The fact that we’re seeing our third Spring banner gave me an existential crisis.
I felt like the banner with Sharena and Alfonse just appeared, but it was 13 Paralogues ago.
Not sure what happened over the last year, but I don’t think I’m down for this whole passage of time thing. It’s starting to scare me.
Even if cute bunny characters kind of make up for it.
Palla — Eldest Bun-Bun
- Pegasus Carrot (Might = 12, Range = 2)
- Effective against armored foes. If unit has weapon-triangle advantage, neutralizes status effects and disables skills that prevent follow-up attacks during combat. After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Defense and Resistance -7 on target and foes within two spaces through their next actions.
- Draconic Aura (Cooldown = 3)
- Boosts damage by 30 percent of unit’s Attack.
- Swift Sparrow (A Skill)
- If unit initiates combat, grants Attack and Speed +4 during combat.
- Disarm Trap (B Skill)
- When attacking in Aether Raids, if unit ends movement on a space with a Bolt or Heavy Trap, cancels trap’s effect.
- Hone Fliers (C Skill)
- At start of turn, grants Attack and Speed +6 to adjacent flying allies for one turn.
Marisa — Crimson Rabbit
- Flashing Carrot (Might = 14, Range =1)
- At start of combat, if foe’s Health = 100 percent, grants Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance +2 during combat.
- Reposition (Range = 1)
- Target ally moves to opposite side of unit.
- Speed/Defense Link (B Skill)
- If a movement Assist skill is used by or targets unit, grants Speed and Defense +6 to both involved units for one turn.
- Flier Guidance (C Skill)
- Flying allies within two spaces can move to a space adjacent to unit.
Bruno — Masked Hare
- Ovoid Staff (Might = 12, Range = 2)
- At start of turn, restores 7 Health to unit and adjacent allies.
- Martyr (Range = 1)
- Restores Health = damage dealt to unit +50 percent of Attack (minimum of 7). Restores Health to unit = half of damage dealt.
- Miracle (Cooldown = 5)
- If unit’s Health > 1 and foe would reduce unit’s Health to 0, unit survives with 1 HP.
- Attack/Defense Push (A Skill)
- At start of combat, if unit’s Health = 100 percent, grants Attack and Defense +5, but if unit attacked, deals one damage to unit after combat.
- Dazzling Staff (B Skill)
- Foe cannot counterattack.
Veronica — Spring Princess
- Veðrfölnir’s Egg (Might = 14, Range = 2)
- Grants Speed +3. At start of combat, if unit’s Health ≥ 75 percent, grants Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance +4 during combat.
- Glimmer (Cooldown = 2)
- Boosts damage dealt by 50 percent.
- Green Duel Flying (A Skill)
- Grants Health +5. If unit is 5-star and level 40 and unit’s stats total less than 170, treats unit’s stats as 170 in modes like Arena.
- Chill Resistance (B Skill)
- At start of turn, inflicts Resistance -7 on foe with the highest Resistance through its next action.
Talk about a bizarre blend of characters.
Bruno and Veronica make sense in the footsteps of Alfonse and Sharena (even if the Paralogue story confuses everything). However, this being Bruno’s first and Veronica’s second non-canonical appearances as units is pretty weird.
They also have forgettable skills. Bruno is a healer with healing attacks, and Veronica is just a better Spring Camilla.
Two years worth of power creep, yo.
Palla is probably the most solid unit. She’s a flying red dagger that’s built to kill strong armored bois like Surtr, and with her Whitewing sister Catria appearing last year we have a cool progression to Est in 2020.
Cool all around.
Marisa is the real surprise. Because I love the game I can’t complain with more Sacred Stones representation (even if I wish we had new characters), but she doesn’t seem to mesh well with the others. Despite having an amazing character bio.
Plus her skills are very basic.
Yet being lukewarm on my opinions toward Marisa means she’s prime material to get unexpectedly summoned in my first round:
The fact that most of her quotes are about watching rabbits as research is incredible. Really makes up for everything.
Marisa was special from being a Sacred Stones rep, but the only other character I’m interested in is Palla. Don’t know if she’s worth pulling for alone, so I might save my orbs.
Paralogue 32: Regal Rabbits
Now, let’s get into the real meat of this banner: That sweet Rabbit Lore.
Like I teased earlier, this Paralogue does some bizarre things with the status quo of holiday units.
Right off the bat we have our world’s Loki trying to convince Veronica to go to the festival:
She does so using Bruno’s appearance as leverage, but this just raises a bunch of questions.
Usually special units are from alternate universes to explain how two of the same characters exist in one place.
But Spring Bruno and Veronica are just our versions masquerading. Technically we are getting our world’s Bruno and Veronica, just dressed as alternates.
Yet there’s also a Spring Loki while we have regular Loki — but the Spring version is still ours according to the Paralogue.
In other words: It’s all a fucking existential mess.
Except none of that matters because the whole reason they’re there is to see whether Loki is lying to them:
Bet you didn’t remember that storyline is still going on while the Order of Heroes fights death herself.
The Order never appears here. Which is a nice change of pace as we saw with the 2019 Valentine’s Day banner.
The whole Paralogue centers around the Embla family. Palla and Marisa have a totally disconnected mission that feels like they’re conducting goofy business as usual while two canaiving people sneak around.
By the end we find out what that treasure is, and it’s arguably the most interesting thing about this:
I certainly didn’t see Taguels being referenced. Especially so soon after Panne got added into our ranks through a Grand Hero Battle.
While I started to question the relation of rabbit people to a festival where people dress like rabbits, Intelligent Systems doesn’t give any answers. They simply tease a continued treasure hunt with Loki telling Bruno and Veronica where they can find the answers.
Even if we have no idea how Taguels are supposed to help with their blood curse.
Guess It’ll all come together eventually, but at this point we’ll just have to table the discussion and get back to our non-Playboy Bunny lives.
Speaking of real life, did you all hear that Google is planning to launch a console for streaming video games?
Because I think it’s a very interesting concept that I’ll have no interest in buying. I prefer cartridge/digital download games that don’t rely on constant internet access, personally.
I just figured that would be a better segue out of this post to show that I pay attention.
That said, let me know what you think about these Spring units! And let me know how you feel about the endless march of time.
Because… Yeah, that still hurts.
Jason's Blog - Work in Progress 