#Play this damn game when it comes out

[pitchkart]

Fire Emblem Blazing Sword Primer

Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword is about to drop on NSO for Switch! Known simply as Fire Emblem here, this was the first game to be localized outside of Japan. Twenty years later, the series’s popularity has skyrocketed to heights I could not have ever dreamed of and it’s beautiful.

With all the new blood introduced by Awakening, Three Houses, and even Engage, you might be curious about this entry and want to check it out. This post will serve as a quick guide for getting started.

#1: The tutorial is LONG

I’m not kidding. It’s not like new games where it’s a blip on the screen and then it’s gone. Lyn’s going to be talking the most basic of basics. Remember this was the first game in the series to be released to a western audience, so the training wheels are going to be on for a while. Like, the next 10 chapters. It will drag if you know your shit, but for newbies, I would argue this is the one of the best ways to get acquainted with the series. It will beat the basics into you and help you establish good habits for executing your strategy. Bear with it for the time being, I promise it gets better! In future playthroughs you can disable the tutorial messaging.

#2: Permadeath is on, but NSO rewind is your Turnwheel, so it’s going to be okay.

This was made before Casual Mode or Mila’s Turnwheel Divine Pulse Draconic Time Crystal was a thing, so back in the day if you made an error, you’d either have to live with it or restart the chapter from the beginning. Fuck that, though, it’s 2023 and we have the technology. If you want to relive those days as a challenge, by all means go off, but I won’t be wagging my finger at you if you decide you don’t have time for that shit anymore. Do what you gotta to enjoy this game.

#3 Experience is limited in this game, so make sure you distribute it evenly among your team*

I mean it. For the love of God, don’t funnel it all into Rath. For all the characters you’ll be able to recruit, you’ll only be able to deploy 10-15 per map. Build a strong core, and you’ll be ready for anything the game throws at you.

#4 Pursuant to the above, Marcus is a great unit, but don’t rely on him too heavily.

Newer players might assume Marcus to be a trap unit like Vander at first blush, but he’s a surprisingly decent unit throughout. The issue is that he starts out promoted, meaning he won’t get nearly as much experience on killing an enemy unit as another unit lower in levels will. Efficiency is the word of the day, dear readers. Use Marcus when you need him, but not at the expense of your other characters’ growth. Give him a weaker weapon, bait out the enemies, soften ‘em up, then let the units you want to level finish ‘em off and you’ll have your army up and running like a well-oiled machine.

#5 Double-check enemy ranges

This was sadly before there was a handy dandy button you could push to see the Danger Zone, so be extra mindful when you play. Also, keep in mind that even though the range might display it, only a handful of bosses actually move from where they’re parked.

#6 Get in formation, soldier!

God dammit, stick together. You don’t have Emblem superpowers anymore and enemy reinforcements aren’t as loudly telegraphed in older games as they are now. Building a solid defensive line and being aware of how many enemies can approach a unit at any given time might save your life. Always have at least one buddy!

#7 Always have at least one unit guard Merlinus’s tent

Merlinus is your convoy in this game. If you want to be able to put items into an inventory during a map, you’ll have to deploy him. The caveat is he’s a stationary unit who can’t fight, and while it’s usually not a problem, sometimes IS is cheeky and puts reinforcements by him. This will become less of an issue as the game persists and he promotes, but until then, hang in there.

#8 When you play fog-of-war maps, have your thieves use torches

Thieves have the best vision in night/fog maps, and torches further enhance this, so this is the best bang for your buck.

#9 Weapon weight is tested against CON, similar to Build in Engage

The difference is a unit’s build isn’t something that can grow like in Engage. The only way for a character to get more build is to either promote or use a Body Ring, and those are pretty rare.

#10 As a result of the above, you’re going to be using Iron weapons most of the time.

It’s okay. Most of the time Iron will do the trick.

#11 Conserve Rapier/Wolf Beil/Mani Katti charges when you can, but don’t wait till it’s fucking Christmas to use them

Lyn will get her Mani Katti charges reset after chapter 10 and I think there’s one more of Eliwood’s Rapier or Hector’s Wolf Beil depending on which story you do. You can also get the Hammerne staff that repairs weapons, but it only has three charges.

#12 If possible, wait for a unit to hit level 20 before you promote them.

Since the levels you can get are finite, you’ll need to make the most of your units’ growth rates.

#13 Effective damage is only x2 in this game, not x3 like other games.

It’s still gonna hurt if you make a mistake, but it’s going to make your life harder half the time.

#14 The support system in this game is rough

If you think gathering supports in Engage was painful, you’re in for a rude awakening. The only way to gather support points in Blazing Sword is to have two units end their turn next to each other, and some of them take a lot of turns to trigger. What’s more, each unit can have five support conversations per playthrough (for example, an A support with one character and a B support with another character, or an A or two Cs). This means if you want to collect all the supports, you will need to replay the game several times. As always, hit up Serenes Forest if you want more information on the particulars.

Bonus* #15: Okay, I lied, there is a way to get more experience.

There are arenas on certain maps where units can fight for money, but it’s a risky proposition, considering they can die in there. NSO rewind/save states will mitigate this somewhat, however, and starting on chapter 20E/21H, Ninian will trivialize this.

Her ring, Ninis’ Grace, grants a defense buff for one turn when she dances for a unit. This buff does not go away if a unit is rescued before enemy phase starts. See where I’m going with this?

1) Buff unit with Ninis’ Grace

2) Have them fight in the arena

3) Rescue them once they’re done fighting

4) End turn

5) Have rescuer #2 take/drop unit

6) Heal as necessary

7) Have Ninian do a regular dance

8) Repeat steps 2-7

And there you have it. Blazing Sword is a lovely game and holds a special place in my heart. It’s very much a product of its time, but I still hope y’all enjoy—

Oh you’ve got to be kidding me.

You had one job, Nintendo.

[lunarharp]

fwee top 5 things i had fun with this year :-)

[shadyvoidhologram]

I was laying in bed overthinking, as you do, and started to go on a depressive doom spiral. And then, to distract myself I started thinking about the things I like.

[Spoilers and some gross details incoming, you know what Mouthwashing is about]

So, eventually I started thinking about Curly being in a similar headspace as I was, laying down, incapable of doing anything, constantly in pain and hearing time and time again how quickly things are going to shit and that it's all your fault.

Him replaying his mistakes over and over on his head, imagining the many ways things could've gone a different way if only he had done something instead of ignoring the issues to "keep the peace".

Remembering every interaction that led to the accident, Anya's confession, his friends poorly disguised resentment, him ignoring and filtering details of his crew's mental state, her taking the gun, the notice, Jimmy.

Him being a coward and disguising his hate of confrontation with the guise of being a good friend.

And then comming back to reality, to is burning flesh. To the blood, shit and bile staining the bandages, robe and bed, to watching and hearing his friends suffer and die, unable to do anything.

When the kid dies, in the midst of all the emotional chaos, he feels some sick sense of relief knowing that probably Swansea will deal with both of them quickly and it'll be over at last.

Then Jimmy finds the gun.

And he can't help but laugh. He remembers the conversation they had and he cackles bitterly because not even in death can her wishes be respected. She trusted him and he failed her even after she was gone.

Soon enough it's just the two of them left.

Through muffled ears he hears Jimmy rambling, talking to himself, asking questions and answering right after, he sees him moving the bodies around. When Jimmy carries him from the infirmary to the common room table he's still as stone, not a sound leaves his mouth, he doesn't look at the bodies thrown on the chairs around the table, he doesn't even breathe.

But all of Jimmy's attention, hatred, idolatry, and envy are on him only. Eyes glossy, cut pieces of a one sided conversation and a tentative smile on his lips when he reaches for the slightly dented knife.

He screams until his lungs close and his throat burns. When he's fed parts of himself he cries and throws up until he is forced to swallow and keep it down.

He's dehidrated, half delirious from the blood loss and emotionally checked out when Jimmy picks him up and tells him they can still fix this, he knows what to do. That he's going home.

Sure, he thinks, he wants to go home.

When he's placed on the cryopod he just stares at Jimmy talk to himself at him some more, about being heroes and everything being all right now. Then he steps out of sight.

It's on the silence after the loud bang when his brain starts working again, he's completely and utterly alone on a crashed ship of a company that's closing it's doors, with a now depleted shipment that wasn't even important enough to guarantee a search party, and no way of fending for himself in the case of 20 years passing and no one coming, even less if the power gave out before that.

As the cryopod finally starts to cool, the few tears he has left fall from his remaining eye.

He hopes he doesn't wake up to see what happens next.

..ok see y'all when I wake up-

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

perhaps my most #cancelable videogame take i can post on this website is i think that the kind of people who say that anyone who picks the "morally wrong" or "mean" options in video game dialogue should, as a player, feel bad about their own choices/morals in real life. is that those people are just another flavor of the kind of dudes who play Disco Elysium and get mad for not being rewarded for picking the facist options. both of these groups are reducing games to "a thing I want to agree with me and everyone else who doesn't either suffers or does not have the option to play a character who behaves otherwise" rather than "a medium where you get to (or even Have to) explore different kinds of characters in order to experience the full depth of the story and characters in it."

When I want to pick options in a game that are mean, negative, arrogant, or ignorant, it's because I want to explore what would push a character into becoming that kind of person. Sometimes I want to see how the NPC characters who I-The-Player like/agree with react to someone who is fundamentally different from them. I think it's GOOD actually when the narrative allows you to push limits and especially when it has the option to then punish you for it in some way, such as losing options/routes later on, or companions straight up abandoning you for your choices. It DOES often make me deeply, viscerally uncomfortable to make choices in a game that are so counter to my own, but it means I get to experience that discomfort in an isolated environment and also think about what it means, what would push the character or even yes a real person into actually feeling those things. And I get to play with what ways the narrative could challenge them/make them grow over the course of the game--or on the other side, it can let me make a character who does start off more open/accepting but let the events of the narrative push them into being more reactively closed-minded instead.

I like that we have invented a medium where you can play a game multiple times and experience it differently depending on the character you play as. Books and TV and movies are all static--the greatest draw of games to me is the ones that are responsive, that can tell a slightly different story every time--when other characters in the game respond differently to you because of it, or some paths open up and others don't. And so yes it did disappointment me when a franchise that previously had these elements, Dragon Age, did not include them in the most recent installment. I don't think games should have options where you get to just hit a button to say something racist with no consequences or exploration into why a character would do that. but like, if i can only ever play a game as an upstanding person who is morally right all the time in basically the same flavor for every dialogue. I only get to truly play that game Once, you know? And I only get to see the way the companions react to someone they like and trust. And never really go deeper than that.

So like... I just sit and think about the scenes you can get in Inquisition. with Cassandra breaking down, because she fears she placed a would-be tyrant at the head of a powerful organization--that she searched and searched and chose wrong. Of Varric who is desperate to convince you not to become a monster, like the last person he feels betrayed him. Vivienne intentionally pissing you off because she wants to see how far you'll go when angered, how much she has to worry about your reactions. They say so much about the companions, what they fear most, and where they will draw the line. And especially in Inquisition, at these crisis points--you don't have to double down. Your character can have a come-to-Andraste moment where they go "woah... is that really how people see me? is this what i want?" and I think that kind of option can do way more for encouraging actual players to examine the choices they make in stories, more than locking the player into supportive, non-aggressive options does.

now. do i think all games execute these flavors well? no. writers and devs will have their own biases and blind spots, even if they are otherwise well-intentioned. and I don't think the ends of the scale need to extend from "absolute angel" to "horrible bigot", because the real complexity of course lies in the middle. I am not asking for games to let me be bigoted at every turn, what I want is games that let me make the protagonist deeply flawed in one or more ways--fearfully closed-minded to things outside their upbringing, or afraid of change to the status quo, or who want to advance their own aims regardless of consequences to others. I actually agree that the game was correct not to include any options for disrespecting Taash and their personal journey for example, but I do wish... idk maybe that we could have had a scene where if for instance the player character avoided outside-world missions relating to clearing away blight, they could confront us on how this might devastate the natural world and its creatures like dragons, and push us into trying to resolve it. Or in the other direction, if you spend the (currently meaningless) time giving money to background NPCs begging in the cities, Neve could could have a special cutscene thanking you for your attention to people otherwise beneath notice. You know?

And of course not every game can do this, I can write those sentences up there that represent hundreds of hours of dev time, of course they can't do it all. But the prior games usually did have at least a little of this, and that was enough to make me really fall in love. I KNOW the tumultuous development cycle, restarts from scratch, interference from higher-ups all contributed to why Veilguard was unable to hit those same marks this time. And we probably won't ever know how much of the loss of options/reactivity was intention vs a side effect of these things. But I wish people wouldn't frame players who miss these aspects as insane/morally corrupt. When for most of us it's because we genuinely enjoy challenging and exploring these aspects of reality in fiction in a way entirely unlike what we actually support in real life. i fully acknowledge not everyone desires to play this way. and that's fine!!! i am glad people can enjoy doing a "good" run each time that brings them joy. but for me it really limits the potential bounds of my enjoyment i guess. I like media that is complicated and messy and makes me think, and extra so when I get to see how playing that way impacts the greater story around it.

[devotion-disorder]

Hi hi! I'm new to dol fandom so I would like to ask you, is harper a romasible character or not? I've seen some people said he's not but kinda unsure..... Will be grateful if you enlighten me please!

hiiii!! sad news but harper is not a romanceable character 😔 that doesnt stop me from being insane about him and scrambling for any scraps of harper content though

hope you have fun with dol!!

[ratatatastic]

the rituals are intricate

florida panthers @ new york islanders | 10.26.24 (x)

[lehdenlaulu]

Americans on Threads being like "Hey non-Americans, how do you feel about the US now? You still love us right?? 🥺"

Girl, your dickhead-in-chief all but threatened to nuke Denmark because they refused to just hand Greenland over to him. How do you think we Europeans in particular feel?

[ct-multifandom]

Forever lamenting that YTTD chapter 1 dropped during the Trump presidency because this meme wasn’t invented yet

Spent the entire Sara minisode going “it’s joever” over and over again in my head

[beananium]

i finished the job 12 year old me was unable to do and beat all three paths of fire emblem fates. it was ok

[eastgaysian]

ah shit dragon age news. steeples my fingers

[blissfulstatic]

i started all of these games at wildly different times, took varying levels of breaks partway through each of them, and then finished all of their achievements in the same two days

i don't know what to do with myself now

[umbreonix]

wooooowowiwee may we hear more about this youtuber thingy🥺 like i know you don't want to give spoilers but... <3

oooooweee gawsh 🙈🙈🙈🙈

HmmmmMmmmm let me tell you more about Revali's condo building. Dead in the center of the city he's immediately in the most posh/vibrant area of downtown as soon as he's out the door.

There are only two penthouse condos (The Medoh suite being one of them) so he gets three directions of city views. All three outer walls are like, 90% glass so you really feel like you're soaring above the city skyline.

The main area of his apartment is open concept so the kitchen, tv area and dining room are all in the same large space. It makes the kitchen a very central spot in the home. Very convenient if you're someone who practically lives in the kitchen. Revali isn't but... maybe a future lover will enjoy cooking.

I collected reference pictures for funnies a while back:

Revali is ABSOLUTLEY the kind of guy who feels COMPLETELY at peace taking a bath in front of a massive window overlooking the city. (He knows that he's a work of art and has nothing to hide).

This open-view bath to me is the most important element to the whole apartment XD Hylian/Human Revali just strikes me as SUCH a bath person. He's luxurious like that.

[fakeasmr]

What are you doing between the 13th and the 15th? (aka the times when you're not gonna be able to play Lies of P because you didn't want to buy the version that let you play it early.)

Same as everyone who paid extra: not playing it because the early version doesn't come out until the 16th

[bravewolfvesperia]

/ i will be completely honest, the biggest crime of the vesperia dub really is the almost total removal of yuri being so childish and pouty.

[aloyssobek]

Anyway haha I think I was dealing with flashbacks when I had to deal with my drunk cousin (who I didn't realise was drunk because she was sneaking and stealing my dad's wine yesterday) and those flashbacks were of my uncle and grandad and I think I've been dealing with them for years now especially whenever I see other people drinking.