Tag: Tana

Fire Emblem Heroes’ treat: Legendary Eirika

Fire Emblem Heroes’ treat: Legendary Eirika

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!

Eirika — Graceful Resolve

  • Storm Sieglinde (Might = 16, Range = 1)
    • 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.

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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.

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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~

The Fire Emblem Heroes Sacred Summer – Interrupted!

The Fire Emblem Heroes Sacred Summer – Interrupted!

This is arguably the most… Bizarre banner we’ve seen in Fire Emblem Heroes. Possibly ever, in my opinion.

When the banner’s silhouette was first teased out, much of the internet was quick to pick up on the fact that Tana and Innes appeared to be the featured heroes.

After last year’s two summer banners focused on Awakening and Fates, the most recent Fire Emblem titles, this gave me hope that we would have the Summer of Sacred Stones banner.

A special variant banner for my favorite game? What could go wrong!

Well… As it turns out, quite a few things. Sort of.

For some reason Sacred Stones did not get a special banner all for itself. Instead the spotlight is shared with more Awakening units.

It’s an odd choice for sure, especially considering those two Awakening units are also split between a child unit and parent unit who theoretically have nothing to do with one another in any discernible way.

Beyond being fan favorites, of course.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Cordelia as well. And Noire is a unit my friends and I have wanted to see come to Heroes for some time, so I’m not complaining about their inclusion.

It’s just kind of lame that Sacred Stones didn’t get the full spotlight, in my opinion.

But that said the summer heroes were enticing enough to stop me from spending any more orbs on the June Brides, that way I could focus my time on these newbies.

So just how good do these special heroes look? In terms of skills, of course. We all know how they look in their swimsuits.

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Cordelia — Knight Paradise

Skill Set:

  • Shell Lance (Might = 14 / Range = 1)
    • If unit initiates combat, grants Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance +2 during combat.
  • Harsh Command (Range = 1)
    • Converts penalties on target into bonuses.
  • Sturdy Blow (A Skill)
    • If unit initiates combat, grants Attack and Defense +4 during combat.
  • Dull Close (B Skill)
    • If foe uses sword, lance, axe or dragonstone, neutralizes foe’s bonuses (from skills like Fortify, Rally, etc.) during combat.

Analysis:

As I mentioned in my opening monologue, it was kind of off-putting seeing Awakening units show up on this banner. Luckily they picked ones I care about, which helped to lessen the blow.

Especially in the world of Heroes, Cordelia has become one of my favorites. She’s my endlessly useful lance flying unit, and I have a +8 merged Cordelia so far. I also used Bride Cordelia on my main infantry team for the longest time, and she remains my current favorite archer.

Until they add Neimi of course. But we won’t talk about that, because she could’ve easily fit in on a summer Sacred Stones banner paired with Colm.

Cavalier Cordelia leaves me… Apprehensive. She’s adorable for sure, but we’ve been burned with tons of mediocre lance cavaliers before, and Cordelia’s base skills don’t do her any justice outside of that Sturdy Blow.

Hopefully her stat line is solid, because if so I’ll be happy to add her to my growing Cordelia squadron. But if not… We’ll see.

Noire — Shade Seeker

Skill Set:

  • Cocobow (Might = 12 / Range = 2)
    • Effective against flying foes. If unit initiates combat, grants Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance +2 during combat.
  • Ardent Sacrifice (Range = 1)
    • Restores 10 Health to target ally. Unit loses 10 Health, but cannot go below one.
  • Attack/Speed 2 (A Skill)
    • Grants +2 Attack and Speed.
  • Infantry Rush (C Skill)
    • Infantry allies within two spaces gain: “If units Attack ≥ foe’s Attack +1, grants Special Attack cooldown charge +1 per attack (Only highest value applied, does not stack).”

Analysis:

So right off the bat let’s get this out-of-the-way. Noire definitely wins the “most revealing and suggestive outfit” award this time around. It’s actually almost to the point of being unbelievable in my opinion. Why would such a cripplingly shy, reserved girl choose to wear what amounts to a couple of crossed straps and loose bits of fabric?

I suppose I shouldn’t complain about fanservice, it is just out-of-place for the character. I’m a man who appreciates character as much as I appreciate revealing anime gals.

Even with that slightly awkward point, Noire is still a unit that has been highly anticipated in Heroes, and her skill set — while not overall perfect — doesn’t disappoint.

Okay that’s not true, Ardent Sacrifice does. But Infantry Rush more than makes up for it. That alone, alongside her anticipated entrance into the game, skyrocketed Noire high into my radar of interest for this banner. She’s just not necessarily a unit I’ll use widely when out in public.

Though I will 100 percent pair her with Inigo. Because best ship.

Innes — Flawless Form

Skill Set:

  • Beach Banner (Might = 14 / Range = 1)
    • If unit initiates combat, grants Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance +2 during combat.
  • Rally Attack/Defense (Range = 1)
    • Grants Attack and Defense +3 to target ally for one turn.
  • Defense Feint (B Skill)
    • If a Rally Assist skill is used by unit or targets unit, inflicts Defense -7 on foes in cardinal directions of unit through their next actions.
  • Goad Fliers (C Skill)
    • Grants Attack and Speed +4 to flying allies within two spaces during combat.

Analysis:

The prince of Frelia is here to upstage Ephraim by showing off his amazing beach-y figure. While I still personally prefer Ephraim, Innes does make a good case for himself here as a rather handsome addition being the only male on this skin-showing banner.

Strangely enough he’s a wyvern rider this time. It’s… Not exactly something I would have ever expected for Innes. But it’s a thing.

He gets some points for having the wyvern design from Sacred Stones specifically, the second showcasing that following Valter. It’s beautiful and it’s my favorite kind of wyvern for nostalgia alone.

Also the fact that I only just now realize he’s voiced by the same guy who does narration for Super Smash Bros. helps too.

I do have to question his weapon. If his axe is a flag, does that mean the actual flag itself is stiff like a blade? Or is he just whacking people with a stick? It’s arguably the most confusing axe design since Summer Tiki brought a watermelon on a stick last year.

What’s that? Talk about his skills? Err… Well…

Let’s just say my interest in Innes relies entirely on things outside of his viability as a unit here. Sorry dude.

Tana — Noble and Nimble

Skill Set:

  • Fruit of Iðunn (Might = 14 / Range = 2)
    • Grants Speed +3. If unit’s Health ≥ 50 percent, allies within two spaces can move to a space adjacent to unit.
  • Rally Speed/Resistance (Range = 1)
    • Grants Speed and Resistance +3 to target ally for one turn.
  • Attack/Speed Push (A Skill)
    • At start of combat, if unit’s Health = 100 percent, grants Attack and Speed +5, but if unit attacked, deals one damage to unit after combat.
  • Renewal (B Skill)
    • At the start of every second turn, restores 10 Health.
  • Spur Attack/Defense (C Skill)
    • Grants Attack and Defense +3 to adjacent allies during combat.

Analysis:

Tana joins her brother on this beach vacation and draws a much larger share of the attention. Not just because of her fuckin cute ass outfit, too.

Though that is a huge draw, I’ll admit. Especially when she carries the strangely suggestive modiker of “nobile and numble.”

But Tana is a strong fighter in her own right and brings some new, interesting things alongside her summer gear.

She’s the only hero in this banner whose weapon does not simply bolster all of her stats during combat. Instead it has guidance built-in, which was her claim to fame as a unit originally. On top of that she’s bringing a brand new skill with Attack/Speed Push that gives her a solid stat boost upon her first attack before taking away Health to balance it out.

It pairs pretty perfectly with Renewal, so I don’t necessarily see the skill as being too detrimental. If anything I like the idea of building her as a health regenerating unit!

Especially since she’s coming in with a red tome as a flying unit. Crossing my fingers that she can fill the void left by my lack of a Halloween Nowi.

If I had to rank them, I’d say I’m looking for Tana the most, because favorite game hype, then Noire, then either Cordelia or Innes. I’m a bit split on those two, but I know I don’t want them nearly as much as the prior two.

Actually that’s not true, Cordelia is probably above Innes here. Because she is super cute. Sorry my guy, cute girls > dope wyverns in this game.

I’m starting off this banner with about 150 orbs under my belt thanks to some hardcore saving following the disappointment of Legendary Ryoma, but will the summer units prove to be just as disappointing?

Well.

I guess this is supposed to be an apology, isn’t it?

Honestly I was shocked when Cordelia showed up as my free summon of all things, and Noire showed up not too long after.

Though they don’t have the best stat boons and banes from my best estimation, I ain’t even care. Somehow I managed to get two focus units on a special banner within 50 orbs! That’s awesome.

Granted I still haven’t gotten the Tana I really wanted, but there’s a whole 34 days to summon. That means I can sort of take it easy for a while and make sure I don’t just blow all my orbs in one shot, especially when there’s probably more summer units coming soon.

For real though, sometimes it’s nice to be lucky.

Thanks game ❤️

Now how about we return to the sun-soaked beaches to enjoy some paralogue story, shall we?

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Thinking it over now, I didn’t get a single summer unit last time they were in season. I remember I had been saving up my orbs for other things at the time, eventually culminating in a huge binge to try to summon Delthea.

Thus the only thing I really got out of the last summer session was some nice environmental set pieces and a somewhat creepy storyline out of Anna’s greed.

You’ll be happy to know that both of those things carry on in spades this year.

Yes that’s right, instead of trying to “girls gone wild” some Heroes, this time around Anna is looking to record the sounds of them having fun in the water as something to sell for the Order to make money.

Glad to see some things never change. Don’t stop being creepy as hell, Intelligent Systems.

When the Order of Heroes arrives at the new summer paradise, everyone’s favorite Sacred Stones siblings are front and center. *Snorts*

The first thing they do is argue.

This is so beautifully in-character for both of them that I actually died a little inside seeing it. It’s wonderful!

They even keep it up post-battle.

Why couldn’t I have summoned one of you two.

Oh well, there’s time. In the meantime, we move onto the Awakening units.

I’m not sure who decided to throw Cordelia and Noire together as a set-up for helping Noire get over her mood swings. It’s a bit strange when they could have chosen another child unit like Severa, who canonically helps her out a lot in Awakening’s story.

But hey, if we did that, we wouldn’t get this scene where Cordelia ogles Noire’s body.

That’s not weird at all.

One of Cordelia’s voice lines actually suggests she worries that she isn’t “filling out” her swimsuit enough, so I’m assuming this interaction is just to suggest she’s jealous.

But like. Still, pretty weird.

Way to almost vaguely hit on your ally’s daughter Cordelia.

Anyway you know the drill from here. Noire flips her shit when she loses:

Then everyone gathers together for the final battle on the sunset beach:

Then you win the big battle. It’s actually probably the easiest set of maps we’ve seen in a long time, even on the highest difficulty setting.

But hey battle over and all is happy. Right?

Right??

Naturally, not so much.

Anna is obviously distressed by this because alternate universe Anna (a fact of existence in this universe that I suppose I’m happy we’re just going to gloss over) was going to pay for the sounds she had hoped to capture.

So instead, Sharena suggests that the relaxing sounds of the crashing waves might be worth selling around as well because it reminds her so much of the beach.

Anna is happy about the idea, but Alfonse…

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Less so. Guess it’s up to me and him to find a way to make mone- and it fades to black.

Alright guess that’s it.

Thanks IS for this somewhat uncomfortably enjoyable romp back into summer land. Looking forward to seeing what you’ve got for the next batch.

I’ll be honest with you all, I’m still not over the fact that I summoned two focus units. Even if they weren’t the ones from the game I was looking forward to seeing in the spotlight for a while.

That said, how do you feel about these summer units? Do you think it was unnecessary to split up the game representation this year?

Or are you of the camp that the units are so good anyway that we shouldn’t care?

Let me know in the comments below! And tell me who you want to see taking the beach by storm in the future while you’re at it.

Fire Emblem: The Broken Spirit

Fire Emblem: The Broken Spirit

Fire Emblem Heroes finally did it. I finally know how it is to feel like a broken man. The game has sunk my metaphorical battleship. Game over, man. Insert other overly-dramatic “woe-is-me” sentiments here.

For those of you who are just tuning in, last time on Dragon Ball Z we were given a brand new Hero Fest banner featuring the illustrious Ike, Ninian, Julia and Genny. Like the easily excitable young lad I am, I quickly began pouring my stockpile of orbs into this banner considering it had such a short run time and starts with an increased chance to summon a 5 star focus hero.

Why not? I figured any team I have would vastly benefit from having the all star heavy hitting Ike, the powerful dragon dancer Ninian or the fan favorite healer Genny.

But then the rot set in. Many, many summons have gone by since the event started and I’m all the way up at having a 6.56 percent chance of seeing a five star focus hero.

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For those uninitiated in the game, that is quite a long time going at it without seeing a five star appear. Almost, some might argue, a ridiculously long time.

On top of that, the new swapped four and three star summoning chance makes it so ‘energy pulses’ indicating the summon of a higher leveled units appear more often. The more those appear the more heart attacks I have thinking I’m about to get the unit I want, only for those hopes to be dashed when it’s just a 4 star I already have. Like Mae.

Seriously, the Hero Fest banner has given me Mae twice. I like Mae, don’t get me wrong, but why would you do that to me game?

Gah but who cares, I once again ask myself in the not-at-all-dramatically-ironic-third-person, the event only lasts for a week, so what if I blow some orbs now? I’m playing a game based on RNG that wants me to spend money without explicitly saying it. Besides, the Tempest Trials are going well and there’s lots of bonus orbs from log-in bonuses, special missions and more that are available. I can just go back to hoarding some orbs again before the next crazy cool banner dro-

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NOPE.

GUESS WHAT, SACRED STONES IS HERE, Y’ALL.

Talk about a god damn slap in the face.

I’m sure I’ve gone on record about this before, but Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones has to be my favorite Fire Emblem game. It was the first one I ever played and definitely holds a special place in my heart.

Thus, now I’m torn between giving up on this Hero Fest that has a lot of investment in it already and instead saving my orbs to jump onto this new banner with heroes I absolutely love and adore.

In other words, I now know how it feels to be my friend Jonathan back when the dual Echoes banners dropped in the midst of the first summer banner. Remember that huge orb binge where all my friends and I got Delthea except for him? Good times.

On the bright side, this new banner will be here for more than two weeks, giving us a lot more chances to summon on it considering the aforementioned orb bonuses floating around. However, on the flip side, Hero Fest only lasts about three more days, which makes it so I have a harder time deciding whether or not I want to dump more orbs into it now and potentially screw myself out of Sacred Stones heroes later.

That’s the conundrum I’ve been wrestling with for the last 24 hours or so, ever since the video talking about the four new heroes arrived.

… Sighs. Deep breaths Jason. Keep this up and next thing we know your whole angry rant on how Revelations ruined Fire Emblem Fates will be cluttering up this post too.

Despite my agony and bellyaching likely entertaining a fair amount of you in the crowd out there reading this, I’m sure my first world problems aren’t the only reason people are sticking around to read this dribble.

So let’s get into the usual expositional explain-y type jazz.

After all, despite the poor timing of everything, Sacred Stones is my favorite game in the series. Thus, even if it’s left me a heaping pile of a conundrum, I’m still hella hyped for the characters we’re being given.

  • Seth – Silver Knight
    • Serving as the token ‘Early appearing overpowered cavalier’ unit in Sacred Stones, Seth is a general from Renais who injures himself protecting Princess Eirika at the beginning of her journey. Despite this, he continues to serve her and her brother Ephraim as they travel the region hoping to reunite the four other kingdoms against the Grado Empire. Seth holds a few special places in my heart. For one, the name ‘Seth’ itself has over time become one of my favorite names, and he was the one who introduced it to me some years ago. He also fits a succinct ‘unrequited love’ archetype that always manages to steal my heart, as he loves Eirika but feels he can’t say it due to her being of such a higher birth, no matter how kind she is to him. I always hook them up anyway because it’s clearly the best option. Third, he absolutely demolishes the Arena in Sacred Stones. You can grind up so much money with Seth alone that it’s ridiculous, and for that he’ll always be awesome.
    • Notable Skills: Seth is interesting in that he seems to be built like a very defensive cavalier. Though the ruby sword he wields exacerbates the blue weakness he’ll be facing, the fact that he has Fortress Defense (raising his defense at the cost of some attack power) shows that he’ll clearly be around to tank hits more than he’s going to deal them out. In fact, he’ll be able to swap in place of his allies, tank a hit and then lower the enemy unit’s attack and defense by a substantial amount in the process. He’ll definitely be an interesting character to mess around with on my cavalier team if I manage to summon him.
  • Tana – Winged Princess
    • Tana is Innes younger sister, a Frelian Princess who fights as a pegasus knight trained in the art of the Triangle Attack alongside fellow pegasus riders Vanessa and Syrene. If mentioning the Triangle Attack isn’t enough to make you feel elated while thinking about Tana, or frankly any other pegasus knight from early Fire Emblem games, I don’t know what will. I will say that it’s ironic to see her appear alongside Seth given that I tend to pair Tana and Ephraim up quite frequently as well. That means Intelligent Systems has added my love interests for both the Renais twins in one banner. Tana also holds an interesting distinction as having different recruitment means depending on the path you take. With Eirika she simply joins her force, but with Ephraim you have to save her from being captured in a dungeon (on the same level you find Amelia I might add, though I’ll get to her later). I personally like the story element in Ephraim’s side better, though take that with a grain of salt as it is possibly due to the shipping elements involved.
    • I also figured I would mention that out of all the character designs for these heroes, Tana’s new look is the one I dislike the most. Don’t really know why to be completely honest, I just kind of dislike it. Maybe it’s the hair?
    • Notable Skills: Overall, Tana seems like the most forgettable of these four added characters in terms of the skills she got. Her legendary lance Vidofnir (Gee, another lance pegasus unit… What a shocker) gives her defense if she fights units with physical weapons, she has the ever coveted Moonbow right out the box, she gains buffs to speed and defense and she comes with a new skill Guidance that allows infantry units to move behind her or ahead of her if they’re already close, essentially. It seems strange, but seeing her utilize the skill on the Lunatic level of their third mission spells out exactly how tricky it can be if used right. She has a bulky build like Seth, but I don’t typically associate pegasus knights with bulk so… I guess we’ll have to see how that goes.
  • Innes – Regal Strategician
    • Just an aside before I get into Innes as a character… I’ve been mispronouncing his name apparently. I’ve always pronounced Innes as “Eye * ns” with a silent E, but in his character introduction in the trailer dropped yesterday he referred to himself as “In * Nes.” I don’t know, that kind of messes with my head if I’m being honest… Though I’ll probably keep thinking of it the same way I always have.
    • That aside, Prince Innes is Tana’s older sibling and renown sniper/tactician from Frelia. Along with his hired hands Gerik and Tethys, he also hopes to end the way with Grado but eventually must be rescued from a siege by Eirika. Honestly, the mission where you recruit Innes in Sacred Stones is easily one of the most memorable to me, and Innes is such a powerful archer that it’s hard not to use him once you’ve got him… Even though Neimi is definitely still my preferred bae when it comes to archers. Girl kills it as a bow knight while he’s off just being a plain old sniper. Seriously I like you Innes, even if my love for you L’Arachel isn’t in the game, but why couldn’t you just be Neimi.
    • Notable Skills: Innes probably has the most interesting build of all the new heroes in that he’s clearly designed to be a mage killer just like his original game counterpart. He’s likely going to have a decent-to-high resistance stat boosted by Fortress Resistance, and although that ability lowers his attack, the Iceberg special attack will grant him huge attack buffs based on his resistance stat. Add onto that a legendary bow, Nidhogg, which will give him +6 to all stats if he has all his allies surrounding him during combat and a, frankly, negligible use of Cancel Affinity likely there to cover tome users like Robin, and you’ve got a pretty solid fighter all together. Even if he isn’t the archer I want.
  • Amelia – Rose of the War
    • Oh Amelia. Amelia, Amelia, Amelia. You’re no Neimi, but by god are you the closest thing to her. Seriously, Amelia is probably my personal second favorite unit from Sacred Stones. That mostly stems from a combination of her easter egg story appearance early on in the game, her cute and sweet personality despite a somewhat tragic backstory, the possibility of her recruitment in both Eirika and Ephraim’s storylines and the interesting finite window for recruitment when you do find her that adds more value to the relationship she can build with Franz (who I always pair up with her cause they’re so dang cute). Plus, if nothing else, the fact that they made Amelia an armored knight in Heroes validates my choice to make her a General every time I play through Sacred Stones. Hell, give the artist bonus points for keeping the design where axes used by generals are attached to the unit’s hand by a chain. That’s a super dope attention to detail. She’s top of the list for units I’ll be after in this banner, hands down.
    • Notable Skills: While sentimental value is my primary drive for pining after Amelia in her newest appearance, it definitely helps that she looks like she’s going to kick so much ass if her stat distribution is done right. As an armored knight unit she’ll undoubtedly have great defenses that will be boosted by the low cooldown special ability Sacred Cowl. With a Slaying Axe in her hands, that special cooldown will be even lower, allowing her to tank more long ranged attacks more often. Plus if her health stat is high enough she’ll certainly be able to make use of Earth Boost to gain more defense, and the new ability Armor March allows other armored units to move as easily as regular infantry, which is pretty crazy. Really good stuff all around, it seems.

These units are great additions, but… Seriously. Where is Neimi. I know I’m probably the only person on this planet that actually wants to see her and I’m beating a dead horse by now… But I’d say I’m allowed to have one dumb and silly thing to really complain about.

Though, I also question whether it would be more disheartening if she did appear in the midst of my Hero Fest/Sacred Stones conundrum…

Who knows. Either way, here’s hoping she makes her way to us in one way or another soon. The hope continues to live on, everyone.

With a Grand Hero Battle featuring Valter slated for later this month, maybe we’ll be seeing even more of an influx of Sacred Stones content in the near future.

Editor’s Note:

Boy, now that I’m re-reading this portion on the characters, it occurs to me just how much I have to say about all of them. This is probably the most I’ve written about any of the new characters in this game, in fact, and I could probably do it no matter who they added. I’m sure some people will call my investment weird or creepy or whatever, but Sacred Stones was my first venture into what has become one of my favorite game series of all time. Without Sacred Stones being a part of the Ambassador Program for those who bought the Nintendo 3DS before it’s initial price drop, I might not have ever gone out and bought Awakening, which truly cemented my place in the fandom.

It’s kind of crazy how much I love this game… Maybe I should go back and replay it soon.

We’re already like 2,200 words into this sucker, so let’s get going on Paralogue story, shall we? I promise I’ll try to show more than tell.

There’s the usual affair of available battles, missions and rewards added by this Paralogue, but since I spent so long gassing up the game I figured it would be a disservice not to talk about the levels in detail this time around.

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  • 10-1 is relatively straight forward. In Eirika’s campaign of Sacred Stones there’s a mission where you need to survive a number of turns as enemies constantly spawn around you. So, this is a level where enemies constantly spawn around you for a number of turns, forcing you to survive or kill everything on screen. The mission actually gets rather tough on Lunatic mode, but with the right units it’s no big deal.
  • 10-2 is based on a level I remember particularly well as one of the first missions in the game you take on once Eirika and Ephraim join forces again. I remember that mission well for the enemy unit wielding an Excalibur tome you can steal behind a fellable tree, recruiting the third pegasus knight Syrene and for fighting against summoning mages, one of my favorite units from that game. In Heroes, the mission is kind of a joke, however. Really easy to take down and not much story, as I’ll go into.
  • 10-3 is actually a level I don’t recognize particularly well. From what I can tell it’s either based off of Renais Castle, where the real twins grew up and later liberated, or it’s based off of Rausten’s capital Mansel. I’d be more willing to bet on the prior, but frankly I’m just not too sure. It could be a totally different option, frankly. Either way this mission proved to be the most frustrating at Lunatic, as it really showed off the power that Tana’s new skill Guidance can hold. Warping Amelia or Innes from behind a wall was kind of a crazy strategy and I had to use a Light’s Blessing to get the extra reward on this one.

I’d also like to note that the Sacred Stones music running throughout the three stages was pretty damn nostalgic to me and pretty much brought me right back to that place of wanting to go back and play through the Gameboy Advanced game all over again.

But I digress, as it’s story time ladies and germs.

From the first few seconds, this Paralogue proves itself to have more going on than you might expect. Considering it follows after the nude hero hunt that was the two summer banners, that’s a welcome surprise indeed.

It starts with the usual affair of Princess Veronica setting up her contract with the heroes, but this time something gets in her way that she wasn’t quite expecting.

Out of the love and respect he holds for Eirika and Ephraim, Seth is able to really prod the tiger and try to get at her true inner workings despite the fact that he’ll be working for her. Though it’s small, the interaction brings up some interesting questions about just how powerful the contracts Veronica uses are and about the nature of where she comes from, the place she’s Princess of. It’s a subject that I don’t believe has been broached past the typical good vs. evil “they’re the bad guys trying to hurt us” fair.

Then things get more interesting when Xander shows up again.

Yeah that’s right, Xander! I was pretty taken aback when his portrait suddenly appeared. He played a semi-significant role by showing up in most of Veronica’s army matches when you fought against her specifically, but apparently they’re keeping up the canonicity of his being on her side… Even if he’s clearly not as brilliant here as he is in his own universe given some of the dialog.

Though Seth continues to exchange ideals with the opposing team, the second mission is definitely way more fluffy. It boils down to Innes and Tana arguing about her being up at the front of the battlefield because Innes wants to protect her even though she wants to prove herself.

Not a very exciting thing to talk about even if the character development is amicable for those who have no idea who the characters are.

However, the third mission brings things right back up to 100.

I don’t know how many pictures I can just straight up screenshot and use from this game without getting into trouble, but for this exchange I just feel like it’s poignant enough to include in its entirety.

I’m not sure if that feeling just stems from Seth being the distributor of justice or if I’m genuinely really interested to see the story writing team inject some actual character intrigue and commentary with regards to the traditional villain character’s story, but either way I actually felt a little bit enthralled reading some of the exchanges in this Paralogue.

Maybe I’ve just seen these characters in action for so long that getting to watch them flesh one another out is fascinating to me. As someone interested in both writing and video games, I’d certainly be willing to ascribe it to that.

From that point everything seems to be about what you’d expect, however.

Innes expresses his dismay that you had to help him and his friends out of a jam:

Then all is happy and good. The end.

…

OR IS IT?

That’s right, if one character’s character development wasn’t enough for you, now we have some semblance of overall plot progression to enjoy as a post-production following the mission.

The Anna-imitating trickster god Loki from earlier main story missions appears once again to show that the venture into Sacred Stones territory wasn’t just an exercise in finding new allies and fighters. No, this time the game’s villains had an aim.

That aim was finding the sacred tome Naglfar, which is actually the dark tome wielded by Sacred Stone’s overarching villain Lyon, childhood friend of Eirika and Ephraim corrupted by evil stone/dragon magic.

Because what isn’t corrupted by evil magic from a stone or from a dragon in Fire Emblem?

Though they don’t elaborate much further on the usefulness of Naglfar in place of some suggestively abusive exchanges between Loki and Veronica, just the fact that the story missions and Paralogues continue to ramp up a bigger narrative story in this free-to-play mobile title is frankly just interesting enough to keep me coming back for more.

Good job Heroes devs and writers. You made up for sexual deviant Anna. I’m proud of you.

…

Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes. Yes I did summon on the Sacred Stones banner. A full 20 orb summon I might add, since the free first summon essentially gave me a five orb discount. What did I get for my troubles?

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Nothing but tribute fodder and heart attacks.

You don’t think I’d bury this so far down here if I got anything important, do you?

I will take this moment to add an aside and say that although I expressed a lot of frustrated flailing back and forth earlier in the post, I’m actually not all that upset with these developments. I was for a little while when I first heard the news, don’t get me wrong, and my emotions from that moment are genuinely expressed up above since I wanted to log those thoughts for posterity, but overall my feelings are honestly much more demure and even glad.

Oh, and I already know I’m probably going to focus more on Sacred Stones with perhaps one more shot at the Hero Fest. Cause it has already burned me too hard.

In the end, I love these characters, so how could I possibly be that mad at a free game for adding in characters that I love?

Though I can still be fake mad at them for not adding the one character they know I want. I know that they know that I want Neimi to show up and they’re holding her from me intentionally. I can feel it.

But anyway, dumb conspiracy theories aside, that’s all there is to this update. Let me know what you think of the new focus heroes or of the ramping story that seems to be getting told in a long-form narrative. I’ll be interested to hear all of your thoughts and theories in the comments!