• Breaking News

    Sunday, August 9, 2020

    Home Unlabelled Fire Emblem I must steel myself! Time-skip Ashe GBA styled portrait

    Fire Emblem I must steel myself! Time-skip Ashe GBA styled portrait

    August 09, 2020

    Fire Emblem I must steel myself! Time-skip Ashe GBA styled portrait

    I must steel myself! Time-skip Ashe GBA styled portrait

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 09:14 AM PDT

    I drew Sylvain looking peaceful over the war being over.

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 07:19 AM PDT

    Dire Emblem: Awakening - Chapter 16.2

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 08:38 AM PDT

    Crimson flower. Drew a girl who just needs a hug.

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 01:31 PM PDT

    I bring you another VA [ENG] comparison that inspired me: Behold her in her doubled royalty, Portrait/Sprite edit of Edelgard as Mitsuru Kirijo! (OC)

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 10:20 AM PDT

    I drew a thing! Speedpaint of Byleth.

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 12:05 AM PDT

    Tibarn - Shipless Pirate [by Crescentia Fortuna]

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 04:54 PM PDT

    A Drawing I MAID... Maid... Get It?

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 06:31 PM PDT

    The Alt. Outfit Celica [OC]

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 12:34 PM PDT

    old meme (dorime golden deer comic)

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 11:04 AM PDT

    Byleth fanart

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 12:48 PM PDT

    Byleth fanart

    ​

    Ethereal Moon of the year 1185

    In time's flow
    See the glow
    Of flames ever burning bright
    On a swift
    River's drift
    Broken memories alight

    submitted by /u/whizumi
    [link] [comments]

    In response to Ghast's video on Dimitri: Byleth is not the least effective person in Dimitri's recovery

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 11:15 AM PDT

    So as a Dimitri fan, I watched Ghast's Dimitri Support Science video, and while I thought the video was overall well-constructed and analyzed, I want to discuss one aspect of the video that I disagree with. I've posted this earlier, but I think Ghast vastly underestimated Byleth's contribution. He argues that Byleth is one of the most ineffective characters, and to paraphrase his words, "either Dedue or Felix could have substituted Byleth in the rain scene." I completely disagree with this, and will now go through all of the characters he listed, and prove why Byleth is completely irreplaceable in Dimitri's journey to recovery. Again, this essay is not meant as an attack on Ghast's video but to start a discussion.

    Edit: I think I forgot to make it clear that this is written completely from an in-story standpoint like Ghast's video. I am not debating whether or not Byleth is a good avatar - this is out of the scope and I discuss it in further detail in the comments.

     

    1. Why not Felix?

    Felix could have not been the one to reach his hand to Dimitri because they have a fundamental misunderstanding over how to address grief. Felix turns his grief of losing Glenn into a driving force to better himself (Felix/Byleth A support) and rebelling against the Faerghus system of chivalry. He doesn't dwell on his pain and he fails to understand people who do. On the other hand, Dimitri internalizes his grief and turns it on himself as compassion for the dead and self-hatred for failing to protect his loved ones, which ultimately culminates in his darker side.

    Now, having different opinions on how to process grief is fine and all, but Felix doesn't attempt to understand Dimitri's ideology. Pre-timeskip, he is disgusted at Dimitri's "boar side," but fails to understand that the boar side of Dimitri is a direct result of his mental struggle. Dimitri, who acknowledges and hates this part of him, doesn't attempt to correct Felix. When Felix does talk to Dimitri directly between Chapter 13 and 17, he only shows up during the Bridge of Myrddin, and soon abandons his attempts in disgust. Felix and Dimitri don't reach an understanding of how Dimitri internalizes grief until their A-support after Dimitri regains his sanity, and it is, in my understanding, a shaky one.

    Putting that all together, I think it's fairly clear that Felix would not have been the one to reach out to Dimitri. Finally, if Ghast points out that Felix only argues with Dimitri one time during the Bridge of Myrddin and eventually gives up on him, why does he think that Felix, of all people, would be the one to offer Dimitri a second chance?

     

    2. Why not Dedue?

    I do not think that Dedue would be the defining character in Dimitri's recovery as Dedue is too passive to help Dimitri from his self-torment. Dedue is the only person aware of Dimitri's struggles with his sadistic side, as he comments to Byleth in the monastery on Chap 18. However, in the four years that he'd known Dimitri, he did not actively try to help Dimitri break out of this state. Upon his return and seeing Dimitri's mental state, he also asks Byleth to help instead. This is not a criticism on Dedue's part, but it is in line with Dedue's personality. Dedue struggles with both his social status and views himself strictly as Dimitri's sword and shield and nothing more. Dedue does not start treating Dimitri as an equal and friend until after their A-support, and that does not occur until after Dimitri recovers. Given this, Dedue could not have been the one character to substitute Byleth in the rain scene. I do acknowledge that Dedue's reappearance marks a turning point in Dimitri's mental state, and I wish that he had a stronger role to play after he returns.

     

    3. Rodrigue makes sense but doesn't take away from what Byleth has done

    I will be clear here: I completely agree that Rodrigue was an indispensable character for Dimitri's recovery and the only character that I would probably rank as high as Byleth for his contribution to Dimitri's recovery. This, however, does not diminish what Byleth has done. Rodrigue also reaches out to Byleth in an attempt to have them help Dimitri, and this is for a good reason that I'll go into further detail in Byleth's analysis section.

     

    4. Why not Gilbert?

    Gilbert's most important contribution is his support chain with Dimitri, where further homes in the point that Dimitri should live for himself, and I acknowledge that this is a very important support chain. However, these supports are locked to after Dimitri decides to change himself, and this is after his rain scene to Byleth. Ghast himself acknowledges that Gilbert was too busy drafting strategies to help Dimitri's mental state, so obviously, putting Gilbert above Byleth would make no sense, so which brings me to…

     

    5. Finally, why Byleth?

    First, I acknowledge Ghast's point that Byleth's existence as a silent protagonist seriously limits their development as a character. Their dialogue options also do not deter Dimitri from directly attacking Enbarr or induce any helpful revelations in him, but to be fair, was anyone other than Rodrigue successful? Once we get that out of the way, I completely disagree with everything else he says about Byleth.

    One of Ghast's arguments is that Byleth relied heavily on their relationship with Dimitri that was built pre-timeskip to break his walls, and I agree with his analysis. What I think he failed to acknowledge was the weight of their relationship, how special it was to Dimitri, and how irreplaceable Byleth was as a mentor and friend. The Tragedy of Duscar had completely isolated him from his three childhood friends. and this is even reflected in that he doesn't get support bonuses with them. Dimitri is terribly lonely pre-timeskip: his friends view him as the "perfect prince" and are not aware of his mental state, and he does not attempt to explain for obvious reasons.

    To say Byleth is a completely blank character is inaccurate: they do go through a small character arc pre-timeskip when they start to pick up emotions, and this is reflected in their evolving relationship with Dimitri. The most obvious change is Byleth's first smile and that they eventually suggest going on victory feasts, and this is met with obvious happiness on Dimitri's end. But most importantly, Byleth's eventual grasp of emotions, from a stone-faced killer, the Ashen Demon, to someone who has their misgivings about killing (Byleth/Dimitri B support), parallels Dimitri's inner struggle with his sadistic, punishing side. Their conversation about the pain of killing comforts Dimitri and their shared trauma allows him to open up to Byleth to a degree that he cannot to other people.

    The above all make Byleth the necessary third-party with whom Dimitri was able to share his troubles. Byleth is the one person who was not traumatized in the Tragedy of Duscar, the one person with whom he shared a connection over the pain of killing, and the trusted mentor who treated him as more of a friend than a prince. This is why Dimitri would have accepted Byleth's hand and Byleth's hand alone in the rain scene. The unique relationship that they built up pre-timeskip defined Byleth as the mentor that he could trust. Even Rodrigue, who understood Dimitri's grief, reached out to Byleth because he was aware of how Dimitri trusted Byleth's judgment. Ghast also pointed out the rain scene is a callback to Dimitri's dialogue with Byleth: they have a shared understanding of pain and how to live.

     

    6. Conclusion

    I will say that I think Dimitri's friends, in particular, his childhood friends and Dedue, should have had a stronger presence in changing Dimitri's viewpoint, especially since the writing has established that they share a close relationship. I suspect that this is due to the permadeath gameplay and Dedue's paralogue limitations, as the story requires that Dimitri's redemption occurs regardless of whether any of his friends are alive, which is a choice I do not agree with. But even given the gameplay limitations, they were able to help Dimitri, gradually chipping away at his walls until Byleth was able to break through. I will also acknowledge that Byleth as a silent protagonist hurts their character, and their writing could certainly have been stronger. But, to list Byleth as the most ineffective character in Dimitri's redemption is, in my opinion, very much inaccurate, and completely erases the unique relationship, regardless whether it is romantic or platonic, that the two share.

    submitted by /u/wheeness_galore
    [link] [comments]

    I drew everyones favorite lazy Golden deer, Hilda!

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 12:26 PM PDT

    Which Anna are you today?

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 04:13 PM PDT

    Byleth Fanart

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 04:22 AM PDT

    Edelgard in Monics's outfit (Ignore her tiny hands woops Lol)

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 02:16 PM PDT

    I drew M!BylethxRhea

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 08:34 AM PDT

    A Complete Review of Fire Emblem 7s Story and Where it Fails and Succeeds: Wow is This Game Different Than When I first Played It

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 04:11 PM PDT

    So, to preface this all, I like fe7. I like it a lot. It was the third fire emblem game I ever played so there's nostalgia as well as an appreciation for the charm of the game.

    ​

    But to address the reason of this post, the story is really bad like ohmygod. I've just gotten to around chapter 19 on my replay of the game and the earlier bits are pretty okay for what they are. The game starts with Lyn of course, the beginning is so entrenched in tutorial that it suffers but by the end of Lyn's story it's fairly compelling with this theme of Lyn and her grandpa both finding solace in the other being the only family left to them. It's nice and cute and sets the stage for Eliwood's broader storyline.

    ​

    The existence of an avatar is an atrocious mistake that has repercussions to this very day and that's depressing as all hell and the weird Dora the Explorer moments where they talk to me through the screen gives me an extreme amount of pain but that's what life is.

    ​

    After Lyn's story, we move on to Eliwood's if this is the first time you've played the game. There's also Hector mode which mostly follows Eliwood's story but with a couple changes to make Hector the main character and flesh him out more. And Eliwood is a basic fire emblem protagonist but he manages to be fairly compelling, with the combination of Hector and Lyn it rounds out the cast pretty well. Including three main lords that are all unkillable was a very good decision because it makes it so that the writers can safely create dialogue between main playable characters that can be seen regardless of how many units a player might lose so it's very nice to see everything.

    ​

    Eliwood's story starts out decently compelling too. He is off to look for his father who is not only a great knight but had a contingent of great knights that all went off to some unknown land but they never returned. This sets up an intriguing mystery and a basis for our first half of the game. Along the way, you slowly uncover this conspiracy between the lords of Lycia to orchestrate a rebellion that's backed by this mysterious character named Ephidel. It's all very interesting and compelling and fun.

    ​

    Some basic criticisms of that part would be that Darin's son, Erik, isn't recruitable. That Darin doesn't have much reason to start running from Eliwood and Co. And honestly that's about it. The game could do with some changes to the writing and dialogue itself at a time to time basis with changes to the presentation but that's far more subjective than what I said before. For the actual issues I have they can be solved fairly easily by; A making Erik recruitable like imagine the dialogue he'd have with Darin, B making Ostia get involved and start mobilizing troops forcing Darin to begin his retreat. Eliwood can still lead the attacks with his already formed army but Darin can't waste time properly meeting this threat that Eliwood poses with the larger army of Ostia looming behind.

    ​

    So it's all very interesting! I like it! Eliwood and Co then make it to the Dread Isle finally. Leila the spy dies fairly quickly, the assassin Jaffar is introduced and its hyped up how badass he is, Darin is defeated, and Eliwood's dad is finally found. There's conflict with the Black Fang and Eliwood fights his way into the inner area of the Dragon Gate. It's an exciting climax to this first half of the game. Jaffar is hyped up in an interesting way and I wish Leila had been recruitable as well through maybe a Gaiden chapter. But that's not important honestly.

    ​

    So then it all falls apart very quickly after Darin. It sort of shows its first signs before that with Ninian. Oh I forgot to talk about Ninian you say? There's a reason. Her presence in the story at this point isn't very meaningful. She washes onto the ship with no memory after escaping the Dragon Gate with help of Eliwood's dad, Elbert. Eliwood and Co don't know what to do with her so they take her with them. She's very confused and amnesia and all that. And I hate it. They could have just made her secretive. They didn't need to give her amnesia. She didn't trust Eliwood and Co completely so she doesn't tell them everything about the Dragon Gate or her own true nature, it doesn't have to be this weird amnesia thing. On top of that, she gets kidnapped by Ephidel at some point which is the beginning of the obnoxious teleporting all the major villains seem to do. I don't mind Ephidel bouncing all over the place but giving it so much weight that he can just yoink Ninian away feels so lame. There are boundless other ways to write this. Maybe she could trade herself for Nils (if he were still captured), maybe she could get entranced by the whole dragon mind control thing Nergal does, there are boundless ideas that aren't just Ephidel yoinking her away.

    ​

    So the group gets into the center of the Dragon's Gate and sees the gate itself for the first time. They meet with Elbert who is very weak and Ninian who is not herself. Shes' being controlled because apparently she's so powerful it makes her both physically and emotionally weak which is weird but whatever. So Nergal is controlling her and taunts the group about how they're about to all die and then he drains Elbert of his soul or quintessence as the game calls it. Using Ninian to open the gate and the quintessence to call a dragon, Nergal manages to summon a dragon.

    ​

    However, midway through the summoning, Nils comes and shakes Ninian to her senses which closes the gate halfway through the summoning which blows everything to hell. Nergal teleports away, everyone else runs clear, and Ephidel, the main villain of the first ten chapters of this story, the guy that can teleport wherever he wants, dies in the explosion. Guess he used up all his rewarp uses, the bastard. It's extremely underwhelming.

    ​

    So Ephidel is dead and Nergal comes back to exact his revenge but Elbert stabs him in the back wounding Nergal and giving everyone else a chance to escape. This also explains Nergal's lack of presence in the game until everyone has leveled up a fair bit because in the story Nergal is extremely overpowered to a ridiculous degree.

    ​

    Elbert then dies in Eliwood's arms and the group escapes the Dragons Gate along with the Dread Isle entirely. They flee to the port town of Badon where they take a rest to collect themselves.

    ​

    So the biggest issue with this sequence is Ephidel dying in not only a weird way due to his ability to teleport but more importantly in the fact that there is no confrontation with this intro villain. You get to fight Darin but you don't get to fight this guy that has been pulling Darin's strings. It's just weak and depressing to see and it makes me sad.

    ​

    My general idea on how to change this sequence of events would go as follows. Ephidel already had Nils captured and used Nils as a way to capture Ninian as well by tricking the group and holding Nils hostage. Then Ephidel would go into the inner chamber with Ninian and Nils both leaving the group to their death at the hands of Darin. Of course the group wins and they run into the gate itself where they find Elbert half dead. There are brief words exchanged along with a tearful reunion between Eliwood and his father before Nergal makes his first appearance before the gate with Ninian at his side. Ninian is controlled as before and off to the side is Ephidel who is holding Nils captive. Nergal takes Elbert and gives him the ol soul suck and begins to summon the dragon. Elbert manages to summon his last remaining strength and knock Nergal away from Ninian giving Nils the chance to free Ninian from her hypnosis and collapse the gate. The gate explodes fatally wounding Elbert and injuring Nergal who immediately teleports to safety in the aftermath. Ninian falls unconscious from the effort and Ephidel is tasked with killing Eliwood and Co before they can escape. You have your typical fire emblem map against the black fang and cultists and Ephidel as the boss so that there can be more closure. At the end of it Eliwood finds his father and we go through the same sequence of Elbert dying in Eliwood's arms. The group then escapes the Dread Isle.

    ​

    Part of me also likes the idea of having an extra chapter added to create an escape sequence where the group has to get to Fargus' ship while running from the Black Fang which is led by Jaffar. This gives Jaffar a chance to be shown off early in gameplay so the player can really get a sense of how powerful he is while at the same time adding to the dangers of the Black Fang in general and how lucky the group was to survive their first encounter with Nergal on the Dread Isle. The big issue with this idea is that it messes with the pacing and the depression of Eliwood losing his father since that's a decently well written part of the game when it happens.

    ​

    Honestly all of my ideas could be horrible I'm like a shitty cringe armchair gamer reviewer that writes cringe fanfiction what can I say?

    ​

    So to get back to the review, let's talk about Ninian's Amnesia. She lost her memory but there isn't any real reason for it. None of the information about her true nature is revealed at this point, just that she has weird powers. The only two things she might have told the group are that Nils is somewhere on the isle and that they shouldn't go to the Dragon Gate. These can easily be mitigated by Nils still being captured and the fact that Eliwood could have still wanted to go to the Dragon Gate to rescue his father. It even could have been a character flaw, Eliwood almost destroyed the world with dragon's and killed his father indirectly by going to rescue him against better judgement. None of that happens though because Ninian has amnesia.

    ​

    We move on to the port of Badon at chapter 20. The beginning of the chapter features Eliwood mourning his father. It's pretty well written and impactful and interesting to see how his companions try and help, I like it. Nils even talks to Eliwood beyond expositing about quintessence and what the plan for the conspiracy was at the same time. It's decent. I like the way it's written. Later on, the town is attacked by bandits and Eliwood gets ready to fend them off with the help of his friends. Ninian even comes to help after getting this weird power transfer from Nils that doesn't really mean much in the grand scheme of the story. It just happens. I don't know why.

    ​

    This is all pretty okay. The only change I might suggest would be that Eliwood sits the chapter out while he mourns which is hinted at in the beginning. The same thing happens with Lyn earlier in the game while the group looks for a ship to take them to the Dread Isle because she storms off. In both cases the character rejoins before the fighting but it'd be interesting to leave them out temporarily. In this case there is absolutely an argument for Eliwood getting his spirit back by fighting to protect the people of the town so it can go either way.

    ​

    Before we go further though, we need to talk about Nergal's plan and quintessence in general. Quintessence is the soul and life force of all people? Sentient beings? Anything alive? I don't know. It's a thing. Well Nergal found out how to manipulate it in forbidden texts because it's dark magic that drives you crazy and destroys your soul and stuff, Nergal definitely went crazy from it and we'll actually go farther into it at the end of this post because it's weird and hidden behind like three playthroughs and other weird requirements. But Nergal can manipulate it and he wants to summon dragons into the world so he can kill them and steal their quintessence and become uber powerful. He wants to do this by starting a war and collecting quintessence on a massive scale. To be perfectly honest, I don't like his much. It's sort of simplistic and boring and weird but it is the core plot now and you can't change it without massive ramifications. It is weird that Nergal would include Darin in on his plans to summon dragons since Darin was just a means to an end in farming quintessence but that's neither here nor there at this point. So that aside over, let's get back to the plot and the excitement to come.

    ​

    Not much of interst happens during the fight in the port of Badon and by the end of it, Eliwood is in good spirits and jokes with Hector. They decide to go inform Lord Uther of Ostia about everything that's happened. Isadora, a knight from the beginning of the story in service to Eliwood's mother comes to protect Eliwood and they talk about his mother as well. Finally, we cut to Nergal who is wounded. He orders his two Limstella to organize the Black Fang into hunting Eliwood and the other morph who looks very similar to gather quintessence because she's the strongest morph. I don't actually remember her name, it's something Stella I think. Maybe Powerfustella. Probably not. Both morphs have fucking amazing looking hair that make me extremely jealous.

    ​

    After the port of Badon, Eliwood and Co go to meet with Uther so that they might finally inform him of everything going on. The game takes a turn towards more subtle politics here and the group needs to meet Uther outside of Ostia's main city/castle so as to not arouse suspicion from foreign agents. While the group waits for him, they're attacked by the Black Fang but fight them off before Uther arrives. Nils also falls unconscious for some reason. Oh and the group recruits Heath, there have been other recruitments before now but Heath is funny because in almost every playthrough I've done I've accidentally killed him because he has no dialogue upon entering the map.

    ​

    The group speaks with Uther and this is where we start the build-up towards the confrontation with Nergal and the final climax of the game. So far the story has followed a sort of ramping action up to the Dragons Gate where we hit our first climax, then we slowed down these last two chapters, now we're finally going back up for the final endgame stuff which is a fun way for a story to be written. Especially a game as it gives you a sight of the main villains in the beginning before you fight them later.

    ​

    Uther tells the party that it'd be impossible to mobilize his forces against a threat as subtle as Nergal and that convincing any other foreign power would only serve to be more difficult. This leaves the task of stopping Nergal from destroying the world with dragons entirely in the hands of our heroes in a rather eloquent way. After that, Uther recommends the group go seek out a "Living Legend" as a way to progress the story.

    ​

    So the group goes to meet this Living Legend in the Nabata Desert. They meet Pent and I love this chapter because it cracks me up every time that Pent just destroys everything with no regard for your own army. There's even a Gaiden requirement where you have to kill more people than him it's hilarious. The bandits in the desert have an atypical aesthetic to them to say the least, they show up in this game and in its predecessor fe6 and it's always struck me as a bit weird, but I don't really have anything much more to say about them and that's not what this review is about I guess.

    ​

    So the party meets with Pent and Hawkeye and are escorted to Athos, there's a gaiden chapter where Kishuna shows up for a second time but he's not important for anything and never shows up again from what I remember. This will be embarrassing if I'm wrong. I think he's mostly for the Hector Hard Mode story where you get Nergal's backstory locked behind so much content which is absolutely ridiculous game design.

    ​

    Then the group meets Athos!!! I love old wizards they're so cool. I played a 600 year old elf wizard in dnd yesterday and got to absolutely cheese the abilities when fighting Tiamat by using 4 meteor swarm spells because of the high magic epic boon along with having a simulacrum available. It was amazing. That was also tangential.

    ​

    So Athos is cool, he's a thousand years old and because of his long life, he's no longer entirely human which is interesting. He watches the continent hoping to prevent another apocalypse but finds himself unable to help in certain circumstances but this time he does all he can by explaining Nergals goals and backstory to the group. He also sends Pent and Louise and Hawkeye with the group to help them out. As well as giving them the Heaven Seals or at least talking about them. It's pretty fun!

    ​

    Then he teleports them all back to Eliwood's home Gotoh style where Eliwood has a tearful reunion with his mother before he leaves once more to Bern. Relations with Bern have been steadily dropping with the current King Desmond being a despotic tyrant hated by his subjects. He's closed the border against Lycian Nobles so the group has to sneak in.

    ​

    During their time in Bern, there are a loooot of references to how strong Bern is that are there in the sense of hyping up fe6 since fe7 is a prequel game. They're done pretty decently and I especially like seeing Zephiel as a kid because it gives this idea that with a proper father that Zephiel might have been a great king rather than a warmonger hellbent on destroying the world. I like it a lot, it's well done.

    ​

    The group goes to stay in a town while waiting for information from Pent and Louise as those two go to meet up with the queen of Bern who is Zephiel's mother and who Desmond hates to the point he sent her away from the palace. There is a very toxic relationship between those two, it is bad. While that's happening, the group is attacked by either Lloyd or Linus depending on certain requirements based on your main lords I think. Lloyd is definitely the harder fight from what I remember because he's stronger and has fog of war. I fought Linus in my current playthrough though. In both cases, the brother sees your group as honorable and good after you killed his entire mercenary band and almost killed him as well, so the brother leaves to think on things and try and enact real change in the Black Fang since right now his father is being controlled by Sonia.

    ​

    However, before that can happen, the brother is killed by Limstella who gives him the ol soul suck. This completely destroys any chance that the group might have had for peace with the Black Fang which is sad and sets up a sort of Camus instance later on with the other brother. Honestly, this game really loves making the Black Fang this honorable killing mercenary army that has repeatedly worked towards destabilizing the continent because they're too honorable to stand up to their father who is obviously mind controlled my Sonia so that's something.

    ​

    That's harsh, it's interesting to see what happens but I mean you can only make a killer so honorable. That depends on the tone of the story too though but anyway we'll talk about that more.

    ​

    Pent and Louise come back and tell the group that they need to recover the Fire Emblem! Wow that's the name of the game! So the group sets out to do that by first investigating the palace, they spy on Zephiel, Murdock, Guinevere, and Desmond in the gardens and you get a condensed session of; cute half-sibling love, cute foxes, Murdock being all silent, Desmond being an abusive father, Desmond being a tyrant, Zephiel wanting his father's love, and Zephiel realizing his father will always hate him for factors out of his control and resolving to fucking murder his father and take over Bern in like fifteen years. Maybe more like twenty or twenty-five years I am unsure.

    ​

    Zephiel and Murdock are sent away and Guinevere goes to play with her fox. Sonia teleports in to talk to Desmond and it turns out that she and the Black Fang stole the Fire Emblem to prevent Zephiel from being announced as heir to the throne. The group learns that the Fire Emblem is being kept at the Black Fang fortress so that really just kills two birds with one stone.

    ​

    They leave the palace and we cut to Ninian and Nils. Ninian talks about how she has a crush on Eliwood (it's like entirely meant to be canon it feels like) and Nils tells her to cut it the fuck out. Ninian leaves to think and Nils gets spotted by Vaida who is a soldier of Bern that's also a crony of Nergal and got powered up by him by the UBER SPEAR. We get an objective survive map again and yet another halo reference and start the battle.

    ​

    Pent and Louise join your army and Pent gives Eliwood a heaven seal (or Hector one if it's Hector Mode), Eliwood/Hector can't use the seal yet but the seal can be used by one of the other two lords. Then we do the usual fighting.

    ​

    You handily defeat all of the attackers except for Vaida because she is made nigh invincible with stats higher than some endgame bosses due to a power-up from Nergal in the form of the uber spear. It's possible to take the spear from her with some glitch to do with mines but I don't really know how it works, you should look it up on youtube though it's pretty funny. Vaida spends the entire time watching you and eventually leaves because apparently watching people kill all your minions is boring. Another member of the Black Fang shows up in a village and helps Eliwood and Co out by giving them a Hammerne staff which is nice. Well nice for Eliwood at least.

    ​

    The map ends with Vaida retreating or dying if you manage to kill her, then the party tracks her with the help of Lyn. Hector is dubious of her abilities at first and good reason since all of the attackers were wyverns but Lyn successfully tracks the Black Fang to their base. Ninian and Nils also inform the group that Nergal is regaining his power.

    ​

    Everyone gets to the Black Fang hideout where they eavesdrop on Sonia dismissing Vaida because Vaida failed. This creates a bit of narrative dissonance due to the fact that Vaida failed of her own volition after being powerful to the point of easily taking on Eliwood. After Vaida is dismissed, Sonia tells Ursula that it's important to think you're better than everyone else because everyone else is trash which gives you a bit of insight into her ways of thinking however simple they might be narratively. Finally, Sonia decides to go with Jaffar and Nino to kill Prince Zephiel on orders from the King. Brendan initially disagrees with this because Nino is not ready and Jaffar suprisingly agrees since Nino is the only person Jaffar cares for at this point, however they're both shot down since Sonia wants Nino to be evil instead of a small girl that is does her best to be a good guy despite not knowing anything about what's going on in the world.

    ​

    They leave to kill Prince Zephiel and Brendan disappears leaving Kenneth in charge. Immediately afterwards, Kenneth discovers the group hiding out near the Black Fang fortress (convenient it was after Sonia and Jaffar left) and then Kenneth teleports to meet the group so he can get a few taunts in before teleporting back to the throne so that the battle can start. It really is sort of obnoxious the way teleporting is utilized so often as a way of characterizing the villains before the battle and letting them do weird plot shenanigans. It's honestly not very interesting but it's not atrociously bad just yet at least.

    ​

    Kenneth tells everyone that he's an atheist that hates gods but worships Nergal instead cuz Nergal is buff as fuck which explains why he uses light magic. Then Kenneth makes a barrier preventing everyone from leaving? So they're forced to fight the Black Fang at the fortress? Which is what they wanted in the first place? But everyone gets worried they can't escape? It's weird.

    ​

    And then the battle starts! It's pretty by the books except there's a lot of ranged mages. Because I don't care for character deaths, rath died which triggered an unexpected dialogue after the map that I didn't know was in the game and will talk about later. Kenneth dies the way he lived, like a bitch. The group conveniently finds the Fire Emblem there. And Karel acts all bloodthirsty and crazy and joins the party.

    ​

    Afterwards, we get to see Sonia, Jaffar, and Nino preparing to assassinate Zephiel. We learn that Nino just wants parental love and that Jaffar was raised from childhood by Nergal to be a coldblooded killer which I like as backstories for both of them. They're well made and I wish that we got to see more of them before the story sort of ruled them out after you recruit the two and they get their miniature arcs. It's not a huge deal though since there's a good amount of content to make them both memorable.

    ​

    Beyond that, Sonia instructs Jaffar to kill Nino after Zephiel is killed so that Nino might be used as a scapegoat. This is to allegedly prevent Bern from falling into chaos because the people will want to execute whoever killed their prince. It's sort of conusing because at the same time, Sonia wants Nino to do the kill as a way to prove herself, which is pointless if Nino will die anyway. It's convoluted and tries to make two conflicting plots happen at the same time and doesn't work very well. Plus, the idea of just needing a dead assassin in Zephiel's chambers to stop any sort of chaos from arising seems extremely simplistic but at the same time it furthers Sonia's character of only ever seeing people as tools and also just being really evil. So it's bad but not egregiously so.

    ​

    The conversation with Rath is pretty basic but decently touching as he says his goodbyes to go heal his wound with time. Lyn is sad to see him go and the two depart. Just as a tangent, this is the kind of dynamic content I wish that they would spend the increased budget and manpower on new fire emblem games rather than making huge 3d environments and convoluted storylines and supports that support pedophilia. I mean not to be an elitist but I do prefer the older games even if I do like the newer ones still, Awakening is one of my faves because of how novel of a game it is. Anyway, back to the story.

    ​

    Next we get not only an important story chapter but one of the most controversial chapters of the game, Battle Before Dawn. On normal mode, it's a pretty fun chapter that does a good job of incentivizing fast gameplay. The bolting tome is annoying but that's life. On hard mode it's extremely annoying trying to keep Jaffar alive as it's all left up to rng if he lives or not which is not the most fun way to play.

    ​

    Regardless of gameplay, the group gets to the palace too late to head off Jaffar and Nino. However, Nino finds that Zephiel is like her, he just wants to make his parents proud despite their abusive nature. Nino finds herself unable to finish off Zephiel after Jaffar knocks him out and offers her own life for his. Jaffar is unable to kill either of them and resolves to escape with Nino before the Black Fang can intervene. However, Ursula arrives as they depart and finds out that they didn't do as requested. She also tells Nino a bit about Sonia and Nino's past. Then Ursula douses all the lights and sends her troops to kill Zephiel as well as the traitors while saying the Black Fang signature catchphrase of "I sentence you to death".

    ​

    Now it's pretty weird that Ursula just showed up to see if Jaffar had killed everyone? And showed up with an entire contingent of Black Fang forces? It can be assumed that Sonia sent her to make sure that Jaffar had done his work but there wasn't much cause to distrust Jaffar beforehand so at least for me I would have liked to see more to flesh this out.

    ​

    The gang arrives just in time to fight off Ursula and save Jaffar, Nino, and Zephiel. At least that depends on player choice but pretty much everyone chooses to save Jaffar and Nino. If Ursula is killed, Limstella shows up after the map to collect her quintessence, if she lives then Limstella just kills her and takes it anyway. Limstella does that to like every character going forward.

    ​

    Nino and Jaffar join the team and Hector is most against it due to his hatred for Jaffar. Leila is not brought up directly but I wish she was. Matthew also has no comment even if he still lives at that point. Like I said before, Nino and Jaffar have pretty compelling plot lines and I'm glad that they did because it works to give insight into the Black Fang.

    ​

    After the fight, the group reports to Queen Hellene, giving her both the Fire Emblem and news of her son's near-death experience at the hands of assassins. The Queen blows them off about the assassination and is only happy about having the Fire Emblem as it will confirm Zephiel being named as heir and strike a blow against King Desmond. Eliwood and Lyn get pissed off at her callousness towards her son to which the Queen gets equally mad at them and refuses to help them with the Shrine of Seals like previously promised. They go outside to blow off steam and Eliwood apologizes to everyone about losing his temper. Pent says it's alright and Louise tells everyone that this isn't how the Queen always was, that she changed after marrying the King. The Queen has a change of heart however and comes outside to give the group the location of the Shrine of Seals as well as give them a Heaven Seal that was originally meant for Zephiel. She also talks about how she wants to create a better family for her children and husband which is a happy note to end on even if it fails which makes the events of fe6 more tragic. The group leaves to the Shrine of Seals with promises that the Bern army won't block their way for three days.

    ​

    That night, there is a gaiden chapter where Nino and Jaffar sneak out to confront Sonia. The gang follows them to the Water Temple where Sonia is hiding out. Before they get to the Water Temple, we get a little cutscene where Sonia talks about how horrible morphs are and how she is the perfect being despite she herself being a morph which Sonia is unaware of. It fleshes out her character and is decently interesting but like a lot of things in this game doesn't get a ton of attention. Then Sonia kills Brendan Reed to fully take over the Black Fang while bragging about how she's been slowly replacing everyone in the Black Fang with morphs so she can fully take control of it which we will talk more about in just a bit. Brendan manages to injure Sonia while dying and Limstella offers to take over but Sonia declines in favor of still being in charge because she hates Limstella. After that, Nino and Jaffar arrive! Sonia makes fun of Nino and it's half-implied that Jaffar might be Nino's brother or that Nino's brother just died that night, I'm not sure honestly. Then Sonia gets ready to kill them but the gang shows up just in time to fight off all of Sonia's troops.

    ​

    So to talk more about how Sonia slowly replaced everyone in the Black Fang with morphs. It's weird. Nergal needed the Black Fang to be his agents out in the continent so he could kill high-profile targets to get quintessence as well as further his evil machinations. This all makes sense. He took control of the Black Fang by having Sonia marry Brendan Reed so that she might control him. Brendan Reed isn't mind controlled or anything like I implied earlier, he's just a fucking idiot. He let his entire organization slowly fall apart and be taken over and made evil by Sonia despite his sons constantly wanting otherwise and warning him. So Nergal has control of the Black Fang now, Sonia begins replacing the more loyal members to further her control and all of this makes sense. She used the resources and name of the Black Fang to quickly create a private army for Nergal. This all falls apart though when she says that the people she was using to replace the Black Fang were all morphs. If they're morphs, then why didn't Nergal just make a morph army in the first place? What was the point of the Black Fang? This can be waved away as he didn't yet have the power to create that many morphs but why would you even bother risking using the Black Fang in the first place? And beyond lore reasons, it takes away from the weight of who you're fighting if they're just all morphs, it's not as interesting. It just really was not required.

    ​

    So Eliwood and Co win the day and kill Sonia and leave. Nino and Jaffar resolve to travel with the gang so that they can turn over a new leaf. Hector isn't too pleased but he allows it at the very least. We then cut to Limstella watching Sonia die, Limstella confirms that Sonia is a morph which the audience could very much guess based on her appearance and Sonia dies mad.

    ​

    Eliwood and Co continue on to the Shrine of Seals with ease due to the queens help in telling them where to go and moving Bern's soldiers away. There they meet the very last remnants of the Black Fang led by Lloyd. The soldiers under Lloyd have apparnetly gone mad with fury and bloodthirst leaving them beyond reasoning to Nino's dismay. Lloyd himself, in true Camus fashion, has committed to this path and nothing can sway him from it, not even Nino's words. Sadly, there isn't much combat dialogue to be had from Lloyd but he does have some intersting stuff for Nino, Jaffar, and Legault from what I remember.

    ​

    Vaida also joins the party here as thanks for them saving Zephiel's life. There isn't much to be said beyond that though and she no longer has Nergal's powerup either.

    ​

    The story gets wonky here and once again gives a lot of allusions to fe6. They take the Shrine of Seals and Athos teleports there, he reveals that everything that just happened to them to get to the shrine was a test of their resolve which is why Athos didn't just teleport them there in the first place. Which is an okay excuse? I don't like it, it's not horrible, it works for the narrative, but it's weak. It doesn't give any weight to the story and it just creates this idea that everything Eliwood has done up to this point hasn't been of his own volition or agency, he's just been strung along by tests. It isn't compelling.

    ​

    So everyone goes down into the shrine to meet with Brammimond who is another of the Eight Legends alongside Athos. Also Brammimond is the (first?) queer rep the series gets cuz they are non-binary or something which I mean it's because they are this being that transcended humanity through use of elder magic but that's besides the point. Apparently the eight big legendary weapons were sealed away long ago and Athos needs to convince Brammimond to lift the seals so that they might get the legendary weapons to defeat Nergal because he's become so powerful. So Eliwood convinces Brammimond and the seals are lifted.

    ​

    The group leaves the shrine but oh no Nergal shoes up! He kidnaps Ninian who agrees to go with him if he promises not to kill Eliwood so he does, but he blows everything up knocking them all unconscious. Eliwood wakes up in bed and learns that Nergal had been a bit cheeky and blown them up, only Athos' shield kept them from dying but apparently Nergal is op and could have killed everyone but decided not to. This is weird. This is probably by far the worst part of the game storywise. It's convoluted, filled with allusions and foreshadowing to another game, has a supremely overpowered character, devalues the rest of the story prior to this, and creates more questions than it answers.

    ​

    It is well and truely awful. So let's unpack it all!

    ​

    Brammimond having the seals on the weapons doesn't mean much for fe7 beyond being a reason for the heroes not immediately taking these weapons but that doesn't even much because the heroes didn't know where the weapons even were. Disregard that Lilina does know where Durandal is in fe6 which means that Ostia in general probably knows so Hector might know or at least have access to it. But this retcon to fe6 does explain why all the weapons were still in their original hiding spots and had been untouched since the scouring in fe6. This wasn't exactly a required explanation but it's not unwelcome.

    ​

    Nergal shows up in a weird demonstration of power that should have happened far earlier in the game. The creators of the game wanted to make Nergal truly frightening, a lot of the game isn't spent attacking him but instead trying to find a way to stop him. So it's already known he's really powerful and scary. But the writers wanted to really show off his power firsthand which is why he teleports to the Shrine of Seals to attack everyone. But this doesn't really work because it's so late in the game that everyone has already gotten a lot of their power up. Getting defeated now just makes Nergal look so strong to the point that he's unstoppable, that he doesn't even work within the plot. Even Athos can hardly scratch him and on top of that, Nergal apparently was able to kill everyone but just decided not to. For unknown reasons. This demonstration of power doesn't work at the moment that it's placed in the narrative and the lengths they go to, to show how strong Nergal is go way too far in making him just far too powerful.

    ​

    Once again too, we see teleport kidnapping. Ninian is taken for the second time this game by a bad guy that teleports in the middle of the army and just takes her. This devalues the whole point of protecting Ninian if she can be kidnapped at any time. Furthermore, it devalues any previous attempts to kidnap her if she can be taken at any time by apparently omniscient magic users.

    ​

    None of it makes sense and it doesn't work in the narrative to the point that it actively devalues the narrative. It's ridiculous. This one moment serves as such a bad climax that it leaves a bad taste in your mouth for the rest of the game and changes the coloring of your perception of the previous parts of the game.

    ​

    Instead of Eliwood doggedly fighting against the odds, it was all a test designed by Athos. Instead of Eliwood managing to stay under Nergal's radar and gather power to defeat him once and for all with his father's help, Nergal can defeat Eliwood at any time but chooses not to. Instead of Eliwood managing to protect Ninian from the worst that Nergal has to throw at them, Nergal does take Ninian and can do so at any time. Instead of Eliwood holding the key to Nergal's success in the form of Ninian and Nils, Nergal doesn't even need them. That last one is revealed in just a moment. The story just doesn't work and this moment was the anvil that broke the camel's back.

    ​

    After Nergal kidnaps Ninian at the Shrine of Seals, he takes her back to the Dragons Gate and asks her to open it for him. It's sort of weirdly rapey in the dialogue, Ninian keeps saying no and don't and please don't and then Nergal brings up consent and how Ninian doesn't have a choice. Obviously this is about opening the Dragons Gate but just the dialogue was uncomfortable to read especially because of my own experiences with well, rape, and sexual assault, and stuff like that.

    ​

    So Ninian doesn't want to do what Nergal tells her and in her emotional state she reverts to her true form, a dragon. Apparently Ninian and Nils were dragons from beyond the Dragons Gate that were coaxed there by Nergal's magic and one other reason we'll talk about along with Nergal in general at the end. It's weird because Nergal calls her hideous in her true form and mocks her and then lets her fly away. But I mean at least to me, dragons are pretty cool, I mean it'd be a surprise if someone turned into a dragon but I wouldn't call them hideous. It's a weird word choice.

    submitted by /u/mr_kookie9295
    [link] [comments]

    I redesigned Female Byleth! I absolutely adore Three Houses, but something about F!Byleth also unsettled me so... I hope you like her, I think I did a good job. I've also posted this on my Instagram @Robiinho0d ;)

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 02:22 AM PDT

    I embroidered a nasty seaweed man and his adorable wyvern. (og pic source in comments)

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 11:34 AM PDT

    I made these costumes in Animal Crossing - criticism welcome!

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 03:15 PM PDT

    It's been a year and I still think about the Felix x Lysithea ending, finally got around to drawing it

    Posted: 08 Aug 2020 08:04 PM PDT

    [OC] A few months ago, I made a blue lions phone case for myself. It was super well received and after many encouraging comments, I made all the houses, pre and post time skip and I’m selling them!

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 09:34 AM PDT

    Worst Sacred Stones Supports

    Posted: 09 Aug 2020 04:10 PM PDT

    Ephraim/Tana: The whole support is him not understanding her childish crush towards him, and guilt tripping him for the stupidest things. I feel like Ephraim will never love nor care about Tana in the degree she cares about him, and as a result she'll be unhappy as well. The ending is also forced, and the support actually seemed to ship him with INNES more than Tana.

    Gerik/Marisa: Gerik is a jerk to Marisa, telling her to be more sociable, something she is clearly not comfortable with, and laughing when she tries to be. I know he apologizes in A, but C and B weren't great.

    submitted by /u/CustardPuddingHoney
    [link] [comments]
    Read more
    at

    No comments:

    Post a Comment