Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War - I’ve played every game since 6, so I feel like I should complete my FE experience at some point. Because I already played the remakes of 1-3, I’m not gonna bother with them, but I’ve decided to try 4!
A few impressions:
PC balance:
-Sigurd is really really good. He’s like the best parts of Quan and Finn put in a blender to make a fantastic PC. Having Sigurd required to seize all the gates make the game a little harder, but not as bad as it could be with an infantry unit.
-Pursuit / Follow-up is an overpowered skill. It pretty much makes every unit with it good and every unit without it feel underwhelming. Lex and Quan manage to be decent anyway despite it because of high STR/DEF
-Azel seems like he should be really good, but with the dominance of horses, he often fell behind.
-Lewyn seemed a little underwhelming and then he got Foresti and HOLY SHIT THIS CHARACTER. So much dodge tanking.
-Lachesis also peaks late due to her overpowered promoted class.
-Noish is terrible. Alec is better but still not great. Definitely a bad showing for the green/red cav.
-I let Arden die when he was Astra’d by enemy Ayra. And nothing of value was lost.
Gameplay:
-The maps in this game are holy shit big, and there is way too much walking between places and other things that do not involve meaningful combat. I think this is the #1 problem with the game.
-Some of the formations are very tricky and interesting to deal with. I think that’s when the game is at its best.
-Chapter 3 and 5 are both fairly enjoyable on this front, although not perfect (those Meteor users vs. my flierless team is a bad time). I really enjoyed the assault of Eldie (died once to him) and Travant’s army of Horseslayers. (Sadly, Lewyn’s evade was TOO POWERFUL for them to attack him.
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-Chapter 2 and 4 are miserable and require so much moving from place to place. Chapter 4 also has the ridiculous bridge thing and the cinematic battle which went on for so long. I know it’s partially an excuse for you to get your characters back, but they could have just made that part of the map adjacent to the previous one to start with. Stop wasting my time.
-Legendary weapons are so so dumb.
Plot:
-The game comes off much more as a war documentary / story than most of the other Fire Emblems, which go more for the anime-style rivalries and conflicts.
-I feel like I need a flowchart to figure out WTH is going on and who is related to who
-You can tell very accurately who will join the party and who is evil by their portrait. People who look attractive are PCs, people who scowl and are generally ugly don’t.
-there is a lot of reference to rape in this game.
-Eldigan is unceremoniously killed by Chagall in what later ends up being a harbinger of things to come.
-THE LAST CHAPTER IS SO DARK. Arvis, while not a great or compelling character, is such a magnificent bastard that you can’t help but admire him. This game definitely delves into GoT-tier of killing nice people. Also, Quan and Ethlyn is sooooo horrible.
-Honestly, the game’s writing is a little flat. Lots of interesting setting ideas and plot threads, but the writing is just not very deft. I don’t feel like the characters really jump out at me. Arvis / Eldigan / Sigurd are fine but none reach anywhere close to exceptional.
Other stuff:
-Art and music are both fine but not great.
The Thracia phase music in Chapter 5 is weirdly whimsical for the extremely dour tone they are going for with the arrival of the Thracian forces. I found it very jarring.
I finished Gen 1 and the first two chapters of Gen 2. Shanan has turned into a bishounen, Oifey is now a porn star. I have an amazing amount of sword users in my party. I ended up letting Dermott and Arthur die because Chapter 7 is brutally long (65 turns!) and therefore I missed Tinny. Oh well. None of them have Pursuit so who cares! I didn’t delve into eugenics so my characters are suboptimal. Oh well!
Also, does Chapter 8 have a CHAGALL PALETTE SWAP? That's really weird.