sorenversh

[sorenversh]

Slimes are true evil

I know that you may think I'm crazy. If you know about Dragon Quest, you'll probably wonder what the fuck I'm talking about. And even if you don't know about Dragon Quest, you'll still wonder how that cute glob is supposed to be evil. However I assure that there's more in these little creatures that meets the eye.

They're all present in every game, and they will most likely be the first enemy you ever fight (with some exceptions, like Dragon Quest VI). Sometimes you'll have to fight a group of slimes as a tutorial battle, just like in Dragon Quest XI. This is important. The Hero does not have much battle experience at that point, since it's just the beginning. And knowing that, many slimes appear in places that usually don't have random encounters, like Cobblestone in Dragon Quest XI. They quite literally break the rules of the game just to serve as a tutorial, but in the perspective of the slimes, you're nothing more than a victim to them, that they're willing to break the rules of the world just to get to.

Speaking off, we see many slimes that will act as normal NPCs, talking to the player, offering them advise... In the case of the Dragon Quest Monsters spin-offs and Dragon Quest V they'll even join the party if you wish. That means one simple thing. Slimes are intelligent creatures, and with how many there are in Dragon Quest as a whole, being able to argue that every Slime on DQV is intelligent, we can say that these pacifist slimes are not precisely an exception to the rule. Meaning that even with that intelligence they still plan on trying to kill the hero and company.

With many other monsters that arguably look intelligent through NPCs, like the existence of that one zombie girl on DQXI, we could argue that other monsters are also intelligent. However, slimes are far more present, so those other monsters can be presented as exceptions. And even if that wasn't the case, we can argue that monsters from the undead, beast, bird, etc. families are there to hunt and eat, or just because that's how they are, in the case of the demon families. But Slimes? When have we seen a slime eating a human? Which makes me wonder... Why do slimes even fight humans? They have no real reason. They're intelligent, so they know their actions. They don't hunt humans, as they don't eat them. It's not on their instincts, as we've seen tons of friendly slimes, even king slimes in the case of Dragon Quest V. That only means something. They do it because they're evil. They just want to hurt people

And that makes me make a last point. Slimes are more evil than the main villains of the games. Surely, they commit a lot of atrocities daily, but there's a clear difference between them and slimes. A reason. Even if their reason can be as simple as world domination, revenge or whatever, they still have one. They're undoubtly evil, but they have a reason, a goal to move forward, unlike slimes

To summarize, slimes, even if they are intelligent and pacifist creatures, they'll still try to kill the hero for no real reason. They just want to see the dead bodies of travelers drop to the floor to enjoy it. Pure evil

If you have a slime plush... Beware. Its cute eyes and smile might be the last thing you see

[sorenversh]

Altea's royalty bloodline is full of chads

I'm currently replaying New Mystery of the Emblem, and after thinking about it, I realized that there's not a single person from Marth's family that doesn't deserve respect. It's utterly ridiculous

Anri is the first person we know that belongs to Altea's royalty, he's also the original wielder of the Falchion who defeated the Shadow Dragon in the past. Now, that already makes him a really good hero, but it's not like he has lived what Marth has lived. In Anri's era, dragons were far more common and they were ruthless towards humans. The reason Anri even fights them in the first place is the assist princess Artemis from Archanea from the attacks of dragonkind. In order to get the Falchion to defeat the Shadow Dragon, he goes through what is known as Anri's path (chapters 11 to 15 of FE3 book 2 and FE12) ALONE. The implication is that he by himself managed to defeat armies of dragons including Medeus at the peak of his strength without any help.

Cornelius (aka Marth's father) doesn't really have as many feats as either Marth or Anri, but he's still worth noting. He was the one that was going to slain Medeus with the Falchion and an army, but he had two big factors against him. First of all, Gharnef and Imhullu that quite literally make him invencible. Second of all, Gra's army betrayed him in the middle of the battle against Dolhr's forces. Even with that, with the odds being against him, he decided to keep fighting, even if he ultimately meets his end by Gharnef's hands (according to the OVA at least). He may have lost, but even with the unfair disadvantage he had, he fought until the very end.

Marth himself has some of the biggest feats any Fire Emblem protagonist has achieved. He managed to kill the Shadow Dragon twice and he unified the entire continent of Archanea at the end of Mystery of the Emblem before he even was 20 years old. Not only that, but he also went through Anri's path, like his ancestor, but unlike Anri he had his army with him, but it's still a noticeable thing to say. His influence is still seen in the Awakening era, which is a huge timeskip compared to Marth's games, so even in universe he's still quite important. To finish off, he manages to make Gotoh, the white sage, like humanity once again, and keeping in mind he's a grumpy old dragon, that's worth noting.

Elice is Marth's older sister, and though her screentime is extremely low in both of Marth's games, the few things she does are worth noting. She always stays behind in Altea during Dohlr's conquest in order to protect Marth, wether it's to simply to gain time for him or it's her using a warp staff (like in the OVA) is up to whatever you like more. During the two years Marth is outside, she manages to survive whatever she's gone through, since Gharnef wanted her to use the Aum staff, a staff that would revive any unit the user would desire, which is usable only by royal blood. In FE1, Elice starts with the Aum, so she somehow outsmarted Gharnef during her captivity and managed to take it away from him (though in FE11 you must obtain the Aum staff on chapter 24 in a chest).

Her role in Mystery of the Emblem is even smaller, as she sacrifices herself again to let Shiida escape Altea so she could warn Marth about Archanea's sudden attack. This time she gets mind controlled to serve Medeus but she manages to snap out of it thanks to Merrin. Again, her role is small in both games, but her own actions always makes it so another more important character survives, and she doesn't care about dying as long as she managed to help her loved ones.

Emmeryn is a really long relative to Marth and it's the queen of Ylisse at the start of Awakening. At first she wasn't liked by her people at all, but her peaceful ways earned her people's love. Not just her people's but also many other people on other countries, including Plegia which is clearly hostile to Ylisse, love Emmeryn. In a certain point of the story, Chrom is given the choice of either giving the Fire Emblem to Gangrel, king of Plegia, or letting Emmeryn die. No matter the player's choice, if the player decides to give the Fire Emblem, Emmeryn will kill herself so Chrom still can have it.

Except she doesn't even kill herself, she somehow manages to survive a huge fall, though she becomes amnesiac. And even then, her kindness in unparaleled. Gangrel can be recruited, just like her, and even if he tells her the truth about what happens, him being the cause of her amnesia, she still decides to forgive him, causing him to break down. She singlehandedly manages to make a sociopath cry of regret because of her kindness. She may not be as strong as the other ones, but it's clear for her that the pen is stronger than the sword.

Chrom is the main protagonist of Awakening, and he certainly shouldn't be understimated. He's the user of the Falchion, which sadly has grown weaker due to time. Even though he's the prince of Ylisse, he formed the Shepherds to protect Ylisse from enemy attacks, both from Plegia, bandits, and from the Risen once they came to exist. In just Awakening, even if we can say it was thanks to Robin, he ends the Plegian-Ylisse war, he ends the Plegia-Valm war, and then he and Robin manage to literally defy an already written fate and defeat Grima, the fell dragon, not before restoring the Fire Emblem with all the orbs that Marth had previously collected and restoring the Falchion's strength before the final battle. It's amazing that in a single game he manages to do so much.

This section should be shortest, as Lissa, sadly doesn't have feats of her own. However, she's in the army since chapter 1 of Awakening, meaning that every single one of Chrom's feats can be applied to her in some way or another.

Lucina is Chrom's daughter, she comes from a future in which her father succumbed to his fate and Grima wins. Lucina manages to defeat Grima in the future as seen in The Future Past DLC (wether it's canon or not it's debatable though), so that's already a good thing. However, that's the beginning of Lucina's feats. She goes back into the past where Chrom was still alive (with other children caused by S supports in the army), with the intention of preventing Grima's revival in the first place. By doing this, she helps Chrom protect Emmeryn and eventually joins his army during the Valm arc. In reality her feats are the same as Chrom's with the difference that her existance helped Chrom and Robin defy fate itself, being the main reason for their achievements. It's thanks to her that Chrom manages to defeat Grima after all, her importance should not be understimated

Even if his existance depends on Lissa marrying, his presence in Fates made me want to include him here, as I consider him a "canon child". He shares the same feats as Chrom and Lucina to a lesser extent, so I won't ellaborate on that. However, it's worth noting that he appears in two games that, at first glance, don't have much to do with each other story wise. He, alongside Inigo and Severa, are recruited by Anankos, the forgotten dragon of Fates, in order to guide Corrin to kill him. Keeping in mind his dialogue, it's revealed that this is after their parents death, so this is an Owain that has survived in the world of Grima. Wether we say that he does a good job or not (because Corrin doesn't meet Anakos on any route that isn't revelation), it's still worth noting that he was personally scouted by one of the most powerful beings in Fire Emblem.

Now, before I finish, I should answer a number of questions that could be asked

Why not including the other children that Chrom could have?

The key thing here is "could". None of Chrom's wifes are really canon, we just know that they could happen, so even if he has a certain bias with some girls *ahem*Sumia*ahem*, I still can't count them as a thing. Besides, they'd be the same as Owain without the Anankos stuff (except for Inigo, who could have the exact same page)

Is there really no other mention of the Altean bloodline anywhere else?

No, we just know about the stuff presented to us through both of Marth's stories, the OVA, Awakening and Fates.

What about Chrom's father?

The little that we know about Chrom's father is that he was a really bad person, which is why people didn't like Emmeryn in the first place. But honestly, I didn't consider him important enough to mention him

Why not include Ophelia?

Same reason as the other possible Chrom kids. She could be born or not, therefore I decided not to count it. I know there's the Heirs of Fate DLC, but I don't know if I can classify it as a canon thing instead of just a DLC thing for those who liked the child characters. Also I haven't played it and I don't anything about it. My bad.

[sorenversh]

Timerra is a great unit

Yeah. THAT Timerra. When I see people talking about her, they greatly understimate what this girl can do. But honestly, at the same time, I can't really blame them. When Timerra joins the team, there are far many other units that have joined the team that are utterly ridiculous.

Kagetsu, with his insanely high stats. Ivy, a magic user that can fly and use staves that is also kinda tanky. Pandreo also having great stats. Heck, even the girls that Timerra joins the team with are great units in the form of Merrin and the crit machine known as Panette! The only thing that Timerra has that is better than the other two that are with her is that she starts with emblem Ike.

We've talked enough at the absolutely awesome units that she gets compared with the most. Let's take a look at Timerra herself. Timerra manages to be both fast and a physical tank. Her growth aren't really high in any areas, but they reach or surpass slightly 50%, except for strength which is 35%, 40% once she promotes. Her worst stats are magic, res and luck, having an average of 30% in each.

And her bases aren't that bad either. They're fairly mediocre, but she'll have to work slightly to get going. Her main problem however, is her con/build stat, with a pretty pathetic 5 con. That's the main issue with her. She has bad con. However, there are many ways to make it so con doesn't matter nearly as much. Forging low weight weapons, like javelins or engraving emblems to a weapon to reduce the weight of it. Outside of the first chapter she's present in, she should perform relatively well.

Timerra's first impression will be a bad one to any player that tried to make her combat any enemy on her first chapter. And that's also mainly because of her silver lance. The silver lance has 13 weight, which makes her kinda nice speed of 18 go down to just 10. The javelin is a much better option, but because you haven't been able to forge it, the damage is low.

Outside of that chapter's performance, however, Timerra should start to shine. She can promote instantly after the chapter is over, giving her a nice stat boost to everything, con included. From there onwards though, her weapons of choice will be vital to determine how good she is. Giving her that heavy silver lance without engraving or forging it will make her bad. If you give her a forged javelin or killer lance though, things will change completely. She'll be able to double and kill enemies far easier.

And once she levels up more, she'll get access to sandstorm, which whenever it procs, it'll calculate damage with her much superior defense + 50% of it. It doesn't sound like a big change, but the difference is insane. If it procs, it'll kill any unit that doesn't have insane amounts of HP (endgame Berserkers with their 80 HP stat). And while the chance of it happening is of Timerra's skill total (if she has 20 skill, the skill will proc 20% of the time), Timerra's skill is decent enough for it to proc regularly, and with her high speed, that chance will be even better.

Her average but more than usable stats make her able to use any emblem without any problem (not any magical emblems though). That flexibility allows her to be able to use anything that might help her (depending on what you might want for her or stats she got screwed with), and that just makes her even better.

So, to end stuff just let me tell you to give her a chance. I know I did, and I've been using her in pretty much every maddening playthrough I've done. She is more than decent, you just need to give her a bit of love. Plus sandstorm makes her really fun to use. And as a certain pretty girl said, "let's have some fun!".

[sorenversh]

Engage's story is kinda neat

I made this account some time ago, and I thought to myself... Why not post something? Since I feel controversial, I feel like I should say that Fire Emblem Engage's story is vastly underrated. It's definitely much better than what the fandom portrays it like. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think Engage's story is the best in the entire series. Sacred Stones, for example, is a story that I enjoy much more. With all that being said, let's begin. Spoilers ahead, of course.

Engage's story is a pretty simple one at surface level. Protagonist must defeat bad guy. Another story following the Hero's Journey structure. However, saying that THAT'S all that Engage has going for is plainly wrong. Many stories, most that have a villain actually, could be summarized in that same way. And because of that, people ignore that we need to go deeper on the story, not just stay in such a surface level take.

Let's take a look at Alear as a protagonist. When I first played the game I didn't expect to like them as much, but here I am. Alear is a take on a lord that we haven't seen before. They start as a coward that is terrified of the corrupted, who really lacks any kind of leadership skills. Most lords we've seen either are kinda strong since the beginning or have some sort of special skill (Chrom is strong and has the falchion, Micaiah has her future seeing powers), and if they don't, they compensate it by having great intelligence and courage (Eliwood discovers a whole assassin group being related to his father and he still wants to find him)

When we look at Alear... We see nothing of that. At the beginning. They pretty much kinda depend on Emblem Marth. After Lumera's death, and specially after the 6 first emblems are taken away, some growth is seen in them. Sure, they still may get scared, but they show more determination than ever. Far more courage than when the game started.

When Veyle is revealed to be their younger sister, and knowing that Eveyle (Evil Veyle, basically) is literally taking control of her, shows just how much determination they have. From the scary wet cat that wants to run away just because of a few corrupted, to dying to protect their little sister. Literally. Alear dies just so they can ensure Veyle survives.

And because of that determination and inner strength, they decide to let Veyle revive them as a corrupted. The same thing that scares them to death. And all of that so they can make sure that their friends are alright and to make sure someone can defeat Sombron. And with such display of inner strength, the 12 emblems get to transform Alear into an emblem. Alear finishes the game with all the skills that they lacked in the very beginning.

The only thing that is not properly explained is the memory loss and the irrational fear of corrupted. Or... Is it? Keeping in mind the dialogue that Past Alear has on chapter 24, we know that some Alear siblings died BECAUSE of the corrupted. Even while being under the orders of Sombron, they despised them. Alear has PTSD because of the corrupted, and yes PTSD CAN result on memory loss while still retaining that fear of them, making Alear an extremely human character.

And while being probably some of the most realistic and human characters that all of Fire Emblem has, they still get ignored because "haha Colgate Chan goes brrr".

After talking about the main protagonist, I want to talk about the story. I can't remember the amount of times that I've seen people call this story bad. It's understandable if you don't like it, but calling it *objectively* bad is totally different.

In reality, Engage's story is simple. Not bad, but simple. A story can be complex but be bad (Callout to Sonic '06 for being both unnecesarily complicated but being reaaaally messy). It doesn't have a huge political drama. It doesn't a generational tale. It's a simple hero's journey. But that does not make it bad, does it?

Let's think it from another perspective. Don't just think about what happens. Think HOW it happens. Who do you meet on your journey? What tragedies did you stop and which ones you couldn't? What makes you want to keep going? If you think about that kind of thing when you think of a story, you'll like it much more.

And maybe I should add that having some cringe moments doesn't make the story bad. Yeah, Clanne and Framme being fangirling over Alear waking up is cringe. But you know what? They literally have an Alear fanclub. They are teenagers. THEY ARE CRINGE. They just saw the one they fangirl for wake up after a 1000 year long nap, of course they'd react like that!

As a reader, do you genuinely believe that every character should be calm and collected and reacting to anything the way you personally would? Or would you rather let the character's personality express the way they'd react instead, even if you wouldn't do the same?

Another thing that is more than talked about is the so called Avatar worship. But I've seen people say that there would be insane amounts of Avatar worship before the game even came out, so I'm sure that people just tagged it and refuse to actually understand anything at all.

Alear is a divine dragon. A god. But in reality their a really normal person. Out of all the characters that worship them in any kind of way, Alear THEMSELVES tells them that there really is no need to. Yes, this so called Avatar worship is an important thing because Alear explicitly dislikes it. I could also talk about how the games without an avatar also have lots of protagonist worship, but that's a story for another day.

Now, let's take a look at Lumera. Engage's "mom that dies early". Keeping in mind that she dies on chapter two, you'd never expect for her to be actually that important. Before you say anything... Yes. The death cutscene is too long. I agree with that.

Lumera is Alear's adoptive mother. We don't know much about their actual mother though. They met 1000 years ago, in the middle of the war against Sombron. Alear is a broken person in the past. The first one that ever showed them some kind of love or compassion is Lumera herself. Maybe at first she didn't plan to adopt Alear, but she turned into the maternal figure that they really needed.

Even if Lumera is the divine dragon, the one that finishes off Sombron in the past is Alear. All of that so they can finally be happy with Lumera... Not knowing that Sombron would make sure that they couldn't make that dream come true.

Once Alear wakes up, Lumera makes sure to try to make them happy. Treat them like their child. Only wanting happiness from them. But again, just a few days after their first encounter, Lumera sadly dies, her dream of being with her child stripped away from her again. And Alear, even though they don't remember her, still cries, for what she means to them is enough to pass through their PTSD caused memory loss subconsciously.

Lumera dying this early has a lot of meaning. First of all, she's the main reason of why Alear begins their adventure... Even if her death means that Alear must do it even if their clearly not ready for it. Second of all, she haunts the narrative. The queen of Firene and Solm, past Alear, all of them have Lumera involved in some sort of way, and the way she's present in our army is through the Libération, the weapon that belonged to her, and once Alear transforms into an emblem, through Alear's birthday gift that she gifted to her.

And once she returns, corrupted by Sombron, we don't see the madness that the corrupted usually have. We see the madness of Lumera herself, who has been stripped from everyone she loves time and time again. At first because she had to see them all die. And back in chapter 3, because she died herself. For a character with minimal screentime, she surely can be really tragic.

Not everything is tragic though. Her last moments have her regaining her sanity before leaving the world for good. Now she sees what Alear has become. Stonger. Brave. Determined. And what she wanted the most. She sees her child finally growing up to become a more than fine adult.

Now, one important thing. If you want to criticise the story... At least make sure you experience all of it. I've seen way more people saying that they started to skip the cutscenes to then claim it is bad than more people saying that they experienced it all and that is bad. If you refuse to engage with the story, do you really expect to like it? Give everything a chance, it's that simple.