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senpai-no-lie · 4 years ago

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Golden Deer Route

So I finished the Golden Deer Route!

Why I chose Golden Deer: I have already played through Blue Lions, and from what I’ve heard about Edelgard, I figured I’d be more fond of Claude than her. And, well, that’s true, and I can see the appeal of the Golden Deer kids, this route is a bit of a mixed bag.

Who Was My Dancer: Ingrid. I really like Ingrid as a character, and I was torn between her, Marianne, or one of the boys as my dancer. Ultimately chose Ingrid because I remembered her having a pretty good magic stat in my BL playthrough, and I wanted to capitalize on that. She rocked as a dancer and was a fantastic asset to the team.

What Paired Endings Did I Get:

Claude & Ingrid (I was trying to get Ingrid with Yuri, but I think I just had Ingrid dance for Claude too much on the final chapter)

Ralpheal & Ignatz (again)

Lysithea & Balthus

Leonie & Seteth (I wanted this last time, so here we go)

Lorenz & Catherine (Whatever to this one)

Yuri & Constance

Ashe & Hapi

Who Did Byleth Marry: Marianne. I’m fond of her as a character, her Goddess Tower scene was fun, and I think she’d be a great wife. But I’ll be honest, was really torn between her or Yuri.

Which Claude Do I prefer?: Pre-timeskip! I think both character designs are comparable, but I felt that pre-timeskip Claude was a bit less clingy to Byleth. Though, that white wyvern was boss af.

General Thoughts: I liked the route, but I don’t think it was as well-rounded as Blue Lions. This route was a mash of church stuff and Claude stuff, and the back and forth just made everything a bit stranger. Also, the last minute “Edelgard wasn’t that bad; she was a pawn and thanks Hubie for telling us. They’re pretty swell after all” was generally laughable. The only BE character I recruited was Petra, for supports, so it was at least novel to have them all as enemies.

The Golden Deer Characters:

Before I started this route, in my head I had “Marianne White and the 7 Peers” as the characterization motif for the Golden Deer, and I wasn’t really wrong about their one-note personalities, since the only supports I really needed this round were Claude’s and some of the non-other-route exclusive DLC characters’.

Claude: Sneaky. I can see the appeal of Claude, I really can, but there’s a lot about his that vaguely irritated me. The back-and-forth of him being a shining idealist who wants everyone to get along and then being a sneaky sneakster who the player often is told uses poisons to get his way make it hard to believe either side of him is genuine. I also found Claude to be pushy (about interrogating Rhea and the whole journal incident) and his clinginess to Byleth makes comparatively the least amount of sense, assuming we all accept Edelgard’s position as Boss Babe Waifu Bait legitimizes her behavior around Byleth. Enjoy his supports and Claude as a unit, but Claude screams “I’m not like the other lords, really” a little too hard for my tastes.

Hilda: Lazy (or Whiny works too) I like Hilda, and she’s a heavy hitter! At first I thought she was going to be like Charlotte, who I love, but she’s not lol. I could make petty complaints about Hilda’s mostly unaddressed racism (bigotry, if you want to be generous to her) or her lazy ways, but she never really bothered or stood out to me either way.

Marianne: Snow White. Marianne would probably make my top 10 3H characters. Great unit, great person, and I really like her voice actor.

Lysithea: Angry (or Tsundere-y, if you want to make up words). Let it be known that I am partial to tsunderes of any gender, and as a consequence, me and Lysithea were vibing. In Azure Moon I made her a gremory, but now that I’ve completed the DLC, let me just say Valkyrie is the way to go with her. With that one staff she can get up to 6 range, perfecting her role as a glass cannon.

Leonie: Sweaty. Leonie, in her supports, at least is somewhat fleshed out and likeable, but damn is she so freaking annoying in the storyline, slamming how much she loves Jeralt down your throat, despite how mostly apathetic he seemed about her existence while he was still kicking. A great unit, but if I took a shot every time she mentions Jeralt, I’d be dead.

Lorenz: Snobby (or M’lady). Hot take but I don’t like Lorenz. Post-timeskip he looks like an angry purple lizardman and he is a white knight fedora tipper. His voice irritates me, his supports irritates me, and his face irritates me. Going through the mage path at least fixed up his speed some and he ended up being a serviceable Dark Knight, at least.

Ignatz: Sorry (or Artsy, if you’re less mean). Ignatz, much like Claude and Bernadetta, seems to be modeled after some flavor of Tumblr user, which would be socially stunted artsy type. He’s just okay, but I’m kind of allergic to people who apologize for existing. I know people like to say “oh, he gets more confident over the timeskip” but can you really argue that when you can view most of his C-supports post-timeskip? in BL I made him an assassin, but this time I had Ignatz as a Mortal Savant (because I love magic), and it rocked.

Raphael: Hungry. Not really much to say about him besides that. Not my type and not my character personality template either.

Judith: Take a shot every time she calls Claude “boy” in a way that wouldn’t sit right in modern purity politics lmao. She was okay as the like Rodrigue that doesn’t die character, but I am not so easily smithen for your run-of-the-mill Boss Babe. In a similar vein, Nadar left little to no impression on me, and his presence on that one map irked me because he sniped my Linhardt kill.

Assorted Bulleted Thoughts:

I really liked the last few maps of this route. They were visually interesting, offered a bit of a challenge while also being fun.

I’m glad we actually got to interact with Rhea after rescuing her, because that was a let down in BL. (But yeah, settle the fuck down, Claude, on harassing Rhea the second she’s free because your boyfriend Hubie left you a letter)

I can’t confirm for Petra, but it’ s interesting to note that the only death Edelgard remarks on is Bernetta’s, probably because she sets the bridge on fire. Not a word for anyone else lol

In a similar vein, because my Lysithea had 6 range, stupidly high magic stats, and most of BL are weak to magic attacks, I was able to one-shot everyone but Sylvain (he was too far away) with her on the Grounder map. I rewound time to un-kill them all, because I just wanted to see what they said and how Dimitri reacted. Dimitri shouts Felix’s name, which I thought was real gay.

Speaking of that Gonder fight, lame lame lame lame that there was no animated scene or even a still of Dimitri’s death. Felt cheap, and having Gilbert take Dimitri’s body when he wasn’t even on the battlefield, also lame.

Last animated scene with Nemesis was real dope, but Claude’s speech was top tier cringe and kind of taking me out of the moment. I would expect Naruto to say shit like that.

#my opinions about fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #FE 3h #fire emblem #fire emblem golden deer #golden deer #verdant wind

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benisasoftboi · 5 years ago

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Some unorganised, stream-of-consciousness thoughts about the Golden Deer/Verdant Wind route, having just finished it for the first time:

Yes this took me three months I’ve been busy

Wish I’d done this for Blue Lions but I didn’t so oh well

Did make a list back then of questions I still had (never posted it), and basically all of them have now been answered except for the Edelgard ones (I’ll find out when I do Crimson Flower I guess - yes I still haven’t done it, I’ve been very busy, check back in another three months I guess) and also what happened to Dimitri’s eye

So. Claude. I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about him because characters of his general archetype can be really annoying to me. But I really liked him from pretty early on

He married Annette and it was cute

But as I think about it, there’s something I find kind of interesting about him, and it’s how relatively uninteresting he is compared to Edelgard and Dimitri

Edelgard and Dimitri are both deeply complex, flawed people. I could definitely understand someone not liking either or both of them. Their motivations, choices, actions, are all pretty questionable and often grey - they’re good, interesting characters, but not always the most likeable ones (for the record, I like Dimitri. Reserving judgement of Edelgard until I do her route)

Claude, meanwhile? Claude’s primary motivation is to End Racism. He wants to achieve this by Being Nice To People. And somehow, this works

How do you hate that? You can’t hate that

It does, in hindsight, make his chapter in Azure Moon extremely funny, because the whole scene is just him talking about his vague goal to ‘achieve his dream’, and then he just pisses off. Like, mate, why are you being so coy? Your dream is Ending Racism. The worst thing Dimitri and I might think of that is that you’re being a bit overly idealistic

His other goal is to Solve Mysteries by being Nice and sometimes Harmlessly Sneaky. Again, not remotely unlikable

Claude is, in this sense, the closest thing this game has to a more traditional Fire Emblem protagonist, and by extension, Golden Deer is also closer to a traditional Fire Emblem story

A nice, well-meaning, if not terribly deep Lord who wants peace and prosperity in his country is joined by a ragtag group of disparate, mostly simple, but generally likable characters. He and his crew fight some battles before all out war kicks off, where he fights a neighbouring country, with another neighbouring country sometimes involving itself as the plot demands. Just when it seems like the war’s all over though, it’s revealed that there’s actually a bigger problem at hand. A dragon is involved. Victory is achieved regardless

See?

Claude is probably smarter than most FE protags though. I don’t think he’d ever eat an unpeeled orange

Also, I do want to stress that Claude being a bit simpler than the other two isn’t a bad thing - like I say, I do really like him. And it works, seeing as his story is more lore based. Also, he’s hardly a flat character - I saw someone else put it that he’s just a character who already had his development before the story even began. I think that’s a fair assessment

I would like to know how TWSILD got so oddly high tech and if Claude and the others will adopt it. Or will this actually lead to an anti-technology backlash?

Seriously, I can only compare Shambhala to walking into the Fifth Stratum of Etrian Odyssey for the first time

I would actually kind of like to see a high tech Fire Emblem game. Something kind of like Devil Survivor

Referencing allll the obscure DS games today! (and also pretending that I haven’t only ever played their remakes, shush)

For the sake of triadic structure, I’ll say that I’d also like to engage in Rune Factory-esque monster taming (that is to say, I want to be able to pet the demonic beasts and feed them home cooked meals until they become friends)

Please tell me the Death Knight is good in one of the Black Eagles routes. Please don’t actually tell me I don’t want spoilers.

It’s just in both of these two he’s been very... edgy and random, and that’s about it

He’d do well on the 2009 internet

Oh, also this was my Boyleth playthrough. I played him as 100% gay and had him marry Linhardt. Made all his interactions with Manuela very funny and even sadder than usual. It’s okay, I got her and Seteth together and they were cute

Felt really weird about it though because after accidentally getting them together in Blue Lions I’ve become a hardcore Linspar/Casphardt fan - they might even be my favourite pairing in the game. It’s definitely not because I strongly project onto them, I would never do that

Dimitri’s death was kind of badly handled imo. He shows up once, after being thought dead, then immediately dies for real off-screen. Then Dedue dramatically swears vengeance, and later shows up one more time to do ultimately very little

I let Dedue die :(

Wouldn’t have happened if he’d been my dancer husband like I made him

Annette was my dancer this time, purely because she really wanted to be in my Blue Lions run and I had felt so bad rejecting her offer. I recruited her specially for the task

I was really happy with pretty much all of the endings I got this time around - as yet unmentioned highlights include Dorothea/Petra, Ashe/Ingrid, Lorenz/Mercedes, and Flayn/Ferdinand (these all being pairings I didn’t get last time)

I probably shouldn’t have laughed when I read that Leonie becomes a bit of an alcoholic in her ending with Alois

I put Caspar and Bernadetta together because their A support is cute but what the fuck is their ending

They enter an arranged marriage and then have tonnes of children that Caspar apparently can’t tell apart from his wife, what the actual-

WAS THIS MY PUNISHMENT FOR TAKING LINHARDT AWAY FROM HIM? I SWEAR I’LL NEVER BREAK THEM UP AGAIN, I PROMISE

Last time Ingrid got together with Seteth of all people. Not really relevant, just wanted to share. Was actually kind of wholesome

I wish endings were stored in the events logs

I’ll be doing Silver Snow next. In Golden Deer, I ill-advisedly made everyone into a Wyvern Rider, the quality of that as a decision for each character being:

100% Great: Claude, Hilda, Byleth, Leonie

Actually Pretty Good: Ignatz, Raphael

Surprisingly Not Terrible: Marianne, Lysithea

Just Awful: Lorenz

For Silver Snow, I have equally silly plans. Watch this space

#fire emblem #three houses #fe3h #fe #golden deer #golden deer spoilers #verdant wind #verdant wind spoilers #fire emblem three houses

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gascon-en-exil · 5 years ago

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FE16 Blue Lions Liveblogging

Chapters 9-10, except for the events of the ball which I already discussed here.

I went with my original plan and made Annette my dancer. Dimitri had the best CHA in my army and it would have been hilarious to have a dancer lord, but I do want to make use of his unique classes the first time around. Something for a future playthrough, possibly. At least the requirement for winning the dance competition at that point seems to be very reachable by most units. And naturally, I enjoy the absurdity of these students competing to see who gets the honor of becoming the game’s implied camp follower.

I complained about pegasus knight!Ingrid’s lack of advanced class options last time, but as so many of those classes require A ranks most of my units are hitting a wall. I switched all of them over to different intermediate classes for the time being while they work on building up those skills. Sylvain and Felix alone were able to move on, as a paladin and assassin respectively.

Budding talents don’t take all that much to build, but the rewards are usually not very impressive. I guess they make it easier to open up more options?

I’ve recruited all of the non-student units except Alois and Seteth, plus Gilbert who comes post-timeskip. If they all didn’t have supports to work on I’d probably just bench them and concentrate everything on the students, because even if with the useful adjutant system my army’s gotten a little too big now. Flayn in particular feels like a (comparatively) early-joining Est, and I’m not fond of those.

Having all the knight characters away from the monastery in Chapter 10 makes sense from a story perspective, but it cut into my gift-giving and faculty training sessions. I’m trying to get some from a married old man here, come on.

I’m starting to see why people say Normal mode is too easy. I am however not complaining in the slightest.

Based on Seteth and Flayn’s paralogue I don’t think casters get full movement in sand. I sure hope this game doesn’t have a desert map.

Character/Story observations

Jeralt dies following a bland map. It’s hilarious that Byleth tries to use a game mechanic to save him only to get outplayed by Thales. As for the death itself, I know everyone’s comparing it to Greil’s death scene, but that’s a hard sell. Ike at that point in FE9 is already a fully-realized character with a relationship to his father that feels genuine, so despite terrible voice acting his grief in the moment and for many chapters afterward works. It also helps that he gets to play off all the other characters who knew and loved Greil and are going through their own mourning. Byleth on the other is literally incapable of emoting except suddenly they do and it’s supposed to be poignant. Meh, you can get more out of all the NPC chatter in the following chapter grieving Jeralt than you can get from the protagonist.

The followup exposition dumps revealing the peculiar circumstances surrounding Byleth’s birth and Jeralt’s flight from the monastery would have felt a bit less clumsy had their taken a minute to write and voice “my son/daughter” or gendered pronouns instead of repeatedly using “my child” in the most stilted way possible. This isn’t the only time where the game’s ability to acknowledge Byleth’s chosen gender in fully-rendered cutscenes but not in simple dialogue feels awkward and lazy, but it really stands out.

But back to the Greil comparisons: Kronya just isn’t as threatening or engaging an antagonist as the Black Knight. She dies the very next chapter, for heaven’s sake, and the scariest thing about her and Solon is in the implication that they killed the people they were impersonating and have been having free run of the monastery in disguise for months. Neither of them are very interesting, and they weren’t that challenging as bosses either. The Death Knight is more comparable to the BK, and that’s more in being an overpowered masked figure.

Dimitri spying on the bad guys and the Flame Emperor conveniently dropping the very plot trinket that would immediately allow Dimitri (and the player) to determine their identity all feels very contrived, but I suppose we have to build up to that reveal some kind of way. Dimitri showing himself willing to throw himself completely into Byleth’s (alleged) desire for vengeance would come off as blatant Avatar worship if it weren’t obvious at this point that the guy’s screws are coming loose.

I figured out that the two arrows over some of the support conversations mean that there are two ranks to that support, so some non-Byleth pairs get four conversations seemingly at random. That’s confusing.

Not much to the supports themselves that I recall. Catherine/Shamir is probably going to get progressively shippier. Dimitri/Ashe actually does feel shippy despite ending at a B, although most of that is Ashe being so awkwardly reverent. More boring cooking supports with Dedue; funny that it never comes up with Dimitri and instead you find out from his Annette support the prince loves his cooking. Flayn’s just an endless source of useful side information...but also she doesn’t know what opera is. Or theatres. Even though Annette complains about being scatterbrained it’s Mercedes who gets most of the physical comedy, first flinging a sword at Dimitri and now cooking up a smoke bomb in the dining hall when Ashe wasn’t watching. I wonder if the post-timeskip supports will still feel as comically slice-of-life.

Last exploration note: Dimitri and Dedue are separated again in Chapter 10, but I found lost items belonging to each of them in the same room. I really hope the items don’t spawn randomly, because that’s too telling of a coincidence.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Spoilers

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sage-nebula · 5 years ago

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Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Thoughts so Far

So I’ve just hit the timeskip in my Golden Deer playthrough (which is my second playthrough overall, my first being a Black Eagle Strike Force playthrough), and so I thought I’d post some thoughts, especially since I’m feeling kind of disgruntled at the moment and feeling disgruntled seems to be the best way to get me to lay thoughts to paper nowadays. This is going under a cut, both because of spoilers, and because it’s going to be long.

I can’t remember if I made a long post when I finished my initial playthrough or not, and I haven’t been using a very concrete tag for posts about it regardless (gone are the days when I’d liveblog every little thing, I guess, particularly since I got so absorbed into this game so quickly---I’ve put 85+ hours into it already, and it’s only been a little over two weeks!), so it wouldn’t be that easy for me to check. But needless to say, I’ve fallen head over heels for this game, and I absolutely loved my initial playthrough and the Black Eagles House (minus Caspar and kind of Hubert). Edelgard and her route have garnered the most Discourse™ in fandom, from what I can tell, for both legitimate reasons and not, but while I did have some personal issues with Edelgard toward the end of part one (and kind of leading into part two, though I learned to let it go), I have to say that overall I loved her and I feel that her overall objectives---dismantling the oppressive Church of Seiros, dismantling the nobility system and establishing a meritocracy, and ultimately abdicating the throne to a worthy successor once she was done because she never actually wanted power, she just wanted to change a world that was domineering and hurting people and knew she needed power to do it---were just. She could have gone about it in a better way, maybe---but then again, it’s very easy to say that violent revolution isn’t necessary from a comfortable seat where you’re not actually forced to make that decision, versus when you live in a throes of a world that has not only existed this way for thousands of years with any hint of rebellion quickly executed by the church without a trial (as we see in game with characters such as Lonato and the Western Church soldiers), but also saw your siblings tortured and murdered before your very eyes, with you yourself being the sole survivor of that torture. Rhea showed time and again that she was not willing to negotiate with anyone who breathed a word against the church. Edelgard merely announcing that she was going to take the Crest Stones from the Holy Tomb had Rhea calling for her head, not only in the Black Eagles route, but in the Golden Deer route as well. If there is to be no negotiation, then the only choices are to let the world continue as it has been---which, considering what Edelgard has personally seen and how we know so many others in the game have suffered, is not an option---or to meet force with force, which is what Edelgard chose to do. Her path was not perfect, no---but considering Rhea is one who is willing to send children into battle to execute a man without a trial (children which could include that man’s own adoptive son, if you’re playing Blue Lions or otherwise request mission assistance from Ashe) as a way to show them why they should never raise a weapon against a church, I can’t see any other way to unseat Rhea and stop further injustices from being carried out. It’s not perfect, but life isn’t always, and I for one think it’s kind of refreshing to see a JRPG acknowledge that for once, rather than have everything wrapped up in a neat bow like Awakening did (much as I love Awakening, it went way too far with the happy ending nonsense).

. . . And that was an absurdly long paragraph that really got away from me. Apologies.

Anyway, as I was saying, I love Edelgard and her route. Apart from Sylvain (who was free), Ashe (who was adorable), and Mercedes (who I got to supplement losing Flayn), I didn’t really recruit anyone, and as a result I got to know the Black Eagles very well (aside from Caspar, whom I ditched early on because a.) he kept dying, b.) his voice was annoying, and c.) I wanted to focus on my other students). I’ve only played two Houses so far, but as it stands I’m just really very attached to the Black Eagles . . . and only like about half of the Golden Deer.

To be fair to them, the Golden Deer have had kind of an uphill battle. Unlike last time, I got to work recruiting people early; I scooped up Sylvain immediately because, again, he was free, and I used Renown to boost the Support ranks of Bernadetta, Petra, and Linhardt so I could get them immediately as well. I also used Renown to boost up my sword skill to nab Felix, since the fact that he has four support ranks with Sylvain piqued my interest and I wanted to see what all that was about. So from the get-go, I didn’t have much reason to pay attention to characters like Ignatz (who was replaced by Bernadetta), Lorenz (who was replaced by Linhardt), Raphael (who was replaced by Sylvain and Felix), or Leonie (who was replaced by Petra). But even if I did have reason to pay attention to them, mmhhh . . .

Well, okay. Let me do a brief rundown of each student from the Black Eagles and Golden Deer (including House Leaders) and how I feel about them, real quick.

Edelgard: Obviously, I love her, as I’ve already said. She’s a complex, strong character---not just in what she’s able to do in battle or how she’s able to lead, but in how she’s written. When playing her route and getting to know her, you come to see her vulnerabilities---and I think in that sense I benefited from playing her route first, so I could get to know that side of her before seeing the side of her that’s a warlord trying to change a world that desperately needs to change, but doesn’t want to. Edelgard’s vision is one of sweeping, systemic change; it’s not something that can happen overnight, or easily, or without sacrifices, particularly when some (e.g. Rhea, Dimitri) insist on calling for heads and blood splatter and refuse to surrender no matter what. But it’s change that’s rooted in the concrete, change that says, “I don’t care whether you like it or not, this is what’s best for all those who have been suffering until now, and you’re going to do it whether you like it or not.” That sort of demanding attitude can be bad, but considering Edelgard immediately takes action against corrupt nobles, dismantles the church that dominated EVERYONE in reality even if they claimed not to on the surface, and established a meritocracy, we can see in this instance that she truly was looking out for those who were disenfranchised, hurt, and suffering under the way things were. Certainly, there were things she could have done better (not working with her uncle would be a great start), but considering the situation she was in, I can also see why she made the choices she did. (Also, Hubert is a terrible influence, so.)

Hubert: SPEAKING OF . . . I have a love / hate relationship with Hubert, in that I like him as a character and what he adds to the story (especially with regards to Edelgard’s personal story), but mmmmmboy do I dislike him as a person. His ridiculous habit of threatening everyone for so much as looking at Edelgard wrong aside (when Shamir called him out on being unstable and told him to be careful who he threatened, I cheered), the fact that he says time and again that he will go and do heinous things behind Edelgard’s back in her name really pissed me off. Hubert is what’s known as a Poisonous Friend; though he does genuinely want to help Edelgard, his refusal to actually consider what she wants and what her values are regardless of what he, selfishly, believes to be in her best interests means that he very easily becomes the exact sort of person Edelgard despises. And while you could say that’s fine so long as she doesn’t find out (because that way she wouldn’t need to imprison him), what if others do, hm? How would that make her look, for everyone to know that her very own advisor and retainer was the exact same sort of person as Prime Minister Aegir, or her own uncle? I wanted to punch Hubert in the face so very badly. It’s a shame I was never able.

Bernadetta: MY SWEET AND PRECIOUS DAUGHTER . . . I LOVE HER SO MUCH . . . While I will admit that some of her supports with various characters got a bit repetitive and annoying because Bernadetta refused to listen to anyone and thus would continue into hysterics without reason, at the same time I can’t help but love this anxious little recluse (and want to murder both of her parents, but her father especially, given that they’re the very reason Bernadetta is so reclusive and prone to panic as she is---she’s traumatized!). Not only do I love her personality and design, but she is an absolute MONSTER on the battlefield. Part of the reason I insisted on recruiting her immediately in my Golden Deer playthrough is because Bernadetta slaughters pretty much everyone she comes across, without fail. Her and Petra both. But seriously though, her parents are awful and I wish I could adopt her.

Petra: YET ANOTHER DESTROYER OF WORLDS, AND THE ULTIMATE ASSASSIN. In both of my runs thus far I’ve classed Petra as a thief and then assassin, and honestly I can’t ever imagine classing her as anything else. She crits on practically every single strike, and she’s quick enough to get to chests I actually try to get to (some I skip on purpose because they’re too much of a pain lol). Personality-wise I also love her, though I wish her grasp on the Fodlan language had improved over the five year timeskip, instead of staying exactly the same. It would have been a subtle way to show some growth for her.

Dorothea: I like Dorothea, but I’m actually not as in love with her as most of the fandom. When I started playing I actually assumed I’d marry either her or Edelgard on my first run, but not only did Dorothea’s first support come across as very off-putting to me (I’ve had bad experiences with people who are desperate to be in a romantic relationship at all costs in the past, no matter the reason for it), but I actually found her to be kind of . . . annoying after the time skip. Whenever I selected her in battle she said, “More fighting” with a heavy sigh, and most of her win quotes (e.g. “Only thorns left on this rose”) felt very melodramatic. Which, I mean, she’s an opera singer, and I’m not expecting her to enjoy war, but it just grated on my nerves after a while. No one wanted to fight, but no one else complained about it as constantly as Dorothea did. That said, I do like a lot of her supports and how, well, supportive she is of (most of) the others, and she was a good mage as well, so I don’t dislike her. I’m just not as crazy about her as others are.

Ferdinand: OTOH, my opinion of Ferdinand is the opposite of my opinion on Dorothea. While I started off not liking him at all because of his insistence that he was superior to Edelgard (especially when he was so fragile at first? bruh), his character development was truly great. He was a true noble gentleman by the end, truly caring about doing his best for his people and Edelgard both. Many of his supports---particularly those with Petra and Dorothea---were very sweet as well. I truly came to enjoy Ferdinand immensely.

Linhardt: THIS BOY, I LOVE THIS BOY. At first I was not too impressed with the “just want to sleep, leave me alone” shtick, but aside from that being as relatable as Bernadetta always wanting to be left alone, I came to love how direct he is, how blunt he is, how clever and witty he is, as well as how great of a healer he is (make him a Holy Knight and he can destroy everything as well as heal it---and he knows Warp, too!). He’s one of my top favorite students, for sure. Love this boy.

Caspar: On the other hand, as I think I mentioned above, Caspar . . . got ditched fairly quickly. His voice is annoying, and on top of that he had low defense without enough damage input (or movement squares) to justify it. I already had an axe user with Edelgard, and so it made more sense to just bench him early on and be done with it. As a result, I don’t have much to say about him. Didn’t have many supports, never really talked to him outside class. Sorry Caspar, but you were just a very low priority for me.

And with the Black Eagles rounded up, let’s move on to . . .

Claude: I love this boy a WHOLE LOT as well, but I’m also not feeling much of an . . . attachment? between Claude and Byleth. I think it’s because Claude takes so long to open up, and he (understandably) wants to know about Byleth’s past before he’ll share any of his own. But even when he starts to open up, his words about how he feels as if his meeting with Byleth was fate and how they’re more than a friend to him feel kind of hollow since we haven’t had emotional moments before that to build it up (unlike how we had in Edelgard’s C and C+ Supports). The fact that his reaction to Byleth returning was less emotional than Edelgard’s contributes to that too, I think. On the other hand, I love how much he knows about Byleth even before the timeskip---way more than Edelgard knows even by the end of her route---as well as how he did have genuine consolation for Byleth after Jeralt’s death, which was one of my issues with Edelgard (SHE OFFERED MORE CONSOLATION ON THE GOLDEN DEER ROUTE THOUGH, WHAT EVEN---). I also just love, love, love everything about his personality. He reminds me a lot of Marco from Animorphs, albeit more idealistic and optimistic, and so I just can’t help but adore him. (More on his idealistic approach in a bit.)

Hilda: Honestly, I thought I wouldn’t be able to stand Hilda, but boy was I wrong. Yes, she’s a bit self-centered and definitely lazy and takes advantage of others---but she also encourages her less confident Housemates to be stronger (in a way that’s actually encouraging, at that), doesn’t take kindly to others not getting what’s owed to them, is honest, and DOES pull her weight when she needs to. On top of which she is a total TANK, and I can’t help but love dainty-looking female characters who can just steamroll and sweep through enemies with giant axes, haha. Hilda’s a fave, and it kills me that she can’t be recruited to Black Eagles at any point ever.

Lysithea: Another fave, and someone I’m recruiting IMMEDIATELY when I play the other routes. She’s by far the best black mage I’ve encountered, and the fact that she has white magic to go along with it (making her a shoo-in for the Master class Gremory) makes her fantastic on the battlefield, even if her defense is a little fragile. And while her “OMG I’M NOT A KID >:(” thing can get kind of annoying at times, at the same time the reason for why she’s desperate to grown up does make sense, and I love her overall attitude.

Marianne: Like Dorothea’s attitude post-timeskip, Marianne started to wear on me after a while. I do like her okay, but her constant “I’m cursed” and “leave me here to die” and “I am going to apologize for breathing now” --- even if there’s an understandable reason --- got to be a bit Much after awhile. She seems a bit better post-timeskip, which is nice, but mmmm, my nerves still feel just a bit frayed.

Raphael: Honestly, I usually skip past his dialogue, because it’s either about Muscles or Food or Both. I’m wondering if this is something that was done to him in the localization, to make him the Comic Relief character, but either way I don’t find this archetype funny at all. He could have been a big dude who likes working out with more to him---and maybe he does have more to him, in his supports, but I have no need for him in battle and thus haven’t seen those, particularly since I don’t feel like talking to him out of battle since he’s just a walking Fat/Muscle Trope joke. Disappointing, but is what it is, I guess.

Leonie: THE MOST. ANNOYING. ISTG. I don’t think I would mind Leonie so much if she didn’t act so antagonistically toward Byleth / so possessive of Jeralt, but her constant prattling about how she’s “Captain Jeralt’s first and best apprentice” and how she’ll have HER revenge for his death and etc etc --- sis you knew him for, what, a couple weeks? TEN YEARS AGO??? Holy shit, it’s a wonder Jeralt even remembers her name, much less taking her on as his apprentice when he’s got the kid he raised from infancy right there. Considering that both her C and B supports have her yelling at Byleth for ~not appreciating Jeralt enough~ just makes it worse. It’s a shame, because she could have been a supportive pseudo-sibling for Byleth, but instead she just comes across as annoying as all get-out. Needless to say, she’s perma-benched.

Ignatz: I really don’t have too much to say about him, because he’s another that was benched pretty much immediately and didn’t give me reasons outside of battle to un-bench him. As in, he never offered anything particularly interesting in cutscenes, or out of cutscenes, his design wasn’t appealing, etc etc. I don’t dislike him, but I don’t like him, either. I actually forget he exists most of the time.

Lorenz: His design is unappealing, his attitude is insufferable (worse than Ferdinand EVER was---at least Ferdinand started supporting Edelgard by the time of the timeskip, whereas Lorenz can’t even do that for Claude!), and his C support reveals that he’s an incel. Like I don’t think there’s much more that needs to be said about how little care I have for this dude.

So as you can see, even setting aside my biases, the Golden Deer just . . . don’t click for me, for the most part. If I could poach anyone I liked to other Houses, I would definitely take Claude, Hilda, and Lysithea, and leave the rest. (Well, except Marianne; she’d be useful as a secondary healer, since I don’t like Mercedes’ voice and Flayn is too loyal to the church.) And as a result, I really, really miss my Black Eagle Strike Force route.

But do you know what makes me miss that route even more than the students?

The stance on the church.

Listen: I figured that playing the Golden Deer route wouldn’t mean tearing down the Church of Seiros the way that playing the Black Eagle Strike Force route does, but the fact that you’re still siding so heavily with the church and that Byleth is apparently super concerned about Rhea / actually likes her in this route just disgusts me. Listen again: I’ve never liked Rhea. Admittedly when I very first started playing I thought that she was probably another Emmeryn type, but the moment she said that she wanted to send the students to kill Lonato because she wanted to show them “what would happen to those who raised a blade to the church” she went on my Red Flag list, and everything that happened in the Holy Tomb after just cemented that for me. For all that people love to call Edelgard a tyrant, the real tyrant in this game is Rhea. Those who speak out against the church aren’t given a shot at a fair trial or a chance to surrender. In both the Black Eagles route and the Golden Deer route her immediate reaction to Edelgard turning on her is to call for Edelgard’s death in the most brutal way possible, ranting and raving about how Edelgard’s “sins” will never be forgiven “even if she bathes in flames and her blood soaks the earth for eternity” or whatever it was. And while she puts on a nice face toward Byleth provided Byleth doesn’t also turn on her (at which point she immediately flips on Byleth and starts calling her a “worthless failure” and “filthy thief” and whatever else), keep in mind that’s only because she thinks that Sothis will use Byleth’s body as a puppet vessel. She doesn’t view Byleth as a person, she views Byleth as a thing, a means to an end, something which even Seteth points out is “questionable” (though it’s much worse than that). True, you can work very hard and get an S Rank with Rhea (though why anyone would want to I have no idea), but that doesn’t change her general attitude throughout the game if you choose not to go that route. It doesn’t change how she treats other people, even if she does eventually see Byleth as their own person. Rhea is a tyrant, and rather than being their own sovereign nations, it’s more accurate to say that Faerghus, Adrestia, and the Alliance are states / colonies of the Church of Seiros. The fact that Garreg Mach is at the center of all three territories is not a coincidence. That those who speak out against the church are assassinated / executed without trial and without hesitation is just another instrument of their tyranny. And you can even see Rhea’s manipulations with other characters, as well. Cyril was taken in as a child, and raised to worship the ground Rhea walks on; Rhea took Shamir in when she had nowhere else to go, making Shamir feel indebted to her; Rhea saved Jeralt’s life (and granted him immortality) so that he would serve her as a Knight of Seiros, and so on and so forth. And should any of them turn against her, she immediately wants their heads on pikes. No doubt she would have killed Jeralt in an instant had she the opportunity to get Byleth away from him before he left the monastary all those years ago (/had he tried to leave the monastary with Byleth again). That’s just the type of person she is.

So the fact that Byleth in this route seems to genuinely like Rhea---enough to risk their life for her---disgusts me. It goes completely against how I feel. I not only hate the Church of Seiros, but I hate Rhea most of all. (Though I also hold quite a bit of contempt for Catherine, given how gleeful she is about killing others.) Claude knows that Rhea was up to some shady bullshit in the past concerning Byleth’s history, but he’s still placing faith in the church (mostly for his own gain, which I get, but still). It really, really bothers me. I already knew ahead of time that the Blue Lions route would be church heavy given that the Church of Seiros openly owns Faerghus, but I didn’t expect that from the Alliance as well, and it makes me feel queasy. I might have to cleanse my palate with another Black Lions Strike Force run again after this. (And if the Blue Lions is even more church-centric than this? Ugh. I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it.)

All of this said, it kind of makes me want to write a fic that combines the Black Eagle Strike Force route with the Golden Deer route---one where Claude joins with Edelgard and Byleth pre-timeskip, and continues working with them after. Bringing Claude and Edelgard together would be difficult, but not impossible, I think, considering that Claude feels no loyalty to the Church of Seiros and wants to know the truth behind everything more than anything (and has a pretty open mind, at that). Perhaps, with the three of them working together, they could even save Dimitri later on down the line as well . . . well, it’d be something to consider, anyway.

That said, this post is long enough as it is, and I still need to shower and then get to sleep. Better leave it off here. :P

#fire emblem: three houses

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asuccessfulbusinessman · 7 years ago

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Dark Souls III Area Enjoyment Scale

You know how both Dark Souls 1+2 peaked after reaching Anor Londo and Drangleic Castle respectively? Well, I’m starting to get that feeling again, so as I reach the endgame to 3 (well, it might still be technically the midgame, but I digress,) I wanted to look back at my first playthrough and record my feelings about each area, before each area is hard saved in the back of my mind.

Cemetery of Ash: 4/10. Nothing can compete with DS1′s Asylum, but this is at least on par with the DS2 starter area. It gets more points in my book because it has a powerful enemy barring you from 100% completing the area your first time through, no Fragrant Branch of Yore mechanic enforcing backtracking and exploration, and an actual boss.

Ludex Gundyr: 7/10. A pretty good boss to start off with. Introduces the mystery of what the hell is that for the player to solve, and has lore with that sword in his gut. Will likely kill you your first time around, but once you learn him he’s easy enough.

Firelink Shrine: 8/10. As an area, this area is spectacular. Reinforces the “come back when you’re a bit stronger” with the sensei undead, has some mystery with the firekeeper soul and firekeeper graveyard, and if you search through the area you can find some goodies. DS1 had some chests and the path back to the Asylum, DS2 had an Estus shard and (I guess) the binoculars, DS3 has an Estus shard and the coveted silver serpent ring. I just wish it wasn’t so hard to find the goodies in 3 (though, how anyone found the path in 1 is beyond me). As a hub, I don’t like it very much. Sure, it’s useful, but the constant warping back for level ups and buying items makes it somewhat less desirable. Also, the layout of NPCs is just... gamier than DS2s. That’s saying something.

High Wall of Lothric: 6/10. A bit bland, but it gets the job done.

Vordt, Of the Boreal Valley: 5/10. Incredible and imposing the first time you meet him (makes you want to keep your distance), but fairly forgettable once you realize you have to get (and stay) close and touch the butt.

Undead Settlement: 10/10. Beautiful area, actually feels like a settlement. Has some great NPCs and exploration options. I just wish that one of the bonfires was findable for me without accidentally falling off the ledge. (Platforming is reinforced later in the area).

Greatwood: Bleh/10. I may have had phantoms but the gist of the fight is readily apparent. But it seems like this is a fight where it’s easy to die even if you know what you’re doing, judging from the Phantoms’ life expectancy.

Road of Sacrifices: 9/10. My only gripe with this area is that I missed the Braille Tome because I thought you had to jump for it (I missed the path. Whoops. Sensing a theme?) Aside from that, the tengu and crabs are cool, and the variety of enemies keeps the area feeling fresh.

Crystal Sage: 6/10. Teaches you that magic hurts, an important life lesson. I honestly like Pinwheel more, but that was because I fought Pinwheel early on in DS1 to get miracles, and when Pinwheel gets to live long enough, his clones got too much to handle. Sage’s clones... much less so.

Farron Keep: 3/10 for completionists who have to go through the swamp. 5/10 for everyone else. Annoying. Very easy to get lost.

Abyss Watchers: COOL/10. Nothing beats realising there’s a second phase after burning your estus. The only thing that comes close is realising you can get them to fight eachother.

Cathedral of the Deep: 2/10 on your first time through. AKA, “HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW?” I tried everything to get the grubs off me, even firebombing myself. But a friend told me, “oh just take out a torch.” Because of a message on the ground, I knew there was something fishy about the well from the get go. But even when I knew I had to get back to Patches to get armor from him, I didn’t know how exactly to get up there. While this area is technically optional, the storylines of 3 NPCs and a covenant require you to find your way to the rafters, a path that is very easily missable (at least to me) especially since you would normally have no reason to go back to where the path is. Also, the level design leaves me lost, all the elevators look alike to me, and I often take the wrong path away from the one true bonfire. And you have to learn the boring way that the dagger weapon art allows you to more easily traverse the goop.

Deacons of the Deep: 1/10. Fun.

Catacombs of Carthus: 6-7/10. Some of the enemies here can be very challenging, but the area is worth completing. Spent too long backtracking to find Horace. Didn’t find him here. Also, remember that Miyazaki made the pendant? The crab is a prank.

Smouldering Lake: 8/10. The demon (yes, he’s part of the lake) was fun to take down with a skeleton mob. I still have to kill the crabs and worm (love the hint in the yellow pills description) but got all the items in the lake. I tried to get the ballista to help me kill the worm, but to no avail. Didn’t find Horace until I “cleared” the area. Painful place. Enjoyable because of it. I wouldn’t stay too long.

Old Demon King: 6/10. The only thing I remember is seeing him unable to fight back anymore.

High Lord Wolnir: 7/10.The one boss everyone already knows about (besides Vordt). Spooky, but I just chugged and slammed bracelets.

Irithyll: 4/10. Beautiful but painful. Killed off my second best friend because I went to the dungeon before killing the area boss. (How was I supposed to know to backtrack to find his ashes?) Got lost as a phantom, because the sewers are much less conspicuous than the entrance to the dungeon (I’m sensing a theme). Aside from that, all the big enemies can kill fairly easily, damn fire witches. If I wasn’t cursed, I would complain about not knowing jack squat about the pilgrim. I still haven't gone to the area with two dogs. I’m too scared. Will talk about archer section in Anor Londo section.

Dungeon: TurnYourVolumeDown/10. Can be a slog if you’re not willing to risk melee with the wardens. Expect lots of exploration, which is nice. Too many mimics (we can read the ground, even if people don't want to tell me the hidden paths needed for completion).

Profaned Capital: 6/10. A bit too short. Thankfully, I was able to find the path to save the friend on my own. Annoying that the hint item was just rubbish.

Yhorm the Giant: Friend/10. A fight whose enjoyment entirely dependant on if you have your friend by your side. If you don’t, you have to learn on your own to rush the throne for the item to do critical damage, which I would wish on nobody. If you do, it’s a simple enough fight with a nice little piece of lore. Goodnight sweet prince...

Anor Londo: “This Place Again”/10. Even FromSoft knows how much of a high point Anor Londo was. Thankfully, even if you dislike the place, it’s short enough, and the knights are fun to fight if you don't need to do the hell grind. The castle is hauntingly beautiful when you see just what happened to the place after all these years. I just so happened to get married here! I was not expecting that. Still don’t know what my genderfluid ring does.

Aldrich, Devourer of Gods: 8/10. A challenging boss for me, but I was always ready to get back up and try again. Made me switch up my armor and tactics, very nice.

Dancer: 0/10. I hate this. I hate her roll catches. I hate her first phase grab. I hate the walk back to the boss room, where a knight will always hit me. I hate how inconsistent her movement speed is, leaving me to dodge too early at times, or assume I have the space to fire an arrow. I hate the fact that the best way to kill her is to literally tank and spank, to rotate left around her (TOWARDS her grabbing hand, because hitboxes) with a shield up, never dodging, and attacking her butt when you get a chance. In retrospect, she is cool to look at though, especially with the lore you can read about through items.

#Dark Souls #Dark Souls 3 #Stab my eyes blinded playthrough

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wanderingfan · 6 years ago

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Things I Enjoyed This Week

Hello Again. Hope you’re having a good weekend! Here’s some things I watched/listened/obsessed over this week. This week I’m going to try to be a little more thorough on what each piece of content contains this time.

Main Fixation

Banana Fish

This is going to be here for the next 30 weeks and I don’t know what to tell you. Oh wait I do have something to say that I probably can’t sneak into the Eiji and Ash post I’m doing (hopefully it’ll be done by Tuesday.)

WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT HOW HORRENDOUS OF A POKER FACE EIJI HAS WHEN TALKING TO IBE.

“Oh, I will,” he says casually with his eyes bulging out of his sockets. I loved Eiji in the manga and I’m loving Eiji in the anime and frames like this really say a thousand words about him. I have a more depressing image that also says a thousand words but I’ll put that on a solo post later tomorrow.

Videos

Cooking With Twinkies! by brutalmoose

contains food products including sweets such as twinkies, ice cream and cookies, condiments, cooked and uncooked sausage and hot dogs, as well as a man cooking and eating said food.

Brutalmoose’s videos are always a treat to see, whether he’s making frozen dinners, cooking weird recipes, watching old tv or television movies, or playing far off video games. This one is him dressed in a mustard twinkie suit making food...using twinkies. The art is in the editing hon. And by that I mean it’s odd.

Down the Rabbit Hole by Fredrik Knudsen

contains disturbing information regarding things ranging from cult-like activity to mental illness to online abuse to attempted murder and suicide. viewer discretion is advised.

Hey hi I accidentally binge-watched this whole playlist. It’s documentary-like video series describing strange, often disturbing events ranging from events involving content creators to historical events like the plague. What makes this series work I think is how the narrator acts completely separate from the events, only giving information in order to allow you to draw your own conclusion.

Arthur Games #2! by PeanutButterGamer

contain bits of video made to make Arthur and its characters disturbing. some edits are disjointed and a little off-putting

Another video that relies on odd editing. These videos range from funny to slightly surreal. It’s about Arthur games...based on Arthur. The only episode I remember watching of Arthur is the one where he broke a glass bird by accident, and then one where his sister wanted to wish on a shooting star...I don't know I put in here because I watched it okay?

Examining the Yaoi BL Genre by GoatJesus

contains discussion of sexual assault, homophobia and sexism along with showing episodes that include sexual assault.

I almost removed this because there are some opinions GoatJesus has that I heavily disagree with. However when it comes to this video in particular GoatJesus is very on point, so I feel like since I keep running into posts declaring they hate Yaoi (sometimes while putting any content with seemingly non-straight undertones into that category,) and then others justifying their love of Yaoi (but not...real LGDTQ+ people and the stories they write cough cough) by declaring some nonsensical reasoning like yaoi was before gay culture (which is...uhuh. sure. okay.) I think it’s important to have more videos like this that are clear and honest on how they feel about this topic.

The Shape of Ableism: How We Restrict Disabled and Disfigured Stories by The Princess and the Scrivener

contains discussion of mental and physical disabilities, ableism, prejudice, racism, sexism and how film portrays these topics with examples from The Elephant Man, Wonder, Me Before You, and The Shape of Water, among others.

The way Scrivener discusses topics and her response to “critical” comments speak to me on this personal level it’s like she’s in my head and now I weirded myself out so if you want to see a proper look at the mistreatment and lack of disabled casting in films check this one out.

Are Rules Made to Be Broken? | Philosophy Tube by Philosophy Tube

contains discussions on politics, activism, philosophy, racism and discriminatory laws

An quickie on why rules are made to be broken...not much else to say the title speaks for itself. Short and sweet.

So I Installed 30+ Mods Onto Darkest Dungeon... and VAMPYRBORNE by Indeimaus

contains video game blood, violence and murder. also swearing.

Whenever I’m interested in a game but don’t have a big wallet I usually look at a good playthrough of it. However ever since I discovered Indeimaus I suddenly can’t imagine going through 30+ hours of a playthrough unless its someone I really like, because Indeimaus usually makes a single video that chronicles his experience playing through the game.

Gator Ate My Camera! and BIG PIG PARTY! by Brave Wilderness

first video contains live gators in a feeding frenzy and raw meat. second video contains pigs, chickens, organic cake (safe for animals to eat), birthday décor and Coyote eating a piece of the cake after dropping it on the dirt.

PIG PARTY! GATOR PARTY! Brave Wilderness videos are always a nice treat to watch when I feel I stopped in my tracks. When I’m lying down not sleeping I usually watch some Brave Wilderness videos until I go to sleep. Coyote’s love for creatures big and small is infectious.

Power Rangers (2017) - Deep Dive by FilmJoy

contains people eating oreo cookies and watching a movie. people chatting and having a good time on a couch and pausing to talk in front of the camera. movies watching parts are set in black-and-white.

Deep Dive is a series that strives to see the joy in movies that are...not conventionally joyful. They’re great if you’re tired of reviews that are essentially “this movie SUCKS” for 15-30 minutes and instead want to see someone at least try to find the good in even things that are atrocious. This time though they watched a movie that was...kinda actually good? All of them are surprised by this.

Klonoa: The Saddest Game Ever Made (Analysis/Tribute) - ChaseFace ...by ChaseFace

contains story beats to the first klonoa game, which deals with destruction, loss, deceit, and other themes, but its not gory or “adult” in any capacity.

Wh-what? Why would I be sad about this game? I never played it! I have no reason to cry about this cutesy game about friendship and dreams. N-nope! D-didn’t cry at alllllllll-aaaaaaaaaagh *gross sobbing*

Podcasts

Waypoint - Captain Toad's Wild Ride and No Man's Guy

contains discussion on toxic behavior in gaming communities (including mention of a bomb threat to a game creator) and the culture and issues of gaming development and publishing, along with brief asides to politics.

This week Waypoint discuss how good Captain Toad is among other Switch Games, and then goes into a details discussion on what happened to No Man’s Sky, including the visceral reactions to it.

Oh No, Ross and Carrie! - Ross and Carrie Traverse Flat Earth (Part 7): The Jeran Campanella Interview

contains skepticism of modern science, religion (focusing on catholic,) atheism and the flat-earther movement

Ross and Carrie take a break from the out-of-body club to interview a flat-earther on his experience in becoming one.

Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 43: Davey Coolstool’s Math Poetry

contains a married couple being in love

Wonderful is a couple who used to do a Bachelor Podcast called Rose Buddies, but after the show got to a point where the couple decided they didn’t want to encourage anyone to watch the show they moved on to just a podcast talking about things they think are wonderful. Saccharine sweet and positive, will probably lull you to sleep.

The Worst Bestsellers - Episode 102 – Ramona and Her Mother

contains childhood nostalgia, memories, and family issues

The Worst Bestseller are ladies who go through...the worst bestsellers, from Warriors (LIES) to Fifty Shades of Grey. But PLOTWIST - They talk about a book they actually love this time with Ramona and Her Mother, which seems to understand the small struggles of being a young kid that are still applicable today as they were in the seventies.

Let's Fight a Boss - Ep 79: Willy-Banilly

contains swearing and some dark humor. also contain irish funeral arrangements.

A group of friend poke fun at each other while talking about what they watched/read, what they played, games news and emails. They’re usually two hours long but sometimes less or more depending on the topics. They can be very frank about what they like and dislike which might throw people off, but I respect them for still being good people. Its hard for me to get differing opinions that aren’t attached to more toxic behavior, so its nice to be able to enjoy a podcast that’s still respectful.

That’s it for this week. Take care!

#my stuff #things i enjoyed this week #banana fish #books #video games #food #podcasts

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zombiescantfly · 7 years ago

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Words About Games: Dark Souls 3 (From Software, 2016)

Oh, so that’s where the rest of Bloodborne went.

I love Dark Souls 1. Lots of people love Dark Souls 1. Dark Souls 2 hated Dark Souls 1. Lots of people hated Dark Souls 2. My own thoughts on Dark Souls 2 are still complicated. I like Dark Souls 3. It’s a good game that could have been very bad. It’s supposed to be a last hurrah for the series, but it didn’t take the easy way out. It tried to touch on some things from 1, made passing mentions to 2 that only bolstered my own personal theory (which I should really write a new essay for), and tried to do its own thing. Some people strangely call it nothing but fanservicey callbacks, and I really have no idea where they’re coming from. These games are connected, and referencing the first shouldn’t be looked down upon, especially when people’s complaints about 2 was that it wasn’t at all connected to 1.

So I’ll lay my stance out clear right now: I really appreciate what Dark Souls 3 did to cap off the franchise. It approached the topic of “ending the world” (as in, the series) with care and respect while still delivering a new game with fresh mechanics and a unique world. That, unfortunately, did not stop it from feeling like the team was running out of energy.

As much as Dark Souls 3 feels like a genuine effort to give fans something great to remember the series by after 2 disappointed almost everyone, it also feels like a game made out of obligation. It came out only 13 months after Bloodborne, and I feel like it suffered greatly for that. Remnants of abandoned systems are prominent in game, and screenshots from not even two months prior to the game’s release show wildly different environments and concepts. But as with Bloodborne, the mechanics are solid enough to carry the game, just maybe not to the heights fans came to expect.

Dark Souls 3 is basically the mix of DS1 and Demon’s Souls that everyone hoped DS2 was going to be. It presents a massive, sprawling world with areas that, while not crisscrossing over themselves as in DS1, are stuffed full of shortcuts and secrets in their own space. There’s nothing like the Undead Burg or Central Yarnham, but fans of Boletaria or Stonefang Tunnel will recognize what’s been presented.

That said, areas don’t have as strong of a sense of identity as they did in DS1 or 2; they’re missing a couple certain somethings that even a million polygons stuffed in every corner can’t replace. I’ll save the rant about aesthetics for later, but just remember the words “bleak” and “churches.”

Weapons take a step back from DS2’s penchant for absurdity and return to more reasonable medieval fantasy fair. Big goofy weapons still exist of course - they always have - but nobody’s running around with a poison-infused broken sword hilt or shooting fire out of a javelin. Weapon arts were introduced to give weapons a sort of “secondary moveset” to better differentiate individual entries in a single category. DS2 had a ton of single-handed straight swords, and apart from a vertical slash here or a stab there, not much set them apart. DS3’s weapon arts introduce an extra variety of offensive utility; an upward sweep to lever a shield away, a piercing stab for sudden extra reach, or even just a brutal combo that very clearly tells your opponent it was a bad idea to try and trade hits. I originally applauded DS2 for much the same thing, but after sinking 299 hours into it, it turns out that having two movesets shared between seven shortswords isn’t actually that interesting, even if an extra stab or slash gets tossed in every so often.

The weapon arts replace powerstancing from DS2, and personally I was 100% fine with that. Powerstancing was pretty uninteresting overall and actually kind of useless, unless you were using dual blacksmith hammers to stunlock people in PVP. Getting the required strength married you very quickly to one specific build, any any points not put towards powerstancing (if you planned your character around doing so) were pretty much wasted.

Dark Souls 3 brings back a more freeform approach to leveling; no more having to shove a dozen levels into Adaptability just to be able to roll well, or ten into Dexterity so you can cast a spell fast enough to actually live to see it connect. It does, unfortunately, cripple pyromancy by having your damage scale off both intelligence and faith, which led to me abandoning a pyro build because my Int was already 40 and I have all these sorceries lying around . . .

It's far from perfect. In a noble but misguided attempt to pave over the couple of oppressively powerful low level builds that allowed a lot of unevenly-matched invasions in the first couple areas of Dark Souls 1, From added odd stat requirements to all the weapons that aren't starting options. As a result, your beefy Strength dude might need to bewilderingly sink half a dozen levels into Dexterity to swing that giant club around. Coupled with an all-around nerf to Dex scaling because everyone's Dex is so high to begin with, DS3 spends most of its early to middle game as a Strength or Quality build paradise, with the occasional Sorcerer running around trying to do damage before collecting all 4 rings mandatory for making the build work.

Oh, right, magic as a whole is back to Demon’s Souls’ mana bar. You have a separate Estus flask for mana, and you can talk to a guy in the central hub to set how many of each type of flask you're carrying, pulled from a total of how many flask shards you've turned in. It works fine.

And part of the reason it works fine is because there's always a bonfire not 10 minutes of first-time-playthrough time away from the last. This is a common complaint, and very clearly an issue that arose as a result of the scrapped “create your own bonfire” system that was among one of the first features announced. I don't actually know offhand if its intended mechanics were ever revealed, but its exclusion from the final game created an obvious shift in how the different areas of the game ended up. A few areas, notably the expansions, manage to capture DS1’s feel of a desperate crawl from fire to fire your first time through, but most often I found myself a bit surprised at how quickly and easily I'd gotten from one to the next.

As for those levels themselves, let's finally revisit those two terms from earlier. Dark Souls 3’s map is, like 1’s, a sprawling expanse of shortcuts and secret corners, each connected to the other in a very tangible, real sense. Dark Souls 2’s magically overlapping zones and elevators to nowhere have been chased off for good. But where 2 opted for a theme park style approach to areas and 1 guided you through a decaying city, 3 opts for a more homogeneous smear of bleak churches.

Dark Souls 1 was a carefully constructed world, and its map has been touted as one of the best, or at least one of the best constructed, since its release. It's through not only the ability to orient yourself with landmarks that were places you'd already visited, but a skilled use of light and architecture to visually separate each area while making the transition seem natural, or in the case of various manmade areas, sensible. The Undead Burg and the Depths both had relatively neutral lighting, with the latter dumping oppressive shadow on you the player; fitting for a grimy sewer. But head down the cistern to Blighttown and suddenly your screen is flooded with sickly green shades, a result of a deliberate, aggressive color grading trick that lends each area that little extra bit of personality. Darkroot Garden pairs its dark green foliage with a dusty blue, Sen’s Fortress feels almost sepia toned at times, waves of red heat roll off ancient stone in the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith, dark water and pale ghosts in New Londo are brought together by an eerie cyan, and Anor Londo itself blazes with golden glory.

In Dark Souls 3, the sky is yellow, the ground is brown, and everything you walk next to is gray.

Dark Souls 3 tries to sell its “time of ash” schtick with a thin gray film over everything, but the result is a very boring, flat lighting scheme that sits comfortably in the middle values, never pushing itself to any real contrast between bright light and oppressive darkness. Sure, you'll pull out your torch every now and then, but it's always a hazy sort of darkness that has you saying “it would be convenient if it were brighter right now” rather than “this small circle of light is now the only safe part of this world.”

Not helping the cause is DS3’s general lack of interesting or at least unique terrain. Areas are massive, but their aesthetic is spread rather thinly across it all, getting a bit boring right around three quarters of the way through every time. The first and last areas are essentially the same (which makes sense at least, the first part of the game is spent in the lower sections of the final part); a big fantastical European castle town that ended up being more castle than town. You spend a very long time in the area each time, and it honestly drags a bit. There's only so much to be done with the same stone wall and wooden roof before the scenery runs its course, and that happens with every area. The Undead Settlement is full of crappy wooden huts, stone ruins, and not much else, but it's one of the largest areas in the game. The Cathedral of the Deep is a giant church that you first spend too long crawling on top of, then too long crawling around inside of. And on the inside, of course, is nothing but a maze of smaller churches, each one complete with the same altar, pews, and candles.

The Cathedral kind of neatly exemplifies my overall issue with DS3’s world design. It is always too much of the same thing for too long. The game world didn't need to be this big, and I genuinely believe it suffered for it. Areas stretch themselves out so much that a lot of the time you're just walking from enemy group to enemy group, going through the motions more than anything else.

One of the major strengths of both Demon’s and Dark Souls 1 was that its enemy encounters were a crafted ordeal, meant to highlight the terrain you were on or in and make you think just a bit critically about how you were going to approach. An example I really like is the small group right before the first bonfire in the Undead Burg. Three hollows are hiding behind wooden barriers, another sits up a short flight of stairs with a crossbow, and two more are over across a short bridge, holding spears and shields. Six enemies total. Entering the main area with the first three has them burst through their cover and slowly advance, while the crossbowman takes a potshot every few seconds. Far from overwhelming, even as a beginner. But if you panic and try to run across the footbridge, the spearmen start paying attention to you, and their shields will easily stop you from coming into their territory. Then the crossbow dude and the other three show up behind you and whoops, maybe that was a bad idea.

This encounter isn't all that far away from Firelink, and only a handful of other enemies get in your way. But, at least following the intended progression, it's the first complex encounter a player sees. It has a lot to teach, and it does it well. Enemies can break through cover, some enemies aren't immediately reachable (and may be bad to rush up to), some enemies are only concerned about defending their turf, shields are difficult to break through, and generally, enemies will be quick to punish dumb mistakes.

That's a pretty impressive little slice of DS1’s design philosophy. Let's look at a comparable encounter from 3.

Very close to the area where you warp in from this game’s Firelink Shrine, there's a short section of battlement with a group of six or so enemies. Most are basic dudes, one has a sword and some armor, and one has a bell of some kind. The basic dudes are docile, the swordsman will try to kill you, and the guy with the bell will start screaming and ringing if you hang around too long, waking the docile dudes up and making them hostile. This is all on a straight platform with a couple small statues off to either side, and no other terrain feature of note for this encounter.

Let's ask the same question, then. What does this teach us about the game? A few things. The biggest is that it's more important to identify targets who will have a big impact on the fight, rather than just going for the scariest looking one first. Hooking into that is the lesson that some enemies can and will drastically change the landscape of a combat encounter. Both are true throughout the game, but the second thing becomes less relevant as the game goes on.

Other than that, there isn't much to learn from this encounter, really. The terrain doesn't offer much, and the enemies don't do much beyond attacking as a group once the guy with the bell wakes them up.

What I'll call “big groups in front of you filled with lots of dudes” (Big Groups for short) make up a considerable amount of what's found in Dark Souls 3, and it seems to be inherited from Bloodborne. But in Bloodborne, Big Groups were what the game's entire philosophy revolved around, or at least for its first half. Controlling those Big Groups is how the game functioned, it's what the faster dodge, faster heal, and Regain system were built to deal with. In Dark Souls, those Big Groups just become weird roadblocks that you have to get past without the same tools.

Bringing us to my admittedly flippant opening remark, this is a single part of where I feel Bloodborne's rushed development merged with Dark Souls 3’s even more rushed development. A lot of enemies seem better suited for the prior game than the latter; they’re smaller or faster (almost universally faster), they use more projectiles, they have more aggressive gap-closing attacks, more grapples, and they appear in larger groups. They seem designed around a fundamentally different style of interaction than what's actually present in Dark Souls.

And that brings me back to how Dark Souls 3 felt like an obligation. As a videogame, it's nothing short of excellent. But as an entry in an overwhelmingly popular series, it feels more like a rushed apology for the lukewarm reception of DS2, and one that took much-needed attention away from another game while it was still being made. It doesn't feel unfinished in the same sense that DS1 very obviously was, but there's a clear lack of focus present with the way all these trailing threads hang right in front of you. Areas that are large for no reason or gain, enemies that seem dumped onto the map rather than placed, a progression through the world that never offers much choice, a muted sense of character progression, and a setting that us always comfortably close to where it was previously. I don't want to say the game's direction feels entirely without creativity, but it's obvious that the grand ideas of Dark Souls 1, left unfinished, or the ambition behind Bloodborne that had to be rushed out the door half-baked just aren't here. Dark Souls 3 doesn't feel like a game Miyazaki, the director, wanted to make, it feels like something he was obligated to make. The game comes and goes with a solid presence that's still more impressive than a lot of AAA rpg fair, but it never attempts to reach the same heights that all of its predecessors never got to. Dark Souls 1 is a deeply, deeply flawed game, but its ambition is obvious and admirable, and its lowest points are backed up by its highest managing to, if only for a moment, reach that grand goal. Bloodborne was the same way; when it worked, it was magnificent, but it fell flat just as much.

Dark Souls 3 doesn't try hard enough to be the games it wants to remind people of. It settles to be a solid action rpg that still exists in the Dark Souls essence, but it feels like a shrug. A shrug by From, given after the end of a marathon of hard work, aimed at Bandai Namco and the fans, just exhaustedly presenting something that has to be good enough. And it is. It's good enough. I enjoyed Dark Souls 3, I enjoyed its expansions, I enjoyed my time working my pet theory into what it had to say, and I enjoyed where it left the series.

As of the time of writing, we haven't seen anything from From except for a 10 second teaser for their next project and the announcement of Dark Souls Remastered, and that's fine. Beyond the expansions for DS3, we didn't see anything huge from them for all of 2017, and that's perfectly fine. Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 proved that they aren't comfortable releasing a game every year, and it seems that Bandai Namco realized that. In the current norm of a new entry into a series being churned out every year or every other, I'm more than happy to let From take their time and make something we haven't seen before, or take a surprise revisit to an older series. From is at their best when they have the time to build those grand ideas, even if the game only reaches them for a few brief moments. That's when you can see the effort, see the intent peering through whatever didn't quite go right. I personally would rather see their ambition fall a bit short than see half the ambition come to a slow trudge across the finish line.

In closing, dear From, please make Kings Field 5.

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