I’ve beaten the game! Uncontroversially, I think it was, in fact, very good! I’m going to bury my thoughts under spoilers, because I have a lot of them.
My run was blind, on normal, and - with the exception of 3-P and 3-1 - ironman. Generally, I cleared all side objectives, and stole extensively. I found most of the secrets, though if there’s a way to buy that legendary weapon in an early shop, I never found that.
GAMEPLAY
Act 1
The FE5 influence was strong, here. And the game started strong, too. The Fiana Freebladeness of Storch’s company was not lost on me, and that’s not a negative, given they’re one of the best starting parties in the series. Often, FE earlygames can be a slog, but VQ had interesting and challenging objectives from the off. I had to make use of units who I knew didn’t have long-term futures, persist with units who got stat-screwed, and train a few genuine beasts.
It was a good Act 1 plot. Outlaws roped into taking down a petty local lord, from which point they springboard into a larger plot… it’s straightforward stuff, but it worked well. Broadly, I feel like VQ’s story and writing was entirely serviceable, with a few highlights.
A major strength of VQ was its tightness, and Act 1, unsurprisingly, was tightest of all. Every unit had a place, every map spurred you onwards, and thanks especially to Esfir, there was no shortage of side objectives to snag en route to the objective. 1-9 is my favourite map I’ve ever played in the series. I’m willing to commit to that. It’s tight, forces the player onwards without demanding a dead rush, and made me make full use of my tools; getting all objectives is one of my prouder achievements in FE, I’ll say.
On the whole, I think Act 1 was arguably the high point of the game, which is remarkable for an FE.
Act 2
Act 2 is a bit hazier in my head, but it’s where the cast starts really hitting their stride. It was markedly easier at first, in that sweet spot where units were just starting to promote, but it was a good-feeling part for a dip in difficulty. And it didn’t last forever, of course, as the design reached a point where it could take off the gloves.
My favourite was probably the ‘’‘’‘defence’‘’’ map in the desert, which I took control of with decisive, aggressive movement and secured all additional objectives… albeit at the cost of Helga’s life, my best unit. The fact that the boss has a sidearm so much stronger than his base weapon felt a little cheap, I guess, but if Helga literally had one more HP at the time, I’d probably not even notice.
The logs chapter also stood out, the delicate balance of trying to lug the timber north with my massive unit cap, putting logs on healers that I knew were now very vulnerable, on Cygnus, a guy, on Hokulani with her Saviour, using two thieves with torches to find a path to the boss. I actually had a fog map in DoW where originally you had to escort an immobile green unit who couldn’t die. I changed that because I found it tedious… but somehow, the log map, where you had to do that for six of them, felt really good. Weird. 2-E, by contrast, was a bit of a dud, though I did manage to steal a physic staff for myself.
This is probably the only part where the cast started to feel bloated. Units like Freyja and Menahan just felt largely superfluous. That doesn’t go for every unpromoted joiner in this part of the game - I used Jae for a while, and Hokulani was one of my most useful units - but I felt a couple could have been siphoned off without really losing anything.
Act 3
3 threw me for a loop. I didn’t know a split convoy was happening - hell, I didn’t know it was possible - let alone for as long as it did. My thoughts are a little mixed, but ultimately still very positive. I ended up describing it to someone as ‘what if the Munster Escape sequence didn’t hate you?’, and given that Bald Dashin rocks up in the first chapter and the OP cites 5 as a big influence, I imagine that isn’t a coincidence.
There felt like a significant difficulty spike early in the Act, and very little room for error in a macro sense. I did reluctantly have to reset a couple of times in 3-P, and then, shame of all shames, made… a mid-map savestate in 3-1, when I realised that I’d fucked up and Stina was going to die. So I decided that Surya should die instead, though in the spirit of fairness I didn’t trade off his weapons before throwing him under the bus (well, he had a better chance to survive anyway).
The knock-on effect was fascinating. Suddenly, everything became a whole lot tighter. Not having One More Dude to plug up the line meant the villagers ate shit in Onderdonk’s chapter. Not having his axes meant weapons became even rarer. There was even an experience crunch as a result; by the time of the penultimate chapter, I was even left with deploying Stina and Kusuma stranded at 20/0… though there was an earth seal in the convoy I just hadn’t noticed, apparently.
Ultimately, Radoslav and Seruni, then Zul and Zak, arrived at just the right time to help us limp over the line, and I didn’t actually have to reset or take a death for the rest of the act. In hindsight, it was balanced on a really enjoyable and tight knife-edge… because I took exactly one casualty. I know this isn’t being updated anymore, but I’ll say it anyway; I feel like if, like, Selanne and Jae joined here instead of Act 2, it would have benefited both acts and made Act 3 a lot more ironmannable. And yet my own experience might have been worse. Weird. Alternatively, Batari could have stood to join slightly earlier. She was useful on join, but I don’t see her getting into anyone’s Act 4 team.
I really liked Waluyo’s squad. Packed with horseflesh and bows, with a couple of pivotal high-defence units, demanded a distinct playstyle and significant departure from how StorchSqd played. And of course it helped ensure that the united squad was likely going to be a mix of both. There was a great interaction between their tight-knit nature in-story and the fast-growing support networks in-game. Whereas in Storch’s crew it sometimes became hard to track who I wanted to end up supporting who, for Waluyo’s it all fell neatly into place, and it ensured they often ended up working together during Act 4, a very useful shorthand with so many units. If I needed to deploy 6 people towards a side objective, muscle memory told me that the nomads worked together well.
On the whole, the change of pace was very much welcome. Act 3 adds a lot to the game.
Act 4
The relative weak point of the game… but that’s just relative, and besides, endgame FE often is. It did at times feel like it was difficult to avoid simply being swooped on by multiple enemies from distance, but the core gameplay loop remained intact. It mostly avoided the trappings of endgames; the two final and biggest chapters were also very short - cleared in 9 and 5 turns respectively - and though I took a couple of painful casualties, my combined roster was deep enough to absorb them.
There isn’t really a lot to talk about, in truth. Side objectives were - unavoidably - less relevant now, diluting a strength of the game. My units were almost unstoppable, but enemies had the teeth to stop them, coming in a threatening but not overwhelming or tedious density - though perhaps a few fewer drakes wouldn’t have hurt. Training Sigrid was a really fun hobby, and she became disgustingly powerful, but even she couldn’t take on maps alone. And staves became hugely important, this time for Physic and Restore, not just close-range healing.
In the end, it was a victory lap, but that isn’t a bad thing. The highlight was probably the Zuzana map, snagging all the chests with just Esfir alone, using all the movement tricks and staves I had at that point accumulated to get in just before the doomstack reinforcements - at a time where doomstack reinforcements made story sense - hit my lines.
Sigrid got the final kill, with the tome Helga died to get. Vindication… of a sort.
Final turncount: 333.
Overall Takeaway
The word I kept coming back to for VQ was… cozy. Blind ironmanning VQ hit this really comfortable level of difficulty where I could reliably get ‘100%’ completion, but still had to think, and my misplays were often punished. There was a really good consistency; there were maps I didn’t love, but I at least enjoyed them all.
And cozy, though very much intended as a compliment, might undersell it, honestly. VQ’s map design is its undoubted shining point. It was very clear that each one of these maps had undergone a process, there was thought; it took until Act 4 for any maps that I genuinely thought were filler, and filler by VQ standards would not at all look out of place in vanilla games. They didn’t feel gimmicky, they felt crafted with care to promote dynamic and interesting gameplay, with a good level of challenge.
I’ve said a few characters in Act 2 felt superfluous, but it’s honestly pretty incredible that that leaves, like, 55 characters who don’t. You could see very clearly where they fit in, what they could do. I really liked the dynamic of when you have characters who are growth units you don’t plan to use long-term, aren’t particularly strong short-term, but still have to pull their weight - and I got that from a lot of them. For me it was guys like Arckady and Cajon, maybe for someone else it’s Larisa and Stina, but the logistics were fun.
Actually, the logistics were another part of what was fun about the game. The Crime Emblem aspect was fantastic. So much to steal! And so much reason to, as well. Unavoidably that gets a little less impactful in the lategame, but even then I could shake people down for Physics, status staves, the occasional statbooster. The ubiquity of statboosters was curious at first but ultimately did a lot to ensure that I could fix the dice a bit, giving units an edge that I wanted to use long-term to help split them from the pack or at the very least make sure they could keep up.
The story was straightforward, it did its job, and the political situation was clear to understand throughout. What it did very well was the quieter moments. It did successfully sell that Storch’s petty bandit gang stuck together through thick and thin, even as it got swept up into something greater, and that these bonds were ultimately what mattered most. Not every character left a strong impression, but I didn’t dislike any (an achievement in such a cast!), quietly liked most, and then really found myself growing attached to a few; Larisa, Bulan, Stina and Esfir in particular really worked their way into my heart.
The elephant in the room, of course, is the food talk… which I generally like in theory more than execution. I don’t like it at all in most of the mainline FE, and I didn’t love some of the execution in VQ, either, but what VQ did do was understand why food matters, didn’t just use it as an excuse for something to talk about like the weather or what-have you, but as something that did bring people together, does reflect cultural blending. The best was probably Lajos’ sidestory. The comic element of the smell of the curry betraying the town, before the moment of genuine vitriol from Lajos that it was just something new the foreigners would take from his people.
The game looked pretty good and sounded very distinct, though I did feel a couple of the tracks grated a little or were otherwise ill-fitting. Most portraits looked basically fine, but a few looked really good - Esfir’s might have been the best of the lot, but I’m horrifically biased towards her, so. I liked the overall teal theming of the whole thing; many of the players, the status screens, even the enemy battle palettes. Switching to the green interface helped mesh it all really nicely.
I’ll come back to it on Hard someday, and recommend it to friends outside the hacking community in the meantime.
CHARACTERS
Misc
Marlen began and ended the game at level 1. He killed one guy and took one chest in Bosco’s join chapter. I get the feeling he’d be a very good unit if I’d trained him, I was just never inclined to.
Sri, Nazar and Arckady stuck around for a while in Act 1, just as kind of filler in the squad, but were squeezed out when other units showed up. Lajos kept in and around the squad for a while, but drifted out of relevance as other units started to promote. They all made a positive difference.
Their Act 3 equivalents were Cajon, Bald Dashin, Radoslav, Zak and Zul. Couldn’t’ve done it without them… but they were never going to get Earth Sealed, though Cajon did hit 20/–. Bald Dashin ended up being promoted on his sidestory.
Otilie was invaluable on her join chapter, but I probably didn’t need to deploy her in the penultimate Act 1 chapter, and then left her on the bench. Still, she’s obviously necessary. Dreyfus drifted into the role of backup thief after that, and sometimes saw use.
Credit to Cashew for showing up by a ballista and having just enough numbers to be useful bringing down pegasi.
Checking the guide, the only recruitments I missed were Honeydew - maybe she was on the escape staircase in 2-1? - and Zuzana, who I assume I had to fight with Erasmus, since Talk wasn’t showing.
Graveyard
Lera was the first character to die. I initially tried not to give her too much attention, figuring I’d drop her when new magi showed up, but ultimately committed to using her at the start of the fog defence chapter. She, uh, died almost immediately after that, put at the front of the line on a forest before being popped by a wyvern from the darkness. What was worst was that, for whatever reason, she was holding the lockpick at the time. Oops.
Dewi was meant to be my main healer, but was eaten by Storch’s sleep paralysis demons, due to a completely unforced misplay. She picked up one of the kids, and it turned out a myrmidon could move just one tile more than I thought. She got doubled and died to exact damage. She took the Rescue staff with her, painfully.
I resolved to use Zoya, and she died at the start of the very next chapter, Duck cleverly creating a gap in the market for his services by murdering her when I botched the approach to the southern entrance.
Vernon died on his join chapter because I just kind of assumed on vibes that two people wouldn’t kill him. Two people could, in fact, kill him. I mourned the physic staff he was carrying.
The next was easily the most painful. Helga was in the northeast of the, uh, chapter where you get Hokulani. She’d had Afa’s Drops, she was one of my best combatants, her movement was high, she flew… I loved her character, liked her mug. And in the process of grinding through to the northeast, to get Tien to fight the boss, I had to leave her in the boss’ range. I’d calculated it; the boss would hit her and she’d have 10 HP left. Except the boss had a sidearm. With 10 more might. I will never forgive Tien for this. Helga’s loss was hard-felt throughout the entire game, especially late on when I was left with a shortage of viable fliers.
I made an attempt to train Selanne. That ended almost immediately, when a killer-lance soldier on the Hindrawan map gibbed her.
While Helga’s death hurt my soul the most, Surya’s hurt the run the most. I talked more about it in the Act 3 section, because it came to define it. Death by trolley problem. Well, and the misplay leading up to it, of course.
I needlessly left Jae exposed to slightly too much heat in Sigrid’s join chapter; her death was unfortunate - she’d just hit her stride, her avoid was good, the odds were in her favour - but still, I could simply have, uh, Not left her out in the open. It was a pity, though; she’d been my last mainstay to promote - those are her stats at the start of Act 4 - and had made very good contributions since doing so.
The last death, and another painful one, was Hokulani’s in the Zuzana chapter (again, those are her stats at the beginning of the final act). She’d been a very effective flier, and there was a time when, two levels beneath her sister, she had leads in every stat but 1 luck. Her contributions to the cause were invaluable, and I could trust the sisters to hare off in search of basically any objective. Unfortunately, in the cramped lategame maps, she fell victim to the classic trap - killing too many guys in one enemy phase.
Contributors
These units made significant contributions up until the parties joined, but didn’t make the cut in Act 4.
I suspect Vagelis was badly stat-screwed, but able to contribute well despite that. Having bows matters in VQ, and he had a pretty decisive monopoly over them for a while, pulling his considerable weight and performing roles nobody else could. His dominance continued after promotion, but when other units began to promote, too, and he stopped doubling, stopped one-rounding… ultimately, I could not justify bringing him to Act 4, but by then the excellent archers of Waluyo’s squad were available.
Natsuko was a genuinely appalling combatant - again, I suspect I got unlucky - but the design of the game meant that just being able to fly was a very useful ability, and she was an invaluable part of the Act 1 squad, making regular appearances all the way into the convoy join. There was absolutely no way she was showing up after that, but hey! She’d done her part, and that feels like a good thing in an earlygame pegasus knight.
I meant to replace Onisim with Dewi. Who died. I meant to replace Onisim with a promoted Lera. Who died. Vernon? Died. The fact that he, unlike his competition, steadfastly refused to die was useful, he was a fun character concept, and he pulled his weight for far, far longer than he was ever supposed to. Got an earlyish promotion.
Gunnar was just a good, solid all-rounder with exceptional resistance; I think he got a relatively early promotion and saw sporadic use even towards the end of Act 2.
A fun unit to train, showing up just as I was struggling to find units to get experience without ramming to 20, so she got to snipe a lot of kills. After promotion, she was a very good unit, but was unfortunately just on the cusp of remaining on the squad; she wasn’t in the best 14, and when the deploy limit slackened, new units had arrived.
Anwen, Timmomen, Lori were all deployed voluntarily towards the end, but I figure there’s no point posting their stats. Anwen, hilariously, was almost one-shot by a warrior with a bow on EP1 of the finale. Which, uh, apparently might have saved the world later on? Or at least Cassius.
Final Squad
Michael was a dancer. So. Yeah. He made the cut. In Cassius’ chapter, a wyvern swept through the darkness and would have one-shot him for exact damage, but missed. I enjoyed his dynamic with Bulan, but Bulan was my favourite character in general.
Four characters were initially left on the doorstep for Act 4, but made the cut towards the end:
Not a huge amount to say about Ketut, but I liked her support a lot, and she picked up a B with Anisa, too.
I liked Osane, and did a bit to try and grind out her staff XP in a game where monostaves tended to struggle for experience. By the time she promoted, she was a very good fighter, but accuracy issues were… conspicuous - pretty sure she even ate a Secret Book - and then the split happened soon after. Still, no regrets.
Bosco was an absolute beast through late Act 1 and early-mid Act 2, but his speed dropped off just as others’ started to accelerate. Going from being the one guy who hits really hard to the guy with conspicuously missing DPS hurts, unsurprisingly. But while he didn’t make the cut of 14, he was a solid lineman in the final two chapters. Got an A support with Osane.
It might be a weird thing to specify, but Onderdonk felt like - after Esfir - the second-best… balanced? Unit in the game? Not to suggest he’s average; in fact, I think he’s one of the best units in the game. But the particular way he was indispensable felt perfect. He was very tough, very strong, and entirely able to hare off alone and complete side objectives or be a rock-solid lineman where required, but he wasn’t strong enough to simply trivialise the Act, either. I had to deploy him in the penultimate battle after Lani died; he was beaten comfortably by enemy drakes, but still snagged the two houses. Not that either particularly meant anything by then, but hey! Side objectives.
The rest are ordered roughly in ascending order of usefulness…
Didn’t cap Resistance. Trash-tier.
Nah, but Sigrid was a genuine joy to train. Didn’t even take any statboosters besides what ended up being a completely superfluous dracoshield, powerful Prf tome that lasted the entire rest of the game - though with her using other magic where it would still secure kills - killed about twelve men in her join chapter, finished off the rest early in Curry Quest, and was basically unstoppable after promotion. She probably isn’t optimally worth training, but she was really fun to, and I don’t usually bother with Ests. Got an A support with Maelle.
I dithered with Maelle. I decided to use her, but she didn’t make the initial cut of 14 in Act 4… but then it became apparent I needed more staves, so she was promoted shuffled back into the pack. She was… well… someone with a staff on a horse, but never anything more than that, really. But she filled a niche I needed filled. She almost died on the final EP action of the game, a berserked warrior doubled her with a longbow, but she managed one dodge. Got an A support with Sigrid.
Ms. Scorn was never anything more than a solid lineman, really, but there’s plenty of utility in being a solid lineman. I liked her a lot, so gave her some degree of favouritism; she was never fast enough to reliably double until a couple of pivotal speed levels at the very end, but her skill gimmick was fun, and she never really let me down. Initially didn’t make the cut of 14, but was shuffled back into the pack.
I feel like Anisa got stat-screwed, but she got a lot of favouritism through stat-boosters. Probably a weak link in Waluyo’s forces, but everyone has to pull their weight, and she did pull hers. I liked her a lot, so gave her one of the first Act 3 earth seals and kept bringing her to Act 4, by which time her offensive stats were sufficient she could reliably delete units from 2-3 range.
A proper Great Knight. Mediocre DPS, but she moved fast and could reliably take hits, unlike many of Waluyo’s squad. Never flashy, but always reliable, and always welcome; so often, I could simply treat a problem as sorted by shoving her in front of it and trusting her to get the job done. Romanced Bulan. The flower was such a sweet touch.
I figured we owed Naia, so was determined to use her. I actually really liked that she just drifted into the line; she had that one big connection to Storch, but it was just a coincidence that she wound back in, and was only ever A Guy. She was fine at the start, but really took off later in the game, critting with sickening reliability and basically unable to be hit by anything provided I swapped in 'reavers where needed. Got Afa’s Drops; got her five supports, but not an A with anyone.
Kusuma had a nice portrait and steady personality, so I had to use her. She rewarded the faith. Sometimes her undercooked strength denied her kills, sometimes her low constitution stopped her doubling with longbows… but she could get places fast and generally get the job done once there. I think she got Afa’s. Got an A support with Anisa.
Titus! Arrived as the first offensive mage I’d had since Lera died, so his niche was secure from the off; Dire Thunder was useful enough that it actually received both my Hammerne casts, and in the space between he was Just fast enough to cut it with other tomes. He was a fun character, with the right blend of comic relief - megalomania that was fun until it became a serious concern - and if a sequel ever does occur, I relish the chance to murder him.
Waluyo was able to snag side objectives with ease in Act 3, and while he naturally fell off later on, by then I had enough sky-piercers that he could always find an angle of attack with his 11 threat range, often working in tandem with Kusuma. Obviously had his A with Ketut.
The queen! My favourite character in the game, and she backed it up on the battlefield, too, so long as I could maintain her steady diet of Secret Books. Hit resistance in a team of physical attackers, then learned staves just as that became really necessary for Act 4, bullied my dancer and ultimately glued the team together. Gave Stina a flower.
Larisa was invaluable early on, and secured her place in my heart by single-handedly holding off the northern reinforcements in, uh, that map where, um, Zoya’s sister chases you. There were times where her offensive capability wasn’t what it might have been, but the Father’s Love was a great Prf for her. I liked her character, and that when her long-awaited A support with Storch rolled around, they didn’t just slip back into a long-dead relationship; reconciliation was the victory.
Storch killed 160 people. There is so much blood on his hands. He was underwhelming initially, but when I gave him speedwings, the game took the hint and gave him a bunch of speed levels in a row, from which he became an unstoppable behemoth. My sense of timing was incredible; I made sure to snag the final kill to get him to 20/0 just before ending the map, after which he got his promotion item. From there, he was the nexus of my formation, and along with Larisa could step forward at any time to provide an unbreakable wall.
I liked his character. He gave a lot of Belgariad vibes, like some mixture of Garion and Durnik; a straightforward, direct and honest character to drag the high fantasy and the court drama down to earth, and catch them off-guard.
But he still wasn’t the MVP.
Esfir was my favourite of the early characters, and also the best. Vision Quest’s economy was willing to break for me, if I worked for it, so I made sure to work for it. Sure, she’s cranked by a lot of stat boosters, and her strength still fell off, but her combination of Pass and being a rogue ensured that she never left the party. And then she became able to mug staves off people, and suddenly I had all the physic I could ever want for. God, I loved Esfir.
Tier List?
Based off my druthers of how good units are from an efficiency framework, not necessarily how they performed for me. Never even saw Honeydew, and Zuzana, well, she’s probably in that ballpark anyway, assuming she takes all five leadership stars into the party.
Bulan is like a tier too high because tier lists have to have one (1) case of unreasonable favouritism.
