how did i ever live without the internet
Dec. 29th, 2008 10:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
orange_smaugSweet, sweet internet, I've missed you so ♥. Good thing I had Radiant Dawn to occupy my time 8D. First order of business after getting online again was downloading this song:
and forever embedding it in to my brain. There's nothing quite like the feeling of being able to drop the Suck Brigade to play as the Greil Mercenaries, otherwise known as Ike and his Merry Band of Roving Death, Destroyers of Hopes and Dreams ♥. Which just makes going back to Micaiah's Suck Brigade that much more painful, but what're you gonna do.
I'm not one to hate on female characters just for being female, and in fandom (general) there's often a subconscious (or not so subconscious) hatred for traits in female characters that get a pass in male characters, which makes me want to :/ at people. But Micaiah? Has some seriously obnoxious characterization. The writing in the first part isn't very good overall, but besides most of the new characters just not being given much...character in the first place, a lot of it stems from Micaiah's foresight and how it's dealt with, how it's used as a crutch to pull the plot along in the direction the writers need it to go instead of letting it develop organically.
Instead of having to seek out information and pragmatically consider their options, the Dawn Brigade could always rely on Micaiah knowing exactly what they should do. They didn't need to examine their actions from all angles and create contingency plans because her foresight would always kick in to pull them out of trouble if they messed up, which let them be a lot more careless (dumb) about things that would have bitten a group with less plot armor in the ass. My sister and I spent most of the first part grumbling at Micaiah for running around with her hair uncovered then being surprised when people identified her as the Silver-Haired Maiden. Imagine our pleasant surprise when the Greil Mercenaries went and used disguises in the second chapter you control them, as if they had some understanding of what it meant to be covert and take only necessary risks.
Besides that Micaiah gets the most characterization out of the new characters (obviously), but it isn't very consistent. She's supposed to seem older than she looks but hardly acts it what with her petty jealousy over Sothe's admiration of Ike (though the 'father of Sothe's children' line was pretty good XD), her naive idealism about war and politics that alternates with a veteran's understanding of it as the writers see fit. Ike is a beloved war hero and commander but he spent an entire game developing his abilities and earning that respect. Elincia started out as a well-meaning but ineffectual queen and became one with a resolve of steel, but it took her country verging on civil war and having to watch the (almost) execution of her best friend because of her own mistakes for it to happen. Basically, the writers tried to elevate Micaiah to their level of charisma and ability but she doesn't do anything to earn it, or the instances that are supposed to give her this credibility were too weakly or inconsistently supported to make her characterization plausible. Pelleas's story was much more interesting, as was Sanaki having to come to grips with her heritage and self-doubt later on.
***
-The maps were a lot more interesting this time around and the terrain much more varied, though the paladins didn't really appreciate that XD;. Ledges were a pretty neat addition. The animations were also definitely a lot smoother this time around, especially for flying units; the only ones I prefer from the PoR are probably Aether, Lethality, and Sol.
-I still prefer Supports the way they did them in PoR but appreciated that they tried something new with them, and you still got a good amount of characterization in the base conversations and special boss conversations. Someone mentioned an idea to blend the two systems, where anyone can support with anyone else but certain pairings would get detailed conversations while others would be generic, basically the best of both worlds. They're already partway there anyway, since some of the supports are more personalized than others.
-Speaking of which, Tibarn and Reyson are still gay for each other.
-Laughed long and hard at the 'Appearances' conversation between Nailah, Rafiel, and Ike about the heron siblings. Those Laguz Royals sure do love them some herons huh?
-Sephiran and Zelgius? Gaaaaaaaay.
-Sephiran's last conversation with Sanaki though, 'You are my sun and my moon' :,(...
-There's a whole lot of gay in this game isn't there? You could more easily argue Ike being asexual than heterosexual.
-The music is pretty awesome.
-The voice acting on the other hand...I wouldn't call it ear bleeding and a few of the voices are actually excellent (Shinoooooon), but only because I've played the first Baten Kaitos.
-I'm pretty obsessive about only giving experience to units I'll use in the final end game, but I actually enjoyed playing as different groups and having to use characters I wouldn't normally consider. Though admittedly I liked this more in theory than in practice during Dawn Brigade chapters. But Aran helped make those chapters much more bearable, and Danved was made of awesome when he was around ♥.
-Soren somehow ended up with 21 strength and 23 defense without the use of Bexp after capping his important stats. The world works in mysterious ways.
-Nephenee was sort of overrated in the first game, good but not invincible the way people made her out to be. This game? Definitely not overrated. She got #1 in kills for the entire game, and the only reason we didn't end up using her against Ashera was because there weren't enough Nihils to go around/we forgot to gank the last one from Nasir :(.
-Ike never gets to be #1 in kills, paradoxically because he's too awesome and always ends up ramming his level cap a million chapters before he promotes. Definitely getting Blossom next playthrough :<. It's awesome watching things bounce off him though, especially given his new character design. I'd call him Hector's spiritual successor, except he combines the General level defenses with speed almost on par with that of Swordmasters. Good job trying to make Ike less broken there Intelligent Systems XD.
-How ridiculous was Shinon? I love how archers went from being sort of useless in FE6-9 (though I always used Wil anyway ♥) to absolutely amazing in FE10 what with the ridiculous growths, inherent crit, 3-panel range and the Double Bow. We put Imbue on Shinon (14 Magic :D) but would always forget because he'd never get hit, then whenever someone actually managed to connect and also had enough strength to penetrate his defenses we'd plan to heal him next turn only for him to heal himself when the turn started. Could never rely on him to soften enemies up for weaker units to kill and get experience because he'd always critical, oh Shinon. Somehow ended up my favorite character despite being, well, a racist drunkard and an honest-to-god jerk to anyone not named Gatrie or Rolf XD;. What can I say, dude's interesting.
-Sanaki/Naesala is hilariously awesome, but I think I still like Naesala/Leanne more.
-"You're horrible Tibarn, I'm not an anchor!" ♥
-What is Nolan wearing?
-Kieran and Oscar still have the best conversations :D. Oscar!!!
-I love how when everyone first sees Kurth they're all 'oh noes a dragon D:'. Then you see him fight other dragons and realize how tiny he is in comparison XD.
-Ena's very interesting character-wise, but if she had to be required in the final chapters why the hell couldn't the game designers given her enough speed to at least not be doubled by everything under the sun D:. The fact that her strength is lower than her magic when she's technically a Red Dragon doesn't help things at all.
-Scariest moment of the entire game was probably against Levail because we forgot that the bosses could have skills too. It went something like:
Haar: Has awesome convo w/ Levail, takes him below half health with the Brave Axe.
Jill: Hits Levail
Levail activates Resolve
Us: Huh, if Jill can't double him then Nephenee can take the kill.
Levail activates Impale
Us: Oh shi-
Had to reset that time of course >_>. Though I still felt bad about killing him :(.
-Oliver is awesome, I'm inclined to put Radiant Dawn above Path of Radiance just for letting you recruit him without having to resort to multiple-replay tomfoolery and for his boss conversations.
-In 4-Prologue, we put an untransformed Skrimir on the front lines along with a Sothe with Provoke thinking that they'd go for Sothe who needed the leveling. Thank god for Resolve preventing any Paladins besides the first one from doubling Skrimir, and for his ridiculous HP D:. But the saddest thing? Realizing that Sothe still did less damage than Skrimir did untransformed.
-'Tiny Beorc' and 'Little Strategist', Skrimir ♥.
-God why was Sothe so useless and why were you required to take him along in the final party? (All right, for story reasons. BUT STILL.) His growths are atrocious and his caps suck, then Volke comes along with more HP, Strength, and Defense than Sothe's caps even allow him, and by far the better skill in Lethality. Oh, and his Whisper outfit is lame.
-If Hector Hard Mode hadn't made me appreciate good Defense Radiant Dawn would have. Unless your chance of getting hit is consistently 0% (i.e. Zihark/Nolan 8D) I'd prefer a character who can take a few hits. Screw Swordmasters and their crappy strength and defenses (shakes fist at Guy with his 9 Strength at 20/1, and Zihark's craptastic Defense cap of 26), I'll keep one around to toss the Vague Katti at but Ike's pretty much all the sword user you'll ever need, you're not doubling anything important with 40 speed that 37 doesn't already (except Ashera, but that's what Nasir's for :D).
-On a similar note, why would anyone use Pegasus Knights when you have Wyvern Knights like Haar and Jill running around, especially now that they've lost their weakness to arrows? Haar can't double the final boss, but that hardly keeps him from being flying death for the rest of the game.
Final thoughts: Path of Radiance was more consistent in quality but more run of the mill, and while Radiant Dawn didn't always succeed at what it was attempting I liked its ambition, considering how wed to tradition the series can be. And taken together they're definitely my favorite FE world of the ones that have been brought to the US, though changing the limiting factor of weapon weights from Con to Strength when calculating Attack Speed would have been enough in and of itself ♥. But though I think Radiant Dawn barely edges it out for my favorite FE game of the ones I've played, I definitely agree with the sentiment that it's not a good place to start with the series, it being a direct sequel aside, considering how much more unforgiving it can be. Good thing Path of Radiance is widely considered the best one to start with huh :D?
and forever embedding it in to my brain. There's nothing quite like the feeling of being able to drop the Suck Brigade to play as the Greil Mercenaries, otherwise known as Ike and his Merry Band of Roving Death, Destroyers of Hopes and Dreams ♥. Which just makes going back to Micaiah's Suck Brigade that much more painful, but what're you gonna do.
I'm not one to hate on female characters just for being female, and in fandom (general) there's often a subconscious (or not so subconscious) hatred for traits in female characters that get a pass in male characters, which makes me want to :/ at people. But Micaiah? Has some seriously obnoxious characterization. The writing in the first part isn't very good overall, but besides most of the new characters just not being given much...character in the first place, a lot of it stems from Micaiah's foresight and how it's dealt with, how it's used as a crutch to pull the plot along in the direction the writers need it to go instead of letting it develop organically.
Instead of having to seek out information and pragmatically consider their options, the Dawn Brigade could always rely on Micaiah knowing exactly what they should do. They didn't need to examine their actions from all angles and create contingency plans because her foresight would always kick in to pull them out of trouble if they messed up, which let them be a lot more careless (dumb) about things that would have bitten a group with less plot armor in the ass. My sister and I spent most of the first part grumbling at Micaiah for running around with her hair uncovered then being surprised when people identified her as the Silver-Haired Maiden. Imagine our pleasant surprise when the Greil Mercenaries went and used disguises in the second chapter you control them, as if they had some understanding of what it meant to be covert and take only necessary risks.
Besides that Micaiah gets the most characterization out of the new characters (obviously), but it isn't very consistent. She's supposed to seem older than she looks but hardly acts it what with her petty jealousy over Sothe's admiration of Ike (though the 'father of Sothe's children' line was pretty good XD), her naive idealism about war and politics that alternates with a veteran's understanding of it as the writers see fit. Ike is a beloved war hero and commander but he spent an entire game developing his abilities and earning that respect. Elincia started out as a well-meaning but ineffectual queen and became one with a resolve of steel, but it took her country verging on civil war and having to watch the (almost) execution of her best friend because of her own mistakes for it to happen. Basically, the writers tried to elevate Micaiah to their level of charisma and ability but she doesn't do anything to earn it, or the instances that are supposed to give her this credibility were too weakly or inconsistently supported to make her characterization plausible. Pelleas's story was much more interesting, as was Sanaki having to come to grips with her heritage and self-doubt later on.
***
-The maps were a lot more interesting this time around and the terrain much more varied, though the paladins didn't really appreciate that XD;. Ledges were a pretty neat addition. The animations were also definitely a lot smoother this time around, especially for flying units; the only ones I prefer from the PoR are probably Aether, Lethality, and Sol.
-I still prefer Supports the way they did them in PoR but appreciated that they tried something new with them, and you still got a good amount of characterization in the base conversations and special boss conversations. Someone mentioned an idea to blend the two systems, where anyone can support with anyone else but certain pairings would get detailed conversations while others would be generic, basically the best of both worlds. They're already partway there anyway, since some of the supports are more personalized than others.
-Speaking of which, Tibarn and Reyson are still gay for each other.
-Laughed long and hard at the 'Appearances' conversation between Nailah, Rafiel, and Ike about the heron siblings. Those Laguz Royals sure do love them some herons huh?
-Sephiran and Zelgius? Gaaaaaaaay.
-Sephiran's last conversation with Sanaki though, 'You are my sun and my moon' :,(...
-There's a whole lot of gay in this game isn't there? You could more easily argue Ike being asexual than heterosexual.
-The music is pretty awesome.
-The voice acting on the other hand...I wouldn't call it ear bleeding and a few of the voices are actually excellent (Shinoooooon), but only because I've played the first Baten Kaitos.
-I'm pretty obsessive about only giving experience to units I'll use in the final end game, but I actually enjoyed playing as different groups and having to use characters I wouldn't normally consider. Though admittedly I liked this more in theory than in practice during Dawn Brigade chapters. But Aran helped make those chapters much more bearable, and Danved was made of awesome when he was around ♥.
-Soren somehow ended up with 21 strength and 23 defense without the use of Bexp after capping his important stats. The world works in mysterious ways.
-Nephenee was sort of overrated in the first game, good but not invincible the way people made her out to be. This game? Definitely not overrated. She got #1 in kills for the entire game, and the only reason we didn't end up using her against Ashera was because there weren't enough Nihils to go around/we forgot to gank the last one from Nasir :(.
-Ike never gets to be #1 in kills, paradoxically because he's too awesome and always ends up ramming his level cap a million chapters before he promotes. Definitely getting Blossom next playthrough :<. It's awesome watching things bounce off him though, especially given his new character design. I'd call him Hector's spiritual successor, except he combines the General level defenses with speed almost on par with that of Swordmasters. Good job trying to make Ike less broken there Intelligent Systems XD.
-How ridiculous was Shinon? I love how archers went from being sort of useless in FE6-9 (though I always used Wil anyway ♥) to absolutely amazing in FE10 what with the ridiculous growths, inherent crit, 3-panel range and the Double Bow. We put Imbue on Shinon (14 Magic :D) but would always forget because he'd never get hit, then whenever someone actually managed to connect and also had enough strength to penetrate his defenses we'd plan to heal him next turn only for him to heal himself when the turn started. Could never rely on him to soften enemies up for weaker units to kill and get experience because he'd always critical, oh Shinon. Somehow ended up my favorite character despite being, well, a racist drunkard and an honest-to-god jerk to anyone not named Gatrie or Rolf XD;. What can I say, dude's interesting.
-Sanaki/Naesala is hilariously awesome, but I think I still like Naesala/Leanne more.
-"You're horrible Tibarn, I'm not an anchor!" ♥
-What is Nolan wearing?
-Kieran and Oscar still have the best conversations :D. Oscar!!!
-I love how when everyone first sees Kurth they're all 'oh noes a dragon D:'. Then you see him fight other dragons and realize how tiny he is in comparison XD.
-Ena's very interesting character-wise, but if she had to be required in the final chapters why the hell couldn't the game designers given her enough speed to at least not be doubled by everything under the sun D:. The fact that her strength is lower than her magic when she's technically a Red Dragon doesn't help things at all.
-Scariest moment of the entire game was probably against Levail because we forgot that the bosses could have skills too. It went something like:
Haar: Has awesome convo w/ Levail, takes him below half health with the Brave Axe.
Jill: Hits Levail
Levail activates Resolve
Us: Huh, if Jill can't double him then Nephenee can take the kill.
Levail activates Impale
Us: Oh shi-
Had to reset that time of course >_>. Though I still felt bad about killing him :(.
-Oliver is awesome, I'm inclined to put Radiant Dawn above Path of Radiance just for letting you recruit him without having to resort to multiple-replay tomfoolery and for his boss conversations.
-In 4-Prologue, we put an untransformed Skrimir on the front lines along with a Sothe with Provoke thinking that they'd go for Sothe who needed the leveling. Thank god for Resolve preventing any Paladins besides the first one from doubling Skrimir, and for his ridiculous HP D:. But the saddest thing? Realizing that Sothe still did less damage than Skrimir did untransformed.
-'Tiny Beorc' and 'Little Strategist', Skrimir ♥.
-God why was Sothe so useless and why were you required to take him along in the final party? (All right, for story reasons. BUT STILL.) His growths are atrocious and his caps suck, then Volke comes along with more HP, Strength, and Defense than Sothe's caps even allow him, and by far the better skill in Lethality. Oh, and his Whisper outfit is lame.
-If Hector Hard Mode hadn't made me appreciate good Defense Radiant Dawn would have. Unless your chance of getting hit is consistently 0% (i.e. Zihark/Nolan 8D) I'd prefer a character who can take a few hits. Screw Swordmasters and their crappy strength and defenses (shakes fist at Guy with his 9 Strength at 20/1, and Zihark's craptastic Defense cap of 26), I'll keep one around to toss the Vague Katti at but Ike's pretty much all the sword user you'll ever need, you're not doubling anything important with 40 speed that 37 doesn't already (except Ashera, but that's what Nasir's for :D).
-On a similar note, why would anyone use Pegasus Knights when you have Wyvern Knights like Haar and Jill running around, especially now that they've lost their weakness to arrows? Haar can't double the final boss, but that hardly keeps him from being flying death for the rest of the game.
Final thoughts: Path of Radiance was more consistent in quality but more run of the mill, and while Radiant Dawn didn't always succeed at what it was attempting I liked its ambition, considering how wed to tradition the series can be. And taken together they're definitely my favorite FE world of the ones that have been brought to the US, though changing the limiting factor of weapon weights from Con to Strength when calculating Attack Speed would have been enough in and of itself ♥. But though I think Radiant Dawn barely edges it out for my favorite FE game of the ones I've played, I definitely agree with the sentiment that it's not a good place to start with the series, it being a direct sequel aside, considering how much more unforgiving it can be. Good thing Path of Radiance is widely considered the best one to start with huh :D?
