss is recruiting a bunch of NPCs to his side. I decide to try and put an end to this and want to clear them out, and based on his dialogue this will happen if I cross a line in the map, so I do so intentionally pretty early.
and the jerk tries to run away.
sorry pal, but i had nowi up there. she's faster than you and a hell of a lot stronger.
We mop up the rest fairly quickly. Presumably if you wanted to save all the NPCs you'd need to cross that line on turn 1 and I just flatout can't do that. I imagine it's theoretically possible with the right set-up. Flier with crazy movement, Dancer, Rally Movement, but nope. Too much for me. Maybe some day when I decide to be crazy OP. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 10, click to show]Where we meet Severa, Cordelia's daughter. We're storming a base here, and so is Severa... but she's a Level 10 Merc, who is most damningly an NPC and the enemy are all promoted so uh... even if I trusted her in there she's not getting EXP that could be going to my army. Another "split the party" moment. Cordelia/Lon'qu and Lissa/Stahl take Severa's path. Cordelia/Lon'qu (well, mostly Lon'qu given the enemy weapons on this path) do all the work, while Lissa serves as Severa's leash. Using her Rescue staff to yank Severa back to the beginning any time I get uncomfortable with her location. The others take the other path in, and wreck **** like they do. Eventually, I'm satisfied and let Severa through to talk to her pal. Nice try enemy reinforcements but I knew there were 4 stairs there for a reason and had blocked off any dangerous path beforehand. They could have killed Chrom if they all hit though and that would have made me roll my eyes pretty hard. After that, we take a fairly simple march to the boss and win.
After the fact, a Risen conveniently pops up on the World Map and lets me actually use Severa, who is very competent for her level when she isn't up against an army that dwarves her in levels and forged weapons. Also, when she's paired with Avatar who turns people into monsters. But even ignoring that part, I was impressed with her given she's Level 10 unpromoted. I guess that's what comes of being the child of one of my elite pairs. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 11, click to show]Here we meet Gerome, Cherche's son. There are a lot of promoted units here, and oh my god more NPCs. My plan is looking to be, Cordelia/Lon'qu go left, Lucina/Avatar take the middle, and Nowi/Gaius go right. And they'll just pro their way through this onslaught while the others hide. It's looking like if I can make it out of Turn 3 or so, it'll be mostly clear sailing. Cordelia/Lon'qu don't have to deal with much, so they should be okay. Nowi, when paired with Gaius, is arguably my strongest unit with her ~63 HP and absurd STR (mid-30s and I've seen a +12 mod on her with Gaius before) so she can casually throw out 30-40 damage with Hand Axes per hit. Lucina/Avatar have the toughest job, but thankfully they're the ones who can challenge Nowi for the title thanks to Lucina's Aether spam. Didn't get any Aether though and Lucina went down. I then noticed the power light was red so I stopped here.
Could be I have the wrong read on this chapter and reinforcements destroy me or something like that, in which case this might be a skip, but I think I've got this.
The plan is looking to be to go through all the paralogues, skip if I must and then revisit the ones I passed on after this pass is done and hopefully I can win by then, because my army feels a lot better than it was During Paralogues 6 and 7 already.
Promotion-wise...
This session:
Nowi promoted to Griffon Rider
Olivia used a second seal to go from Dancer to Pegasus Knight. [/spoiler]
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Editor
I think the idea is, rather than what would make sense (lower numbered paralogues = easier), the easiest ones belong to the children of the characters you get earlier in the game, and vice versa. So Owain's is super easy because Lissa was C1, but Inigo's is really hard because Olivia joins so late. I think Cherche's should be the toughest in theory, but in practice you can just nuke everything with bows so it's not SO bad but it still might be beyond your level right now.
This falls apart because of chapters like Brady's, where the difficulty comes from trying to protect NPCs who are really, really dumb, but yeah.
We mop up the rest fairly quickly. Presumably if you wanted to save all the NPCs you'd need to cross that line on turn 1 and I just flatout can't do that. I imagine it's theoretically possible with the right set-up. Flier with crazy movement, Dancer, Rally Movement, but nope. Too much for me. Maybe some day when I decide to be crazy OP.
I believe end of chapter dialogue notes that you just KO'd them, so the ideal strategy here is to let the boss recruit them all then beat them for EXP.
Because, you know, EXP is the most precious resource in FE13.
Severa
Best character. [/spoiler]
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"You're childish. What are you getting? Are you getting strawberry? Ha! That's such a childish flavor, only children eat strawberry."
Liberal Arts Major
I think the idea is, rather than what would make sense (lower numbered paralogues = easier), the easiest ones belong to the children of the characters you get earlier in the game, and vice versa. So Owain's is super easy because Lissa was C1, but Inigo's is really hard because Olivia joins so late.
Oh. Well, that's just silly. And easily avoidable if they just numbered them in that order!
I think Cherche's should be the toughest in theory, but in practice you can just nuke everything with bows so it's not SO bad but it still might be beyond your level right now.
Well, like I said. I think I can take this, it's just I had to stop because the power was getting low after Lucina uncharacteristically got hit AND failed to activate Aether at all after multiple fights. That is assuming the worst of the mission is that first rush with like 12 Wyverns. If this is the worst, this is really good timing, because if I skip this I have a feeling by the time I come back, I'll have Second Seal'd some of my top-tier and if that makes them weaker, oh boy. At the very least, in Lucina's case, it might mean I lose Parallel Falchion, which would be awful. As is, I have effective damage on them. Nowi kinda does (or maybe just plain does if Wyrmsbane applies, I'd have to re-read it) because I have Gaius with an Iron Bow equipped specifically to exploit this on dual strikes. Cordelia and Lon'qu just have to suck it up and be pros, but they seem to have the easiest side to deal with, so I'm not too worried. I also forgot to mention I have Lissa/Stahl following them on land so I should be able to toss a Physic at them if I must. But I kind of feel like that's not too helpful because if they really needed healing I could just throw them an Elixir.
Well, we'll see at any rate.
This falls apart because of chapters like Brady's, where the difficulty comes from trying to protect NPCs who are really, really dumb, but yeah.
God. I'd wreck this chapter if not for those NPCs. Or even if this building had less than 6 or 7 ways in. Thinking Rescue Staff + Offense is going to be the way to go. Or at least the least frustrating way.
I believe end of chapter dialogue notes that you just KO'd them, so the ideal strategy here is to let the boss recruit them all then beat them for EXP.
Because, you know, EXP is the most precious resource in FE13.
of course.
Severa
Best character.
She's almost certainly joining the main team when she can. Fortunately, every time I start a new session I tend to get 2 Risen to pop up on the map so she can get some more EXP. She can't really do much in Gerome's Paralogue and it might be pushing it unless we get another Owain/Kjelle tier one unless she gets more EXP. Presumably I'll be able to unleash with her (and the weaker elements of my actual team) once I get back to the main plot. Because I assume it's around the difficulty of Owain's map or possibly even easier. [/spoiler]
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
Attempt #1: Made it 5 minutes. Got scared by some lights flickering out
NOPE.
Attempt #2: Made it about 30 seconds past that part, hear a scream
NOPE.
Attempt #3: Make it past the scream
SQUEEZE THROUGH THAT GAP
NO SIR. I SHALL NOT.
Total elapsed time: About 7 minutes tops.
I WILL beat that game, one minute at a time. ...>Right after I change my underwear.
<->
http://www.backloggery.com/kodan882
Editor
Nowi should only have Wyrmsbane in dragon form, annoyingly.
"Why is our dragon riding a different dragon?" "Because I am a master tactician."
Cordelia/Lon'qu don't have to deal with much, so they should be okay.
If Lon'qu's still a Swordmaster, he should have access to Wyrmslayer swords. Also, can go truly nuclear with a magic sword, but that might be overkill. Cordelia, yeah, she just has to suck it up and be a pro IIRC.
God. I'd wreck this chapter if not for those NPCs. Or even if this building had less than 6 or 7 ways in. Thinking Rescue Staff + Offense is going to be the way to go. Or at least the least frustrating way.
There are one or two I always Rescue because they're just liabilities. Then I use a mix of offense and defense. It's always hairy, though.
She can't really do much in Gerome's Paralogue and it might be pushing it unless we get another Owain/Kjelle tier one unless she gets more EXP.
Take her to #14. I think that's the easiest one you have left. #12 is also pretty easy. [/spoiler]
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"You're childish. What are you getting? Are you getting strawberry? Ha! That's such a childish flavor, only children eat strawberry."
Liberal Arts Major
[Spoiler for Person 4, click to show]Rise just got introduced.
So far in the story, I still suspect Adachi, Although, another suspect is the interviewer on TV <_<
He's pretty much the only one who's has any contact outside of the main party with ALL involved kidnappings. Though, Adachi is still shifty as fuck.
Either that or your character is responsible somehow <_< [/spoiler]
<->
http://www.backloggery.com/kodan882
Liberal Arts Major
Rise best character. [/spoiler]
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
I'm in Mitsuo's dungeon.
<->
http://www.backloggery.com/kodan882
Liberal Arts Major
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 11, click to show]Yeah, things went pretty well on the next attempt since Lucina didn't get terrible luck. Mission complete. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 12, click to show]Here we find the Avatar's daughter, Morgan. And this place is full of scrubs so Severa and the rest can fight unimpeded here. As can Morgan herself, who is hilariously powerful for an unpromoted Level 10 unit. This map gets destroyed.
After the fact, I like how the idea of Morgan possibly being from another timeline (from Lucina) is raised as a possibility.
because it's literally a necessity. morgan can't be from lucina's future because she's lucina's daughter.
yeah yeah i know avatar could have married someone else and it'd be plausible they were from lucina's future but man
also poor lucina. morgan doesn't remember you at all. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 13, click to show]In which we find Yarne, Panne's son. Okay, this chapter. This chapter. So, Chrom's like, "who do we help" and I'm like "chrom please we help no one we're going for max style points" and then chrom is like "...why did i know you would do this" and i'm like "cuz' fighting two armies ain't no-" and then like 40 reinforcements show up. And the two sides apparently came to a gentleman's agreement to team up against me. And I was like "what the hell is this"
So, here I am about to go, "holy **** not only is this a pass, this might be a "we're not coming back for a really long time pass"
but then
the greatest single fire emblem performance of my life occurred before my eyes
Avatar (paired with Lucina) at 8 HP makes like 10 consecutive would-have-been-fatal dodges and survives the enemy turn. At which point I was so hyped up and in disbelief that my army still existed that failure was no longer an option. Got to the point where I had Nowi kite the bosses around so I could advance out of the SW corner where I spent the entire fight hiding to get all the villages.
I genuinely can not believe I won this fight. I really should not have won this fight. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 14, click to show]In which we eventually meet Laurent, Miriel's son. desert chapter. time to get a map to find the items-oh that was a let-down.
Anyway, this is another map with scrub enemies so Severa, Morgan and others like Olivia can have a bunch of fun. The village quest actually brings in the hardest enemies of the map, but they're still scrubs (but promtoed scrubs so yay EXP.)
and then i sent severa to kill the boss
and on this day i learned something valuable
counter is bull****
severa ends up in a race against the boss's hp and she doesn't win.
i was mad
we win next time when i have morgan finish the boss instead
but i was mad [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 15, click to show]Where we find Noire, Tharja's daughter. This map was pretty forgettable because I'm not remembering much. Probably because it was very straightforward. Split in two groups, one towards Noire (who ran down to the group) and another advanced on the boss. *Yawn* [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 16, click to show]Here we find Nah, Nowi's daughter. So this place. This place. I die the first time in because I have like a million fliers and a door opened up at a very unfortunate time and had one of my weaker fliers find a Silver Bow. Next time I tried to see if there was a pattern or anything here and that didn't work. On the other hand, it meant I was moving so slowly and methodically down the map that there was no chance of me losing. Except at the boss where after that Counter disaster I saw the description of Vengeance and almost started to panic before I realized that if the boss has a 5% hit rate on me I'm probably good.
i'm sure some future chapter will show me that i am in fact not good. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 6 Revisited, click to show]Oh yeah, we're back. And oh my god we are OP. I probably could have run that "split the team into 3 groups" plan and stomped. I didn't though because I had to baby Inigo. And my OP-ness was getting in the way of that because I kept getting Dual Strikes and Skill procs when I was trying to weaken things for him. But I just manage to get Inigo 6 kills, with the boss as the 6th, so yay. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Paralogue 7 Revisited, click to show]Oh man, I don't even think I needed the Rescue Staff. I used it, but oh man. so op. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Chapter 14, click to show]So, we finally finished all the paralogues for now. Yay. Now for a ship fight. Coming off the Paralogue World Tour the group is way too strong for this.
Also, Lucina, your meltdown when you finally realize Avatar is the enemy will be great. He's not even hiding it anymore. Getting unexplained headaches immediately after Lucina is like, "yeah so chrom you got killed by someone you trust betraying you" [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Chapter 15, click to show]This was also a very straightforward map, I just had to make sure I saved Say'ri in time. Say'ri is also the smartest NPC because she knows how to heal herself. Although there was one turn she didn't and she probably would have died because of it if I hadn't gotten there by then. So there was that. [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Chapter 16, click to show]This was actually a little frustrating because half my army is fliers and I was clearly not prepared for EVERY ARCHER ON THIS CONTINENT to spawn behind me. especially since they move on the same turn. whoops. Cordelia learned Galeforce here.
omfg this is the most op skill in the game.
i am going to be so rewarded for making everyone a flier and it will be glorious.
Later we meet Tiki who drops the title on us and gives us a fetch quest. Also questions why we don't have these gems and immediately says they were too powerful for man and split up.
so why would you think we'd have them god tiki
She also says Avatar has the same power as her and refuses to explain herself. Good going Tiki, now when the "Avatar is evil incarnate" reveal gets dropped it'll probably be at a way more inconvenient time for everyone involved! [/spoiler]
[Spoiler for FE: Awakening Chapter 17, click to show]Okay, so this was interesting. Again, the downside of all these fliers is that bows terrify me. Also, my habit of second sealing into tier one classes to collect skills may have to stop now, because it's complicating things. (Although Morgan having all stats capped at Level 1 Pegasus Knight is hilarious)
I end up rushing my whole army up to the treasure rooms because that Thief can not be allowed to steal the treasure. This works out well when the reinforcements come because I can box my army up in those rooms to defend.
or it was working well until Inigo died shows what i get for trying to train you
we try again and things go more smoothly.
Then the plot comes back and oh yeah we're surrounded. So Avatar is like "pfft so what we'll attack both"
So Basilio volunteers to lead the obviously doomed mission against Walhart until Lucina tries to stop by confirming what everyone there should have already known, he's not coming back from that fight. He tells her to get lost but Flavia comes along too to back him up.
Well, Basilio ends up fighting Walhart anyway and gets crushed. Flavia is all, "no i'm here we can change the future" but Walhart is like "lmfao no"
only she probably did because basilio gave flavia a gem and told her to go to chrom with it.
1. So... what... does Walhart just let her run?
2. I thought Basilio said they lost their gem. So where'd that come from? Unless Walhart had it on him and he somehow took it during the fight. In which case apparently Walhart didn't notice or there is no way at all Flavia gets out.
Anyway Team Chrom is marching south to fight Say'ri's brother.
how do we even have an army to do this with
we just took over a fort against an entire division of valm, in theory we should have lost a lot doing that, we split up again. we're up against even more people than before since the resistance joined valm.
like this is Ephraim 2.0 where i have to believe it's literally chrom's group trying to solo valm. [/spoiler]
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
...just meeting Rise or something. >_>
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?