#queuing this for like 10 am because it's 2:06 am as i type this giggle

[furryprovocateur]

if you only read one of these update posts, read this one.

i am just going to say it: this is the chapter that bested me. why do i say that? well, it's because of this.

these are the directions i eventually had to write out so i could consistently RNG advance this chapter to get a favorable outcome. the character order mattered heavily. the pararentheses are how much i advanced rng by and who i used to advance it (the latter for consistency in replication, it doesn't matter who you use to RNG advance otherwise.) i only did the first four turns because those are, far and away, the most crucial ones to map out. why? multiple reasons.

a. kishuna leaves at the end of turn 4, but you want to attack him at least once so that way you can get him to spawn in 4 units that each drop something (basically a prize for being able to reach him). reaching him isn't hard, per se, but it relies on his AI cooperating with you and putting himself in positions you can reach. i was able to consistently get him to go into the left part of his trio of blocks and get close to the wall such that i was able to get florina to attack him. if he leaves by the end of turn 4, you're stuck with stronger enemies that don't drop items. on the one hand, it's more experience, but on the other, funds is more of a concern to me and this chapter already has enough difficult enemies to worry about.

b. this chapter is fucking PLAGUED with long range units. there's a sleep staff user, a berserk staff user, and a silence staff user that will all be pelting your shit with statuses (even with kishuna's magical seal, they'll find nooks and crannies to cast in.). look, i get it. statuses are meant to be difficult to deal with. but, up to this point, you've only been able get ONE restore staff, and it's entirely missable (granted, if you miss it, asses to you, it was right near your starting position.). not only that, but you have limited deployment in this chapter, meaning that if your healer (should you bring one) gets silenced or (god forbid) sleep'd, you're losing a shitload of progress at best and you're fucked at worst. by far the worst one to deal with is the berserk staff user, but he's simultaneously the easiest one to counterplay. he will always go for the unit that has the lowest resistance and is not a healer/ninian. so, he's at least manageable. the silence staff user though? fuck that guy SO hard. he always goes for your healers (obviously) and it feels like the dude is nearly incapable of missing with silence. i would estimate i dodged his silences maybe 20% of the time at most. the rest of the time i was eating shit and losing priscilla's ability to do anything but rescue and trade. so, i absolutely NEEDED this guy dead asap, and turn 4 is the first time i could kill him. i had to RNG advance a critical hit with hawkeye to guarantee his death (thank god for hawkeye being a berserker and not a warrior or something. innate berserker crit was a lifesaver here.)

c. level up control is not only very convenient if you can help it, but it also makes a good indicator of your placement in the RNG. if you're getting the same level ups, your strat is consistent with the RNG and you can manipulate it. it helps that i was getting pretty good level ups for raven, so this was sweetening the pot even more. seriously, raven's walking away from this chapter at level 18 with 19/20/20 offensive stats, max HP, and pretty good defensive stats as well. if anything, i'm very tempted to promote him before FFO, but i think i'll wait until he hits 20 to do so.

d. this is slightly related to b, but shit rolls downhill and it snowballs in this chapter. one mistake will lead to a bunch of mistakes and a lot of lost time. this is THE chapter i need to maximize the most amount of corner-cutting out of as possible, so something like a 20 turn clear might look acceptable, but, for me, it's not. i even skipped the silver blade for this exact reason (to be fair, the thing's only 1800 gold and the most out of the way chest to reach. it's a calculated risk.).

so, with all of this in mind, genesis was my ordeal. but, i did manage to overcome it. i even got eliwood to level 16 (which was a way huger pain in the ass than it needed to be, but whatever). i'm over the moon about how this chapter came out overall, because it was giving me probably the biggest hurdle of all the chapters thus far, second maybe only to 13x, which i had to do a similar "follow these directions" setup for. RNG advancing is a double-edged sword in that it's very convenient to always be able to follow exact instructions, but good god i would trade it all just to have RNG that rerolled every time. i know, i know, limitations of the GBA cartridges, but still.

so, with linus' FFO, i am now at promotion time for many units. i need to seriously contemplate who i'm going to be using long-term in this playthrough. tentatively, i'm thinking sain (lol), florina, raven, heath, kent, guy, bartre (i want karla damn it), and probably fiora (only iffy on her because having 3 fliers might be redundant and she's basically turned out to be an inferior florina.). as far as the healers are concerned, i'm not sure if i really need to promote either of them. if funds will allow it, sure, but pent is my expected endgame staffer, and while serra + priscilla have been doing wonders for my experience rank, that drops off precipitously after promotion. still, physics are going to be consistently useful, so i'll likely be using them for most of the rest of the game. it's more just a matter of seeing if they hit 20 by that time. again, if i have the funds to swing it, i'll try it. but, for all these funds considerations alone, i made a safety backup save in case i really shit the bed on funds like i almost did in the HNM warm-up run. i have a way better idea of how to manage funds + what i'm doing overall, but i'll be damned if i let mismanagement rob me of this S rank.

no one's going to ask, but i used afa's drops on ninian for the unbelievably high swag levels. afa's drops might as well be a "who do you want to see when you take a picture of your S rank", and ninian has arguably the best quote out of all the possible choices. for anyone curious about seeing what quotes are available, all of them are listed here.

seriously, i would do unspeakable shit to that silence staff guy. i would feed him to dogs.