Fire Emblem Catch All

Yeah, I’m having a good time with the Drama Club too (because that’s what the score really is — Black Eagles are the artsy weirdos, Golden Deer are the nerds and other miscellaneous misfits, and Blue Lions are the jocks and popular kids). I’m only in chapter 5 so far so I’m still making my way through most character’s first support scenes and I’m generally in agreement and fond of most of them (Bernadette and Petra are definitely the best, both in and out of combat), but Ferdinand is kind of douchebag white male privilege incarnate, so I’m not so sure about him. Sylvain on the other hand, seems to be using the douchebag act to conceal some seriously dark and troubled sh*t, so I’m more interested in seeing how he develops.

Hubert is definitely creepy, but he is at least up front about it and it’s mostly in service of being ride or die for his queen. Lorenz, however, seems like a skeezeball and even though I’ve barely interacted with him he single handedly makes me question whether I should stick to my plan to play Golden Deer if I do a second playthrough. He’s also definitely dead last on the list for my obsessively min maxed efforts to recruit as many people to my queen’s cause as possible.

Speaking of my queen, one does not do the research needed to obsessively min max a game like this the way I like to do and avoid all spoilers. Even though I’m only in chapter 5, I am wondering

(Mixture of wild speculation and vague and incomplete but still serious spoilers for the first half of the game I think?)

Spoiler:

just how serious and how premeditated her eventual heel turn will be.

Like, is she in cahoots with the creepy armor dude (not the Death Knight, the other one) organizing the attack we foiled in chapter 4? Or maybe she’s even the person in the armor herself? I think I read something referring to her as the “Flame Emperor” and when I checked the Death Knight’s affiliation, it was “the Flame Emperor’s Army” or something like that, soooo, yeah. The rest of the goons were listed as “Western Church” I think, but the dialog made it pretty clear that he was there to assist and observe on behalf of some other organization.

Anyway, if it really is her, it’s all the more hilarious that I directed her put the final beat down on the Death Knight, I suppose.

I’m guessing she’s not entirely involved at this point though - seems more likely that there’s some high tier Littlefinger sh*t going on, working to establish her as either a patsy or a puppet in some collection of schemes against the church and towards breaking the peace and dominating the continent.

That said, either way I’m pretty sure I’m rolling with my queen to the end, because I’ll be damned if I’m sticking with the church on my first playthrough. I mean, most of the folks with the church seem like good, decent people, but wow is that Rhea already a serious piece of work. I mean, it wouldn’t be a JRPG without a religious leader that turns out to be a megalomaniacal fascist monster, but holy hell did the writers knock one out of the park with the masterful way they weave her tyranny in with her gentle, etherial appearance and demeanor.

Granted, I fully recognize that Edelgard could turn out to be either just as monstrous or worse, but I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

On another note, I think I’m okay with having taken the easy route with the difficulty settings, even if it has been a bit, well, easy. I’m no stranger to tactics games and I like to research and plan enough that I probably could have dealt with the higher difficulty, but shockingly this is actually my first Fire Emblem game (others have caught my attention for sure, but ultimately I’m not not a big fan of long experiences on handheld consoles) so I’m okay with taking it easy familiarizing myself with how these games do things. Also, I think the limits hard mode would put on my ability to min max and grind things out would be frustrating on the first time through. Not sure if a second run would be hard/casual or normal/classic, or even hard/classic, but I suppose I’ll just see how I feel about how much tougher things actually get in the back half of the game.

A few chapters ahead of you and I think you're going to enjoy the story based on your spoilers.

Also, definitely classic for NG+. And Golden Deer too. Then you get Lorenz killed on the first mission on purpose.

Stele wrote:

A few chapters ahead of you and I think you're going to enjoy the story based on your spoilers.

Also, definitely classic for NG+. And Golden Deer too. Then you get Lorenz killed on the first mission on purpose.

Well, sh*t. Everything works out then.

(Although weren't people saying that didn't necessarily remove characters from the narrative?)

zeroKFE wrote:

(Although weren't people saying that didn't necessarily remove characters from the narrative?)

Yeah but it would have to be one of the main 3 I think. It would definitely put an end to Lorenz support conversations and him skulking around the castle

Just finished my Blue Lions play-through at a shade under 60 hours. Without spoilers, I kinda want to do a Black Eagle run (or two) to get into Edelgard’s head.

But I’ve also heard the Golden Deer is fantastic, so I think I’m going to start that run tonight. I wonder if knowing more what I’m doing will make the game longer or shorter.

UpToIsomorphism wrote:

Just finished my Blue Lions play-through at a shade under 60 hours. Without spoilers, I kinda want to do a Black Eagle run (or two) to get into Edelgard’s head.

But I’ve also heard the Golden Deer is fantastic, so I think I’m going to start that run tonight. I wonder if knowing more what I’m doing will make the game longer or shorter.

Much shorter. Went to chapter 12 as Eagle in about 25 hours, restarted on lions and was at part two in about 15 hours, and am at chapter 11 on GD with newgame+ at 60 hours, not counting the Eagles playthrough.

Clearly I waste too much time. My save is right at 50 hours in Ch 13.

Stele wrote:

Clearly I waste too much time. My save is right at 50 hours in Ch 13.

More likely I just min-max and don’t bother with dialogue/cinematics I’ve already seen.

Got into Ch 13 last night. Love what they did updating character designs.

My first Master class promote was Ingrid to Falcon Knight.

I finally found a battle that gave me some real trouble. It was the paralogue battle for Sothis in Ch. 8 where you have to fight a horde of monsters. One of them kept one-shotting all of my squishy casters. If I hadn't upgraded for two extra divine pulses, I would have lost Hanneman. It might be time for me to invest in some shields for some of my casters.

Speaking of Hanneman, did you all end up using many of the more senior members, or did you stick primarily to students? I've been working on befriending Mercedes and Lysithia for a while now. No luck yet, but Manuela, Hanneman, and Shamir all offered to join me during the same explore session last night.

Dyni wrote:

I finally found a battle that gave me some real trouble. It was the paralogue battle for Sothis in Ch. 8 where you have to fight a horde of monsters. One of them kept one-shotting all of my squishy casters. If I hadn't upgraded for two extra divine pulses, I would have lost Hanneman. It might be time for me to invest in some shields for some of my casters.

Speaking of Hanneman, did you all end up using many of the more senior members, or did you stick primarily to students? I've been working on befriending Mercedes and Lysithia for a while now. No luck yet, but Manuela, Hanneman, and Shamir all offered to join me during the same explore session last night.

The only church member I use is Cyril. I stick with students for the rest of the team.

DSGamer wrote:

I’m only at chapter 6, but Lorenz is terrible

Stele wrote:

Hubert is creepy. But not Lorenz creepy.

zeroKFE wrote:

Lorenz, however, seems like a skeezeball

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EB7uzZ6U8AoLrwx?format=jpg)

He is so dense, it's almost adorable. I probably shouldn't defend him.

Dyni wrote:

Speaking of Hanneman, did you all end up using many of the more senior members, or did you stick primarily to students? I've been working on befriending Mercedes and Lysithia for a while now. No luck yet, but Manuela, Hanneman, and Shamir all offered to join me during the same explore session last night.

Yeah the staff seems like a story based join. I'm using Shamir a lot, but less of the other 2. Some of my students were already great mage/priest classes, so I haven't felt the need.

Agathos wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I’m only at chapter 6, but Lorenz is terrible

Stele wrote:

Hubert is creepy. But not Lorenz creepy.

zeroKFE wrote:

Lorenz, however, seems like a skeezeball

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EB7uzZ6U8AoLrwx?format=jpg)

He is so dense, it's almost adorable. I probably shouldn't defend him.

There are some characters I recruited because I like them in my party, and there are some characters I recruit because I don’t want to kill them in battle. Then there is this guy who seriously needs a training accident.

Trying to figure out the wacky formula for who can train Byleth in what after Ch 13. Very weird.

Stele wrote:

Trying to figure out the wacky formula for who can train Byleth in what after Ch 13. Very weird.

Very Simple, if they have skills higher than Byleth, they can train you. If not, they can't. The trainers from chapter 12 and earlier such as Cathrine, Manuela and others can still train you.

If I do a NG+ (big if since I am still super early) would you say go with a different house or same house but different choices? I am currently Black Eagle as they are the best house. If I go with another house I would have to play without Bernie, Dorothea or Petra as I doubt I could recruit all of them.

Recruiting is easy, even easier on NG+. Definitely try a different house.

Holy crap don't forget to recall your summons every so often. My Shamir came back with 9k gold and a bunch of items and boosted her bow skill. Wow.

I guess a lot of people bought advanced seal from her.

Sending out Lysithea with master seal now.

Agathos wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I’m only at chapter 6, but Lorenz is terrible

Stele wrote:

Hubert is creepy. But not Lorenz creepy.

zeroKFE wrote:

Lorenz, however, seems like a skeezeball

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EB7uzZ6U8AoLrwx?format=jpg)

He is so dense, it's almost adorable. I probably shouldn't defend him.

He's so Mr. Darcy. A product of his upbringing, he acts on good faith always, how ever misguided that may be.

Alright, so despite my initial reservations, I've been enabled by the ongoing good buzz around 3 Houses plus some expiring Best Buy coupons. So it should be arriving Friday, and I'll be juggling between it and Fallout 4.

I've been avoiding spoilers for the most part, but what is the word on how good each of the post-timeskip routes are? I was targeting the Golden Deer before, but that could change.

Alright, so despite my initial reservations, I've been enabled by the ongoing good buzz around 3 Houses plus some expiring Best Buy coupons. So it should be arriving Friday, and I'll be juggling between it and Fallout 4.

I've been avoiding spoilers for the most part, but what is the word on how good each of the post-timeskip routes are? I was targeting the Golden Deer before, but that could change.

I've tried to avoid story spoilers, but I did see something about chapters when I was trying to look up a sidequest. Looks like Edelgard route is only 18 chapters while most of the others are 21 (?) I think.

Are all the second-hand people outrageously powerful for the different houses? I think they're Dedue and Hilda, right? Despite my reservations about Hubert, he is an absolute monster on the battlefield compared to all of my other characters besides Byleth and Edelgard.

He has a magic stat of 30 at level 18 and is regularly critting with Death for over 100 damage. I finally managed to snag a Dark Seal last night, so I'm pretty excited to see what he can do as a Dark Mage.

My brother has nicknamed Dedue "Kill sh*t". Because that seems to be what happens whenever he is approached.

At the start of the game my big task was to keep Bernadette safe. Several hours later I was telling Bernie to put that man into the ground. They become killers so fast.

I’m Golden Deer and only chapter 7 but I actually find Lorenz interesting to have around. I mean I don’t like him but he’s a fun character as a look at what some nobility are like. It’s been kind of fun interacting with him and trying to shut down his delusions.

I have purposefully equipped Dedue with a training axe to try and prevent him from one shotting enemies. He already has like 50 at level 18 and takes no physical damage. The real monster for Blue Lions is Felix though. High speed, high damage, will double everyone with enough damage to sometimes kill on the first hit.

Yeah Felix is one of the favorites I recruited. I'm looking forward to making him a beast from level 1 in another game.

Stealthpizza wrote:

If I do a NG+ (big if since I am still super early) would you say go with a different house or same house but different choices? I am currently Black Eagle as they are the best house. If I go with another house I would have to play without Bernie, Dorothea or Petra as I doubt I could recruit all of them.

Different house. The choices are largely irrelevant to the story, but the back half of the game is almost entirely different.