[Game Journal] Nah's Rather Unexciting Gaming Adventures

Thought I'd also make a GJ thread for the 2021 event cuz why not

Right now I'll be logging my 2nd Golden Deer playthrough (and 7th overall) in Fire Emblem: Three Houses plus another Code Vein run, with ideas for a few other games to do floating in my head.

Games in progress:
Dark Souls 2


Games completed:

-Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Golden Deer (Hard/Classic)
-another (mostly solo) NG+2 playthrough of Code Vein
-Persona 5 Strikers

so update time

Started the Golden Deer playthrough (Hard/Classic) the other day. Only gotten through the first 2 maps so far, so not much to say, especially since they're pretty small scale battles. Right now I want to just stick to focusing on the same 11 or so units this run, rather than train more than that like with my Crimson Flower and Azure Moon replays. Most maps only allow for about 10-12 units anyway in 3 Houses. Then there's also the matter of what to build everyone as. I mean, some of them will likely just go their intended path as per usual (flying archer for Claude is too good to pass up), but it's nice to have a couple of people be something a little different.

As for Code Vein, I'll be posting the boss battles via video. I had already cleared the first area and boss weeks prior to starting this thread, so no vid for that, but the rest will have them. As spoiler free as possible, unless people want the cutscenes before and after too or something for some reason. This is a NG+2 run. Probably could've gone with NG+3 difficulty, but wasn't feeling like it. Depending on how I feel about this run maybe next time I'll bump it up a level.



This is the game's 2nd boss fight. I had forgotten that fat roll and me don't go together for this one and so died the first time, but beat it on the second attempt after switching to one of my non-fat roll builds.

Got through the next two areas in Code Vein:



The fight becomes a lot easier when you figure out that you can boil a large part of it down to rolling into him at a certain point, and this works for both phases of the fight. What would sometimes screw me up in past playthroughs was not thinking to block in the 2nd phase, because while rolling in does a lot and sometimes he swings not in your general direction at all, there's a couple of moves with big hitboxes that can end you, but blocking fixes that.



I remember that when I played Code Vein for the first time that this one gave me a lot of trouble. Now it's not bad at all, after a lot of practice (there's a repeatable version in the side dungeons). Not my absolute best run, but still pretty good considering I wasn't exactly sober when I did this one lol.

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In Three Houses, I've cleared Chapter 4. Aux battles were a little annoying yesterday, but that might've been because I was drunk. Either way, the kids are coming along nicely and I finally have access to the blacksmith again (it comes a chapter too late imo), so things are looking good now.

Nah said:

Got through the next two areas in Code Vein:



The fight becomes a lot easier when you figure out that you can boil a large part of it down to rolling into him at a certain point, and this works for both phases of the fight. What would sometimes screw me up in past playthroughs was not thinking to block in the 2nd phase, because while rolling in does a lot and sometimes he swings not in your general direction at all, there's a couple of moves with big hitboxes that can end you, but blocking fixes that.



I remember that when I played Code Vein for the first time that this one gave me a lot of trouble. Now it's not bad at all, after a lot of practice (there's a repeatable version in the side dungeons). Not my absolute best run, but still pretty good considering I wasn't exactly sober when I did this one lol.

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In Three Houses, I've cleared Chapter 4. Aux battles were a little annoying yesterday, but that might've been because I was drunk. Either way, the kids are coming along nicely and I finally have access to the blacksmith again (it comes a chapter too late imo), so things are looking good now.

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Wait... you get access to the blacksmith in chapter 4? It didn't tell me that o.O

gimmepie said:

Wait... you get access to the blacksmith in chapter 4? It didn't tell me that o.O

Click to expand...

Sorry, meant chapter 5 since that's where I'm at right now.

Got through chapters 5 and 6 in Three Houses.

Gilbert got his ass unexpectedly beat in chapter 5, though I think that may have mostly been because he was getting RNG screwed a lot, plus how apparently in Hard and Maddening more reinforcements spawn at the stairs than in Normal. It was fine though, I didn't need him to do more than he did, and he doesn't die then anyway.

In chapter 6, I ended up getting an item that I don't remember existing (the March Ring), which is weird given how many times I've been through this map, I could swear that I usually get both chests on this one. Was hoping to do the meme thing and have Lysithea one shot the Death Knight, but she unfortunately came up a little short, so I had to hit him with a couple of gambits before she could rip out the remaining ~85% of his HP:

But hey, still beat him.

Meanwhile, Lorenz is throwing shade at the dinner table


like what, am I not good enough for you >=[

or are you a "gotta have a woman on each arm" kinda person?

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In other news, I'll probably be adding a couple of games of Master of Orion 2 to the list sometime soon

The fuck is a March Ring? I didn't get one either.

gimmepie said:

The fuck is a March Ring? I didn't get one either.

Click to expand...

An equippable item that increases movement, is what the description said

Have made it through what is basically the longest segment in Code Vein, The Cathedral of the Sacred Blood. It's not a particularly well-liked dungeon given its length, how it can be a little maze like at times, and how, for some reason, the only color is white. That stuff doesn't really bother me though, long is fine, after like 6 playthroughs you kinda learn the layout enough, and despite not liking light mode for most sites and apps, the overabundance of white isn't searing my eyes here for whatever reason.

It didn't start particularly well though. Very early on there's an invasion (basically a bunch of enemies spawn once you enter a specified location, with reinforcements), and I died like 10 times to that. A lot of it just has to do with how Code Vein was designed for co-op/play with one of the AI party members and not solo play. You can do most or all of the game's content solo--I have in every playthrough--but I'd probably save myself some time/deaths/frustration if I didn't stubbornly insist on doing most of the game solo. Eventually did clear the invasion solo, but as a proof of concept that I probably don't need to do anymore but still do, I went and did it again with one of the AI friends, and, as expected, cleared it on the first try without too much hassle.

Anyway, to the boss fights:



If the video title didn't give it away, I wasn't very happy with this one. Argent Wolf Berserker is one of the game's easier bosses, and while I only died once, I wasn't pleased with the fact that I died at all, and that this wasn't a particularly good performance either. It's rather annoying really how the sweetspot for triggering backstabs is so....tiny I guess, even accounting for how you have to stand in the spot where it'd be if the enemy was in an idle pose and not where their back is at the moment.



The Cathedral is so long that the devs apparently felt the need to break up the endless white by inserting another dungeon halfway through it lol, via a (optional but not definitely not pointless) flashback sequence dungeon. Was rather annoyed with this one too, as I was literally one hit away from killing him the first time, then got clipped by some attack and died, in what I felt was an overall better performance than the actual win seen in the video.



This one's longer than most of the others are and will be since the game breaks up the two phases of the fight with a cutscene, plus I die once in the second phase and you see that here. The latter half of the Cathedral went better than the first half, and despite also dying once like in the previous two battles, this one felt a little better to me.

Done with chapter 9 in Three Houses now.

The main story battles were easy enough. In the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, the AI's Ingrid was, as she often is for some reason, a fucking savage in that fight. I think she took out like half of the Black Eagle's army by herself until she flew into Claude's range and he ended her rampage. The story battles for chapters 8 and 9 were as easy as expected too.

The paralogues....not so much. Like, they could've been worse, but I had to divine pulse once in the majority of the ones I did, and in the Ignatz/Raphael one only 2 of the 6 merchants survived, while in Anna's like half the cargo got away. There was also the Ashe/Catherine one, but I chalk that one up to it being a fog map, those usually suck ass.

After the post battle story stuff is done I should be able to get everyone else who's not in an advanced class to one very quickly.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Chapter 10, somewhat accurately summed up via two aging memes:



But anyway, chapter 10 continued the trend of paralogues/aux battles not going as smoothly as I'd like--had to divine pulse twice in Hilda's paralogue--while the main story battle was easy. Kronya took at little more work than usual to deal with since I accidentally got her to stand in a forest tile, making her harder to hit, but a timely crit from Byleth ended her anyway.

Meanwhile the characters are all like "wow professor you're so strong and smart uwu". And I'm sitting here like....."what if I told them that Leonie's died 5 times already and the only reason she's still here is because I can turn back time? 😅😢"

Chapter 11 was fine for both side battles and the main battle, which was nice.

Then I got to the final battle before the timeskip. Despite sort of being a defense mission, and as much as I like defense missions, it ends up working out that you don't need to turtle and advancing towards the boss (since the victory condition is "defeat enemy commander") works well. Lysithea got to live the meme for real this time, one-shoting the Death Knight without the need for chip damage from other people. Though it's much less impressive doing it in chapter 12 than 4 or 6.

Where the main team is at going into the timeskip:

Byleth: Enlightened One, level 29
Claude: Wyvern Rider, level 28 (though he'll start in whatever the fuck his first unique class is called, which is essentially how I have him now, a wyvern rider archer)
Hilda: Wyvern Rider, level 28
Ignatz: Assassin, level 26
Lorenz: Paladin, level 26
Raphael: Grappler, level 26
Leonie: Paladin, level 26
Marianne: Dark Flier, level 27
Lysithea: Dancer, level 27
Flayn: Dark Flier, level 26
Catherine: Swordmaster, level 25

not 100% sure about everyone's levels, I just remember that everyone is between 25 and 30 except for Catherine, who's a little behind

And now next time I guess I'll see how Hunting By Daybreak goes.

Hunting By Daybreak ended up being more or less what I thought it might be.

As far as I've seen, it's one of the least liked maps for Maddening playthroughs. In my experience on Normal, it's been very easy, but I can see why people don't like it on Maddening. You're thrown into the map without any time at the monastery and you begin the map with only Byleth and Claude (or Byleth and Dimitri/Seteth in AM/SS). There's a lot of enemies, and while reinforcements do arrive for you, it's specifically only the 8 other kids native to your house, and everyone's split into groups of two or three across the whole map, without any input on your part who ends up where and with who. Then finally once you kill the boss, the real boss shows up and makes a run for it. On Normal this isn't a problem because your initial pair is probably so strong at this point relative to the enemies that they can do most of the heavy lifting themselves. Everyone else can hang back if you need them to.

So that then brings up the question of, since I'm playing on Hard, what does it end up being like? As one might expect, somewhere in the middle. It wasn't hell, but it wasn't as easy as I'm used to either. Had to turn back time twice (almost 3 times since Claude miraculously dodged an arrow that would've killed him at one point), and Byleth and Claude were getting a little beat up for a while there. But at least the kids were able to hold their own (which probably has to do with how I used all of them up until this point) and I didn't have to divine pulse even more. Taking out the real/2nd boss was easy enough too--he's not very strong so Hilda just flew over the moment he appeared and killed him.

Then you move onto chapter 14, and that went fine for the most part. Even got to see the little Vantage+Wrath setup I grinded out for Hilda in action. On one side quest battle an enemy had taken out just over half of her health, activating both skills, and so with a Killer Axe in hand, she smashed in the skulls of the next 4 units that came at her, instead of dying.

But then I got to the chapter 14 story mission and that didn't go very nicely =[ Long story short, there's a part where a large group of enemies auto-rushes close to you and the field is set on fire. On previous playthroughs this has not been a problem, I've been able to wipe out most of the enemies on that turn, eliminating any real danger on enemy phase. But this time there were more of them and the gap in strength between you and the enemies is less, so there was more of them leftover. I mean, most of it's just that I suck and am a shit-for-brains idiot, but there's that too. Funny thing was though, I only needed to divine pulse 2 times instead of 3 because the AI unexpectedly prioritized running out of the fire instead of killing one of my units that time.

Hearing your experiences is a healthy reminder that playing on harder difficulties does not sound like a good time xD

Hard's usually not too bad to play on, I've done it several other times in other Fire Emblem games, I'm just a dumbass is all. I'd probably have even beaten Fates' Conquest route on Hard if it wasn't for that fucking infernal Wind Tribe map. Had to bump the game back down to Normal after half a dozen aggravating failed attempts on that one.

It's Maddening (which has been called a few different things over the course of the series) that you don't really want to engage with. I've only tried it once, in Awakening, and while I did beat the whole game on that difficulty, including the game's hardest map (a DLC map called Apotheosis), it wasn't exactly....enjoyable some of the time, so I've not felt like ever doing that again. Some people really do like Maddening though.

Nah said:

Some people really do like Maddening though.

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Some people also really enjoy homicide, that doesn't make it normal.

There were two paralogues available to me in chapter 15, the Leonie/Linhardt one and Marianne's.

They're both fog maps. Never really liked fog maps, as I've mentioned before. This was also my first time doing the Leonie/Linhardt one, since I've never had those two on the same route before. The boss himself wasn't a problem though, just getting to him without someone getting killed was. Leonie's a bit of a gem in this paralogue. On one hand, she just walks up to this ancient powerful monster, looks at him and deadass is like "Hello Mr. Magic Turtle!", while on the other making very relevant real world political statements like:


Marianne's involves a lot of monsters (and a few non-monsters) in a dark forest. Most of the fighting takes place in like the southeastern third or so of the map. Had to divine pulse twice in Marianne's, once because an archer I couldn't see stepped out of the fog and killed the easy target of Flayn, while the second was because the game decided to RNG screw someone. 3rd time was the charm, or rather I just decided to try a little harder. I've always been really conservative with the Relics and other special weapons in the game (although to a lesser degree with the Sword of the Creator) due to the materials needed to repair them not being as easily available in large quantities as smithing stones and black sand steel are. But if there was ever a time to bust out the Heroes Relic's and sacred weapons, it's when a horde of monsters is trying to eat you and your kids alive. Leonie used up nearly half the uses of her shiny new bow here. Though what I think was the biggest helping factor was making Marianne a flying class. She starts all by herself in front of the monster boss, with a couple of other monsters nearby. Most of the map being forest would normally make it difficult for her to regroup with everyone else, but instead she can just fly out of the fucking danger zone. Wasn't even really thinking about this map when I chose to make her a Dark Flier lol. After that, basically what happened is that one group held off the monsters to the left of the start position, while Claude/Hilda/Lysithea/Flayn dealt with the ones to the north of it, with Byleth eventually splitting off from Claude's group to take on the boss alone.

Story battle was easy, helps to have done this map before. A small group of allies appears in the northeast corner after a while and you can't let their leader die, so I sent my flier quartet up there asap to assist.

Paralogue in the next chapter was fine except for Leonie kicking the bucket again (I swear I'm not doing this on purpose), story map was also easy enough. At this point I'm getting the feeling that things will go more smoothly. The paralogue in chapter 17 went fine too.

So did the main battle for the chapter. This was probably my best run of the map yet (you also do the same map in Azure Moon, so this was my 4th time), probably because I actually thought to do things differently this time, and went slowly (turn count was 22 at the end). What I've usually done in the past is the dumb thing of going straight to the center of the map and let myself get sandwiched between the two other armies (which also results in most of my group getting stuck in the fire that gets set after you take the center). The initial plan was to tell everyone to sit down and crack open a cold one and let the other two forces have at each other, but once they seemed content to just sit there for a while, I had to go out there and provoke them into moving. Once the southeastern army decided to attack, I just pulled back to the defensible starting area and had an easy enough time defeating them. Then moved on to capturing the central area and dealing with the remaining army. Only had Byleth/Claude/Catherine there to be caught in the flames, which wasn't a big deal given the very small number of nearby enemies and those three's fighting prowess.

After the battle the party has a moment where they're all fired up and talking about how they're gonna see this through (there's still 4 chapters left though), while Hilda's like:

Chapter 18:



Goddammit little girl, are we really doing this again?


u bet ur ass we are


Can I at least fight your hot teacher fir--


no
*Dark Spikes T intensifies*

....

The opposite of the previous chapter, I did this one in 3 turns. Had Linhardt warp Lysithea close enough for her to tango with the Death Knight again. Only just barely was able to one shot him this time though, he's pretty bulky by this point.

At this point I've cleared the second to last chapter.

Chapters 19 and 20 are this route's back-to-back maps. I've always been very glad that they didn't repeat the same idiocy they did in Fates where you couldn't save between them. Though if Divine Pulse/Mila's Turnwheel existed in Fates, those maps might not have been as bad, but still, shit decision. Not much to say in those chapters, they went fine, I just almost got Catherine killed twice because I'm still not used to bothering to think about enemy gambits, but it worked out, Catherine doesn't die that easily lol.

Chapter 21 is a fun map. Probably one of the better designed maps in Three Houses imo (would love it if you got to do this one in Crimson Flower). You start with your army split into 4 groups, each in one of the corners of the map. Enemies are fortunately spread out enough that you don't risk any group getting overwhelmed and it's not one big wide open space.

The objective is "Defeat enemy commander", but the commander is not immediately visible on the map, though you can guess where he is, in the building in the center of the map. And while these things are not explicitly necessary to do, the map has sub-objectives that will help you out in the fight. There's two other buildings on the battlefield, and opening them up and killing the named enemy inside will stop the monster reinforcements from spawning, while the other will disable the enemy's artillery. I sort of ended up taking the long way to one of the buildings--what I thought was a door was, in fact, not a door (it's been a while since I've done this map ok 🙁), so while the first room was captured quickly, the second took a while.

After both buildings were taken care of (and the majority of the enemy force was killed in the process), I had everyone gather together in front of the main building. The lone guard was easily taken care of, and I had someone with a key open the door. It's best to open the door when everyone's in position and able to take action, as when you open the door there are, as you'd expect, enemies just beyond it waiting to attack you. The closest enemies were dealt with, leaving an opening to finally get at the boss. The building is not really that big, so a unit that was at or near the door can quickly cross the room to the boss. Who found himself becoming the newest bloodstain on my Sword of the Creator.

So now it's onto the final chapter in the Golden Deer/Verdant Wind route....

That sounds like fun! I didn't dislike the last two maps in Crimson Flower, but having your army split into four instead of two sounds both exciting and terrifying and I like the sounds of the sub-objectives which I don't remember being as present in Crimson Flower.

It's not a particularly common thing in any of the routes iirc, I can only think of a handful of maps in the entirety of Three Houses that have sub-objective type stuff