What Games are you playing 2015?

[Meeplelard]

Yeah I have no idea how Square Enix US (or whoever) decided it was a good idea to just rename characters in later versions of the game. Can you imagine if George Lucas had renamed Luke Skywalker to Luke Heavenstrider in the Star Wars remakes? Okay, I can, but it would still be terrible.

To be fair, they usually still call him Ultros.  FF6a kept him Ultros, as did FF13-2, FF14ARR, Dissidia, and Chibirhythm.  FF12 did Orthros, but it's not the same character, just an homage (it's a purple flan who only appears if you have a full female team.

It is a failure on FF4TAY, FF1DoS and sounds like Record Keeper's now for calling him Orthros.  It's clear they just went "ok, let's translate from Japanese to English!" and because it wasn't a playable character or a major villain, they didn't care about keeping things consistent.  So I pretty much agree with you entirely on this point, just demonstrating "they don't do this ALL the time!" but the fact that it still comes up at all is annoying.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Well, in their defense, "Orthros" is totally an actual name while Ultros is a mistransliteration of it that just happens to sound better.

[Twilkitri]

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - played through

Finally got around to playing this. No idea where my GCN memory cards are so played it without any carryover, for all that I'm led to understand that the carryover is minimal anyway.

458 turns, 87% events viewed.

I've managed to forget who the 3rd- and 4th-most prolific killers were due to being engrossed in looking for something to write on :despair: Aside from those, the top two killers were Micaiah followed by Rolf, while the 5th-most prolific killer was Ike.

Generally pretty entertaining. I think my favourite section might have been the first half of part IV when viewpoint swapping kicks in in full force, although that could just be due to it being in close proximity to the fairly lacklustre second half of part IV. Bosses in the second half of PIV are generally better than the bosses in the first half, of course.

I had always had the impression that the three-tiered class system was something that most of the units were going to go through (in the sense that most units were going to potentially go through two promotions), so it was interesting to find that that wasn't the case (in the sense that most units start off as second-tier classes). Definitely feels like the reality was superior to what I had been expecting. Will say that the 3rd-tier class/Satori skills are pretty terrible, the vast majority of the time they kicked in was either when I was trying to weaken units for others to kill or when I was going to kill the unit without it anyway.

Elincia was the best unit even if she wasn't getting as many kills as the rest (or to put it another way, because she wasn't). On the other side of things, add me to the list of people who were very unimpressed with Fiona's performance as a unit.



TIS-100 - up to repairing the Histogram Viewer

My current solution doesn't take into account that there's nothing terminating the inputs, so it doesn't draw the final column. My current plan is to synthesise a final input to kick that off, but I don't have enough room with the current layout. Probably would be easier if I was drawing a bar at a time rather than batching up sequences, but I'm too invested in that method to change now.

Fairly entertaining, I'm not going for ultra-efficient programs or anything. Sadly the Scatter Plot Viewer was removed the day after I repaired it.

[Tide]

I started up VP2 last night after some crazy person's speedrun reminded me it'd been in line for replay for a long time.

That run was pretty awful. 8 deaths, 2 resets for Rib, bad RNG, awful frame rate, etc.
But apparently people enjoyed it, so if it got you replaying the game I guess it was a success?

[Dark Holy Elf]

Well, in their defense, "Orthros" is totally an actual name while Ultros is a mistransliteration of it that just happens to sound better.

Orthros (usually Orthrus) is a two-headed dog which Ultros does not even remotely resemble.

But regardless, concerns like "is an actual name" and "is a 'better' translation" don't really hold much water here. The point is that people get attached to the names of characters. A good localisation is an art and there are many valid ways to translate Japanese into English, names especially, but once a decision has been made it should be kept unless there is a damn good reason otherwise*. The name "Phoenix Wright" is neither a literal transliteration of Phoenix's original name (Naruhodo) nor does it keep the same pun as the Japanese, but there would rightfully be an uproar if the next Ace Attorney game's localisation changed it. We're used to it; we're attached to the character by that name. Ultros isn't as significant so the reaction isn't as strong, but still significant enough that there's a clear reaction.

*An example of a "good reason" comes from FF6 itself, actually, when they changed Vicks to Biggs. This is acceptable both because Biggs is a very minor character, and also because it helps complete a deliberate reference which was only half-translated.

[hinode]

IIRC DeNA handles both the development of Record Keeper and the localization process for the global release. Square-Enix probably just forgot to include midbosses on the list of deliberate name changes to keep along with Tina->Terra, Dragon Knight->Dragoon, etc. I suspect that DoS and TAY were also cases where Square outsourced the development work and thus didn't keep as tight a track on intra-series references.

Apparantly SE actually used the spelling 'Ultros' when talking about iconic characters in their E3 stream, which I didn't watch due to being at work at the time.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy Super Autobattle Island - Sealion Elite started spamming 2HKO MT magic at low HP and I died. I think I want to save Slow and pack up more Magic Breaks against him, this feels clearly within my grasp with better planning. Poison also might help, but I'd be relying on Dualcast Venom here. Which at least is crazy good offense. Vivi is a hell of a cannon overall.

[Meeplelard]

Well, in their defense, "Orthros" is totally an actual name while Ultros is a mistransliteration of it that just happens to sound better.

Orthros (usually Orthrus) is a two-headed dog which Ultros does not even remotely resemble.

But regardless, concerns like "is an actual name" and "is a 'better' translation" don't really hold much water here. The point is that people get attached to the names of characters. A good localisation is an art and there are many valid ways to translate Japanese into English, names especially, but once a decision has been made it should be kept unless there is a damn good reason otherwise*. The name "Phoenix Wright" is neither a literal transliteration of Phoenix's original name (Naruhodo) nor does it keep the same pun as the Japanese, but there would rightfully be an uproar if the next Ace Attorney game's localisation changed it. We're used to it; we're attached to the character by that name. Ultros isn't as significant so the reaction isn't as strong, but still significant enough that there's a clear reaction.

*An example of a "good reason" comes from FF6 itself, actually, when they changed Vicks to Biggs. This is acceptable both because Biggs is a very minor character, and also because it helps complete a deliberate reference which was only half-translated.

This is pretty much exactly how I feel.  No point going into further details other than noting that while I'm still used to calling him "Chupon" I'm totally ok with the re-translation to "Typhon" simply because he's a smaller character (ties into the other point!), and well, he was translated that way in FF7 anyway, so it wasn't like the game coming out 10 years later and re-translating it and giving fans the finger.

Apparantly SE actually used the spelling 'Ultros' when talking about iconic characters in their E3 stream, which I didn't watch due to being at work at the time.

Curiously, where did they say that and do you know the context? I suspect it was the Trivia section that preceded the conference, but just wondering where you heard this?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Tangentially, while in the subject: Aerith/Aeris theoretical flame wars.

[hinode]

Curiously, where did they say that and do you know the context? I suspect it was the Trivia section that preceded the conference, but just wondering where you heard this?

I read it on the Record Keeper reddit, specifically about the contrast with RK using 'Orthros'. Didn't mention what part of the E3 conference it was, sorry.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Well, in their defense, "Orthros" is totally an actual name while Ultros is a mistransliteration of it that just happens to sound better.

Orthros (usually Orthrus) is a two-headed dog which Ultros does not even remotely resemble.

But regardless, concerns like "is an actual name" and "is a 'better' translation" don't really hold much water here. The point is that people get attached to the names of characters. A good localisation is an art and there are many valid ways to translate Japanese into English, names especially, but once a decision has been made it should be kept unless there is a damn good reason otherwise*. The name "Phoenix Wright" is neither a literal transliteration of Phoenix's original name (Naruhodo) nor does it keep the same pun as the Japanese, but there would rightfully be an uproar if the next Ace Attorney game's localisation changed it. We're used to it; we're attached to the character by that name. Ultros isn't as significant so the reaction isn't as strong, but still significant enough that there's a clear reaction.

*An example of a "good reason" comes from FF6 itself, actually, when they changed Vicks to Biggs. This is acceptable both because Biggs is a very minor character, and also because it helps complete a deliberate reference which was only half-translated.

While it's true that Ulty doesn't resemble the creature of his Greek namesake, the same is true of all of FF6's boss monsters. There's a bunch of bosses just named after mythological monsters (Humbaba, Ymir, etc) including Typhon, who is also Greek and likely one of the only reasons he's paired with Ultros/Orthros in the first place. (IIRC, Greek Typhon and Orthros are even related?)

So... Yeah, there actually IS a decent case for restoring the name to preserve FF6's mythological monster naming scheme. It certainly doesn't feel like the translator is trying to give the fans the finger by translating his name as such. I'm personally not a fan of the clunky sounding name myself (ugh Greek names), but it doesn't bother me or make me think the translator is foolish for using it.

[Meeplelard]

The problem is Mythological Naming schemes are everywhere, so it's not FF6-centric.  Not even consistent mythology.  Ymir (aka Whelk) is Norse for example, and Humbaba (aka Phunbaba) is Babylonian I believe. 

Orthrus and Typhon in Mythology are related in that Typhon is Orthrus' father; that's about the extent of the relationship and being Greek Mythology, if your parent lineage isn't significant to the nature of your story, it's really just a case of "there for the family tree."  Had Typhon been named Erutyious (SP?) or Geryon, then the relationship would be more meaningful since they're all part of the same trial of Heracles. 

Using Mythological references the way they did here is not a case of "we want to reference the Myth" but rather "we need a name for this monster!" and rather than trying to think of something creative, they consult Ye Olde Encyclopedia Of Arbitrary Mythology Names, and pick ones that sound cool.  Compare this to Kid Icarus Uprising (first example that comes to mind) which took a lot of liberties for mythology, sure, but you can tell they were named the ways they were for a reason.  Hades is still God of the Underworld, Thanatos is God of Death, and while Medusa got a major upgrade to Queen of the Underworld, but her design was clearly inspired by the classical interpretation of her.  I don't see any of that with FF6 monsters named after mythology.  It feels like, as I keep saying, they just did it because they didn't want to think of their own names.

And perhaps the term "giving them the finger" was harsh but it's also not showing respect for the fanbase.  It's not acknowledging what the fans actually might value and how they recognize the characters in question. 

In any event, had FF6 legitimately kept to a consistent theme in naming, like a single source of mythology, but the fact that it's all over the place suggests otherwise.  Using another example, Tales of Phantasia has a lot of things named after Norse Mythology, and it's a clear theme in naming, so missing one of those would in fact hurt the naming schema. 

Note the above does not refer to Espers, etc.  because, Shiva aside (who is more a coincidence), they're mostly faithful to their origins to some degree.  Liberties taken, granted, but worth distinguishing.


ON THE NOTE OF ULTROS: Interestingly, while FF4TAY PSP called him Orthros, the Wii version called him Ultros.  I guess the PSP version did have a retranslation after all.

[Sierra]

VP2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZuWllLXFNk



Hydra was hilarious, though. Equip poison -> regen accessory and poison -> stats up accessory. Get poisoned, laugh. Only works in-battle but still pretty amusing.

Palace of the Venereal Dragon is next.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Well, at least the challenge takes a nosedive from there. Also, I always endorse Talking Heads plugging.

Final Fantasy Where The Red Fern Autobattles - Sealion Elite conquered. Sadly, I didn't get the Mastery, but I can live without the Great Orbs - the Magic Armlet is a lot more important, and that's a first-time reward. Parcelling my Magic Breaks better  (and finally forging Raise, for that metter) really made all the difference there, as Tsunami went down from a solid 2HKO to the whole party to a solid 4HKO. I only saw it once this fight, too, since having all my PCs up and ready substantially improved my damage output.

This said, I honestly kind of like how the Elite battles shape up in this. The design actually encourages a lot of approaches - debuffs work on everything and a lot of bosses have crucial status vulnerabilities that you can actually hit reasonably, which makes you actually think about the setup you want to bring to a given dungeon. Randoms are mostly an autobattle fest, but sometimes they can actually be nasty, and then the game turns into a bit of a resource puzzle. Granted, being -able- to play this properly involves the goddamn luck component, but such is the nature of the skinner box. I reached a power level where the fights are actually interesting, so there's that.

Anyhow, party analysis.

Cloud - Yeah, he's kinda godly. Good equips, physically tanky and Spellblade, which only he and Celes can use (at 5 proficiency, even!), is one of the game's best physical skillsets, given how potent weakness hitting is and the substantial base damage boost they provide. Samurai 3 also lets him play with Retaliate cheese, which is kinda niche at times without a Taunt equivalent to use, but is hilarious and oddly effective (did you know it actually dodges both magic and physicals? It's the best). Frontline fighter extraordinaire and my best physicaller all in all.

Wakka - He went from near-unusable to freaking valuable once I got him a five-star thrown weapon. Damage isn't so hot, but Support 5 is huuuuuuuuuuge - gives him access to the Busters and high-level debuffs. And, as I said, debuffs in this game are completely awesome. Being able to use full damage physicals from the back row also makes him quite tanky to physicals, though magic makes him cry. My point man whenever I need status and contributes well for autobattling randoms.

Tidus - Kind of a mix between Wakka and Cloud. No back row physical nor Spellblade, but Support 3 at least lets him get the Busters, helping him compliment Wakka when I need extra status and his equips are almost as good as Cloud's. Similar HP too, which is a surprise. Delay Attack is also a very good Soul Break, since Slow works on an unholy amount of bosses. Damage is also fine. Right now, he shuffles between the lower level breaks and the Busters depending on my needs. I expect funny things too when I get my hands on the high-end Celerity stuff.

Vivi - Glass cannon from hell. Limited use in randoms due to reliance on spell charges, but they get mitigated once you start honing those spells (and you can actually spare a couple charges of them on randoms - or allot one of the slots for that purpose, really). Rams the damage cap pretty hard whenever he hits weakness, deals at least 1.5x Cloud's best damage when he doesn't - and, due to Black Magic's unholy elemental variety, he can hit almost all of them. Focus is a good Soul Break for bosses, too, but honestly pales in comparison to Dualcast Venom, which routinely breaks five-digit damage focused on the big bad bosses and can even poison them! Crucial for those big boss battles, but that durability is a big problem. Having only Black Magic would be an issue, but the very nature of the system makes this almost a non-issue and Black Magic itself is fairly versatile, eventually packing, besides powerful ST elemental damage, status and crowd control (the latter being -very- hard to come by).

Garnet - You don't really go much of anywhere without a dedicated healer and Garnet's pretty good at it. Only L4 White Magic, but that nets you the entire Cure line and Raise, not to mention the niche status healing and status/defensive buffing options. Garnet's big selling point as a healer is having the highest durability of the more dedicated healers due to a significant HP lead on the others. Offensively, she can also chip in with her 5 Summon proficiency, which makes a pretty decent emergency button against particularly nasty random setups. Having a MT attack boosting skill as her Soul Break is also pretty aces. If I get her unique staff, she'll be really amazing, since Summon Ramuh is very nasty, but she's already valuable as is. Certainly prefer using her to Lenna.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Oh yeah, meant to respond to this.

Chapters 1-8 (aka pre-split): MOSTLY just snoozes where the AI is set to the very simple "attack people who wander into my wakeup range = threat range, sit still otherwise."  And very friendly-to-the-player architecture.  Chap 3, Bazba's Bandits, is especially notable: there are doors and breakable walls that you're clearly supposed to open, but my Eirika will do no such chivalrous thing.  The bandits will die, trapped in their own rooms, because they weren't given permission to open the doors themselves and I have wall-piercing arrows or something.  Chapter 5 is okay at least, you have to move sorta quickly to deal with brigands and safely recruit Joshua, although I'm frankly not a fan of this "old FE" thing that was obsessed with having all recruits be enemies you have to talk to.

There is one exception, which is Chapter 6, the fog of war map with a time limit before the civilians are devoured by spiders.  I guess there is at least the option to play this map really slow and just let 'em be devoured (why would you want to promote Neimi to Sniper anyway), but even still this map would still not be easy!  I avoided using Seth earlier but this is very much a map to break out the Sethinator on, and even he isn't foolproof with various enemies carrying cavalier-killer weapons.  Sheesh, not a gentle difficulty curve at all, which is okay I guess (you wouldn't want things to be at max volume constantly, it'd be impossible to train up weaker units).

Elf mentioned that C8, "It's a Trap!", is legit, but not really seeing it.  The enemy AI here is still "stand still and wait for doom", and it doesn't seem to use later tech from the likes of FE11/12/13 where aggroing one guy will aggro all his friends too.  Nope, you can lure the knights guarding the treasure rooms out 1-2 at a time pretty easily, and the thief arrives really really late even taking it slow (and then steals my Elixir before I can steal his lockpicks.  Sigh.  I guess I'll settle for taking the Elixir back.)  The boss, Tirado, has pretty badass Def & Res (doesn't get fried to Lute, weirdly enough...)....  but...  uh, Reigenleif, and to a lesser extent Rapier/Armorslayer exist.  So yeah, more an excuse to show off Eph being a badass.

Well, bear in mind that, reading your log, it's very obvious that our playstyles are vastly different. I can't imagine slowly picking off Bazba's bandits with ranged weapons or waiting for Ephraim to reach Tirado's throne, or needing 12 turns to reach Amelia! But yeah some FE maps (not all, obviously) can be broken really badly by turtling strategies, drawing out as few enemies as possible at a time. (It's arguably a weakness of the series, one I prefer to avoid by just not playing that way. See also just crushing the game with a few OP units.) C8 has a couple rough patches going a bit faster IIRC (including the east treasure room with the knights). Certainly much tougher than C7, or indeed any pre-route-split map except C5 and C6.

C6 is the opposite, mind, it's a map that rewards moving quickly, at least if you have some good Torch!Colm support to know what's ahead and want the Orion's Bolt (and you need it to promote Neimi to either class option, FYI... or an Earth Seal). Getting to the fort fast with (preferably supported) Eirika/Seth is a big help, as is getting Vanessa safely across to the spider before the enemy army can really rush in from the north to get in her way. Still a legit map, mind.

[Grefter]

C... is ... a map that rewards... you ....good ... Colm

FE8 summarized.

FFRK - 11 rare pull, three 4* items, eight 3* ones.  Smells like auto-protect and auto-shell.

Hearthstone - maybe just go back to this.  Tavern brawl was fun.  Not balanced or deep, but a fun diversion once a week.

[Fenrir]

Thank god for probability so i still get 5 star items everytime while you still get nothing
Huh, I mean, srry gref

I got Aeris' staff which is my first five stars rod and is going straight to Vivi. Oh my god his durability is terrible, but maybe level 65 will make it better. And black mage's materia will sweeten the deal (bm is level 47 now)

I also got a really weird looking diamond sword from FF9. Just how does this thing hurt anyone

Shit i haven't played any other game in like a week

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Vivi's durability is Rydia-level, it is a thing. Hitting bosses with Doublecast Venom for 16K damage is so shiny, though.

EDIT: One of his Record Materia even makes his durability EVEN WORSE in exchange for MORE MAGIC. That uh frankly feels like overkill, though it might be nice to slap on an armor-clad back row Terra, I suppose.

[The Duck]

You people are all crazy.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

The sun rises in the east, the sky is blue and I have a commute.

[SnowFire]

Oh yeah, meant to respond to this.

Well, bear in mind that, reading your log, it's very obvious that our playstyles are vastly different. I can't imagine slowly picking off Bazba's bandits with ranged weapons or waiting for Ephraim to reach Tirado's throne, or needing 12 turns to reach Amelia! But yeah some FE maps (not all, obviously) can be broken really badly by turtling strategies, drawing out as few enemies as possible at a time. (It's arguably a weakness of the series, one I prefer to avoid by just not playing that way. See also just crushing the game with a few OP units.) C8 has a couple rough patches going a bit faster IIRC (including the east treasure room with the knights). Certainly much tougher than C7, or indeed any pre-route-split map except C5 and C6.

C6 is the opposite, mind, it's a map that rewards moving quickly, at least if you have some good Torch!Colm support to know what's ahead and want the Orion's Bolt (and you need it to promote Neimi to either class option, FYI... or an Earth Seal). Getting to the fort fast with (preferably supported) Eirika/Seth is a big help, as is getting Vanessa safely across to the spider before the enemy army can really rush in from the north to get in her way. Still a legit map, mind.

For whatever it's worth, FE8 is probably the perfect storm to make me take maps really slowly.  FE6/FE7 will score me on Tactics which makes me want to move fast as a point of personal pride; FE9/10 give you more bonus XP for moving quickly; FEA just generally rewards quick assaults if you can get away with them so that you can take on enemies before they aggro on you.  FE8 also has hideously slow support building such that my first time through the game I barely saw any supports, but supports are cool, so this makes me pretty happy with slowly turtling while gaining romance points just so I can see the conversations where Amelia & Neimi discuss baking pies on the battlefield or something.  (Sumia, you listening?)

Getting Vanessa safely to distract the spider seems pretty hard, or at least requires having Seth lead the way while hard-charging a bit.  Lots of axe users and the occasional archer, and even if you got more levels into her than I did, she's not really a durability queen regardless, so it's pretty easy for her to get 2HKO'd by axes or 1HKO'd by arrows if her dodge hax fails her.  (This actually was the cause of a "reset" which thanks to emulator hax was only "lose 1 turn" rather than "restart" when I pushed Vanessa too close to the frontlines.)   I finished the map on the last possible turn by having Seth murder the boss; Vanessa still didn't arrive in time to kill the spider.  It's a cool alternate option I'll have to try if I ever play the game a 3rd time, though, and have more levels in her (I was intentionally not feeding her much figuring she'd be obsoleted by her princess soon).

If Eirika hard-charges Amelia's spawn location (but isn't rescued by Seth or the like and dragged there) she should arrive around turn 8 or so I want to say?  Turn 9 probably more realistic.  Amelia leaves turn 12, so if you play even a little slow, there's not much room for error.  I do agree that she should probably make it, but since there isn't particular warning that there's a time limit here, I can easily see missing it if you decide to be a tad conservative and wait to heal up & the like.  More a "I'm glad I FAQ'd and am on an emulator as this would be frustrating to miss in a real playthrough."

Speaking of trainees, though, as I just finished up the monster mountain map...  it's another map where you can lure the boss to equip a bow.  I wonder if this was intentional and you're *supposed* to boss grind your trainees this way on boss archers.  Didn't feel like trying out Ewan though so didn't attempt to boss grind with point-blank magic to the face + rescue -> drop hax while having a dodgy person catch arrows.

[Sierra]

Well, at least the challenge takes a nosedive from there.

I think the moment VP2 challenge falls on its sword is the moment you get enough materials for the 2x HP skill. What were they thinking? Maybe I'll just try to not use it this time. (No promises, especially re: Seraphic Gate, although I likely won't get to that until I'm done with ze Batmans next week).

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah you're right that FE8 provides no extrinsic incentive for going fast the way FE6-7 and 9-10 do. I find the intrinsic reasons to be enough, but obviously a big YMMV there.

I dunno, I always get Vanessa to the spider and I don't send Seth that way because I fear the cavaliers from the north more. IIRC there's a fairly safe way to sneak through; you'll take a hit or two but just moving and using Vulneraries and avoiding the worst locations you can make it. I've done this even with somewhat underlevelled Vanessa. I'm pretty sure there aren't any archers on that path, or if so they can be avoided.

Valni exists as a safe way to grind the trainees anyway. But you're possibly right anyway. Ewan's joining map on Eph route also has an immobile boss who can be locked into a range where he can't counter. So does Amelia's, although sadly for her that boss is on a throne with an axe so javelins isn't really gonna cut it there unless you're extremely patient. (On the plus side said boss has no 2 range weapon at all! Yeah, he's bad.)

You can still get Amelia on a later map (C13) if you miss her on C9, for what it's worth. I've run into this on challenge runs.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy Autobattle and Faithlessness - Tidus event Sinspawn Ammes and Echuilles down. Hilariously, the real motherfucker is Ammes, since his support respawns and the Sinscales' Spine attack borderline OHKOs Vivi. The trick, as I said, is keeping one Sinscale alive, then disabling both Ammes and the Sinscale. Silence Buster and Intimidate (accurate ST paralysis) to the rescue. I still blew a Mythril to heal for Echuilles, though, since one Curaga charge left would -never- make the cut there.

Anyhow, Echuilles is theoretically a nasty fucker: Blender is a MT 2HKO, Drain 2HKOs your mages and his support is much like Ammes'. HOWEVER, his Sinscales don't respawn. Quake away, Vivi. And his status immunities completely suck to boot - hell, it's vulnerable to PARALYSIS. In practice, once the support is down (and that doesn't take long), Echuilles is a total chump. I even managed to champion the run in spite of crap scores on both boss fights, so now I have some shiny ability-making materials in addition to Firaja. Will likely tackle the remaining Sinscales next, they look actually less nasty.

[Dark Holy Elf]

So weird reading the names Sinspawn Ammes and Echuilles and hype being attached to them.


Fire Emblem 7 - Beat Hector Normal Mode. S ranked it, which is pretty satisfying since the last time I tried I got screwed on Tactics by Value of Life (final Kishuna sidequest) because I didn't know that the Hector-only sidequests don't raise your turn allowance. No such issues this time, though I did have one little scare when my Funds dropped below max rating after Sands of Time when I used my last promotion. In the end, though, I overkilled the Exp ranking badly and had 9 turns to spare on Tactics. I did do Value of Life anyway. Kishuna plot is so worthless, like most things connected to Nergal.

Kill leaders were pretty close to a four-way tie between Kent, Sain, Florina, and Fiora, with Raven and Lucius close behind. PC notes...

Hector - Pretended he had 60% speed growth which was pretty great. One of the best PCs from the time he really got rolling until I had to slow him down for level cap reasons (around C16-22). Never really caught up at the end, though, because the combination of 5 move and inability to be rescued by anyone except Florina (on my team; Rath and Eliwood can as well IIRC) hurt.

Kent and Sain - Both had some trouble sticking with the team at first, but I pulled them out whenever I had spare deployment slots. At a certain point their stats got rolling well enough, and the further the game went the better they seemed, eventually their stats were competent and they had the nice mobility.

Florina and Fiora - Despite a mild Str-screwing Florina wins MVP honours for this playthrough. Flight so good, only having 2x weakness to bows (assuming she doesn't just dodge them) is icing, and I played as a light-affinity tactician. She also got the Lyn Mode Angelic Robe. Fiora took a while to caught up and was never as dodgy but once she did she was pretty much a Florina variant, also outstanding.

Heath - You can pretty much always use more fliers. Heath's start sucks, he felt "okay" around Chapter 26 and really started paying off in Night of Farewells. He had more power and raw defence than the pegasus knights but never felt as good anyway. Still, paid off.

Raven - Well he got pretty RNG-screwed for a while, particularly on strength. So he wasn't as uber as he sometimes is. Still pretty damn good, fast and reasonably damaging and reasonably durable.

Lucius - Fragile but got enough speed to murder most things. Criticalled both Nergal and the dragon to finish them off, good times.

Nino - Way better than Fiona certainly! Yeah, I figured she'd be good Exp rank padding and after a bunch of (relatively painless) feeding she became quite capable. Obviously not "worth it" but fun.

Serra and Priscilla - I used both, only promoted Priscilla (and only very late at that). Not much to say, staves.
Pent, Louise, Harken, Jaffar, Vaida - Filler but capable filler, you know how they work.
Ninian - Danced.
Eliwood - Gained like 2 points ofspeed ever. Wasn't promoted.
Lyn - Also got badly speed-screwed. More effective than Eliwood because she has more speed at base but also wasn't promoted.
Guy - Unpromoted filler, never gained Str until Level 17 or something. Got him to 20, didn't promote.
Matthew and Legault - Actually had pretty capable combat stats, but their promotion item is dumb so that wasn't happening.

Game remains thoroughly enjoyable. Despite my issues with the writing (which does have some redeeming features, to be sure; there are some character interaction scenes) and the shop system being horrid plus some other polish things, this remains a great Fire Emblem with lots of very memorable battles. Rankings are cool, rescue shenanigans are cool, evasion and the weapon triangle are cool. Playing this and FE9 back-to-back has kinda cemented my feeling that this is my second favourite FE game, although a lot of them are close! Great series.


Pokemon Alpha Sapphire - Up to Mt. Pyre, levels around 37-38. Current team very much has an "A team" and a "B team".

(Mega) Sceptile - Leaf Blade, Mega Drain, Dual Chop, Power-Up Punch. In hindsight I wish I'd gotten Giga Drain with Treecko since I didn't realise it wasn't a TM any more. Still, Mega Drain suffices. The various improvements to an already good pokemon in the most water-spammy game in the series make Sceptile feel ridiculously OP.

(Mega) Latias - Mist Ball, Shadow Ball, Surf, Recover. Speaking of OP, I have no idea why they thought 700 BST midgame was a good idea. Ridiculous skillset (also can learn Thunderwave and various other attacks) held in check only slightly by unimpressive STAB moves (Mist Ball has only 5 PP / 70 power, Dragonbreath only 60 power). Awesome tank.

Crobat - Fly, Roost, Cross Poison, Confuse Ray. Fast, long-lasting, hits reasonably hard, has confuse, used him before but there's nothing to not like here. Even joining slightly later than in some games, evolved to Crobat at the earliest level possible.

Lairon - Iron Head, Rock Slide, Dig, Shadow Claw. Slow but has a solid typing niche to take hits with and has a decent array of attacking types. Nothing impressive and really hates water routes, but also sometimes really good (e.g. 5th and 6th gyms). Clearly worse than the three above, clearly better than the two below.

Camerupt - Earth Power, Lava Plume, Stone Edge, Overheat. Terrible speed, mediocre durability, bad defensive typing aside from nulling electrics (a niche which Sceptile has since stolen). Camerupt kinda sucks but ground's a great STAB and fire's an okay one, plus Overheat hits extremely hard at least.

Hariyama - Fake Out, Vital Throw, Bulldoze, Stone Edge. Aside from Stone Edge this is the same skillset it has had since forever, and it is really feeling its age. Fake Out is a very cool ability, as it essentially lets you "scout" the durability of what you're fighting, and of course is free damage. Past that he is... okay on durability, horrible on speed, and only okay on raw damage due to only having one, not terribly useful STAB (although it being ITE has been nice once or twice). Was decent for a while but probably should be dropped soon.

I've also used Gyarados (joining at Level 15 made it more useful, but then Latias came and stole the water niche while being ridiculously better otherwise), Mightyena (not much to say), and various others.