This evening I found out that I got a 94 percent on both assignments, which landed me at a 102.22 percent in the class overall.
It looks like the professor added extra points to one assignment, and I don’t feel the need to address him in case that turns out to be an accident and we knock my grade down.
Gaming in American Culture was the last holdout for grades, so now I have the full scale of how my last semester shook out:
Thus, my academic journey is over… Until I inevitably come back for a teaching degree or something.
Plus I’ll have to go back to campus for Alumni Association swag.
And I need to pick up my physical Honors Project once it’s printed.
But that’s all in the uncertain future. For now I can kick back and relax, even for a few days as I side-eye pieces of writing for Gladeo and looming job applications.
Actual gaming has been a huge part of my decompressing formula, because you’d be insane to think that my joke was an indication of actually quitting this sweet addiction.
In that regard, Gaming in American Culture gave me one last gift: An excuse to play through my favorite Fire Emblem game once more.
I didn’t stop playing Sacred Stones when I finished that paper. I’ve been carrying my 3DS around again to get through it.
As luck would have it, I happened to finish my current Eirika’s route run the same night as I found out my class grades. Hence the Featured Image and this picture of my favorite couple’s flavor text:
Though I may have jumped the gun in pairing them together again so quickly.
I’m not going to say I regret the decision, because they’re my precious babies and I’ve always been the kind of person to fall in love with a pairing and ship them every time.
But Sacred Stones apparently has a mechanic where you can view previous support conversations from the main menu — something I believed only came in later entries.
Once I realized that, I decided I should go for new character pairings and appease the Completionist side of my brain since I’ve been stuck at the same level for years.
Even in this one run I found at least one new ship I adore in Lute and Kyle!
Definitely a great thing, but also deeply troubling.
After all, now I know there are new pairings that I may love… which is more incentive to try new support paths.
And I just so happened to save a separate file for Ephraim’s route.
So between work and Minecraft with my friends, I might just be diving into this Fire Emblem rabbit hole again immediately.
Let’s just hope I don’t burn myself out before Three Houses.
But I can’t say much more about Dragalia Lost. I’ve never played the game, and know nothing about it other than my friend Sam gave a high recommendation.
All I can say is that I’m looking forward to getting upset when Dragalia Lost characters get a summoning focus in FEH before we see another Sacred Stones-themed banner.
Not that I have the orbs anymore
Until then, we can celebrate the first alternate for our friendly neighborhood Alm!
Effective against flying foes. Grants Speed +3. If unit initiates combat, deals damage = 25 percent of foe’s Defense (ignores reduction from special skills).
Lunar Flash (Cooldown = 2)
Treats foe’s Defense and Resistance as if reduced by 20 percent during combat. Boosts damage by 20 percent of unit’s Speed.
Darting Blow 4 (A Skill)
If unit initiates combat, grants Speed +9 during combat.
Null Follow-Up (B Skill)
Disables foe’s skills that guarantee foe’s follow-up attack and foe’s skills that prevent unit’s follow-up attack.
Odd Attack Wave (C Skill)
At start of odd-numbered turns, grants Attack +6 to unit and adjacent allies for one turn (bonus granted even if no allies are adjacent).
There’s only one way to describe Legendary Alm:
Powerful.
He gets +12 speed when initiating combat, and the opponent cannot prevent a follow-up.
Then all that extra speed is added into his two-turn (!!!) Special Attack, which reduces the foe’s Defense without affecting his weapon’s Defense-based damage boost.
It’s crazy how copacetic that build is — especially when you can add a Sacred Seal to boost his Speed further. Odd Attack Wave is probably the weak link because it’s situational, but +6 Attack is nothing to sneeze at.
And let’s not forget, he gets the brand new pair up mechanic. Meaning an ally can back the boy up.
If that doesn’t convince you that Alm is a powerful motherfucker, just look at his art.
I have none of the colorless units on this banner and want Alm and Eirika badly.
I also don’t own Legendary Roy, Nailah, Christmas Fae or Sue. I don’t care about them quite as much, but wouldn’t be opposed to summoning any.
There’s not much more to say beyond that. He’s got a map:
But I’m terrible at judging whether these things are difficult or not, so I won’t even try.
All I know is that Legendary Battle Maps mean more orbs. And boy am I going to need a lot of orbs by the end of this week.
… Did I say by the end of this week?
I may have underestimated. Because some part of me snapped once this banner came around, and I spent an embarrassing number of orbs trying to summon Alm and/or Eirika.
All I’ll say is that it was between 199 and 201 or so.
No big deal. My impulse control is fine! As is my missing orb horde.
What is a big deal is that being a big spender has only gotten me this return:
Two new characters isn’t bad or anything, but it just figures the only colorless unit I get is the one I didn’t want (as much).
With all of these golden week rewards coming through, I’ll probably be pumping way more resources into Alm’s banner than I care to admit. So hopefully things work out soon, otherwise I’ll have another Legendary Ryoma situation on my hands.
In the meantime, let me know how many orbs you’ve spend on this banner! I’d like to feel justified by sharing in my pain.
Maybe then my hands will stop shaking from the dirty deeds I have done.
Boy it sure does feel like I was covering the start of Book III just yesterday, doesn’t it? Glad to see Intelligent Systems isn’t slowing down with these new units.
Luckily today we just have a smaller holiday-themed banner, which makes it a quick distraction from my finals. Which, by the way, is why I’m not getting this out earlier. Had my Sensation and Perception exam at 12 p.m.
It was kind of a mess, but that’s a story for another day.
I’d much rather talk about this banner right now, as it involves my favorite Fire Emblem game! Especially since the units fill some interesting niches.
During combat, boosts unit’s Defense and Resistance by the number of allies within two spaces x 2 (max bonus of +6). If foe’s range = 2, calculates damage using the lower of the foe’s Defense or Resistance.
Luna (Cooldown = 3)
Treats foe’s Defense and Resistance as if reduced by 50 percent during combat.
Defense/Resistance Bond (A Skill)
If unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Defense and Resistance +5 during combat.
Vengeful Fighter (B Skill)
If unit’s Health ≥ 50 percent and foe initiates combat, grants Special Attack cooldown charge +1 per unit’s attack, and unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack (does not stack).
Armor March (C Skill)
At the start of the turn, if unit is adjacent to an armored ally, unit and adjacent armored allies can move one extra space (this turn only, does not stack).
Accelerates Special Attack trigger (cooldown count -1). If unit is not adjacent to an ally, grants Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance +4 during combat.
Dragon Fang (Cooldown = 4)
Boosts damage by 50 percent of unit’s Attack.
Attack/Defense Solo (A Skill)
If unit is not adjacent to an ally, grants Attack and Defense +6 during combat.
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 (does not stack).
Close Guard (C Skill)
Allies within two spaces gain: “If foe uses sword, lance, axe or dragonstone, grants Defense and Resistance +4 during combat.”
At start of turn, grants Defense and Resistance +5 to ally with the highest Attack for one turn (excluding this unit).
Restore (Range = 1)
Restores Health = 50 percent of Attack (min of 8 Health). Neutralizes ally’s penalties and negative status effects that last through ally’s next action.
Heavenly Light (Cooldown = 2)
When healing an ally with a staff, restores 10 Health to all allies.
Dazzling Staff (B Skill)
Foe cannot counterattack.
Attack Opening (C Skill)
At the start of the turn, grants Attack +6 to ally with the highest Attack for one turn (excluding this unit).
If I haven’t made it obvious before, I don’t celebrate Christmas. So it’s not exactly a time where I get super hyped up on holiday spirit. Thus, events in games that I play are usually my major connections to said spirit.
Everyone loves themselves some holiday variants, after all. Last year’s Christmas banner introduced a bunch of skills that changed the game by making armor units truly powerful.
This year… Not so much. But as a forever fan of the Sacred Stones I do love seeing Eirika and Ephraim. Hopefully between their appearance this Christmas, Tana and Ephraim showing up over the summer and Myrrh on Halloween we’re gearing up for new characters soon!
In terms of what the new variants bring to the table, Ephraim retains his solo warrior schtick, though it takes on an interesting light when applied to an armor unit.
Eirika stands out as being our first healing armored unit, and she’s an especially interesting support because of how she buffs your most powerful teammate.
Fae… Isn’t quite as important to me. I haven’t played the game she’s from and we already have male Grima as a green armored dragon.
So obviously two units were on my radar here, and as far as my luck has taken me so far:
I already got my boi! Plus an extra copy of Morgan, who has some nice skills to give away.
I also summoned a duplicate five-star Nanna, which is neat even if she stole Eirika’s thunder.
What makes this holiday banner particularly interesting is that it not last for a month, but we also have access to last year’s banner for the same amount of time!
But wait, that’s not all! Intelligent Systems has tripled the Christmas cheer by also starting the Tempest Trial right away:
Between Ephraim and my Lissa from last year, I’ve got this in the bag.
All the more orbs for me to use alongside these Paralogue rewards.
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For the most part, this Paralogue offers a standard story with a few moments of humor that stand out decently well.
As usual the Order of Heroes has decided to take part in a yearly festival so they can bolster their supplies. But this time they have true opponents:
Fjorm and her sister Ylgr confirm that the Nifl units have not disappeared into the aether thanks to the start of Book III. I just hope they’ll make an appearance in the main story as well!
The Order first encounters a particularly bossy Fae.
Then they find Ephraim and Cecilia having an interesting conversation remarking on one another’s renown in legends. It’s similar to his conversations with Hector from the Brave banner, except this time he asks if she would be willing to instruct him in the art of magic.
To which she replies:
And totally tears him down. It’s actually kind of hilarious watching Ephraim fall apart when he’s suddenly told that there’s no hope for him learning a new fighting style.
Of course that’s all set dressing, as the Order shows up and hands them a big, steaming L.
When they retread and join the others, your squad easily beats them once more to receive all the big holiday prizes. Though I can’t imagine all of these contest holders are happy with the Order coming in and winning every single one…
But hey, turns out Nifl was fighting against you in the contest. So Ylgr gives you a bit of guilt:
Which leads to Sharena giving them all of the gifts. It’s frankly the least they can do for a nation that was completely ravaged not that long ago.
Once the Nifl princesses leave, there’s an extended portion of the epilogue where Anna finds out that Sharena still believes in this realm’s version of Santa Claus because Alfonse never told her he wasn’t real.
For a subject that might have just been a fun little aside, this gag goes on for way too long in-game.
So I’m not going to offer it near as much screen time. Play the game if you want to see more!
And with that, more virtual holidays have come and gone. This season’s bounty is truly worth the orb splurge in my opinion… Though in just a week or two we’ll be getting the New Year’s banner as well.
So hey, summon with your own discretion.
Let me know what you think of these new holiday units, and who you want to see get a seasonal alt next in the comments below!
With the addition of our newest Legendary Hero Hríd, the sole Prince of Nifl, we finally have every Book II character released as a playable unit in Fire Emblem Heroes.
Just in time for Book III to start in December. It’s almost like Intelligent Systems planned this stuff out!
Grants Attack +3. If a penalty inflicted by a skill like Panic or Threaten, and/or a negative status effect (preventing counterattacks or restricting movement) is active on foe, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack and foe cannot.
Moonbow (Cooldown = 2)
Treats foe’s Defense or Resistance as if reduced by 30 percent during combat.
Distant Counter (A Skill)
Unit can counterattack regardless of foe’s range.
Freezing Seal (B Skill)
At the start of a turn, if unit’s Health ≥ 50 percent, inflicts Attack/Speed -6 on foe with the lowest Resistance through its next action.
Attack Smoke (C Skill)
Inflicts Attack -7 on foes within two spaces of target through their next actions after combat.
From a purely conceptual standpoint, I actually really like the idea behind Hríd’s base skill kit. His B skill weakens the strongest enemy on the opposing team so that he can race in on his horse and slay them with the guaranteed follow-up of his sword.
On top of that he has defensive capabilities thanks to Distant Counter, which balances things out.
Overall it’s a really solid set of capabilities, and if nothing else it’s great to have a new unit with Distant Counter given how rare the ability is.
To be completely honest my only real problem with Hríd is the fact that… Well…
Come on Intelligent Systems, at least separate out the weapon/move type combinations a little better. Maybe make Hríd a sword armor unit or something, that way we can have a power crept Black Knight as a Legendary Hero.
I don’t know , the quick repetition bugs me. But even so I don’t mind the character himself.
On top of that, his entourage in the special Legendary Hero banner isn’t so bad:
Red and green hold the most interest for me this time around. Hríd, Legendary Ryoma, Summer Innes and Kana are all not in my current arsenal, and thus all worth summoning.
In the other two colors the only character I’m missing is Brave Hector.
I do want Brave Hector, but I’m not sure he’s worth potentially getting another Legendary Lucina or Summer Cordelia.
Also can we hold an intervention for Intelligent Systems to not include female Grima in any more of these banners? I’m pretty sure she’s been in every single one.
There better be some cool story thing that comes out of that eventually.
While I started with about 200 orbs once again, it took me 50 or so to get something of particular interest to me:
All the animosity I stored toward the Legendary Lobster since his first appearance when he took all my orbs and never showed up has finally been relieved.
I don’t know that I’ll ever be the same still… But he’s +Attack, -Resistance. Which I think is his best build.
So hey I guess I can’t really complain.
I’ve also gotten a second Laevatein at this point, but she’s not very good compared to the one I had already.
I don’t know whether I’ll spend a lot more orbs on this banner unless I get a bunch in the near future. At this point there aren’t enough units left to justify it.
But at least there are Legendary Battle Maps to score some extra orbs, right?
Nailed the transition.
While most of the Legendary Battle Maps have been cool examples of a stage from the character’s original game, I particularly appreciate what they did for Hríd.
His map appears to be the Rite of Frost chamber from Heroes’ main story, seen back when Kinshi Hinoka first came out, but frozen over more than ever. It’s a nice touch for people who have been sticking with this game for a long time.
As far as the difficulty goes? I mean it’s the same old reinforcement map bs as always. Not very fun in my opinion.
What is more fun to discuss is the Forging Bonds that coincides with Hríd’s addition featuring the four Nifl siblings:
I haven’t gotten very far into any of the support conversation threads, but what I have seen has been so different than usual that it’s pretty engaging.
The overall theme of the event is a prequel of sorts. The story starts off prior to Surtr’s invasion right around the time when Gunnthrá apparently has a premonition that he will be coming soon.
Group sections seem to focus on the siblings preparing together (a somber twist considering how the story goes) while the individual conversations each have the siblings meeting you in their dreams.
Again I don’t know where they wind up going just yet, but I’m very excited to see!
I’m going to level with you guys, I thought I was going to end this off early tonight and go to bed.
Then I got distracted with some videos online and somehow it turned into 2:00 a.m.
So I’m not going to put a lot of fanfare into this conclusion. Just let me know what you think of Hríd, what you want to see in the future, all that fun stuff.
That said, I’ll see you in the next FEH post where I’ll hopefully be more awake.
Looks like Intelligent Systems decided to give us a treat this Halloween with a brand new Legendary Hero from my favorite game in the entire Fire Emblem franchise.
While the Brave Redux banner with Loki, Kliff and Owain has been around for a few days now, I haven’t gotten anything particularly special out of it. In fact the only five-star hero it gave me was a Gray — and while I can appreciate the thematic consistency, he’s no Kliff.
After summoning him, something deep down inside me said, “Jason. Save your orbs. It feels like we might be gearing up for a Sacred Stones banner sometime soon.”
So I did start to save my orbs.
We didn’t get a full Sacred Stones banner, but the game’s chief heroine has now arrived in a brand new light to justify my frugality.
But was she worth saving myself for? Well, only one way to find out.
Even though obviously the answer is yes.
Editor’s Note: On the last banner I tried to use shrunken photos to improve my media space consumption, but they were a little too small and came out blurry.
So I’m trying a medium size this time and hopefully it will look better. Again, sorry for the growing pains!
Grants Attack +3. If the numbers of foes within two spaces (excluding target) ≥ the number of allies within two spaces (excluding unit), grants Defense and Resistance +3 and Special Attack cooldown charge +1 per unit’s attack during combat (only highest value applied, does not stack).
Moonbow (Cooldown = 2)
Treats foe’s Defense and Resistance as if reduced by 30 percent during combat.
Attack/Speed Solo (A Skill)
If unit is not adjacent to an ally, grants Attack and Speed +6 during combat.
Lunar Brace (B Skill)
Slows Special Attack trigger (cooldown count +1). Deals damage = 50 percent of foe’s Defense when Special Attack triggers.
Odd Defense Wave (C Skill)
At start of odd-numbered turns, grants Defense +6 to unit and adjacent allies for one turn (bonus granted to unit even if no allies are adjacent).
Legendary Eirika has an interesting synergy with her brother’s Legendary Hero variant. A synergy in that, while both are cavalry units (as per their ultimate forms in Sacred Stones), both also thrive when staying way the hell away from each other.
That Solo skill and her weapon’s effect makes her a unit whose primary purpose is to charge into battle on her own, slaying enemies with an accelerated Moonbow trigger that has extra boosted damage on account of the Lunar Brace.
Send her in on turns where she gets a defensive boost thanks to her C skill and Eirika reads like a force to be reckoned with on paper. Personally I even kind of prefer her Brace’s focus on improving damage output over Legendary Ephraim’s Solar Brace improving his vampirism.
Arguably the only real problem harming Eirika’s viability is the fact that sword-wielding cavalier is a field that’s very saturated all things being equal. Eldigan, Sigurd, variant Reinhardt, Brave Roy, Exalt Chrom…
And those are just the ones I own.
Personally I think Legendary Eirika would have been more impactful if they utilized the mage cavalier variant here instead of in her Anamnesis alt from the start of this year. Or honestly anything that could have helped her stand out a bit better.
Though that said, I fricken love Eirika and will sink all my orbs into summoning her no matter what. Hell her OG form is still my token unit and I’ve invested a lot into her, so Legendary girl will fit right in.
I’ll probably regret this decision when Neimi drops in the Sacred Stones exclusive banner next week… But that’s a bridge I’ll cross when I get there.
Also available on Legendary Eirika’s banner are:
Tana — Noble and Nimble
Olivia — Sky-High Dancer
Ephraim — Legendary Lord
Ninian — Bright-Eyed Bride
Sumia — Maid of Flowers
Lyn — Lady of the Wind
Sanaki — Apostle in White
Robin — Fell Reincarnation
Robin — Fell Vessel
Innes — Regal Strategician
Genny — Endearing Ally
My preferences for the supplemental summoning units this time around are rather simple.
In red, Olivia. In blue, Ninian. In green, Sanaki. In colorless, Genny.
Those are the four units I have not summoned before, with all the rest having joined my army already. In that respect the banner overall is a bit disappointing, as red is my major focus — with Tana being a sticking point. As much as I love her.
However, if nothing else I do appreciate the themeing. Having both Tana and Ephraim on Eirika’s banner was a smart choice, and both Grima variants being summonable is cool… Even if female Grima is very overplayed.
Now there is one more problem with this banner thus far…
The fact that I’ve blown through the 60 orbs I had already and pretty much summoned nothing.
Hell probably the only ‘useful’ unit I’ve gotten for myself is an extra Soleil, bringing me up to my 8th merge for her.
Should I do a post on my +10 merge project units at some point? I feel like that could be fun.
But that is also a discussion for another day. Because right now I need some extra orbs for my fix… And I think Eirika might have just what I need.
I usually don’t have too much to say about these Legendary Battle maps, and this time is no exception. The reinforcements arriving thing is never a fun mechanic, but otherwise this one seems better than some of the others we’ve seen before.
Plus, Lyn and Grima’s Legendary Battle maps return as well and I haven’t beaten the Infernal difficulty on either. So yay, orbs.
Please game just give me some orbs for Halloween.
So I know this probably isn’t the Halloween post you all would have expected out of me. But don’t fret, as I may just have Halloween things to talk about later today?
Who knows.
I certainly don’t because it’s 12:30 a.m. when I’m writing this. I just think it could be fun to do a ‘costumes I see around campus’ kind of post at the end of the day, as I’ll actually have a Halloween to enjoy this year sans Milo Yiannopoulos.
Which, by the way, it’s crazy that it has been a year since that whole debacle. That’s just also a story for another non-FEH post.
Thus I’ll leave you all with this: Why is Sacred Stones the best Fire Emblem game?
Kidding, you can disagree with that if you want. Just go ahead and think about the usual ‘who do you want to summon?’ and ‘who do you want to see next?’ kind of questions and get back to me if you want.
But honestly you should all just go enjoy Halloween. Do it for all the reporters covering nasty things who can’t this year. Because I certainly will.
P.S. — After I finished writing this and set it to publish, I got her with 15 orbs to spare.
Boy am I going to sleep happy tonight! And build a great Sacred Stones-themed team in the near future to boot~
Nothing like the smell of a fresh Fire Emblem Heroes banner in the morning.
This Brave Redux banner, essentially a rehash of the Farfetched Units idea from last year, immediately holds a very special place in my heart. Because it is quite literally the definition of a ‘cuck my friend Jonathan’ banner.
For years he has been asking Intelligent Systems to add Kliff into the game. Plus, he and my friend Mitchell always joke about Loki being great for her…
Two large personalities. If you catch my drift.
So between those two being together and Owain, one of the best units from Awakening, joining in… Well let’s just say we had a great time laughing about how many orbs we were going to waste on this one when the trailer dropped.
But of course the trailer is only half the story. Are these three new Brave units worth summoning?
Loki — The Trickster
Skill Set:
Thökk (Might = 14, Range = 2)
Calculates damage from staff like other weapons. At start of the turn, if foe’s Health ≤ unit’s Health +3 and foe is in cardinal directions and uses a bow, dagger, magic or staff, foe cannot move more than one space through its action.
Restore (Range = 1)
Restores Health = 50 percent of Attack (minimum 8 Health). Neutralizes ally’s penalties and negative status effects that last through ally’s next action.
Earthwater Balm (Cooldown = 1)
When healing an ally with a staff, grants Defense and Resistance +6 to all allies for one turn.
C Duel Infantry (A Skill)
Grants Health +5. If unit is five-star rarity and level 40 and unit’s stats total is less than 170, treats unit’s stats as 170 in modes like Arena (Higher-scoring opponents will appear. Stat total calculation excludes any values added by merges and skills).
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).
Analysis:
While it’s fun seeing Intelligent Systems add another original-to-Heroes character into our summoning pool, I’d be lying if I said Loki was anything but the least valuable unit on this banner for me personally.
Her special weapon and signature ‘Restore’ Movement Assist are great selling points in conjunction with Odd Attack Wave, as they encourage Loki to stay near her allies to cure their status ailments and boost their power.
However, beyond that she also has that A skill I don’t really understand and… Well… The other two units on this banner are special.
So let me jump into them.
Kliff — Curious Spirit
Skill Set:
Sagittae (Might = 14, Range = 2)
Grants Defense +3. At start of combat, if foe’s Attack ≥ unit’s Attack +5, grants Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance +5 during combat.
Growing Light (Cooldown = 4)
Before combat this unit initiates, foes in a wide area around target take damage equal to (unit’s Attack minus foe’s Defense or Resistance).
Fortress Def/Res (A Skill)
Grants Defense and Resistance +6. Inflicts Attack -2.
Chill Speed (B Skill)
At start of turn, inflicts Speed -7 on foe on the enemy team with the highest Speed through its next action.
Fortify Resistance (C Skill)
At start of turn, grants Resistance +4 to adjacent allies for one turn.
Analysis:
It’s been 83 years, but we finally have a brand new Fire Emblem Echoes unit in Heroes. Not on its own banner with, say, Silque… But pickers can’t be choosers.
We can finally finish a full collection of the Ram villagers, and that’s worth Kliff being here.
Even if I’m personally uncomfortable not seeing him as an archer when that was his amazing niche in my playthrough of the game.
At least in Heroes Kliff’s unique weapon gives him a different interesting niche to fill. When coming into battle with a lower attack stat, he gets buffed in all of his stats. Throw on a different Special Attack and one of the extra Fortress Sacred Seals and he might honestly be a force to be reckoned with. Plus his design is sweet and that always helps.
But also replace that C skill. As you’ll see with Owain coming up next, only Loki got a good deal in the C department.
Owain — Chosen One
Skill Set:
Missiletainn (Might = 16, Range = 1)
Accelerates Special Attack trigger (cooldown -1). Grants Special Attack cooldown charge +1 per foe’s attack during combat (only highest value applied, does not stack, charge granted even if foe’s attack deals 0 damage).
Blue Flame (Cooldown = 3)
Boosts damage by 10. If unit is adjacent to an ally, boosts damage by 25 instead.
Attack/Defense Bond (A Skill)
If unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Attack and Defense +5 during combat.
Wrath (B Skill)
At start of turn, if unit’s Health ≤ 75 percent and unit’s attack triggers Special Attack, grants Special Attack cooldown count -1. Deals +10 damage when Special triggers.
Spur Speed/Defense (C Skill)
Grants Speed and Defense +3 to adjacent allies during combat.
Analysis:
Even if Kliff is a rare Echoes unit that I’m intrigued in summoning, Owain probably takes the cake as the most interesting build on this banner for me.
Except for the fact that he’s yet another strong sword infantry unit. There are so many of them.
But Owain stands out in that his preferred play style seems to be working alongside other characters. He gains an Attack and Defense boost thanks to that bond, as well as a stronger Special Attack trigger (up to 35 damage thanks to Wrath). I love the idea of playing him closely linked to a supported ally, perhaps with a different C skill. One of the Attack waves perhaps?
Also. Just. He’s Owain.
He’s a goofball and his aching blood shuttering hand over face pose is god damn iconic. He’s pretty much the sole reason I love the very similar Gladeon in Pokémon Sun and Moon.
By all intents and purposes he’s also far better than Odin. So bring me my Owain, Intelligent Systems.
Normally this is the segment where I would post something about my summoning luck.
I would if my luck on this banner thus-far wasn’t nonexistent.
So far I’ve gotten an extra Eirika to merge, then a five-star Gray showed up to ruin a 3.75 percent summoning streak.
I’m a bit peeved at that, almost entirely because Gray is not the Ram villager we’re looking for.
I also wasted a good 60 orbs getting there, so I’m hovering at about 20 or so right now. Probably not going to spend any more for a while, but we’ll see.
Certainly the paralogue story orbs should be encouraging, right?
Perfect segue as always.
Editor’s Note:I’m trying my new smaller photo upload system on this post, so if the images are hard to see just consider this an experiment that I’ll rectify next time Heroes releases a banner.
Like… Next week at this rate.
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Alright I’ll level with you. This is probably the most underwhelming Paralogue we’ve had in a while. Especially considering we just finished doing Halloween business.
It starts with the Order once again remarking that Brave Heroes have arrived.
Along with Alfonse, again, making a comment about how strange it is that the people of our world for some reason decided to ask for one of the game’s major villains as a Brave Hero.
Which also is somewhat confusing in that Veronica was a totally novel unit in her Brave banner but Loki isn’t?
Then again the Farfetched Units were not unique either. They were just characters from their games.
So I’m really not sure what the formula is here, Intelligent Systems.
All I know is that Loki’s first arrival is alongside future Grand Hero Battle fodder Aversa from Awakening. And they’re basically the exact same character:
Except that Aversa is like Loki blended together with Tharja, and Loki herself has no soul according to Aversa. She says the healer gives off the same aura as Grima which…
Yeah is pretty damning.
Yet, as much as I do like seeing these two play off of each other, they pale in comparison when you throw Owain and Kliff in the same room. I’m just going to show you the main chunk of their exchange, it’s that good.
Is it weird if I ship these two about an hour after they were introduced into the same universe?
Because I’m definitely up for doing that.
However once the Order of Heroes arrives at the final battle, it’s just kind of standard fair. They all riff on the ideas presented previously, you fight and afterwards they all say they’d be happy to join your team.
Even if apparently they aren’t because all I got was a lousy, stinkin’ Gray.
C’mon Gray, why’d you have to play me like that.
If this post overall sounds a little low-energy, I’d blame the fact that I decided to finish writing it at 2:00 a.m. instead of just waiting for the normal morning hours like I had intended to.
What can I say, the muse came to me.
Speaking of that muse, I know this post goes a good 300 words or so over the self-imposed limit that I mentioned talking to my friend Spencer about… But honestly I feel like these Fire Emblem posts are sort of the exception to that rule.
First, because I’m the only one who reads them.
But also because easily a good 400 or so words are spend just copying the skill descriptions? And those are a necessary evil, less so me giving my thoughts and opinions.
So… Loophole. Yeah.
But anyway, I’m really tired and want to wrap this up. Let me know what you think of the new Brave Heroes in the comments, or somewhere else on the internet!
Personally still hoping that Sacred Stones units are next on the docket… Though less so now that I’ve spent too many orbs just to get Gray.
Screw you, Gray. Never even liked using you in Echoes.
There ain’t no weekend like a Fire Emblem Heroes update weekend!
This Thursday afternoon, Heroes received its 2.6.0 update, which was followed up with a brand new summoning focus based around Blazing Blade characters that night.
While I usually try to condense this stuff into a day after post, the band-related stuff I took part in yesterday kept me busy enough that I really wasn’t able to commit the time I wanted to this. So I figure I’ll split the version update and the new summoning banner into different posts today and tomorrow to fill my writing quota.
That said, if you’re seeing this well in the future when everything is already available, you can check out the post on the summoning focus here.
But for now, let’s jump into what’s new with version 2.6.0!
Home Page Changes
Alright so the most obvious and somewhat jarring change that came with this update is visible as soon as players open the game:
That’s right, the hub area now has red ribbon labels over each function.
…
That’s pretty much literally all there is to say about that. Apparently the point was to make them more obvious but I wouldn’t say they were necessarily hard to discern in the first place.
Ah well, we’ll get used to the new look eventually and it probably won’t even matter.
Next!
Accessories
Coming straight out of the world of Fire Emblem Fates, Heroes is adding a bit more customization by implementing an accessories system.
Again, there isn’t all that much to say about this feature. It’s rather self-explanatory.
Outfit pieces can be unlocked in various ways, and players can attach those pieces to their heroes to give them a bit more personality when facing off against opponents in the Arena.
Or just for the sake of making them look cool. That’s also an excellent reason to do it, let’s be honest.
A few accessories were given out when the game updated as the reward for a retweet event a couple of weeks back, so everyone who plays has started off with something to put on already.
Naturally I dressed up Eirika first, since she’s arguably my most used unit and the protagonist from my favorite Fire Emblem game.
Or at least the protagonist that I own in a game with two main protagonists.
Doesn’t she look frickin’ cute in that hairpin? I think so.
At the moment there are only five accessories to utilize, so not too many characters can take advantage of them. Most of those five are also locked behind missions to complete:
Luckily they’re easy to complete. And we have 40 days to do so.
If nothing else I’m thankful that the Mysterious Mask Lucina wears when she cosplays as Marth is one of the first costume pieces available. I’ll be spending quite a bit of time trying to decide who’s the best person to wear that thing.
I hope they frequently add in more accessories, because one day I’d like to make my characters as baller as I made Beruka back in my Fates days.
Classic.
Ally Menu Adjustments
While the addition of more stand-out labels to the home page were the most immediately striking change visually, this one is arguably going to screw with players the most in my opinion.
Or, at least, it’s going to screw with me for a long time. That much I can guarantee.
Long-time players of Fire Emblem Heroes are likely to flip to the game’s misc. setting tab when they want to look at the Hero Merit their units have accumulated or to see the progress made on their Hero Catalog.
Like me, they probably had to do a double take when discovering those options are no longer under that tab.
That’s because the Ally tab has been completely reinvented to offer just about anything and everything related to working with units in one place.
Contrary to what many of you may be thinking, the plus signs aren’t actually something players can interact with.
They do, in fact, indicate that there’s an extra menu under those options to expand out. However the actual icons don’t open up or have smaller icons pop up underneath. They just open up a separate page with a number of options to select in each.
For Ally Growth:
For Change Equipment:
For Interact with Allies:
See, that’s where the Catalog and Hero Merit List are hiding now.
In the same change category, the game has also highlighted two other quality of life additions to the Ally menus.
First is the ability to automatically spend as much SP as a character has accumulated on their skill upgrades all at once, rather than having to do them one-at-a-time like a savage.
Considering how many people inherit skills that wouldn’t want their SP spent on certain skills they aren’t looking to use, I can’t imagine this option will be widely used by competitive players.
But for people who are more casually picking up the game once in a while it’s probably a nice idea.
I sort of fall into the prior category though so… We’ll see.
Second is the addition of more favoring options in different colors, that way players can more aptly organize their heroes however they want.
I can see this one being much more useful for me… As soon as I figure out exactly what I need this many divisions for.
Perhaps I’ll try to separate out heroes that are good for skill inheriting, or better indicating who has better IVs.
I’ll experiment and get back to you on that.
New Weapon Refinements
Four heroes have been given new life with new weapon refinements.
To be completely honest, the Tiki improvements are the only ones I really care about, and even there it’s just for young Tiki.
Linde’s refinement to Aura allows her to gain +5 Attack and Speed if she’s within two spaces of a magic unit or cleric. That is a great power boost, but Dark Aura is also a powerful upgrade that she’s had for some time now.
To be fair Merric’s refinement to Excalibur has the exact same effect. But he’s a unit that desperately needs a boost like that from what I understand, even though he also has access to Dark Excalibur. That one just happens to be less useful than Dark Aura.
Tiki’s stands out more to me, mostly, because she was one of the first units I ever summoned and has been a staple on my teams ever since.
Her personal base weapon is absolutely garbage, however. So terrible that everyone replaces it with Lightning Breath almost instinctual.
However, now she has access to Breath of Fog rather than just Flametongue. And Breath of Fog is way better!
Not only is it effective against all dragon units, the Breath restores 10 Health every other turn and ensures her damage goes by the foe’s lowest defensive stat if from a distance. Plus it does 16 base damage and that’s great for a dragon attack!
The only problem with this is the fact that you need to inherit Distant Counter to utilize the Breath fully, whereas Lightning Breath has a two space range built-in.
I don’t know, I suppose I’ll see if it’s worth getting rid of distance in place of power by messing with it. But just know I certainly feel like it could be worth it.
Smaller Changes
Many of the changes made through this update are relatively small things, so I figured I’d lump them all together here.
I’ll be honest, neither of these changes in particular mean much of anything to me.
They’re cool I guess, but they’re such minutia that I can’t be bothered to provide any sort of well thought out, philosophical commentary at like… 2 a.m.
In fact I’m just going to take the easy way out and show off the ‘other changes’ listing before wrapping this sucker up.
If it wasn’t obvious, I basically wrote this post in two sittings. One during the day, in the middle of sitting around at the RUHS band banquet. The other was during the early, early hours of today where I was a bit too tired to really focus on anything.
Yet I decided to finish this anyway just for the sake of having it out at a proper time. Even though I easily could have waited and gotten this out later in the day.
My brain is stupid like that sometimes. I just love torturing myself.
That said, hopefully you got a good grasp of what this update entailed for the game going forward! If so, let me know what you think is the best part of the update.
In the meantime, I’m going to go pass out. Stay tuned for tomorrow (as of this posts publishing) for part two of this session regarding the new summoning banner!
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.
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:
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?
About a week ago, we got a new calendar showcasing the many events that were coming down the pipeline in Fire Emblem Heroes for the first few months of the year.
By many events, I do mean many events.
Wow. Talk about a busy lineup, right?
Through the sizable web of things happening I, alongside many other fans of the Fire Emblem series, noticed something interesting. The chief antagonist of my favorite Fire Emblem game, the Sacred Stones, was coming up as a Grand Hero Battle. Then, when he cleared off, Valder would be returning.
Two Sacred Stones units in a row? Well that’s odd. Could it possibly be a coincidence given that a new summoning focus was set to begin just before they arrived?
As it turns out, it was not a coincidence. This new banner is indeed Sacred Stones-themed like everyone was hoping.
Let me tell you, I was excited about the sheer possibility of a banner from this game as soon as the calendar was hot on the presses. Every time something with Sacred Stones comes up, my heart starts firing at all cylinders.
Was my excitement met with an ample return from Intelligent Systems?
Am I ready as ever to immerse myself in the world of the Sacred Stones?
Would I be asking this many rhetorical questions if I didn’t have a subverting comment waiting in the wings?
Read on to find out.
To make a long cliffhanger short, I am indeed pretty excited about these units! Like I said already, it’s hard for me not to be excited when this game comes out of the woodwork.
However, there is one blemish on this otherwise beautiful sight that leaves me somewhat embittered about the whole thing.
But I’ll get to that. For now, let’s start examining what our new summon-able friends bring to the table.
Peaking a little early here, Intelligent Systems? On top of being an obvious fan favorite character, Myrrh also has arguably the most interesting and powerful build in this new bunch. She’s a rarity, being not only our second green dragon unit in the game, but also a green dragon unit with a flying movement-type distinction. You can probably build some crazy interesting half-dragon/half-flying team combinations with her on your side. It helps that she looks as powerful as she does unique, boasting a skill to Hone other manakete units, the attack-heavy Fury and Bonfire special attack and a special breath weapon that makes her hit a weaker defensive stat against ranged units. A pretty sweet spread all-and-all.
Yet another fan favorite character who seems to be bringing her wonderful holier-than-thou divine justice, but a strange name pronunciation. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever thought to say “Lara shell,” but to be fair the game developers also had a different pronunciation for Innes so I guess that trait runs strong in Sacred Stones. L’Arachel also has a bit of a strange skill spread compared to the undoubtedly powerful Myrrh. Rather than being a staff-wielding troubadour, as most likely remember her, she’s much more akin to her valkyrie advancement in that she uses the sacred light weapon Ivaldi (now a blue tome). Though it doesn’t have great base power, she gains bonuses in attack and speed when fighting a full health unit. An interesting add-on admittedly. However, from there she carries the sub-par special attack Glowing Light and bulk-centric Renewal (which may or may not be important depending on her stat spread), as well as the brand new Resistance Tactic that grants a big boost to infantry and armored units. There’s possibly some synergy here, we’ll have to see.
Anamnesis: Noun. The recollection or remembrance of the past. I’ll admit, this is a very clever title for Eirika given her overwhelming insistence on remembering all the good times between her, Ephraim and Lyon. If I had to guess before jumping into the story missions, this theme will play into them appearing together and I appreciate that. Unfortunately, it also brings me to remember the fact that we already got Eirika as a unit. A long, long time ago. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool when we get new versions of old units through Brave Heroes and holiday-themed events, and I’ve been an advocate for Eirika on horseback like her final form in the original game for some time… But when a second version of a unit shows up like this in a main summoning focus, it just feels like a slot was taken that could have been filled by another. Especially since her skill spread seems like the most underwhelming of the three heroes here despite her boasting five skills. Plus, what’s with her having the dark tome Gleipnir? She can never learn how to use magic in the Sacred Stones, it just seems… Nonsensical. Unless there’s a story reason that I haven’t gotten to yet, but I guess we’ll see.
I don’t really know what it is about Eirika that bugs me so much. Her appearance here is what makes me feel rather bitter about this whole banner despite the fact that it’s based on my favorite game in the series and has two wonderful units in it. Seriously, Myrrh and L’Arachel are great and I’m going to be trying to get both, but why did we get a weird reprint of Eirika now?
It really feels like it would have made more sense to release a horseback Eirika as a Brave hero down the line, for me at least.
…
Plus that would have saved room for someone like Neimi.
I mean seriously Intelligent Systems, how much more do I have to beg? I appreciate Myrrh and L’Arachel, and I know both Lyon and Marisa are coming soon too from other events… But I just want my favorite character in the game already.
I’ll keep voting in the new Choose Your Legends event until I get her.
If nothing else, I suppose it’s a positive that she’s not in the game because I don’t feel as bad voting for her? But not really, because I would have voted for her anyway.
I will seriously throw my Brave Lyn away in a heartbeat if we got a horseback archer Neimi at some point.
That’s about enough empty, ridiculous bitching about a gotcha game for one day, though. Thanks to the Radiant Dawn banner screwing me over and scaring me away at the same time as a Tempest Trial, I’m starting off this Sacred Stones banner with 94 orbs, so I’m feeling lucky about nabbing that Myrrh.
…
Wait, what was that? I wrote this whole section before the update even happened you say?
Well… You’re not wrong.
Luckily, now present day Jason can report some good news on the tail end of this somewhat negative build-up:
I GOT DAT MYRRH BABY, YEAH!!! WOO!!
Also she’s apparently sassy as FUCKhere. It’s absolutely incredible, and I’m very happy and lucky considering this happened so easily.
It only took 30 orbs to nab her too! So I still have about 60 orbs – without having done all of the new missions and all – to spend either on future special banners or to come back and try my hands at L’Arachel.
It’s a bit of a tough choice since I love Sacred Stones, but also I love having special holiday variant heroes.
Just don’t read too much into that in comparison to my vague disdain toward a new version of Eirika appearing.
On that note, the question remains regarding whether or not my predictions about a reminiscent Eirika/Lyon interactions were valid, which strikes me as a perfect segue into story.
While I am a bit surprised to see two main story chapters show up in such a short period of time, I can’t say I’m opposed to it. Especially considering this chapter goes into a really deep amount of interesting character development.
Before they head off, however, we get to see a much deeper look into Alfonse’s daddy issues.
It actually gets a bit heavy, even if things aren’t very thoroughly explained in my opinion.
Alfonse talks about how his father is leading an army to protect the land of Askr, yet he doesn’t agree with Alfonse being a part of the Order of Heroes… Which for all intents and purposes is essentially an army protecting the land of Askr.
Sure, the Order led by a greedy general, and I guess they’re fairly ‘hands on’ as he says, but otherwise I don’t necessarily see the distinction off-hand.
Plus, the game leaves off other potentially relevant details, like why Alfonse seems to be ostracized but Sharena, his sister, isn’t. Maybe that’s just her hiding it away because she’s got a happy-go-lucky kind of defense mechanism, but if that’s true we don’t get too much of an indication to that effect either.
Am I thinking too much into this? Maybe. But I’ve got no qualms talking about my love of the lore in this game. Seeing character development is always great, and Alfonse gets some powerful stuff here.
Of course right after that ends they’re interrupted by Sharena bringing him colored hay he asked for… Which I didn’t exactly know was a thing?
Remember this, later it’s going to blow your mind.
Once you get through the first hefty story dump with a strange conclusion, the next couple of missions go relatively quietly.
Most of the summoning focus characters do get brief introductions, but that’s about all.
For some reason, Myrrh doesn’t get any sort of introduction. Why do you guys have to short my gal, Intelligent Systems? It’s not like she’s the Great Dragon of legend or anything.
Also I guess that does bring up another point I’d like to address. It feels like the Sacred Stones heroes got a bit shafted here.
In the context of the universe, the only reason game-specific heroes are still appearing is because Princess Veronica has teamed up with Surtr and is providing contracted mercenaries, essentially. From that angle, I understand why they don’t necessarily have a huge amount of time given in the main storyline compared to more independent, specifically focused Paralogues… But still.
The music playing under everything is from the Sacred Stones, but the maps aren’t. Which is unfortunate because seeing the miniature representations of original game maps is still one of my favorite things about playing Fire Emblem Heroes.
It’s a shame, though I can let it slide considering main story progression is put on the forefront here.
That progression has the Order of Heroes eventually making it to the gateway into Fjorm’s homeland, which is sealed by a massive magical MacGuffin.
Arriving at that gateway has the story kick up to 11 once again. After all, it takes time for Fjorm to open up the gate, and you know what holding a position for a long time entails:
Surtr arrives to ambush the Order, which does lead to one of my favorite aesthetic effects in the history of Fire Emblem Heroes thus far.
Chapter 4-4: The Young Dragon
Chapter 4-5: Fiery Resolve
What a cool duality between invading and defending. I love that sort of thing, revisiting an old area with a new coat of paint. It’s just rad game design!
But you know what else is rad?
How cool of a villain Surtr is.
I won’t even qualify it that much, just look at how savage and unequivocally insane the guy is.
It’s just amazing seeing such a gruesome person in a mobile game spin-off of a somewhat kid friendly Nintendo franchise. I’ve come to really love a lot of the characters from the Fire nation, and this kind of unchecked intensity is one of the reasons why.
Though I do think it’s hilarious that you get a long, intense monologue from Surtr, only for him to send his two lackies in first and arrive after turn 3.
Especially since he’s invincible. So he’s just giving you the opportunity to end the fight before he can help.
Good guy Surtr?
Okay definitely not. But when you beat this mission, the story goes wildly off the rails once again.
After Fjorm opens the gateway to allow your heroes to escape, they have to come to terms with making the decision to run and fight another day even if that means Surtr destroys a nearby village.
Alfonse leads the charge to run away, which feels uncharacteristic after a whole mission set surrounding his citizen-first mentality.
Once they escape, however, the story cuts back to focus more on Surtr’s forces.
Then, in the surprise of the century, Xander reveals that he’s still relevant to the main plot.
Yeah, remember when Xander was important as the General of Veronica’s army? Well apparently he hasn’t disappeared.
Honestly it’s getting to a point where I wouldn’t argue with people shipping Veronica and Xander together. Clearly he’s sticking with her for the long run, after all.
Plus there are people who are into older men like that. I don’t judge.
Anyway… That aside, Veronica and Surtr start arguing over whether he should destroy the town, since Veronica is keen on having them be part of the Emblian empire once Askr is destroyed.
Before they can fight, Loki stops the group by letting them know the town is empty.
Colored hay ex machina? Or nice use of chekhov’s gun? I’ll let you decide.
After Surtr metaphorically cools his jets and agrees to keep Veronica around longer, he splits his forces up, setting things in motion for the next big mission.
What a long, frankly fascinating journey just this one mission series is. The character development is interesting, the writing is clever and everything moves at a good pace.
Even if the Sacred Stones heroes feel a little left behind, I can’t argue with what we got.
Oh, and no Lyon yet in case you hadn’t noticed. I know he’s coming tomorrow, but it does seem like a waste not to have him appear with Eirika here in this set somewhere.
Especially since they alluded to it all over the place!
As I’m sure you can tell, this banner has been a bit divisive for me.
On the one hand, it’s Sacred Stones-themed, so I’m predisposed to like it. Especially since Myrrh and L’Arachel are in it. Plus, the story they have going that includes these heroes is easily the best we’ve seen out of this game yet in my opinion.
I even got Myrrh with very minimal sacrifices. That’s awesome!
But at the same time, Eirika reappearing still bugs me wildly. Especially considering they really don’t do anything with her! I’m more than willing to admit that there’s probably just some personal bias here.
I love Eirika and the fact that they included a horseback version of her, but it was so wildly disappointing seeing her taking up a slot in this summoning focus, and that just really hit me hard. I’m willing to bet it’s in part because I’ve had a rough first week of school this semester and am taking even slight blemishes in overall great developments as over-embellished issues.
That said, as much as I want to complain about it, everything outside of Eirika here really lines up perfectly and would probably be my favorite update in some time otherwise.
So I’m going to stop looking at the negatives and take everything for what it really is: Some damn well done story and gameplay.
With a little bit of luck in summoning to boot.
I guess with all that said, all I really have to add is… Here’s looking forward to Lyon being good, hopefully.
How do you feel about this new summoning focus, or the story it accompanies?
If you could have any other hero from Sacred Stones beside Eirika a second time, who would you want to see?
Let me know in the comments below, and until next time. I’m off to get some rest so I can cover an Academic Senate meeting in the morning.
As I’m sure anyone watching my blog has noticed that I’ve been rather busy the past few days. Driving around for internship/Boom-related events, starting daily production for the Daily Titan with some late nights, working on stories like DACA and our interview with President García, plus more in that I haven’t gone into half of the actual schoolwork and personal things I’ve had to deal with beyond work.
As much as it’s better to be busy than bored, I’ve been a little stretched thin. Unfortunately that means some things have to fall through the cracks, and some big Fire Emblem Heroes stuff happens to be what fell through said cracks this time around. It’s a shame too, there have been multiple things that I otherwise would have loved to talk about in a more timely manner.
But look at me complaining about missing fun stuff because work and responsibilities got in the way. Probably time to move on to what I’m talking about today before the world’s smallest violin busts out a tune.
Since I gabbed about the game’s Brave Heroes update last time around, quite a few things have happened. First and foremost:
That’s right, I got me a special Lucy.
Humblebrag that may be, but Lucina is one of my favorite characters given her high prestige as my Super Smash Bros. 4 main fighter. So I’m excited about it and wanted to share it with the world.
The last Voting Gauntlet also wound up being much more of an intense game than I’ve seen in some time. As I predicted at the beginning of the competition, Ike won.
The guy is so popular that it was hard to imagine he wouldn’t, and I got off with plenty of hero feathers thanks to my lucky intelligent deduction, so you’ll hear no complains from me. Camilla did put up a good fight though, and the intense competition both in the overall Gauntlet and within my friend group (as we literally split down the middle with our support) made things way more engaging.
Also we got 4 orbs every two days for each of the three rounds. That’s a nice incentive as well. Feel free to keep nice stuff like that flowing, Intelligent Systems.
Then as things moved into September, we got an event calendar for the month that preempted a bunch of cool things coming in the near future:
A few of these events have started already, and those are the crux of what I’m here to talk about today. So let’s get going and split it up appropriately, shall we?
Version 1.7.0
Ironically this version update is the biggest news to come out of Fire Emblem Heroes in a long time… Yet I don’t have a ton to say about it.
Fire Emblem has become known not only for its high difficulty strategy-RPG gameplay, but also for its comprehensive unit support systems across many of the games in the series. In Fire Emblem Heroes, only one of those things has been represented since the initial release.
Until now, that is.
Ally support systems are in the game, and with it comes endless possibilities for ships in serious and in meme-worthy contexts. As someone who has loved shipping in Fire Emblem games since my first venture into Sacred Stones, I’m more than excited to see that we can pair up characters to our hearts content.
Just like in the main series titles, allies who fight near one another in battle gain support rankings that range from C to S when undergoing support training. However, an interesting component to Heroes’ model comes from the fact that you can constantly switch who your hero supports. You could have an S-support with a unit only to break that off and start another one back at C, and you can do so as many times as you want.
While I haven’t had the chance to build much support beyond basic C-level stuff, it seems as though the characters interact in a cute little cutscene to show how much they enjoy each other’s company for every rank you climb. You can view the little vignettes that come with this whenever you want.
In battle, supporting allies gain bonuses depending on their rank and distance from one another:
C-rank grants units +1 resistance from one space away, double that when adjacent.
B-rank grants units +1 resistance and defense from one space away, double that when adjacent.
A-rank grants units +1 resistance, defense and speed from one space away, double that when adjacent.
S-rank grants units +1 resistance, defense, speed and attack from one space away, double that when adjacent.
However, on the battlefield itself, it doesn’t appear as though supporting units get special indication beyond a heart over the support partner when you select one or the other. Perhaps there’s more if you get higher that I haven’t seen, but in this case there’s no way for me to know.
I do hope they add in a small heart animation when units fight side by side though. That would be amazing.
The other interesting thing to note about ally support is that you, the summoner, can get in on the anime-themed shipping action as well!
That’s right, what would a modern Fire Emblem game be without a self-insert character to pair with any unit you desire? The concept behind how this works is exactly the same so long as you replace each instance of “two units” with “one unit,” as you technically count as the second presence in the room.
The scaling benefits are also slightly better for summoner supported allies:
A C-rank grants the summoner-supporting unit +2 resistance and +3 health at all times.
A B-rank grants the summoner-supporting unit +2 resistance, defense and +4 health at all times.
An A-rank grants the summoner-supporting unit +2 resistance, defense, speed and +4 health at all times.
An S-rank grants the summoner-supporting unit +2 resistance, defense, speed, attack and +5 health at all times.
Okay by slightly better I actually mean infinitely better. These are some amazing stat buffs to be able to bestow upon one ally.
Which, of course, brings us to the question that serves as this post’s title.
Are you the kind of player that will pair your units together because you canonically love them as a pairing in the story of their games/the story of your imagination’s choosing?
Or are you the kind of player that will pair your units strictly to build the strongest team imaginable, letting no stat points go to waste?
Personally… I haven’t decided which category I am. In all other circumstances I would wholeheartedly go for option 1, as I ship literally anything and everything in any video game I play, TV show I watch, book I read and more. But for Fire Emblem Heroes the pure stat buffs are awfully tempting… Especially on my cavalier team.
I would kill for some high-leveled units to get even stronger.
But for the summoner support especially I’m at a loss. Who do I want to be with? Do I pair myself with a powerful unit like a Brave Lyn to make her a battling monster? Do I pair with a sentimental unit like Eirika from my favorite Fire Emblem game (despite her actual husband being available)? Or do I pair myself with a unit like Nino, my first true Fire Emblem Heroes waifu? I literally have no idea.
Oh well. I’ll have time to figure it out.
Overall, I would say the Ally Support system is a welcome addition to this mobile title that, despite being somewhat barebones right now, easily serves its purpose and has opened the flood gates for people to do whatever they please in terms of customizable relationships.
In a sense it’s somewhat ingenious to have the feature in a mobile game styled like Heroes is where each player can build their own experiences with unit pairing. Sure it’s only porting an already existing idea over, but I still think it lends itself uproariously well.
And if I ever summon her I’ll be able to finally get revenge on the restrictive Echoes by shipping Genny and Tobin.
While shipping is easily the biggest addition to Version 1.7.0, it isn’t the only one.
Though there isn’t a lot, so the pictures above basically sum everything up.
A search option for skill inheritance is a great idea, one that I’m sure already has, is continuing to and will from here on out save people tons of time when building teams. The rest of the stuff boils down to some aesthetic and deep mechanical adjustments that I don’t feel like I have to dive into that deeply.
If anything, I just think it’s safe to say that I appreciate the game developers for constantly updating things to make the best user experience possible. So far nothing they’ve done has failed me yet and it seems like the community as a whole enjoys the changes too.
Keep it up Intelligent Systems, and I’ll keep up giving you some free publicity whenever you start up new developments. New interesting developments.
New interesting developments such as –
Tempest Trials Mini: To Die on the Battlefield
A new Tempest Trial, which launched just today!
In other words, this is the section of this post that kept me from getting that much sleep last night. Thanks game, you always know how to prod at my insomniac button.
The Trials start off about how we’ve come to expect them at this point. Masked Lucina has teamed up with the four top Bonus Allies for this go around (Eliwood, Lyn, Hector and Ninian) to help lead them into the Tempest so they can protect their world.
However, she does warn them that the character at the end of the Trial is a special kind of foe:
After you break through the usual barrage of battles (seven at the highest Lunatic difficulty in my case), you come across that special foe. The build-up is intense, the anticipation is great, and in the end…
It’s Hector. Given the description Lucina gave for him I suppose it makes sense that this is the character who’d show up at the end, but I wouldn’t liked to see something more novel-
I’m sorry, what was that? 85 health?
43 defense?
30 speed?
Pavise?
And Distant Counter?
My god… This unit is completely overpowered.
I actually legitimately think it’s glorious just how overpowered he is. Hector is already considered to be one of the most powerful units in the game and they buffed him to high hell for this event. Thank god they keep units weak after you lose a fight, otherwise this might have been next to impossible. He actually beat down quite a few of my units before I was able to finally take him down the first time, ending the first of many future runs at the same challenges that I’ll be playing for the next week.
Oh, uhh… Also the background is pretty.
Or it would be if I got a picture without Mathilda in the way… Sorry.
Hector kind of overshadows it, but I do think it’s quite nice. Thought that would be worth mentioning.
Mechanically speaking, not all that much is new this time around. Everything that has been added throughout the last couple of Tempest Trials runs have made their return, and I definitely appreciate their continued appearance. Weaker opponents upon losing a fight and switching to a new team still probably being my favorite. Though a close second is the two daily rounds of extra bonus points for completing runs on top of the separate daily rewards you receive for completing said runs that really encourage continued habit-building playing.
This particular event only lasting a week instead of two weeks (hence the “Mini” modifier) also means there are less reward tiers, making everything easier to collect. Bonus Allies become that much more worthwhile as a result, since they continue to boast stat boosts across the board on top of their value as point multipliers.
Now, it may sound like I just glossed over the idea that the event is shorter and has less rewards, which is something I’m sure plenty of people have found reason to complain about… But frankly I glossed over it because I think it’s rather nice.
As my very complaint-filled introduction at the beginning suggested, I don’t have a ton of time to spare as of late. Thus, having a smaller and more manageable event with easier goals to reach is a godsend if anything.
On top of that the rewards are so tightly packed that it feels like we’re getting plenty of bang for our buck in quantity.
Though that does bring up another point. These rewards are… Fairly disappointing overall.
Don’t get me wrong, things like free orbs are a commodity I’ll never complain about, and with my huge stockpile of Stamina Potions I have no doubt that all of those sweet little spheres will be in my inventory in no time flat. But these Trials tend to be known for big special prizes throughout the point accumulation process that serve as driving forces.
This run doesn’t really have that, for me at least.
Masked Lucina is the character reward, and even my love for her doesn’t change the fact that I already own a five-star version to use. Defense 1 and Quickened Pulse are also pretty ‘meh’ rewards, as they are Sacred Seals I already have (though I do encourage anyone who doesn’t have it to go after Quickened Pulse).
Distant Defense is brand new at least, and it certainly looks like it will be right at home on a bulky unit I own sometime soon. However, that’s about it beyond the orbs. Maybe I’m just feeling picky, which I know I shouldn’t considering there’s a full Tempest Trial coming at the end of the month that I’m sure will have all the cool stuff we could ask for.
One thing this trial does have going for it is a pretty dope summoning focus banner based on the Bonus Allies. Basically everyone on the list is a super cool and powerful hero to have, so even though I haven’t decided whether to use my own orbs yet I know the risk will certainly be worth it for some.
For now, however, I’m sticking with Masked Lucina as my main multiplier. Girl puts in work with those stat buffs.
Unless more comes up as I play through the next week of fights, that’s really all I have to say about these Trials. I like the idea that miniature versions can exist, and I hope that means more events will be encouraged in the future, but this particular run doesn’t add too much to the overarching plot line or the pile of special prizes we’ve seen in the past.
If nothing else it simply serves as a nice transition into a focus on some Blazing Blade content. Speaking of, how’s about we move into the next thing.
Bound Hero Battle: Ephraim & Eirika
Though I don’t normally talk about these events, the fact that Sacred Stones has been the focus makes it worth at least bringing up as a farewell of sorts.
The mid-to-late portion of August was spent in the world of Sacred Stones between new heroes and a Grand Hero Battle. By the looks of it, this event may be the last hurrah for it on Heroes for a while as things move into The Blazing Blade with the mini Tempest Trial.
Though I think it’s a shame, more than one game does deserve to have the spotlight. Life moves on and all that, so I’ll just look forward to the next shot we might get at Neimi. #NeverGiveUpNeverSurrender
In terms of the Bound Hero Battle itself there isn’t all that much to say. It features one difficult battle with three challenge levels that offer scaling rewards.
Hard mode gives out two orbs, Lunatic gives out three orbs and Infernal gives out a whopping four orbs. Nine orbs ain’t too shabby.
For the actual playable map itself, I can’t honestly decipher which map from the original game it’s trying to emulate. This one seems just a bit too simple to really give any substantial hints in my opinion, though it has been driving me crazy enough that I tried doing some outside research on the matter.
My best guess is probably Ephraim’s first castle siege map in Chapter 5X or the much larger equivalent you get later on in Chapter 9, though I don’t know for sure. I just know that with the cavalier team I’ve been able to assemble since summoning Brave Lyn it honestly hasn’t been a huge hassle to at least get through Lunatic difficulty. Infernal is another matter entirely, but I have a few days to figure that out at this point.
Oh, and as an added note, thank god for Serenes Forest having these maps available to see. If it didn’t my wall would probably have a very distinct Jason-shaped hole in it right about now.
The Bound Hero Battle also comes with a summoning banner featuring Eirika, Ephraim and Seth. The only one on the list that I don’t personally own is Ephraim, and considering he’s also on another banner that’s running at the same time…
I probably won’t be summoning off of this focus. Sorry Ephraim, I’ll snatch you up eventually.
Boy oh boy that was a lot. On the bright side, I think that should cover my personal obligation to talk about Fire Emblem Heroes for a good while.
Or for at least a week. At which point we get new heroes according to the schedule. Then we’ll get another Bound Hero Battle, a full Tempest Trials run and some Fire Emblem Warriors-themed maps after that.
… Yeah alright, maybe there’s more coming up than I expected. Guess it’ll give me a nice break from the already ever-present slog of school if I make the time to talk about them.
Which of course I will, so look forward to some of that!
How do you feel about character pairings coming to the mobile Fire Emblem hit? Or about the prospects of a potentially more frequent miniature version of the Tempest Trials? Or about the many events coming down the pipeline? Let me know in the comments below!
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