Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

[small vine]

Ross is an absolute monster when leveled.

Same with Amelia.

[dusky mantle]

I'm on the mission now where Amelia shows up, I just gotta find an adequate way to carve a path to her before she fucks off

While also trying to visit all the villages because I'll be fucked if they don't have those axe wielding assholes going around tearing villages down every time

[twin siren]

He is you, you is he

[worldly badger]

[twin siren]

*He is Yu, Yu is He

[hexed oxide]

Send an archer or healer to engage with her, she's very soft

[dusky mantle]

I'm like "I'm trying to recruit her not kill her" and then I notice healer and now I get it

[sinful meadow]

guess moulder is my primary healer now

[hushed hinge]

Is there a major advantage/disadvantage to one healer over another?

[tired mason]

not really. You just have access to moulder soonest, so he's going to be ahead of the rest. When you first get a new healer, they may have a new staff that wasn't availalble before, but their level will be significantly lower.

I think it's best to just stick with moulder.

[small vine]

I've got Natasha and Moulder at the same level, and she's got way better Resistance and way lower Skill. Otherwise pretty identical.
They're usually in the same tier, so it's whether or not you want your healer to look like Zu

[hushed hinge]

I ended up going with Natasha for some reason lol. She’s higher level than he is at this point

[tired timber]

One looks like zu, the other does not

[stray cedar]

Should I wait until Moulder is level 20 or just premote at 12?

[small vine]

You can promote whenever past Lv. 10, but the closer you can get to Lv. 20 beforehand the better.

[dusky mantle]

Promoting at 12 vs at 20 is the difference between getting 32 levels of stat growth and 40 levels of stat growth

Which is why Ross getting 50 levels of stat growth is impressive

[small vine]

I always, ALWAYS wait until Lv. 20.

[tired mason]

Is this true for all fire emblem games or just this one?

[hushed hinge]

Did you level Ross to 20 before chapter 10 then?

[tired timber]

I said fuck it and promoted them all. Lowest level was 13, highest level was 19

[small vine]

Ross only gets to Lv. 10 as a trainee, so you've got no choice. He'll auto-promote the next map following when he gets Lv. 10.

Or in the overworld, I don't remember. I just know they auto-promote after the map they turn Lv. 10 and you've gotta choose which base unit you want for them. Trainees/recruits only ever go to Lv. 10.

Otherwise, I never promote before Lv. 20. I've never felt I had to, and since stat growth is everything there's no reason to leave any on the table.

But, the beauty of FE is there's choice in everything!

So if you wanna promote, then promote away.

[hushed hinge]

Ok that’s what happened to me. I thought maybe I missed out on some gains for him lol. I got him to like 11 or something in the tower, started chapter 10 and he’s suddenly a beef cake pirate lol

[small vine]

Yup yup, they auto-promote after Lv. 10. I had thought you got a choice in which unit, but maybe it chooses for you. Haven't gotten there with my Ross on this playthrough yet.

Been a while since I last played this one

[tired mason]

I got to choose between fighter and pirate for Ross.

[bright merlin]

I think you get the choice if you have the items? Do you need the items for the trainees?

[tired mason]

I did not use an item on ross. He auto-upgraded, but I did get to choose between fighter and pirate.

[bright merlin]

I thought it'd consume an item anyways, but maybe not.

[stray cedar]

Just the healer take so long to upgrade and are weak as hell.

[hushed hinge]

You get to choose I’m sure. I just went pirate as walking on water sounds like a potentially useful perk

[small vine]

This is what I thought. I also normally go pirate, as there's not any other recruitable pirates (to my knowledge).

[small vine]

Easiest way to level up a healer outside of arena grinding is to put a tank with no weapons in a one-space hallway or choke-point, have enemies chip away at them, and have your healer constantly heal. Best to do it on a map with a stave/magic shop also, as you'll need more staves, but you could always buy and store a bunch ahead of time and then pull them from your Lord on another map.

[tired mason]

Lute -> sage or mage knight? Looks like knight will have better movement speed, but won't be able to equip light.

[small vine]

For me, Mage Knight. One of the healers or Arthur are almost always promoted for me and will have light-based attacks, so unless I want an all-in-one I usually go with Mage Knight.

[tired mason]

^ sounds good. I'm doing this.

[small vine]

Not to mention, if you go Sage with one of the healers, then it's redundant.

Keep in mind, Natasha's promotions will ONLY be able to use light (Bishop or Valkyrie), whereas Moulder can be a Bishop (Light) or Sage (Light and Anima).

[stray cedar]

One of the things I dislike about tactics games is things like this.

[small vine]

This is a promotion guide I love to use. Also lets you know which characters are recruitable (portraits near the class) in case you want to try for a "one of everything" approach. Not sure if it should be spoilered, but I'm going to anyway.

[hushed hinge]

Oh this is sweet! Tysm!

[tired mason]

Moulder really started gaining levels for me when I started being a bit more carelss and then just had him with Tethys so I could get double heals.

[small vine]

Tethys is also a great strat for healers!

There're really several good options, they just take longer than everyone else at like 10 or 11 exp. points a heal.

[shrewd garden]

what is tethys? also, where can I buy a new staff? I don't see any in the armories that I can see, but Moulder's staff is almost broken

[tired timber]

the most unappreciated character

[small vine]

Also, for anyone that didn't know - Staffs heal for a base amount plus your units Magic stat. So Heal is 10+Mag, Mend is 20+Mag, etc.
This is why they start healing more the higher their level crawls.

[small vine]

Dancer - her skill is basically granting a second turn to any unit that already expended their first unit by "dancing" for them.

[tired mason]

Staffs and magic tomes are purchased in shops, not armories.

[tired mason]

That graphic is bad. Uses: Making your OP character have 2 turns.

[small vine]

This, it's a building with a red roof.

The one in the top left that looks like a small castle tower is an armory. That has weapons. The shop carries staffs and magic tomes, along with vulneraries and elixirs.

[bright merlin]

I thought this means she doesn't use anything. Weapons wise

[tired mason]

lol maybe, but it doesn't look good. lo.

[shrewd garden]

Can I not get back to those in between levels? I see armories from the map in between levels, but no shops

[tired mason]

You can get back to shops too.

[small vine]

You can go back to shops on the overworld, AND you can shop from the "Armory" option right before a battle.

Near perfect growth right before auto-promote, love to see that!

[shrewd garden]

Do I need to have visited shops during the battle? If so, I may have made a huge mistake, lol

[tired mason]

yes

[half sigil]

Getting prepared for this . I want to boost the speed of dialogues but I don’t find the options . Where is the menu??

[tired mason]

Once you start the game and get through the first dialogue but, you can open an options menu.

[half sigil]

Oh ok thanks !

[hexed oxide]

Dozla is him

[vocal forge]

I think I effed up. I'm too unleveled to beat Caellach, he one shots almost all of my characters, I can't do more than 5 hp to him at a time and he is healing every turn...I can't go back and grind...

I did something similar in FFT and had to start the game over

[tired mason]

You can restart the chapter and then go back to the tower to grind.

Don’t load through a save state. There should be a battery save from the main menu with the option to restart the current chapter.

[stray cedar]

|| Weaken him w/ anti-sword wpns or Dark Magic then finish him.||

[worldly badger]

Yeah, Super Ross with a Swordreaver axe will F him up

[vocal forge]

When I select restart chapter it begins at the beginning cutscene of chapter 15

[worldly badger]

Oh

[vocal forge]

I must have missed that axe, when do you get that?

[worldly badger]

You can buy it in the secret shop in chapter 14 I think

Use the deploy screen to at least give your best units some weapon advantage items

That's a two in a row stage

[narrow swallow]

Sorry Zu, but I already called my Moulder by "Zu"

He's no Moulder anymore, for me

[worldly badger]

Smart

[vocal forge]

Ended up waiting for Ephraims party to get close and grinded him out with the help of krolls dark magic. Thanks for the tip

[tribal umbra]

Arena grinding with Seth, Moulder and Tithys is gross. Seth actually gets XP and just gains level after level. Disgusting

[half sigil]

Level grinding is something I rarely do. Level up during battle or die in battle .

[small vine]

I will min-max the fun right out of a game at the earliest opportunity, so I Arena grind.

Usually the less usable units so they can sit unselected at Lv. 20

Seth is a monster at Lv. 20, but still not nearly as good as other units that get full growth.

I'm rolling through Chapter 10 with a Wyvern Lord, a Great Knight, and a Valkyrie. Sure, they're at Lv. 1, but they're just basically escorts for weaker units to gain experience. Otherwise they just kill everything.

[narrow swallow]

I actually level grinding so everyone would be up for promotion anytime

[shrewd garden]

I’m at chapter 10 and I don’t think I’ve even seen a wyvern peasant, let alone a wyvern lord

[tribal umbra]

Honestly just think paladins in general are a bit over tuned, high defence, health, movement and Con.

80% of the time the weapon triangle means nothing to them as long as you're using spear->spear

[narrow swallow]

I'm also at Chp 10

It's getting harder

Is Amelia actually useful?

[half sigil]

Yeah it’s like that in other fire emblem I played . They’re so overpowered that I don’t want to use them too much . I use them mainly for their movement .

Hum it looks like that Ross guy is going to be hard to keep alive .

What the hell is a journeyman lol.

[narrow swallow]

Journeyman is like a kid or something like that. Trainee or something

Wait until Ross become Pirate, his hatchet is great. And I'm levelling him up again, Idk what other promotion will come with that Ocean Seal

[dusky mantle]

I mean she gets 50 levels of growth just like Ross so... yeah

Looks like she either goes down the Gilliam tree with the spear and heavy armor or the same tree as the three horse dudes Kyle Franz and whoever the fuck the dumb ponytail guy

[narrow swallow]

I don't really like Gilliam, just because of the movement is really slow

[bright merlin]

He's an old man in heavy armour, give him a break.

[dusky mantle]

Thankfully if you get him to level 10+ you can give him a horse

Or you can double down and give him even more ornate armor to lug around

But yeah I have largely left Gilliam behind in favor of Eirika, Vanessa, Seth, Franz, Garcia, and Ross being my main melee force

And now with Forde, Kyle, Amelia, and Tana onboard? Yeah Gilliam can take a nice long break

[tired mason]

Chapter 17 was rough. Maybe I should have used a second healer on that one. Whew.

[sinful meadow]

Finished chapter 6, fog of war is a pain in the ass. Just had Seth run around the whole map killing everything.

[tribal umbra]

Natasha with Torch staff makes that a non issue. But Seth supremacy works too

[narrow swallow]

I follow the tier list, things really looking good

But Ross is an exception

I can tolerate Moulder Zu's speed and Natasha, but Gilliam, oh for the love of...

I don't know about the last level, but the first FE that I played in GBA (Blazing Blade), demands that everyone's level must be high

[sinful meadow]

I didn’t know how to use torches. Just sent Seth wandering and let folks run up and get murked. Took a while to find the boss though.

[tribal umbra]

Right? Map is so much denser than you initially imagine.

The Wall of Seth is a legitimate strategy and I refuse to believe otherwise

[narrow swallow]

Wall of Seth 👏

Good term!

[narrow swallow]

Ross as Berserker? Or Warrior?

[bright merlin]

After 14 and 15 chapter 16 is so easy wtf.

[tribal umbra]

Swords are for the weak. Crit is life, crit is king

[narrow swallow]

I prefer axes

[tribal umbra]

THEN GET THAT BERZERKER BAYBEEEEE 🪓 😤

[narrow swallow]

Already did, loving it!

Btw Franz is my arena moneymaker

https://tenor.com/view/kazuchika-okada-wrestling-raining-money-gif-4912885

[light dust]

This was the first single player game I finished in 2 years or so.. Ross became a killing machine for me and Colm was my low key favourite character to use.

[stray cedar]

Level 5 of the tower was fun

[worldly badger]

https://tenor.com/view/marth-dance-fire-emblem-smash-cute-gif-20503392

[stray wedge]

Since this is my first fire emblem I think of Marth more as a smash melee character than actually having his own game. May have to try out the og sometime

[worldly badger]

They remade it like 3 times

[leaden cradle]

is it weird to have 7 mounted characters or am i normal?

[dusky mantle]

It seems like most of the class advancement lines have a mounted option at some point

So probably normal

[hushed hinge]

Speaking of, I just watched your RP2S/FE history lesson last night on YouTube. Really loved seeing the chronology of the series and how much appreciation you have for it

[leaden cradle]

Ok that was a welcome surprise, up to 9 mounted units now

[dusky mantle]

Well considering I was about to ask an FE History question I guess I should check out that video first

[worldly badger]

https://tenor.com/view/bluey-yay-hooray-hairdressers-nits-gif-20257386

[vocal forge]

Can you send me a link? Sounds interesting

[hushed hinge]

My bad, it was the Flip not the 2S. Pls forgive 🙏

https://youtu.be/Wpo809o56Zg?si=hXCBgMyuHA_npoFD

[dusky mantle]

I just spent like ten minutes watching the 2S video waiting for FE content

[worldly badger]

ALL THE VIEWS COUNT

EVEN OOPSIE VIEWS

this is my second favorite GOTM thread ever

faith in GOTX: restored

[dusky mantle]

What was your first favorite?

I don't even have a good guess looking through past winners, maybe Snatcher or Star Ocean? Probably not 999

[leaden cradle]

@worldly badger I'm more convinced than ever that we can get these people to play and enjoy Ogre Battle

[worldly badger]

https://tenor.com/view/tom-and-jerry-evil-smile-cat-gif-16061448

[worldly badger]

STOVE CAT

[dusky mantle]

Ah Ihatovo

That was a good game

Confusing af, but good

So I'm thinking after Sacred Stones has got me pretty hooked in of going Binding/Blazing Blade, Awakening, and then straight to Engage and Three Houses.

I'm torn on adding Path of Radiance to that list, I'm definitely not gonna do Radiant Dawn, and I'm also torn on adding Shadows of Valentia since it's a faithful recreation of such an old title. I know you recommended it highly though. Is Fates: Birthright worth it at all if I don't intend to play Conquest or Revelation or should I skip Fates altogether @worldly badger ?

[worldly badger]

Fates is like... George Lucas or James Cameron without any constraints

it's an excess of all of the weird shit with poor gameplay and plot

[stiff crescent]

C'mon man, he doesn't know who those people are

[dusky mantle]

So skip, got it

Hey!

I do too Regs

[worldly badger]

Shadows of Valentia is a gaiden, so you can play it whenever

[bright merlin]

Got Eirika to level 20 just at the right time, ||she got a pony||, sweet

[worldly badger]

gameplay wise it's in its own world too

[dusky mantle]

Mmk so the rest of the GBA, Awakening, then on to the Switch, and then maybe Valentia if I'm still craving more. Easy enough list

[hushed hinge]

I’d love to try the GC FE’s. Never had a GC, and my friends that did were obsessed with Smash, Mario Party, and Metroid Prime

[sinful meadow]

Damn, I love 999. and I want to play Snatcher. I should have found my way here sooner...

[dusky mantle]

As one of the few people who had played 999 prior to it becoming GOTM, watching all the theory-crafting in the GOTM chat was awesome

It was like re-living the original hype all over again

[sinful meadow]

ahhhh heck I wish I was there for that

[worldly badger]

999 mid

[tired mason]

zu is the only person who didn't enjoy it. 999 is one of my favorite gotm experiences so far.

[worldly badger]

bullshit

I was singled out

Ebay was meaner than me but evaded Dan's wrath

[hexed oxide]

And (usually) crit means using 1 less equipment....

For all those equipment conscious people

[half sigil]

Man i’m so equipment conscious. That’s why I buy a lot .

[tired timber]

I'm struggling to get chapter 15 done without loosing anyone

[worldly badger]

Chapter 18 time for me

[worldly badger]

here's the ||"Eirika you stupid bitch!"|| part of the game

[hexed oxide]

|| Not there, but it sounds like she has a Starlord/ Thanos moment ||

[tired mason]

I’m at this part, but haven’t done anything yet. Just finished 17 and went to sleep.

[sinful meadow]

This game sucks man.

Is this what non-tactics players think is a good tactics game

[worldly badger]

https://tenor.com/view/star-wars-clone-trooper-im-sorry-sir-its-time-for-you-to-leave-revenge-of-the-sith-gif-16274975

[sinful meadow]

Don’t get me wrong I don’t hate Fire Emblem, but this game sucks man.

[stray cedar]

Why?

[sinful meadow]

super lacking in depth, a second rate storyline (so far) and nothing terribly interesting about any of the characters... not a fun game to play nor fun story to experience. not overtly offensive, but just... supremely uninteresting imo. outclassed by a dozen different games from every decade since long before this came out.

(just my opinion don't shoot I'm too old to die)

[hexed oxide]

https://tenor.com/view/you-right-thats-my-opinion-trash-gif-14573104

[sinful meadow]

https://tenor.com/view/judge-me-dont-judge-me-being-honest-kevin-hart-snl-gif-10582614

[small vine]

https://tenor.com/view/daniel-greeene-danielgreene-opinion-bad-opinion-gif-18384029

[sinful meadow]

https://tenor.com/view/i'll-be-the-motherfcking-villain-then-cootie-i'm-a-virgo-i'll-then-be-the-bad-guy-i'll-be-the-enemy-gif-6903941098342161774

[half sigil]

How far are you in the game ?

[sinful meadow]

Just after the split, with the tower unlocked and such

[bright merlin]

I'm sorry but you're wrong.

[sinful meadow]

https://tenor.com/view/im-still-out-here-gettin-cuter-jack-harlow-cute-charming-handsome-gif-23421523

[tired mason]

I agree with a lot of what you said, but not all of it. The story and characters are pretty meh, overall. And yes, it's pretty basic. The weapon triangle, I think, dilutes it quite a bit. Feels like pokemon. I'm hoping this is the most basic fire emblem and the other entries add some of the things that this one is lacking (and I think Zu has said as such too, if I'm not mistaken). But I still find this one quite enjoyable to play, personally. And the sprite work is fantastic. I'm having enough fun that I kept a save at the split and hope to run through the other route eventually.

[rigid crag]

Are there 22 chapters? Just started 11. It’s a ||fog map. Woohoo! Seth can just stand at the front and fend off all demons||

Oh… Seth can stand there and do nothing as he doesn’t have ANY weapons… oops

[narrow swallow]

I love GBA FE games

Played Blazing Blade during my college times, love it!

[tired timber]

You're not totally wrong. It is on the easier side of tactical games. Specially if you use the workarounds that the game offers. Some characters are too much OP and there are many ways to cheat the game (arena and the fact that the chapters don't have time limit)

That being said, it is a great introduction to the genre and one of the best in that regard because of stunning visuals, the great music and the fact that it does a great job in character development. Only advance wars can be more noob friendly than this and that's because it offers an intensive course at the beginning of the game.

[tired timber]

My entire strategy right now

[tired timber]

Guess what. It works

[stray cedar]

I agree on most of it. Besides it not being fun or a fun experience.

[tired timber]

|| fucking Eirika gave Lyon the fucking stone! || the audacity

[narrow swallow]

Anybody use Lute?

[stray cedar]

Chapter 13 was a joke. Just stream run the boss in 5 turns. No need to survive for 11

[narrow swallow]

If you play well, you should use Seth or in my case, i use Ross

What class do you guys for Cormac?

Knights or Lords?

[hushed hinge]

Yes, she's my favorite spell caster so far

[stiff crescent]

Yep, Lute rules 🪄

Franz, Neimi, Lute, Colm are my faves

[vocal forge]

Yup. I just promoted her to Sage. She is still a little squishy but can two-shot just about anyone except for bosses

Just upgraded Ross to a Berserker as well. He has become a monster. He is kinda this games Donnel

[narrow swallow]

Noted, well I used Artur and Saleh now. But there's always a room for one more

Ewan, I don't think I will use him

[dusky mantle]

Seth is still the invincible one but for pure damage output Ross is a fucking monster

[vocal forge]

Lute is cute and funny so I picked her over Artur. Simple as

[hushed hinge]

finally have Colm there, and Neimi is a boss too, dodges everything.

Franz is taking awhile to catch up

[dusky mantle]

Yeah it's funny how raging arrogance is cute in a little girl 😅

That's really the chief character trait Lute has expressed so far with me: "fuck you, I'm the best."

[stray wedge]

Oh man chapter 19 was a bloodbath for my crew

[hushed hinge]

I’m trying to get Amelia up to speed, but she keeps getting killed. So close to level 20 on a lot of characters: Colm, Joshua, Lute, Gilliam, Neimi

[narrow swallow]

My Amelia just got promoted into General

[hushed hinge]

I’m on chapter 12 and I think she’s level 8 or 9 for me rn

[runic tinsel]

@dusky mantle Making me regret Ross being my only casualty thus far and here I thought Garcia was superior. 😭

[tired timber]

I think that you misspelled raven mage. But hey... I like to be involved

Garcia rules!

[dusky mantle]

I just hardcore grinded her in Tower 1 till she hit level 10. Just had Ross Seth and Vanessa block the stairs and Moulder healing her after every scrap or two, only took about 3 or 4 battles

[dusky mantle]

Ah man Ross is GOAT material

[hushed hinge]

Is Ross better as a Warrior or Berzerker?

[runic tinsel]

Little did I know..

[dusky mantle]

Berz IMO

[hushed hinge]

Yeah Ross was really rough early on. But now that he’s about a level 7 pirate, he’s already a wrecking ball

[dusky mantle]

Crits all day

[narrow swallow]

Berserker. Tried it and now he's a killing machine

[small vine]

Vanessa > Wyvern Knight
Cormac > Wyvern Lord
Tana > Falcoknight

Cormac is the only unit who has the ability to be a Wyvern Lord if I recall correctly, so I always promote him that way.

[small vine]

He gets more utility, and thus is arguably better, as a warrior, but he's a stone-cold crit machine as Berserker.

[hushed hinge]

I love the crit animations, so might do it just for that lol

[half sigil]

Is there any kind of reward for beating a stage under a certain amount of rounds or it doesn’t change anything ?

[small vine]

It's one way to unlock extra/secret chapters, but that's about the only thing.

Like if you beat Chapter X in under X turns, you'll unlock Chapter Xa immediately after.

[half sigil]

Oh thanks a lot thats good to know !

Will they tell you what’s the required number of rounds before the chapter starts ?

[small vine]

Not at all
Specifically for Sacred Stones, I think 5x is the only Gaiden (Extra) Chapter. In other entries, things like saving all villagers, visiting all villages, beating within a certain amount of turns, etc. would get you an extra chapter in some instances.

[tired mason]

Chapter 19 was a lot of fun for me. Just block the entrances and let colm pilfer the entire castle during the fight. 😂

[rigid crag]

Sometimes my guys struggle with ||the spiders that the game throws at you...||. No clue why, but hey ho... I had to reload as poor wee ||Ewan, I think his name is Ewan, came out of a house i visited and then got mauled by two eyeballs nearby so I felt bad... ||

[half sigil]

Lol. But I would not want to miss those kind of secrets . So In sacred stones the only chapter I have to do fast is chapter 10 right ?

[small vine]

Chapter 5x is the only one that's extra, and it's if you visit all villages. It may actually happen anyway, but visiting all villages gets you some extra dialogue and a Guiding Ring.

[half sigil]

I’m in chapter 4 right now so it’s very good to know ! Thanks a lot !

[small vine]

There are several in Binding Blade and Blazing Blade (the two prior GBA FE games), but only 5x in this one.

[worldly badger]

Yeah, and Binding Blade won't give you the real ending unless you do all the extra missions AND have all the legendary weapons

[tired timber]

There's different endings?

[ornate cobalt]

This thing is 21 chapters right?

Finished chapter 16, thinking about trying to burn through the rest of it tonight

I gotta get started on the rpgotq

[tired timber]

The last levels are the bigger ones

[ornate cobalt]

That's what I figured

Dang

I'm enjoying it for what it is but I think I've had my fill and I'm kinda ready for it to be over.

Think I'm just not really a tactics guy

[orchid wave]

Same. Certainly not with a time limit. I spent an hour or so playing today and enjoyed it but I'll never finish it before the end of month. I like tactics in small batches but have a hard time finishing

Will probably just pull out my GBA for this occasionally and slowly get through it

[sinful meadow]

try a good one sometime - FFT(A), Shining Force, XCOM. Disgaea is good imo but I don't recommend that for people who aren't all-in on tactics already.

BG3 is also a tactics game in disguise if you wanna go that route

[ornate cobalt]

See I love BG3 lol but that feels different

But I've tried fft and XCOM and just didn't vibe with them

[vocal forge]

For natasha, should I go Bishop or Valkyrie?

[ornate cobalt]

I loved Pokemon conquest but that may be cause pokemon

I think they just may be a little too slow for my ADHD to brain to hold interest

I start off enjoying them but then I peter out

[sinful meadow]

BG3 is just a straight up tactics game with more verbs.

[vocal forge]

I would recommend Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced (the one for GBA not PS1) as a great first tactics game. I'm biased tho

[sinful meadow]

instead of "attack, magic, defend" it's "attack, other attack, magic, magic (spicy), defend, defend with prejudice, kick off a cliff" etc.

[tribal umbra]

This is why I spend a stupid amount of time just grinding to get my guys to be behemoths because "Number fill bar, number go up".

Then run into enemy and see BEEG NUMBER. BRAIN HAPPY

[ornate cobalt]

This is how I've been playing lol

[tribal umbra]

Drugs help

[turbid hound]

Amelia should always promote to general

[ornate cobalt]

It's so much more than that though lol. The world building and RPG elements go far for me. The combat in BG3 is fine and satisfying but far from my favorite part about it

[tribal umbra]

Thicc armour saves lives

[turbid hound]

It’s more fun seeing the difference between the sprite work and the portrait

[orchid wave]

My problem with tactics games is my brain has this need to find the "best" solution to problems so every tactics battle is anxiety waiting to happen as I worry that I made the wrong move 3 turns ago

[sinful meadow]

oh yeah. I just mean once you get into combat it's a tactics game, so you kind of have to enjoy that to enjoy the game as a whole

[vocal forge]

That's the fun tho!

[turbid hound]

Good thing the only wrong move in this game is not putting Seth frontline

[orchid wave]

Lol. Only in small chunks

[turbid hound]

But yeah I get that feeling too

[orchid wave]

Yep - send Seth forward and let everyone try to attack him

I'm only in chapter 6 though so now sure how long that will work

[tribal umbra]

General Gillam, Seth, Barbarian Ross, SwordMaster Joshua and Falco Knight Vanessa. The front line to end all front line

[vocal forge]

Games should be fun. If games stress you out in a bad way just don't play them. I'm in my thirties and still love pokemon bc it puts me in my happy place still, I used to be embarrassed about it but now I don't care

[turbid hound]

Yeah Vanessa carried in my endgame

[turbid hound]

Yeah that’s why Iin the new fire emblems I pick casual. If I’m going to reset every death anyways it just makes sense to be more fun

[orchid wave]

I play games on easy a lot now. Just want to enjoy myself

[turbid hound]

Can’t spell a yes without easy

[tribal umbra]

My kids and wife both love pokemon, so thankfully I don't have to hide it. My son and I play ROM hacks together all the time

[vocal forge]

Life goals!

[ornate cobalt]

I'm about to go into mission 18 but my Seth is only level 17, should I just bite the bullet and promote him

[small vine]

Seth starts as a Paladin, so there is no further promotion.

Your Cavaliers (Franz, Forde, Kyle) eventually turn into a Paladin like Seth (or a Great Knight like ||Duessel||), but Seth is already promoted from the beginning of the game.

It's pretty typical of FE games to start you out with a promoted unit with the rest of your squad. They're essentially an escort to help guide you through the mechanics of the game, and are often quickly overshadowed by other units once tutorials and the like have run their natural course. However, in Sacred Stones they instead gave you a wrecking ball who can last the whole game.

He still won't beat a full-growth Lv. 20 promoted unit (i.e. if you leveled Franz to 20 and then promoted him to a Paladin) but Seth is much more viable than your average FE promoted starter.

[ornate cobalt]

Ooooh ok. So level 20 seth is as good as he gets

[small vine]

Yup!

[tired timber]

After chapter 10 or 12, things dragged up a little. It's not because you're not a tactical guy I guess. I too am bored at this point

[tired timber]

I'm currently stuck on level 21. How do you guys pass trough the ||two dragons||?

[tired timber]

Finished the game. Final score maybe a solid 7/10

Beautiful sprites and animations, really the best gba can offer in that regard. The music was good and the story was OK. After chapter 10 I felt that things dragged a little but the game always did a good job in creating good connections between characters and gave them all backstories and meanings, wich is a thing that I appreciate a lot in a game like this.

It was a little too easy because there was some OP characters that could basically clean entire chapters by their own. Without time limits, things got bored quickly because of this.

I will play it again, if it wins goty

[bright merlin]

Chapter 17 done. I want to replay this game about a dozen times with different parties just for fun. I made a few mistakes with promotions, but I'll be fine for this run.

[hazy umbra]

OMG I can't believe || L'Arachel || was || Princess L'Arachel || the whole time. Sneaky

[ornate cobalt]

Finally finished it. Not my normal thing and it went a bit long for my taste but I enjoyed it overall. It's definitely a good game

[half sigil]

Hum i won’t read the spoiler but there is food for thought here . From now on I won’t trust anybody .

[hazy umbra]

Im at ch14 I think, it's not a big one, actually seemed a bit silly, just how it was worded in game

[hazy umbra]

Good timing seeing that, galliel is my first character to hit lvl20, so need to have a think what to promote him to

[vocal forge]

Final boss here we go

[tired timber]

Final boss was very anticlimactic for me

[hushed hinge]

Promoted Neimi, Gilliam, and Amelia all this morning. Colm is next and Joshua is right there too

[vocal forge]

Great game, I think this is tied with Awakening for me. I'm def gonna have to play again to go another route and use different units. So happy this game won the month

[vocal forge]

I can see that. It was a typical FE ending but I enjoyed it. I think the final boss was too easy tho

[tired mason]

I tried to blitz the last couple chapters. Lost neimi and colm near the end of 20 just due to reinforcements and rushing too much. Then, I got owned in 21 because I didn’t realize ephraim dying is also game over. lol. I’ll try again later.

I just needed one more turn to finish him off with eirika too.

[small vine]

Turn on my RG351P to play some more FE tonight, and the FE main theme is the background music in the AmberElec menu. Love it!

[shrewd garden]

So I lost chapter 11 (Ephraim: ||the ghost ship||) a few times. I guess I could have continued a couple of the times but I lost characters I wasn’t willing to let die (Niemi, Vanessa, Forde, also Ephraim one time). Do I need to grind the tower? Do I just suck? Should I be promoting units yet? I have a bunch of promotion items but have been holding off.

[ornate cobalt]

Grind the tower a hair. Did that for like an hour and got a few units to 20 and then promoted and then sailed through the rest of the game

[narrow swallow]

Chp 15 now

Time to find all treasures

[half sigil]

It was about time I got a myrmidon in my party .

[tired mason]

It’s done. Whew. Time to play the scary game now. Oh, the final chapter, I noticed a possible secret during the final fight, but before the ||demon king|| shows up, but something weird happened. || the room in the top right of the map had a cracked wall that could have been attacked and destroyed. I killed the monsters, expecting to break it on my next turn, but it was magically not cracked any more. Anyone know what happens if you break it? ||

[narrow swallow]

Chp 21 is the last right?

[stray wedge]

Just beat the game last night. First fire emblem game and got really addicted, will definitely try out another soon. I played it without much worry about who I was recruiting/using but I could see myself getting sucked into that in my next time. ||Only complaint was final boss was a bit lame. Sprite was cool though, kinda looked like a balrog from lotr||

[dusky mantle]

Man, a couple of those new recruits were pretty tough to keep alive in Chapter 10. They clashed before chatting, so they were really low health in the middle of a huge group of enemies

[stray cedar]

https://tenor.com/view/rocky-iv-dolph-lundgren-captain-ivan-drago-if-he-dies-he-dies-dies-gif-4956349

[tired mason]

I only lost Neimi and colm. Kind of fitting that they went down together though.

[half sigil]

They are my favorites so far . I’ll try to keep them alive lol.

I don’t understand why they can’t do support conversations though . I think they should since their relation is rated C.

[tired mason]

I mostly ignored the support stuff. Didn’t really make sense to me and seemed unnecessary.

[half sigil]

It gives you stat boosts in battle, and it reveals stuff about the backstory of the characters. It was my favorite part in other fire emblems I played . But in this one I can’t get it to work yet .

[stray wedge]

I also feel like I sucked at getting supports, does diagonal count as next to each other?

[small vine]

If I remember correctly, you can only do one per pair per map? So as they level you'll need to keep trying on every map. Sometimes if it doesn't give you the option at the beginning of the map, it will towards the end if they've been fighting.

Support conversations have been built upon since the GBA games (and was arguably the majority of Three Houses).

Awakening had some really good ones.

[tired timber]

That's not entirely true. There was a chapter where I was able to engage support between Ephraim, Ford and Kyle (I think). That being said, I don't know how that works either. Sometimes things worked, sometimes don't ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[small vine]

Yeah, but could you do Ephraim x Ford again? A character can do multiple people a map, but not the same one repeatedly if I recall correctly.
I had a bunch between the rookies and other units in one map when I was grinding, but only once per pair.

[hushed hinge]

Neimi and Colm are monsters for me at this point

[small vine]

Neimi is still kinda weak as a Ranger. Colm only just got promoted to a Rogue, so we'll see. My magic users and the promoted trainees (especially Ross) have been the beasts.

Lute, L'Arachel and Natasha have been straight STOMPING fools.

Ewan is still only a pre-Druid (can't remember the class), but he's getting there.

[tired mason]

I had so many other people stomping, colm was just for unlocking chests. Neimi just couldn’t keep up. I promoted her early not knowing how things worked, so I gimped her from the beginning.

[hushed hinge]

I just got Neimi to sniper and she and Colm dodge about everything.

I can run Neimi in without a guard and she dodges all the attacks

[small vine]

Sniper is her better class, but I knew ||Innes|| was coming so I pushed her to Ranger instead. Gotta catch 'em all

[tired timber]

Well everything that you guys need to know about support is here

https://serenesforest.net/the-sacred-stones/characters/supports/calculation/

https://serenesforest.net/the-sacred-stones/characters/supports/

One character can engage with various other characters on the same chapter, but can only do them once per chapter

[olive folio]

Finally on chapter 10. I thought I'd be much further in the game at this point in the month, but life keeps getting in the way.

[narrow swallow]

Ah that makes sense

[narrow swallow]

This is makes sense

[half sigil]

So the characters need to be adjacent to each other for a couple of turns… that’s kind of limitative lol.

Pretty sure it’s not like that in the wii and GameCube versions .

[sinful meadow]

I don't think the turns have to be consecutive. Seems like it's a way to encourage traveling in packs, I guess

[worldly badger]

https://tenor.com/view/im-watching-stalking-lurking-watching-peek-gif-7914122

[worldly badger]

If anyone has the itch, Awakening is a good next step, or you could double down on the other two GBA games

[tired timber]

Do they have different stories or it's the same narrative all over again?

[worldly badger]

I mean they're all similar in the sense that it's a generic jrpg story. But Awakening was made as a capstone because they thought the series was dead, so it has a bunch of callbacks to all the other games, but it's its own story

[tired timber]

I see. I might wait a few months before thinking about playing another one tbh. It would bored me to death if I was picking another one and end up with 25 more hours of the same thing.

Same reason as why I won't replay this one to see the alternate path until the end of the year (hopefully)

[small vine]

All three GBA games are solid. Sacred Stones is generally considered the best one, but Project Ember is a QOL hack for FE6 and we had a real good time with that one in #997151131471986839. As Zu said, Intelligent Systems assumed Awakening was going to be their swan song so they poured a lot of love into that one. Shadows of Valentia is also supposed to be quite good.

[narrow swallow]

It's been fun here. Thanks to all the awesome peeps in this thread

https://tenor.com/view/bravo-respect-gif-13213789

I will now refer to Zu as Bishop Zu

https://tenor.com/view/pug-dog-just-kidding-gif-14920282

[tired timber]

Holy Zu

[worldly badger]

[tired timber]

Never you've been so close to create your own religion

[dusky mantle]

See you guys also had a chat about that one when ya played it, that's always a highlight. Gettin to chat about a game like this throughout the playthrough has helped make it more fun

Need a thread like "KalKeg Learns Kingdom Hearts" but for Fire Emblem

[small vine]

That was actually quite fun, and now I've played all the games and know the messy lore of Kingdom Hearts.

I'd play any Fire Emblem game at any time with anyone.

I haven't played any of the pre-GBA ones, so I'd be down for a series runthrough.

[tired timber]

https://tenor.com/view/wholesome-darrengibb-gif-25689127

[dusky mantle]

Unfortunately the older ones just seem too dated for my personal tastes to do a whole runthrough 😅

I'm planning probably Binding/Blazing Blade, Awakening, and then jumping to the Switch titles. Nothing too in-depth

[small vine]

Yeah, reason I haven't gone back to the older titles is the same, especially since Shadows of Valentia is a remake of one of them.

I would love to, but they'll show their age likely

[dusky mantle]

Shadows of Valentia is the one Zu recommended, but said that since it's pretty disconnected from the rest of the series I can sort of get to it whenever

[small vine]

None of them are really connected. FE6 and FE7 only in that it's a past/present sorta situation, but it's more for Easter eggs than direct storyline.

Like playing FE6, you play as Roy. Eliwood (your father) is the protagonist of FE7. So you might go "Oh shit, it's Eliwood!" but then you and Roy go off and do your own unrelated thing.

I think the GameCube FE games might be more tied together, but it's been a hot minute since I played either.

So FE6 and FE7 are loosely related, and FE9 and FE10 might be more directly related. The rest are often in the same universe, but separated by large or vast chunks of time (or complete outliers like Sacred Stones).

Here's a pretty good explanation of the timelines, along with some fan theories (spoilers aren't needed, as it's just timeline talk, but just in case)

Also, descriptions of the FE games and their correlating numbers

[dusky mantle]

I am confusion

The Japanese sure love their convoluted ass multiverses

This is like trying to read a Zelda timeline

[small vine]

Short, short version? FE1 and FE3 are closely related, as are FE9 and FE10. You might get more out of it playing those together. Otherwise, play in whatever order you want!

Since like half the games pre-GBA have been remade, a series playthrough wouldn't be all that bad. Thracia is the one that'll get ya.

[hexed oxide]

OO yeh just in time for FE Lore

[half sigil]

Is it a big deal if I let the citizens die in chapter 6?

[worldly badger]

yes

they're innocent people

[dusky mantle]

If you're a heartless monster then yeah it's no big deal, let em die

Also they give you a unit promotion item

[worldly badger]

WarcriminalPremier over here

[hexed oxide]

Is that the monster mission?

[dusky mantle]

The first appearance of both Fog and spiders

[sinful meadow]

I let ONE citizen die and they didn't give me SHIT

like OKAY sorry for saving MORE THAN HALF of you guess I'll let you DIE next time

[small vine]

Well yeah, the one you let die has the item

[half sigil]

Thanks y’all , now I know : there is one valuable citizen and the others can die

[tribal umbra]

#1118621144879206502 message

Based Joey is Based

[stray cedar]

He doesn't take part in GotM. Get that fake news out of here.

[tribal umbra]

This is true and fair, however, Any FE content, I'm on-board with this month

[worldly badger]

He's a content thief

We should have known after that piracy video

[tawny cloud]

I don't know how this part of the server works and at this point I'm too scared to ask

[tired timber]

1 you pick a game
2 you talk shit about it for a month
3 ???
4 profit

Rinse and repeat

[small vine]

This is the best of the three GOTM games, so you're already in the right place.

[sinful meadow]

Yeah it’s like shitting on steam deck unwarranted but instead it’s bad fire emblems who deserve it

[worldly badger]

Guy, what is your deal?

[sinful meadow]

I was meming on Joey’s steam deck roast, can I help you

[tawny cloud]

Wait, did I roast the deck today

[sage ravine]

I think Zu is confused by you calling Joey's opinions unwarranted and also insulting someone's favorite game series in a thread specific to said game.

If you can be critical, so can he.

[tawny cloud]

Thanks to this thread I am joining the gotx and I guess I have till Oct 31 to beat this? I'm in

[sage ravine]

Yessir! I think there are 21 chapters, so uh good luck. #1158015043749826620 would be a quicker play if you're interested.

[tawny cloud]

Pfft, fire emblem all day, been a while since I played through this. I'll getter done.

[sage ravine]

https://tenor.com/view/fire-emblem-gba-seth-nintendo-ame-boy-advance-gif-22533419

Joey about to plow through this like Seth through a no name soldier.

[tawny cloud]

Seth is my dude

[sinful meadow]

I’ve been roasting this game for a bit. I love fire emblem but think this one is hard meh. Proud dissenter!

[sage ravine]

Lol fair enough. I think it was the combo of the two that came across ruder than you may have meant.

[sinful meadow]

Yup probably.

In fairness to Zu they literally used his likeness in this game so I can see why it’s meaningful

[small vine]

I'm already at the last chapter, just grinding Lagdou Ruins for shiggles.

And to get Lute and Moulder's weapon affinity up for the legendaries.

[half sigil]

Seth has been on my bench from day one . I bet on Franz instead . Is it a bad move ?

[small vine]

Nah. Seth is arguably the best starting promoted unit of the FE games, but any Lv. 20 promoted unit will wipe the floor with him.

[tawny cloud]

What kal said

[half sigil]

Thanks now I feel better lol

[worldly badger]

https://tenor.com/view/fire-emblem-loogie-ephraim-sacred-stones-magic-gif-21249176

Also, everyone in here who liked fire emblem month, super robot taisen original generation is space fire emblem with mechs

https://tenor.com/view/fire-emblem-parody-mecha-super-robot-wars-vikalizer-gif-25799012

[small vine]

I want SRW so bad. It likely won't happen unless it's in #997151131471986839, but a man can dream.

[tawny cloud]

Hm, never heard of this, on the list it goes

[tired timber]

Seth is everyone's dude.

[small vine]

This is what 40 levels of growth can do. No stat-boosting items, though did get some great RNG growths.

Low defense, but still higher than Colm's

Seth for comparison, and he also had some good RNG growths. Still very good, but a fully promoted unit will always win out over a pre-promoted unit.

For reference, pre-promoted units rarely max any stats, and this unit absolutely maxed Strength because OF COURSE HE WOULD.

[runic tinsel]

This is cool to see. What characters do you recommend investing in and promoting? I'm on chapter 11 and recruited everyone. And only lost Ross (now I realize how grave a mistake that was)

[small vine]

Tbh, growth determines use. For example, Natasha has great stats right now, but L'Arachel is only Lv. 11 and is gonna blow her out of the water (had super good growths with her).

I try to use as many units early as possible, and go with the ones who get the numbers.

However, I will always recommend the three trainee units (Ross, Amelia, and Ewan) as that extra 10 levels of growth means a ton.

That's the real beauty to me of FE. Any unit can be viable, and therefore your playthrough can change each time, it's just a little RNG-based.
Tier lists for this game are an example of "If I play this game 100 times, these are the units who experienced X more times with higher growth, and therefore are likely to be more viable". But for just a few playthroughs, or even the only one you'll do? Wild variance.

This is probably close to the tenth or so time I've played this game, and I've never had Moulder have better growths than Arthur. Guess who's my main Bishop now?
Only the pre-promoted units (aside from Seth) are consistently non-viable, so you can't really go wrong with anyone as long as you at least try and get as close to that Lv. 20 mark before promoting.

Tldr? I go with whoever gets the numbers. Otherwise, pick some favorites and just have fun with it!

[hushed hinge]

Ross is doing well and I just got Ewan to shaman for eventually Druid, but Amelia’s still struggling at level 6 knight.
I was hoping to boost up her health and defense. Hopefully with some more leveling or a hp boost item

[small vine]

Imo Amelia's biggest asset over other Knights/Generals is she almost always has a higher speed stat. Her Str/Def isn't necessarily going to wow anyone, but attacking twice is huge for someone in a "tank" class. Throw an Angelic Robe on her if her HP is underwhelming.

I'm endgame grinding for shiggles right now, and she's likely not going to max her Str stat this playthrough. However, she's always attacking twice so it's not so bad.

Ross is always a monster, I have him in my endgame lineup every time. Ewan depends - he's a lot better as a Druid than a Summoner, and is usually better than Knoll, but he's had some weak growths for me this playthrough.

His Mag stat will likely max though, so as long as nobody hits him he'll be good

[half sigil]

I’m really in that “otherwise” category !

[worldly badger]

I always give her the boots

Then she becomes a tiger tank with a jet engine attached to the back

[half sigil]

Is Vanessa the only wyvern in the game ? I want to let her go but if she’s the only one I guess I’ll keep her

[hushed hinge]

I might’ve just gotten lucky, but Gilliam is consistently attacking twice too and rarely actually takes damage. Most attacks at this point are no damage.

Him, a Paladin Kyle, Paladin Seth, Berserker Ross, Rogue Colm, and Swordmaster Joshua are cleaning house lol

[small vine]

Cormag is also a Wyvern user, and is a monster. You'll get another Pegasus Knight later as well, but pre-promoted.

[dusky mantle]

Well it's probably unsurprising considering my name, but Lute is officially my first character to hit level 20

[small vine]

That's the beauty! Every playthrough can be different, and any unit can become viable depending on growth.

[hushed hinge]

Huge reason I’m voting for FE GOTY. I’d absolutely love to play this again next year and completely shuffle the team. Plus go through the Eirika path

[worldly badger]

https://tenor.com/view/arresteddevelopment-its-happening-michael-cera-realization-gif-5420046

[small vine]

Yeah, a completely different path and RNG-based growth makes it a very replayable game, at the very least for a second time.

[hushed hinge]

Oh I’ve loved FE for awhile, but have only beaten Three Houses and (hopefully soon!) this one

[runic tinsel]

Awesome, thanks for the summary. Yeah it's a bit overwhelming trying to prioritize with the amount of units this game throws at you.

[small vine]

I have favorites based on multiple playthroughs, but in the end growth determines use for me.

There's nothing wrong though with going "Moulder looks kinda like Zu, and Zu's an alright guy" and just rolling with Moulder the rest of the game. It's all about what makes it fun for you!

And again, as long as you're getting as close to that Lv. 20 threshold before promoting, any unit that isn't pre-promoted is likely going to be completely viable for any playthrough.

[worldly badger]

This is the only way

How dare you

[small vine]

Sacred Stones isn't a particularly hard FE game, so you're not gonna get jumped at the end by a difficulty spike that will punish you for not min-maxing units.

[small vine]

He's my Bishop and Legendary Light carrier this playthrough, but only because Arthur had four straight levels of one-stat growth.

Must be the Zu effect

[runic tinsel]

That's my problem, when presented the opportunity, min-maxing is too hard to resist. I can't help myself.

[small vine]

Lute is very often in my endgame lineups, so good choice!

[dusky mantle]

Who is Arthur?

😝

[small vine]

I will straight up min-max the fun right out of a game at the earliest opportunity, and I don't even think twice about it.

So I completely understand.

[small vine]

🗑️

Trash is who Artur is

[dusky mantle]

Already setting up for another FE after this

The graphical advancement that handhelds experienced in the ~7 years between Sacred Stones and Awakening is quite startling to see side-by-side

[small vine]

Awakening saved the franchise, and I will always be eternally grateful to that game and what IS did with it.

[half sigil]

Thanks a lot ! I’ll feed Vanessa to the spider then .

[small vine]

OR JUST BENCH HER

[half sigil]

I want to live up to the name that zu gave me : WarCriminal Premier

[dusky mantle]

Hey whoa hey

Vanessa is a solid gal

I mean, Tana swooped in and immediately stomped all over her stats

But still!

[stiff crescent]

Colm is now an assassin

[hexed oxide]

Yasss

[worldly badger]

https://tenor.com/view/hes-beginning-to-believe-beginning-to-believe-gif-20824301

[hexed oxide]

It was my introduction to the actual games. I had heard of them from Smash bros and internet.

Great cinematics, cool story, great character building with the relationships. Was Is a great game.

[tired timber]

I'm sorry. What's rng?

[worldly badger]

Random number generator

I.e. You have a 45% growth rate in strength, and RNG determines if it triggers. That means sometimes you have a game where you max out and sometimes you never get a strength growth

[tired timber]

That's already built in the game right? It's not a patch, or is it?

[worldly badger]

Built in

[tired timber]

Thanks

[bright merlin]

At least three of the antagonist dudes got corrupted because they were obsessing over women. Men need to get a grip.

[half sigil]

Is Joshua one of them ? (I’m only in chapter 8)

[bright merlin]

Nah, he's fine.

[small vine]

And done! Absolutely love this game.

[sinful meadow]

[stray cedar]

So I changed from my KTR1 to my flip and that KTR1 screen is killer still compared. But it’s off to be compared and will be home in a couple weeks

I didn’t save any money for the secret shop. Oh well

[narrow swallow]

My introduction is at Blazing Blade

Love it, and I think it's way harder than SS

Haven't played Binding Blade. Is it good?

[small vine]

Yeah SS is on the easier side. Binding Blade is good, but Project Ember is the way to go. QOL hack that doesn't change the story. Helped the experience immensely imo.

[waxen mountain]

It's so annoying when I accidentally press B during a cutscene and skip it, then have to watch it on youtube

Who thought this would be a good idea

[tired mason]

People who have had to play the battle for the fifth time because Joshua runs to Seth like a mosquito to a bug zapper.

[waxen mountain]

I mean they could just use start like any other game ever made

[tired mason]

Starr also works.

[waxen mountain]

Yes, but B shouldn't

[tired mason]

They gave you two ways so you don’t have to think as hard when in such a state of rage.

[small vine]

I don't know that I've ever pressed B to skip a cutscene, always just used Start. Why are you pressing B so much that it accidentally spills over into cutscenes?

[waxen mountain]

pressing a to make text go faster, accidental input

[small vine]

Ah, I just speed up the text in the options menu

[waxen mountain]

...Maybe I should do that

[hushed hinge]

In all games honestly. Text speed always feels so slow by default

[waxen mountain]

I usually do but I just assumed it didn't have the option for some reason

[bright merlin]

I knew it was coming, but Eirika. Everyone told you, but. Girl. Please 🤦‍♀️

[half sigil]

I’m at the crossway . Is there one of the two paths that will prevent that eirika stupid move ?

[bright merlin]

No.

[shrewd garden]

I’m burning out on this one. Feels too much like I messed up early in the game so I need to grind (ew) or let someone(s) die which in turn seems like it will just make the late game even harder. Maybe will come back in a few days.

[half sigil]

Letting people die is no big deal since you never use everyone at the same time anyway . I think you’ll always have enough units.

[worldly badger]

https://tenor.com/view/bdg-unraveled-whoopsie-war-crime-brian-david-gilbert-gif-20373531

[bright merlin]

This is not the point?!

[tired mason]

https://tenor.com/view/we-play-to-win-snoop-dogg-play-to-win-player-its-all-about-winning-gif-12414058

[hushed hinge]

A lot of the fun of this game for me is upgrading everyone and seeing the different possibilities

I don’t think I could sleep if I “let” someone die

[half sigil]

For me it just depends which character lol. If I like them I want them to develop their skills but if not, they are nothing to me!

[hushed hinge]

I get that. I’m trying to get as many classes as possible and see some fun combos in action

[half sigil]

What do you mean combos ?

[hushed hinge]

Like different classes together

[half sigil]

Yeah same for me , I like to have a good mix of classes.

Even though I never understood the difference between say a Clerc or a priest lol

[hushed hinge]

Different upgrade paths

The pic in the pins is really helpful imo in planning out characters to focus on leveling

[half sigil]

Yeah but I try to avoid looking at that kind of stuff . I like to discover things myself .

[stray cedar]

Well fuck 14 goes straight into 15. Kind hate this shit

[hexed oxide]

Ahh yes that fun

[dusky mantle]

Yeah 11 to 12 did that too

I had enough equipment for the one mission, but had a lot of fuckers standing around with their hands in their pants for the second battle

[stray cedar]

You can use the shop before the battle and get some powkiddy level equipment. It's a little annoying. Also never liked that you can only make money on levels with Arenas. Got to the Secret shop and couldn't buy any of the upgrades for my level 20 guys

[dusky mantle]

Yeah no the not bein able to return to arenas thing is kinda shitty

[stray cedar]

You should get money award for every level of the tower.

[small vine]

Once you get to Lagdou Ruins (granted, near the end of the game) you can farm stat boosting items and better equipment, and whatever you don't need you can sell.

This is why I grind the Arena in Ch. 5. Even if you do no other grinding, you're set for money the rest of the game.

[stray cedar]

Yeah should of done that. Just need more things to upgrade my guys

Need another ocean seal

[small vine]

You just need one for Ross. Ross is the real Seth of this game

[stray cedar]

I just upgraded him

Warrior so he can use the bow

[small vine]

Warrior is better utility, but Berserker is a crit monster. I feel like crit proc is really high in this game (mostly in your favor).

[stray cedar]

I already have a berserker that I recruited

[small vine]

Dozla? He's useless

Ross one-hit-crit the final boss for me

[half sigil]

I was going to skip the tower but I feel like going back just to let Seth be zombified. I’m curious to see who ereika will be talking to in the cutscenes .

[stray cedar]

I am getting amazing RnC for this stat lines. Plus Ross is slow as hell

[small vine]

Well then have at 'em! Growth drives use.

Yeah, I pumped most of my Speedwings into Ross. He usually one-shot-critted everything, but not always attacking twice is never ideal.

[stray cedar]

I would have to look. I have like most of the characters at level 16 plus right now. Love just going in the tower and killing zombies. I should of been done with this game a week ago. Lol

[small vine]

Yeah I spent a couple of days in Lagdou Ruins, didn't even max my endgame team before I thought "I'm not gonna finish any other games by the end of the month at this rate" and just finished it

[stray cedar]

It’s my last game. I just been experimenting with line ups

[small vine]

One of the best parts of the game

[stray cedar]

I feel like this game a great starting point for FE games. I played half thought ember before giving in for a while. Might go back to it now.

[small vine]

Sacred Stones is one of the easier FE games, so I agree it's a solid starting point for people new to the franchise. It's also very well polished, which doesn't hurt.

[half sigil]

I think I can say that the Fire Emblem buzz just kicked in at chapter 10.

I have a few solid pairs . Joshua who acts as Natasha’s bodyguard . Ross who uses his father as his human shield . And my favorite one : Neishi (probably have her name wrong) and Colm who sneakily double team melee units .

[small vine]

My endgame squad was: L'Arachel, Lute, Ross, Moulder, Cormag, Myyrh, Colm, Ewan, Amelia, Neimi, and the E siblings.

[narrow swallow]

Difference with me Tana, Gerik, and the last Falcoknight (Vanessa's sister)

[hushed hinge]

Neimi is one of my faves. She kills nearly everything

Neimi, Colm, and Joshua can handle most things by themselves with their evasion and speed

[dusky mantle]

Meanwhile I'm sittin here with Neimi totally untouched because I consider bow users inferior to spellcasters 👀

But is anyone surprised by that really?

I'm also surprisingly getting better stat growth with Tana and Marisa than I got with Vanessa and Joshua

I'm at Chapter 13 and Lute is currently my only promoted character (if you don't count pre-promoteds), and she just absolutely wrecks anything that breathes in her direction currently

[bright merlin]

Lute is the best. And she knows it.

[narrow swallow]

Don't anybody use Knoll? Lol

[bright merlin]

He died and I didn't feel like restarting. Just like that mercenary girl who appeared a few turns after Amelia

[tribal umbra]

I can barely get neimi to even hit things let alone deal damage

[bright merlin]

She's sniping all the wyerns.

[worldly badger]

https://tenor.com/view/smiling-javi-gutierrez-pedro-pascal-the-unbearable-weight-of-massive-talent-happy-gif-25135496

[hushed hinge]

I leveled her in the tower and in skirmishes by having her stick to Gilliam and other stronger units that could absorb damage while she shot enemies

[hushed hinge]

I've always used both

Neimi one shots pretty much all flying units

[stiff crescent]

I've leveled Neimi and she's an ace. Looking forward to promoting her.

[small vine]

Neimi had terrible growths for me, but someone had to carry that legendary bow

Went Ranger, and that's not her strongest class, so self-inflicted.

[tired mason]

I think it’s her strongest class. Anything with better movement felt stronger to me. They weren’t valuable if they couldn’t keep up with forde, franz, Seth, Vanessa and Tana.

[stray wedge]

I'm already on chapter 5 of Awakening now, my motivation to go back and finish doom is low

[small vine]

Agreed about movement being very valuable, which is why I usually go the Ranger route, but I've always experienced her worst growths as a Ranger, and this playthrough was no exception. Correlation may not equal causation here, as it's all RNG, but usually when I promote her to Sniper her growths are better.

[hexed oxide]

So good

[stray cedar]

Falcoknight or Wyvern ?

[worldly badger]

https://tenor.com/view/shanefalco-falco-replacements-gif-5011377

you already get a Wyvren if you're quick with the Talk command

[stray cedar]

I don’t keep units close enough I think for the talk command

[small vine]

You have a chance to get three Falcoknights if you promote them, and they'll do a triangle attack. Pretty cool!

[stray cedar]

I went with falcon because magic resist and arrow with the items. Going to build out my final 8 and then push through the last 6 chapters

Just super slow gettin l’arachel to level up

[small vine]

She's usually worth it.

[stray cedar]

Also what is the top level of the tower?

[small vine]

Valni Tower is 8, Lagdou Ruins is 10

[stray cedar]

When does Lagdou happen. Going to start CH 16

[dusky mantle]

God damnit Zu, you really gonna quit on me like this?

[stray cedar]

https://tenor.com/view/rocky-iv-dolph-lundgren-captain-ivan-drago-if-he-dies-he-dies-dies-gif-4956349

[worldly badger]

yes, it's Moulder's fault

not the fucking moron who let a cleric get within range of a lion zombie monster

[dusky mantle]

There were like eight other dudes between the zombie lion and the cleric

He was healin peoples

[worldly badger]

https://tenor.com/view/abandoned-leftmetodie-lonely-mad-gif-5154977

[small vine]

That seemed more like a sacrifice than an accident.

https://tenor.com/view/futurama-serious-stare-suspicious-gif-5319823

[small vine]

After Ch. 19 I believe? Favorite place to endgame grind, ||and unlock secret characters||

[dusky mantle]

In my defense I'm not a complete idiot, I anticipated this problem and had a save state from like one turn prior 😅

[worldly badger]

I'm doing some Fire Emblem Engage for my Odin2 video and I named the Pepsi girl BoobsMcB

I wonder if people will laugh or complain or even notice

[small vine]

Probably a solid mix of all-of-the-above

[hazy umbra]

Ooooo. Hero or ranger for gerik?

Was thinking hero, already have a few mounted units I'm using regularly, looks a bit boring if they're all the same

[hexed oxide]

How have you liked it? The trailer and art was a little off-putting to me, but sure enough it's still a pretty tight FE game.

[worldly badger]

it's too much fan service

[hexed oxide]

It is a lot of nostalgiaberries

You guys remember Roy right??

[tribal umbra]

Oh man, Roy from Smash!?

[stray cedar]

Roy is the crackhead from my graduating class. We pray for him

[worldly badger]

https://tenor.com/view/roy-fire-emblem-smash-bros-among-us-imposter-gif-20942404

[half sigil]

Thought I was going to get through chapter 10 tonight . Turns out that’s where the challenge starts . I’ll come back with a strategy tomorrow lol.

I love fire emblem .

[dusky mantle]

My problem with the whole midgame is deciding between stickin' with the old faithful powerful members of the team, or suffering through the grind of levelling new peeps

I did a couple of the tower floors, one with a team full of newbies and one with my whole Ross/Garcia/Seth/Franz/Lute loadout, and the experience is absolutely night and day between a super careful nail biting experience and just steamrolling the fuckin enemies with ease

[hazy umbra]

Oh that's interesting, on the check map screen, before starting a battle, you can visit the shop/armoury of a stage, if you want to try and get a better weapon than what's available from the standard menu shop

Or maybe not... Seemed to let me buy things, but can't see them in my inventory

[small vine]

It's treated as if your unit went to the armory/shop in the actual map, i.e. it goes to their personal inventory first and then to the overall inventory once theirs is full.

[half sigil]

Oh thanks for the tip I didn’t know that

[half sigil]

Yeah that’s the big fire emblem dilemma . Like I just welcomed Amelia to my party . I would really like to level her up but I don’t want to bench my main characters lol.

[tired mason]

One of my small gripes of this game is that the inventory management isn’t great. It would have been nice to have used l and r to quickly switch between characters at the shops or once you begin trading or something. Backing out and switching characters all the time sucks.

And I wish the promotion items and stat booster items could have just been used from the supply. Having to take it and then use it seemed unnecessary.

[half sigil]

Yeah just to use an upgrade item you have to check every character one by one to see who currently holds it, and then go to a menu to trade it to the person you want to give it to, and then press b a couple of times , and then select the character that you want to give it to, and then you can finally use it lol.

[hazy umbra]

Only having one ocean seal is my current biggest gripe. Promoted Colm, but can promote Ross from pirate now 😣

[half sigil]

Who needs Ross when you have Colm?

[hazy umbra]

Ross has been a bit of a legend at pirate, would've liked to see what he was capable of

Just on inventory as well, I've got a ton of the perk items I haven't used, as I just don't know who's best to give them to.

Analysis paralysis

[half sigil]

Yeah that’s the hardest part ! That’s why I try not to think too much and just give the items to my favorite characters

Like I decided that Colm is cooler than Ross but there is no reason lol

[dusky mantle]

Dude if Ross just had the movement range of someone like Seth I could absolutely solo the whole game with him, he is so powerful

So far Colm can only really leave tiny bee stings in my enemies

The only person with more useless damage numbers is probably Eirika

[tired mason]

That’s how my colm / eirika were. I eventually gave an angelic thread to eirika just so i could level her up. Might as well, since shes required in most of the fights.

[dusky mantle]

Yeah I gotta actually start givin those things out. Been hordin em till I know what characters I want

[stray cedar]

There a items that gives you a lot of movement can’t remember want it was.

[tired mason]

Speed boots or something, yeah. Gives mov+2

[stray cedar]

I did once I leveled Ross up. Now I have to hold him back or he will just be a sponge to far in the front

[bright merlin]

Chapter 20 almost done. If it wasn't for gotm, I'd taken a few months off after restarting chapter 14 three times. But I did it! And the game feels so great.

[half sigil]

What how dare you say that about lord ereika? She does decent damage so far. I even put her in front .

[worldly badger]

The desert ambush level... 16? Has a master seal hidden in the sand

I used that on Colm

[half sigil]

Master seal ? Is it to get more movement?

[worldly badger]

Promotion

[bright merlin]

Eirika x L'Arachel ftw ❤️

[small vine]

Master Seal allows you to promote anyone, regardless of class (except the two siblings lords).

[half sigil]

I always forget the items’ name .

I could never forget about the vulnerary though .

Do you guys ever use two healers in a battle ?

[bright merlin]

I used two healer for almost all of the game because I split the party into two groups.

[half sigil]

Hum that’s clever . I’ll try this I think .

[hushed hinge]

I now have 3 paladins--Seth, Kyle, and Franz--I feel invincible lol

[half sigil]

What about Frank’s brother ?

[small vine]

Forde? I promoted and never used him either

[narrow swallow]

My Franz was really awesome as a Great Knight. Wall of Seth and Franz really made it till the end

[hushed hinge]

Who Forde? I’ve barely used him tbh

But now I can try focus leveling him

[half sigil]

So you’ll have four goddamn paladins !!!!

[hushed hinge]

Sounds like a good time to me lol

[dusky mantle]

Nobody needs that ponytail sporting dork

[half sigil]

Ok that argument is good enough. I’ll kill him right now .

[tired mason]

He was my best guy somehow. Kyle was a solid great knight though. He just kept getting defense growth before promotion, so it made sense.

[stiff crescent]

So Gerik is a beast

Def going to keep him in the rotation

[tribal umbra]

I got Kyle and Forde killed immediately after the split. Woops

[gusty torrent]

Lute: claims to be powerful

dies on first turn

oops

[bright merlin]

I sacrificed Neimi in the end just to be done with the game. But I've set a state so maybe I'll try to save her.

[tired mason]

I lost colm during the same turn. Kept it. It was almost poetic if it hadn’t been so stupid.

[bright merlin]

If we combine our realities, they're both fine. 👍

[tired mason]

No no no. I lost Neimi and colm on the same turn. lol.

[bright merlin]

At least they're together in the afterlife, I guess.

[tired mason]

It was chapter 20. They were both low on health, but all I had left was the boss of the chapter and I didn’t want to waste heals/mends before the final chapter, so I just had them hang back. || didn’t know the boss was going to spawn reinforcement floating eyeballs. || They swooped in there and took out both of them.

[bright merlin]

Most of my units were just idling around while the Syrene, Tana and Vanessa were flying taxis for Eirika, Seth and Myrrh. It was a fun chapter, lots of enemies ran into Ross and Lute and therefore in their own demise.

[stiff crescent]

Lol I just spent forever getting through the mountain pass. Easy but takes forever. Then Seth gets one-shotted by the boss 🫠

[gilded field]

On chapter five. I still dont know what dictates what but Seth is the homie

Definitely didnt accidentally close my game and lose chapter 4s fight and have to do it over again >_>

[tired mason]

Seth starts the game as a promoted unit. Others can actually surpass him because they have more growth opportunities, but early on he’s the goat.

[gilded field]

This boss doesnt move?

So I can just keep leveling in the arena and making money? Risky, I assume

But so far Ive leveled seth twice, erika twice, and got through one fight with the pegasus lady

[gilded field]

Oh all this has been for nothing because I apparently killed a recruitable unit. Back to the start of the chapter

(He attacked Seth and got one shot lol)

[dusky mantle]

[bright merlin]

Yeah, you want to keep this one 😬

[gilded field]

I went back, and he KEPT FIGHTING SETH. Out of 5 options, he would walk the long way around. Finally got him recruited. So now back to grinding this arena.
(And I just discovered the armory so now I'm just going to money farm, level farm, and item farm this level)

Question: is there a "Skip all remaining turns" button I haven't found

Or do I always need to "select - wait" every unit once I'm done with my turn

[hushed hinge]

Just seconding this, Kyle can now keep pace with Seth.
I just beat chapter 16 and Kyle beat 4 swordsmen and one axe berserker by himself all via counterattack lol

I think maybe the stat gods did not look favorably on my Franz lol

[tired mason]

If you push ‘a’ on a unit that’s already moved or on empty terrain, there is a menu. End turn is one of the options.

[gilded field]

But there isn't a "End all turns" for remaining units, right?

[tired mason]

The one I just told you is that one, yes.

[gilded field]

OH EMPTY TERRAIN MEANING NO UNITS

I'm dumb. Thank you

Gillams been rocking this round even before I started grinding the arena. He can't 3 levels on units alone. Its crazy.

[half sigil]

Yeah I think the bosses never move lol. That’s weird .

[half sigil]

No tbh it’s just a dumb way to make the menu . Why isn’t it just by pressing start lol

[tired mason]

It’s got some weird quirks like that.

[hushed hinge]

Advance Wars and Tactics Ogre are the same way iirc

[gilded field]

Aside from pokemon conquest this is my first Tactical RPG I think I've ever played

Having fun grinding the arena though. I've had some very VERY close calls to losing my entire progress on chapter 5

[half sigil]

I don’t understand what fun can be have in the arena . Isn’t it just watching a cinematic or I missed something ?

[small vine]

You can gain actual levels and money, though you can also actually die.

[tawny cloud]

My strategy of send Seth into a group of anyone and watch them die has got me through the entire game so far.

On chapter 13 I think now

[dusky mantle]

I mean Zu did say back on the first day that Seth can basically solo this game

[half sigil]

Thanks for reporting . That’s totally crazy . I wonder how far you’ll get like this lol.

I did the opposite : I did not use Seth even once .

[tawny cloud]

I've beaten this game before and most times like you just didn't use Seth, thought I'd see how far I could get using Seth alone basically this time lol

[stray cedar]

Just beat the Lyon again. Close to the end. Also Ross> Seth

[half sigil]

What difficulty you playing ?

[gilded field]

Results of farming the arena in chapter 5. I have steel weapons on everyone, multiple healing rods/magic books and still have 95k leftover. It did take about 3-4 hours tho lol

[gilded field]

Lol and the immediate next mission isnt even with these units. Hilarious

[hazy umbra]

So, going into the final chapter, am I right in thinking I may as well promote whoever isn't promoted regardless if they short of level 20

[bright merlin]

Or you level them in the final chapter and promote them during battle.
But it shouldn't matter too much

[hazy umbra]

Natasha and lute are both 17, so probably won't hit 20 before the end of the mission I wouldn't have thought

[bright merlin]

Naah, go for it, promote them.

[small vine]

You can also level them up easily in the Lagdou Ruins before the final battle. The enemies can be hard, but they give a ton of experience.

[hazy umbra]

Did 1 floor before starting Ch20, was tougher than most of the chapters

Chapter 20 was good for grinding, enemies kept popping in, so held off sieging the tower till they stopped coming

[worldly badger]

JOSHUA STRAT FOR PEOPLE STARTING LATE: Take away Seth's weapons and have him lure that critbastard into range so your cleric can talk to him

[half sigil]

Hum you seem to be saying that you have to wait until units are level 20 before promoting them . I didn’t . How big of a mistake is that ?

[hazy umbra]

Not sure to be honest, just means you can get the stats as high as possible so you would have 40levels of upgrade as opposed to say 30 if you promoted at lvl 10

I've held off promoting, and I'm having a relatively easy time of it in the later stages. Not sure if that's a factor I haven't done too much in the way of grinding. I've only done a couple of floors of the tower and maybe half a dozen skirmishes

[half sigil]

Thanks ! I think I would probably not hit max level for any unit anyway . I didn’t do any tower floors nor any skirmishes , and I don’t plan on doing any .

[stray cedar]

Holding off makes the game very easy to me. On chapter 18 now.

[half sigil]

Cool so it was a good idea not to hold off . Having played harder fire emblems , an easy fire emblem seems wrong .

That’s why I avoid boosting my stats artificially with towers and the likes

[small vine]

Promoting at Lv. 20 gets you 40 full levels of stat growth. That's all it does. Sacred Stones is pretty easy, so you could certainly artificially increase the difficulty by promoting them earlier.

I like the power trip, so I fully promote every time

[worldly badger]

since this one has three potential grinding options, it's much easier to fully promote in this one

some of the earlier ones have situations where you're contemplating a chapter reset because an enemy threw themselves against someone and wasted 35 xp

[gilded field]

Ross made me promote him at level 10. I didn't get a chance to say no. Is this like a "This is the game teaches you how to promote" mechanical story point

[hushed hinge]

Amelia’s the same way

I think there’s 3 characters that auto promote at 10+?

[stray cedar]

He starts as a Journeyman. So you have 50 levels for him and other journeyman.

This is a great breakdown of leveling #1158014875180740680 message

[dusky mantle]

Ross Amelia and Ewan

Axe dude Spear gal Magic guy

[half sigil]

Is Amelia worth using ?

[hushed hinge]

I think it depends maybe. Yes in the sense you can level her up so much, but so far, imo, she’s just too weak

In my game at least. I have her at about a level 10-11 knight and has no movement, attack, or defense still

[worldly badger]

my Amelia turned into a Tiger tank with a jet engine strapped on

depends on RNG and what growth items you feed them

I gave her the boots towards the end so she could run around as fast as a cavalry unit

[dusky mantle]

I have her roughly equally levelled to Franz and Kyle and while the three of them are roughly equally statted overall, she has way more Luck/Res than the other two

[bright merlin]

I gave Amelia a Pony and she turned out great

[runic tinsel]

If you are willing to invest in her I'd say yeah. Once she was a lv. 20 general for me she was an absolute tank who could also dish out as well.

[small vine]

Her growth stats were a little middling as a Knight for me, but once promoted to a General she had three straight 5-category stat growths and just as many 4-category stat growths. Ended up a monster on my endgame roster.

[hushed hinge]

I’m legit thinking about continuing playing after I beat the game just to try boosting everyone to max level lol. It’s such a fun aspect of the game to level everyone up to me for some reason

[small vine]

Lagdou Ruins is a good challenge for that sort of thing. You can get great weapons, stat-boosting items, and some (paltry) money for it as well. You also ||unlock secret characters via Creature Campaign.||

[hushed hinge]

That was unlocked before chapter 20?

[small vine]

Yep, right after 19 to be exact.

[hushed hinge]

Perfect! I just breezed through 18 on my lunch today

[small vine]

It's really just an endgame grind area. Almost all the enemies are "boss" level monsters (i.e. promoted versions) and thus give a ton of exp

[hushed hinge]

That’s perfect actually. I have a few units that are at endgame promotions but could use some leveling

[gilded field]

I've made a terrible discovery

This isn't the game with Roy

https://tenor.com/view/joe-exotic-emotional-damage-emotionally-gif-25225246

[dusky mantle]

Well just hit Chapter 15 today so I'm makin' good progress to finish by the end of the month

[small vine]

That's Binding Blade

[worldly badger]

https://tenor.com/view/roy-fire-emblem-roy-plush-fire-emblem-roy-plush-roy-my-beloved-gif-22019107

[small vine]

https://tenor.com/view/fire-emblem-engage-smash-bros-super-smash-bros-nintendo-mario-movie-gif-27671985

[tribal umbra]

Can't believe they made a whole game about Roy from Smash

[sinful meadow]

5 games... Smash, Brawl, Melee, 4, and Ultimate

[tribal umbra]

Ohhh fuck, did the OnionOS update change the file structure at all?

Game reckons there's no save file, can't actually check til I get home

[half sigil]

Amelia has joined the party .

[hushed hinge]

Garcia passed chapter 19. First actually hard mission so far. First character I’ve lost so far 😭

[tribal umbra]

Will Ross carry on his legacy!?

[small vine]

Ross took that legacy Day 1

[hushed hinge]

That’s the plan. I need a promotion item for Ross, he’s at 20 Pirate

[hazy umbra]

If it's an ocean seal you need, there's only 1 and you may have used it on Colm. That's what happened to me anyway.

You can get a second seal, but you need to plan for it really

[hazy umbra]

Fire emblem done, what a great game, thoroughly enjoyed it.

Was maybe a tad easy, especially in that end game. || Demon king was an anti climax, mhyrr one shot killed him on my very first move || but hope to see more fire emblem noms in the future

[tribal umbra]

Anyone got a save file around Chapter 16 on the Eirika Path?

I think I've been blessed by the gods of corrupted saves

[hushed hinge]

wait there's only one?! I used it on Colm, I just need one more for Ross

[hazy umbra]

Yeah I was stuck. There more available earlier in the game, but I think it was a secret shop or something, that only a certain character could use, either way, it was too late for me. I guess a master seal couple be another option

[tired timber]

I hope that you like DOOM

[tribal umbra]

Got DOOM done but I haven't missed a single game since I started, I'll be passed if the ether decides to break me like this

[stiff crescent]

I'm on 14 on the Eirika path

[small vine]

There's two secret shops that have an Ocean Seal (you need to have recruited Rennac with the Member Card and have accessed them in the map. For sure one, I think two?) and I think two master seals that will promote anyone.

One of the Master Seals is in the second-to-last map, which is useless unless you wanna promote and grind the Lagdou Ruins.

[hushed hinge]

That’s what that does! I’ll have to check which maps

[small vine]

Chapter 15 has one in a village, and then the last map. Also from ||a secret character|| in Creature Campaign.

[stiff crescent]

Is it possible to go back for stuff? I see there is only 1 Orion's Bolt and I'm way past the chapter.

[small vine]

I don't know about secret shops, but for villages they're always destroyed when you fight monsters in them in the Overworld map, so I don't believe so.

[dusky mantle]

I'm at Chapter 15

[gilded field]

I'm not sure I'll finish this one in time, BUT, I'm having a blast playing through it

Seth continues to be the GOAT with constant "No Damage" in fights with enemies

[hushed hinge]

I had a master seal, so I was able to get Ross to berserker

Just unlocked the ruins, some of my best units all gained 2-3 levels on the first map!

[dusky mantle]

I pushed Ross to Berserker during Ch14, boy is doin some work on these chumps we fightin

[tribal umbra]

Any chance I could please grab that save file oh wise and raveney one?

[dusky mantle]

So long as you're ok waitin about 4 more hours for me to have access to my home computer 😅

[tribal umbra]

Of course! I'm at work regardless so I'm stoked just to be able to potentially complete this. Thank you! Xxoo

@stiff crescent thank you for your offer as well! I think I wiped 3 times on 14 lol xxoo

[dusky mantle]

14 was clever as shit with those narrow hallways filled with ranged units to just plink away at all your regular units funneling through

[small vine]

Yeah you gain EXP quick in Lagdou Ruins.

[tribal umbra]

Then you get a Fili Shield AFTER the fact!

[narrow swallow]

Wow this thread is so 🔥

[small vine]

I've said it all month, but super pleased how Sacred Stones has been received this month. It's one of my all-time favorites, so it makes me happy to see others enjoying it

[narrow swallow]

I really enjoyed it. But to play Ephraim's path, maybe later, lol

[worldly badger]

October 2023 has restored my faith in gotx

[tired timber]

There. That's the best FE seth meme I could find

[worldly badger]

[dusky mantle]

Alright @tribal umbra I actually finished Chapter 15 so here's a Chapter 16 save file

Managed to get the final strike on Valter with Amelia so she's ready to be my third promoted unit after Lute and Ross

Vanessa and Tana are pretty close behind, they were some proper boss bitches through that whole battle

[tired timber]

Don't forget to give half point to Raven, after you finish the game

[dusky mantle]

[narrow swallow]

[tribal umbra]

Your entire army sounds almost exactly what mine was before the fateful void claimed then

Nothing has been lost thanks to your kind deeds. Xxoo thank you oh wise one

[tribal umbra]

@gaunt sphinx is this allowed or will it break GotXBot?

[tribal umbra]

Gonna win The Smash Tournament to make for it either way 💪

[dusky mantle]

Don't actually give me half a point it was a joke 😅

[tribal umbra]

If I can do it, I will, the continued streak is all that matters until Eternal

[narrow swallow]

I strongly suggest RE the easy mode, if you just want the point

[tribal umbra]

Points are secondary, intended experiences are paramount.

I'll get 3/3 done even if it kills me

[narrow swallow]

I thought you just need one point this month

Honestly, I'm a bit skeptical abt this game, but I'm glad I was wrong

[tribal umbra]

Fire emblem is awesome and I love it. I'm glad you're enjoying it ^^

[half sigil]

Yeah I don’t understand neither . Do you just need a regular steak to get eternal or you’re doing a 3/3 streak ?

[small vine]

Completing simply one game a month for 12 months leads to Eternal status. Billy just has the sickness like some of us and is going 3/3

[narrow swallow]

https://tenor.com/view/simons-peculiar-portions-simon-honeydew-yogscast-simon-yogscast-the-yogscast-gif-25152656

[dusky mantle]

I accidentally fell off the wagon a few months ago and since I'm already eternal I just never felt motivated to push myself to completion since. So this'll be my first completion since like June when I missed the deadline for Harmful Park because I waited till the last day to play it

Just havin' a lot of fun with this one

[sinful meadow]

Honorable soldier, I salute you

[tribal umbra]

https://tenor.com/view/good-morning-kiss-gif-24096438

[tired timber]

Well... Technically... 2,5/3

I'm just messing with you

[tribal umbra]

https://tenor.com/view/گریه-ناراحت-غم-gerye-narahat-gif-23378340

[olive folio]

Doubt I'm going to finish this game before the end of the month. This month has been surprisingly busy, but I will definitely finish the game in the near future. I've never played an FE game before this, but now I'll certainly be checking more of them out. This was fun.

[tribal umbra]

ITS WORKS OH THANK YOU SIR MAGE

[olive folio]

Only unit I have lost so far is Moulder. Is he worth restarting for?

[worldly badger]

Bruh

BRUH

Moulder the Boulder?

[olive folio]

[worldly badger]

BRUHHHHHH

[dusky mantle]

Moulder has sadly taken a seat in favor of the lovely L'Arachel for me, mostly cuz she has a fuckin horse

[olive folio]

SO many people have horses in this game. I was surprised by that.

[dusky mantle]

I'm not huge on horses generally but their movement buff in this is spectacular. There are so many missions where the foot soldiers barely get any exp because the mounted units already got there several turns ago and cleaned up

[olive folio]

True story.

That's not even counting the flying horses and the wyverns.

Gilliam never has a chance to even make it to an enemy before those enemies kill themselves on Seth, Vanessa and/or Franz.

[pastel sail]

Rule #1 @dusky mantle

Treat everyone with respect. Absolutely no harassment, witch hunting, sexism, racism, or malicious trolling will be tolerated.

[hushed hinge]

I used a speed boost on Ross last night. Guy covers half the map now lol

[solar harbor]

I’ve been using like 5 or 6 cavalry units. Should I switch and try to use other units? At chapter 15 now

[hushed hinge]

It depends imo

I usually run two, Kyle and Seth

[small vine]

Nah, to each their own. Play with the units that spark joy

[hushed hinge]

I liked Franz, but I think he’s nerfed in my game

[small vine]

Franz has some of the pickiest growths imo

He's been both a beast and a dud for me in several playthroughs.

[hushed hinge]

Lute, Seth, Kyle, Gilliam, Ross, and Neimi are wrecking crews for me

Kyle is actually outpacing Seth at this point for me

[olive folio]

I made him a great knight and he's such a powerhouse that can use sword, axe, and lance. Movement is a little slow, but not as bad as Gilliam.

[solar harbor]

I just send the whole cavalry and Dozla amd they wreck everyone

And leave Gilliam back in case of reinforcements attack from the back

[hushed hinge]

I think Lute/Kyle/Seth are my most sure one-shots. Lute regularly beats heavies, other magic enemies, and bosses in one turn

[dusky mantle]

I get upset when Lute accidentally gets put in too close of a position because then the enemy starts rushing to their doom and I'm like "no wait, the exp!"

[solar harbor]

If a unit is about to die I surround with the cavalry units. They get attacked and kill every enemy

[small vine]

Lute, Ross, and L'Arachel were my monsters this go-round.

Ross is a monster every time

Only ever had a slow Ross, but not a bad one

[hushed hinge]

If you have another unit nearby, you can also rescue her and have the stronger one take the abuse lol

[solar harbor]

Seth, Dozla and L’Arachel for me

[dusky mantle]

You're misunderstanding, she keeps one-shotting. She is the stronger unit 😅

[hushed hinge]

Ohhh my b

[dusky mantle]

I want to share the wealth and Lute just over here being a thermonuclear bomb and hogging all the exp

[hushed hinge]

I don’t worry about her getting rushed tbh, she dodges almost every time. Just like Joshua

[worldly badger]

I've never had a bad Ross tbh

[hushed hinge]

Question, are there times where you have to steal an item to get it from an enemy rather than just beating them?

A boss had a master seal on them last night, and whether I ranged or CQB them, I didn’t get it

[small vine]

Yep, only the green-highlighted items drop.

You can't steal weapons, but other stuff is usually on the table.

[hushed hinge]

Ah ok, ty!

[dusky mantle]

I had Rennac steal that shield thing from Caellach, dunno if I needed to

[small vine]

addiekins learns, at the end of the game

But that's all GBA FEs

[hushed hinge]

Gonna try beating chapter 20 today

[dusky mantle]

I made sure to have enough money for the Ch 14 secret shop so I have all the promotion items I need. No master seals necessary

[small vine]

I'll play more when it WINS GOTY!!

[small vine]

Yeah, I didn't have to use mine either.

[solar harbor]

From chapter 15, how long would it take me to finish the game?

In hours

[dusky mantle]

I also loaded up on Killing Edges because I was sick of having to give Marissa regular damned swords after her special one broke

[small vine]

Shamshir is great for Myrmidons.

[small vine]

Depends if you grind. 6 more chapters, so at roughly 30 minutes a chapter (depending on your units and play style) like 3 or 4 hours?

Probably not even that long.

[hushed hinge]

Got another q or you I’m curious about. Is there a specific stat to boost for crits?

It seems like it mostly depends on weapon type and class, but my Gilliam almost gets more crits than anyone with a regular steel lance?

[solar harbor]

Ok. Just wanted to see if I could finish it today. I’ll try to get to chapter 18 or 19 at least

[small vine]

If you're cavalier culling, it should be very doable.

Mounted units greatly speed up gameplay, especially if you aren't spreading exp.

[solar harbor]

Just sending Seth and Dozla would be enough actually

I just love Dozla doing crits every other hit

Animation is beautiful

[small vine]

Mostly weapon-based, but there are some stat and level bases involved. https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Critical_rate

For Sacred Stones, the stat that most directly affects Crit is Skill.

Also, a higher level in that weapon type gives more crit, especially S-level.

[dusky mantle]

Here I was assuming Luck was the crit skill. So is Luck evasion?

[tired mason]

Speed is evasion.

[dusky mantle]

Speed is evasion

[tired mason]

#1158014875180740680 message

[dusky mantle]

Y u no pin, my fluid friend? Is too late now

[stray cedar]

Mission 20 and game is dragging to me at this point.

[tired mason]

I honestly thought I did. oh well.

[dusky mantle]

Also I love how you sent me to that, but both speed and luck are listed as "The unit's speed" and "The unit's luck"

HELPFUL, CHARTMAKER, HELPFUL

[stiff crescent]

Luck: The unit's luck

[gusty torrent]

So where is the romhack to rename Moulder to Zu?

[dusky mantle]

That would actually be an extremely easy romhack

[hushed hinge]

I wish we could rename units, would’ve loved to name them based on my softball team irl

[tired mason]

I’ll do it.

[tired mason]

This is my favorite feature in x-com. Brilliant.

[dusky mantle]

There was another romhack we were theoretically collaborating on at one point but it disappeared some time ago

[tired mason]

I’m still translating a certain fighting game into Indonesian. Been a fun experience. @narrow swallow is helping me out there.

[hushed hinge]

I still have yet to play an X-com game

[tired mason]

The original is my favorite game of all time.

[hushed hinge]

From 1994, UFO Defense?

[tired mason]

Yes. That one.

[hushed hinge]

Which system is best? Looks like Enemy Unknown was a re-release as well?

[tired mason]

Enemy unknown is the European name. Dos is fine. The psx port has better music and is also great, but long load times. Might be better with emulation. That cd quality music is great though.

On a handheld, I’d probably recommend psx, just because the controls work well with a Gamepad. And FF can help with the load times.

Don’t FF enemy turns though. You’ll miss important stuff.

[hushed hinge]

Neato, tysm for the rec!

[narrow swallow]

I haven't got any chance to do it again, lol

[half sigil]

Yeah that’s why I did last mission without horses . I liked it . Will do it again .

[half sigil]

I don’t remember : does stealing give experience points ?

[small vine]

Yep, 10 exp

[hexed oxide]

9 levels in the Tower of Valni?

[worldly badger]

why did you do this to me? I was doing so well with pacing through RPGOTQ

[tired mason]

Sorry, not sorry? lol.

[dusky mantle]

So when the flying gals upgrade to Wyvern Knights, do they just tell their faithful and trusty flying steed to fuck off? Or does the horse transform into a wyvern?

[small vine]

I like to believe the latter, though that's arguably even more disturbing than the former.

[worldly badger]

The dragon eats the pegasus

Having the resolve to watch it happen is why they get the stat boosts

[half sigil]

That’s some serious knowledge right there .

[hexed oxide]

The aftermath

Just imagine it's a dragon 🐲

So strong after though

[solar harbor]

Remember how I said I had mainly the cavalry units and was going super easy? That chapter 15 wrecked me

[half sigil]

Cavalry are not good for that one?

[stray cedar]

Wyvern is the wrong move here. Get rekt by magic all day

[solar harbor]

Its a dessert area. It reduces the movement speed and it was just difficult. Ended up sending Seth and Duessel to kill both enemy leaders

Lost Forde in the process…

[half sigil]

So a falco knight would be perfect .

[half sigil]

I’m sure you won’t miss him that much . I used it once to make the reunion with his brother and I kind of wish he died in the process.

[stray cedar]

After level 20. I only have one

[half sigil]

I just missed the opportunity . I turned tana into a wyvern knight .