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Post by nocturnal YL on Jun 27, 2015 10:55:47 GMT
This is where I briefly talk about my progress in Fire Emblem if. I'll list them by chapters. Despite the spoiler tags, I will only talk about the story in a very brief way. Map features and character names will be mentioned, though. For the first run, I play this blind (without reading strategy guides). This is the first time I do this; I always read the guides first in the previous games to avoid failing to recruit certain characters. I couldn't do tha this time though, as I got the game two days prior to the official release. And I'll play it again later anyway. Learning my mistake from Awakening (where I played Hard first, which turned out to be too easy), this time I decide to go straight to Lunatic Classic. FE14 allows for reducing the game's difficulty after Chapter 6, so what happened to me in FE9 should not occur again. Turns out that Lunatic in FE14 is at the same difficulty as FE13's Hard. I heard that Lunatic+ is actually brutal, though. Prologue This chapter showcases many characters that will be faced later as either allies or enemies. Thanks for the early preview! Chapter 1 Tutorial level. Xander will not initiate attacks, but I did not know this. A few turns wasted. Chapter 2 Introduction to the attack stance. This is going to be confusing for the first time whether you've played any of the previous FE games, but basically you need to avoid having the enemies gang up on you because the enemies' attacks can really add up. Fortunately, Corrin is assisted by Gunter and Felicia, both prepromotes. (Yes, the maid class is an advance class.) Chapter 3 Spacing tutorial. Chapter 4 Corrin goes to Hoshido and saves their royals. Terrain and dragon vein tutorial. Chapter 5 The stakes raised quickly. If the last chapter didn't warm you up to Hoshido, this one will. Even more spacing tutorial, and is the hardest early chapter in Lunatic thanks to the strategic placement of enemies. Good use of the guard stance and step-counting will really help. Chapter 6 (Nohr) (story spoiler) Why do I have to choose between either faction!? Noooooo!!
I decided to pick Nohr like I planned at first. Ryoma is really powerful, but Elise's new Freeze staff gets very helpful. The goal of this map is to defeat 4 of the 5 "enemy" units, and I decided to spare Sakura in this one. But still.... why.... I just saved you last chapter, and I have to kill you now...? Chapter 7 (Nohr) Introduction to monsters. They move slowly, but they come from all directions. Guard stance is really useful here. Silas has a tendency to die. Gaiden (Mozume) Hello, enemies! Why aren't you moving at all? Oh, and that low-level villager? Chapter 8 (Nohr) ...And now we get an easy chapter. It's easy to get the best reward of this chapter (by visitng villages), even on Lunatic. Enemies don't even move when you expect them to. Chapter 9 (Nohr) Dear Cilas, please don't die right when I was about to win. I said it's easy, but it's still Lunatic and I had to approach enemies carefully. This means dozens of turns per chapter, and this means resetting is a costly move.
...That said, the AI is better than before. In addition of the attack stance, enemies are also known to sacrifice themselves, free up the space, and repeat to accumulate enough damage to kill the player units. Zero died this way facing the archers close to the enemy boss. ... So yeah, you can see a general pattern of this game. Enemies still aren't very initiative, making approaching enemies extremely easy. Also, reinforcements are triggered by certain enemies being fought rather than the turn count, so take your time if you need to prepare for the next batch of battles. Healing tends to be cheap, too. |
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Post by starlightmeteor on Jun 28, 2015 0:32:48 GMT
Wha...wha...wha... Freeze staff? They have freeze now? That's ...interesting I guess. Enemy AI units seem unlike the ones that were driving you mad in PoR. They sound easy to corner. Btw, do staves count as weapons can use when you are attacked? Or are healers defenseless as per usual? I don't really know if 6 Chapters is enough for me to get attached to either faction. I will have to wait like everyone else till 2016 most likely XD Sounds like you're having a hard time to choose though. Hm...that might be a sign that things might be more complicated than they seem. Btw...maid class is a prepromote? Didn't expect that either XD |
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Post by nocturnal YL on Jun 29, 2015 19:32:02 GMT
The freeze staff makes an enemy's movement to 0 and reduces avoid by 10. The staff has a fixed range of 1-7 and may miss, so using it against promoted units can be dangerous. Defence match 1 Defense missions show up once in a while. Naturally, these become valuale resources as they're among the very few chances to get experience outside of the main story in Nohr. Since the battle takes place in My Castle, the point to winning here is to build the castle defensively. Some enemies will prioritise tearing down buildings, which is good because they buy spome time for the often-weak player units. Gaiden (Kanna) (Part 1) Marriage is in this game, and so are children. No more ridiculous time travel that undermines the story's seriousness, though. (It's still unrealistic, but it's better than Awakening.)
Corrin naturally becomes the first unit ready to marry. I'm torn between picking Felicia or Azura. Felicia is devoted, while Azura is a good (though reserved) mentor, though from a gameplay perspective neither possesses good skills of particular worth for inheriting. But neither point is important - I just need all the help I could, and if getting Kanna early means we get another powerful dragon unit, I should do it.
I'm leaning towards Azura (current support level B), since all those sing abuse has given her high speed and skill that even enemy pegasus units envy; but I may not be able to wait three chapters. Chapter 10 (Part 1) Defense map. With a small team of just 10 people, and with 5 spaces to block. Enemies come with not just naginatas, but also bows and shurikens (which drops enemy defence when they hit). And being in guard stance is a given, since enemies come in groups. The whole thing seem nightmarish... but fortunately, the reinforcement team arrives soon, and two of them are sturdy dragonback units. The whole thing now becomes a space-counting puzzle game. I miss those - Awakening's pair up system was way too broken that you could blitz through the "ultimate" DLC chapter in the first attempt without much consideration. This one, however, requires careful counting and planning.
This map also comes with magic and bow cannons. Bow cannons are good against fliers, but they're also guaranteed to not kill, and they're weak compared to Radiant Dawn. They do hit multiple enemies, though.
I have bet to beat this chapter, because Azura's great speed comes at a cost: she killed an enemy only to free up the space for another to come in, and she has low HP and defence (fixed growths, so no amount of RNG manipulation can save her). Sounds familiar? Chapter 10 (Part 2) Learned the hard way that the terrain will change after turn 7, turning rivers to solid ground. Defending is extremely difficult, and my attempt ended with a useful prepromote defeated in turn 8.
That's what I get for trying to play it blind. Lessons to take away: (1) Remember the new attack/guard stance system and don't be too confident on non-guarded units. (2) Bring Vulneraries. Lots of them. (3) Don't assign defenders at every single gap. Instead, make them defend the parts where enemies come. (4) Buy Javelins. Even if you don't use them, they enable previewing of the damage values. (5) Remember to unequip. (6) Corrin is a better meat shield than Camilla. Don't get fooled by her dragon mount.
Gold can be accumulated slowly in My Castle, and battles with teams found online will help grind support points (no experience in Nohr).
Also, after spamming Azura's sing command, she is pretty powerful and can handle pegasus unitsvery well. Do that instead of singing if needed.
Now that's the Lunatic difficulty I remember! Chapter 10 (Part 3) Okay, let's add one more guideline: Use guard stance if you have the slightest chance to be attcked by attack stance enemy groups. General tip: you should rout all enemies if possible. Also, allow reinforcement to appear if you can handle it. Basically, get as much chance as possible to gain experience. No need to worry about the quality of the level ups though; growth is fixed in Lunatic. Be careful about experience hogs too. |
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Post by nocturnal YL on Jul 6, 2015 17:32:45 GMT
Chapter 10 (Part ４) So I finally got it done. Didn't get the Dragon Shield (Def+2) though, and I had to defeat Takumi's subordinates. Maybe something will happen if I don't fight them, but that's impractical in a Lunatic run.
The main point here is to avoid getting hit by the enemy's shurikens, which can drop the stats by a significant portion (Def and Res will drop by 3 or 4). It's also important to not allow the enemies to take control of any of the cannons.
Cannons in this game fire arrows, magic or knives and has infinite ammo. They are guaranteed to not kill (leaving 1HP), and arrows are still effective against flying units. Gaiden (Kanna) This is where children are recruited. This particular chapter is defence-oriented, with enemy teams moving one by one as the turn count goes on. I played this chapter early, but some of the enemies are promoted regardless, making it somewhat dangerous. On the plus side, it also means that this is an excellent chance to train my units. It took me quite a few tries to get it done, but there was really only two hard parts: the beginning if you decide to hunt the pegasus units first (since there are three promoted ones that will get close in the following turn), and where the enemy boss and two berserkers (the usual bandit pair that has appeared since FE6) merge, making another group of three promoted enemies. |
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Post by starlightmeteor on Jul 6, 2015 22:40:38 GMT
Ehh...sounds rough having those PoR flashbacks you have there =p How are the sizes of your party so far? Are there around 6-10 units per team? Or less? Aha...playing RD first may have skewed my proportion of army size by a bit.
Hmm, I know you've been talking much about the gameplay aspect, but I'm slightly interested in the support conversations. Do they use a similar system to Awakening's? Or more like some of the older titles? And do you have access to a world map?
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Post by nocturnal YL on Jul 10, 2015 13:50:54 GMT
I'll talk about individual chapters later. I'm still relatively early, because I'm grinding support points. I want to get the children I want early (and the ones I don't later, because they join at a reasonable level (higher when you play later) and once you're past chapter 18, they come with a promotion item (and thus saving you a Master Seal). Training them yourself is still faster if you can dedicate your effort on them, though. This is better than PoR in that you can afford to do incredibly stupid things. It's generally easier, and if it really can't work out, you can always switch to an easier mode. Everything works like Awakening in terms of support - there's the marriage system tie-in, there are no cross-generation supports, and a number of units will have extremely limited support. This time, we don't have silliness like Say'ri not being able to talk to Yen'fay, thankfully. There are 11 males and 11 females within the marriage system, or 19 in the third route. This means that if your male avatar marries one of those females, you'll be locked out from one of the children, which is what happened to me. I have no regret; Corrin and Felicia look like they don't have any better choice in terms of story. I have 16 people with me at Chapter 12. The full army in the DLC route has 60+. And no, there's no world map. There is a geographical feature map between chapters, but it cannot be navigated, nor are national borders marked. The continent overall doesn't even have a name. It's the vaguest map in the entire history of FE. |
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Post by nocturnal YL on Jul 14, 2015 18:45:06 GMT
Chapter 11 Took me a few resets. You'll need highly defensive units to guide you through rooms where the enemies will all attack at once. Some enemies can switch place with the player after battle, making the normal baiting method not work. Don't worry if you don't have someone like that; Camilla from the last chapter is capable for this. You'll still want to have inexperienced unitskill as much as possible, since the enemies aren't very initiative at all. If you leave the room the enemies are in, they'll simply retur8n to their original position. Chapter 12 Looks hard, but is actually very easy. Just move forward to the first bottleneck, defeat everyone, and repeat. There are lots of breakable vases containing medicine, giving either buffs or debuffs. Avoid the bad ones (at least one is unavoidable), and don't break them -- a corridor-like path is easier to manage than an open area. Defeat the boss within 16 turns to win (you'll know a bit of RNG luck there). Gaiden (Sophie) A pretty simple level where the most annoying part is to protect the villagers, who will simply mindlessly walk into the enemy's attack area. Guess what? I'm not rescuing you guys! You're just practically asking to die, so why should I help you? Chapter 13 This chapter is a bit more difficult at the beginning. The first thing to be done here is to defeat all the enemies who initiatively move first. After that, defeat each sub-team -- once you enter their range, the whole team will move.
The central team in particular is hard because of the enemy's positioning, and their sub-boss is a bow-wielding flying unit. The solution: Have Zero and Berka team up, carry Zero into the river, and make him take does the boss. The rest of the chapter isn't too difficult, but care is to be taken, especially for Takumi.
Bows are incredibly valuable this time around. Chapter 14 THIS CHAPTER IS EVIL.
The beginning is easy, but later on you'll get to a point where the enemies will swarm to you all at once. That isn't too bad, if not for the fact that there are also 3 pairs of guard stance fliers that themselves use bows (so you can't simply block them with Camilla or Berka). Worse, those fliers have their attack speed +5 when they initiate the attack. Even worse, the area that triggers the reinforcement also makes their own units move, so Leo is needed to block stuff there. I still have Zero and Berka, but I have to be really lucky to get through it.
The worst part: The enemy boss of this chapter has Magic Counter. It counters whatever magical attack (not just tomes) taken back to the user. And said boss is a powerful axeman with tons of HP. I overlooked this, and killed Felicia in the process. I LOST A UNIT TO THE LAST REMAINING ENEMY. I don't care how beautiful your animations are now. I'll play without animations, if only for this chapter. RESET.
Remember, always check the enemies' skills. |
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Post by nocturnal YL on Jul 21, 2015 15:45:09 GMT
Chapter 15 In this chapter, you play only as Corrin, Azura and Gunther. The goal is simple enough: to get to the other side in 20 turns (you can do that in 7). The interesting part: you can create shared-life clones in a different, separate part of the map, where there are harder enemies with droppable stat-raising items. They share everything with the original, including experience and life. This means that on average, each side would have only half as much HP, and that the death of a clone will also kill the original. My team isn't strong enough for that, so sadly I had to skip everything. Chapter 16 Despite the seemingly complex objective of having to talk to four NPCs for one of them to reveal himself to be Asyura the thief, this chapter can be summed up as a rout map. The enemies are pretty strong there, and their placement means fishing for them isn't really an easy task. Regardless, having a few defensive units would really help a lot, and one of them (Xander) joins this very chapter. Overwhelming, but not too hard in practice. Chapter 17 Okay, another evil chapter. It has everything: an NPC that doesn't do what you want, enemies that take initiative to attack, reinforcements (10 units at a time), promoted enemies, caltrops, enemies around the boss stratigically placed and would never move unless you attack them. I've resetted five times total (I think) due to various stuff - neglecting to check the enemies' skills (again), deactivating a trap without realizing that it would also change their movement cost, and just plain old exposing a weak unit to two hits when I thought it was only one hit.
Caltrop tiles slow movement like trees and pillars do, which also affects enemy movement range and, therefore, whether they'll move and grant you death. And the NPC is more than happy to do that for you. Also, HP in this game is generally low, unlike Awakening. This means that defence is really important now, and most units without the defence needed would take 2 or 3 hits to die.
I got really nervous towards the end, but I still managed to do it in 65 turns and 4 hours.
Now the next chapter is going to be interesting: every enemy is a prepromote. Contrast with my own army, where about only half of them are promoted. Time to hit the sidequests for more experience. |
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Post by starlightmeteor on Jul 21, 2015 16:36:41 GMT
Reading Chapter 17 - sounds like a pain...but I can see that it balances out the stats more evenly. Def's usefulness has gone way up, and that goes for movement too. I used to only look at agi for dodging ability, haha. I guess if I get to play this game, I can't do that now.
Chapter 15 - it sounds like if you grinded, maybe you could use that particular mechanic. I don't know if it's worth it though. I probably won't take the risk.
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Post by starlightmeteor on Jul 31, 2015 10:50:35 GMT
I just reread the Gaiden chapters. And here are my thoughts on FE NPCs: Oh dear...it's like the {Spoiler}
EVIL evil map where you have to rescue the villagers in Marudo in FE10? I have bad flashbacks of having Fiona killed because the RNG's ability to crit was pretty much at 50%. FE - so fun but frustrating.
Anyway, how do you find the regular class changes so far? Does anything stand out to you yet? |
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Post by nocturnal YL on Aug 3, 2015 17:26:32 GMT
I haven't made much progress lately, because of the great support-fest!!! Basically, I wanted to read everyone's support before I decide on the pairings this time. Anyway... {Chapter 18}A chapter that looks hard, but is actually pretty easy. I've turned Belka into an absolute killing machine (which fits her job as a professional killer), puting emphasis on her strength. Other than that, al that's left is to make sure the units don't get killed during enemy turn. This chapter has a 20-turn limit, but it took me about 17 to complete it. No need to hurry at all. Do pay close attention to enemy skills (always), and remember to block reinforcements -- maps like this don't really leave space for grinding, so give up. Otherwise it's good to go. {Gaiden (Eponine)}Now THIS is a grinding map. The goal is to defeat Eponine, then all enemies, before Eponine escapes. It sounds hard at first, but you'll notice that Eponine will always go left, where there aren't many enemies at all. So just go ahead and block her. If you want experience, don't outright defeat her, but instead surround her (she's an archer) and continue fighting. If she's defeated, other enemies will start leaving too, and they'll queue up. This makes fighting them impossible. I'm done with the support thing, so I can return to playing regularly. And now, a few pics I've posted on Miiverse. First off, here's Belka's growth. She's actually very useful, but Lunatic's nature (fixed level ups) means that sometimes you just don't get anything useful at all without any way to change it (except reclassing). And here's Corrin (Kamui), lagging behind. Enemies get strong rather quickly (even though they don't carry forged weapons), and defence is really important in this game. I hard to look for all the ways to raise his defence so that he doesn't get killed easily -- and that's in a chapter filled with ninjas, whose shuriken weapons can cause def/res debuffs, making things go nasty quickly. And now, a monster in a DLC chapter that gives experience. I use that to make the units get to an acceptable level in case they fall behind so much (like not having promoted by Chapter 19), but otherwse I don't want to rely on it. This monster has Demoiselle, for some reason. (You may recall this being an infamous joke with Brady) Here's another player whose MU looks just like mine, save for minor hair colour difference and the fact that they're in the other route. And... Regular class change? Do you mean the new classes, or the class change mechanic?
The new classes are pretty easy to get used to. Thieves use bows now (knives are reserved for their counterparts in Hoshido, the ninjas) and there's the new maid class (which is incredibly useful against magical enemies), but otherwise they're about the same as before. Hoshido has more interesting options like infantry with lance/magic, axe/magic and sword/lance/axe.
I don't reclass. This is the same as my FE12 run before. Characters not staying in their class feels weird to me, and I only do that in Awakening for the sake of completion -- I still had them return to the original class after everything is obtained. |
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Post by nocturnal YL on Aug 26, 2015 17:35:49 GMT
{Gaiden (Ignis)}At this point I realised that leaving the gaiden chapters for later isn't a good idea after all, particularly for the "defend" chapters. The recruitable unit (child) will not promote and will instead stuck at level 20 (they carry an item that promotes them instantly to the suitable level, presumably made so that the player can still pick a promotion branch), and the enemies will outpower them. Knowing this, I decided to clear the ones that require protecting the children.
And Ignis has the worst chapter ever. Ignis is far away from the playable group, whi have to reach him in 3 turns. And most enemies will start moving in just a few chapters. They also outnumber the players and the chapter takes place in an area with forest and mud. And to make things even worse (yes, it can get worse), the first few units that will attack Ignis are Shinobi, who carry shurikens (which debuff the affected unit when they land a hit).
That's it. I officially surrender. I ended up using a few maxed units obtained from visiting other people's My Castles. I also gave up on the "no grinding" thing. DLC yaaaay. And even with all these cheating, I still had to proceed with caution. {Gaiden (Soleil)}In comparison, this is easier. This chapter features a "block" item that can be picked like a normal item and placed to block enemies. After successfully defending the first turns and blocking the lower left path, the rest is easy. The only thing to keep in mind here is to think about which passage to send high defence or high resistance units to.
Oh, and Soleil is a womanizer. She's also the most successful one in the series, as unlike her predecessors, the girls she speak to will always accept her invitations. Lazward is so jealous about this. {Gaiden (Foleo)}In this chapter, the goal is to stop an executioner from killing Foleo (who can't be talked to or rescued) 10 turns after the first battle is fought. I tried to break into the enemy line, but it turns out that clearing the rooms one by one is the real way to go. Trial and error. {Chapter 19}A map where all enemies are spirit foxes. They're fast (and thus double easily), and can be annoying to deal with when fought in packs. Some of them can only be fought during odd or even turns, which can be utilised to the player's advanage. The real solution, though, is to send a dragonback unit (Camilla or Belka) to a tall mountain tile so that they can line up to be killed one by one. They have decent defence, and they don't have the beast properties that pegasus units have, making them ideal in this chapter. Some of them will run away to the rest of the units, but they don't do so in large numbers, and they aren't good at defence at all. It's mostly theis speed and being in large groups that's scary.
The boss is quite tough, with an impressive 32 speed and a rather high critical rate. How the chapter ends is ultimately up to luck. {Chapter 20}Another tough chapter (which chapter isn't tough?) with a gimmick. This time, it's the wind. It actually moves player units up or down by 5 squares (or more, depending on if the destination can be landed on), making it very easy for them to be separated. Clever placement of the enemies don't help either. Fortunately, the player can use the dragon vein feature to activate the wind prematurely (and unlike the naturally occurring wind, this can move most enemies), and the wind can be used to the player's advantage to ambush the enemies.
It's still going to be tough, though -- fast units aren't strong enough to deal much damage, strong units are fast enough to double, defence-oriented units can't do much against magic and vice versa -- with the units being in high levels, their traits are also getting more apparent.
This Fire Emblem actually feels like a strategy game, and a tough one at that. Provided you play Lunatic, that is. |
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Post by starlightmeteor on Sept 3, 2015 1:22:17 GMT
After re-reading this, it feels like a portion of the battles will be luck-based. Some of the gimmicks used in the field sound ...creative. In what directions can the wind in Chapter 20 move you? I wonder what some of the Nohr side contraptions will be...
Hmm, now for a more loaded question, I guess. What are your most favourite and least favourite skills in this game?
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Post by nocturnal YL on Sept 6, 2015 19:17:10 GMT
After re-reading this, it feels like a portion of the battles will be luck-based. Some of the gimmicks used in the field sound ...creative. In what directions can the wind in Chapter 20 move you? I wonder what some of the Nohr side contraptions will be... Hmm, now for a more loaded question, I guess. What are your most favourite and least favourite skills in this game? The wind can move you vertically, usually by 5 squares, but if the space 5 squares ahead isn't available, you'll usually land on the next available space. It's hard to summarize the rules briefly. {Chapter 21}Skipped. I've spent some 4 or 5 attempts on the previous chapter, so I just wanted to skip over as fast as I can. I got an einhenjar version of Belka (who has extremely high defence) and have her fly through the level. {Gaiden (Velour)}This chapter looks hard at first, but is actually very easy. There are 3 dragon vein points that disables player magic for 2 turns and enemy magic for 1 turn, and the solution is easy:
- Have units with high defeice kill the Strategist (=Valkyrie) with the Draw staff first (since that's the most dangerous part about the game)
- The line that triggers Velour's appearance is one space next to the Strategist, so if that unit is killed with a melee weapon, Velour should appear in the next turn (lower left or upper left, depending on the player army's position)
- Then have a magical unit activate dragon vein (since they can't be used for other purpose anyway) and lure out the physical enemies
- Once that's done, have them go back and send in Foleo, who has absurd resistance
- The reinforcement may go for Velour, so get ready to rescur her
- Once the enemies around the central part andis killed off, the rest is easy; they won't move until someone is in their range {Gaiden (Deere, Midoriko, Shigure)}All skipped. These chapters are "defeat boss" missions and can be finished in a single turn without losing anything important. Since I decided to grind, they have lost their purpose as bonus stages that give experience points.
Deere's chapter is particularly interesting: It takes place outside of a mansion, and the enemy boss is right next to a gate, which is next to the starting position. Just open the gate and kill the enemy boss. {Chapter 22}This is the beginning of the final part of the game, where we actually get to fight the opposite side's soldiers. Yeeeah, now I can see why the players think this game's story is lackluster. Not only is it boring in terms of story development, but it's also quite frustrating to see the main characters' obliviousness to the obvious solution to their problem. Garon clearly isn't in his right mind, people! Just kill his people on the spot!
The chapter itself is another deceiving entry. Enemies won't move until someone enters their attack range (some don't move even with someone in range), and reinforcements can be easily blocked if you know the pattern in advance. The level is split left-right, but FE if's battle preparation allows units to pair up in advance, so you can put all units on just one side and clear that side only (this is a seize map, and the boss is in the top-middle area).
The reward for clearing this chapter is getting to see Sakura heartbroken because of the player side's idiocy. |
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Post by nocturnal YL on Oct 17, 2015 18:08:22 GMT
{Chapter 23}Battle with Prince Takumi. This chapter is quite devious. This is also the beginning where you realise that Def and Res are the most important stats in this game. Step aside, speed.
The first part has a bunch of enemies with the skill Kirikomi (Cut Through), where the enemy can switch places with the player unit after the battle provided that the enemy survives. Given that enemies no longer get defeated in just a single battle, this skill gets triggered often. And this is problematic, because after switching places, the player unit will enter the range of other enemies. This would mean having to withstand multiple enemies' attacks simultaneously.
I skipped the second part, an elite team led by Hinata, where the enemies won't move without the players entering the range of multiple enemies. Instead, since they're guarding a bridge over a cliff, the players can simply fly over it. The problem is what comes after.
The third part has enemies stationing on the roof of a building. There are enemies with the aforementioned Cut Through skill, and entering the building would mean getting hit by multiple enemies each specialising in physical or magical attack. This is a situation that my units cannot survive in, so I had to employ one of those guest units (see Ignis's gaiden chapter) for this purpose.
The final part is the battle with Takumi. finishing the enemies around him first is a must, because they too possess Cut Through, and are capable of sending you to somewhere within Takumi's range. Overall, this is a pretty hard chapter, with multiple resets necessary. {Chapter 24}Hinoka's next. The theme of this map is the constantly changing movement range between flying and non-flying units, with Hinoka's Dragon Vein giving flying units 1.5× movement and halving the movement of non-flying units during turns 2~3, 5~6, 8~9 and so on, although that can be overwritten with the player's Dragon Vein, which has the opposite effect: for two turns, non-flying units get 1.5× movement and flying ones get 0.5×. The first part is more or less trial and error: I tried to leave the enemies on the two islands alone, which turned out to be a bad idea, because there will be a time where the player's Dragon Vein effect is needed, and giving those enemies extra movement isn't a good idea. There's also some caution needed when dealing with the enemies (and especially the reinforcement) around the middle area. Unlike the last chapter, no guest units are needed to clear this chapter as I never needed anyone to deal with both physical and magical attacks. {Gaiden (Lutz)} Lutz is a wyvern rider. I should have gotten him earlier. Story-wise, he's all about luck. In terms of actual stats, his defence is what makes him so reliable. Pairing him up with Ignis, and you'll get an impenetrable fortress. This will prove to be incredibly useful later. The chapter itself took me a few tries, primarily because the enemy's flying units will move early. If you enter the range of one group of them, two groups will start moving simultaneously. this map favors movement and defence, as befitting a chapter for recruiting a wyvern rider. Other wyvern lords and Velour with Guard Beaststone will be very helpful, but one needs to pay attention to weapjon effectiveness. {Interlude}It was at this point that I decided to level everyone up to level 20. In my playthrough, Kamui (My Unit) was lagging behind, and other units were at about level 16~20. One motivation for me to do this is because of the upcoming Kamui-Ryoma duel, but the main reason for me to do this is because I'm getting sick of seeing the same level ups every time I lose and replay the chapter. Lunatic level ups are the same no matter how you reset, so having to see them again and again is pretty pointless. Kamui's stats aren't bad, and his level ups are pretty decent. He does have the problem of being too average, though, and this game doesn't really favour average units. We need units with impressive Def or Res, or failing that, good Str or Spd. Even Skl is appreciated -- we have units who don't even have 20 Skl at the end, and they'll end up with 70~80 hit rates against enemies. Not good. In the process, the purpose of my units changed. Defensive powerhouse Belka ended up as a Str/Skl specialist with an unusable 20 Spd, and the job as a defender now belongs to her colleague Luna. Aqua's purpose as a singer has diminished a bit as the units are more viable (but she's stil good for assisting hit-and-run attacks), and several units became magic shields. {Chapter 25}The battle with Ryoma, with Kamui taking on him in a 1-on-1 battle and the other units would defeat his subordinates Saizou and Kagerou... not.
The enemies have a skill called Fu no Rensa (Negative Chain), which makes debuff caused by skills and shurikens stack. This, coupled with all the nasty enemy placement and their skills, makes the chapter very hard. But those battles are also optional.
Ryoma wouldn't move until 20 turns have passed. I put Kamui and the rest of the units close to each other. A door that won't open until the subordinates are downed keeps them apart, but Hoshido's version of healing batons can be used at range 2, and can heal Kamui - unlike Radiant Dawn's Ike vs Black Knight battle. This means that my Kamui, though weak, can slowly chip off Ryoma's HP and gets healed himself.
I did take down some of the enemies too, but I did just enough for me to take a weapon from one of their treasure boxes. (The other box contains gold. I managed to get that in my other run, but I don't think it's worth it.) {Chapter 26}With the Hoshido royals taken out, it's time to -- oh, the royals finally couldn't stand it and decide to kill Garon's wicked strategist and executioner. Why wait until now to do it? I don't know who to blame: Marks, Kamui, or both? {The royals of Hoshido}Two of them did actually die. Anyway, this is another challenging chapter: enemies have powerful, infinite-use staves, can draw player units to them, half their max HP for the rest of the chapter, or freeze them. The strategy here lies in what works in the last few chapters: units with extreme Def or Res. Some units have almost 40 Def or Res, which can be further manipulated through canteen boosts, random boosts, boost items and Guard Stance. The problem here is whether there are enough units that can block everything: the enemy maid with the HP-draining staff should be taken in the first turn, for example. Four units with good defence and two with good resistance are enough for the job. I ended up using these teams: Luna (front), Belka (back): Excellent speed, good defence, mediocre strength. But don't worry, just give her a Hammer or Armorslayer and she'll be useful. Lutz, Ignis: Switch between front and back depending on the enemies engaged. Both have good defence. Velour (front), Elfi (back): Velour is a flexible unit that can switch between speed and defence. Having her pair up with great knight Elfi (mother) helps. Sophie (front), Eponine (back): This is an unusual combination and isn't much of a good defending team, but they only need to defend against the first room's enemies. Foleo (front), Nyx (back): Foleo's innate resistance is 40. Give him boosts and he gets 44. Now some enemies outright ignore him since they can't do him damage. Suzukaze (front), Midoriko (back): Magic shield with physical attacks. The ultimate mage killer. And their boss is very weak. Tip: Suzukaze is an excellent magic shield. He uses shurikens, which is strong against spells in the new weapon triangle (magic is equivalent to swords and shurikens are to lances), and he also maxes Str, Spd and Res in my playthrough in his default class. And now only the two final chapters are left. They cannot be played separately, and unlike the third route, I cannot one-turn the first part and concentrate on the second. And before I proceed, I will continue to play in other parts (My Castle, DLC chapters) to fill up my support conversations. If I can win, my next choice will be between the two other routes. On one hand, I'm already spoiled on the story and just want to complete the collection in my game (making the third route desirable), and on the other hand, I fear that after having played that route, I'll be unwilling to play Hoshido (I'm reluctant to play that and kill my alternate-universe allies even now). |
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Post by nocturnal YL on Oct 31, 2015 8:41:37 GMT
{Chapter 27 and Final}Chapter 27 is easy if you grind (even if you don't level up beyond level 20). There are stairs that will transport you right to the bosses. Four of your strongest units will be drawn to fight four enemies indepently, but you can use Guard Stance to make it so that each fight will be 2-on-1 instead. After those are defeated, move all of your units close to the nearest available stairs and lure all the enemies, then transport. The enemies won't use the stairs.
The penultimate boss, Garon, isn't that difficult. Velour should be able to chip off quite some HP from him, or you can use Heroes with Brave Swords. What works on typical axe fighters will work on him too.
And I skipped the final chapter. Multiple healers with the ranged Weakness staff that will give -12 to all stats on one of your units (in three waves of -4 staff attacks) isn't going to make survival much easier. So with a little bit of scouring for outsider units, and staff and singer abuse, I just beat the chapter in two turns, like this:
After finishing the game, you'll get to store 5 units in your logbook (so that you can take their skills in other playthroughs), and unlock various stuff in My Castle. Otherwise, stats and other things you spent hundreds of hours to collect won't transfer at all, including battle and visitor ranks. So my male MU, Nohr playthrough is finally done. 5 more to go. (It won't be this time-consuming if you're on a different difficulty or just give up on grinding and use imported units from the get go, so don't worry.) From now on, I'll talk about the other routes I play, maybe a bit more sparingly, since the early chapters and the repeated ones are rather unremarkable. Once you beat Nohr at Lunatic, you've finished the hardest aspect of this game and nothing else should stop you. This isn't Thracia 776, New Mystery of the Emblem, or even Awakening Lunatic+. {Chapter 6-7 (Third route)}Very easy and straightforward. I spent 25 turns in Chapter 7 because I wanted to get all treasures.
Now, for the story: Kamui (Corrin) refused to take a side, so they're now enemies to both sides. And you can't talk about this third kingdom outside of it, so explaining the situation while both sides accuse the other for everything they deem bad will be a hard task, and naturally that's inviting fights.
You'll start seeing sidequest chapters after Chapter 7. It doesn't matter if you're already having S supports before Chapter 7, the sidequests won't appear until that point.
Getting Mozume right after Chapter 7 is recommended because Chapter 8 will be an excellent training ground. |
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Post by starlightmeteor on Nov 5, 2015 17:43:59 GMT
It's nice to hear about your playthrough experience thus far. Do you find MU to be more or less flexible in terms of their stats, or are there obvious strengths that should be played to?
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Post by nocturnal YL on Nov 24, 2015 15:04:33 GMT
Where was I? Oh, right. Told you that the third route would be a cakewalk after finishing Nohr. {Chapter 8}The battle against Hoshido. In this chapter, the enemies won't move until you enter their range, so it's rather easy. The only thing to pay attention to is the enemies outside the building, who may outnumber you if youar enot careful about placing your units. There is a bug where skirmishes involving this map may have the enemies overlap with the player. {Chapter 9}That annoying wind chapter again (see Nohr Chapter 20)! Except that there are far fewer enemies, making it somewhat easy. It took me a while to complete this chapter, but only because I wanted to collect all the treasures. {Chapter 10}The whole map is covered with snow, which can be attacked to reveal a 3-by-3 area. The enemies hidden inside the snow is rather weak, so this chapter is quite easy. So easy that I finished it in a lunch break at work.
All enemies carry droppable items, so it is recommended to take some time to defeat them all. {Chapter 11}The first annoying chapter, thanks to the promoted enemies. They're fast, and their shrikens are capable of dropping the player's stats, making them very tricky to deal with. Takumi and Oboro are quite useful here.
There are units to recruit too, so a bit of planning is needed to reach them in 2 turns. As with most tricky chapters, space management is important. {Chapter 12}Dear game, what makes you think I'll enjoy fighting Camilla and her lovely subordinates? I flew to the boss and defeated her in a single turn. {Chapter 13}This chapter has placeable blocks that prevent enemy units from passing, like Soleil's gaiden chapter. A few well-placed blocks and a bit of flying took care of the chapter easily. {Chapter 14}Oh no! That annoying Nohr Chapter 10 is here! ...Not. The place is the same, but it's not an annoying defence map with limited units. You have more units, and your goal is to lead an offence instead. Far, far easier. {Chapter 15}The Rainbow Sage chapter again. This one is actually a bit challenging because of the well-tought enemy placement. You also get an incredibly powerful ally in this chapter, but it's not exactly effortless to win. {Chapter 16 and 17}And now we have another pair of chapters where you can't save between them? Ouch. Luckily, all those tension didn't result in any real danger. A good team of level 17 units with a few promoted ones would do.
In both chapters, some enemies move from the beginning, while others won't move until the player approaches first. Unfortunately for Chapter 17, the ones that to take initiative are horseback units. And they tend to be mixtures of physical and magic units too, so you wouldn't want to rely on defence too much. {Lots of (optional) grinding}And... that's it for the main story for now. It's best to stop here and go on with the other businesses first, because of these reasons: - The children's chapters will feature promoted enemies after Chapter 18. This will make some of these chapters incredibly difficult. - At this point, all regular units are recruited, so the player can mix and match all the different pairings, collect coversations, and so on. {Story}Crimson will die when entering Chapter 18, so this particular point is the only point where you get to use her. If you want her statue, rack up her kill count before entering the next chapter. Same for the supports. These would make this particular point (after Chapter 17, before viewing Chapter 18's intro) the best for grinding - not anything before or after. It's also the splitting point between the adventures in this world and the third route's main stage, the Invisible Kingdom. Right now, I'm racking up kill counts because the statues that can be built in My Castle are available based on that. have 20, 50 and 100 KOs for bronze, silver and gold statues, and each will raise a certain stat by 1 for the statue owner, their supports and everyone respectively. And I need all these so that I won't waste level ups on stats that are already maxed. Those won't be given back if you raise the stat caps later. This is entirely optional though, and I'm doing this only because I don't allow the use of class-changing items besides Master Seal and level caps (they can be raised this time) beyond the default (20 for most units). |
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