Tag: Celica

A mid-April snack

Intelligent Systems definitely lined up weird banners for 2019, didn’t they?

First we got hot springs units. Now we get picnic units.

The whole idea feels a lot like a springtime gimmick, which is unusual considering we’ve gotten our spring banner this year. But I do like this aesthetic over Playboy bunnies.

So these units can’t be that bad, can they?

Flora — Signature Dish

Sæhrímnir (Might = 14, Range = 2)
- Effective against beast foes. Grants Attack +3. At start of combat, if unit’s Resistance > foe’s Resistance, reduces foe’s Attack and Defense by 50 percent of difference between stats during combat (calculated before combat, maximum penalty of -8). After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Defense and Resistance -7 on target and foes within two spaces of target through their next actions.
Iceberg (Cooldown = 3)
- Boosts damage by 50 percent of unit’s Resistance.
AR-D Attack/Resistance (A Skill)
- If defending in Aether Raids, grants Attack and Resistance +Number of defensive structures during combat.
  - ≥5 grants +10, 4 grants +7, 3 grants +4, ≤2 grants +1
Bold Fighter (B Skill)
- If unit initiates combat, grants Special Attack cooldown charge +1 per unit’s attack, and unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack.
Armor March (C Skill)
- At start of turn, if unit is adjacent to an armored ally, unit and allies can move one extra space.

Lukas — Buffet for One

Luncheon Lance (Might = 14, Range = 1)
- If foe initiates combat, grants Attack and Defense +4 during combat.
Pivot (Range = 1)
- Unit moves to opposite side of target ally.
AR-O Attack/Defense (A Skill)
- If attacking in Aether Raids, grants Attack and Defense +Number of foe’s defensive structures during combat.
  - ≤2 grants +10, 3 grants +7, 4 grants +4, ≥5 grants +1
Wary Fighter (B Skill)
- If unit’s Health ≥ 50 percent, unit and foe cannot make a follow-up attack.

Genny — Dressed with Care

Toasty Skewer (Might = 12, Range = 2)
- If a foe initiates combat against an ally within two spaces of unit, grants Defense and Resistance +3 to that ally during combat.
Psychic (Range = 2)
- Restores Health = 50 percent of Attack (minimum of 8 Health).
Fireflood Balm (Cooldown = 1)
- When healing an ally with a staff, grants Attack and Resistance +6 to all allies for one turn.
Wrathful Staff (B Skill)
- Calculates damage from staff like other weapons.
Defense Opening (C Skill)
- At start of turn, grants Defense +6 to ally with the highest Defense for one turn.

Felicia — Off the Menu

Eldhrímnir (Might = 16, Range = 1)
- Effective against beast foes. Grants Speed +3. At start of combat, if unit’s Resistance > foe’s Resistance, reduces foe’s Attack and Speed by 50 percent of difference between stats during combat (calculated before combat, maximum penalty of -8).
Glacies (Cooldown = 4)
- Boosts damage by 80 percent of unit’s Resistance.
Speed/Defense Bond (A Skill)
- If unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Speed and Defense +5 during combat.
Special Fighter (B Skill)
- At start of combat, if unit’s Health ≥ 50 percent, grants Special Attack cooldown charge +1 to unit and inflicts cooldown charge -1 on foe per attack (highest value applied, does not stack).
Close Guard (C Skill)
- Allies within two spaces gain: “If foe uses sword, lance, axe, dragonstone, or beast damage, grants Defense and Resistance +4 during combat.”

I can’t say they’re bad, but I do have problems here.

Why did we decide to only do half an Echoes banner here? Genny and Lukas are great, especially considering Celica is the only unit we’ve gotten alternates for. But a banner cannot exist without Fates or Awakening units on it apparently.

I do like Flora and Felicia, and their norse mythology-themed weapons (a hog in Valhalla and the utensil to cook it) are cool.

But why couldn’t Flora have been a blue-haired girl from Echoes?

My other problem is the fact that Genny seemingly got shafted. The others are strong, mostly unique armored units (even if the Aether Raids skills make me further consider removing self-written text), but the perfect sheep girl is just another healing cavalier.

They didn’t even have her ride the doe in her artwork, which would have been incredible!

Oh well. I suppose that’s a nitpick.

Genny and Lukas are my top choices, with Flora as a close second. Felicia is good, but faces stiff competition in the “powerful axe armored” category.

Don’t feel bad, Felicia. You get to be the best part of this banner’s Paralogue at least!

Paralogue 33 — A Season for Picnics

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Out of all 33 Paralogues, this picnic banner has to have the most bland premise.

Princess Sharena drags the Order of Heroes out for a picnic. Then constantly yells at them to act like normal, relaxed people until they become subservient to her will.

It’s a trope you’ve seen before, I’m sure.

Where this banner’s story stands out is with the alternate characters.

The first map has Flora feeding Genny delicious sandwiches before warning her to stay away from her sister Felicia’s food. It’s cute — as most things with Genny are.

The second map cuts to Felicia giving a sandwich to Lukas, who loves the taste (as he is so used to war rations like wheat flour).

Future Tempest Trials reward Leo is there, and the most brilliant writing in the series rears its head as he makes fun of Felicia’s cooking.

Hsays he’ll never eat it… Until she brings out tomatoes.

Reluctantly, he proclaims “I guess I have no choice.”

The sandwich he eats as a result is described as having a texture mixing slime and dust. It’s a great moment.

The third map loses that to an extent, but poking fun at Felicia continues. The battle is also shown to be one of those rare times where all five new units are on stage at once.

Luckily, that extended cast does not make the duel any more difficult. When the picnicking units are dispatched, Sharena once again shuts down the teams’ neuroses so they’ll relax and enjoy the sunny day.

The end.

And that’s another new special banner in the books.

Overall I’m really not sure how to feel about this one. Having Echoes units like Genny is wonderful, but when she’s the least impressive on the banner that excitement is quickly deflated.

Luckily that nice dialogue in the Paralogue made up for it, in my opinion.

But hey, that’s just my opinion. Let me know what you think about these alternate characters in the comments!

Seeping with Content: New Genealogy Units and Version 2.9.0

Once in a while, Intelligent Systems likes to coincide a new character banner with an update to the game.

This week was one of those weeks where that happened. So I figured instead of stretching this out over a two-day period, I would just put it all together and make one more substantial Friday post.

Normally I like to get this thing out early in the morning by writing something up late the night before… But I’ll blame my friends for keeping me up playing Monster Hunter instead.

Plus I don’t exactly have a huge connection to the new heroes, so I don’t have too much of an interest in any of them. Didn’t help inspire me to write anything in preparation.

That said, even if I’m not super inspired by them, let’s talk a little bit about who these characters are!

Quan — Luminous Lancer

Skill Set:

Gáe Bolg (Might = 16, Range = 1)
- In combat against an infantry, armored or cavalry foe, grants Attack and Defense +5 during combat.
Rally Speed/Defense (Range = 1)
- Grants Speed and Defense +6 to target ally for one turn.
Draconic Aura (Cooldown = 3)
- Boosts Attack by 30 percent.
Steady Posture (A Skill)
- If foe initiates combat, grants Speed/Defense +4 during combat.
Drive Attack (C Skill)
- Grants Attack +3 to allies within two spaces during combat.

Silvia — Traveling Dancer

Skill Set:

Barrier Blade (Might = 14, Range = 1)
- If foe initiates combat, grants Resistance +7 during combat.
Dance (Range = 1)
- Grants another action to target ally (unless they have Sing or Dance).
Mirror Stance (A Skill)
- If foe initiates combat, grants Attack and Resistance +4 during combat.
Deluge Dance (B Skill)
- If Sing or Dance is used, grants Speed +3 and Resistance +4 to target.

Lewyn — Guiding Breeze

Skill Set:

Forseti (Might = 14, Range =2)
- Grants Speed +3. If unit’s Health ≥ 50 percent and unit initiates combat, unit can make a follow-up attack before foe can counterattack.
Glitter (Cooldown = 2)
- Boosts damage dealt by 50 percent.
Swift Sparrow (A Skill)
- If unit initiates combat, grants Attack and Speed +4 during combat.
Special Spiral (B Skill)
- If Special Attack triggers before or during combat, grants Special Attack cooldown count -2 after combat.
Odd Attack Wave (C Skill)
- At start of odd-numbered turns, grants Attack +6 to unit and adjacent allies for one turn (bonus granted to unit even if no allies are adjacent).

Normally I would do an analysis of each new character after their skill breakdown, but I’m going to skip out on that for a number of reasons. Mostly the fact that I’m already pretty late on this and have a lot more to write, but also because I don’t have too much of a personal connection to Genealogy of the Holy War.

So like. None of these characters mean much to me at a deeper level.

However, there are some benefits to each that I can acknowledge.

Thanks to his signature weapon and Steady Posture skill, Quan looks like he’s a pretty great offensive unit against physical attackers. He does a bunch of damage while gaining a big defense buff. Not quite as cool a cavalry unit as Sigurd, but still useful.
There’s never anything wrong with more dancers, and Silvia certainly is one of those. She may be a sword-weilding infantry unit like many others are, but her Barrier Blade at least seems like a great weapon to pass around to other units.
Lewyn is probably the most interesting and unique unit on the banner thanks to his brand new B skill Special Spiral. Utilizing it essentially means that he’ll be able to activate Glimmer every turn after activating it once, and that’s super cool. Arguably my favorite on the banner, a higher priority if I didn’t have +10 Nino in my army.

Unfortunately, these positives don’t outweigh my overall ambivalence toward this banner. After spending a whole heck of a lot of orbs on the Legendary Marth banner (which didn’t get me Marth) and on the 2018 Brave Heroes banner (which has gotten me all of the Brave Heroes except for Hector), I was in pretty dire straits regarding my stash.

Since then, thanks in part to the September quests and these new story quests, I’m back up around 100 orbs. But I’m planning on going back into storage mode, collecting as many as I can for a rainy day.

I’d hate for them to drop Neimi when I had zero orbs on hand, after all.

So I utilized my free summon:

Didn’t get a whole hell of a lot, and moved on.

Sorry guys, but you’re just not on my radar at the moment. Hopefully I can summon you all in the regular unit pool one day.

Luckily, I’m much more interested in the story that came with this new banner.

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Chapter 12 begins with the aftermath of the “bombshell” that there might be a traitor hiding amongst the Order of Heroes.

I call it a bombshell only in quotes because I already had a huge rant about what a dumb, lazy storytelling tool it is to try a whodunit-type mystery when there is a canonical character in the main story who shapeshifts to cause mischief.

Like. We all know it’s going to be the shapeshifter. Don’t even try to hide it.

Spoiler alert, they don’t really try to hide it. I actually respect the way they do handle the big reveal, but I’ll get to that. Let’s start at the beginning.

Yes Anna, yes I do.

Of course Fjorm, oblivious to the fact that shapeshifting is a concern when it comes to her family members who both miraculously escaped from being held captive, defends her older brother and younger sister.

If I sound more than a little unimpressed with how things progress here, don’t worry about it. I’m just cynical and jaded.

There are actually some cool things in this chapter.

For example, this confirmation by Prince Hríd that Surtr’s ritual needs two sacrifices.

After you receive that warning, the missions are uneventful for a bit. Up until Helbindi shows up to stand in your way once again… Only to receive some news.

This is actually pretty sad. The only reason he continued to fight was because Surtr’s daughters told him they would convince the king to spare Helbindi’s family.

He can’t say anything after hearing the news. It’s the last time we hear from him for the rest of this chapter. Especially for this game, that’s pretty heavy.

Unfortunately that heartfelt moment is soon followed by a completely stupid, pointless thing.

At the beginning of the fifth battle, Fjorm is woken up by her sister — who everyone essentially predicted was just Loki in disguise since she joined your forces.

She reveals the fact that she was the traitor all along and poisons Fjorm, supposedly showing the source of her harsh cough.

It’s interesting, to say the least…

Except then Fjorm wakes up. Because it was all just a dream.

People like that trope, right?

Frankly it doesn’t upset me that they used the false dream trope so much as it upsets me that the very next cutscene makes the entire dream sequence pointless.

Because after Fjorm wakes up from her nightmare, Alfonse calls her into a war council to tell her about his suspicions that Ylgr is the spy.

Now don’t get me wrong, I respect the fact that Intelligent Systems acknowledged the plot points that led to players theorizing about who the traitor. That’s a much better way to handle this than trying to convince us all the characters had no idea something like this could be possible.

I just still don’t understand why we needed the fake moment with a dream sequence if there was a much better reveal in real life literally seconds later.

But I digress.

Alfonse also calls out the Ice Prince as being equally guilty of having been shape shifted, and Loki reveals that all his suspicions were correct.

Then the final fight begins.

It isn’t that hard, honestly.

So afterwards Loki decides to hand you a map for a secret entrance to Surtr’s ritual chamber that way you can go infiltrate it and battle him.

Because you know. She has ulterior motives.

We found out that much when she was searching for the legendary dragons of Nohr and Hoshido during the special Festival banner.

So yeah, that’s the story. I pretty much wore my heart on my sleeve while writing this portion, meaning I don’t think I have to say too much more. It had some good stuff, but for the most part the bad stuff was pretty frustrating.

But hey, now that the dumb traitor B story is out-of-the-way, we can finally move on and save a bunch of little girls from being thrown into a fire. Which is arguably the more fun thing happening here.

Until we get that next chapter, however, how about we take a look at the other major FEH update that came out this week.

Oh Version 2.9.0. Like with the new Genealogy heroes, nothing about you really excited me enough to jump on it right away. It’s a bit of a basic update compared to most of the others, so I felt justified tacking it onto the end of this post.

For instance, one of the biggest parts of the update isn’t actually a thing in the game yet.

Rally Defense is a new game mode that is essentially the same thing as Rival Domains, except focused solely on defending the territory you own for eight turns rather than trying to take over the opponent’s territory.

I’m not a huge fan of ‘survive’ missions like this, but if there are orbs involved I won’t be too upset.

Next.

Arguably the most exciting thing about any new update is older heroes gaining weapon refineries. This time around is no exception, in my opinion.

Odin

Odin has been at the bottom of the game’s tier list pretty much since his inclusion at Version 1.0.0. He’s a really bad unit. But now his blade tome has an upgrade which grants him +6 Attack and Speed whenever he uses an assist skill like Reposition. I’m… Not sure that makes him too much better, but at least it has some good synergy with itself.

Cherche

Cherche probably gets the biggest buff of the three. Her axe is now a Brave Axe, meaning it hits twice, and it comes equipped with Panic Smoke. I don’t know if she has great Resistance to make use of this as a whole, but being able to turn all of an opponent’s buffs into debuffs is great no matter the circumstance.

Celica

I’m not completely sure why Celica got a buff here, as it seems like she was already a pretty decent unit in her own right. However, legendary weapons getting legendary refines is kind of the norm, and Ragnarok’s new addition is Brazen Attack/Speed, giving her huge buffs when she dips below a certain range of Health. I don’t own an OG Celica so I can’t say much about how useful it is, but it’s cool to see her get a great addition.

New refines aren’t the only skill-based change in this update. We also got something brand new known as the Combat Manuals system.

I feel like the game puts this into somewhat confusing terms, so essentially what you need to know is that excess units in your barracks can be converted into manuals.

By doing so, that unit no longer takes up space that you could use to summon another unit and their skills can be retained for inherited use on a different unit. It’s kind of just a perfect middle ground between overstuffing your box and sending home all the units with good skills without using them.

I haven’t personally gone through and converted all my units yet, but someday soon I will. As soon as I have more time to do so.

Most of these additional updates don’t mean too much for me either, so I hope you’re fine just seeing the whole laundry list.

I’ve probably kept you all hostage in this post long enough, so I’m just going to wrap things here.

With this veritable marathon of a Fire Emblem Heroes update post finally complete, let me know what you think of everything in the comments!

How do you feel about the new Genealogy heroes?

Do you think the traitor storyline is as stupid as I do?

Are you down with the additions from Version 2.9.0?

God willing this is the last update we see in a while. Because doing this long post while running around doing everything else has been pretty exhausting.

That said, I hope you at least enjoyed it if you made it this far.

Arrival of the Brave 2: Electric Boogaloo

When Fire Emblem Heroes first came out, the biggest draw to the game was the fact that characters from every game in the series would be available in one place.

To prove their commitment to that ideal, Intelligent Systems posed a contest. Everyone who enjoyed Fire Emblem could vote on their favorite heroes from any title, and the top four would become special units once the game dropped.

This Choose Your Legends event culminated in the release of Brave Lyn, Ike, Lucina and Roy.

Then after that, popular but not high-tier units from the Choose Your Legends vote came in the form of farfetched heroes some time later.

Eventually, Intelligent System announced around the game’s one-year anniversary that we would be getting a brand new Choose Your Legends vote, with the heroes who won previously being disqualified.

Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, Neimi has not been chosen to join the game.

Hopefully one day Intelligent Systems will come to their senses.

In the meantime, the winners of that second Choose Your Legends vote have finally come to the forefront. Veronica, Ephraim, Celica and Hector have joined a higher class of units and are available to summon as of today following their skill announcements during a Feh Channel livestream yesterday.

So, let’s take a look at the heroes we demanded, shall we?

Veronica — Brave Princess

Skill Set:

Hliðskjálf (Might = 14 / Range = 2)
- Foe cannot counterattack. After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance -4 on target and foes within two spaces of target through their next actions, and grants Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance +4 to unit and allies within two spaces for one turn.
Recover (Range = 1)
- Restores Health = 50 percent of Attack +10 (minimum of 15 Health).
Windfire Balm (Cooldown = 1)
- When healing an ally with a staff, grants Attack and Speed +6 to all allies for one turn.
Wrathful Staff (B Skill)
- Calculates damage from staffs like other weapons.
Close Guard (C Skill)
- Allies within two spaces gain: “If foe uses sword, lance, axe or dragonstone, grants Defense and Resistance +4 during combat.”

Analysis:

Good luck pronouncing the name of Veronica’s weapon. God knows I’ll never be able to.

Thanks to the power of the people, we finally have access to the Princess of Emblian Empire as an ally rather than a foe. Even if she stipulates that she’s not the Veronica we personally know.

The fact that she’s a cleric cavalier who dresses like her older brother Bruno is more than indicative of that, and she has a super solid base kit to facilitate her abilities. She not only has the classic dazzling/wrathful staff combination popularized by Genny, she also offers a host of buffs.

Healing your ally? Buff their attacking stats.

Attacking an enemy? Buff all nearby ally stats while nerfing all nearby opponents.

Standing nearby Veronica at all? Buff their close-range defenses during combat.

It’s an interesting little niche to fill, and while I don’t imagine she’ll be as game changing as Brave Lyn, Veronica will undoubtedly be the best staff-weilding cavalier added into the game.

Ephraim — Sacred Twin Lord

Skill Set:

Garm (Might = 16 / Range = 1)
- Grants Attack +3. If a bonus granted by a skill like Rally or Hone and/or extra movement is granted by a skill like Armor March or Armored Boots is active, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack.
Draconic Aura (Cooldown = 3)
- Boosts Attack by 30 percent.
Close Defense (A Skill)
- If foe initiates combat and uses sword, lance, axe or dragonstone, grants Defense and Resistance +6 during combat.
Special Fighter (B Skill)
- At start of combat, if unit’s Health ≥ 50 percent, grants Special Attack cooldown charge +1 to unit and inflicts Special Attack cooldown charge -1 on foe per attack (only highest value applied, does not stack).
Armor March (C Skill)
- At start of turn, if unit is adjacent to an armored ally, unit and adjacent armored allies can move one extra space (that turn only, does not stack).

Analysis:

It’s my boi. He’s here. Ready to kick ass and chew bubblegum, but he’s all out of gum.

The OG Ephraim was a lance infantry unit, and his Legendary Hero counterpart was a cavalier. Now we have an axe-wielding armored knight — a nice bit of diversity, even if he never actually uses that kind of set-up in Sacred Stones.

Beyond being a cool reference to the sacred weapon of Grado, Ephraims axe gives him an immediate +19 attack and guarantees a follow-up attack if he’s next to an ally with adjacent-benefiting skills. An interesting contrast to his stand-offish Legendary Hero variant.

Ephraim also takes hits well, only to make his own further attack-boosting Special Attack more active and lessen the effectiveness of his opponent’s Special Attacks in the process.

Honestly the only thing he’s missing to be a truly phenomenal unit is Distant Counter. Without it, he doesn’t completely overshadow the likes of Hector — in any of his three axe armor forms.

Even so, he’ll probably replace my Valentines Hector. Because I love Ephraim.

Who knows, maybe one day I’ll even be able to sacrifice a Hector to make him the best he can be.

Celica — Warrior Priestess

Skill Set:

Royal Sword (Might = 16 / Range = 2)
- Grants Speed +3. If unit is within two spaces of an ally, grants unit Special Attack cooldown charge +1 per unit’s attack (only highest value applied, does not stack).
Galeforce (Cooldown = 5)
- If unit initiates combat, grants unit another action after combat (once per turn).
Death Blow 4 (A Skill)
- If unit initiates combat, grants Attack +8 during combat.
Double Lion (B Skill)
- If unit’s Health = 100 percent at start of combat and unit initiates combat, unit attacks twice, but deals one damage to self after combat (does not stack).
Attack Tactic (C Skill)
- At start of turn, grants Attack +6 to allies within two spaces for one turn. Granted only if number of that ally’s movement type on current team ≤ two.

Analysis:

Celica is the definition of a glass cannon, but she’s somewhat restricted by what clearly seems to be an attempt by Intelligent Systems to not make her too broken to handle.

She essentially follows the design of Elincia, but as an infantry unit. Utilizing the extra special large buff of her power crept Death Blow, she runs into battle and gets to double her attack output with Double Lion — obviously taught to her by Alm back in Valentia. Then she gets to move again using the power of Galeforce, more likely to trigger when an ally is nearby thanks to her blade.

It’s all copacetic when you discount Attack Tactic, which seems to be more of a reference to her leadership role in-game if anything. Likely the only thing players may want to replace.

Unfortunately, the niche she fills is undermined by the fact that Double Lion negates itself by costing one health. We’ve seen the same thing used with characters like Summer Tana, but in this case it’s more severe because she can’t use a skill like Renewal.

So Celica will probably be a phenomenal glass cannon in terms of killing two units right at the beginning of a match. But with longer, multi-stage fights she might fall more behind than her brave allies.

At least it’s super cool that her design is based on the character’s original appearance from FE Gaiden.

Hector — Brave Warrior

Skill Set:

Maltet (Might = 16 / Range = 1)
- Accelerates Special Attack trigger (cooldown count -1). If unit’s Health ≥ 50 percent and foe initiates combat, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack.
Ignis (Cooldown = 4)
- Boosts damage dealt by 80 percent of unit’s Defense.
Ostian Counter (A Skill)
- Unit can counterattack regardless of foe’s range. If foe initiates combat, grants Attack and Defense +4 during combat.
Bold Fighter (B Skill)
- If unit initiates combat, grants Special Attack cooldown charge +1 per unit’s attack, and unit makes guaranteed follow-up attack (does not stack).
Even Resistance Wave (C Skill)
- At start of even-numbered turns, grants Resistance +6 to unit and adjacent allies for one turn (bonus granted to unit even if no allies are adjacent).

Analysis:

Hector Emblem is finally complete.

If you’re interested in using three axe and one lance armor units and risking instant death from my friend Jonathan’s +10 armorslayer Hana.

Much like his last three variants, Brave Hector is clearly meant to top the meta with just ridiculous damage output and skills.

He has a distant counter lance and can use guaranteed follow-up attacks from both his own and his foe’s attacks. From there, he has multiple opportunities to quicken that Special Attack and bust out a brutal 80 percent damage buff.

Again, his C Skill seems somewhat out-of-place unless he’s meant to take down mages as much as physical attackers. But if you want to run him that way, more power to you.

There’s not much else to say about old Hector here. He’s probably going to be obscenely powerful, and easily replace the top-tier lance armor units like Effie. She unfortunately needs to inherit Distant Counter to be a true beast.

Sorry Effie, I love you… But you’ve been outclassed.

Like the Choose Your Legends banner from last year, players once again have the ability to immediately summon one of the four new brave heroes for free.

In the previous batch, Brave Lyn was almost ubiquitously the best option in the bunch. Everyone wanted a free version of her.

In the new brave banner, at least using my own friend group as a barometer, the decision seems more split.

Personally I decided to use my free summon on Ephraim:

Because I love Sacred Stones. Like a lot.

However, I also see the merits of wanting to summon Veronica or Hector… Celica to a lesser extent.

I already managed to summon Performing Arts Elincia and Micaiah from the most recent special banner, so I’m more than eager to throw a lot more of my orbs at the Brave heroes.

Yet, it appears I may not have to. While I started with 140+ orbs, the game didn’t waste any time by giving me this for my free summon post-guaranteed unit:

Yeah, who would have thought?

Perhaps if this keeps up I won’t have to spend too many orb on this banner. In fact, for now I think I’ll try to keep my bingeing above 100 like I was on the Performing Arts banner. Just to see if anything else comes out in the near future.

So, I suppose that just leaves some story to talk about. For as little as there is here.

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Our newest paralogue begins with the conceit, once again, that all of the terrible things happening in the main story are totally separate from what’s happening here.

While it has been a long time since Brave Heroes were summoned into the world of Askr, it seems as though the Order of Heroes is better prepared for their arrival.

Alfonse, in this case, becomes the surrogate for Intelligent Systems from what I can tell.

IS: “Wait, are you serious? They voted for the main villain? Well… Guess we might as well make the Order as confused as we are.”

That’s about all the set-up we get for these encounters. In fact, it’s the only set of lines we get from the Order of Heroes. The rest is character-driven by the new Brave Heroes.

I’ll give the developers credit, they’re good at pairing characters together in such a way that the interactions are compelling to see.

For instance, we start with Celica and Veronica:

They bond over their shared loss of significant relations. Celica being separated from Alm and Veronica being separated from her brother, Bruno.

In fact, Veronica gets a super interesting development overall thanks to this paralogue. But I’ll get into that later.

For now, the characters move on uneventfully when you win the first match. So it’s on to Ephraim and Hector.

Because I don’t know Hector very well, I wouldn’t have drawn the connection initially. But both Lords are thrust into power by outside tragedies despite being mostly self-reliant warriors who love to go it alone.

So naturally they decide to train with each other after bonding for all of three seconds.

Except never mind, you show up first and interrupt the sparring match. Only for you to essentially blow them both away, that way they retreat.

Once all the brave heroes regroup, they give you that stock “time to fight” dialog.

Once the fight ends, Veronica sticks back to talk to your group about her strange presence.

Veronica has a few moments throughout the main story where it’s obvious that she’s lonesome and likes summoning heroes to keep her company.

But through the surrogate of alternate dimension Veronica, now we have a much better clue as to the origin of her neuroses.

She feels abandoned by her brother, who left to try to find a cure for the curse of their bloodline.

Having summoned Veronica, I also have a little more insight into her character. One of her voice line mentions having learned how to ride a horse thanks to her brother and Xander, the Nohrian prince who acts as her chief guardian.

Xander is quite literally a stand-in for her brother. Which is something he likely knows, and may be a strong reason why he stays with her despite the contract being broken between them.

That’s pretty powerful, honestly. Makes me like Veronica that much more.

Good on you Intelligent Systems, I appreciate you making me care more.

With that, we come to the end of another Fire Emblem Heroes adventure.

As always Intelligent System makes these posts some of my favorite to craft, because there’s always something new and unexpected that makes me care for the stupid gotcha game style they’re pushing.

That said, I know nobody but me cares about these posts. So if you managed to make it this far, go ahead and say ‘We the Bravely Default’ in the comments. Because even though I’ve never played the game before, it seems like something that would fit. Plus it would let me know that we are, in fact, the Bravely Default.

While you’re down in those comments there, let me know who’s your favorite new Brave Hero! Also, let me know how you feel about the character development we’re watching unfold with Princess Veronica.

Until next time, stay real y’all.

Sketchy Summer, had me a Blast

Out of all the bizarre banner names we’ve gotten throughout the history of Fire Emblem Heroes, ‘Sketchy Summer’ is probably the funniest to me. Even more than the strange ‘Farfetched Heroes’ banner we got a while back with Lute and Mia.

Mostly because it brings Alyson to mind. Dad and I always like to joke with her that musicians are sketchy individuals whenever she brings us stories from the RUHS band room.

Speaking of, shout out to Intelligent Systems for giving me the opportunity to bring up Aly in a video game-themed post. Because as I’m sure you all know…

She lives it when I do that.

But hey that’s enough personal stuff. We’ve got a brand new set of summer heroes gracing the beaches of… Fire Emblem worlds. All of them? I guess.

Whatever, let’s show them off!

Linde — Summer Rays

Skill Set:

Starfish (Might = 12 / Range = 2)
- If unit’s Health ≤ 75 percent and unit initiates combat, unit can make a follow-up attack before for can counterattack. After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Defense and resistance -7 on target and foes within two spaces of target through their next actions.
Ardent Sacrifice (Range = 1)
- Restores 10 Health to target ally. Unit loses 10 Health but cannot go below one.
Brazen Attack/Resistance (A Skill)
- At start of combat, if unit’s Health ≤ 80 percent, grants Attack and Resistance +7 during combat.
Cancel Affinity (B Skill)
- Neutralizes weapon-triangle advantage granted by unit’s skills. If unit has weapon-triangle disadvantage, reverses weapon-triangle advantage granted by foe’s skills.

Analysis:

Starting off this new banner is probably the most bizarrely constructed unit here. Linde, the rather well-loved character from the original Fire Emblem who wielded the original Aura magic…

Is now a dagger-holding cavalier.

I’m still having some trouble wrapping my head around the idea that Linde of all characters is our first cavalier dagger user, but I suppose I can’t complain about her necessarily. She’s actually really well constructed for her role based on her inherent skills.

Ardent Sacrifice isn’t necessarily the most useful assist skill, but if she has a lower health stat it will help bring her into a range where she can activate both her weapon’s immediate follow-up skill and the attack boost from her A skill. While Cancel Affinity seems a bit randomly thrown in for a colorless unit, the rest makes for a very solid core.

She’d actually be a very useful summon if she weren’t stuck with a much less adequate unit in the colorless pool on this banner. But we’ll get to that.

Tiki — Beachside Scion

Skill Set:

Summer’s Breath (Might = 16 / Range = 1)
- Effective against dragon foes. Grants Defense +3. If foe initiates combat, grants Special Attack cooldown charge +1 per attack during combat (only highest value applied, does not stack). If foe’s Range = two, calculates damage using the lower of foe’s Defense or Resistance.
Moonbow (Cooldown = 2)
- Treats foe’s Defense or Resistance as if reduced by 30 percent during combat.
Attack/Defense Bond (A Skill)
- If unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Attack and Defense +5 during combat.
Hit and Run (B Skill)
- If unit initiates combat, unit moves one space away after combat.
Dragon Valor (C Skill)
- While unit lives, all dragonstone allies on team gain 2x SP (only highest value applied, does not stack).

Analysis:

Summer Young Tiki is an absolutely wild unit. Full stop.

I’m not even sure I have to elaborate too much about why, just look at her weapon. It has four different and useful effects all together inherently. Granted the ranged defensive stat shift only works if you replace her A skill with Distant Counter, much like with Myrrh, but it does balance beautifully with her Moonbow Special Attack.

Hit and Run is also great on a flying unit, as I’ve found through my Cordelia, and the Valor skill has vague utility for training. It’s just not something I’m very keen to keep.

I won’t even wait for the end of this unit analysis to say that Tiki is the best unit here and the one I’m super invested in summoning. Regular young Tiki was my first five-star summon ever and I’m very excited to get this one too.

Soon I will be able to combine her with Myrrh and female Grima to create an Earth-blessed flying dragon loli army.

Prepare yourself, Fire Emblem world.

Takumi — Prince at Play

Skill Set:

Fishie Bow (Might = 12 / Range = 2)
- Effective against flying foes. If unit’s Health ≤ 75 percent and unit initiates combat, unit can make a follow-up attack before foe can counterattack.
Glimmer (Cooldown = 2)
- Boosts damage dealt by 50 percent.
Fury (A Skill)
- Grants Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance +3. After combat, deals six damage to unit.
Odd Resistance Wave (C Skill)
- At start of odd-numbered turns, grants Resistance +6 to unit and adjacent allies for one turn (bonus granted to unit even if no allies are adjacent).

Analysis:

As I alluded to earlier, Takumi seems like the most underwhelming unit on this new summer banner. It’s not by any fault of its own, he actually has a pretty solid base skill set, it’s just so generically ‘good’ that it doesn’t really stand out like the others.

Basically, he hits hard using his Fury/Glimmer combo, strikes twice when beat up like Linde and boosts his team’s resistance every other turn.

It would probably be better if Takumi had some more interplay between his bow’s skill and the other passive skills he carries, and while that can be rectified via skill inheritance, who knows if it’s worth investing that much into him as of yet.

Oh, and did I mention he’s out third Kinshi Knight unit. Apparently every Hoshidan noble is going to get one at this rate, and it’s sort of lost its luster.

Until we get Kinshi healer Sakura of course. I’ll pay plenty of money to bring her into my army.

Camilla — Tropical Beauty

Skill Set:

Juicy Wave (Might = 12 / Range = 2)
- If unit’s Health ≤ 75 percent and unit initiates combat, unit can make a follow-up attack before foe can counterattack.
Draconic Aura (Cooldown = 3)
- Boosts Attack by 30 percent.
Death Blow (A Skill)
- If unit initiates combat, grants Attack +6 during combat.
Flier Formation (B Skill)
- Unit can move to a space adjacent to a flying ally within two spaces.
Hone Fliers (C Skill)
- At start of turn, grants Attack and Speed +6 to adjacent flying allies for one turn.

Analysis:

Alright folks, joke’s over. We finally did it. We got a summer Camilla. I hope you’re all happy.

All things being equal, Camilla makes for a decent Flier Emblem team member between her Hone Fliers and Flier Formation skills. In fact, she feels very similar to Elincia due to her inherent Death Blow as well.

Unfortunately, her ranged weapon is far less useful than Elincia’s is. It has the same effect as Takumi and Linde’s do, except with no extra bonuses attached. Again it’s decent, just somewhat lackluster without the synergy that Linde ruined everyone else with.

Honestly the best part about summer Camilla is the fact that there are now four Camilla in the game. Now we can have a full team of Camilla, all giving each other flying bonuses and all carrying a range of colorful weapons.

I know my friend Mitchell is up for building that, so I’m looking forward to seeing it.

I already said this during the Tiki section of this little look at our new characters, but she undoubtedly stands out as the unit I want to summon most. Linde is a close second, if for no other reason than the bizarre nature of her existence.

Plus she could help me make a cool secondary Horse Emblem team. But that’s a different story.

Two other subjects regarding this banner as a whole primarily come to mind.

First, I think it’s a little disappointing that a new game was once again stuck sharing the spotlight with a game that has already been featured in the summer banners. Just like Sacred Stones had to share the love with Awakening units, the original Fire Emblem units have to share a space with Fates units here.

I don’t care quite as much about this game as I did with Sacred Stones, so I’m not as angry as before. But still, it’s not a great practice IS.

Let games other than the newest titles have some love once in a while.

The second thing is some sort of red unit fatigue I’m feeling. On the one hand, I’m staring at the large array of red units in my army wondering how I’m supposed to use them all when there are so many good ones. Though on the other hand, I’m now desperate to summon both Tana and Tiki on these summer banners before they pass.

Hopefully I’ll get one of the two of them before everything disappears.

Since the new summer banner just started, however, I’m trying my luck on that today. So how have I done so far?

well… That requires a bit of story time. See I started the night with about 80 orbs. My first summon circle was a full set of five units that got me basically nothing.

However, that session put me over unit storage capacity, so I had to exchange a few units into Hero Feathers. With those feathers, I finally hit the threshold where I could finish this merging project:

Ain’t she the best?

Now I have two +10 merged units, and I’m well on my way to getting a couple more.

After that first batch I kept trying and managed to pull a five-star unit on a red stone almost right away at 3.25 percent chance!

However. It wasn’t Tiki.

It was Gray.

Now I’m not necessarily mad about getting him, as he’s one of the few Echoes units I’ve been missing. Though I really wish I could’ve gotten Tiki on that easy 3.25 percent investment.

With Gray resetting me so quick I decided to try to shift my attention toward Tana again. After all she’s gone in two weeks while Tiki is here for a whole month.

Somehow I also managed to get a red five-star unit within my first few summons there that wasn’t Tana.

It was Celica. Evil Celica at that.

Apparently I’m just an Echoes guy today, ladies and germs.

Somewhat baffled by my ability to pull two five-stars that I didn’t want within about 40-50 orbs, I decided to just cool off from there. I went into doing the story missions so I could stock up on some orbs once again before going back into the fray.

That being said, I guess that means it’s story time. But this time about the actual in-game story and not my personal story about dealings prior to the story.

I’m sure you know what I mean, I’ll quit rambling on.

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I think it’s worth taking a moment up top here today to acknowledge that the summer-themed maps have always had my favorite aesthetic to them. In my original summer banner posts from last year I remember complimenting small things like how pretty the water is, and that still hasn’t changed.

It’s pretty high praise considering things like the Halloween and Christmas banners have also had fantastic map artwork accompanying them.

Something extra special about the summer maps in this Paralogue specifically is the fact that even the generic enemies get in on the fun. Some of them are wearing accessories and they all use weapons that previous summer units like Adult Tiki wielded.

It’s a super nice touch and I appreciate it.

With that said I’m sure you’re wondering what kind of amazing story accompanies this kind of great artwork.

Well… It’s about on-par with what we’ve gotten the last three times.

Though this one does start with what is arguably the most relatable line I’ve ever read in a video game.

Me too Anna. Me too.

As it turns out the sound recording of waves crashing at the beach is not selling like the Order expected, so they once again need a brand new way to try to make some money to stay afloat.

I’m getting a very strong ‘famous last words’ vibe from that sentiment.

Ah who am I kidding, all of this is just an excuse to get our heroes in the same room as heroes in swimsuits, right? So let’s see what they’re up to.

Camilla and Linde are hanging out together by the pier, discussing the merits of wearing such skimpy outfits compared to their usual skimpy outfits.

They attempt to set Linde up as a character who constantly bemoans her current choice in an outfit, claiming that it’ll hurt her ability to fight more than it’ll help her.

But like… The joke isn’t all that funny. So I won’t stick on it too long.

Instead let’s look at Takumi and Tiki being best friends because it’s literally god damn adorable.

Just being all best friends, hanging out at the water together. It’s wholesome and great and I love it.

But what I love best is this.

Normally I’d be upset that we’re using this naming convention for someone other than Marth… But I can’t be upset. It’s too sweet.

Before my heart just explodes out of my chest, the game thankfully moves us into the final stage. The dialogue build-up is about what you’d expect.

Except god dammit Tiki and Takumi are still being way too adorable and it just. It hurts okay?

This is the kind of thing that I didn’t know I needed? And now I’ll ever think about is how sweet Takumi is with Tiki because they both deserve nice things and.

I’m going to be a minute here.

…

Okay here I am, sorry about that.

When you win Linde makes another remark about her dress before moving you back to the Order of Heroes’ base. From there the group begins to compare drawings.

Obviously it doesn’t go very well.

But then Anna apparently reveals that you, the player, were also drawing pictures of the swimsuit heroes.

Though if the FBI happens to be reading this, I swear it’s not true. I was not drawing the little girl that’s a dragon in her bathing suit.

No matter how much these two try to convince you I was with compliments about my abilities.

Highly appreciated, but definitely not the time.

Alright well, I suppose that brings an end to my coverage of the Fire Emblem Heroes summer schtick for 2018. Once again it has been a pretty wild ride, and I’m definitely feeling the same sentiment right now as I was a year ago.

Boy it’s late while I’m writing this. Also why don’t I go to the beach more often?

That’s a mystery I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to truly answer.

Now before I go to bed for real this time, I wanted to update you all on one more thing. See, after finishing this post earlier, I’ve decided to rewrite the ending. Because I was laying in bed finishing the Paralogue missions for more orbs and decided to try my hand at the banners once again.

This time I managed to get a real bite.

Helllooooooo Tiki. Welcome aboard the hype train!

I’m seriously glad I managed to get the unit I really wanted out of this banner so soon. Because of that I can go back to focusing exclusively on getting Tiki for a while before coming back to maybe get Linde later.

With that happy news to leave off on, I suppose it’s only right for me to ask. What do you think of this new banner? How has your summoning luck been lately?

I’m sure not great because apparently I’m a God who steals every bit of luck right now… But I’m sure I’ll get my karmic retribution for that eventually.

Legendary Lyn and the Lime-colored Longbow

Everybody here likes alliteration, right?

Time to ring the bell, as once again we have a brand new Legendary Hero to usher in on Fire Emblem Heroes. However like with Grima before her, this legend brings a brand new mechanic to shake up the game.

Lyn — Lady of the Wind
- The very first green-colored bow in the game is Lyn’s Swift Mulagir. It’s effective against both armored and flying units, just like Kinshi Hinoka’s bow, but on top of that it grants her a natural +3 Resistance and +5 Attack/Speed during combat if there are more allies within two spaces than foes. Situational, but a nice boost in said situation. She also comes packed with the ability to Rally Defense and Resistance, the special skill Laws of Sacae that grants +4 to all stats if she’s attacked while surrounded by more allies than foes, Desperation to give her a follow-up attack when battling below 75 percent health and Speed Tactic to grant non-cavalry allies +6 speed at the start of each turn. When going into battle, she grants allies with a Wind blessing +3 Health and +2 Attack.
- Side note: Legendary Lyn also has a dope attack animation where she zips around on-screen like a swordmaster in the Sacred Stones.

Lyn is… Okay. She’s not exactly special in my mind except for the fact that she’s our first green archer, which is the beginning of what will likely become a growing rainbow of physical ranged weapons. Her gimmick is clearly relying on having allies nearby to buff alongside herself, but as I mentioned above it’s a bit situational for my tastes.

I can see her skillset opening up a wonderful win-more condition, where she suddenly becomes infinitely better after eliminating a foe in the nearby area…

I’m just not sure that’s enough to convince me to spend a ton of orbs on her considering I just got done wasting everything on Hinoka (who I just got yesterday, by the way!)

However, like all other Legendary Hero banners, this one comes with a host of other special heroes to summon off an inherant eight percent chance:

Inigo — Indigo Dancer
Henry — Happy Vampire
Robin — Fell Vessel
Jakob — Devoted Monster
Genny — Endearing Ally
Ike — Vanguard Legend
Celica — Imprisoned Soul
Eirika — Anamnesis Lady
Ephraim — Legendary Lord
Micaiah — Priestess of Dawn
Shigure — Dark Sky Singer

Again, the hero spread outside of Lyn on this banner is… Okay at best. For me at least.

The Performing Arts heroes who return here aren’t the ones I necessarily felt a huge affection for, and I already have Inigo so I don’t need more of him. The halloween heroes are in the same boat, as I’ve had two Jakobs for a long time and have never been desperate for Henry.

On top of that, I already have every available Legendary Hero here outside of Lyn herself.

In this case all of the non-special heroes are actually the stand-outs. Genny is a character I’ve wanted for forever since she’s one of my favorite — if not my absolute favorite — Echoes unit. But in all the banners she’s arrived in previously I’ve never been able to summoned her.

Micaiah could also be fun, as could demonic Celica. Both are heroes I missed out on when they first arrived too.

So that begs the question. Have I summoned anyone yet?

Well…

Sometimes that free summon really does come in handy.

Henry may not be a character I care too much about, but I’ll certainly never complain about gathering a new special hero variant for my collection. Even if he is one of the more annoying units I’ve heard in-game…

Perhaps I’ll ship him with Christmas Lissa and take myself back to the good old days of Awakening pairings.

As my general ambivalence might suggest, I’m not planning on spending a lot of orbs on this Legendary banner. Particularly after spending so much on Hinoka.

But considering it’s now the month of May and May showers bring May orbs, I might just throw a few at Lyn or Genny. We’ll see.

The Legendary Grima banner introduced something new to the Legendary Hero formula that Lyn upholds: A special event map.

Check out my Hinoka! ❤

The Binding/Blazing Blade duo are games I haven’t had the chance to play, so I personally don’t have all that much to say about the actual map itself.

From osmosis, I believe I’ve picked up enough to know that this map is from the prologue mission where Lyn was first introduced… Which is actually the first thing everyone in America was exposed to out of the Fire Emblem lexicon. Not counting Smash Bros. of course.

But don’t hurt me if that isn’t true because it’s a little too early in the morning for me to bother confirming.

All I know is I love getting all the extra orbs.

All of them.

Just a short and sweet one for y’all today. I might have some more soon if the next Grand Conquest is significantly different than the first one, but otherwise Heroes should hopefully be quiet for a while.

I have to focus on finishing the last two weeks of this semester, after all.

In the meantime, what do you think about Legendary Lyn? Are there other heroes you’d like to see introduced with colored bows?

~~God knows I still need Neimi in my life.~~

Let me know in the comments down below!

Darkness is on the rise in Fire Emblem Heroes

Never before has my disinterest in a previous summoning banner turned out to be such a prescient blessing.

Today we have been given a brand new set of focus heroes in Fire Emblem Heroes and a new chapter in Book II’s story to go along with them. However, rather than showcasing some characters from one game, we’ve gotten a very special grouping.

That’s right, this special summoning focus is based on heroes who have dark, demented forms for one reason or another. It’s a brilliant idea for a collection to put forward… Though I do sort of wish they were saved for some kind of special holiday or event in which it would make a little more sense for them to appear.

But I can’t exactly call that a serious complaint by any means. After all I really DO love who we got here.

Robin – Fell Incarnate
- Just to kick things off I have a question. Why didn’t they just call this character Grima? I get that he’s supposed to be a corrupted Robin basically, but it would’ve made so much more sense to just change his nametag to ‘Grima.’ But I digress, as that petty consideration shines a light nowhere near as intense as the character himself. He has interesting skills and is our first armored dragon unit — with a broken ass weapon at that. Seriously it’s mad powerful and looks insane too. On top of being a good looking unit that’ll fit on my dragon team, I just generally love the twist in Awakening. Robin here will be my main hunt as a result!
Celica – Imprisoned Soul
- Despite a few logical flaws, Celica is a great character in Fire Emblem Echoes. She’s so great in fact that the community voted for her in its second ‘Choose Your Legends’ event. That means a third Celica will be coming in the near future, which in hind sight is not a great thing. After all, Beloved Zofia went to this version, so what is the new Celica going to use? Seraphim magic perhaps? Not completely sure. Though what I am completely sure about is that I will be going after Celica too. Not only is she great-looking skill wise, but she’s just an overall amazing character like I said. Who wouldn’t love her, even with her soul stolen so she becomes a witch?
Hardin – Dark Emperor
- I’ll be honest, I have the least amount of connections to Hardin given that I didn’t even know who he was before this, so if there’s anyone on this list I’m not going to try summoning… It’s him. Robin and Celica are way more important, plus I already have a powerful Effie as my blue lance armored unit. Though I will say, I like how he fits into this theme as an ally of Marth who lets absolute power corrupt absolutely once he becomes Emperor of Archanea. That’s the kind of example of character information I’m glad I learned more about so I can feel better when I do encounter the guy.

I just… I’m not sure what else I have to say on this matter.

Seriously, I love these heroes. Besides perhaps Hardin’s picks, I have a strong desire to summon all of them.

Plus, Intelligent Systems surprised me by actually reading my mind. When I first saw the trailer show up for this banner online, I was very concerned seeing that Takumi corrupted at the end of Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest version did not show up. He’s basically a meme in his own right, and I figured it was a missed opportunity.

Then I found out Takumi corrupted is specifically going to show up later in a Grand Hero Battle. Like… That’s amazing! I suppose it was just an obvious choice, but knowing my thought process was validated is an incredibly satisfying feeling.

He’s not going to show up until later though. So for now, let’s look back at the heroes we have.

I’ll level with you, audience — when I started on this banner tonight, I had a mountain of orbs. 200.

Yeah, 200. You read that right.

That’s the blessing of my general disinterest in the Valentine’s Day banner that I mentioned before. Between all of the special anniversary events and the current Tempest Trial run I’ve been able to really bolster my reserves for an event just like this where I really, REALLY want the heroes.

Luckily I didn’t have to make too huge of a dent to get there:

It’s my boi Grima, yo! So excited to see him!

He’s going to make an amazing addition to the manakete team I’ve been building up since summoning Myrhh in the latest Sacred Stones banner.

It helps that he has a deep, kinda sexy voice too. You go evil Robin.

I spent about 35 orbs to get to him, and even though I’m showing some restraint for now I’ll definitely still go after Celica soon enough.

Also, it’s worth noting that somehow I got another five-star on the way to Grima:

Yeah… Not totally sure where Lucina came from, but I suppose I can’t complain. I’ve never gotten her before, so I finally have a new cinematic summoning animation to enjoy.

Even if Masked Lucina is still the better bae. Just saying.

Now earlier I mentioned that I wished these heroes got a bit more of a situational treatment elevating them specifically. That was referring primarily to the new story missions we got alongside our three new evil children.

See, as much as I appreciate the fact that we’re moving the game’s main plot along, the fact that we’re doing so leaves the new heroes as more of a footnote.

It’s a bit of a double-edged sword, honestly.

But… I do really like the development in this chapter, so I’ll let it slide. For now.

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The new chapter picks up where the last one left off (obviously enough). The Order of Heroes have moved into Fjorm’s home nation having protected the village just outside the boundary, and now have to make their way to Gunnthrá who is hiding away.

However, their progress is quickly impeded by the arrival of Surtr’s army.

After defeating Laevatein, she retreats and the Order starts to make their way through the snow once more.

However, they’re troubled by the thought that thick tracks left in the heavy snow is going to lead the fiery army toward them wherever they go.

So Anna comes up with the brilliant idea of leaving one pathway in the snow as a diversion while masking their actual direction.

It seems to be working well enough with Laevatein… But not for our newly introduced villain: Her older sister.

I suppose this is as good a place as any to address my thoughts on Laegjarn…

I love her.

Seriously, she very quickly jumped up to being my favorite member of the opposing army. Not only is she intelligent, she’s cool and collected in a way that makes her seem like a methodical and more dastardly villain with undertones. Plus she totally sits around and gets out of jams with her little sister and it’s dope!

At one point, Fjorm even says she’s an amicable woman that’s willing to use diplomacy and build happiness among the oppressed.

My only real point of contention with her right now, as I think about it in my witching hour daze, is her overall relationship with her younger sister.

That relationship has me awfully conflicted. On the one hand, it’s freaking adorable. Laevatein clearly loves and adores her older sister, wanting to be just like her. Laegjarn appreciates the love and wants her younger sister to be happy.

It’s great because it reminds me of my relationship with my own younger sister in a way! That makes them awfully endearing characters to think that they care for each other in place of their awful father.

However… Even if I love the relationship, something about the way Laevatein has been portrayed now that her sister is around bugs me.

On the one hand it’s sweet seeing her have an endearing bond with her older sister. But on the other hand, as soon as the sister showed up Laevatein’s dialogue suddenly began to sound… Infantilized.

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I get wanting to be respectful of your older sibling, but it seems like the girl has been neutered or something, and that seems like a shame considering she was previously my favorite.

Though maybe I’m over thinking it. If anything that same concern might just be a sign of her complex double facing nature. Who knows, only time will tell.

Anyway though I got WAY off track. But to be fair, once you beat the first mission not a lot happens until you arrive at the last mission when you’re backed into a wall.

After your group beats them, Laegjarn realizes they might be outclassed in terms of skill and orders a retreat.

While the Order goes off and does… Whatever they do… The focus stays on our fiery sisters.

As Laegjarn reflects on the fact that they’ll need new strategies if they want to win, Laevatein suggests a plan that receives quite a bit of flak.

I don’t know what this special skill is, but it sounds dope and I want to see it.

Unless it kills her. In which case, don’t put it in the game Intelligent Systems. I’d rather not have to deal with any painful self-sacrifices.

Luckily, in place of the hellfire skill a different idea is suggested:

Then things cut off. That’s all you get. Thanks for the money folks, come back another day.

A bit of an abrupt stop this time around, but I suppose I can’t complain. You’ve now seen how much of an emotional journey I felt watching these new characters interact, after all.

Though once again I really would have liked to see what a story focused around Grima and zombie Celica would look like. Talk about a missed opportunity.

That’s about that for my Fire Emblem Heroes blog post for the day. Obviously, I liked these new updates to the roster!

The new heroes are cool, the new villain is cool… I just really appreciate everything this time around. Plus I’ve been able to keep a lot of my orbs in storage, so I feel great about that going forward.

I could end this by asking about everything I talked about, but let’s keep things more simple this time around.

How do you feel about the relationship between Laevatein and Laegjarn? Am I overreacting to Laevatein’s silent obedience around her sister?

Let me know in the comments below!

Tempest Trials, take two

I warned you all that this would be coming today.

The Tempest Trials have returned in Fire Emblem Heroes, and this time they’re based in the land of Valentia, home of Fire Emblem Gaiden and its remake Fire Emblem Echoes.

Unlike the last Tempest Trials, this one comes with a little less pomp and circumstance. While the Ylisse-themed trials had an extra paralogue series aimed at explaining how the entire calamitous event began, this one simply comes with a small conversation introducing it to a new world:

It wasn’t much, but I did find it interesting to note that Masked Lucina continues to be the bridge for Tempest Trials appearances. Given her initial appearances and overall role in Awakening, when she served as a warning for the coming apocalypse by the Fell Dragon Grima and aimed to stop its rise, it makes a lot of sense.

It’s also pretty cool from a lore perspective, I would say. Gives the chance for these events to tie together and be more engaging as they go along and hit more worlds.

Beyond this lessened storyline impact, much of the inner workings of this event are the same as the last one. As a result, I’d recommend going back to look through my post on the first Tempest Trials for the major overarching details. The rest of this post is going to focus mostly on what has been added or changed this time around.

First and foremost, the major difference between this version of the Tempest Trials and the last version is the locale. Instead of the battles taking place on maps from Fire Emblem Awakening, they take place on the maps from Fire Emblem Echoes.

In the most difficult Lunatic-level run, the first three battles take place on maps from Alm’s in-game route (featured in the “World of Shadows” Paralogue) and the second three battles take place on maps from Celica’s in-game route (featured in the “Rite of Shadows” main story chapter).

The final battle takes place in the ritual sacrifice room underneath Duma Tower where you have your final bout with Berkut in Echoes. I won’t spoil anything here, but the fight has some emotional repercussions in the games story, so having that map as a background is pretty awesome.

This game never ceases to amaze me with how it can recreate maps in such a small format with pretty impressive accuracy.

One of the coolest things about this map is that it continues the tradition in Fire Emblem Heroes of using the origin map’s music to accompany the fight. While Alm’s maps use the battle music from Chapters 1 and 3 from Echoes and Celica’s maps use the battle music from Chapters 2 and 3 from Echoes, the final fight in the ritual sacrifice room uses the music from Chapter 5 where the in-game battle takes place.

It’s both fitting and brings up good memories from that part of the game. All and all a nice touch.

Plus, Celica is the big contender to deal with rather than Veronica, which is phenomenal considering how hard it was to get past her.

The next change regards differences in the missions that have been added to correspond with the event:

Now, instead of there being a larger reward for completing runs in the trials over the course of the two weeks, the reward missions for completing runs are going to recycle every day and come with smaller prerequisites. Completing the run once, twice or three times rather than 15 times in a more long-term format.

The rewards for these daily missions will also be doubled once the event is halfway done, starting on July 14th. At the very least, this makes aiming for the stamina bottle way more worthwhile, as each of them provides enough energy to accommodate about 5 runs at the Trials on their own.

To accompany this new mission system also comes changes to the format of battles and the multi-team selection mechanic as you progress through battles.

The update log specifies two proprietary changes in this field:

First, the scores you can receive in normal and hard difficulty runs have been increased. This is good for people who are new to the game at least, as it makes it easier to rack up points when you don’t have that many good units to cycle through. However, I only attempt the hardest difficulty so I can earn as many points as possible even with losses, so it doesn’t affect me that much.

Second, the more significant and honestly much needed change, comes into play as battles progress.

Inevitably, your units will begin to burn out the further into the challenge you get. Health and death are not restored when you move from one battle to the next, so even the strongest of teams can get worn down. This fact hasn’t changed, but what happens when you move from one team to the next has.

During the last Tempest Trials, when you began with a second team, the opponents on whatever battle you’re fighting were restored to full capacity with just a small health deficit.

Now the opponent’s team receives the same treatment yours does. Whoever you kill before your team loses stays dead and all the damage you cause carries on.

Finishing the final battle against Veronica in the last Trials was frankly a nightmare. Even if you got close to winning and lost, all of your work would be undone when you started with the next team. It meant you had to be nearly perfect to make it to the end and follow-through for a victory.

My teams were less than perfect, so I had to work up to the higher-tiered rewards by racking up as many points from loses as I could.

The fact that you can wear down your opponent’s team is frankly a godsend. I’ve already won more times in one day than I did in the entirety of the other event’s two week runtime.

It makes everything feel faster and more engaging to play, which fixes my major complaint of getting burned out on Tempest Trials runs far too quickly the last time it came around.

The last major change to discuss are the rewards to shoot for.

In Fire Emblem Heroes, sacred seals allow heroes to have an extra skill to utilize for building battle strategies. However, you can’t have more than one of each kind of seal, so it would be useless to provide the same rewards a second time around.

Thus, there are two new sacred seals and a brand new hero to aim for:

The lower-level seal at 20,000 points is a +1 Resistance buff. The higher-level seal, pictured above at 40,000 points, is Phantom Speed 1. This seal automatically adds 5 points to your unit’s speed stat whenever a skill activates that compares your unit’s speed to another unit’s speed.

The character reward this time around is Tobin, one of Ram Village’s children and childhood friend of Alm. Arguably one of my favorite villagers too… Though I’m not sure I fully understand his designation as “The Clueless One.” If anything, I remember him being more of a confidant and advisor to Alm.

That’s beside the point, however.

Compared to the last character reward, Masked Lucina, Tobin looks to be a little underwhelming. Lucina was a completely blank slate that allowed for complete customization of skills through inheritance, which was an interesting prospect. Tobin, however, comes prepackaged with an Armorslayer+ and the skills Pivot, Attack +3 and Seal Speed 3.

While I give the game some points considering I made my Tobin a mercenary during my playthrough of Echoes, meaning I appreciate the idea of him holding a sword (even if it isn’t my personal token Levin Sword that slaughtered fools), these skills don’t seem fantastic or make him standout particularly well.

Hopefully I’m proven wrong by a good stat distribution, but I suppose I’ll find that out once I unlock him. He has attachment value at least, so I’ll be happy to get him for that if nothing else.

Besides the two additional summoning focuses corresponding with the Tempest Trials and with the Alm & Celica special battle, that just about sums everything up in regards to the new event.

I’m building up my orb surplus after splurging to get Eldigan after all, so I probably won’t be spending any on those. Even if the second chance at getting Genny, my favorite Echoes unit, is appealing.

How do you feel about this second Tempest Trials? Do you appreciate the changes to the format as much as I do? Or would you have liked to see more done?

Personally, I’m pretty happy with the changes. Between getting through a number of updates in Duel Links coming down the pipeline, I’ll gladly be working my way up to that 5 star Tobin.