Fire Emblem

[9iygas]

Yes, I saved after he died and I don't particularly care for Ewa either. Fire Emblem gives you so many characters, you can't possibly use the all. Dunno, but Black Magic seems to be worse than Light and Anima Magic. I can live without a Dark Magic user.

Is it possible to get a second whip, so I can promote Tala? She's level 18 or 19 now, so it won't take long for her to max out her level.

[Zant]

I believe the recruitable Wyvern Rider carries one. He does on Eirika's path anyhow. I suppose you'll meet him very soon.

Unless you mistook him for an enemy unit and killed him, that is. He's one of the very few FE good guys who has a bit of a badguy face.

Anyhow, I killed the final boss and got the credits done. Now there's something about a

Creature Campaign

or something, but frankly

I don't feel like fighting such weak pathetic creatures over and over again...

[Doofenshmirtz]

Yes, I saved after he died and I don't particularly care for Ewa either. Fire Emblem gives you so many characters, you can't possibly use the all. Dunno, but Black Magic seems to be worse than Light and Anima Magic. I can live without a Dark Magic user.

Is it possible to get a second whip, so I can promote Tala? She's level 18 or 19 now, so it won't take long for her to max out her level.

There's a secret shop that lets you buy the promotional items in some chapters, but you need to have a Silver Card to access it, and it is hidden in some places in the map. There was one in the Chapter were

Joshua's mother is killed

and there's one in the chapter were you fight

Orson

Other than that, I don't know. And the items are expensive, to boot.

[9iygas]

I believe the recruitable Wyvern Rider carries one. He does on Eirika's path anyhow. I suppose you'll meet him very soon.

Unless you mistook him for an enemy unit and killed him, that is. He's one of the very few FE good guys who has a bit of a badguy face.

I just looked it up. He appeared in chapter 13, well, he would have appeared at least, but I beat the chapter to quickly. So, he didn't arrive in time and that means no Cormag for me.

There's a secret shop that lets you buy the promotional items in some chapters, but you need to have a Silver Card to access it, and it is hidden in some places in the map. There was one in the Chapter were

Joshua's mother is killed

and there's one in the chapter were you fight

Orson

Ah merde, I just beat that chapter today. I guess she'll stay a Pegasus Knight now.

[Moonside]

[...] and there's one in the chapter were you fight

Orson

Actually, on Ephraim's route it's on the

Grado keep

. And there's a third on the

Rausten court

, which appears on both routes.

They also sell the stat-boosting items.

[Ark]

So a couple people wanted to do a draft, and I figured that these would be fun rules to use. The picking order was me (1) down to Doof (5), then back up from Doof to me, and so on. I think I made some good picks, and I'll try to keep a log updated with how everything went along with turn counts.

Spoiler: The Rules and Teams 

Drafting:
1. This draft is for 5 players (there, Dyna >:V).
2. Eirika, Ephraim, and Orson are free to use
3. Seth is banned from all use.


Rules:
1. Undrafted units may recruit characters, rescue undrafted units and NPCs, visit Shops and Armories, and trade
2. Undrafted units may not do anything not listed above, including but not limited to meatshielding, building Supports, and opening Doors or Chests.
3. Map shopping is allowed.
4. Skirmishes/use of the Tower or Ruins is disallowed. Skirmishes that are blocking your path may be activated and immediately fled from.
5. Tower may only be used to level a trainee to 10/1/0
6. Eirika's Route, Hard Mode
7. Franz cannot promote before C10.
8. Franz/Vanessa cannot rescue Eirika before C9.
9. The use of save states is forbidden.


Penalties:
1. Undrafted units have a 4 turn penalty, per unit per chapter.
2. Seth has a special 8 turn penalty per chapter.


Exceptions:
1. Vanessa may be used to Rescue Ross and Garcia in Chapter 2 even if she is undrafted.


Teams:
1. Ark: Vanessa, Garcia, Moulder, Kyle, Saleh, Syrene

2. Aure: Joshua, Gilliam, Colm, Ewan, Cormag, Myrrh

3. Dyna: Lute, Neimi, Natasha, Marisa, Forde, Tethys

4. Lenore: Franz, Artur, Gerik, Innes, Duessel, Knoll

5. Doof: Ross, Amelia, L’Arachel, Tana, Dozla, Rennac

Spoiler: My Thoughts 

Vanessa: Yes, I am so glad I got her as my first pick. I love Pegasus Knights, and the fact that I can abuse her high movement, rescuing abilities, and magic soaking goodness early on is great.

Garcia: I need a powerhouse, and that's why I picked Garcia. He'll probably need a Speedwing though since he'll likely be having trouble doubling.

Moulder: I have early healing with him and once he becomes a Bishop, he'll be destroying all of the monsters with Slayer.

Kyle: Wanted a Cavalier, and he'll be able to tank some hits once he becomes a Great Knight. Plus it'll make the gaiden chapter with Ephraim (5x) more bearable.

Saleh: More magic is good, but I don't really care for him as a character. I guess he can support with Eirika, so that's cool.

Syrene: I didn't want her. She comes in late, and I guess her higher CON is nice when wielding heavier lances, but still. :/

Overall, I think I have a team that can carry me right from the beginning since I drafted three characters that are recruited in the first two chapters. Aurelite also has a pretty decent team, but he'll be relying on Gilliam, a slow knight, and Eirika until he gets Joshua. Having Colm on his team is also a major benefit since he'll be getting awesome things from chests. Dyna's team is pretty squishy, but I'm sure if he uses Eirika well, he won't have it too bad, especially since he has Lute. Lenore's team is balanced, and she picked Franz, an all-around great unit. Doof has Ross going for him, and if he can make Amelia work, then he'll have two powerful units with him.

If I had to guess on how well everyone would do solely based on their picks (not counting their personal skill), I would say that we'd end up in this order:
1. Me
2. Lenore
3. Aurelite
4. Doof
5. Dyna (i still love you bro :<)

well gee thanks ark

not my fault you stole vanessa ;-;


But basically I was looking for motivation to play again rather than the competitive aspect and I guess challenge is good too. Except i realized how hard this beginning is going to be since everybody is made out of cardboard. It's like if the Dawn Brigade chapters from RD extended or something.

yep this is going to be fun

Team Manly Men, as I have flippantly dubbed my all-male team (barring Eirika), is ready to spring into action, mhm. I was quite happy with my picks, although in an ideal world I'd have taken Lute and Neimi rather than Duessel and Knoll.

Spoiler: Thoughts and reasoning 

Franz was a shoo-in for my first pick, as cavaliers are my favourite base class, and he's the one you get earliest. He also apparently has the best stats or stat caps or something, but that didn't come into play for me here. Will almost certainly promote him to a paladin, given that I have Duessel as my great knight.

I'm not a huge fan of Artur, so I surprised myself when I chose him second. With Dyna picking right before me, Lute was never an option, and I needed a magic user who could double on staves. Saleh comes in too late in the game for him to be a viable option, and his nature as a prepromoted unit only served to cement my choice. Probably heading for sagehood.

Gerik was also an easy choice. I've previously used him as a ranger, but I'm not sure whether to go with that again this time or go hero. If I'd managed to snare Neimi, I'd have made her the ranger and heroed Gerik in a second, but as it is, that's pending.

Innes is probably my favourite character, but I bumped him down to my fourth pick since he's a midgame unit as well as one that I didn't see as being mega-crucial. He's particularly important in Neimi's absence, though, since I wanted at least one ranged unit.

Duessel is a tank. Enough said.

Knoll was a bit of a wild-card choice for me, but I think he can be a staff user if promoted, and versatile mages are probably my favourite thing.

I'll have to rely solely on Eirika, Franz and Artur until chapter ten, which I don't necessarily think is such a bad thing. Levelling Artur faster in his base class means I can promote him to a staff-wielding sage earlier, and Franz and Eirika will wreak more havoc later in the game because of this.

I'll also try and keep a log of sorts of the exploits of Maid Eirika and her Manly Men. Or something.

[Ark]

Franz comes with pretty good starting stats for his level, and his growths are relatively decent even though none (outside of HP) are spectacular; Great Knights have better caps, so if you don't miss that 1 movement, then that might be a better pick.

We're in Eirika's route, so I would suggest turning Artur into a Bishop since then he'll be able to destroy all the monsters. You won't have Anima magic unless you turn Knoll into a Druid though, but I think it's worth it since Slayer is so strong.

Honestly, I would suggest turning Gerik into a Hero since he's much better off in that class. You already have quite a few units with range, and there's Innes if you really want to use bows.

Also, I'm kind of only posting since Lenore doesn't want to doublepost and I'm such a classy gent.

Oh I can post my thoughts on the characters I chose too!

Spoiler: Team Impressions 

Lute is the most goddamn badass awesome character in the game, holy &&&& doubling everything destroying things in one shot dodging everything holy &&&& &&&& god yes she is my favorite and the best character in this game in every way and she is my favorite and the best character in every FE in every way and hell yeah and she's just holy &&&&ing goddamn &&&&&in' dandy

and sexy

.

And I do quite like Neimi too, she's a pretty strong unit and an all-around great Sniper/Ranger, although I'm not sure which one to promote her to. I'm thinking Ranger though since mobility and melee will be very helpful. She's just overall very solid and it's helpful with how early she comes, although she'll take a while to get off the ground. Still, she has so far been a good help and will be a much greater one further down the road.

I chose Natasha since I did want a healer fairly early, and if L'Arachel came sooner I'd have chosen her. So, this gives me more time to level her up and promote her, and when that time comes around I'm sure she'll become an even greater asset to the team. I'm thinking of making her a bishop, although I'm not sure yet, since Valkyrie/Mage Knight is also pretty great. Anyways, I was a little dismayed when I discovered her... base 2 Magic stat, but there's ways to help that and it'll certainly get better.

Joshua was already taken so Marisa was my next choice. While I do slightly prefer Marisa anyways, I would've taken Joshua if only for his early joining time (marisa is also kind of a pain to recruit, so... a resetting future awaits!). Both are pretty cool though, and I'm glad i got one. Marisa unfortunately, is also kinda fragile at first, but she's pretty awesome overall. I normally go with Swordsmaster since I don't like the Assassin sprite as much, but I think an Assassin will be very beneficial. Anyways, she too is a great unit.

Forde is my favorite cavalier in this game, and like most cavaliers is all around great. When I finally really get to use him he'll likely be a major support, since he is probably my tankiest unit of sorts, and to help him better fulfill this role I'll make him a Great Knight. And Great Knights simply look pretty great too. Anyhow, he's overall quite balanced and strong, not to mention I also love his character like all my other choices. I'm quite glad I managed to get him, even though he was so late a choice for some reason. But I figured there were plenty of cavalier characters to go around, and I was right! Sorta. Poor Doof.

When the final choices came, it was Syrene, Tethys, and Myrrh. I... didn't really want Syrene at all since she comes way too late to be helpful (and vanessa's way better in every single way too BUT NOOOO), Myrrh I was uncertain about due to her low starting level and the fact she only had one weapon, so... Tethys. Yes I only officially named her halfway through this description. She is indeed a very helpful unit and I always appreciate Dancers, but her particularly extreme frailty, and the fact that she never stops being squishy unlike everyone else is a cause for concern. I'm sure she'll be quite helpful, but I'll need to take extra care and she'll probably be accounting for a whole lot of resets.

All in all I think I can manage with this team, and I'm just overall pleased I got so many of the characters I'd planned on, and also pleased since I love all of them. Except I guess I don't actually like Tethys that much, but yeah Team Waifu (plus Forde/Ephraim, minus Vanessa ;-; ) is go


And as far as the run goes I've started and made it to Chapter 6 now. The first few chapters weren't as rough as I expected, although right now it's a bit of a bad spot even though I already have 4 good characters to work with. The issue here is that Team Waifu is generally very squishy right now. Also, Chapter 5x was a bit of a pain, but after some inventory management puzzles and some resets I got through. That archer at the beginning was a huge butt, jeez.

Chapter 5 in particular was also pretty difficult. Somehow I managed to save every village, but that was really hard and I took quite a few retries. I did recruit Joshua for the Killing Edge and I'd feel terrible if I let one of my favorite characters wander around and die/kill someone, and after that... well, let's just say that to save the top village, I had to throw Neimi and Natasha under the bus and miraculously, they didn't die. Natasha didn't like the axe to the face very much but hey I made it!

And now I'm puzzling over how to approach Chapter 6. I really do want to save the villagers from the ugly spiders, since 1. An Orion's Bolt is nice to have and 2. I'd also feel terrible if I didn't. Unfortunately the game is making this hard. There's a hundred billion cavaliers coming in from the north/west. If I go right past the village, there's a hundred billion assorted candy bag of other jerk enemies. And then the hundred billion cavaliers waltz in like "hurrr hey guys what's goin on" and it's just terrible. And if I took my time, which wouldn't be so hard, the people would die! It's quite a problem. I'm thinking of just bum rushing the boss but I have to figure out an effective way to approach all the enemies in a quick way.

Oh, and Eirika is very helpful and is way better than I remembered her, probably since I'm using her so much, but she's really just excellent, and as of now the most helpful asset to the team. She's already quite high leveled though, so I fear for the point she'll begin eating experience for nothing.

God man, Fire Emblem is so fun



Oh yeah, and while I've shown this to some people already I think I'll just post the Fire Emblem 12 Translation Project here. I'm sure some of us remember how this still isn't translated and are a little sore about it, so here's this, and hopefully it'll get done soon. No telling when, though.

Dyna, how's your turncount so far? Also, I love that we have Team Waifu and Team Manly Men; between us we'd have a gender balance.

Anyway, onto my exploits. The Manly Men proved their worth today; I'm up to chapter four (which means it's time to grab Artur hooray), and my turncount isn't astronomical yet. Took the prologue down in two turns thanks to Eirika critting two of her first four hits. Everything's gone pretty smoothly so far - I've gotten all of the recruits and no deaths, which I guess isn't that great an achievement at the moment. Eirika's level 7 and Franz's level 6, so I'm kinda just cruisin' at the moment. My turncount is 23 at the beginning of chapter 4, if you're counting.

T-turn count?

Tuuuuuuuuuurn...

Count?


Yeah like I said I wasn't joining this for that part of it, so I actually haven't paid much attention to it nor have I tried to minimize it all that much. I doubt I'll win and honestly expect to finish last, there's a lot of habits that are hard to shake and it's all with the way I play. So yeah, I'm not quite sure, but I'm having fun and I honestly think that's what matters here. Hooray!

Stupid cavaliers I AM DONE FOR TODAY

[Ark]

Okay might as well give the rundown on how the Dream Team (everyone else had cool team names and I wanted one too ;-;) did for the first couple of chapters. Next update will probably be larger so I don't end up posting too many of these, but I just wanted to show how far I got in one run.

Spoiler: chapter info 

Prologue: Eirika wouldn't really crit when I wanted her to, and I figured I'd just go with the score I got. She got a decent level up which gave her some more defense, so I can't really complain. 3/3 turns

Chapter 1: Eirika just rushed through the level, and I just had Franz, Gilliam, and Seth wait up at the top of the map. Eirika got some more defense, and I think that really helped deal with the soldiers. She ended up missing the boss though, so that added another turn for me. 6/9 turns

Chapter 2: Now I have 3 units since Vanessa and Moulder joined up with me. I was able to quickly recruit Garcia as well, and that lead to a nice start. Vanessa cleaned up what Garcia left over, even criting a bandit of her own, and Eirika took the bandits that came from the west. Vanessa landed the final strike on Bones, but some misses were involved, and I believe that I could have cut this chapter down by another turn if I was luckier. 7/16

Chapter 3: We pretty much ignored Colm and the chest rooms. Vanessa and Garcia would bust down doors, and Eirika would take whatever was on the other side, and finish her enemies with a counterattack. After that, it was pretty much a rush to the boss since I wanted to get through this as fast as I could. Got lucky when facing the boss since Eirika had a crit right off the bat. 7/23

So, I think if luck had been my way in some instances, I could have trimmed this down a bit. Still, pretty decent without abusing the RNG, and I did get lucky on some parts, so no complaining.

I've also done a pretty decent job of leveling Eirika and Vanessa, and I guess Garcia is doing okay too since he gained a level. Moulder needs to pick up the pace though, so once I get a better staff, he'll be using it over and over since I want to turn him into a Bishop ASAP.

I'd post character stats, but I dunno how exactly I'd want to post that so the formatting is decent and easy for people to figure out, hrm.

Oh boy let's do a chapter review log!

Spoiler: SS Draft Chapter Log P-13 

Prologue: All there is to say is that I didn't like wearing down the rapier.

Chapter 1: Not terrible, I was glad to get Eirika that iron sword. Oh, and I felt odd but I had to move Seth's ugly butt over so he wouldn't get hit by/kill all those reinforcements.

Chapter 2: Nothing too eventful, except I was miserable how Vanessa was here and all and I couldn't actually use her :<

Chapter 3: I let Colm take all the treasures before recruiting him, man I felt smart. But anyways not too bad, just had to get Neimi to catch up a bit.

Chapter 4: This chapter... got Lute in this chaper. Hell yeah.

Chapter 5: This was a difficult one. I managed to save all the villages, get Joshua and not use him ( :< ), and I had Eirika try the Arena, but only once. Thank god she lived. To save the upper village I had to use poor Neimi as bait, then Natasha too, and as they miraculously lived I killed everything and hoorah

Chapter 5x: This was difficult and had a lot of items shuffling around. Ephraim's kinda shrimpy, but with some Orson meatshielding and Kyle packmuling I leveled Ephraim and Forde up fine enough to take down the boss.

Chapter 6: I headed to the boss as fast as I could over the hills, but by the time I had him in sight, the spider was in position to kill someone, and... well, by the end they were all dead. So very sad, and then Neimi can't promote, at least until the location I'm at now.

Chapter 7: Not too bad actually. I thought about using the ballista, but I ignored it and basically shrugged the other one off. The Knight Crest from the boss would then be used to make Forde a great Great Knight, which is great. Yeah.

Chapter 6: I ended up ignoring the two chests in the upper left. I don't remember what they were exactly, but they weren't very good. Anyways, I had to restart this one notably far in when Forde couldn't kill the thief in one hit... which wouldn't have been bad, or so I expected, except the next turn he stole my Angelic Robe and I cried.

Chapter 9: I have no idea how I'm expected to save those villages. I'd consider both of them some pretty painful losses, but I didn't make it. I couldn't exactly fly over the sea, and even if I had sent Tana she'd inevitably be drawn into a conflict and get shot by arrows, so. Also, while I thought I was going fast, I barely missed Amelia here. Oh well. I got worried when the pirates began closing in on me from the sea while reinforcements from above and enemies from below were coming, but it wasn't too bad really.

Chapter 10: This chapter was pretty difficult, although it didn't actually take many real attempts. I didn't like letting the brigands follow me, but I made everyone go right to the little fort where Innes was cooped up. I had to reset once when Marisa died in my first go, but I recruited her and trained her a bit, but at this point she still had a long way to go. This chapter also brought Tethys, and except for Ephraim, this chapter completed my team. Hooray! Also, I promoted Lute to a Mage Knight here. That too was excellent.

Chapter 11: In this chapter I promoted Forde to a Great Knight, and also snagged all the chests except for the southwest one. Not extremely bad, but it came worrying when I had Forde and Marisa move outside in the East. A whole bunch of monsters came from the south to essentially kill themselves on Forde, but I didn't expect the ones from the north, so Marisa had a close one. I also didn't expect any to actually come around from the inside either, so Natasha and Tethys were also in a lot of danger. It's like the game intentionally made those revenants in the north to distract me, Lute and Neimi couldn't help with all this, bluh. And Eirika just went to recruit L'Arachel and Dozla, which was also cool.

Chapter 12: When all those gargoyle reinforcements came, I was in quite a mess, but I somehow managed to deal with them all. The rest was a bit nerve-wracking in places, but generally I did well. Marisa did appreciate Ewan's energy ring, and I thought it was hilarious how all the evil eyes kept throwing themselves at Lute and literally doing nothing. Except dying.

Chapter 13: This was the hardest battle yet. Starting off surrounded is a terrible thing. At first I kept trying to hold up the mountain pass in the east. If I really wanted to I could've probably killed the boss, but I didn't want to miss on Cormag and basically I kept failing. My next plan came to first go southwest and sorta hide there, while dealing with the soldiers coming in from the east. During this time I managed to recruit Amelia, then I went northwest to kill some more approaching enemies. When Cormag came I sorta lined up out of reach, got him, and had him pick up Amelia and hide out of reach. At this time the cavaliers came around, and after them came the gigantic reinforcements... Ugh. In the end, I sorta barely crammed everyone in the south-center below the ballista, while Forde held up the bottleneck really, really well. And then finally I survived, jesus. I'm glad it was a working strategy though, since I actually had to enact it twice since the first time Neimi got killed by Pablo at the very end since he's an ass and I didn't expect him to hit with the exact amount of damage needed, didn't expect to need to heal Neimi, and I DIDN'T EXPECT HIM TO COME ALONG WITH PURGE AKLJFVLKDJF

And now that I'm on chapter 14, I need to figure out how Rennac moves, exactly. I had to restart quite a few times, and of course still haven't made it. I have a lot of keys and fully intend to get all the nice treasures, and when I get Rennac I'm hoping to buy as much as I can from the secret shop, most notably the Orion's Bolt so Neimi will stop killing things for no real reward.

Spoiler: Team Rundown 

Eirika is still performing very well and is just overall very reliable, although I've grown reluctant to use her since she's now reached level 20. But yeah, she's good and has been a major asset to the team.

i don't think i need to describe Lute again, but if anything I'll say that it's hard to describe how incredible she is

Neimi now sits stagnant at level 20 as well, so I'm also a bit reluctant to use her. However she's turned out very good and has been a great help. Hope to make her a Ranger, and I'm sure she'll be awesome. Also, the long bow is really helpful, although I'm running out of uses. Aaaah.

Natasha's magic stat is still a little subpar, which disappoints me. I don't expect her to exactly take the front lines by storm when she becomes a bishop, but being able to fight and defend herself will be really great, and then there's the bonus against monsters, which will be quite cool. I've managed to level her to level 17-ish now, very good. Maybe I'll just promote her now, not sure. But after getting Tethys she's sped up that leveling, and then the Barrier staff from Chapter 12 has given me a whole ton of free experience. Her heals are still very appreciated, she's completely instrumental to the team like everyone.

Forde is really damn awesome. He's been a very effective tank and is able to deal quite a bit of damage while he's at it. He can practically charge headlong into a swarm of enemies and make it out fine, and has proven to be super good and helpful. Honestly, it depends on who I would have instead yes, but all I know is that if I didn't have him I think my game would've ended at Chapter 13 for sure, if not earlier. Also at one point he got so many criticals it was baffling, but still good, of course.

Tethys has probably been more helpful than I recognize her for. I've actually managed to keep her out of a lot of trouble so far, and when she gets into danger it's usually quickly solved and she lives, more or less. Dancers are very helpful in helping other characters cover distance, reposition, attack, and... well, everything. And ever since I got her I can effectively double Natasha's experience gain at times, which is very helpful.

I doubt I'm doing too good on turn count, but I'm glad that I'm actually making it through this. It's fun and it's actually been really challenging.

Wow, Dyna. You're pretty far in, huh. What're these secret shop things, though

Nothing much to report from my party - now renamed Team Eirika's Man-Harem - except that I picked up Artur, meaning that for now my team is complete. I forgot how damn squishy he was, so it took me six attempts and some serious meatshielding from Franz to beat the chapter. I wasted a turn so I could recruit Lute, but I'm honestly not too fussed.

Rennac holds an item called a Member Card. If a unit has that item and stops in a certain place on certain maps, you'll find the secret shop, which is full of pricey but good weapons and staves, along with stat-up and promotion items. The inventory's different in each one though, and I think there's only 2 in this game (due to the route split, technically 3, but...). I forget where the second one is, but the one that matters right now is in chapter 14A, at the end of that little suspicious path of pasture outside the throne room.

Do bear in mind that everything's very pricey, so if you're planning to use it I'd recommend grubbing up a ton of money.

EDIT: Actually turns out the stat-up items are for postgame... hm.

Still, the weapons and all are good. I guess I won't need as much money as I expected.

[Aurelite]

I had to reset at ch 4 because Artur took a hit what could have easily gone to Gilliam (Ark said this was technically meatshielding)
Decided to go ahead and restart the entire game because >only ch 4
Plus, it was a broken rule, so
I'm on ch 5 now, and my team is doing well enough
Haven't played for a while because my gba's battery is almost dead and I can't find the charger ::::')
I guess I should copypaste the rundown I've made so far

Spoiler: text dump beep beep backing up 

Predictions for my characters:
Eirika – I won’t use her a lot, I think. Never really used her (or her brother, for that matter) all that much.

Joshua – He’s obviously going to be my star unit. He’ll rarely be hit, and he’ll absolutely obliterate anyone in his path.

Gilliam – The obvious tank! His low speed and avoid will put him in some tight spots if there are too many enemies, but I trust that he should do just fine. I’ll be giving him all my speedwings and the Boots in the desert chapter.

Ewan – Oof, this one’s a tough call. At least I’ll be able to train him in the tower, and I’ll abuse retreat when the monsters get too close for my liking. After a while, he should be doing well enough. I’m unsure as to what I want to make him later on, though.

Cormag – My old friend, has it been a while. I pray you’ll be better to me than that awful Heath was in FE7. You’ve yet to let me down in all our previous runs, don’t start now!

Myrrh – Sorry to say, hon, but you’re going to be my last resort. I pray I’ll get the Hammerne staff, or else you’ll become less useful really fast.

Ephraim – lol who are you

Prologue: The Fall of Renais
Not much to see here, did well enough.

Chapter 1: Escape!
Gilliam’s taking charge, Eirika’s doing her part, etc
6 turns in all, I think.

Stats by the end of the chapter:
Eirika LV 4 EXP 55 HP 16 STR 6 SKL 9 SPD 10 LCK 8 DEF 5 RES 1
Gilliam LV 5 EXP 23 HP 26 STR 10 SKL 7 SPD 3 LCK 4 DEF 10 RES 3

Chapter 2: The Protected
This chapter was a tad tough, one of the bandits was able to double on Gilliam. He ran off after Eirika when she was in range though, so that was good!
It was either 7 or 8 turns. It ended on the enemies’ turn so I didn’t get a chance to check.

Stats:
Eirika LV 5 EXP 98 STR 6 SKL 9 SPD 10 LCK 9 DEF 6 RES 2
Gilliam LV 6 EXP 72 STR 11 SKL 7 SPD 3 LCK 4 DEF 11 DEF 3

Chapter 3: The Bandits of Borgo
This chapter was pretty fun, Colm got a 1% crit on Bazba when he really needed it. So I’m pretty happy, yeah.
Think it took 8 turns, yet again. Sigh...

Stats:
Eirika LV 7 EXP 46 STR 8 SKL 9 SPD 11 LCK 10 DEF 7 RES 3
Gilliam LV 7 EXP 50 HP 28 STR 11 SKL 7 SPD 3 LCK 4 DEF 12 RES 3
Colm LV 4 EXP 87 STR 4 SKL 6 SPD 11 LCK 9 DEF 3 RES 2

Chapter 4: Ancient Horrors
Not sure how this one’s going to go.
----
…. Near the end of the chapter, it went pretty well! Great levelups for all characters involved, and considering I’m using three characters, I think the turn count is relatively low.
Turn count was 8, I think?

Stats:
Eirika LV 8 EXP 90 HP 18 STR 9 SKL 10 SPD 12 LCK 10 DEF 8 RES 4 (great level up)
Gilliam LV 11 EXP 52 HP 31 STR 12 SKL 8 SPD 6 LCK 5 DEF 15 RES 5
Colm LV 6 EXP 36 HP 21 STR 6 SKL 6 SPD 12 LCK 9 DEF 3 RES 3

Chapter 5: The Empire’s Reach
Not sure what to think about this chapter. Let’s see how it plays out.
JOSHUA KILLED COLM, WELP
Gonna reset

-----------------------
and yeah that's all I've got copypasted into the file in Word for now

[Nicholas1024]

Well, I finally beat Sacred stones, and I'm pretty satisfied with how I did.

Spoiler: Early and mid game 

I just got Sacred Stones as an ambassador game, and really enjoying it. (Just beat chapter 14, currently leveling up some lesser-used characters.)

Anyway, I've been playing on beginner (Normally I start out on normal difficulty, but I needed the tutorials), here's some commentary on what's gone on for me:

First off, Seth is amazing. He's basically the ultimate tank for me so far, as I can basically toss him out front and let everybody run up and suicide against his lance if I need. (In fact, without him I wouldn't have been able to kill King Vigarde, he was one of two units I had at the time capable of doing any significant damage, and the other one died in the combat. But I'm getting ahead of myself.)

Early game was fairly unremarkable, although I got my first casualty (Colm) on the level with Joshua/Natasha (level 4 I think?). There's a bit of a story behind that, actually.

Recruiting Joshua was a bit of a pain, as I didn't know that he wouldn't attack Natasha. So, I figured I had to have one unit tank a hit and then let Natasha talk to him.

So, try #1: I send Seth out there, he takes the hit easily, and then 1-shots Joshua. Whoops. *restart*

Try #2: Maybe a slightly less powerful unit, like Eirika. Oh look, he got a crit. Game over, *restart*

Try #3: This time I sent Seth without weapons, and it actually worked. But later during the level, I had Colm near the front lines in a little bottleneck. Basically, he could only take one hit, but only one soldier could attack him. So what happens? He crits, kills the soldier, and let's another one attack and kill him. Having been really annoyed by this point, I just kept going.

My next death I don't remember too clearly, but it was Lute getting overwhelmed at some point.

Then Ross fell thanks to a certain Wyvern rider. I was probably lucky to get out of that level without even more casualties, between the ships, enemies coming from behind, and just forces all over the place.

The next one wasn't so much a death as a missed recruit, I killed Marisa by accident (didn't even realize she was recruitable until the death text), and considering how frustrating that level had been, no way was I restarting yet again. (The level before that with the ship and the fog was also a real killer, but I got through it in the end.)

The next one was on level 13 (I chose Ephraim's path), with Selena. Nope, it wasn't her bolt, but a couple of pegasus knights surprised me with their range and killed a healer. (They KNOW to shoot the medic first! I forget her name, but she was mounted and it started with L'a-something.)

And finally, on level 14 I cleared most of the level without incident (although there were a couple close calls and I couldn't recruit the rogue because of the death I'd taken last level), but only two units went even with the king, Seth and General Drussel. It was a pretty long drawn out battle, but the king nailed Drussel on a crit (9% chance, and it was only the third attack), and Seth eventually finished the job when he finally connected twice with an armorslayer.

The next few chapters were unremarkable, aside from the puzzling fact that Grado's armies seem several times larger and better fighters than the rest of the known world. (And still your couple dozen assorted fighters carve right through anything they can throw at you...)

Still, in addition to the list I had earlier, I also lost Tana at Last Hope. Evil archer, I had two main lines of defense set up, but of course he takes a side route and 1-shots her (at full health too) over the wall. That chapter (and fog chapters in general) are pretty evil, I made a huge mistake with leaving Franz near the front lines at low health, and it was only thanks to some really nice dodging on his part that he survived. Forde and Cornag also nearly died during that chapter, it's really surprising and annoying how many units the CPU can throw at you from outside your field of vision. After those scares I really didn't want to leave anyone out as a target except Seth.

Next chapter, I found out that Myrrh is really, REALLY good. Even at level 1 she can 1-shot any normal enemy in the level without taking damage, and she gains nearly a full level per fight. Seriously, I think she ended up being more powerful than Seth (my only other unit to reach level 20, and my main tank for pretty much the whole game.) Also, I found out much to my amusement that one of the bosses for the level (Not the undead dragon, the other one) could not actually damage her.

In the final chapter, there wasn't terribly much of note, although I needed some tricky maneuvering to kill both dragon mini-bosses. (The sacred twin weapons are a MUST for all things boss related.) Using Myrrh to tank the shadowshots from Lyon's little bodyguards, I finally took him out, again mainly thanks to Seth and Myrrh.

The demon king himself was a really close call. At first I advanced my best four units with a shot at killing him... Cornag, Myrrh, Seth, and Ephraim. However, after all of them had taken their shots (and survived), I had a trouble. The boss had all of three HP left, but the only other person in range to actually attack was Eirika, who had no ranged attacks, and all the slots directly next to the boss had been taken. Add in the monsters he'd summoned, and I was looking at a LOT of carnage or a reset. Thankfully, Tethys + Forde rescue + Eirika attack took him out, and (just barely) getting me through in one piece.

All in all it was a really fun game, and I rather enjoyed the epilogue (although seeing Colm's death statement and Neimi as "The tearful archer" back to back hit me hard, especially considering how dumb of a death it was.) I might take another run through the game (on normal this time) through Eirika's path, and try for no deaths. (As well as more A-rank supports, only one I got this game was Joshua-Natasha, and I was kind of surprised how it changed up the ending.)

[Ark]

Glad you enjoyed the game! I suggest looking into Fire Emblem for the Game Boy Advance if you're able to since I think it's an even better game than Sacred Stones. There are some differences in the sense that there are no class skills (you might have noticed Generals being able to block attacks without taking damage, Wyvern Knights piercing through defenses, etc.), no world map, and no branching promotions, but I still think that the story and gameplay are great, so if you're interested in the series, do yourself a favor and check it out.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong since it's been a while, but I believe that Normal mode in Sacred Stones is the same as Easy mode, but you aren't given any hints/tutorials. Might as well jump to the hardest difficulty.

Lastly, if you're really interested in supports, you can always sorta cheat and go into the Tower of Valni three times with the units that you want to support and get them up to an A rank. I kinda consider this cheating if you're in it for the main game, but if you just want to view the supports in the support viewer, you can always just turn the game off after getting the supports you want to see. By turning the game off, you can also end up doing this multiple times to get multiple A rank supports (since a character can usually only have 1).

[Dinosaurshotgun]

I suggest Shadow Dragon if you get the chance. The game doesn't leave you in a sucky position if you lose several troops, so I rather like it. You can also forge weapons and freely change the class of almost all of your characters (for instance if you have no mages, you can change one of your, say, archers into one). Plus, it's the original Fire Emblem story, and it has a worthy final boss IMO.

[Ark]

Yeah, I'd say that Shadow Dragon is a pretty good suggestion too. The gameplay is top-notch, and the fact that you can forge weapons and change classes is nice too.

I did feel that Shadow Dragon really lacked in the storytelling department however. The original was made during simpler times, so that's understandable, but it's hard to actually like a character since most have no personalities to speak of. The support conversation didn't make a return, and neither did base conversations, so it leaves most characters feeling pretty flat.

But like I said, the gameplay is still pretty good, and class changing is definitely an interesting mechanic. Also, the variety of difficulty levels is amazing for someone like me who always loves going for challenges.

[Ark]

Gonna doublepost since I feel that the new info on the upcoming Fire Emblem for the 3DS warrants it

So that looks pretty awesome, huh? Japan will be getting it by April 19th.

First of all, the art definitely got an overhaul from previous Fire Emblem games, but it's not so different that you can't tell that it's Fire Emblem; the distinctive look is still there, but it feels like a new flavor has been added to it. All in all, I love it.

Now there are battle to look into, and the whole two-on-one concept that was teased way back when at E3. Anyway, the first battle shows us one of the units giving what appears to be a buff to who I think is the main hero. Now this is interesting since it might mean that buffs might play a larger role in the game, but for right now, that's all speculation. This does give us a better glimpse into the new battle concept, which is teased multiple times throughout the video.

Now, just a single enemy is in play in each of these, so it really makes me wonder how these will play out. Are two-on-one battles going to benefit only us, or are there going to be instances where the enemy will take advantage of this? I can see that being very painful to players if they're constantly ganged up on, and I can see it being very abusable if the player is able to target enemies with multiple units so freely.

While we're still looking into battles, at around the 1 minute mark, we start to see much more stylized, and over the top battle animations which I'm sure reminds all of us of the GBA Fire Emblem games. Shadow Dragon, Path of Radiance, and Radiant Dawn did have a few interesting battle animations, and some tomes were pretty cool, but plenty of the animations were dull and were essentially a single, boring slash against an enemy. Over here, battle animations have become more interesting, and even include facial cut-ins of the unit attacking. Since this wasn't shown in previous vids, I'll speculate that this has something to do with a skill since for all of the characters who have facial cut-ins, a small symbol along with some moonrunes are shown on the top left of the screen.

Next, the areas where the battles take place look astounding. The 3D graphics look so much better than the battle areas of the GBA games and Shadow Dragon, and I'd say that these surroundings are at least on par if not better than Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. This might just be due to the graphical choice (I remember everything in Radiant Dawn being so dark and gloomy looking) and me being super excited, but still, I can't wait to see these battles in 3D.

And I'm sure that you've noticed that the first couple of enemies don't look like your average Brigand or Soldier; instead, they appear to be monsters. This is interesting, and I hope that these monsters aren't pushovers like they were in Sacred Stones. We've also got a world map just like in Gaiden and Sacred Stones, but I'm pretty sure that we already knew that.

And this is somewhat old news, but for those of you who haven't been following the 3DS thread, this game will be Nintendo's first outing when it comes to paid DLC. Pretty interesting, and I wonder how Nintendo will handle it.

All in all, I am so pumped for this game, and it better be released here. New Mystery not being released still ticks me off since it improved on Shadow Dragon so much by letting people make their own unit and actually adding base conversations to give characters some actual personality, but eh, I'll just have to let that pass. What matters now is that this game look great, and I can't wait for it to hit the US.

[Solux]

I personally prefer the World Map over the basic story line, because then there is backtracking and post game content, which is always really enjoyable instead of nothing to do after the game.

The graphics look incredible, and I am happy that the battle sequences don't look boring like with PoR or RD. Although, it will never be as good as FE7 and SS. But the little critical thing does look interesting. I can't wait for the game, and I hope it will have better Wi-Fi possibilities than Shadow Dragon.

[Ark]

The world map is cool and all, but it really wasn't fleshed out at all in Sacred Stones. All it really did was make it so you could easily train weak units and get decent equips, but I think that's really something that should be done in the main story (and I find it more rewarding to do it that way anyway). Then there are skirmishes and since I don't like gaining extra exp outside of the story, it's kind of a waste of time for me.

Besides, the skirmishes weren't even that good since all the monsters dropped dead so easily. (edit: i just realized how silly this sounds since the monsters are pretty much the undead lol)

The postgame content for SS is essentially two trial maps, and you don't need a world map for that.

A question I have about the world map returning would be whether or not we'd have rankings. At the end of certain Fire Emblem games, you'd be ranked based on how well you did, and these rankings can easily be skewed by factors that a world map gives (more turns, higher experienced units, etc.). Sacred Stones didn't have a ranking feature while the previous games in the series did and I feel that the world map was a big reason for this.

The world map is returning, and unless it makes improvements upon what was given to us in Sacred Stones, I can't say that it'd be a feature that I'm particularly enthusiastic about. It's not a flaw, but it's really just a shell of an idea that could actually be put to decent use.

[Doofenshmirtz]

Whoa, this game seems to carry an overall different taste from the Fire Emblem standards... the graphic style and choice for art style really do wonders for a game...and those battle animations are cool, yes~

I personally welcome the World Map approach again... To me, it makes the game feel more big and long... regardless of the actual content of the world map...

I do hope that it has things to do, besides shopping of course... did I see an Arena there? Also, if the monsters are back, I do hope they aren't wimpy. Really, the Dracozombies were the only threat in Sacred Stones.