#so. funny story bc I want to be a little melodramatic right now and I've earned it

[pathetic-gamer]

And that concludes Verdant Wind maddening mode/classic/no NG+ We did it! Gold screen!!

[The only reason this took 24 turns is that I spent 10 full turns parked on a stronghold trying to make Nemesis break his sword bc I thought it would be funny. He did, and it was. Ingrid final MVP yet again - i now have final MVP screens for her from every route but CF lol]

Once I got through the first few two chapters, this was significantly less challenging than I had expected. The final map was just as hard as AM, which is to say, not hard.

Run summary and some final thoughts (including some VW vs Silver Snow ~discourse~) below the cut <3

Making everyone fight their zombies was fun, and I did manage to get some crit/crest/signature art combos, too! Took clips of it, I'll put them together someday probably. The only hard part was wasting so much time trying to get people in the right position to fight their zombies at all (looking at you, Mercedes).

Fraldarius vs Fraldarius was a sight to behold, tbh. They both activated their crests almost every attack but also both consistently either dodged or proc'd aegis - even survived a crit through aegis - so it took four rounds of combat. (And NO, no one else was allowed to help. This was Felix's fight and his alone, ok.) Being a melodramatic bastard in combat must run in the family. I wrote a fic about it lol.

Units, classes, items:

Felix actually used a sword for most of this battle, I just happened to have the bow equipped when I took the screenshot. Also, they didn't all actually use their relics for the majority of the battle. Mostly silver weapons or the legendary forged ones. ALSO also, Leonie is actually a sniper, I had to restart bc I forgot I had reclassed her during some auxiliary battles.

I feel like I finally understand firsthand why crests make the nobility lol Leonie was the only person on the team without a crest, and I actively missed it. Constantly disappointed by the lack of a fun little glowing shape smh

Final pairings:

m!Byleth/Linhardt

Claude/Marianne

Hilda/Balthus

Lysithea/Cyril

Leonie/Seteth

Catherine/Shamir

Felix/Annette

Mercedes/Sylvain

Ingrid/Yuri

Dorothea/Petra (no, I didn't use either of them for a single battle, I just made them eat lunch together until they fell in love ok thank u bye)

Overall MVP: It was surprisingly even across the board, but ultimately Annette took it, winning by two over Sylvain and Lysithea, who were tied.

Highlight: Gronder Field, where I successfully made Edelgard kill Dimitri so I wouldn't have to.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON STORY + SILVER SNOW COMPARISONS: (warning you now, this is really long)

Verdant Wind's story actually falls flat sometimes, man. Things like Edelgard’s death scene stick out like a sore thumb, they so obviously belong to a different story (*cough cough* silver snow). What if instead, we got some final dialogue between her and Claude where he says he could have worked with her? He explicitly said earlier that he thinks they actually have similar goals.

(It also would have made the TWSITD reveal more interesting ["Edelgard, bestie, rethink this. We both want to free people from prejudice and discrimination, we can work together." "Surprise, bitch, I wasn't doing this on my own, the whole thing was manufactured by these secret baddies." "Girl help, I've been underestimating the depth of the secrets of this world."])

Idk, I still like it but there's something to be said about how much was taken from Silver Snow and vice versa and where they REALLY belong. When I finally played Silver Snow, after having already played VW, I was like "ohhhhhhh this makes sense now" about so many things. I'm actually of the opinion that VW is reusing story from Silver Snow more than the other way around. In fact, think Nemesis would have been an appropriate penultimate boss for Silver Snow (penultimate bc lets be honest, hes not designed like a final boss. I literally fucked around and made him lose his battalion and break his sword, just for fun. He's just a normal map boss. Kinda boring.).

What they SHOULD have done is turned Thales into a final boss for Claude so that TWSITD actually do feel like the ultimate baddies theyre supposed to be. He could even turn himself into a big cool monster like Edelgard does in AM!!

And I do love the final boss in Silver Snow, I think it's what really makes the story hit. You sided with the church specifically to save Rhea from Edelgard, only to end up having to fight her anyway! You fight the people who want nothing more than to kill Rhea, only to have to kill her yourself! You finally learn the truth of the destruction of the Nabateans, only to have to pit them against each other! Gorgeous!!!!

So heres my ultimate proposal for Silver Snow: Claude helps draw troops away from the great bridge of myrrdin, as is canon. You actually do try to help Dimitri at Gronder, but you get there too late to save him. You defeat the empire, then they give you the info about TWSITD. You defeat Nemesis. Seiros goes berserk, and you fight her as the real final boss.

For Verdant Wind: All the same, except Thales is the actual final boss. The End.

Okay that's all thanks for reading love you bye xoxo