Lurker > Panthera

I'd say "...dive" but that's more like "...sad flop"

Panic and trying not to get caught without realizing that in most situations unless you're being very careful, a corpse implicates you way more than a witness.

RD Rolf is still really bad, he can't double or 2HKO anything until he gains a ton of levels and at best he's never anything but Shinon offensively with less durability, and Shinon is already a very superfluous unit in the long run whose only real merits beyond the first half of part 3 are that he's solid filler in part 4 without having needed much training and the Double Bow existing. There's only one Double Bow and Rolf needs to be fed a million kills over better units just to be a very slightly inferior version of what Shinon does naturally. Rolf sucks.

Oh yeah this map. This gimmick is one of those things that sounds cool, then you play it and immediately realize that in practice it's actually pretty lame. Doesn't help that the map is way larger than it needs to be.

The handshake is the end, after they jump off the bridge they all die for being stupid enough to jump off a bridge, there's a few more hours of gameplay as Corrin hallucinates before dying but it's essentially over now.

Dark_Young_Link posted...

Maybe I was unlucky, but I feel like Nyx didn't even work in Conquest.

Nyx's one big use in Conquest is to get her to level 10 on her join map, then promote her to Dark Knight because it makes her actually pretty good in chapter 10, decent for a bit after that and then you just make her Leo's backpack anyway. She can also be solid if you go Dark Flier, frail as hell but her offense is nice for a while.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I got through the Ice Boat chapter which I, uh....did not...like

If you look up maps of every remaining chapter and replace "Ice Boat" with vague descriptions of each of them in order, you can probably "complete the playthrough" without any of us noticing you didn't actually play the game

Apparently the person they got to write it more just gave them a huge outline of his ideas for the story and it got trimmed down to whatever the hell we ended up with. Which probably explains why Fates sounds like a pretty cool story up until the moment you hear any of the details or read any of the script.

SSBM_Guy posted...

Final boss Takumi is great. I just wish that you didnt have to fight Garon again after dying.

In the Takumi chapter, you missed another very memorable generic enemy unit. Rallyman, a Master of Arms with all 4 main rally skills. Hes actually very useful because you can capture him and put him on your team.

Rallyman, Pass Falconknights in Hinoka's chapter, the chapter 9 boss, random shrine maidens to fill in as staff bots in chapter 12 if you reclassed Jakob...Conquest has all kinds of fun people to kidnap and brainwash into conquering their homeland

UshiromiyaEva posted...

The final boss of Conquest is...Takumi?

Dank Takumi, but still.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/3/8/AAeolZAAD-9y.jpg

What the fuck is going on here??

This map is the biggest nightmare ever on Lunatic if you didn't prepare for it by saving some Rescue uses (and some other staff shenanigans too preferably), playing through it without staffs to prevent/bypass stuff is possible but one of the hardest things in the entire series

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I do think my biggest problem with Three Houses is the lack of a Golden (....you know what I mean) route. Would have honestly killed for one. I know Revelations is kind of a laughing stock and I'm looking forward to finding out why, but I really do love the CONCEPT of it.

The problem with golden routes is they turn the entire idea of choosing what to do into a waste of time since your options are just A) Be a moronic asshole, B) Be a stupid piece of shit, or C) Pick the obviously objectively correct option because you're not an imbecile who even considers A and B, right?

Dark_Young_Link posted...

This may not be a popular opinion in this topic, but honestly? Fuck Kaden and fuck the kitsune. He brought it upon himself and his clan. He literally tricks you into thinking he's friendly with you long enough to trap you and force you to fight for your life, and all because "The elder said humans will kill us!". It pains me to defend Corrin in any capacity, but Kaden was the one who brought ruin upon himself.

Yeah I have a hard time sympathizing with the guy who goes out of his way to try to fight to the death with you when he could have very easily kept his distance or told you up front that he wouldn't help or literally anything other than luring you in so he can try to kill you.

No, he was paid for Peanuts

Kenri posted...

* Win the war for your side
* Win it practically bloodlessly
* Tell the prince kid who supports pacifism and changes to Nohr
* Be told you're dishonorable
* They refuse to elaborate further
* Die

Zola was the hero Fateslandia needed, but not the one they deserved

Kircheis posted...

I always found it funny how Jeigans with good growth rates are considered Oifeys when Oifey himself is relatively less impressive in the context of his own game. Not to say he's a bad unit, he just can't compete with the other boss-tier units you get in gen 2.

Yeah this is why I think the entire Jagen/Oifey distinction is meaningless, Oifey himself isn't even a great example of what he supposedly stands for. When you look at them more closely you see that Jagens don't really fall into two clear camps of only good early and good early but still decent later, they're a huge spectrum that doesn't really allow you to split up the archetype beyond "is abnormally strong when they join, which is in the first few chapters"...which is just what a Jagen is

UshiromiyaEva posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/5/0/AAeolZAAD-h2.jpg

Wow, just barely coming in there at the finish line. I did NOT expect this chapter to be that mechanically interesting.

This is easily the best map gimmick in Fates

Play Conquest on Lunatic. Fates has heard you talking shit about it, so you should let it wait patiently for its revenge

To me Revelation is the one were the story sucks but at least is occasionally amusingly stupid. Conquest has a vague resemblance to a good story that makes it extra aggravating when it fails so badly to deliver.

Kenri posted...

That said there was at least one that was super broken... Trying to remember what it was called. Machinist I think?

Machinist itself is just decent, but the Replicate skill it gives at level 15 is ludicrous.

TeamRocketElite posted...

Isn't that what optimum Awakening looks like? Like have 2 units paired up and spam Nosferatu or something. I never tried it myself so maybe I got some part of it wrong.

That's the meme but in practice you still usually want to deploy as many people as you're allowed to, you only have 2-3 combat pairs that are capable of going off on one man army (well, two man army I guess) missions but you can still have others that can at least kill something here and there and you want rallies and staff users and Olivia.

I've only fully played Birthright once, stopped a second playthrough near the end sometime a year or two ago and I can't remember much at all about its supports beyond that I don't think I liked many people

Kim_Seong-a posted...

SMT has a "press turn" system where hitting weak points gives you extra turns. If the boss gets nine turns it's probably because your team comp sucks. >_>

Edit: wait just saw the video lmao thats hilarious

Mot in the original releases can get infinite turns. The odds are pretty low and you can use your first turn on agility buffs/debuffs to give him a chance to lose turns, but if the RNG lines up right he is capable of killing you on any turn and there is literally no way to ever lower that chance to 0. They fixed him in later versions of the game to use Beast Eye more to begin with, but to no longer be able to use it infinitely on a single turn.

Prepromotes should all be pretty obvious barring Jakob/Felicia. Those two essentially just go from level 1 to 40 starting in a promoted class instead of from level 1 to 20, promote then repeat. Which gives them access to some skills at much earlier levels than normal without having any sort of experience penalty, so it's purely beneficial beyond not having promotion bonuses to look forward to.

Because dreams tend to just keep shifting the scenario on you constantly so there never is a possible ending. Maybe not for everyone, but I know my dreams tend to just go from doing one thing to doing another vaguely related thing to doing something else entirely in one solid sequence that just keeps going until I wake up. The only exception is nightmares where I will actually wake up at a logical end point, namely the part where something attacks me

Why was I looking for Bigfoot in the city? Why was I looking for Bigfoot at all? Why are there women just standing around waiting to dance in the general direction of people looking for Bigfoot? This makes no sense. Was this all a setup to make someone say they were looking for Bigfoot but instead found Bigboob?

I've seen like one person doing this for every twenty non-Americans I've seen getting angry at the term soccer

SSBM_Guy posted...

I know that Jeigans are generally very good, but I am surprised to hear that Frederick is a lower tier one. He seems great to me. Is that more because the cast of Awakening is just so good as opposed to other games where the cast isn't as strong?

He's "only" carrying you for a few chapters and "only" has a bit less than half the game before he's just a pair up bot. Considering past Jagens involve people like Seth and Titania and FE7 Marcus, and even FE6 Marcus who is good for less time than Frederick but even better than him for most of it...it's not that Frederick isn't a good unit, it's that Jagens have tended to be downright nutty

KamikazePotato posted...

When was the last time there was actually a bad Jeigan? You might have to go as far back as Jeigan himself.

It's basically Revelation Gunter, maybe OG Mystery Aran? Eyvel too although she's good for the early chapters she exists in. Conquest Gunter is actually surprisingly solid when he rejoins thanks to his great class access and a nice personal, FE12 Aran and Frederick are nigh-mandatory on Lunatic, FE11 Jagen is one of the best units in the game, etc. Jagens are traditionally super good, Aran and Fred are legit two of the worst ones despite carrying the fuck out of you for multiple chapters (and Fred being valuable literally all game because Great Knight pair up bonuses are sick and his weapon ranks allow for effective weapon dual strikes which are great in the Valm arc especially)

To the extent that Pokemon has world building, it tends to suggest that training is a lot harder in universe than it is for the player who just knocks out everything and levels up super quickly. Random trainer dialogue hints at different types of Pokemon tending to require different mindsets, some Pokemon being tougher to train than others and so on. So I would assume that in the Pokemon world, having an actual elite team that is also well balanced is super hard to do, which is why it's basically only champions (and the player and their rivals) who can pull it off. For most people getting to elite levels with the Pokemon you specialize in is as good as it can realistically get.

Oliver being brought back as total comic relief is the quick and easy way to disprove all claims about the Tellius games having great writing

Kenri posted...

Don't quote me on this, but I think crossbows don't use your unit STR, so it's not as good as it seems. But also, yes, what the fuck

Yeah crossbows exist solely to prevent flying units from being too good, they're not good for much else.

Of course then they went and made the best flying class not weak to bows anymore...

I miss the days when Pokemon were creative, like Crab and Pigeon were

The fun thing with Micaiah is that on hard mode you can have her get amazing level ups and cap everything and it still doesn't actually achieve jack shit in the long run because she still dies if anything touches her

Xiahou_Shake posted...

Is Maniac for PoR actually considered well balanced? I'm honestly a little flummoxed as to which FE games are actually supposed to have really well-tuned, fun top difficulties. A lot of them seem unreasonably masochistic or at minimum require you to play in such a specific, counterintuitive way that they're just unfun. Maybe I'm wrong, though?

Maniac is okay in theory, a bit overkill with how many bulky enemies it throws your way, but it meshes super poorly with Path of Radiance in general being a game with very slow animations, even the map animations are sluggish and there's no way to get rid of them.

I think the only game that really rewards a somewhat unintuitive approach is Awakening. In Three Houses Maddening is the only difficulty where you even have to think about the features of the game you're playing instead of just sleepwalking through things. And I'd say that if you want fairly well balanced difficulty that isn't too brutal, Conquest Hard and FE12 Maniac are both very good in different ways. Both are still challenging by series standards while still taking it noticeably easier on you than their incredibly punishing Lunatic modes.

Counting all the reinforcements Clash on Maniac has something like 130 enemies on it. And it's Maniac, where enemies are super bulky and even the best units don't really ORKO much. The time spent on watching the slow PoR animations alone is longer than the entire play time of a lot of late game maps in other games. You legit need to think about filling up the inventory of your healers and any laguz you deploy with extra weapons just to not run out of things to keep hitting dudes with.

I seem to recall Bastian has some small positive value on Maniac solely because the map they join on is a tedious clusterfuck (tedium in Maniac mode? No way!) that floods the screen with wyvern lords and his chip damage on them with wind magic is actually useful for letting your non-god units get kills.

They both also have the problem of being bad independently of the existence of anybody else!

wtf

Mewtwo59 posted...

Shinon's smart. Train another archer that sucks even more than you do so you aren't at the bottom of the tier list. Because oh boy is he bad when he comes back.

On the other hand he picked a recruitment method that requires you to care enough to field that archer that sucks even more, so maybe he's not so smart after all

Pretty sure I would have a new crush

A woman who was probably 60ish that was a total jackass to almost everyone. She was always talking down to people, picked fights with customers at times and barely paid attention to what management told her to the point she almost got fired at one point. I heard my manager (also a 60+ woman) once say she was on the verge of punching this lady. Oddly enough I had no problems with her - for some reason I was the literal only person in the store she was always nice to. Maybe I reminded her of a son or grandson or something.

Tons

pegusus123456 posted...

You get some episodes where Janeway is a great captain, you get some episodes where she should be court martialed.

The problem with Janeway is she's basically two different characters who happen to share the same body. Some days she's a very principled "always follow the Prime Directive, we can't bend the rules" type who has to deal with how hard it can be to uphold those principles decades away from home, some days she's a ruthless pragmatist who only cares about preserving her crew's lives to the point that you have to question just how far she's willing to go. Both characters are good in a vacuum but the way she swaps between the two depending on what the episode needs is jarring as hell. The only trait she has at all times is loving coffee.

No, I always take them off before I sit down

It's weird in the same way that all the super advanced mega geniuses in comic books are weird, in that the world needs to stay relatable so they can't actually achieve jack shit with their infinite wealth and ability to solve every problem in ten minutes of work.

I'd be kind of puzzled by someone just bringing that up out of the blue on a first date

Into the Void

Kitsune Lair is the only really bad Conquest gimmick map, Fuga's Wild Ride is fine, it happens late enough in the game for you to have the tools to handle it unlike its Revelation counterpart. Revelation gimmicks by and large just boil down to wasting your time with pointless tedium.

Ranking Fates as one to me makes no sense on any level, two of the parts don't even require you to own one to play the other and the third only requires one of the other two, and there's huge differences in map design, story and general quality across the three. Birthright is a generic Fire Emblem story with mostly pretty generic Awakening style maps, Conquest has much more interesting maps with way more going on to bait you into making mistakes since you'll already be in a poor state of mind from the awful story, and Revelation is an alien experiment on human sanity that drew disturbing conclusions from the fact that some of us have actually played all the way through it.

VampireCoyote posted...

they also hoarded milk for some reason

MFers just started hoarding random things

The weirdest part was that sometimes you'd see huge stretches of empty shelves right next to fully stocked shelves of a different type of the same product. Like some types of cereal would be gone while others were totally untouched. I wonder how some of those companies stay in business producing products so unpopular that unhinged people panic buying everything in sight look at them and decide they're not so desperate after all.