Often times I find that hacks fall into two categories. They’re either very fine tuned and balanced, or super zany and fun. That latter category can be very hard to get right, because if you’re cast is too busted the game stops being fun. Cerulean Crescent though- it’s got to be one of the most rediculous and goofiest hacks I’ve played, with personal skills, personal weapons, additional tomes, shove, and the list goes on and on. Yet somehow, it all still feels so well balanced. So finely put together. And I think this element of it’s design is best exemplified by it’s leading lady: Ellerie.
At first glance Ellerie comes off as just your bog standard Lance Wielding Lord. Her bases and growths aren’t anything spectacular. Her growths stick around 40% in most areas and bases are simply on par with those her join her. She has staves as well, but there are so many stave alternatives early on and throughout the game that this is more of a flourish than anything. All in all, when you look at her statscreen, she just seems like an average filler unit…
That is, until you hover over and see the skill she comes with. I’m not exaggerating when I say that “Lead by Example” singlehandedly changes the entire way Cerulean Crescent is played. What it does, is that it refreshes every unit adjacent to Ellerie when she gets a kill. That sounds busted, and it is. When triggered perfectly, the skill functions as an FE4 style dance. In fact, it can be better than an FE4 dance, because Ellerie is not only refreshing units, but killing enemies as well!
Of course, that’s with the caveat that everything needs to go right. The majority of the time, you’re not attacking at two range with Ellerie, you’re attacking at one, meaning you can only refresh three units at a time. And these aren’t typically going to be perfect setups either. If Ellerie is killing a unit, chances are the units you put near her, aren’t always going to get to make the most of their turns anyways. Most of the time, this skill equates to gaining additional movement on a couple soldiers, maybe a couple extra kills. But I’d argue, that this finickyness to her personal skill is what makes it feel balanced.
It’s the same with her personal weapon: the Fengyan. She gets three uses of this lance every battle, and it’s quite a fun tool to dick around with. Fengyan adds Ellerie’s luck to her attack, defense, and resistance, when initiating the attack. The lance is extremely heavy, so you won’t be doubling, but her base 10 luck, as well as her 50% luck growth means that the lance will be getting plenty of uses. And since it auto repairs just like all personal weapons in the game, you can use it guilt free. Allowing Ellerie to use that “Lead by Example” skill in places she might not be able to otherwise.
Now, there’s one important question that needs to be brought up when discussing lords, and that’s promotions. Story based promotions can really screw with a lords usage. But thankfully, Cerulean Crescent also dodges this issue by not making 20 the cap for any class. Ellerie will have pleanty of time to grow, and by the time she’s about to cap a few stats, she’ll already be promoting to Chieftain. And Chieften- well it just makes Ellerie that much more rewarding to play with. Horses are always nice, but having a mounted unit with “Lead by Example” is just so much fun. The additional movement just goes that extra mile to make her skill just that much more versatile. It’s such a good promotion, and it helps that the story moment to go along with it is just really solid.
And really, I could call it there, but there’s one more additional thing you can get towards the late game- I just had to talk about it. Towards the end of the game, you can have your body physically altered, changing Ellerie’s stats dramatically. You can also give Ellerie souls to give her unique abilities she couldn’t gain otherwise. It’s just a minor mechanic, but it really changes how she plays towards the endgame depending on what you did. As an example of how crazy things can get, I’m going to show my endgame Ellerie. With some soul purchases and body modifications I was able to cap her magic and skill, that and I taught her light magic! This makes her play completely differently then she did with lances, but throughout the rest of my game, it made her personal skill that much easier to trigger!
Anyways, that’s about all my thoughts on the gameplay side of Ellerie. As of now, she’s by far my favorite Lord I’ve ever played with, and that’s really thanks to how unique she feels to use, how customizable she is, and how she represents her games identity as a whole. If you haven’t played Cerulean Crescent yet (well sorry I just spoiled a bunch of minor stuff but) you should really play it. It’s such an amazing hack, and that’s without me even getting into the characterization or the story 
