Unlike Requiem, I haven’t done a proper “first playthrough” of this game before this LP; I think I played a demo containing several chapters back when it was called TactHack, but that scarcely counts. I may or may not play the other chapters so I can follow along, but I think it’s going to be more interesting for me to do the LP with this perspective, then go back and play through the whole game in an unbroken sequence to get all the context that I missed during the wacky hijinks that are likely to ensue here.
edit: it seems the “Details” tag is not working on my end? It works in the post preview but not in the post itself. Sorry about that.
suggested thread title: Original Character Armageddon
praise Kaga
… …
Seriously, though, this changing-the-names-of-the-months thing is the worst kind of worldbuilding. I salute you if you have the time and vision to create a language/pantheon of gods/etc for your Fire Emblem characters to name their months after, but all this actually does is alienate the players by telling them the date, establishing that it’s a detail relevant to the story, but then the player has no idea what the actual date is because I’m not going to memorise the months from the tactician creation screen so I can read Renair’s Diary. And, I have no doubt, the tactician creation screen is entirely the reason why people re-name months in the first place: they’re a thing that you see before the story even starts where the player sees them and says “ooh, worldbuilding!”. However, it’s about as much worldbuilding as calling June “Rokugatsu” would be in a game set in Japan. Saying it’s Rokugatsu instead of June does nothing to immerse the player in the setting— it only ensures that they have no idea what month it is. Changing the names of months like this is in the same vein as all the needless changes of class/item names and icons in Requiem— my sword being called a “Militant Edge” and looking like a huge, hefty weapon does nothing but confuse me and make me forget that it’s just a dinky iron sword. It’s a change for the sake of changing things and does nothing but scream “this is a rom hack”.
Now that that rant is out of my system, I’m not going to bother you with it again for the whole LP. Unless there’s an event that specifically relies on us knowing which month it is; then all bets are off.
Sweet home Österreich, where all belongs to the von Habsburg… oh, “Ostreich”.
Maybe it actually is Österreich?
nvm
Why are we Ma Su, you ask? It’s simple…
Just because I no longer have “the game is basically Dynasty Warriors with the enemy count/map size already” as a reason doesn’t mean I’m going to refrain from spouting uncalled-for Three Kingdoms memes!
(I’ve got to have something to augment my wit; poor thing’s as dry as a shiny nail in the middle of the Gobi)
The “hardship” world map theme from FE7 is playing and did you know right before the loop there’s a trumpet that plays a little hint of one of the FE6 themes?
Xanax the Wise can’t hold a candle to Miralax the Deranged. Just saying
so this guy is basically the Syndic of Ulm?
I was looking forward to some Holy Roman Empire-esq intrigue, but what we’re actually going to get is a plucky freedom-fighter narrative. Clara even hints at a possibility of dynastic meddling/wars of succession with the whole “return the monarchy to its rightful line” before concluding wFREEEEEDOOOOOOOOMMMMMM
I am a brilliant strategist unmatched under heaven…
… but I’m stuck serving Liu Shan…
With my limited amount of knowledge of what’s going on, I’d probably inquisit them too tbh
“but there is an order to things!”
Why waste our own energy fighting these guys when we can make our clients do it and then they’re in even more need of us because they lack the numbers? We’re mercs; we’re in it for the money; if they lost enough troops, maybe we could even take over this city with very little opposition and have a potentially permanent source of money!
… Okay, I’m sure there a bunch of in-world reasons why that wouldn’t work at all, but a strategist has to think of every possibility!
“hired?”
why am i stuck with this lloydface he’s never gonna make ANY money
Lucia, Brought to You by Orange Crush™ is ordered to fetch us some new weapons and then help us. It’s almost like these people want to make sure we stay around so they can throw all their money at us!
AND WHY are the good guys red qqqqqqqqqqqqq
[comment missing]
Oh wow. I’d pegged her for a myrmidon but it turns out she’s a mage!
OI’LL BE ‘APPY TO ASSIST YE WIV MINE OWN MAGI’
Rapier!
Rapi— long…bow?
Commander, who is Merlinus?
Louise!
This scene happens when I end the first turn
… Wait, she’s recruitable? Dang! I wanted the ninja guy!
(the “exotic sword lady who doesn’t speak the in-world lingua franca” trope is a tough sell for me, but apparently this character is a reference to another game?)
I appreciate that they changed the hair of the cav animation to match the character! Neat little detail there
holy WOW the battle forecast is even more confusing with the new unit colours. I thought I had accidentally activated the mine glitch at first
Needs a little more contrast to be perfect, but cool palette!
[no commentary needed; image speaks for itself]
(the monk destroys a house)
The rendition of Destruction Begets Decay that plays during this scene makes my ears cry, but that’s neither here nor there
(I’d still rather listen to it than Companions)
A hand axe? If I have to restart the chapter, I’m not even going to bother to go all the way into the corner of the map for that
That’s a hefty blobbe of re-inforcements, but not quite enough to start blasting the Dynasty Warriors music
For a hot second, I thought Martel was an enemy brigand and cursed myself for forgetting about that house
I was going to visit the house because I didn’t have anything else to make Chiara do, but the game seems not to want us to waste the time in the first place. I can appreciate that; they still have strategic use as terrain
oh yeah Negu’s way up here ain’t she
(the map sprite palettes are so similar, playing this game as a colourblind person must be hell)
Apparently, the Lightning tome gives +1 defense? I can’t say I understand. Why not just give monks an extra point of base defense instead?
Haylyn subscribes to the Final Fantasy 2 school of leveling up by making your enemies bash you in the head repeatedly!
Nothing she couldn’t handle after all!
Aceline seems like an interesting unit and I want to like her, but…
Okay, maybe we can work something out. Probably not with that 4 movement, but hey
“rain sucks btw nomads exist in this game because it’s fe7”
Do we need to know this right now?
Dragonshield so we can better stay in one place while we wait for some rain to clear up, I guess??? It hasn’t rained so far and most of the map is Road tiles, which still allow you to move across them with the basic cost even in rain
My revenge against all those who buy 100 iron swords at the first chance they get: buying, like, several vulneraries
Guilty as charged
I suppose Zentir is their god
Like take your money?
I can’t help but feel like we’ve thrown our lot in with a type of zealot that’s just as bad as inquisitors.
This is actually a genuinely cool little touch. Instead of doing the thing where everyone takes for granted the modern-day norm of literacy being a normal thing, it turns out one of our main characters, being a fighting type, actually doesn’t know how to read and is only now learning because he’s starting to come into contact with noble types and literacy isn’t all that relevant in the life of a fighter.
“Perhaps news of becoming a knight will get my little brother to do something.”
X: “You have a brother?”
A: “Yeah, he’s the best damn armor smith I’ve ever seen, but he lacks ambition. He’d be fine if all he had was an anvil and a forge.”
Xanex brings up why he came to the tent in the first place.
Storm their stronghold?! Confound it, Lloydface! What we should do is find some hill in plain sight and camp there!
Indeed! Tomorrow shall be the day the world finally sees the true brilliance of Ma— wait, what? I’m being replaced by a different strategist who also happens to be known to these people as Xanex?! WAIT! I—