Author Topic: What games are you playing 2019?  (Read 42904 times)

Dark Holy Elf

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #175 on: July 11, 2019, 03:39:42 PM »
Now playing Vandal Hearts 2, new (for me) PSX games in 2019 here we go. It's... pretty good? Better than the first game certainly. Plotwise, the child arc had some generally solid stuff (outside of Goddard's fufufufufu) though has been slower since, and Joshua seems like a good character so far. Gameplaywise there is very little which is more satisfying than moving a character behind an enemy who has just moved to attack you and stabbing him in the back while he ineffectively stabs the air you used to occupy, and I like the character customization, though a lot of the interface is certainly slow and clunky. Anyway it's not going to be an all-time great but it's proving to be a good use of time.

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NotMiki

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #176 on: July 11, 2019, 04:49:06 PM »
fuck. why haven't i played this sooner?

it's so good!
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DragonKnight Zero

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #177 on: July 12, 2019, 04:11:16 AM »
Felt like writing words about Trials of Mana.

  Though I did stop to grind for cash here and there, for the most part blew through the God-best dungeons and entered Pedan at Lv 32.  I'm fairly confident that some grinding is expected.  Most equipment are stat sticks as it is so as long as I had the best available body armor, leaving something for later isn't a big deal between Charlotte's MT healing, Riesz stat-downs, and Kevin beating stuff up.  Also, I forgot to Flammie glitch Kevin though the main effect of doing so is merely beating stuff up faster.
  Got lucky and has all my desired class change items by Lv 34.  Chose to be impatient and charged forth into the final area.  Zable Fahr fell at Lv 35; a lucky Papa Poto claw drop helped Kevin punch it out decently quick.  Deathjester was challenged and beaten at Lv 36.  His physicals doing 90ish a shot is a bit intimidating to my 450-500 max HP.  I did win the damage race long before I could get worried about Charlotte's MP.  Ice saber Kevin punches real good.
  This game really seems to hate mages sometimes.  After the volcano, the next 3 bosses all counter magic and high level techs.  Most of the God-beats have a counter for techs as well, sometimes independent of a magic counter.  That doesn't come up much with this physical oriented team but it's a noticeable feature when magic is already nerfed from the last game by pausing all action (no free melee damage while something is getting hurt by spells).

Dark Holy Elf

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #178 on: July 12, 2019, 07:19:47 PM »
There are enough places where magic is super-useful to make up for that IMO, either for ripping through randoms quickly or hitting bosses who fly / go physical immune etc. Angela is generally regarded as a pretty strong PC.

High-tier techs are generally a bit more questionable, granted; the ST ones are basically pointless IIRC.

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Luther Lansfeld

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #179 on: July 14, 2019, 04:52:42 AM »
Nier: Automata - Finished, got endings A-E and ended up deleting my save file…

There’s a lot to unpack with this game.

First, let’s state what I think everyone can agree on. The music/visuals/voice acting/dialogue are all so so so good.

Gameplay is really really fun. At first I was trying to limit my item use by just relying on the regen chip, but Eve broke me of that habit due to being very very tricky. I think I derived a lot of extra enjoyment from the combat because of my somewhat fake constraint on healing in the first 2/3 of the game.  After that, all bets were off. I decided to channel the power of hate and rage toward the robots and went full cheese on them. Overclock + Auto-Item + regen was basically the end of the game. I also really got a kick out of the space shooter sections in the mech. I was at first lukewarm toward the hacking gameplay, but over time I warmed up to it, especially after getting good.

That being said, I think the game’s biggest flaw gameplaywise is that it has a very wonky difficulty curve. The beginning is just brutal because you can’t save for the first hour and the game just kinda tosses you into it without being able to buy healing items. Then the game is too easy for a long while, and then toward the late stages of A/B path, it gets harder again, cumulating at the final boss who is fairly brutal. The third path is also really hard in general, although the final dungeon is a little less hard than some of the stuff leading up to it. A few of frustrating bits in the game: 1. The part where 9S gets statused out in Chapter 11 as he’s trying to save the YoRHa from being attacked right before they all become mind-controlled. 2. The Soul Box, where there was a huge amount of hacking, no save point throughout, and then I died to the boss and got thrown way back. (I ended up leaving and saving after doing all of the hacking, but I only died once.). 3. The final form with Eve where you are staggering. I struggled with that a lot.

Gameplay is a bit same-y but I feel like the game does a good enough job at varying up things that it never feels too stale even with a relatively straightforward combat system. <3

Plotwise… man. It is damn good and really makes you think. It has some really good character work with 2B and 9S, and I really enjoyed watching 9S’s descent into madness and nihilism. There’s a lot of mysteries to uncover and every mystery makes the world make a little more sense. I really liked the way that the characters interact with the world and slowly begin to discover things about the setting as time goes on. I think it does a good job of setting building with pretty much every dungeon in A/B route in particular. The Bunker stuff and the part where the Bunker is hacked definitely does a good job of building psychological tension. Adam and Eve are pretty good as well, especially on 9S’s path, and I liked Pascal in general as well; I think a purely sympathetic machine does the game a service.

I enjoyed how Devola and Popola’s backstory tied into the first Nier, and it explains some stuff about the game, although isn’t tied to it too much. I know some people complain about A2 not having as much as the other two, and I agree, but I found her pretty effective. To be honest, she is the heroine we needed after everything that happened in the game at that point, and I LOVE her interaction with Pod.

On the other hand, I feel like the game is a little bit less clear on what exactly motivates the machines to be so malevolent toward the end of the game. In particular, I thought it was weird that the machine had so much malice for Pascal. I did like the very brief throwaway line idea that the machines kept around the androids for the sake of evolutionary pressure (to be honest, a very interestingly logical thing to do) but the game doesn’t really run with that or any other explanation to explain why they are so needlessly cruel, especially to 9S (21O fight and 2B clones fight being two examples of extreme douchiness). I guess part of the point is that the things that the machines do are meaningless, but that’s boring. The themes remind me a bit of I Have No Mouth and I must Scream; the idea of this obsessively evil machine that likes suffering, but I'm not even sure if that machine thingie does! It’s also weird how after all of the struggles, you kill the machine consciousness with some small tricks and beating up a big robot. I dunno.

The endings were a little brief, but I enjoyed the E ending even if the shooter part was totally nutso. Hahaha.



9/10. Had fun. Would play again. And I would definitely listen to the soundtrack again.
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Niu

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #180 on: July 16, 2019, 08:40:05 AM »
On the question of why the machines are violent: that's actually their natural state.
The truth is the opposite of what the game made you believe. Machines are in a malfunctioning like state when they are showing intelligence and human like behavior.
By the end game, they just revert back to normal when N2 is exercising her influence.

Luther Lansfeld

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #181 on: July 19, 2019, 12:28:17 AM »
Rayman Legends - Partway through the fourth world at this point. The game is breezy and fun to piddle around with; after playing harder platformers like Celeste it seems pretty easy (not that easy, of course! It's still tough! But I feel a bit desensitized to its toughness). It's a fluffy, enjoyable game but nothing more than that.

Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest - Replaying this in anticipation of 3H. I think this is my fourth run through Conquest and it's always a blast to play. I just finished Sophie's prologue and now I am doing the Kitsune map. Now, if 3H is similar to this game except with a plot that is actually good, wouldn't that be a blessing? (I'll believe it when I see it.)
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SnowFire

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #182 on: July 19, 2019, 08:33:23 PM »
Persona 4 Golden

Shuffle Time - P4 vanilla may have had the right idea with only handing out Personas here.  The "upgrade a skill" card is pretty busted, notably.  I got skill upgrades on my physical persona (Kin-ki) going to Brave Blade, then to God's Hand, at the Secret Lab.  Well that's a thing.  The Emperor "Persona +1 level" also helps keep old Persona relevant for a nice long time.

Shadow Naoto - Okay, in terms of fight design?  A-.  Spamming Mamudoon a lot would be lame-o. You want a smart tactician feel that wins via intelligence / trickiness, so give her good AI that aggressively attempts to hit elemental weaknesses and some realization that Buffing Is Good, but less raw brute power.  In terms of actual difficulty?  lololololol, at least as long as you don't make the Poor Life Decision to stick a Persona with an elemental weakness on Yu.   But you have plenty of solid choices for personas that don't have one, or skill inheritance, so RIP.  The Heat Riser One Mores are a nice thought, but nothing stops you from immediately re-applying Tarunda, which means Naoto ain't never killing you through your healing, even if she gets a little tankier & dodgier.

Skill cards- While on the above note, Marie's skill card prices are a little wacky.  Tarunda, maybe the best spell in the game excluding late-game cheaty stuff like Debilitate?  Oh no big deal, that's 5,000 yen.  Bufudyne, a staple boring attack spell?  That's 50,000 yen, we tossed a 0 at the end.   P5 making skill card duplication essentially cost the same for any card was probably fairer, even if it was pretty weak as a result.

Kunino-Sagiri - Makarakarn / Makaracorn makes a mockery of the one potentially dangerous phase of the fight, the Quad Convergence phase.  Reflect Yu when you don't know what the element is, then reflect whoever's weak to that element once you do.

P4 Quests & Rainy Day drops - Kinda don't like how this incentive to re-run old dungeons combines with the XP curve not being very tilted makes it very easy for the main character to go overlevel.  Poor Shadow Naoto, a guide said a drop happened on a certain floor, which was correct in P4 vanilla, but the enemy was on different floors in P4 Golden, so insert some pointless accidental grinding.  Even beating up the last dungeon's randoms seems to give decent XP unless you're really, REALLY overlevel, so for Kunino-Sagiri, Yu was L69, while everyone else was L60-63, quite a leap when level is the god stat.

Anyway, as a random takeaway: Teddie is quietly very good once his social link catches up and he learns some more spells, which is a little surprising after Morgana's stint as cast LVP in P5.  P4 doesn't hand out buffs / debuffs to many party members, or waits a long while to do so, while Teddie can lay down a fleet of buffs as a support which helps takes some heat off of Yu.  Cycle between Matarukaja, Marakukaja, Marakunda, & some backup healing, enjoy your broken buffs that'd been mildly constrained by requiring Yu's turn in the first half of the game.   I guess if you went into Kunino-Sagiri at a lower level, the reduced offense could mean that Teddie would run dry of MP before the fight finished, but you'll live.

Dark Holy Elf

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #183 on: July 23, 2019, 02:00:53 PM »
Vandal Hearts 2 - Beat. Final time was around 38 hours, levels were just over 50. Good game! I think it's fair to say it exceeded my expectations.


Gameplay: The core paradigm of the game, that every time you move one of your PCs, an enemy moves at the same time, is a fascinating one. If the enemy behaved highly randomly, it would be very frustrating. But instead, the enemy moves according to a relatively predictable set of rules. Which means the game very, very much rewards you looking over the enemies and predicting which one will move and what they will do, and then, either moving their intended target away from his or her current location, or doing something to mitigate or prevent the enemy's actions (e.g. killing them with someone who has more speed). You can check enemy skillsets and threat ranges so you really have basically all the information you need, and as I mentioned before, correctly predicting an enemy action and exploiting it is a great feeling. It also plays differently than pretty much any other SRPG I've played as a result, and strategies such as deliberately moving less useful PCs first to draw enemies forward and then slam them with a big AoE later in the round are definitely quite specific to this game. It's neat. I wouldn't want to see this in every SRPG but it makes this one a unique and fun experience.

The PC customization side of things is pretty fun too; you can basically choose what to make everyone and the decision of what type of armour to equip (flying = high mobility but low HP/MP; robe = very high MP but not good otherwise; light armour = the Mario of armours, pretty good everything but never the best, heavy = highest HP but low move/MP) is a good one, though I think heavy armour is a bit undertuned because mobility is so important and it didn't need the extra problem of low MP since even fighters like having that.

Weak points of the gameplay include the transfer system, which is just needlessly time-consuming; every time you get new equipment (which happens often) you need to transfer your skills to them, since skills exist on equipment and not the PCs themselves. I feel like this could have been streamlined for sure. The skills themselves are fun though. The game also is hopeless at designing "big" boss fights (including the final boss) since they get a small number of turns early in the round and often can't move (and don't have uber range) which is a crippling combination in this system! Fortunately those are relatively rare, most boss fights are the more standard type against a beefed-up human or two and these are generally a lot of fun (boss HP is in a good place, high enough to make blitzing a viable option but not an easy one like it often is in FFT).

Also, for most of the game VH2 feels like it has learned from FFT's mistakes and lets you back out and save/buy stuff/etc. between fights in one location. Then at the very end you have to do two fights in a row in a couple places, okay fine. Then the final dungeon you have to do four in a row, with no saving or formation screen or anything. This would be obnoxious if the final battle weren't somehow an even bigger joke than VH1's.


Music: Definitely a weak point in the game, the composition isn't great and the same few tracks are reused a lot. There are only like 5-6 battle tracks. The final boss doesn't even get a unique one. Definitely an issue it shares with VH1 from what I recall.


Plot/writing: It's interesting at least! One of the better PSX plots, but certainly not the best.

What it does well is that most of the major characters are at least a bit complicated. It's a breath of fresh air compared to the black and white world of Fire Emblem etc. Most of the villains, even if they are bad people, are quite human and the game wants you to know how they tick. With a couple misfires, I ended up quite liking most of the major players, for whatever role they ended up playing, although there are certainly no all-time favourites here.

(some spoilers from here, the big ones are in tiny text as usual)

Joshua is definitely someone I appreciate. While the game is (somewhat) about him, it never wants to lionize him or talk about him (i.e. you~~) as the best person ever. He is secretive, runs from responsibilities, and impulsive. Yet he still gets some good scenes (the one where he calls Nicola on his whiny bullshit stands out). Pratau is kinda the co-main with him, and the revelation that his plan to rescue the prince turns out to actually be a plan to manipulate him as a figurehead for a rebellion definitely blindsided me because it's such a cold thing for an "honourable" character to do. The rest of the PC cast is minor and quirky, I don't have too much to say about them. They're better than VH1's at least.

Among NPCs, I liked Mahler, who pretty much splices the noble, loyal enemy general trope with a religious fanatic who believes that mass murder is justified to save people's souls. His character arc humanizes fanatics/cultists in a way that is very uncommon in media. Nicola, pre-Chapter 4, is very effective: the game initially paints him as this hero but, even though his heart is in the right place, he sells out and becomes a puppet and a broken shell of a man, which is not the direction I expected but a good one. Clive is pretty minor but his "what the fuck, Joshua" moment in Chapter 2 is great. Ladorak is your standard Tywin/Marscal/Charlton/etc., not the best version of those but I still liked him, Jacob torches villages but believes he is doing the right thing and has people he cares about, again a more human take on a character who could easily just have gone the direction of the bloodthirsty monster. The game even manages to salvage one of its least sympathetic characters, Agatha, whose long game to free her country only to be tragically derailed by the children whose lives she'd ruined as pawns in her end goal caught me by surprise in a good way.

Sadly there are also some very, very big misses. One of them, unfortunately, is the main villain. While I like the political manipulator Godard and would have enjoyed seeing more of him, his motivation is batshit nonsense and his ability to mind-control seemingly anyone is stupid and unsatisfying (I can accept his mind control of Graud and Mohosa and maybe even then Blood Knights though it's certainly a disappointing end to their arcs, but if he's able to walk in and mind control Kleuth, his enemy, why doesn't he just mind control freaking everyone?). But an even worse miss is Yuri. St. Nirvath is a bad person I am having a crisis of faith the only solution is to KILL ALL MY FRIENDS AND BURN THE WORLD DOWN what the fuck that character is a disaster. Ugh. Nicola also being randomly alive in Chapter 4 makes no fucking sense, I get that Ladorak did something behind Godard's back and that's cool and makes sense but why would he save the life of Nicola whom he has no respect for? And Nicola magically becoming competent and generically boring but also irrelevant is really weird.

Adele is the one character I will throw into her own special camp, the character who oozes potential but it's not realized that well. She has worldview which serves as an excellent foil to that of Joshua and the potential for dramatic conflict there is awesome. And the broad strokes of what they go for is good! She and Godard use each other to accomplish their goals, eventually bringing her into conflict with Pratau and Joshua. But unfortunately they never really make good on the specifics, and in particular her reason for fighting you at the Cathedral at the end is complete nonsense: why is she helping defend Godard's pet project instead of facing you down at her own capital?

While the game's overall plot is pretty good with some flaws, it struggles with moment-to-moment writing. Some of this is the scene-writing/direction. VH2 uses these absolutely tiny text boxes that often only have space for around ten words, and spends a notable chunk of time loading each one. Worse, it sometimes breaks sentences apart with characters moving around in between them. Awkward! Wouldn't be a PSX game without some woes here. And while I like most of the broad strokes of the plot, there are obviously some specifics that don't work, or needed more filling in (many of which are already ranted about in spoiler text).

The game is obviously inspired by FFT and TO and you can see plenty of parallels (Adele is Catiua if she actually made a lick of sense, Ladorak and Agatha are reminiscent of Larg and Goltana, etc.). Plotwise it's pretty clearly better than TO although not as good as FFT imo. It's a shame since it's pretty close to being better I think.

Low 7/10 maybe? As far as the TO/FFT line of SPRGs go (i.e. not Fire Emblem or XCOM etc.) it sits third for me overall, behind just FFT and XF, and that's definitely a good place to be, even if it is a bit old and clunky in a few ways.

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VySaika

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #184 on: July 23, 2019, 05:30:09 PM »
River City Ransom Underground: Started this up on stream the other day, using Provie(the breakdancer) so far. It's...it's very NES. Just super NES. Though it does have more polish than the average NES game, of course. The writing, mostly in the form of random grunt lines as you beat them up, is actually pretty funny too. The worst part so far is there is no way to share resources amoung the cast. So a large playable cast with no way to let your char that you've done a lot of fighting with toss money to a lower level char so you can vary up the gameplay without shittons of grinding. Ah well, so it goes.

Dead Cells: Still smashing my face into this from time to time. Even one boss cell active increases the difficulty enough that I've made it to the final boss all of...twice. And won neither time. I need to get better about just running the fuck away through enemies instead of killing everything, but that's just so counter to how I tend to play that it's hard to make myself do.

My favorite weapons so far tend to be the IMpaler for melee and the Heavy Crossbow for ranged. Or "ranged" as it's a short range weapon, but does enough damage that you usually only need the one shot. Need to get better with shields, but it's hard to care much about them when I do not think they'll be good agains the final boss at ALL. Shields do make Time Keeper pretty free if you have good parry timing, at least? But on Hard, he's actually the least worrisome of the bosses anyway.
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Luther Lansfeld

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #185 on: July 24, 2019, 05:57:12 AM »
Fire Emblem Fates Conquest - Whew, the end of the game on Hard is pretty damn tough! Takumi’s map took me several tries, Hinoka took me a few, and Ryoma and his stupid spy shuriken/yumi bullshit took me too more than I am willing to talk about. Hahaha. Grefter’s fave is next. Nice eye makeup bruh.

Rayman Legends - Approaching the end, which is good because I know it’s gonna be sidelined soon.

FOUR dudes, ONE car - After the first two hours containing fuck all, finally we get to a meatier portion of the game. A major event occurs (for all that the cutscene without dialogue is really confusing) and we have some conflict and something catalyzed the plot. We met Cor, who for some reason thinks he can boss me around like I’m his pet or something. Explored a dungeon, and then we fought some evil spider. I almost died because I didn’t buy enough Potions like a foolish fool.

Now we’re going... somewhere, I’m sure my British butler knows
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Luther Lansfeld

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #186 on: July 26, 2019, 02:03:48 AM »
Fire Emblem Fates Conquest - Complete. Everyone in my army died to the final boss except Xander, Niles, and Corrin. Awesome.
When humanity stands strong and people reach out for each other...
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Cmdr_King

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #187 on: July 26, 2019, 02:21:14 AM »
...
so...
three way?
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Dark Holy Elf

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #188 on: July 27, 2019, 04:52:20 AM »
I have a Tiki expy in my head, and she is a sassy bitch.

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NotMiki

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #189 on: July 27, 2019, 05:11:52 AM »
...
so...
three way?

Look Xander only has one oversized dildocarrot
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Fudozukushi

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #190 on: July 27, 2019, 09:33:19 PM »
I have a Tiki expy in my head, and she is a sassy bitch.

Anyone would be bitchy living in the head of a dope like Byleth.

VySaika

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #191 on: July 27, 2019, 10:43:03 PM »
20XX: So this is a Megaman X Roguelike. Yeah. It's...actually pretty good. Normal mode is the right difficulty level for me(I have yet to beat all 8 bosses to see what lies beyond because the platforming gets harder and harder each stage). There's a buster girl and a sword boy, and they both have at least 2 alernate weapon forms(tri shot and 4-way shot for the girl, super long range spear and super short range holy shit multihit claws for the boy). I'd honestly reccomend this for the resident MMX fans in the DL, it's entertaining.

FE Triple Deluxe: It has brawling weapons and I really like the gimmick of them. Also multiple options for being a lesbian. 11/10 best FE ever.
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Fudozukushi

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #192 on: July 29, 2019, 01:42:44 AM »
Three Houses: This is going to take the rest of my life to play to completion.

Dark Holy Elf

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #193 on: August 30, 2019, 07:43:27 PM »
yessss we're back

Anyway I've played about 1.6 playthroughs of Fire Emblem: Three Houses in this past month and I've had a blast. More words later!

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #194 on: September 02, 2019, 07:09:39 PM »
Worth noting on 20XX that you do unlock at least one more base weapon for each (a short-ranged fan-shot for Nina, a glaive that lets you do aerial spinslashes for Ace).  Feels a lot better with a gamepad, I have noticed.
<+Nama-EmblemOfFire> ...Have the GhebFE guy and the ostian princess guy collaborate.
 <@Elecman> Seems reasonable.

Dark Holy Elf

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #195 on: September 04, 2019, 01:26:21 AM »
Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Thoughts on the game.

One of the great things about being married to someone who's also a huge Fire Emblem fan is that I've been able to experience all four routes of the game already, despite only playing two myself. I've played Crimson Flower and Verdant Winds, and I watched my wife play Azure Moon and Silver Snow.

Gameplay

I really want to talk about the story, but I'll speak about the gameplay first. It's solid, as Fire Emblem usually is. It's not the best game in the series for this, but it's far from the worst. I'll assume anyone reading this is broadly familiar with FE gameplay, and just talk about what's new/different.

-The game adds enemy "aggro lines" (which is really just informing you who the AI will target and how much damage/hit they will have) and they are a wonderful QOL improvement.
-Like Echoes and unlike all previous games, the option to rewind time is present. I'm mixed about it. As I get older I really appreciate that I can play the game in such a way that I don't have to redo half an hour because of one mistake. At the same time, I think it does encourage me to be a lazier player, since the consequences for failure are less dire. I'd  like to play the game without this feature at some point, when I'm not motivated just to get through to the end and see everything.
-Weapon durability is back and is kinda used as a balancing feature for legendary weapons (which are fairly powerful, and often have really powerful special abilities). It's probably the best implementation of weapon durability because of the "repair" option (in fairness, FE4 did this too, then it mysteriously vanished for nearly two decades). That said, after two FEs that didn't have weapon durability, I must say I didn't need it to return, even if it serves a purpose here.
-A skill system similar to Awakening/Fates returns. I like that it's easier to get skills; in Awakening/Fates it was entirely possible to never reach your cap of five equipped skills. And as soon as you get more than five you of course start having interesting choices about how to build your characters. I don't like that, for some baffling reason, when you learn a skill mid-battle you don't get a chance to equip it (unlike Awakening/Fates) and have to remember to do so between battles.
-The menu system is a bit janky and inconsistent (some important information like class exp and skill prerequisites aren't available in some settings, sometimes you can't scroll through characters using L/R). That said I did start eventually figuring out my way around things, and it does keep with the general FE tradition of making most info available somewhere.
-The game is pretty easy, even on Hard Classic, for a while, but does ramp up nicely as time goes on. It's never one of the harder FEs, so I'm glad a Lunatic patch is coming, but I definitely prefer its overall trajectory to the games which start decently difficult then get easier.

Finally, I should talk about the monastery / inter-battle gameplay.

Fates was taking baby steps in this direction, but Three Houses embraces it completely: a significant part of the game is spent wandering your home base, doing your shopping, talking to all your friends, doing quests, training your PCs, etc., etc. There's a LOT to do here, and it's the main reason the game's time (both runs took me 55-60 hours) is higher than most games in the series, even before considering multiple playthroughs for the different routes. And y'know by and large it's pretty enjoyable. Talking to everyone and seeing their thoughts after each battle adds a lot of characterization, the training part of the game adds a nice level of control over how you build your characters. Some of the other monastery interactions (quests, gardening, motivation boosting) feel kinda time-wasty or are necessary evils. Basically there's a lot of enjoyable content here, but I kinda feel like it could be streamlined a bit. That said, as a player you do have the option to streamline it a LOT if you wish (it's sub-optimal for character building, but you'd do fine) so I respect that.


Writing

The writing is the best in the series, to such a degree that I find dissenting opinions almost laughable. The setting is FAR stronger than anything the series has done before: the three nations of Fodlan, their cultures, and their relationships with each other, their neighbouring territories, and the Church, are very well-fleshed out. The character work is also easily the strongest; even the supporting characters tend to, on average, be remarkably multi-faceted. As I learned more about characters like Dorothea, Sylvain, Felix, and Lysithea, I felt like I was peeling through the layers of an onion, steadily learning more about what makes them tick, and often having to re-evaluate what I thought about them. And the main characters... I'll say more about them in the in-depth analysis, but wow. Edelgard and Dimitri are absolutely compelling and are not just the best characters in the series, but two of the best I've seen in fiction. Claude is a bit weaker but honestly only by comparison; he's still a remarkably unique character, and he like the other two commands your attention as a player.

The silent main is a choice which is awkward even though I can see why it was done. Obviously, it takes something out of some scenes and sequences that Byleth is not a fully-fleshed out character. On the other hand, sometimes s/he works as an observer; there are plenty of times where the game doesn't want you to know everything that the lord (i.e. Edel/Dimi/Claude) knows, and being able to walk around and talk to everyone and get their opinion on what the lord is doing is something that only comes naturally because you aren't playing as the lord. And from a more cynical standpoint, I rather suspect that the lords would never be written the way they were if the game wanted you to fully embrace them as a player stand-in, because they do some dark things which I think would make some players very uncomfortable. (That's arguably a bit of an excuse, though; this argument didn't stop Tales of Berseria being written the way it was, for instance.) Also fair warning that, like most games with stand-in protagonists these days, there are some awkward scenes of player worship. Please stop, games.


From here on I go into spoiler territory, as I'll talk about the main characters and the game's plot and themes.

Edelgard: The Revolutionary Emperor

It's a game about three houses and three lords, but there's little doubt that Edelgard lies at its core. She's potentially both the main protagonist and the main antagonist, and excels at both roles. I don't think it's unfair to say that the game is about her choice and what the player thinks about it.

White Clouds, the game's title for the first half of the game, plays out broadly similarly in all routes. While the characters are nominally at school, they're also very much acting as an arm of the Church of Seiros, stamping out threats to it. You get a close look at Rhea, the archbishop (leader) of the Church, a woman who, while not overtly evil, has an influence on the world which is unsettling. She props up a system in which people are elevated for having special bloodlines, and ruthlessly cuts down those she deems enemies of the church, likening opposition against the Church of Seiros to "pointing a sword at the Goddess herself" and executing her opponents without trial. You learn about the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, the most religious of the three nations, which is also a patriarchal mess of toxic ideas of honour and chivalry, and see Rhea's lack of concern for, or perhaps even awareness of, these problems.

Edelgard will have none of it. Though she spends most of part 1 quietly pretending to be a loyal follower of the Church, she is in fact actually working to undermine it. In a striking "heel turn" late in part 1, she reveals that she is in fact the masked leader of a group which opposes the Church of Seiros, has seized the throne in a coup in her home nation of Adrestia, and makes a declaration of war to rid the continent of Fodlan of Rhea and the Church of Seiros. Thanks to preparations she has made during Part 1 she is initially successful and seizes Garreg Mach, the seat of the church. How the rest of the story plays out depends on the route, though in all cases, there is a five-year timeskip before Part 2. There are four routes; I'll detail each one in turn.


Crimson Flower

In the previous section I mentioned that Edelgard makes a "heel turn", and I used quote marks for a reason. Is it actually a heel turn? The game builds the case throughout Part 1 for Edelgard's actions. There's little doubt that her declaration of war leads to much loss of life, because war sucks (and this is something the game does NOT shy away from). But to remove a caustic influence on the continent which has led to centuries of low-grade suffering, suffering which continues to this day and promises to stretch into the future indefinitely, is war justified?

In Crimson Flower, the player follows Edelgard on her quest to rid the world of Rhea and the Church of Seiros. The route is the shortest one; Edelgard begins the war in a position of strength. Her main antagonist is of course Rhea, who has fled to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. Rhea serves as the obstacle Edelgard must overcome. As the route winds on, Edelgard's thesis about the need to remove her becomes increasingly justified; we learn that Rhea is in fact over a millenium old and has secretly shifted identities to maintain her de facto rule of the continent. As Rhea is driven to despair as her close allies are killed, she becomes increasingly unhinged, allowing the loyal King Dimitri and his close allies to die in her service and finally burning down the Holy Kingdom's capital city in a last attempt to stop Edelgard, which serves as the stunning backdrop to the final battle.

Rhea's death on this route is cathartic, both politically for Edelgard, but also personally for Byleth. Byleth's importance stems from the fact that Rhea planted the soul of the goddess Sothis (who, it turns out, is Rhea's mother) into Byleth as a baby, essentially replacing Byleth's heart with the magically fossilized remains of that of  Sothis. This left Byleth without a beating heart (literally and figuratively): an emotionless husk, and Rhea's most fervent wish is that his/her body would be taken over by Sothis who could thus return to the land of the living. Though this truth is revealed on other routes, Crimson Flower is the only route which truly seems to understand what a violation this is. In the ending of Crimson Flower (and only Crimson Flower), Byleth's artificially implanted heart disintegrates and his/her own reappears and starts beating, and his/her hair returns to its original colour, signifying his/her freedom from the goddess, which parallels the path that s/he and Edelgard chose for the world.

Was Edelgard right? Her own route would seem to justify her actions. At the same time, the game will constantly remind you that war is hell; you are forced to watch person after person whm you knew as a friend or ally at Garreg Mach before the war die opposing you, knowing that your (Edelgard's) choices led to their death. Although understated, Edelgard herself is obviously worn down by the weight of what she is doing. She believes she is justified, and there's little doubt that, if you were to ask her at the end of the game, that she would tell you it was worth it. Do I agree? I initially wasn't sure, but as I've had time to digest it, I tend to think that I do, which surprises me as someone who would usually favour the path of the incrementalist over the path of the revolutionary. But of course, others feel differently. (I won't speak too much about the fan reaction to the game, but suffice to say that the debates on the morality of Edelgard's path are both frequent and passionate, which in my view speaks to how well the game handled this issue.)

My favourite scenes in the route are the aforementioned ending, and the scene in which Edelgard kills Dimitri after his fall in battle, telling him that if he'd been born in a more peaceful time, he would have made a wonderful king, and then shedding tears while trying to deny the emotions she feels. But for more on that connection, one has to play Azure Moon!


Azure Moon

In Azure Moon, the player follows Dimitri. Each of the lords houses a secret, and Dimitri's is that he secretly nurses a burning drive for revenge against those who killed his parents a few years prior to the game (their deaths having being nominally and wrongly blamed on an uprising). During the course of Part 1 he meets an organization whom he (correctly) deduces is responsible for his parents' deaths. Then during the big reveal at the end of Part 1, he realizes that Edelgard is allied with those people and blames her for it. For Dimitri, the betrayal of Edelgard, who had been his childhood friend and, depending on how you read things, the first woman he loved, cuts him so deeply that gives into violent rage. Edelgard escapes his grasp, however, and puts into motion her plan to capture Garreg Mach.

When we next see Dimitri, he is a haunted wreck of a man. We learn that he returned to the capital of his Kingdom only to be deposed in a coup by Cornelia, an imperial supporter, who usurped the throne; he escaped captivity but now has nothing to live for but his revenge. Rather than seek out allies within the Kingdom, he instead roams near the border of imperial territory, hoping to kill as many imperial soldiers as he can to get back at Edelgard in some small way. The story picks up just as survivors of the Holy Kingdom's resistance (including all his friends from Part 1) have found him and hope that he will lead them against Cornelia. He is a terrifying individual to behold during this time, and the game does not shy away from this. He tortures an imperial general until a disgusted Byleth puts the general out of his misery. He forcefully assumes command of the resistance movement and directs them to attacking the Empire rather than helping his own country. He talks of having his dead relatives appear before him and telling him to kill Edelgard. He cares little about killing as many of Edelgard's followers as he can, and clearly hopes to die himself. This part of the story is compelling, not just because of Dimitri, but also watching those around him. They have pinned all their hopes for saving their Kingdom on him, and can not turn against him because his presence is their key to legitimacy, but can only watch in horror and try to guide him away from madness (often in futility) as best they can.

Azure Moon is a story of how Dimitri is able to find himself again. Unlike many dark points for characters in fiction, this is not a short one. No one event can be pinpointed in helping him overcome his own demons; it takes several. Certainly the return of a friend he thought dead is a help; so is learning that Edelgard was not, in fact, his parents' killer. But perhaps the most impactful one is when the sister of the imperial general he murdered attempts to take his life, instead claiming the life of one close to him. In that moment, Dimitri realizes that his fixation on revenge, even if justified, serves nothing but to bring more misery.

Dimitri pulls himself together (though to the game's credit, it acknowledges that he will be forever haunted by what he has experienced and done), and his plucky band is able to free the Kingdom and finally take the fight to the Emperor. There, in the best scene of the game, Dimitri and Edelgard explain their differing ideologies; Edelgard, the revolutionary, wants to change the world as she sees fit, while Dimitri believes that she has no right to make that choice and will oppose her, not for revenge, but to protect the people her path would trample upon. The Dimitri we see here is one who has completely forgiven Edelgard and wishes once more to be her friend, but can not allow her to continue on the road she is walking. When he extends his hand to her in mercy in the ending after his victory in battle, she for a moment appears to consider it but only to cover one last attempt to kill him (with the knife he gave her as a gift), and he is forced to kill her instead. It puts an exclamation point on the route. Dimitri, while capable of monstrous actions, is ultimately kind-hearted, while Edelgard was willing to do absolutely anything in service of her goal. People are complicated and there is good and bad in everyone.

My favourite scenes in this route are Dimitri's horrifying rant to the captured imperial general, and his confrontations with Edelgard both before and after the battle which I detailed above. There is just so much emotionally resonant stuff in this route. It's my favourite route overall, edging out Crimson Flower in large part because it has two amazing characters, while Dimitri is relatively minor in Edelgard's route. If it were the only route, I think it would stand alone beautifully, with at most minor tweaks.

But what of the people behind the death of Dimitri's parents? To get to the bottom of them, one has to play Verdant Winds!


Verdant Winds

Verdant Winds is, sadly, not nearly as good as the other two routes. My praise for Crimson Flower and Azure Moon is almost unalloyed; this will no longer be the case from here on.

Verdant Winds follows Claude, from the Leicester Alliance, smallest of the three major territories that make up Fodlan. As Claude is fond of reminding you, he is an outsider. This has two meanings: one, he was born outside Fodlan and has some different ideas about how it should be run as a result. And two, he's a bit of an outsider to the Edelgard/Rhea and Edelgard/Dimitri conflicts that lie at the core of the game.

Claude's route largely follows along the same path as Dimitri's (to the point where several maps are copy/pasted between the two); he opposes the Empire, rallies people against them, and ultimately invades them and puts an end to Edelgard's plans. But his reasons are very different. While Dimitri is motivated first by revenge and later by moral opposition, Claude's goals are much more self-serving, albeit noble. Like Edelgard, he wants to reshape Fodlan in his own image. He manipulates Byleth's connection with the church (being the vessel of the Goddess) into recruiting the powerful Knights of Seiros (despite the fact that he secretly despises organized religion). Through shrewd machinations he unifies the Alliance, the Church, and military support from his home nation of Almyra into a righteous war against the Empire, ultimately defeating them. And in the power vacuum created by the fall of the Kingdom (Dimitri dies leading his troops into a suicidal rush against Edelgard on this route) and the Empire, he plans to build a new united nation of Fodlan.

Claude is the star of the route and is kinda terrifying. On one level, he's obviously the "nicest" lord. Claude does not murder people! He's super-friendly! His war is reactive and just! The nation he plans to build is one with more social freedom, and in particular one where people (like him) won't face racial prejudice. Hard not to cheer for, right? But at the same time, he is so manipulative and controlling that it borders on sociopathic. He constantly pretends to be something he's not, he keeps secrets from everyone (even Byleth). His ultimate plan is to unite both Fodlan and his homeland of Almyra as a single borderless nation with him in control. In all three of the main routes, my wife or I ended up choosing to marry Byleth to the lord. Edelgard and Dimitri, in different ways, both make for very romantic pairings. Claude, even in this final, supposedly romantic scene, is rather clearly being sneaky and manipulative, setting her up as the ruler of Fodlan and in the epilogue returning to marry her as the ruler of Almyra.

Where the route, and indeed the game, goes wrong is with "those who slither in the dark", who serve as the final opponents of this route after Edelgard is defeated. We learn that they are an ancient race of evildoers (no, really. No route of the game expects you to have any sympathy for them as any more than that) responsible for many evils over the millenia of Fodlan's history, including many of the bad events in the game's setup. In a route about Claude's desire to build a nation without walls where none need fear racial prejudice, the presence of a race which objectively deserves a wall built around them (if not outright genocide) sabotages what would otherwise have been a key theme of the route. Also the final boss on this route, unlike Rhea and Edelgard, is both morally uncomplicated and a rather unsatisfying ass-pull; a big bad evil zombie general raised by the race of bad guys right before the final chapter.

But I have a lot of good things to say about Claude. About how he and Edelgard are both secretive people who desire control, but everything about their surface personalities manifest differently. About how he and Edelgard want strikingly similar things but approach them in opposite ways, and tragically could never have been allies because neither could have tolerated the other. About how he plays off his companions well and how this makes many of the "Claude and friends interacting" scenes fun to watch. And of course how absolutely charismatic (and gorgeous) he is, even if what this behaviour covers makes me at times uncomfortable.


Silver Snow

Silver Snow is bad and should feel bad.

You play part 1 as Edelgard's ally, but choose to side with Rhea instead of her, and from there the story follows Byleth as leader of the Knights of Seiros, with no lord character in sight. After that it's almost a complete carbon-copy of Verdant Winds, but without Claude, and if you read up and see how much praise I have for Claude, you can almost immediately tell that's going to be Bad Thing. You would think Rhea would be more present on this route, but she isn't. She does serve as the final boss though, as she randomly goes crazy at the end because I guess they thought they needed a different final boss from Verdant Winds? That's literally the only map that's different. The moment-to-moment plot of this route makes less sense because it was clearly written assuming support from the Alliance in mind. Instead the route seems to forget Claude and the Alliance even exist.

And the route ends with Byleth becoming Rhea 2.0, an immortal ruler of United Fodlan for an indefinite length of time. Great.



Conclusion

Despite my complaints about the Silver Snow route, this is obviously a great game. Fire Emblem gameplay is always a joy, the setting/chracters/supports are the best they've ever been, and there's a lot of good, thought-provoking writing in there. Since I didn't mention it anywhere else, the voice work and voice direction (special shout-out to the voice actors who played Dimitri and Dorothea, but they're far from the only good performances) are stellar. There are warts in there, but this is certainly the most complete Fire Emblem game, and as such, no other rating is possible than 10/10. One of the best games I've ever played.

Erwin Schrödinger will kill you like a cat in a box.
Maybe.

Fudozukushi

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #196 on: September 04, 2019, 11:50:12 AM »
More or less the same just without an Azure Moon perspective.

Luther Lansfeld

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #197 on: September 07, 2019, 01:24:51 AM »
Fire Emblem Three Houses - Azure Moon

So far I’ve played Azure Moon and Silver Snow, and ended up watching Crimson Flower and Verdant Winds.

I mostly chose Azure Moon first because a) someone in the house was already playing Crimson Flower and b) I had already seen post-timeskip Dimitri and I love edgy bois.

The gameplay is pretty much straight up Fire Emblem, borrowing its mechanics from a variety of different places. It feels a bit like Echoes, Fates/Awakening, Tellius, and even a bit of GBA thrown into a blender. The biggest change is the change of the class system. All of your characters start as Commoners or Nobles and they diverge into specialties from there. All characters can start as using all weapons, but some characters are better than others at certain weapon types and can develop the skills using the class simulation minigame. In addition, you can make any character use horses, but some characters prefer it more than others. So there’s a lot of flexibility but there are characters who are clearly steered toward their respective roles (due to stats or preferences).The weapon triangle is less prominent, only really manifesting in specific skills that you can throw on characters. Weapon durability is back, which I don’t like, but at leas the shops are accessible and not clunky like… many other games. There are some extra mechanics like Combat skills and gambits that are interesting. The enemy placement and map design isn’t as good as Conquest, but that’s pretty high standards.

The game is ultimately a little on the easy side even on Hard/Classic Mode, although a few of the maps in late Part 2 were fairly nasty. I found the second to last map on Azure Moon to be quite tricky in particular. The Divine Pulse mechanic means that even if you make a mistake that you can take it back; I’m not sure exactly how I feel about it but it’s ignorable at the very worst. I think there’s too many uses but it’s interesting at least. It allows you to control your time lost from resets. I might play the game without it on some playthroughs for variety / old school feel.

Holy shit there is setting building. This is definitely a welcome change from all of the games after RD. The characters seem to exist in a social structure! There are nobility in the world that seem to inform us about the politics of their respective countries! Amazing. Trying to remember things from supports and then going back and reading them in the library…. yeah, this is definitely something that I love. I also like how it is going all in on a theme about the problems of inherited systems of government and the divide between the aristocrats and the commoners. The Crests also play an important role; they are a bit like the One Power; they run in bloodlines but aren’t necessarily inherited by the children. This fact causes a lot of tension in their social structure. It’s a bit like Holy Blood in FE4 except examined as part of the setting. There are definitely parallels between this game and 4, but this game actually knows how to execute basic setting building and character work (and has important women, holy shit).

I’m mostly just gonna talk about Azure Moon’s story and character work though.

The early game maps do a great job of building Faerghus as this dysfunctional, bandit-filled hole, between Lonato and Miklan, as well as a few of the paralogues. After the king’s death, it has been ruled by the regent, the brother of the king, who is incompetent and indolent, and there has been mass chaos there in the last few years. Of course, you’d think that the church would help them out more but… y’know. As the other routes taught me (Azure Moon is not really about the church), Rhea is kind of a selfish bitch who doesn’t really care about the well-being of the humans all that much, and mostly just wants to control them…) Viva la revolution and all that.

Azure Moon ends up being a very character-driven route and the Blue Lions has some quite interesting characters, and the culture of the country that they are from, Faerghus, informs a lot about the characters. Faerghus as a country is obsessed with chivalry and has a strong culture of fatalism, stemming from finding honor in death and dying for your country and cause. Many of the Faerghusian characters have weird and toxic relationships with death. Because of the disproportionate emphasis placed on patriarchal ideals of chivalry, the male nobility in the game (Dimitri, Felix, Rodrigue, Gilbert) are the ones who are affected by it the most, although Ingrid also, to some extent, has internalized some of these cultural ideas (as has Catherine, for that matter, for all that she isn’t as important in the Faerghus metaplot. But she is definitely zealous and unafraid of death). Sylvain has largely chosen to reject pretty much everything about his culture and is largely not part of this discussion, although you can see how it shapes his cynical, depressive worldview. I’ll talk more about that later.

The core plot event that happens before the game starts is the Tragedy of Duscur, where the royal couple (Dimitri’s father and stepmother) and one of the royal bodyguards, Glenn, are assassinated. Glenn is Felix’s brother and dies during this event protecting Dimitri. A lot of the characters’ lives are affected by this event, and it carries a long shadow through the story of this route.

The person most affected by the Tragedy of Duscar is Dimitri. At first glance, the dude is a square and a half. Very genuine, takes his duty very seriously, and in general is the gallant prince character that exists in many RPGs. There are a couple of major hints very early that he is more unhinged than he lets on. Felix dislikes him very strongly; the very first scene with Felix is him warning you that “He may seem nice and proper, but Dimitri will chew you up and spit you out”. We see in Dimitri/Felix support that discusses that Dimitri is very bloodthirsty in their first battle and that Felix finds him very distasteful (and Dimitri doesn’t deny his behavior). We later realize that Dimi has been harboring a huge grudge for the last four years and that his sole, life-consuming goal is to extract vengeance from the person or people who have wronged his family. He discovers that Edelgard is working with the people responsible for his parents’ death; he concludes that she is an irredeemable monster and ends up completely losing his cool in a scene which is a harbinger for the future. His fatalism also comes into play late in Part 1; he says he should never promise anyone anything because he might die at any time.

I want to incidentally note that Edelgard was most likely NOT responsible for the death of Dimitri’s family, but Dimitri believes that she was. He is not vey rational around this subject (and is in general by far the least rational of the three kids, as we learn in Part 2).



Post-time skip… god, this route is really tough to go through for the first few chapters. There is so much to dissect about this part of the game. So the war happens and Dimitri is slated for execution by an imperial usurper to the throne. Dimitri’s vassal, Dedue, helps him escape but loses his life in the process. By the time you find him, Dimitri has just totally lost it, completely overcome by grief and anger and hatred. He slaughters any imperial soldiers / bandits who come near the monastery, living like some kind of fairy tale monster preying on his enemies, killing them cruelly and violently. For five chapters you essentially spend listening to him rant about chasing ghosts and revelling in his blood-fuelled desire for vengeance, unable to see anything except that one solitary goal. He seems to see no value in his own life at all and has very little regard for the lives of his friends and country who need him. Dimitri and Byleth are NOT on good terms during this part of the game, which is a huge contrast to Part 1 where Dimitri is the most polite and friendly of the three mains. Dimitri does care very deeply for his friends and his allies but that attribute is what allows him to fall into despair and eventual madness.

Because of Crest-based aristocracy and loyalty to one’s liege being particularly entrenched in Faerghus’s culture, both Gilbert (a knight of Faerghus) and Rodrigue (the most powerful nobleman in Faerghus and Felix’s father) seek out Dimitri, hoping he is still alive so he can rally their cause and take back their capital, even going so far as to retrieve his legendary weapon. Instead, Dimitri insists on rushing in and murder Edelgard at the cost of whatever it takes. Gilbert plays an interesting role in this part of the route; he serves the function of main character/ tactician in this part of the game, but his actions are controlled by the whims of Dimitri. He is a former royal knight who feels, rightly or wrongly, that his responsibility was to protect the royal family and he failed. He abandons his family and goes to the monastery to atone for his sins. It is painful to watch Gilbert’s complete inability to challenge Dimitri on his madness because of his extremely loyalty to the crown (and his generally passive, depressive nature). Every single conversation with Gilbert outside of Dimitri’s presence is Gilbert lamenting what a terrible job he did in raising Dimitri and how foolish his behavior is. There is a sense that -no one- will challenge the future king on his actions and they just all live in this suspended feeling of horror as they watch their hopes of liberating their country go down in flames. A good piece of scenework in this part of the game is how Dimitri’s presence in scenes feels oppressive, even when he’s not talking. He is the tallest person in the party and his crosses his arms during all of the scenes, glowering at everyone as they try to salvage the plans of their delusional prince.

One of the outstanding scenes on this route is with this bit character from Crimson Flower by the name of Randolph. In Crimson Flower he plays the role of having people around that aren’t just the PCs to prove that this army is something besides your people. On Azure Moon, he is fought as a boss. When you defeat him, Dimitri captures him. With some interesting camera work, you watch the scene from Randolph’s perspective, as Dimitri rants about how all imperial soldiers are just monsters who pretend to be human (as opposed to Dimitri himself, who understands his role as a monster but he wants to rid the world of monsters. Only a monster can get rid of monsters!). From Randolph’s perspective, there is this giant, black-armored man ranting wildly at him, with bloodlust in his eye (because eyepatch, of course). As Dimitri starts torturing him, Byleth mercy-kills him, which earns Dimitri’s ire.

As much as Dimitri’s general violence and insanity horrify you as you watch the scenes, his complete abdication of responsibility as king of Faerghus adds another layer of reprehensible, and every single Blue Lion is just so frustrated when you talk to them, although they mostly express it in passive ways. He is literally dragging his friends into hell! They are upset but also recognize that their future king symbolizes something too important to their cause and that dissonance is very difficult for many of them to deal with! It’s like birthright and loyalty twisted to its conclusion.

A couple of maps later, Rodrigue appears, and he is less depressive than Gilbert and takes action more directly to challenge Dimitri, but even he refuses to truly pick that fight. Rodrigue isn’t as influenced by his deference to Dimitri’s royalty (Rodrigue is the second most powerful person in Faerghus) but because they are losing the war against the empire, they see that their only hope is the heir to the throne coming back and rallying the troops for a victory, but… they can’t force him to do the right thing or what they want. They both seem to bear a great deal of shame about their broken mess of a prince, since they both helped raised him. Rodrigue has a good scene with Byleth after he appears as well as a scene with Gilbert where Rodrigue expresses his true frustration.

So does this story just end with the main character being permanently overcome with hatred? No. There are two events that turn the corner of the story. The first is the reappearance of Dedue, who is Dimitri’s closest friend, and presumed dead as mentioned. They have a long backstory together; Dedue’s people, the Duscar, were framed for the murder of the royal family during the Tragedy of Duscar, and many of them were killed in retaliation. Dimitri ended up rescuing Dedue from the lynchmob, but he wasn’t able to prevent the overall retaliation. Dedue works as Dimitri’s vassal in the four years since the tragedy, and their affection for each other is very genuine (in their A support, Dimitri reveals that rescuing Dedue was one of the things that helped him stay sane during the four years between the murder of the royal family and the pre-timeskip academy time). From the other routes, it seems more master/servant than it actually is; the two are ultimately pretty dependent on each other (and their A support is probably the gayest support I’ve ever seen). Dimitri is frustrated with Dedue’s deference and Dedue is frustrated with Dimitri’s self-depreciation but they clearly love each other (see my new sig!). Dedue’s reappearance is the first time in the route that Dimitri sounds happy, almost boyishly, since the timeskip. He has this adorable pre-timeskip portrait where he bulges his eyes in surprise/excitement, and this is the first time you see that facial expression again post-timeskip. It’s the first time that you think that everything might be okay.

Then there is the Battle of Gronder where the famous quote “Kill every last one of them!” is from. I speculated before playing the game that it was taken out of context, but it really really isn’t. He doesn’t give a fuck about his old classmates; if someone’s in the way, they are good as dead. After the battle, Fleche, Randolph’s sister, attempts to kill Dimitri in revenge. She tries to exact her revenge for the death of her brother, but instead kills Rodrigue (poor hot Rodrigue, destined to croak). I think Dimitri sees himself reflected in her, and in that moment, he has a revelation. The real turning point scene in this route is when Dimitri finally turns it around, and Byleth helps him on that course by talking him through things and finally convincing him that it is okay to be the sole survivor and also to live for yourself. “Your hands are so warm… have they always been?

After all of this, he works to repent for his many sins and apologizes to the party for his horrendous behavior. Dimitri believes that he is unworthy of happiness and even life; this is a belief that pervades a lot of his supports. You can definitely see Gilbert’s influence in Dimitri; they both carry these chains of their past around them, and won’t let themselves go. Gilbert/Dimitri support is the most painful support chain in the game, as they participate in their weird fatalism / loyalty / depression together. (After this support, I declared that Byleth would ban Gilbert from the royal household.) Annette tells Dimitri that she also pretty much has to move into the castle because he’s far too much like her dad and she wants to make sure he smiles and doesn’t end up a sad, guilt-ridden mess of a human like Gilbert. In some supports, he is at least partially convinced that he needs to live to fix his country, even if he’s never really convinced that he deserves to be alive?

Another scene from this route that I loved was when Dimitri liberates Faerghus. He cries as he realizes that he’s home and that people want him to be there, even though he is certain that he doesn’t deserve to be loved. It was really sweet and touching and Byleth feels impactful there, convincing him that it’s alright to be happy.

The scenes with Edelgard are also good, but Elfboy already talked about those so I won’t.

An interesting contrast of Dimitri vs. the other mains is that the other two are driven by large goals and ideology, whereas Dimitri is too mired in depression and anger to really even have goals. No point in making goals if you don’t plan to be alive in five years???


I guess there are other characters in this game?

Felix is probably Azure Moon’s route’s second most important character, although I think it is less obvious than El/Claude’s routes. Felix is cold, anti-social, and pushes people away. There is a Felix-related paralogue with some early insight into why Felix behaves the way he does. This is where we meet Rodrigue for the first time and he talks about his son Glenn dying in the tragedy. Rodrigue clearly believes that dying for your country is honorable and that it is better that Glenn die than alive and live with the shame of being a sworn knight who did not protect the people who he was guarding. It is clear that Rodrigue loved his son deeply but he has internalized this part of his culture. Felix believes that is father/country’s ideology is bullshit and remains bitter at anyone who implies that death is preferable to being alive and living with the shame of being dishonorable. He has this nasty line in that scene. “I guess if I died, you’d say the same about me. That I died with ‘honor’, fighting for my country.”

Felix ends up, as a result of his stance on death being closer to a normal human’s than a crazy Faerghus noble’s, as a cultural outsider; this is the core of why he pushes people away, especially his friends. He ends up reconciling with Sylvain because they are both outsiders to their crazy culture, but he and Ingrid’s bond are always a little strained because of the tension related to Glenn. Ingrid always glorifies the death of Glenn as some sort of chivalrous act and she wants to be like him. Felix accepts this eventually but his relationship is poisoned by her disagreements on a subject that hits him very close to the heart.

Post-timeskip Felix ends up being interesting on all of the routes. On Azure Moon, he is the one who is most willing to challenge Dimitri on his bullshit, although you get the sense that his dad would prefer if he would just stop. Once his dad dies, he ends up deciding to champion his cause, even if he nurses continual resentment for Dimitri because of all of the things he’s done. Their relationship is always toxic, mostly because Felix doesn’t really trust him.

Felix: Sometimes you have an animal's face, contorted with anger and bloodlust. At other times, a man's, with a friendly smile. Which is your true face?
Dimitri: Do not waste your breath on questions with such obvious answers. They are both the real me.



On Silver Snow, Felix is very affected by Dimitri’s death and clearly regrets abandoning his country. The depth of Dimitri’s madness is not really explored on this route, but Felix above all people knows about Dimitri’s bad side, but he comes to terms with it one he dies. Felix becomes quite unhappy on this route compared to Azure Moon, I feel. He feels like he has no place in the world outside of being a soldier.

I enjoyed this character more than I expected. Ironically, he is the most well-adjusted and the most ethical of the three Blue Lions noble boys, which was not what I was expecting at all.

Mercedes is a character who grew on me over time. Her relationship with Annette is so so sweet, and I think she brings the best out of many people in supports.I n her support with Sylvain, she reveals that she lived in a noble house in the Adrestria Empire, but after her mom produced an heir with a Crest - some sort of blessing of elite blood that we will presumably learn more about later, she and her mom were dumped and she ended up going to the church. Sylvain and her end up having a lot in common, except Mercedes is so much less bitter, despite probably having better reason to be bitter; she is used as a tool for prosperity via her Crest, whereas Sylvain has more control over his own life, being male nobility in Faerghus. In her support with Felix, we learn that she has a younger brother named Emile. And then if you read in the Empire history, you learn that he is a serial killer who murdered his dad and entire family, and later we learn that her brother is Jertiza/Death Knight, who stabbed Manuela and kidnapped Flayn. The game ultimately doesn’t do a lot with that plot, but Mercedes is still pretty good. Mercedes seems like a great pairing with Sylvain because they seem to actually get each other, which I can’t say for too many other people.

Ingrid is a pretty enjoyable character overall, although I would have liked to see her be a little more important. Good voice acting, good interactions with several of the other characters, and just a really good person who wants the best for everyone. Her story is mostly that her family is a noble family that has fallen on hard times financially, and she is very conservative and thrifty to make up for it. Her support with Sylvain is probably my favorite, where she reveals that Sylvain hit on her grandmother when she was eight and she just gives him the business for being a total idiot (she also has a good support with Claude, which I of course didn’t see on this route). You get the impression that she’s spent too much of her life dealing with all of the difficult manchildren that surround her. Her character flaw is that she believes that the Duscar people were responsible for Glenn’s death and she holds resentment toward Dedue over it. The biggest thing about her later is that her dad is constantly trying to sell her off to the highest bidder because of her Crest.

As mentioned earlier, Ingrid and Felix clash over chivalry; Ingrid believes that it is noble to fight and die for what you believe in and she sees it as honorable, whereas Felix hates it. She was engaged to Glenn, Felix’s brother, at the time of his death and idolizes him and his knightliness. She also clashes with Dimitri over his fatalistic comments about Glenn’s death. Because he openly questions the value of his own life and thus the value of Glenn sacrificing his life to save him, he unintentionally hurts Ingrid very badly, and you really feel for her in those scenes.

In general, Mercedes and Ingrid share a lot of commonalities, and somehow, they are less damaged individuals than their more privileged male counterparts. Interesting way of doing things, and not necessarily inaccurate, having seen the relative function of men on the internet vs. women. I think the fact that they are both very functional people makes them a little less interesting than the boys, which is a shame, but we play the Black Eagles for great female characters, I guess. ;)

Sylvain is another BL headcase. At first glance, Sylvain is a typical trash fuckboy, a womanizing dork who definitely gives the vibe of lazy privileged rich kid who coasts on daddy’s influence and money. Beyond the exterior, he follows the tradition of the fucked-up males of Faerghus. His brother was disinherited because of his lack of a Crest, which is a big deal to his family. His brother ends up stealing the divine weapon that he can’t even wield and that opens up some excellent plot reveals. On second glance, Sylvain ends up as this weird hedonist who accepts that his whole life is predetermined for him to marry a rich girl and be the house heir so he’s just gonna have fun while he can. Except that isn’t true either! He manipulates women and uses them because he believes that everyone is using him for his ‘Crest babies’ and he has developed a complex about not trusting women. Sylvain, much like Felix, has rejected parts of Faerghus culture that he doesn’t like and holds in built-up resentment, but unlike Felix, he hides it via a facade of friendliness and flirting rather than a facade of coldness. Also unlike Felix, Sylvain is not at all loyal to his country and is happy to give the finger to his family whenever.

Post-timeskip, Sylvain is much closer to straight up depressed. He hangs on to some of his foibles but he is hit by the war quite hard. Unlike Felix, who I mentioned regrets leaving Faerghus, Sylvain does not give a fuck. He is unaffected by Dimitri’s death in other routes, and more or less admits in Azure Moon that he found Dimitri too far gone to ever truly trust him again.

And just in case you wondered if Sylvain was affected by the culture of death, here’s his final quote on Verdant Winds route.

Sylvain: I mean, I'll still fight like I want to die because that's worked so far, and why change at this late date, right? And if I'm right and I don't die, would you go have dinner with me sometime?


As for Annette, she is one of the Blue Lions that’s a little less directly connected to the Faerghus storyline, but damn is she adorable, bubbly, and just generally an enjoyable character. Fuck Gilbert so hard. I think she offers a great deal of positive energy to the route and she is such.a.damn.nerd. without being an antisocial jerkass. Post-timeskip Annette is a breath of fresh air, bringing positive energy (and nostalgia for the school days). She is a rare character who at least partially calls Dimitri on his bullshit, although she is too scared to fully challenge him. Like everyone else. Her support with Felix is the best. She sings and he tries to flirt with her (badly). It is so cute and they should be together forever.

As mentioned Gilbert is trash. Annette gives him all of the business in their supports for being a useless asshole, and you feel so so sorry for her for having to endure so bullshit from her father who supposedly in theory loves her but has the crappiest way to show it imaginable. He is very very weird. He actually reminds me a little bit of Kresnik of all people, except that the game 100% realizes that he is trash. His support with Annette are the most awkward, painful support in the game (with the exception of his supports with Dimitri) as he completely misses the point and fails to explain why the fuck he abandoned his family. He just constantly fails to listen to his loved ones about the things that matter; we want you around! We don’t care if you failed as a knight! We love you!

Ashe exists. He is important early as Lord Lonato’s adoptive son, but I dropped him pretty quickly so I didn’t see his supports.

This post is too long, so I think I will talk about Silver Snow later. If you want bitchy cattiness, I can whip that one up sometime. :D
When humanity stands strong and people reach out for each other...
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DragonKnight Zero

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #198 on: September 10, 2019, 03:44:37 AM »
I was on a Trials of Mana binge while the formus were down.  Completed multiple playthorughs with a variety of teams.  Scattered commentary:

Lord, Grand Devina, Ninja Master - This one wasn't so easy, except in a few places where it is.  Angela shines on Tzenker and Gorva due to hitting weakness and their tendency to hover out of melee range.  And it is quite satisfying to use her magic to thrash random mobs.  Moon godbeast wrecked my face a few times; it attacks really quickly at times.  Only won after gaining a level on Hawkeye for fire jutsu; it brought the damage down enough to keep up with healing.  Never used Ninja Master before.  No Lv 3 fullscreen tech but that's OK since the plan was clearing screens with Fire jutsu + full screen spell from Angela.  Which appears it would work better in the Hawk/Riesz quest than the Duran/Angela one.  This one tends to load more enemies per combat zone.  Final boss was not fun with this party since they have no way of dispelling his stat ups.  He cast them twice in my game; guess using water jutsu at the wrong time and him absorbing it triggered them again.

Vanadies, Wanderer, Necromancer

  This team had some awkward dynamics.  First off, the midgame is harder due to no stat downs.  For the final third, the plan was to use Aura Wave on Vanadies, Power up, wipe the screen clear to deal with randoms.  But Wanderer learns the spell so late I didn't have it until after Bigeu.  So didn't get to make much use of that doom combo.  Two MT mini casters is pointless duplication too.  I found myself using Wanderer for melee which he's awful at.  If he's going to melee, any other class would be a better choice.  Warrior Monk is a better partner for Vanadies (and maybe Angela as anything but Rune Master for a third.  With that group, there's very little reason to be using MT stat ups.  Kevin already has his own source of attack up and only Angela fully utilizes Mind Up.

  Atelier Meruru showed up on Amazon for less than $10 so I went for it.  Too occupied playing it to write about it though I will mention it was worth the $10.  "Poopy head?"  Haven't heard that word used since Lunar.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2019, 07:53:50 AM by DragonKnight Zero »

Luther Lansfeld

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Re: What games are you playing 2019?
« Reply #199 on: September 10, 2019, 02:39:43 PM »
Small addition to my post, because I was just reading supports (Seteth/Felix):

Seteth: It is not my intention to spy. I am merely concerned about you. I do not think you have been keeping your friends at a distance because you dislike them personally. Rather, I think what bothers you is their concept of proper knighthood. Is that not so?
Felix: Hmph. You really have been watching me closely. You're correct. I don't understand why they revere knighthood. I won't be friends with anyone who believe in that nonsense.
Seteth: Do you feel that way because of what happened in the Tragedy of Duscur? I have heard the story. Your brother was one of the royal knights. He gave his life to defend the prince.
Felix: My brother was doing his job. My father is the real problem. When my brother's armor was brought back to the castle, do you know what he said? "He died like a true knight." Chivalry begets the worship and glorification of death. Am I alone in finding that grotesque?
When humanity stands strong and people reach out for each other...
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http://backloggery.com/ciato

Profile pic by (@bunneshi) on twitter!