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Author Topic: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War! [COMPLETED!]  (Read 69111 times)

Boksi

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #30 on: July 30, 2010, 02:42:17 pm »

There's a timeskip, I think. I mean, look at the title of the game. Genealogy of the Holy War.

Wha? I thought he just put that there to be funny!?
Nope. That's the actual title. Or at least the translation of its title, I think he's playing a fan translation.
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JoshuaFH

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #31 on: July 31, 2010, 04:12:19 am »

Yeah, it's a fan translation. A pretty old one at that. I haven't bothered to check to see if anyone's updated it, since there's quite alot of things that are either in Japanese, or text gibberish. All the important stuff is handled well though, so I still enjoy it.

More shenanigans!

Now that we have Mar Castle, there's something I've genuinely forgotten about, a conversation between Sigurd and Aideen:


Apparently, Aideen has the Holy Bow Ichival, one of the 12 holy weapons! However, she's not the right class, so she can't use it. However, she wants to give it to her sister... It's probably best that we remember that!

Anyway, we got to take Verdane! To get to Verdane, however, we need to get through this big forest, slogging though Jamka's barbarians all the while.


Now, big woods like this present an interesting problem. There's a hidden stat in each character that dictates how much their movement is reduced when walking through difficult terrain, such as forests. Horses usually have it the worst, their movement being reduced the most. Units that travel on foot through have their movement reduced the least. Flying units (introduced later) can travel over any terrain unaffected.

Also, something I've been neglecting to mention is the existence of 'terrain bonuses'. When a unit is standing on any tile, it's evasion is modified by the terrain of that tile. Roads, or any place that doesn't offer any hiding places have negative bonuses, normal plains have 0% bonuses, forests have 20%, and inside of castles have 30% bonus. So, basically, if you don't want your units to get hit, make sure their standing on good tiles at the end of their turn.

Also, there's two kinds of forests, normal forests and 'thick' forests. Normal forests can be traveled through with difficult, thick forests can't be traveled through at all, acting more like walls than terrain. The barbarians though, can travel through it, albeit one tile at a time.

If you notice, there's a bottleneck with thick forests that we have to go through. This isn't that much of a problem, is just means that our units are gonna be tightly bunched up until we reach normal terrain. The barbarians don't pose much of a threat, but Jamka is an excellent archer, and can easily kill any unit should he get lucky with his multi-attacks, so be prepared for that by only having your strong units up front.

However, if you time it just right, and have Aideen run up and talk to him...


Aideen convinces him that something is wrong with his father, and that he shouldn't fight us. Believing in Aideen, Jamka joins our party!


Jamka is an excellent archer, what with good stats, all three relevant multi-hit abilities (pursuit, continue, and charge), and a great starting weapon, the Killer bow! The killer bow is special in that it's our first weapon to have an ability tied to it, that being the Critical ability. So, effectively, Jamka has 4 powerful abilities at his disposal, making him invaluable to us. I have him teleported by to Mar Castle so that he can wallop on the arena matches for some free experience and money.

Let's take a loot at the last enemies of this chapter:


Here, instead of just vanilla barbarians, this force is made up mostly of wimpy archerys, and some slightly stronger axe men. More importantly though, is that a black mage is guarding the castle.


What's important to note here is that he has a magic spell called "Fenrir" which has INCREDIBLE range. See all those red squares in that one picture? He can hit any unit inside one of those squares. That, and he has a magic ring augmenting his magic stat, making him all the more dangerous.

Now, passing through the bottleneck, when Sigurd reaches a certain point, Deirdre jamps out from a hiding place in the thick forests, and talk to him.


What commences is quite possibly the single fastest courtship to ever occur in any media, and Deirdre and Sigurd admit their spontaneous love for eachother, and Deirdre joins the team!


Deirdre isn't spectacular, but she can be another healer if you give her the appropriate staff, but she comes with some interesting items. There's the circlet, which is an item that gives her the Prayer and "Live" skill, which restores her health a little bit each turn, the white magic Aura, and most importantly, she comes with the Silence Staff! What the allows her to do is 'silence' any other magic user, so they can't use their magic! How convenient!

Also, she has Major Narga blood, and... what's that little purple dot in the center of the circle? Oh, I'm sure it's not important!

Anyway, it's SECRET time! If you have Lex travel to a peculiar peninsula just east of Verdane Castle...


And you get the Hero Axe! Now, "Hero" weapons are considerably better than their non-hero counterparts, because they have an "Auto-continue" effect added to them. Meaning that whenever the wielder of a hero weapon attacks, they instantly get to attack again for free! This is incredibly important for Lex, as he would ordinarily only be able to attack once each combat, and would eventually get outclassed by other characters without it! Also, it's lighter than his other axes, which is important for dodging! Take note though, that you MUST have Lex's original iron axe in order to trigger the event. If he doesn't have it on him, then you'll need to go back and get it in order to trigger the cutscene.

Alright, now that we have that done, CHARGE!


Oh fuck! I forgot about Fenrir! He almost one shots Cuan with it too! Quick, get in there Deirdre!


Now you can't do SHIT Sandima! Death will be upon you shortly!

The archers aren't that tough so long as you not let them gang up on one of your weaker units.

Oh, and I suppose it's about time to explain how magics work. Now, for the most part, magics work just like weapons, but they have their own RPS triangle they have to worry about. Fire Magic is good against Wind Magic. Wind Magic is good against, Thunder Magic, and Thunder is good against Fire. However, there's also Light and Dark magic, both of which have an advantage over all three, and are equally good against eachother.

Now, Deirdre gets use Aura, a light magic. Let's see that in action:


Whoa! Trippy. Pretty strong too!


After sweeping through the last line of defense in the span of about 2-3 turns, I have Azel kill Sandima so that he can acquire the magic ring he's holding.


Sigurd rushes into the castle to find King Verdane is still barely alive. He tells him that the Loptousou cult is active, and trying to take over the world, before dying for real. What will Sigurd do with this new knowledge? Find out next time, when we adventure into chapter 2!
« Last Edit: August 26, 2010, 06:39:55 pm by JoshuaFH »
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Creamcorn

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #32 on: July 31, 2010, 09:15:18 am »

That was quick, how many chapters are there anyway?
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Boksi

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #33 on: July 31, 2010, 11:29:43 am »

If I know my Fire Emblem, there's gonna be several dozen more chapters. And the difficulty will ramp up, of course.
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Glacies

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #34 on: July 31, 2010, 05:39:13 pm »

I guess I'll claim Midir, then. Is there item trading in this game, or can I not mooch the killer bow off that better archer?

Also, if horse-archers can upgrade into sword-and-bow-using-horsemen, that's what I'd like to do.

JoshuaFH

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #35 on: August 01, 2010, 01:12:25 am »

I guess I'll claim Midir, then. Is there item trading in this game, or can I not mooch the killer bow off that better archer?

Also, if horse-archers can upgrade into sword-and-bow-using-horsemen, that's what I'd like to do.

There's no 'trading' in the formal sense, but it is possible to exchange items by selling them to the 'pawn shop' in any castle, and then having another character buy it. It's wasteful, it's awkward, and I wish that the game didn't operate that way, but that's how it is. Some items can't even be sold, so they're stuck with their owners forever.

Also, sadly, Midir is a dedicated Bow user. He'll never be able to use anything other than his bow. It is possible to switch Midir's and Jamka's bow though, so I'll do that. Midir will be getting a superior bow in a while though anyway.
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Nintenlord

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #36 on: August 01, 2010, 03:39:47 am »

That was quick, how many chapters are there anyway?
12 in total. Prologue + 10 numbered chapters + Final chapter. They are pretty long for a FE chapters, though.
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Jim Groovester

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #37 on: August 01, 2010, 04:18:16 am »

Watching this Let's Play.

I suppose I'm a fan of the Fire Emblem games, even though I've only played 8 and 9 (The Sacred Stones and Path of Radiance).

I've been curious about what the Super Famicom Fire Emblem games looked like, as well as how they compare with the more modern releases.
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JoshuaFH

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #38 on: August 01, 2010, 06:13:06 am »

That was quick, how many chapters are there anyway?
12 in total. Prologue + 10 numbered chapters + Final chapter. They are pretty long for a FE chapters, though.

Yeah, FE4 chapters are pretty long. I might not seem it from how I'm presenting it, but it takes a while to fight battles and to travel from place to place. Add in the fact that the maps are pretty big and there's about 5+ major conflicts in any given chapter, and you have a long game.

Watching this Let's Play.

I suppose I'm a fan of the Fire Emblem games, even though I've only played 8 and 9 (The Sacred Stones and Path of Radiance).

I've been curious about what the Super Famicom Fire Emblem games looked like, as well as how they compare with the more modern releases.

I should tell you, while I've beaten this game like 6 times, I haven't beaten any other Fire Emblem game. Now, I've played Fire Emblem 5: Thracia 776, but I got bored of it and eventually stopped playing. Well, part of me stopping was also caused by the fact that the fan translation wasn't very good, but that's a another point entire. I've wanted to pick up the Fire Emblem games that were for the Game Boy Advance, but I never got around to it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: August 01, 2010, 06:16:37 am by JoshuaFH »
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Creamcorn

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #39 on: August 01, 2010, 07:28:06 pm »

Return? Is that like his late movie or something? Third to last picture
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JoshuaFH

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #40 on: August 01, 2010, 07:31:52 pm »

Oh, I didn't elaborate on that one. That's a Return Ring. When a character has it, they can cast the "Return" spell on themselves, teleporting them back to the home base. The AI never uses items like that though, so it's purely for your benefit.
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JoshuaFH

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #41 on: August 02, 2010, 08:14:00 am »

It's time for some more action packed turn-based gaming:


Anway, these are some new enemies we have here.


We have armors, which are the same class as Ardan, and are defensively superior to other generic units. They also have big ballista looking things, that fire giant weak arrows very inaccurately.


Also, see that guy? He's the healer of the enemy group. KILL HIS ASS!


Feel free to let Sigurd just run ahead of the pack like a wild man, straight towards Castle Her (or Heirhein, which I had to look up), since he can take those guys no problem.


This is the General of the armor unit, Philip. He's a General. Generals are going to be a real pain in the ass for the remainder of the game, I'll let you know right now, because they are proficient in all weapons except magics, have good stats, and have an ability called "Block" which will randomly prevent the damage from any attack. It could be the strongest attack in the world, but block'll stop it. Really makes up for their low speed and movement.

During my battle with the armor unit, Lechesis' bodyguards jumped into the fray. Fortunately I had killed so many enemies already that they couldn't get themselves hurt too badly. They're more than happy to abandon Lechesis though, as they THEN run halfway across the map to attack some poor armor guy that's just minding his own damn business.


Fortunately, Heirhein isn't too tough, but I'm 2 turns slow. I had to capture it on turn 11, and I did it on turn 13. Then I remembered my HORRIBLE memories of what it takes to actually complete that goddamn challenge. My god, I had to build my entire team to be specialized towards the one task to just running right past those guys and delivering the hate straight to Heirhein. That's such a pain in the ass to do, especially when you're only reward is a Bargain Ring (which mimics the effect of the bargain skill), which isn't worth half the effort required to get it.


Upon capturing Heirhein, we get this scene where King Shagaal chews out the lord of Anphony, who then has his mercenary squad summoned. One of the two characters on the right can be recruited, can you guess who?


Anyway, we can access a special conversation between Fin and Cuan and this point. This will net you the Hero Spear! Like the Hero Axe, this allows Fin to always attack twice in a row. Combined with his Pursuit ability, he can now attack four times in a single combat. VERY good!

Shortly after, we get a new scene some distance away:


and we get two new characters! Levin and Sylvia!


Levin is unbelievably awesome. He starts with wind magic, considered the best magic due to the fact that it's the lightest magic. His high speed let's him Continue almost guaranteed, and his major Holsety blood gives him awesome stat boosts.


Sylvia is special, she's not a fighter, or a defender, or a healer; instead, she's a dancer. What does a dancer do? Simple, whenever a unit has expended their turn, she can stand next to them, dance, and that unit will get another turn! What's best is that she can hit 4 units at once with it, provided they're arranged correctly. Extremely useful, if she is a tad weak. She also has minor Blagi blood, which gives her some decent magic defense. What's bad is that dancer's are the only class that can't be upgraded, which is a little bit of a bummer.

Then we get this scene:


This is Fury. She's looking for Levin for some reason. She'll be important later, but for now she's just chilling in Agusty Castle.

Anyway, another secret time!

Have Ardan travel to the top of a small beach peninsula just south of Heirhein, and you'll get this scene.


And you get the pursuit ring! This item is extremely useful, since it grants the pursuit skill to a unit, and pursuit can be a huge improvement to certain characters that don't normally have it.

Our current position:


Our forces are currently waiting for the mercenary squad to slam into them. It'll be a pretty cool battle.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2010, 09:34:40 am by JoshuaFH »
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ToonyMan

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #42 on: August 02, 2010, 08:18:00 am »

If you spoil an update could you set the font to size 3?  It's really small right now.
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JoshuaFH

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #43 on: August 02, 2010, 08:23:10 am »

I don't notice any difference in size. If fact, I can't get it to change size at all.
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ToonyMan

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Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #44 on: August 02, 2010, 08:43:53 am »

Never mind, you use center tags in your updates so that makes the size tag not work, oh well.
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