Time for a 3 AM feedback and screenshot wall-o-text post. Just beat the game on hard mode and I have to say, I pretty thoroughly enjoyed it. To avoid spoilers and writing a novel, I’ll break down my thoughts and spoil accordingly section by section. Let’s go!
End Game party & Characters
I like the decision to make every recruitable unit functionally or mechanically unique; that and having so many death flag characters made me look at my deployment composition with a critical eye each map, and having frequent reasons to deploy characters to trigger valuable talk conversations and the deliberately paced supports meant few characters slipped through the cracks. There were just enough that I had at least a few that spent more of the game on the bench then deployed, but everyone contributed enough to be promoted and there were no maps I felt cheated on deployment slots forcing me to bench my favorites; over-all, growths seemed to be deflated, but fair, but I did have several frontline units suffering from Lyn or Elrika-esque spreads that made every energy ring a high demand treat for multiple characters, and also (though this is more a treasure critique) the almost total lack of magic boosters hamstrung my healbots through-out, so I think more energy rings and magic boosters could be sprinkled throughout to help a bit to compensate for somewhat un-even promotion gains and in-consistent levels, if you want my genuine criticism there. At any rate, here’s the team that fought God and healed the wound:
first up, Edwic; Hector with two swords didn’t really disappoint. Thanks to using his broadswords liberally, he made an impact on every chapter he deployed in. The choice of bows as a second weapon was interesting, but it had the added benefit of making him a good wall to plug gaps for late joiners needing experience to stand behind him. Mine turned out a quality unit, but that came at the price of hoarding every speedwing- Edwic consistently got doubled by every other sword infantry unit he faced, and his defense was somewhat shakey until he snowballed around chapter 20 and eventually getting consistent Aether procs. I also like that unless played extremely aggressively, he gets rightful king right around when the Dukes and Duchesses declared him King, very appropriate and well played, good work!
Julia… this one hurt a bit. While her promotion gains were insane, and her work as a staff-bot was invaluable, her late promotion and frequent speed-levelup misses meant she spent a lot of time basically on an escort mission. She was also in an awkward position of being more mobile then all her best A-rank support choices, and likewise didn’t want to hug to close or risk getting sniped with a javelin or arrows. She was invaluable, but she kind of felt a touch like playing with a female Roy to back up other more capable units… still I applaud the bold choice to have the final boss not die to a magic artifact sword, but be healed by a mother and daughter instead
I loved Freya, mechanically and writing wise. She missed a couple key chapters for plot reasons, but her and her pegasi partner in crime basically saved any chapter that required rushing to save green units or villages. Her personal weapons were also invaluable, good enough I opted to let her keep them as her kit in endgame and give the S rank rimlance to someone else She struggled to get strength on occasion, but thanks to access to effective and reaver weapons, and consistent crits on solo missions, she never really struggled to contribute damage at any point, even with her level lagging compared to some of the rest of the party
Eleanora was, unsurprisingly, very very important and valuable, even after she capped her level relatively quick. Her magic was just high enough to make it worth using mend staves with her, but getting powerstave and having an abundance of barrier staves meant she could do some very silly things going into the late game. If she hit magic more consistently, she could have been a funny pick for a light brand unit going into chapters 24 and 25, she did just fine once I bought her some boots and functioned as a dancer and healer very well, and even held her own if caught out of place. Also, her a Shiela kept the tone just light enough through-out to sprinkle in a bit of much appreciated levity to mi in with the tonally serious plot, so thank you for that
Elyse is an odd unit to qualify- she put in the work through act one, and while she was missed throughout act two, she came back and snowballed fast even with a forced promotion and a late rejoin. I think I just most appreciated just how unique her kit was, between perfect magic access, three cool and fun personal tomes, and enough magic to blast anything that didn’t double her. It just hurt she didn’t get enough time to develop as a character with the rest of the Phoenix Swords, and she was usurped as my main magic damage unit by another mvp unit. She is very good mechanically, just a bit of a miss narratively
Yeah, Alexias more or less obsoleted Elyse, as I was implying there. I gave him the perfume and after carefully sniping some monsters and reinforcement paladins, her was more or less my only juggernaut unit, to the point of being confident enough to warp him ahead on more then one occasion to break up snarls of generals and magic users that would otherwise slow the party. Having three range on everything meant he was a better sniper then the actual sniper, and his brave tome, while necessary to get him up and running, also meant he could melt anything not made of anti-magic. A proper Est unit, and a well done trainee unit, and my best unit of the run, no contest
Shorn was… a funny unit. Total monopoly on three really good critical swords meant he could put in the work in the last couple chapters, and her was fast enough to even hold of Fenix at the end of act one with no sweat… but then he also had higher defense then strength throughout most of act two. He had all the tools and growths he needed, but he almost felt like a tank swordsman for a while, and the idea of a defensive swordmaster actually was fun to play around until her got it together and became a crit fiend for multiple chapters. His writing also was a big turn around. He was amusing with his constant “Tch”-ing and tough guy persona, but his heart was really on his sleeve the whole time, and had a lot of nuance with all his supports
I was extremely happy to see Gareth show up when he did, as I love infantry weapon specialists. He had a variety of good spears to swap between if Freya didn’t need them and the one-two of he revenge spear and the S rank rimlance meant he was phenomenal going to endgame, and thanks to his promotion skill, he was possibly my best out-and-out wall to hold chokepoints, even more so then Morgana or the man who actually promoted to the Wall class, as long as I used him to lure in mages, hand axes, and bow effectively. I was blindside by his reveal when I A ranked him and Shiela, but I do appreciate how you handled his and several characters choice in orientation and preferences
Confession time- I buffed the promotion gains for the Seer to see if get her to around 15 magic could solve my warp issues, so this Catrine is actually a bit of a cheat and should have closer to 17 or 18 magic, and ultimately that was her struggle. She missed a lot of magic levels, and the exp was split between multiple healers, so she promoted somewhat under-leveled as a result. He ranged Heal staff was a welcome and well designed surprise, but basically every A rank staff user struggled even with how valuable their access to physic, warp, and rescue was
Shiela was a real turn around for me. looking at her bases and growths, I really worried if she was just going to be pure utility as her skills implied, but then she hit more strength levels then her brother, and got the absolutely crack Dazzle on promotion, so she more or less carried when she wasn’t robbing pockets and treasure chest. She more or less 180-ed from one of my worst to my best, on top of just having free range to followed right behind the fliers that cleared her path straight to her prize
Galen wound up being my best Dark magic user even with his average at best magic start. It also helped that he hit a lot of defense levels early that guaranteed he could plug any gap not guarded by mages, and even then with the options to fight fire with fire seemed like a great idea, and the resulting Shadow Paladin class overperforming even as he leaned on a pretty average magic value for most of his levels. Really, the inly tragedy, in my run, was he lost Milly due to her and Shorn fitting together very nicely, so Gallen ended my game heartbroken even after redeeming himself as my best paladin-unit
Milly was an absolute monster very quickly. It didn’t matter she missed some important speed thresholds, her personal bow and skill picked up the slack, and being locked to two range didn’t matter either, as she replaced every hand axe and javelin singe-handedly. The stacking pain of a Killer longbow, high crit, and very soon after that guaranteed hit, was a deadly combination that made her my best bow unit among a strong collection of contenders
Volke is looking pretty good here; I joke, frankly, I just love Harlan’s dynamic with Julia, and the reveal when he picked up a light brand that he was actually my best magic sword wielder in spite of his growths was huge, and his personal weapon may be my personal favorite among the personal weapons. While I didn’t see all his writing, just his redemption arc with Juila and flirting with Julia alone was enough to sell me on him. The only negative, at all, I have is I don’t care for GBA assassin sprites, but I can’t think of a preferred option on the animation repo that would be agreeable, so that is purely a petty, personal grievance
Hadima showed up and just started wrecking face very fast. The access to multiple anti-arrow shields help her a lot, as well as adding even more utility to the flying squad, thanks to be very good at tanking for the pegasi and Ruslan should the need arrive. She was my de-facto axe unit, and I enjoyed her dynamic with Galen (eidt: not sure why I wrote Harlen there) as well as best boy…
Ruslan!; I’m tempted to just write KAROO! here ten times and move on, but…
Ruslan was my personal favorite for the quality and humor of his conversations, and his variety of monster weapons made him flexible and reliable. More then once he would rush clusters of wyverns or pegasi and singlehandedly carry the day that me, and after having a heart-to-heart, even got great at fighting monsters as well. His mug broke fairly frequently, for reasons I still can’t figure out, but he otherwise earned his keep
Nadya was kind of the unsung hero of my run, constantly topping off Freya after promotion as well as just having enough spark to frequently get rid of beefy generals and great knights, or at the very least, soften them enough for Hilda, Hadima or Ruslan to finish the job. Despite being more lowkey, Nadya basically perfect access meant she never got benched given the choice
This text will be hidden
To sum up the light novel hiding in the drop down boxes there, I enjoyed the Dark Amulet very much. The characters were a blast, and it did a very good job playing and feeling like a lost gba era game, or a Kaga-lead FE 8 that didn’t have to play it safe