[Together We Play] Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of Holy War ~FIN

Frosteey · October 2007

Seeing as this is a game many are unfamiliar with, I'll start off with a small faq.

Why play a game that's coming out in November?

-Uh, sorry. Not the fourth Fire Emblem coming to America. I mean the real deal-Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu (Genealogy of Holy War).
Platform-SNES
Japanese release date: 1996
American Release date: ???.

-Yes, those question marks are painful.

Okay, gotcha. So Marth...

-No.

and...

-Not him, either.

Then why should I care?

-Well, to people who've played them all, 4 and 5 are often held as the class of the series. I personally agree, claiming 4 as my favorite, and cursing Nintendo for the great injustice that is the blank spot on the Virtual Console. It includes quite a number of gameplay mechanics unvisited by any of the other games, and has my favorite cast. The story ain't bad, either. And like most SNES games of the time, they've aged quite well. I'll save the rest of my gushing for the actual playthrough.

Sounds awesome!

-Well, to me at least...

Plot progress-

Videos-

First castle defense-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cikm0MllDnw

Prologue character battle compilation-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdZ2q-_mpO8

Chapter 1 compilation-
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1rRqfsxL_Ys

Chapter 2 compilation-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjD2FYw-Naw

Chapter 3 compilation-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpIMP0Zn-Ko

The evolution of axe swingery-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcyVUYE2GH4

Selis: Marth, Roy, Eliwood, Ike, you all suck.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLUVLXE1ebI

Chapter 6 compilation-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC0xAzDtVnM

Lakche wonderfulness-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcyFPh4ek4Q&feature=user

Gameplay mechanics-

The skill system-
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=3210842&postcount=6

Predeployment, and assorted village antics-
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=3214260&postcount=10

Support system, how to make babies-
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=3225160&postcount=19

Dancing! Sylvia makes her way around.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=3261263&postcount=40

Weapons: A product of the system-
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=3290194&postcount=45

Babies-Why bother to make them?
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=3359617&postcount=60

Character Compendium-

Main cast-
First Generation-

-Sigurd. Noble of Chalphy, loyal to the kingdom of Grandbell. Descended from Baldo. Madly in love with Diadora. Branded a traitor of his kingdom, along with all of his men.

-Noish. The red/green cavalier. Strong and sturdy, but fairly slow. Sigurd's second in command.

-Alec. The green/red cavalier. Buds with Noish, and a womanizer-the younger, the better.

-Azel. Noble of Verthomer, loyal to Grandbell. Half-brother to Alvis. A speedy fire mage with Fala blood, and a spine of spongecake.

-Lex. Noble of Dozel, and son of Langobolt, one of the conspirators against Sigurd. Dozel being another region of Grandbell. Elite (literally) axe guy, with Neir blood, and a knack for chopping.

-Cuan. Descended from Noba, and prince of Lenster. Wed to Ethrin, Sigurd's brother-in-law, and old friend of both Sigurd and Eltoshan. Lance knight of much goodness.

-Ethrin. Sigurd's sister, and Cuan's wife. A troubadour, who both fights with swords and heals, albeit doing both quite poorly (for now).

-Finn. Cuan's apprentice lance knight. So much better than Sigurd's apprentice, Oifaye, it's not even funny. It's pretty annoying how crappy Oifaye is.

-Edin. Noble of Jungby of Grandbell, and a priestess. Descended from Ullir, and sister of Bridgett.

-Deu. Smarmy chap with a sketchy past and a lecherous attitude. Fights with swords (very poorly), steals, and that's about it. Yet he still manages to be more useful than most of the other children in the tale. His special skill is Sun Hit, which drains HP on a successful attack when the skill activates, assuming he actually does some damage.

-Jamuka. Archer prince of Verdane, and traitor to his country. Well, I guess he's got a decent enough reason, with all those cultists running around. Notable for being apparently the only person in the world not fooled by the shadiest looking organization on the continent.

-Diadora. From a village in the forest of Verdane whose inhabitants are sworn to remain chaste. Has Narga blood, and some mysterious blood denoted by a big black circle. Daughter of Cigyun, wife of Sigurd (and Alvis, too!).

-Ayra. Princess-ish lady from Isaac, with Odo blood. Super awesome sword lady. Guardian of stupid stupid Shanan, who is the next in line to the Isaac throne.

-Holin, another sword user from Isaac, with Odo blood. Despite this, I don't believe he's a member of a noble house. Even if he had once been, he discarded that life for the arena, and the riches it held. Currently pursuing experience points in Sigurd's gang.

-Levin. Prince in line for the throne of Silesia, and descendant of Holsety, the wind god. Has kind of made up (not out, surprisingly) with his mother, which led to his possession of the Holsety tome.

-Fury. Pegasus knight from Silesia, tasked with finding Levin. Currently acting as his bodyguard of sorts, while not traversing mountains and bodies of water trying to save distant villages from bandits. Sister to Silesia's #1 pegasus knight, Mahnya.

-Lachesis. Princess of Nodion, in Agustria. Sister of Eltoshan, though currently taking up shack with Sigurd, who's not half as manly as dear sweet brother. Currently completely awesome, being able to use basically every weapon in the game that isn't holy or dark. Has Hezul blood, but no Mistletain...

-Former mercenary, and apparently an old friend of Eltoshan's. He turned tail from his former employer for 10,000 Gold. Luckily, none of the enemies in the game have that much money, so his allegiance will be unwavering.

-Sylvia. A dancer Levin came across on his journeys as a bard. Looks 14, skimpy outfit, girly parts, the works.

-Mideel. Edin's bodyguard. Looks even more girlish in this picture than usual. That's...really all there is.

-Bridgett. Edin's sister, missing for several years. Was found and raised as a girl by the Orgahill Pirates. Heir to Ullir's holy bow, the Ichival.

-Claud. A priest with a taste for faith and young girls. The heir of the Blagi bloodline. One of two prepromotes in the game who are pretty terrible.

-Tiltyu. Thunder mage daughter of Reptor. But he's a big jerkface, so she don't listen to him. Has Tordo blood.

-Adan...Oh man...

2nd Generation-

Selis-Sigurd's boy, who holds a claim to the Grandbellian throne thanks to Diadora. Fights to stop Alvis and Yurius and their baby slaughtering ways.

Oifaye-Sigurd's squire whose attempts to hide his lack of awesomeness with facial hair aren't quite enough. Raised Selis and his starting entourage, and hid them from the empire. This game's Jeigan! Not as bad as Claud by any means, but outclassed by basically everyone else.

Lakche-Ayra's daughter, and inheritor of the ability to slaughter the populations of entire continents with little effort.

Sukasha-Lakche's oft-forgotten brother. He's pretty awesome, but still manages to pale in comparison to his godly sister. It's not his fault, she's just that good (it is totally his fault for being a big fat failure).

Rana-Edin's daughter. She's basically just like her mother except with puffy orange hair.

Lester-Rana's brother, and the game's mounted archer who isn't a girlish green-haired waste.

Delmudd-The last member of Selis's starting gang of children. Lachesis's son...but who is the father? He has Beowulf's stat growths and weapons, but that doesn't quite convince me.

Yuria-Diadora's daughter with Alvis. Narga blood...might be mildly important at some point. She turns out to be a much better unit than her mom, in that she doesn't run the risk of dying by merely seeing an enemy unit.

Johalva-Dannan's son, Lex's nephew. He's the unmounted axe-using brother, with a crush on Lakche the size of a good-sized pond with a hero axe in it.

Johan-Carbon copy of Johalva, except with a horse. Also dead. No brotherly harem for Lakche : (

Fee-Fury's daughter, who joined Selis because of the tales dear mommy told her of Sigurd's heroism. Selis might be a little more girly than his old man, but his critical hits more than make up for it, so his heroism rating does not disappoint her.

Arthur-Tiltyu's son, who set out to look for his sister and mother who were kidnapped by uncle-ish Blume. Rides pretty close with Fee on that flying horse...

Shannan-The mentor of Selis's gang. Prince of Isaac, roughly as awesome as Ayra because he uses the Odo holy sword, Balmunk. Known for his Magikarp-like evolutionary cycle.

Patty-Bridgett's daughter, with the standard carefree, smarmy thief attitude. But she adds some girly-girlishness to the mix. Turns out she's only into the thieving to help out orphaned children. It's like Robin Hood with more girly parts and a better hat.

Leaf-Cuan and Ethrin's boy, inheritor to the Lenster throne, but not its awesome spear. Instead, he leads a failed revolution, and ends up getting saved by Selis and company. He's the second generation's Lachesis, who starts off as a crappy Prince and promotes to a master knight capable of using about every weapon in the game. Not quite Shannan level progress, but still a big step.

Nanna-Lachesis's daught and Delmudd's sister, who got roped into Leaf's diabolical scheme of failure. Troubadour with the healing and swords and being pretty weak most of the time.

Finn Jr.-Finn's illegitimate son he had with Lachesis and an alternate reality version of himself seven thousand years ago. He plays the loyal knight to Leaf as he did to Cuan. And he loses his hero lance. It makes no sense.

Ales-Eltoshan's boy. Supposedly with his wife, and not with Lachesis. He is Eltoshan, but he has longer hair and fights on your side. Misteltainn is pretty nice when it's not threatening to kill allies in one hit.

Lynn-Ales's sweetheart, whose ability to attract the desires of disgusting old men leads to the series of events that result in Ales's alliance with Selis. Inherited her taste for skimpy clothing and dancing abilities from Sylvia.

Tinny-Arthur's long lost sister, victim of many attrocities at the hand of Blume. But she's talked into betrayal by Arthur, and eventually grows to love the murder of family members that I force upon her.

Faval-Patty's brother, and inheritor of mom's Ichival. He's also Patty's partner in harboring a menacing army of cute little orphans, probably in a church.

Sety-Fee's brother, who went off looking for their father, who's a real jerk, or something. He ended up playing savior to the suffering masses.

Althena-Leaf's sister, and inheritor of Cuan's cool spear. Raised by Trabant for her usefulness in combat, but she's got her own questions about him. Huge crush on Arion, who she had believed to be her brother.

-Hannibal-Rugged old manly-man of Thracia's army. He was the country's greatest general, which likely explains why Thracia was doomed to succumb to Selis's invasion. Still a solid improvement over Adan.

Corpl-He...worthless. Sylvia's son. Tries to counterbalance his sister's revealing girlish attire by wearing less revealing girlish attire.

Supporting cast-
First generation-

-Eltoshan. Count-type guy of Nodion, devoutly loyal to Agustria and its current ruler, Shagall. Descended from Hezul, and wields the holy blade Mistletainn. Brother to Lachesis, and friends to Sigurd and Cuan, but his loyalty to his country comes first.

-Alvis. Azel's half-brother, and son of Cigyun and the former count of Verthomer. Loooooptuous!!! Inceeeeest!

-Byron. Sigurd's pop. He's surprisingly intimidating for being an old fart. Once in possession of the holy sword, Tierfing.

-Gandolf. Prince of Verdane, brother of Jamuka, and the man who essentially started off this entire chain of events with his abduction of Edin. If only Mideel could have protected that castle...

-Sandima. His hobbies include drawing ponies and baking cakes.

-Shagall. Current ruler of Agustria, after having assassinated his father. Also really likes ponies.

Aida-Alvis's lead general. That's...about it.

Reptor-One of the nobles who plotted against Byron and Sigurd. Has Tordo blood, and wields the Thor Hammer. Tiltyu's father, but doesn't exactly treat her well.

Langobolt. The other plotter, and Lex's father. Has Neir blood and uses the holy axe Swanchika. Doesn't give this axe to Lex...Lex hates him, and so do I.

Manfroy-Leader of the Loptuous sect. Pulls the strings behind the events leading to Alvis's rise to power. Magically able to hide his shadiness to stupid people.

Second generation-

Dannan-Langobolt's son, and brother to the late Lex. Was given control over Isaac, and attempted to carry out pretty bastardly orders.

Blume-Reptor's son, who inherited his father's Thor Hammer and gained control over the Manster region of the Thracian peninsula, but failed to carry on his monocled ways. Treated Tiltyu and her daughter about as horribly as his father had.

Ishtor-Blume's son, who died along with his sweetheart Liza in Selis's campaign.

Ishtar-Blume's capable daughter, who gained possession of the Thor Hammer, and was saved and is currently accompanied by her love, the imperial prince Yurius.

Trabant-King of Thracia, and Cuan's old foe, whose attempts to conquer Manster were delayed by the empire's occupation. Begins the campaign anew once Selis breaks the order in the area. Descendant of Dain, and former wielder of the holy lance Gungnir.

Arion-Trabant's son, and adoptive brother of Althena. Current wielder of Gungnir, and overall upstanding chap.

Loptuous!!! Also known as Yurius, imperial prince of Grandbell, he's the product of Alvis's delightful incestuous dabblings. Murderer of babies and old men alike. Perhaps in a different time, a different game, he could be my favorite main character ever...

Xenogears of Bore · October 2007

Is 4 the one with the giant maps and the second generation? Oooh, is this the one where you can go through arresting everyone?

Anyways, great thread. I mentioned earlier that while I'm a huge FE fan I never got around to either this one or five. I can't wait.

Frosteey · October 2007

Huge maps, yes. I certainly see myself only doing a half or less of a map per update.

As for the other stuff, I'll try to cover important gameplay aspects as they creep up, (though I already forgot to address skills...). I'd like to keep some surprises for anyone completely unfamiliar to the game.

At what point should I be worried about exceeding a character limit for a post? Or will I need to at all?

Just hit it....So here's the prologue.

That's the title screen. Pretty nice aside from those scratchmarks all over the place. Word has it those things mean Fire Emblem.

It's even got maps. Unless there's some specific interest in the matter, I'll be mostly skipping over the geography. In any case, as you can see in some comforting real letters, this is the kingdom of Grandbell. Aside from being one of the rare nations to avoid the great Engrish Disaster of '95, it's also what could be considered our home base. All you really need to know now is that there's war around these parts, and plenty of it.

While the main forces of Grandbell are off smashing faces, some cowardly barbarians attack Jungby in the southwest.

Normally, I'd be all whatever, but there's a couple damsels in danger. The blonde on the right's Edin, she's a high priest and royalty. The one on the left's her bodyguard, and...oh, a guy. Man, people complain about Sephiroth, but at least he was effeminine and strong. You're lucky we got to skip the development stages of the girly-man character, where their coolness factor matched their 13 year-old girlish appearance.

In any case, it's obvious he'll need some help fending off those dudes, so it's off to rescue the place.

This blue-haired chap is your lord and god, as well as main character, Sigurd. As with most of his ilk, this lord from Chalphy is an out-an-out dominator (more on this later). The guy on the right is his awesome #2 man, Noish. As you can see by his armor, he's the classic red knight, ala Kent. Well, he would be, but the fine folks who make these games somehow confused red and green down the line. Noish is actually the powerful green knight, Sain. Or Sain's red...

All that matters is that Noish will kill people good and fine.

The man with the stylish turban is Noish's other half, Alec. He's pretty good, too, and gets bonus points for the cranium accessory.

Adan is slow and crappy. He's supposedly good for defending bases, but the enemy never makes it far enough against your other death machines to get there, and he's slow as anything, so by the time he catches up with the rest of your men, there's nothing left for him to do but gawk and be worthless. This will be one of two times where he sees the light of day.

Here's Oifaye. He's Sigurd's apprentice knight. Despite what the term knight would imply, he just lounges around being useless most of the time. Stupid kids.

All right, so now we're to something that should be familiar to fans of the series. A nice castle, and some guys predeployed on the map. No problems here (well, except Adan).

Here's a taste of the status screen. Nothing terribly interesting, save for two points. Sigurd is a freaking level 5 pre-promoted unit on the prologue map. He's got the stats to slash necks from the get go, and the growth rates to keep the carnage flowing. There's also the matter of holy blood. The diagram on the bottom (also brought to you in surprisingly competent English) portrays the 12 holy gods of this particular FE universe. Descendants of these folks are generally nobles. More importantly, it means some additional stat growth because he's apparently not good enough already, and it gives him a visual indicator of his holy lineage, unlike some other loserly guys who have to communicate such greatness through text.

But enough of that, let's get the blood flowing.

Just mosey on over and...

I think I've built Sigurd up enough that this murderous encounter should come as no surprise. But there's something else that might.

This makes no sense! The guy, he's dead, but there's green squares. Oh, that's right. Post-attack movement! Mounted units can move, attack, and move their remaining range after taking action. Choke points? Won't stop me from attacking you with five guys, pal. Of course, this goes the same for enemy units, too. This means we'll need to take more things into consideration when we want to hold down the fort from invasion.

Unfortunately, the first turn ends, and we're still quite a ways from Jungby. And the barbarians are already making their move.

This is such a special moment, that I've recorded it in all its glory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cikm0MllDnw

Oh, Mideel, you dumb bastard. You were nothing more than a stupid girlish plot point.

After swatting the fly, Gandolf takes off with his spoils.

Sure, he did me a favor with Mideel, but nobody steals my damsels. This is personal.

Turn 2 and beyond!

Okay, so the second turn seems pretty uneventful, with me just moving west to get closer to Jungby so I can press charges for kidnapping. But boy am I in for a pleasant surprise.

Oh sweet cactus muffins, it's Lex. The blue hair is already an indication that he's got a 90% chance to be rad. And he certainly delivers. He has skills which include Ambush (attack first when attacked by enemy, moderately awesome) and Elite (2x Experience gain, supremely awesome). He's got some Neir (axe god of axing) blood in him, high attack, ridiculously high defense, decent speed and skill, and he's a sexy beast in every way imaginable. I dare say he's the single greatest figure in the evolution of axe swingery. Hector before Hector, as I've said before.

Azel's automatically at a disadvantage, being immediately compared to this pillar of manhood, but he doesn't help himself out by being a wimpy boy. He's coming to help out Sigurd in part because he's afraid of his brother. Man... Well, he's a noble like Lex and Sigurd, and he's got some Fala (Fire!) blood in him, but that just means the shame he brings his family is that much greater. His real motivation though is that he wants to help Edin.

Oh, Lex's reasons to tag along?
1-To help out Azel
2-Because he's a rebel who hates his stupid family
3-Desire to smash faces.

Anyway, turn 3 approaches, and the heat is rising.

Okay, not really. I'm still not far enough west to begin my assault, but I do get some more reinforcements for the battle I've barely fought

That's Cuan with the brown hair. Unlike most of your Holy Blooded characters, Cuan is honest to goodness royalty, being the prince of the small country of Lenster, and having Noba (one of two spear gods, because this game knows what's what with regards to polearms being awesome) blood. You can think of him as a slightly less awesome Lex with a spear.

The other guy is his main apprentice Finn. Despite the blue hair, Finn is only moderately rad. But under Cuan's watchful eye, he has much progress to be made.

Here's Ethrin. She's Cuan's woman, and the reason these folks have bothered to show up, since she's Sigurd's sister. Cuan claims he's coming because of his old friendship with Sigurd, but it's probably just a front for being bossed around by a woman with pink hair.

She's a troubadour, and fights with a sword, albeit quite poorly. Think of a promoted Mist. Hmm, couldn't Mist heal, too? Oh, that's right.

Ethrin can do that right from the get go. Unfortunately,

she kind of sucks at it.

But still, having a character who can fight and heal before promoting is a practice I wish had not been neglected in subsequent games.

With the troops gathered, it's time to assault Jungby.

The first order of business is for Sigurd to recklessly penetrate the enemy's ranks to save a town. Like towns in recent versions, your army can get some good stuff from saving them. Unlike those towns, though, these are usually under heavy attack. This is mitigated by each town essentially having life points, and only being destroyed after a sufficient number of bandit sieges. The incentive to save villages will be motivation for many more such reckless penetrations.

Now, before we begin the assault on the castle proper, there's some business to take care of.

First is saving those villages.

There in the purple, so beautiful. Noish'll go first. Some dumb chatter with the townsfolk, and some money, but the real prize-

Is a speed ring. +5 speed to whoever holds it. An awesome item for anyone except Alec, really, but I've a soft spot for Noish. It's important to note that who picks up these items is of great import. Each character has their own Gold and item pools, which can't be freely exchanged. Gold can only be exchanged between very select pairs of people, while items must first be sold to a store and then rebought. Although admittedly slightly clumsy, it does add some degree of planning to the item gathering/distribution process.

Meanwhile, I send Ethrin off to gather up funds from the other towns.

Our healers will be doing this quite a bit. Always with the donations, these people...

There's also some on-field conversations with our new allies.

Cuan, reliving the good-old days at the Academy with Sigurd and Eltoshan, assures Sigurd that this help is freely given. Sigurd remains oblivious to the cover-up operation he's performing-to avoid the shame of being driven around by his wife.

Ethrin won't let that slide, and makes sure Sigurd knows who wears the pants in the family. There's no trademark FE incest for these two, though. That'll come later.

Here we have Sigurd wondering why Lex would make his way out here. Lex proceeds to discuss his previous three reasons for aid. With a special emphasis on how he's way too cool for his stupid family.

Azel, on the other hand, admits that his family is way too cool for him.

Kicking Verdane in the tooth-

Here's nameless Verdane henchmen #1, foolishly taunting Lex. And you thought I was kidding when I said they were barbarians.

After Lex clears up that gutter trash, the enemy castle is left open, waiting for its capture by Sigurd.

Capturing the castle triggers the next event, but I can capture the castle whenever I please. This means I can send off my troops to free towns, or set them up to intercept enemy troops if I know where they're going to be coming from. This would have to be my single biggest complaint about the game. It really decreases any sense of urgency to accomplish things when you can reorganize yourself after beating every boss. That and there's quite a bit of time spent just transporting your guys around, because the maps are just gigantic. On the plus side, though, it means the entire country I'm invading is all on a single map.

I'll probably hold myself back from taking advantage of the pre-siege preparations to their full potential on most occasions.

In any case, time for the liberation.

Oh, god. The plot point is still alive.

And he's joining my army. Well, what was once an army. Now it's more like a home for the criminally inept. Maybe he'll get a chance to actually use his bow this time, not that it's something to get excited about.

Elsewhere...

It doesn't look like the folks at Evans castle are terribly impressed by my deeds. They construct a bridge so they can attack me. And I thought taunting Lex was bad.

We have other guests, too.

This is Azel's half-brother. I guess the fear is reasonable. He's travelling without bodyguards. (By comparison, Azel needed a bodyguard as cool as Lex to feel safe.) He wants to have a word with Sigurd.

Sigurd wonders if Alvis is here to retrieve Azel. The unfortunate answer to that is no. In exchange for this, though, Alvis gives Sigurd a silver sword, and the blessings of the emperor.

These blessings proceed to play a small role in crushing the Evans Castle expedition.

With the path clear, it's time to go to Evans, and display the second part of castle-sieging basics.

Castle defenses mean high defense, high dodge, and a glowing blue aura.

That's restoring HP. This combined with the naturally high HP of bosses means they can take a beating. This, combined with the generally high levels of bosses, means experience farming, for as long as the heart desires.

Lex'll go first.

Won't these guys ever learn?

Oh craps... So much for getting experience.

Eh...he's pretty strong, too.

Sounds like the perfect formula for Plot Point to get his revenge.

There's no battle cry quite as rousing as remorsing over your complete inability to guard a castle from a single axe throw...

Surprisingly enough, the ensuing battle doesn't completely destroy him.

From here, a full assault from everyone, with a killing blow by Sigurd.

Well, the barbarians lost, but at least their castle withstood more than a single blow. While they've gained a moral victory in this regard, perhaps we can apply this newfound knowledge to protecting our own forts.

Chen · October 2007

I'd imagine speed running this would be a bitch.

Go, go, Ayra!

Also, I might just create a thread about FE6, my personal favorite FE.

Xenogears of Bore · October 2007

Frosteey wrote: »

Huge maps, yes. I certainly see myself only doing a half or less of a map per update.

As for the other stuff, I'll try to cover important gameplay aspects as they creep up, (though I already forgot to address skills...). I'd like to keep some surprises for anyone completely unfamiliar to the game.

Edited first post with second turn.

At what point should I be worried about exceeding a character limit for a post? Or will I need to at all?

I forget what the limit is, but it is fairly high.

Frosteey · October 2007

A brief touch on the skill system-

Like Path of Radiance, Fire Emblem 4 utilizes a skill system. These provide a multitude of benefits, like ambush, which lets your character attack first, or wrath, which auto-criticals when the character's HP is below half-much like similar PoR skills.

Skills are also used with double attacks. Instead of the standard 4 speed advantage used now, your character needs the skill advancing or continue, in addition to being faster or lighter than the opponent. There's also a skill which gives both fighters an additional round of attacks.

There are some other notable skills, which will be addressed as they come up.

RockinX · October 2007

Are you going to be doing spoken commentaries like the DKC dudes? Because I'd like to understand the story but I don't speak enough Japanese to manage to do that.

Frosteey · October 2007

RockinX wrote: »

Are you going to be doing spoken commentaries like the DKC dudes? Because I'd like to understand the story but I don't speak enough Japanese to manage to do that.

I can barely manage to record anything at all, let alone voices. With the new MP3 player I'm getting, I guess it actually is almost possible, but that'd still require on/off recording just the dialogue, since the gameplay is freakishly long. And if I went that route, I may as well just give more in-depth text dialogue transcriptions.

For what it's worth, everything I say in comments regarding the dialogue is mostly rooted in truth, and in that sense, I'm covering quite a fair amount of what they're saying. Azel is scared of Alvis, Lex hates his family, is friends with Azel, and wants to smash some faces in, Cuan's coming to help because he's friends and brother-in-law to Sigurd.

The stuff at the beginning with Sigurd and the gang is mostly just generic "We must save the country" stuff, and Mideel and Edin's conversation is "I'll protect you from the invaders, Edin, you know I'm good enough." "Be careful."

The battle quotes are generally just stuff like "Return her!" or "I'll crack your skull, boy." Basically, if I think it's something actually pretty important, I'll try to address it, like the Cuan/Sigurd/Eltoshan connection, but everything's still going to be draped in what I hope is comedic hyperbole.

RockinX · October 2007

Frosteey wrote: »

RockinX wrote: »

Are you going to be doing spoken commentaries like the DKC dudes? Because I'd like to understand the story but I don't speak enough Japanese to manage to do that.

I can barely manage to record anything at all, let alone voices. With the new MP3 player I'm getting, I guess it actually is almost possible, but that'd still require on/off recording just the dialogue, since the gameplay is freakishly long. And if I went that route, I may as well just give more in-depth text dialogue transcriptions.

For what it's worth, everything I say in comments regarding the dialogue is mostly rooted in truth, and in that sense, I'm covering quite a fair amount of what they're saying. Azel is scared of Alvis, Lex hates his family, is friends with Azel, and wants to smash some faces in, Cuan's coming to help because he's friends and brother-in-law to Sigurd.

The stuff at the beginning with Sigurd and the gang is mostly just generic "We must save the country" stuff, and Mideel and Edin's conversation is "I'll protect you from the invaders, Edin, you know I'm good enough." "Be careful."

The battle quotes are generally just stuff like "Return her!" or "I'll crack your skull, boy." Basically, if I think it's something actually pretty important, I'll try to address it, like the Cuan/Sigurd/Eltoshan connection, but everything's still going to be draped in what I hope is comedic hyperbole.

Well, yeah, a summary of what's happening is probably the best idea. I can read the most simple phrases as long as they are either hiragana or furigana.

Thanks for doing this, by the way!

Frosteey · October 2007

Okay, before I get set on the very end of the prologue/the actual beginning of chapter 1, I'll go into FE4's 'prdeployment' stage.

That's this Chapter 1's home base. As you can see, your units are nowhere to be found.

But here's the interior. All the friendly faces gathered under one roof.

This place plays a multitude of roles.

First off we have the town.

This is where you can repair your weapons,

buy or sell new and old used equipment,

and fight in the arena for assorted glorious things. Each chapter has eight separate challengers for each of your men to take on.

Moving along to the right of the town icon is the deployment action, the guard castle icon, and the promotion icon.

Come back when I'm level 20? And here I thought you weren't going to be useless for once.

The blanked out star icon...I honestly can't remember. I think it's probably to use a staff on someone else in the castle.

The last one is to give money. This can also be done on the field (I'm pretty sure, at least), but I guess it's nice they give the option here, too. Characters can only give money to their significant others, and you can't decide what amount. They'll give away as much as they can until the giftee reaches their Gold limit. A bit of a cumbersome system, yes.

So I'll leave off with some arena footage of all the folks we've gathered in the prologue. I'll also use the opportunity to showcase some of the great music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdZ2q-_mpO8

This is chapter 1's main music, because the prologue's and arena's tunes are both pretty bad.

WotanAnubis · October 2007

Nice thread. I'm looking forward to following it closely.

Frosteey · October 2007

We'll start off after having just defeated Verdane henchmen #2, and conquering Evans.

Oifaye informs us that our princess is in another castle, confirming what we'd seen on the map not even fifteen minutes ago. This kid's got a bright future.

This old fogey comes to congratulate Sigurd on the conquest on the emperor's behalf, and to promote him to Holy Knight of the kingdom. But the title and the old man are all he gets. Alvis doesn't even like Sigurd, yet he still managed to part with a sweet silver sword. But the leader of the most powerful force on the continent can't match up? Not so grand after all...

But Sigurd seems unphased by his seemingly worthless rewards, and decides it's time to rescue Edin for reals. That means it's invasion time.

This is the country of Verdane. This small, forested nation is known mostly for its inhabitants' incredibly brown garb, as well as the royal family's impressive array of head gear. They've usually been non-hostile to the surrounding nations, so this recent attack on Grandbell is quite suspicious...

Chapter 1-

Things pick up with a border guard with a pretty awesome helmet. Oh, there's also this Eltoshan guy. In addition to looking pretty cool, he's a noble from Agustria with a healthy dose of Hezul blood running through his veins. Unlike the cowards in our group, though, he makes full use of his lineage, by wielding the Misteltain, the sword that once belonged to the god from whom he's descended.

See those pluses with the ridiculous numbers behind them? The holy weapons actually do even more than just dishing out excessive amounts of damage.

Eltoshan's fairly surprised, though supportive, to see Sigurd invading another nation. While he can't participate in the invasion proper, he assures Sigurd that he'll watch his back. As with Sigurd and Cuan before him, he takes this opportunity to relive the good old days.

Elsewhere, in fear of the wave of awesome about to assault them, Verdane is in search of countermeasures.

Kinbois looks to even the scales with Ayra, a princess of Isaac. (This is also the nation which the main forces of Grandbell are fighting) The nobles of Isaac are descended from Odo, and are known as exceptional swordsmen (even though Odo's sword is way smaller than Hezul's. What a lame god.).

Ayra here is no exception. Really, just drop all of your previous experiences with swordsmen. Guy? Insulting. Mia? Ditto. That guy with a really cool hat? (Joshua? Yeah, Joshua.) Even the hat won't do it.

In addition to having ridiculously impressive stats, which include fairly competent strength (Lyn...), this highlighted skill (meteor slash or starlight hit, depending on who you ask) places Ayra at the top tier of characters, like, ever.

There's a skill in Path of Radiance, Astra. It lets a character attack five times at half damage per strike. Pretty good stuff, all things considered. Meteor slash is basically the same thing, without the damage reduction. Oh, and feel free to use the skill multiple times in a single battle.

Back to our invasion, I suppose Verdane can consider the awesome scales balanced.

But wait, so how is stupid weak Kinbois managing to control this gorgeous bottle of raditude?

Oh great, another kid. Shanan here's the prince of Isaac. As you can probably tell by looking at him, he has none of the awesome swordsmen abilities that I've just ranted about coming from Isaac. He's being held captive to coerce Ayra in Verdane's service. Good work, son. At least Oifaye is just regular useless, you've somehow managed to make yourself anti-useless by unleashing a character who's actually competent on the good guys.

Anyway, to accentuate her martial skills with an equally awesome personality, Ayra lets Kinbois know he'll be dying an excessively bloody death if he so much as harms the prince, and the verdane expedition sets off.

Likewise, our own forces set out towards their impending meteor slash entwined fates.

But first, Cuan needs a word with Finn.

"Your hair burns blue, but your stats do not."

He thanks Finn for his continued service, but fears that he still needs improvement to fight on the battlefied. With this in mind, he conducts a short training session.

In the blink of an eye, Finn's gained points in strength, skill, and speed. Awesome work, buddy.

Meanwhile, three figures appear from the west.

The youngest prince of Verdane, Jamuka, has freed Edin. He's wary of the attack on Grandbell, and won't stand for the unjust kidnapping.

Oh sweet lord, another kid. And here I thought things were going pretty well...
Deu interrupts Jamuka to make some snappy comments. Being both a thief and a child, I guess it's pretty much unavoidable that he'd be a smarmy bastard.

Jamuka reminds Deu that the only reason he's not rotting in prison is because of Edin's good words, and he heads off to confront his old man about the recent militancy.

Gandolf's none too pleased to lose the reward he worked so hard for. He had to walk such a long way, and throw his axe a single time at some girl on a horse. There's no way she's escaping.

Hmm...well I suppose things look a little better than the ill-fated fortress defense by Mideel, but it's still not looking too good.

Oh, remember how I lamented Fire Emblem's departure from pre-promoted healer hybrid units in subsequent games?

I actually meant subsequent maps. Edin here can only use one type of equipment, and those staves aren't going to be dealing damage any time soon. I guess this can be somewhat pardoned by the fact that she's the army's first bachelorette, though (more on that later). Still, her lack of any offensive ability fails to make those pursuers look any less menacing.

We'll have her run away. Deu, on the other hand...

Will run some interference for her retreat. It may seem like a bad idea to have such a frail looking kid try to hold off some big burly men, but those trees provide a nice 20% bonus to dodge chance.

Ahaha~

Nice hit percentage, there. The fact that Deu is dealing three damage is moderately less humorous by comparison. On the plus side, while Deu can't kill anybody, he does steal money from his opponents when he attacks.

Meanwhile, the main forces of Sigurd and Kinbois are about to clash.

That little bag next to that axe means that he'll drop it for the character who kills him. This particular axe is of the same variety as the double-bladed boomerang our poor little Mideel is so familiar with.

Apparently Lex has decided his justice needs to be dispensed at range, as well.

After finishing up Kinbois's group, the main force heads west to rendezvous with Edin, and possibly save that runt on the tree.

But Alec stays behind, and takes up a position in the woods.

Edin finally meets up with the main force, and has a chat with Ethrin.

She thanks Ethrin for her attendance, and gives her a return staff (sends a character back to headquarters! Genuinely useful like three times in the game maybe but always useful for experience points!).

Sigurd's glad she's safe, and suggests she returns to safety. But Edin refuses. She wants to use her healing abilities to help her saviors, and she's searching for her sister, for whom she has a super special present (the Ichival, the holy bow of Ulir).

She also needs to stick around to demand money from all those villages I'm saving.

Last is an apology from her incompetent bodyguard. Her kindness is truly displayed here, as she is able to look past his complete failure.

From a gameplay perspective, Edin may have this discussion with Mideel, another with Azel (where he acts like a lovestruck idiot, mostly), or neither, but not both. This plays a moderate amount of importance later on, and there's a small chance that the one I chose was a mistake. I'm still deciding on that, though.

While a few men head further west to mop up the forces that Deu has at this point 3-damaged to near half-death, the rest set their sights on the castle protected by meteor slash badness.

But, of course, I spent all that time gushing over her earlier, so there's no way I'll just up and kill her.

Here's where Alec must prove his mettle. Apparently, that turban gives him the skill Alert. This skill negates the enemy's skills and critical hits. Good news indeed. Ayra should only painfully maim him, instead of slaughtering him outright.

So, the plan is to lure the incarnation of Death away from the castle and liberate it, thus rescuing Shanan and praying that such an act gains Ayra's trust and quenches her thirst for blood.

The operation commences, gogogo!.

Oh lord...it moves.

Impending slaughter has left effective range, move move move!

But Ayra manages one attack on Alec before the liberation of Shanan.

Phew, catastrophe averted. Well met, Alec.

'Ah, the castle's fallen? I suppose I'll stay the bloodletting and check on Shanan.'

Wait! Look, I saved the kid in there, so please to be not killing me now.

In gratitude, and to ensure Shanan's protection, Ayra lends her sword to Sigurd, but warns that she does so only due to pending circumstances. They are not allies, and she will annihilate him should the need arise.

Cuan decides to have a word with the new member-

Ayra reveals that Isaac is not at fault for their current feud with Grandbell. The king of Isaac had approached them offering peace, only to be assassinated. In the ensuing battle, the eldest prince was also killed, leaving the kingdom in disarray. Isaac's future now rests on Shanan's easily kidnapped shoulders. (Oh, I'm sure that will work out swimmingly...)

Phew...slightly less than a third of the way through Chapter 1.

piL · October 2007

This is really cool--I intend to follow this through so keep up the good work!

Frosteey · October 2007

Chapter 1, fin-

During the lull in combat, Deu takes an opportunity to present Edin with a 'gift.' It's a warp staff, used to send units to any conquered castles on the map. Edin scolds him for being a thieving little bastard, but accepts the goods (completely helpless in the face of donations).

But it looks like Deu's not the only opportunistic one, today. Prince Elliot of Herhein decides to invade Evans while Sigurd's away.

Run away, Mr. Border Guard, not even your awesome helmet will ward off a brigade of knights.

Unfortunately for Elliot, he's failed to account for Adan, who had been left behind during Sigurd's invasion.

Aww yeah, Adan, you finally get a chance to shine!

But Eltoshan will have none of that. He's made a promise to Sigurd, and Elliot's a giant douche, to boot. He'll be the one kicking Herhein's ass.

His sister Lachesis agrees.

Eltoshan opens up with some quality, knightly trash talk. Herhein serves under the same King of Agustria as Eltoshan, and these forces are disobeying the king's orders to wage undue war. The dishonorable Elliot's about to get a face full of Misteltain.

It's a massacre from the getgo.

And Eltoshan fully delivers on that promise of faceswording.

Taunting him as he flees, for good measure.

Adan remains on watch at Evans, robbed of his chance to see battle.

But having the threat of Herhein quenched frees the main squadron to begin the assault on Gandolf's forces.

Setting the stage for Mideel's long-awaited revenge!

And what does girl-boy do with the opportunity?

He misses. Twice.

Well, I suppose he should just be satisfied he wasn't knocked unconscious this time.

But Ayra picks up his slack,

emitting what I can only hope will be the first of many meteoric green sparkles. Gandolf drops a skill ring for her, ensuring many more such sparkles in the future.

While liberating the castle...

Sigurd comes across some ruffian harassing a hot babe.

Having much experience already with the rescuing of women, Sigurd intervenes.

Sigurd asks if the girl's okay, but she seems a little unsettled.

And she runs off into the forest. Sorry, Sigurd old boy, looks like there's no reward for this babe rescue. She would rather run off alone into the wilderness than spend time with you.

But, hey, this old man showed up. That's some consolation, right? The guy isn't much for rewards either (not even a kiss, what a tease!), but he does give some information about that girl. She's Diadora, and apparently she's from a tribe in the forest that's forbidden to see men.

But she was pretty, and now she's a forbidden fruit, so Sigurd is lovestruck.

Meanwhile, Jamuka's caught up with his own old man.

He implores the king to call for peace with Sigurd, and accuses the new high priest in town of manipulating the kingdom's recent hostility.

No way, that guy looks pure as snow.

Anyway, Sunshine there suggests Jamuka should shut the hell up and go stop Sigurd from further decimating the country.

And, finally, we see a guy who can handle children. The king agrees and tells his snot-nosed brat to stop pestering him and attack Sigurd's approaching force.

Those guys look organized, this might be a tough fight.

While the troops are forming up, there's trouble brewing back at the castle.

Looks like someone's planning a party. But the king's allergic to cake, so he gets stabbed in the chest.

Fortunately, Sunshine's pal Rainbows was able to make the occasion. There's no way these guys are planning something devious. I'd put the cake to deviousness factor at ten to one, at least.

WARNING: Actual devious plot details ahead-

Here's how things break down. The cult follows the Dark God Loptuous. The other 12 gods weren't a big fan of this dude for whatever reason. Anyway, his followers fell from grace with his downfall, and were persecuted for being pretty big jerks. So the cult wants to revive him and reclaim their glory. To do this, they need two blood descendants to have a kid who'd be the dark successor type fellow. This shouldn't be possible, as the decendants were all female or something, apparently, and were supposed to avoid having children, which would invite the possibility of disaster. But one of the descendants decided to run off chasing the men, and had a son and daughter. The girl's supposedly somewhere in the Verdane region, while the boy is in the capitol of Grandbell. Thus all the shenanigans that've been happening in the region.

Yes, I think this means incest (not like it comes as much of a surprise), and no, I have no idea how there are still descendants of Loptuous if they've been disallowed from having children for hundreds of years.

Oblivious to the turmoil at home, Jamuka sets out.

Making a sound tactical decision, the enemy prepares itself for efficient individually packaged slaughter.

Except for Jamuka, because he's a pretty cool dude.

Edin convinces him to give persuading his father another shot.

But in the mean time, he's got no problems with slaughtering his countrymen and former subordinates. Like I said, a pretty cool guy.

While making his way through the forest, Sigurd is approached by a familiar face.

Diadora warns Sigurd that Sunsh...Sandima, is a formidable opponent who possesses strong dark magic. But as luck would have it, she's got a silence staff. Since she's got the hots for Sigurd and has finally realized that living in the woods is pretty much the worst thing in the universe, she's more than willing to tag along and help him out.

Whee! She heals and attacks and silences to boot! But her stats and skills are pretty terrible. She won't be doing that much killing, but it's a commendable effort.

Sick of the lovey dovey crap, Lex heads out to a jut of land in the middle of a lake for no apparent reason.

Oh, great, he dropped his iron axe. That was his favorite. Maybe you shouldn't have wandered off aimlessly, jerk.

But wait, some kind lady appears, probably attracted by Lex's manliness. She wonders whether one of these gold or silver axes she found belongs to him. Lex is an idiot and refuses to take the only gold weapon in the game, admitting that he just dropped some crappy iron axe.

Man, that's two idiot strikes against you in the span of ten seconds Lex, why do I admire you so much again?

But the mystical lady decides to reward his honesty with a hero axe.

'!?.....' indeed, Lex.

Sure it's not gold, but it's still pretty nice. Like later hero weapons, it grants its user an extra swing for every attack. But FE4 hero weapons are of a different breed entirely from those lowly knockoffs. For one, the reparing system of weapons means you can use it to your heart's content. No longer must characters restrict their awesomeness by not using their best weapons. You use that axe as much as you damn well please. Second, they don't carry the absurd weight that the later weapons seemed to. Not that this matter for muscleman Lex. And they've got good damage and accuracy, to boot.

From there,

It's a quick trip up to the castle.

Sunshine's a bit surprised to see Diadora amidst the enemy. The invitation clearly said RSVP and she did not do so.

Sure she was invited to the party, but the cake is already gone. Who even does that? Dark cults do that. Naturally, she silences the disrespectful host.

(I think I might've missed a conversation he has with Jamuka, too, being all surprised that he didn't get murdered by Sigurd and Gang. I must admit, it is pretty surprising. It's nothing really important, though. The conversation. Jamuka is...kind of important I guess.)

Azel shoots a couple fireballs at the mute, and steals a magic ring from his charred corpse.

Apparently the old man's still alive, but he's not in very good condition, so Sigurd's hope of adding to his quickly growing old man harem is quickly shot down. Before biting it for good, the king warns Sigurd of the cult]s dastardly schemes behind the scenes.

Rainbows is still at large...

So, yeah, the cult's kind of a lackluster bad guy group, but I'll just say the eventually become slightly awesome.

WotanAnubis · October 2007

Frosteey wrote: »

Chapter 1, fin-
Apparently the old man's still alive, but he's not in very good condition, so Sigurd's hope of adding to his old man harem is quickly shot down. Before biting it for good, the king warns Sigurd of the cults dastardly schemes behind the scenes.

So...

Are we told in this chapter what this cult wants or was Sigurd merely told that there's a cult and they're bad?

MrBlarney · October 2007

Wonderful work there so far, Frosteey. It usually takes me months to finish a Fire Emblem game, mostly because I hate to lose characters. So I'll play a few missions, then get stuck on an annoying stage and put the game away for a few weeks. Then I'll return to the game and the cycle continues until the game ends. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

Frosteey · October 2007

WotanAnubis wrote: »

Frosteey wrote: »

Chapter 1, fin-
Apparently the old man's still alive, but he's not in very good condition, so Sigurd's hope of adding to his old man harem is quickly shot down. Before biting it for good, the king warns Sigurd of the cults dastardly schemes behind the scenes.

So...
Are we told in this chapter what this cult wants or was Sigurd merely told that there's a cult and they're bad?

Whoops...

Added it in to the relevant section.

Here's how things break down. The cult follows the Dark God Loptuous. The other 12 gods weren't a big fan of this dude. Anyway, his followers fell from grace with his downfall, and were persecuted for being pretty big jerks. So the cult wants to revive him and reclaim their glory. To do this, they need two blood descendants to have a kid who'd be the dark successor type fellow. This shouldn't be possible, as the decendants were all female or something, apparently, and were supposed to avoid having children, which would invite the possibility of disaster. But one of the descendants decided to run off chasing the men, and had a son and daughter. The girl's supposedly somewhere in the Verdane region, while the boy is in the capitol of Grandbell. Thus all the shenanigans that've been happening in the region.

Yes, I think this means incest (not like it comes as much of a surprise), and no, I have no idea how there are still descendants of Loptuous if they've been disallowed from having children for hundreds of years.

So, yeah, kind've sloppy, both in my telling, and the whole thing all together, really. I think it might be expanded on in some FE compendium type thing, so it actually makes some amount of sense, but I just tend to not give much thought to any of the details.

Definitely not a strong point of the game.

Frosteey · October 2007

MrBlarney wrote: »

Wonderful work there so far, Frosteey. It usually takes me months to finish a Fire Emblem game, mostly because I hate to lose characters. So I'll play a few missions, then get stuck on an annoying stage and put the game away for a few weeks. Then I'll return to the game and the cycle continues until the game ends. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

Whee, thanks.

Sometimes I wonder whether I really like the death system. On the one hand, it does make for some decent challenge, but on the other, it would really be less of a hassle sometimes not having to worry about it. At the very least, the fact that the games generally have characters I care enough about to want to protect is definitely a strength of the series.

It'd be nice to have more questions, complaints, or just general comments. In addition to not having me talking to myself, and any potential ego boost, I'm kind've worried about the picture saturation per page. I think I'm already nearing 20mb.

Prologue-60 individual screenshots.
Chapter 1-131...

Frosteey · October 2007

Support system-

You may have noticed in my recent screenshots that a certain couple is spending a lot of time together.

Here's Finn and Edin, taking a nice stroll on the beach. Like with most Fire Emblem games, love and friendship are the most serious of businesses.

In FE4, these supports are accomplished in familiar fashion, with the important exception of gender exclusion. FE4 deals only in love. Every turn, each unit gains a few love points for all of your single units of the opposite gender. This tends to be a pretty small amount, however. That means you need to speed along the process by having the couple-to-be stick together. Nothing sparks a healthy romantic relationship like accidental brushing.

But not just everybody is so willing to hook up. There are different compatibilities for different folks.

A positivelly rugged guy like Sigurd will have no problem impressing the ladies, as was seen by his wooing Diadora with a single shooing of a vagrant.

A negatively rugged guy, on the other hand, will have to put a little more effort into it.

Good compatibility is often indicated through the story. For example, Edin has many likely boyfriends. Azel, who has a crush on her, Mideel, who...is in constant need of her healing, and Jamuka, who she's spent quite a bit of time talking to.

Those guys are all losers, though, so I'm going with Finn. The story-driven pairings often have extra conversations, as well as a few other benefits, over the seemingly completely random ones, but, seriously, Mideel can go kill himself. We can't let him run the risk of procreating with any woman, much less one in my army.

As for the benefits once the bond has matured, they're much like standard supports. Characters gain a small boost in hit and evasion when in the general area of their lovers. But since the stat bonuses aren't terribly high, they throw you another perk, as well.

If you attack an enemy while next to your lover, you have a chance for a love-induced critical hit.

Behind every strong man is a strong woman, and some glowing gold hearts.

If you do things right, things might even result in the popping of real live babies.

Nope, not ominous at all.

And here's the compilation of important chapter 1 stuffs-

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1rRqfsxL_Ys

It's the main theme from chapter 2's map. One of my favorite 'overworld' themes, right up there with 'Seeking Comrades,' Breath of Fire's second theme, and Lufia II's theme.

FE4 really hits its background music stride on this chapter, and keeps the quality going for quite a while.

Xenogears of Bore · October 2007

Together We Ride has to be my favorite FE track of all time. The most useful too, as I usually start playing it whenever I need to convince one of my friends to go along with me on some foolish mission.

Example:

(Starts playing T W R)

XoB: Hey there!

Friend: What's up?

XoB: Get your car gassed up, we are driving to California to go play SSB:B!

Friend: W-What?!

XoB: We can't sit around here all day!

Friend: But what about my exams... Fine, just let me tell someone where I'm going!

XoB: No time!

Friend: Sigh...

And then they turn blue.

Shamus · October 2007

This is so awesome, Frosteey.

RockinX · October 2007

Woah, love is a big part of the game.

Man, I doubt that they'll ever bring it to the VC with such a big game in terms of text and paths to take.

Frosteey · October 2007

Well, the love part doesn't add that much text. Like, with Edin, she has three predetermined pairs. If you set her up with any of them, she gets three, maybe four conversations with each, and not all of those conversations exclude having other ones. Pretty much the same for the other female characters. If you pick someone else for her, they'll never really have any interaction. So counting all the possibilities over multiple playthroughs, it'd still be quite a bit less dialogue than the support options in the recent games.

But who you pick here is quite a bit more important than the choices in the newer games.

I have an ever slight hope that they'll localize it. Looking at the success of VC in general, and Fire Emblem in America, I guess I wouldn't be able to say it would be a sound business decision, but it certainly doesn't look like it'd be a terrible one.

They'd probably bring over 1-3 first, if they do localize them, just to capitalize on the games/advertise the DS FE release. But...they really haven't aged well at all, so I wonder if they'd take that into consideration.

Lenore03 · October 2007

You shouldn't be so tough on that female bodyguard.

Is this the only FE game where that holding mechanic, for anything your characters pick up, is used?

Frosteey · October 2007

Sorry, but the first turn of the game encompasses a likely total of two battles-Sigurd killing some random grunt, and Gandolf doing the same.

Well, he's actually not all that bad, though. Less survivable than almost anyone else in the group, but being able to run away after attacking mitigates that to some extent. He's pretty average offensively, but if I chose to pair him up with Edin, she'd give him a Hero bow, and make him fairly decent. But without that, he's stuck in mediocrity, and I won't get a Hero bow until god knows when.

Not sure about the first two, but FE3 and 5 let you switch items around, and 5 had some other pretty unique methods of item management. The GBA ones and onward have all not only let you freely distribute items, but do so through a centralized storage facility. Well, I think, I don't really remember for PoR. Were you just able to trade easily without having any storage?

Xenogears of Bore · October 2007

Frosteey wrote: »

Sorry, but the first turn of the game encompasses a likely total of two battles-Sigurd killing some random grunt, and Gandolf doing the same.

Well, he's actually not all that bad, though. Less survivable than almost anyone else in the group, but being able to run away after attacking mitigates that to some extent. He's pretty average offensively, but if I chose to pair him up with Edin, she'd give him a Hero bow, and make him fairly decent. But without that, he's stuck in mediocrity, and I won't get a Hero bow until god knows when.

Not sure about the first two, but FE3 and 5 let you switch items around, and 5 had some other pretty unique methods of item management. The GBA ones and onward have all not only let you freely distribute items, but do so through a centralized storage facility. Well, I think, I don't really remember for PoR. Were you just able to trade easily without having any storage?

Yes. It sucks before you get storage though. They give Ike too many swords. Which I guess is better than too few, but whatever.

Frosteey · October 2007

Attacking a real country-

Having conquered Verdane, Sigurd is ordered to remain on guard at Evans castle. Taking advantage of the break in battle, he weds Diadora. The hearts of old men across the nation are broken.

The good times and peaceful moments are broken as well, when the King of Agustria is assassinated. He's succeeded by this jerk, who wants to take a page from the Verdane playbook and invade Grandbell while its troops are away. Shagall here must be a solid ten years younger than Verdane's king, so maybe he'll have better luck.

Eltoshan can't believe Shagall is pushing for war at a time like this. Surely, if he speaks to him in person, he'll stop building up the forces. Lachesis warns Eltoshan that rumor has it Shagall was the man behind the former king's assassin, and he's a power hungry fool who won't be talked into reason. Eltoshan, being the loyal knight-type he is, can't believe his current lord would be capable of such a devious act, and makes way for the capitol, while leaving a select few knights behind to protect the castle, you know, just in case.

Negotiotaions break down quickly, and Shagall has Eltoshan thrown in the dungeon. Really, I can't even peg the guy as evil on this one, Eltoshan pretty much deserved it. You idiot.

Rainbows had absolutely no influence on Shagall's decisions to kill the king and attempt to conquer Grandbell. He's just...no, seriously, what the hell are you doing listening to a guy who looks like that?

The bad news reaches Lachesis, who is devastated. Looks like it's a good idea those knights stayed behind, because Elliot and Herhein have been eyeing Eltoshan's place, and his sister, for quite a while. Eltoshan's imprisonment marks the perfect opportunity to move on in.

Lachesis wishes Elliot would stop hitting on her, because, well, he's not as cool, or handsome, or awesome, or strong, or super duper, as her brother Eltoshan. But really, who is? Raven and Priscilla, move over, Lachesis out-incests you all over the place.

Being a gigantic loser's never stopped Elliot before though, well, if you ignore his poor showing in Verdane. It's off to Nodion to take Lachesis by force.

Not even marriage will stop Sigurd from roaming the continent, saving damsels in peril. The babe rescue squad will intercept.

But, hey, there's no situation so urgent that there's no time for a trip to town to repair some weapons and spend a bit of time in the arena. Lachesis will understand, I'm sure.

Opponent number eight is a special dude.

You can tell because he brings up a dialagoe box when you defeat him. Apparently, it's, like, the first time Holin's ever lost in the arena. He'd been fighting for the money, but now he sees that true power doesn't come from that path. He's right, I was in it for the experience points.

Anyway, he decides to tag along with the group, to see what's up with all my strong dudes, and experience some real combat for a change.

Oh boy, Holin, you've got Odo blood just like Ayra. I bet you're super rad! Hailing from Isaac gives you a higher chance of being awesome than having blue hair. There's no meteor slash for Holin, but he does have moonlight hit, which fully negates enemy defense when it activates. Not nearly as completely broken and flashy as meteor slash, but I guess it'll get the job done.

Probably can't do anything more here, so let's get on over to Nodion and save us a woman.

As everyone's heading out of the castle, Ethrin worries about how much Sigurd fawns over Diadora. He's always so nervous about her being in danger. Diadora reminds Ethrin that she should be wearing the pants in the family, and tells her to stop worrying about everything all the time. To try and help Ethrin man up, she gives her a Light Sword. It's a pretty strong sword, that can act as a magical attack from distance. Ethrin may actually kill something now, but her healing still sucks.

The nice sword isn't the only surprise.

Adan! What's this!? You're actually leaving the castle, what's going on? (Don't worry, though, this by no means will lead to his participation in battle.)

The race is on to get to Lachesis.

But this guy'll stay back and twirl his mustache. Guess he's not interested in women...

Oh, those are standard FE arbalests. They shoot at range, but generally suck. And they disappear when you kill the operators, so there'll be no fun times for Jamuka.

This guy unleashes some bandits to loot some villages in the center of Agustria. He's an absolute bastard who deserves to die. Those towns contain awesome stuff, and they're going to go down quickly. Reckless charging into the face of danger and multiple enemy squadrons? I have no choice... Thanks, pal.

Then this guy gets a dialogue box just to say he's going to sit around not doing anything for a while. I'm going to kill him extra hard for wasting my time reading this.

As before, Eltoshan's knights are far superior to Elliot's failures. The only problem is they're all attacking the exact same guy, Eve, on the left, there. If Eve and his brothers survive the map, then they've got a present for Lachesis. Needless to say, the douchery of these guys attacking him is not going down very well with me (I had to restart twice because he died before I'd even made it to the castle).

I foolishly throw my mounted units into the fray, completely disregarding tactical formation. These stupid knight brothers and those stupid bandits assure me that my men who can't keep up are abject failures and wastes of time.

You're a waste of time too! Do you know how difficult this was?

...I mean, Sigurd's here to save you, baby. It's what he do.

Lachesis is thankful, but Sigurd's no hottie like her brother. She'll still join up to help out the rescue operation, though.

Except she's not going to help at all. Level 2? What? It looks like the damsels in distress I need to save follow a pattern of continually getting weaker and weaker. I guess the next person I'll have to save will be Mideel.

And her knights follow her around, attacking any enemies who so much as approach her general vicinity. Guys, it's a kind gesture, but it seems like you're just trying to get out of giving Lachesis her present. Really, you don't need to go to such extremes. More importantly, you're stealing my kills and experience.

Lachesis will be staying even farther from the battle than Adan to assure these things do not happen.

Ethrin uses that newfangled sword of hers to mangle Elliot up real good. She gets his silver spear, which she can't use. Really, the sound tactical decision would have been for Cuan to get it, but sound tactical decisions have no place on this map.

Those damn bandits, they're still moving, and I'm not even getting close to the villages.

There's not even time to mop up. Just keep moving. Cuan, be a man, this screenshot doesn't even show the eight guys you're about to rush into.

Sigurd catches up and kills the leader of the defense squad. It was a battle determined by fate. They held conflicting ideals. Sigurd, saving all the women, and Mustache, ignoring them. Sigurd gets a return ring from the guy, which lets him return to the home base from anywhere on the map. You kind of have to wonder why this guy didn't use it as I was slowly murdering him.

Normally, I'd wonder too, but those damn bandits don't really allow time for contemplation...

Finally make it to my goal, and have Sigurd kill Elliot's pop, while getting a barrier ring (MDef+), and conquering the castle. But the big story here is that there's no time to kill the castle sentry on the left there, and he disappears when the castle is taken. A kill and experience, forever gone, all to make it to those bandits on time. Fatty, you will pay for releasing them.

Far, far behind the current battlefied, Deu catches up to Lachesis. He, uh...gives her a thief sword, for apparently no reason. It steals money when attacking, just like he does, but it's ridiculously heavy and has crappy damage. So, while I can't thank him for being randomly helpful again, at least he's putting some effort into it, unlike all the other dumb munchkins we've seen so far.

Speak of the devil. Oifaye has his cameo appearance to tell people things they already know.

Shagall tells fatty to engage Sigurd's forces. Hey, remember when you put Eltoshan in prison? Well, I forgive you. Giving me the chance to kill fatty more than makes up for it.

But not everybody's satisfied with his jiggly mobilization...

A couple of his mercenaries agree that the whole time-limit bandit thing was really a jerk move. Volts (the leader with a decidely unawesome cranium accessory) and Beowulf wax poetic on the fickle way of the mercenary, wondering if perhaps one day the two will fight for opposing sides. Beowulf dreads such a turn of events, as Volts is, like, the strongest guy ever.

It still doesn't justify the hat...

Meanwhile, those bandits aren't getting bored of the pillaging, and I'm still not really that close.

Thankfully, this bard seems to agree with me on the awesome stuff in the villages. Levin tells the townspeople that he's gonna romp on some bandits. The villagers realize that his metrosexual lifestyle will probably scare those ruffians off, and wish him well. Heck, even I'd be scared of a head wrap that fancy.

But Sylvia the dancer won't let Levin go off on his own. She combines her powers of sexual innuendo and being a young teenager to convince Levin to take her along.

Around this time, some pegasus knight shows up looking for a prince.

What?

And those mercenaries come back after a few moments of absence. I think he heard someone making fun of his hat.

Cuan and Finn decide now's probably a good time to have a chat. Cuan thinks Finn's gained enough experience to grasp the destiny of his blue hair, and gives him a hero spear. I giggle in glee.

After what seems like an eternity, Adan reaches his destination. Like Lex before him, he decides to stroll out into a small extension of land in the middle of a body of water for no reason in particular. But Lex just strolled out into a measly river. Adan's heading out for the ocean, so this must be good.

And it is. After dwelling on how useless he is for a while (really), Adan stumbles upon a pursuit ring. This means that even though he doesn't have the skill which allows a character to attack twice if they have sufficient speed, he can still attack twice if he meets the speed conditions. Too bad doesn't actually have enough speed to ever attack twice. Or the ability to attack once, for that matter, as he's never fought anybody. I'm sure Lex'll be happy with the ring, even though it will cost basically all of his money to buy it.

In the several days it takes for Adan to get down there, the mercenaries make their way to our group.

And Volts summarily kicks the crap out of Cuan, nearly killing him. Okay, maybe he wasn't kidding about being awesome.

But the tides are ever so slightly turned when Beowulf is bribed to switch sides. He just takes 10,000 Gold from anyone on your side, and turns traitor. Super awesome.

Having learned the value of pursuing experience points, Holin finds the inner strength to vanquish Volts, who was holding an elite ring, which grants double experience to the wearer. What a bad day to run into a revitalized Holin.

Beowulf heads down to hit on Lachesis. Her bodyguards don't seem to mind.

And Deu does the same with Sylvia. And unlike Levin, it doesn't even make him a pedophile, what luck.

Holin, on the other, wants nothing to do with romance.

He thirsts for experience points. Fatty falls, and there is much rejoicing.

Levin ruins the mood by chastising Sigurd for the war, and telling him to cease it, citing the hardships of the peasants, the true victims. Sigurd agrees, saying he's willing to attempt to speak to Shagall to work things out. But, luckily, Levin stops Sigurd from making the exact same mistake Eltoshan did to start this whole mess, assuring him there can be no reasoning with someone like Shagall.

Despite Sigurd's absurd stupidity (really, you just talked to Lachesis, and you still don't get what a bad idea negotiating with the guy would be?), Levin sees him for a noble and fair man, and offers his assistance.

Sigurd then makes his way to capture fatty's castle. He recieves a visitor as soon as he's through.

Him again? Apparently he didn't get the memo that Sigurd's off the market. Through with old men for good.

Amidst his tears of rejection, the old dude imparts tales from the royal court of Grandbell.
The nobles Reptor and Langobalt are spreading rumors regarding treason by Sigurd, Cuan, and Eltoshan, based on Sigurd's sheltering of Isaac, the prince of Grandbell's enemy nation.
On the brighter side, the war with Isaac is drawn to a close, and the prince of Grandbell along with Sigurd's father, Byron, are expected to return soon.

Additionally, he tangents off into the story of a woman named Cigyun (this being the same woman Sunshine and Rainbows were talking about, the one who broke the ever so important chastity rule), and her relationship with a duke and Grandbell's prince, and how she's the mother of Alvis.

Maybe a bit over halfway through the map, and some level 15 foreshadowing means this'll be time for a break.

I really blanked out on the pictures for a couple things...

Basically all the important stuff with Levin and Sylvia. I can get around to Sylvia's dancing, but I went on and on about the bandits, only to completely gloss over their destruction...

Xenogears of Bore · October 2007

Long lost brothers? He also looks a bit like Nick Bruiser...

Man alive I love this LP thread. You are awesome for doing this.

I've never played this title before, how does saving work? Is it auto like most of the recent ones or do you save at the beginning of missions?

Frosteey · October 2007

If they just autosaved all the time, I'm thinking there would be some real world FE-related deaths from trying to keep units alive through these maps. Well, I guess there's actually a way you can revive characters, maybe three or four times if you really devote some effort to it.

You can save at the beginning of any turn, as long as none of your characters have taken action. Maybe a bit minorly abusable, but even saving all the time, there's plent of situations where you could save yourself into a situation that's still going to probably kill someone even on a reset.

Personally, I usually save slightly before or after every castle capture, treating each little stage of the map as a separate level, in a sense.

Frosteey · October 2007

In the wake of the fat one-

It only took conquering half the country before this fellow realized maybe I'm super serious about that warning of giving him a double portion of bleeding to death.

Inaccessible arbalests? And I thought unleashing bandits was a jerk move.

Shagall fills Fury's head with dirty lies. He says the prince of Silesia, Levin, is being held prisoner by Sigurd at Evans castle. Well, for being such an idiot, listening to those cult members and all, the guy's making out to be a surprisingly competent bad guy.

The pegasus knights are off to Evans to find the prince, and Shagall sends a few knights to Nodion, as well.

In the subsequent moving away from Nodion to keep her stupid bodyguards alive, Lachesis is approached by the dirty, dirty traitor who has just recently been warmly welcomed into the Sigurd Army family. She's initially put off by his rough mannerisms, but when he mentions that he's an old friend of Eltoshan's, she automatically gets the hots for him (Like oh my god, maybe he's touched Eltoshan. That is so hot). He offers to train her, and he's apparently the single greatest tutor ever, as he increases her strength and skill by a full 33%, which...well, means only two points, because she was so terrible to begin with. She gets a point of speed, too.

I feel compelled to reward Beowulf for this great feat, so he'll get to spend a lot more time with Lachesis from now on.

Meanwhile, Sylvia works her magic on Sigurd. Hell, even if he weren't taken, Sigurd's tastes range about as far from young girls as you can get. Just give it up, Sylvia. Maybe if you could grow a nice, long grey beard. Yeah, that would be nice... Wait, no. He is through with them for good. Seriously.

Alec, on the other hand, makes no effort to hide his attraction.

Meh, whatever it takes for my men to get their minds off the fact that they're getting their horribly beaten.

The pegasus knights are approaching Evans, so I send back Levin to see what's up. He might just be the guy they're looking for. Hopefully I'm not burned for betting on this long shot.

Jamuka heads back, too, because it's not in our best interest to kill all of the assailants (something any other non-bow using defender would likely accomplish in melee combat).

We want to keep the one with a portrait alive, so Levin can talk to her.

Surprisingly enough, Levin's the prince, all right. He fled Silesia to escape the crown. Apparently, his taking the throne would likely cause some turmoil and military conflict with his uncles, who want the crown for themselves. (And his current hat is way cooler than any crown could be anyway) He gives some Eltoshan style ranting on how the people suffer in such an event, and says he doesn't want those problems. Fury pleads and pleads, even going so far as to play the 'your mom' card. Levin relents, and promises to return, but not just yet. He's busy with Sigurd's gang, which he notes is filling out quite nicely with the ladies, which can only improve with the pending addition of Fury.

Fury gladly decides to accompany Levin. Oh boys, the only flying unit in Sigurd's army.

The main force has finally broken through the the castle, through a constaint hail of arrows.

The bastard even pulls out a sleep staff, making Cuan immobile for five whole turns. He's definitely surpassed the fat bandit unleasher in annoyance factor, now.

Ayra kills the bastard as hard as she possibly can. He drops a silence staff, which will be a pain to transfer, because it's really expensive. But I only have two people who can use it (Edin and Diadora), and one is still incapable of combat, while the other is worryingly close to the same status.

While this is all going down, Edin drags along Finn to go liberate those towns of their goodies. The most important thing is the bargain ring this little punk gives her (let's be honest, it's probably stolen, I don't think there's a kid who isn't a thief on this continent. Little jerks certainly haven't ever earned anything in their miserable useless lives. It's not like Edin is even giving a second thought to illegal goods by this point, though).

On hindsight, it was moderately dumb to send Finn with her. The hero lance would've been really helpful not being dragged through a forest following a woman who was talking to children and old men rather than, you know, fighting dudes (preferably also children and young men).

And Edin fills her purse about halfway through the trip. Great... I don't want to bother having someone else make the long trip to collect the rest of the money, so I'll just send Fury up to collect later.

On the bright side, Edin's now officially fallen for Finn. She'll warp him to the battle, trying her best to mitigate my poor decision.

For the first time in a long while, Sigurd will wait a while before capturing the castle, giving everyone a chance to heal up. Equally as importantly, it opens up the opportunity to take out some frustration on those jerks on the cliff.

Afterwards, Fury feels compelled to hang around Azel. I hope she realizes what an absolute pain it's going to be to keep the two together.

Sigurd finally gets his lazy self to the castle, only to be greeted by Oifaye, who delivers yet again with his unimportant and unsurprising information.

Becoming more and more desperate, Shagall calls on the greatest warrior remaining in Agustria.

Hmm...if this generic guy's the best he's got, things aren't looking terribly good.

He's also pretty pissed at Rainbows for giving him advice which has amounted to range somewhere in the neighborhood of terrible to horrendous.

Rainbows is joined by Sunshine, who delivers him the monthly Cult of Loptuous newsletter. Wait, that's not Sunshine.

I feel like such an idiot. Sorry, guy. Honest mistake.

Anyway, looks like the prince of Grandbell's been assassinated. I guess he was the descendant of Narga, the god in direct opposition of Loptuous, and that's not an awesome thing at all. I almost wonder why these guys even need to resurrect the guy, they apparently rock at murdering people all on their own.

In Verthomer, a province of Grandbell, Alvis, as Cigyun's son, has agreed to help the guys out (nothing's quite as persuasive as having half of your face cloaked in darkness, it seems). I guess it looks like Azel made a good call on this one. Obviously, it wasn't irrational fear and being a big baby at all, he's just got a sixth sense for these things. Right?

The cult still needs some balloons and a pinata before they can get the real party set up. Oh, and Alvis's sister/half sister, Cigyun's daughter.

Honestly...how can she suck so horribly?

Unphased by the assorted shady robed figures back in the castle, the generic hope of Agustria sets out.

He's actually surprisingly competent, wielding a knight killer spear, which criticals mounted units.

But horses with wings don't count.

Fury also has this conversation with Sigurd, whereupon he learns of Levin's heritage. Surprisingly enough, it looks like Oifaye hadn't shared any of the glaring hints, or repeated the conversations revealing this information that took place not even ten minutes ago.

And the one time it might've actually helped out, too. Oh well, don't give up yet, buddy, I'm sure you'll have a breakthrough of genuine usefulness one of these days.

Anyway, it seems Silesians just have a thing for stupid leaders, so she agrees to lend Sigurd her services just as Levin did.

She also goes to talk to this old guy. I guess she delivered a steamy message from Sigurd or something, because he gives her an iron cutter, which criticals heavy armors.

In any case, one of the interesting things about the generic hope is that his squad has some troubadours.

Ahaha~

Even more comically inept than my own. Two damage? They make Deu look good.

Well, the trek up to Agustria castle is surprisingly easy, from there.

Lex dominates a bit, taking Shagall's wand, accruing some more funds for that pursuit ring. Sadly enough, though, Shagall's apparently not dead.

Looks like Eltoshan saved him.

...

Man...

Well, Eltoshan's surprised that Sigurd's taken over the entire nation at this point, but Sigurd promises that he'll leave once things have settled down. A year, tops. Eltoshan warns Sigurd that if he fails to keep this promise, Eltoshan will gladly fell him in battle in service of his totally awesome lord.

But I'm sure a situation like that'd never pan out.

Oh, yeah, those knights.

They give Lachesis a knight ring. Now she can move after attacking, as though she were mounted. It's monumentally worthless on her monumentally worthless self. But really, thanks, guys.

MrBlarney · October 2007

I just noticed that the thread title is [Together We Play]. Nice. :^:

Fire Emblem 4 is so very different from the more modern FE games, huh? It's quite interesting to see how things are developing.

Frosteey · October 2007

Quite a bit different, yeah, but that's one of the things I like about the series. Keep the strong casts and the majority of the gameplay, but still make every game different in a few fairly major ways. I mean, FE5 takes place during FE4, and it's vastly different in a lot of ways.

Really, the transition from 6 to 7 is the only time they've not innovated somewhere along the line. I've remained fairly in the dark about 10, so I can only hope they've done something new there. It's bad enough with stupid Sothe...the rest better deliver.

Xenogears of Bore · October 2007

10 is a lot like a pimped out version of 9 to be honest. Kind of like 7 is to 6. It's huge though, and has a bit more variety.

Lenore03 · October 2007

So did you take down Fatty with just Holin? If so, then his skill is quite the keeper, given that he had a weapon type and level weakness.

And are you going to get some support convos with him and Ayra?

Frosteey · October 2007

I usually use multiple characters to kill bosses. Probably 3/4 of them are heavy armors, so the only people capable of killing them in one round are Ayra or Holin if they activate their skills, or one of the mages capable of criticaling once or twice.

Holin actually couldn't kill that guy in one round, even. Looks like he has 46-ish hit points, and even with his skill activating, Holin'd only do 31+8 damage. I think he took him on a counterattack from 25-ish HP, which is still pretty impressive, as I think he was the only character capable of doing it at that point aside from maybe Azel, because he was my only mage at the time.

Holin is one of the two main options for Ayra, and his conversation with her is at the beginning of the next chapter. But if you do it, you can't do the one with the other stud muffin she can get. And I'm going with the other one.

So, I'm going to end up only doing two of the 'predestined' pairs-Ayra+Stud, and Lachesis+Beowulf. Mostly because I've already done about half of the possible pairings in the game, and the conversations aren't really that interesting. At least, a summary wouldn't do much for them, without capturing the atmosphere. The real exception to this is Lachesis and Beowulf's convos. That and Ayra's pairings give her an item almost too good to pass up.

Terrendos · October 2007

I've been enjoying reading through this, but I'm having trouble keeping track of all the characters. It might be helpful if you were to make a big list with each character's picture next to their name for quick reference.

Mith · October 2007

Heh, I saw Edin/Finn and kind of figured this playthrough wasn't being structured for convenience above all.

Frosteey · October 2007

Mith wrote: »

Heh, I saw Edin/Finn and kind of figured this playthrough wasn't being structured for convenience above all.

Yeah, it was pretty painful doing that. I really should have just waited for the end of the map before sending Edin up to those villages. Since I had to keep Lachesis+Beowulf away from the battle, that left me with Ethrin with a heal staff as my only means of healing for what is a pretty difficult map, and robbed myself of two pretty decent units (Finn especially with his hero spear).

But, I'm thinking even with losing out on the hero bow, Finn+Edin should really work out pretty well. I'm already almost positive it'll be better than Edin+Azel, at least.

Okay, and I added a character compendium to the OP. The only thing it's really missing now is Shanan and Oifaye (like anybody cares), the rest of the cult members (as though they were terribly original), the king of Verdane, and prince Kult of Grandbell. None of them are terribly prominent to the story, anyway, and they don't have art from the same place I got everyone else's, so they're out.

I'll get a gameplay update for dancing, and the Chapter 2 compilation video up in a little bit.

Xenogears of Bore · October 2007

Well, I hope to god that remaking of one/three for the DS leads eventually to 4-6. Four is particularly radtacular. 5 also deserves credit as being the absolute last SNES game release, and also being particularly bad assed.

Frosteey · October 2007

Dancing-Why it kicks floaty birds in the face.

Okay, so here's everyone's favorite little green haired girl. She's following Levin around and pestering him, as usual. He tried to run away, but didn't quite make it far enough. Sylvia catches up to him and chooses the topmost scratchmark command.

It's quite a bit less provocative than advertised. But Levin doesn't seem to mind so much.

He's un-grayed out, and full of life. Now he can actually run away from Sylvia. What was she thinking?

Wait, what is she thinking here? I think she's losing it.

Holy wow, I think I'm losing it. She dances up four people, every single time? That's the most ridiculous f#?king thing I've ever heard.

Eat it, Ninian.

Chapter 2 compilation-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjD2FYw-Naw

I really like this song, too. My crappy framerate captures really don't do the cape-flipping action justice.

Xenogears of Bore · October 2007

Not Tethys, what am I thinking. The Heron dude from PoR when transformed does. All Tethys does is look hot.

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