[Game Journal] Nah's Rather Unexciting Gaming Adventures

[Nah]

Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Golden Deer (Hard/Classic), Final Update

The final boss of the Golden Deer/Verdant Wind route is one of the few things I'm willing to spoil for people at this point since there's really no build-up, hints dropped, or explanations as to why he is the final boss (he literally just shows up after you clear chapter 21), and he has no direct effect on the Golden Deer plotline itself, so I'm hardly spoiling much here so....

Do you really think you can stop me?! I have an entire zombie army, and there's the zombie 10 Elites with replica Relics, and there's my own zombie ass with my replica Sword of the Creator! What do you even have?

We....have a Hilda.

The hell is that?

The absolute monstrosity I created. An army ravaging, world destroying, motherfucking god-shattering star.

*nervous sweating intensifies*




As much as I'd like to say that Hilda basically soloed the whole map and defeated the crusty old bastard Fell King Nemesis in one-on-one combat, that's not exactly what happened.

You start on the left side of the map, slightly below the center. On the other side is Nemesis. Filling the much of the rest of the space is the zombie army and 10 Elites. A large chunk of the map is a poison swamp, and you want to move around it in the beginning. You can dispel the poison swamp by killing a particular enemy to the north (Lamine), while killing the named enemy at the southern edge of the map will stop the (minimal) monster reinforcements from spawning. I started the map by sending a group of 6 (Ignatz, Leonie, Catherine, Marianne, Flayn, and Lorenz) to the south, while Byleth, Claude, Lysithea, Raphael, and Linhardt headed north.

Hilda went right through the middle, by herself (fliers avoid the affects of the poison swamp btw). And by herself, she slew a bunch of enemies, including 5 of the 10 Elites. It would've been 6, but I think one was so terrified of Hilda that he ran away from her....and right into Catherine's sword.

Which, killing the 10 Elites is a necessity in this battle since Nemesis has a skill that gives him a massive power surge as long as any of them are still standing. I wouldn't be surprised if it's technically possible to defeat him without dealing with the 10 Elites first, but for most people that's not happening because he is absurdly strong (like, the only thing that could probably stand against him in that state would be a full-power Sothis, if that was a playable character).

After slowly decimating the enemy army, it was time to throw down with Nemesis himself. Which is still not an easy task even after taking care of the 10 Elites, as he is still very strong without that extra power. There was also an unexpected development in the fight. After getting attacked for the first time, he changes from a boss that does not move to one that does move. I maybe should have expected this, since a lot of the bosses that were stationary on Normal would move if you got into their attack range on Hard, but still. Fortunately mostly everyone in Nemesis' range had not moved yet that turn, and so could get the fuck out of there. Ignatz had already taken action, but he was pulled out of the danger zone by Flayn's Rescue spell, and Claude had used his Falling Star combat art, which gives him a guaranteed dodge against the next attack he has to deal with in enemy phase. Hilda bonked him for some damage, then flew away to safety.

But it was still too soon to think everyone was safe. Byleth engages Nemesis in battle, and while he did lose a lot of health from it (though if Sublime Heaven got a crit, that would've been the end), he was still standing. Then I looked at Nemesis' predicted next action: 55 (literally the same as my max HP) damage, 98% hit chance, target: Byleth. Was probably going to use his unique combat art, since that was above the specs he had before. Healing back to full HP would not save me, nor would not healing and making use of Vantage to get the kill on him--a regular strike would not have done enough damage.

However, Lysithea was still able to act, and was able to finish Nemesis off, though I was a little worried that it wouldn't work out, as she only had a 60% chance to hit him. To some people that doesn't sound so bad, but after you've played enough Fire Emblem you start to get nervous about 2% chance stuff happening in tense moments.

But it worked out, Fodlan was saved, I banged Claude, and everyone lived happily ever after and all that.

Everyone's level's and classes at the start of the final battle:

Byleth: Enlightened One, level 48
Claude: Barbarossa, level 47
Hilda: Wyvern Lord, level 47
Lorenz: Dark Knight, level 45
Ignatz: Assassin, level 44
Marianne: Dark Flier: level 45
Flayn: Dark Flier, level 44
Catherine: Swordmaster, level 43
Lysithea: Dancer, level 45
Raphael: War Master, level 44
Leonie: Bow Knight, level 45
Linhardt: Dark Bishop, level 35

Spoiler:

woo

 

[Devalue]

Congratulations on another Three Houses clear. Do you remember who your top three in kills were? Assumes Byleth, Claude, and Hilda, based on levels.

Finds it interesting how much better Hilda turned out for you (presumably). Sent Hilda down Great Knight. Floundered in that class. Usually likes armor units. Feels like a terrible class, even at its "strength". (Ruined Ferdinand too.)

 

[Nah]

Congratulations on another Three Houses clear. Do you remember who your top three in kills were? Assumes Byleth, Claude, and Hilda, based on levels.

Finds it interesting how much better Hilda turned out for you (presumably). Sent Hilda down Great Knight. Floundered in that class. Usually likes armor units. Feels like a terrible class, even at its "strength". (Ruined Ferdinand too.)

Byleth and Claude were the top 2 yeah, and I'm pretty sure that Hilda was #3.

I'm not very familiar with the Great Knight class in this one, I've hardly ever had anyone in that class. But I wouldn't be surprised if the class choice did have some impact, although I think another part of it was how I put a little more effort/investment into building her than the others really.

 

[Nah]

kinda just quietly added Persona 5 Strikers to the list

Right now I've beaten the first two Jails. I'm glad that this game came out when it did because Persona 5 was great (outside of most of the last chapter) and part of me wanted to play through it again, but it's also too soon for me to do that. So this lets me scratch that itch instead. It's so nice to have the gang all back together really.

The first Jail was....rough 🙁. I think I died like 8 or 9 times during that solo Joker bit alone. This is supposedly not a terribly uncommon occurrence though. I think that a lot of it has to do with how the game is advertised as a Persona warriors/musou game. In most warriors/musou games you can kinda get through 99% of stuff by just running headfirst into the enemy group and mashing the attack buttons until everything easily dies, while only needing to have the slightest bit of thought for bosses and stuff. And the game makes you believe that since all the fights in the first half or so of the first Jail you really can just mash through. It's really much more a Persona game with musou elements and not a musou game with Persona 5 characters.

So after figuring that out, the first major boss and most of the second Jail went well. Wasn't particularly happy with my performance with the boss at the end of the second Jail though since it sorta felt like it worked out ok only because I finally had access to revival spells.

also kinda hate Lockeepers, I hate minions spawning with bosses and Lockeepers are fucking sponges that so far like to spend too much time teleporting and disappearing and shit

 

[Nah]

Up to the 5th Jail in P5S now. Fights have been going well enough, except for that one mid-boss fight in the 4th Jail that I almost lost to.

The hot springs scene was dumb, but those usually are


Meanwhile in Code Vein:

Spoiler:

These are actually the side dungeon versions, but the fights are exactly the same as the originals. I just wasn't happy with my performances against the OG ones and so wanted to record better videos to put up. The first one is one of the rare times I don't use a melee build, as I find that a little better against that one. Mage builds/bayonet builds are cool, but are also ichor whores and so they're not a general purpose thing for me. The second boss trips a lot of people up sometimes, his berserk mode can be a little overwhelming. The trick to it though is that patiently waiting and blocking most of his stuff (not the blood explosion spell though) takes care of that, ad the berserk mode is temporary. You don't see a whole lot of blocking in this vid though because of how quickly I killed him, but still.

 

[Nah]

Finally got around to more progress

Code Vein:

Spoiler:

Like the previous boss, blocking can help a lot. It's not strictly necessary, but it's a lot easier for me to do than try to dodge everything. Especially since I used to be better at that. Used to have the timing down for dodging her teleport attacks, but not these days.

Spoiler:

This is another one where the vid is of the side dungeon version because I hated my performance on the story one. Someone remind me to stop drinking and playing this game at the same time, it's a bad combination. Doing it sober I also found out that sticking close to her makes things a little better since it seems to make her AI use the moves that I have issues with a lot less.

Persona 5 Strikers:

Beat the 5th Jail. Like the 4th one, it's shorter than the others, I think I banged out like 80% of it in an hour. The boss fight wasn't particularly fun....I think I might have died the first time (I did this weeks ago so idr)? But oh well. Shit does interesting around the time of the 4th and 5th Jails.

The party is now at the next city, and supposedly the 6th Jail is the last one. There's also supposed to be a 7th one, but it's apparently a post-game thing or something.

 

[Nah]

I'm done with the Code Vein playthrough now.

Spoiler:

This is one of the few times in the game I decide to go with an AI companion, as the fight is quite frankly awful solo. In a game not designed for solo play, trying to take on 2 boss enemies at once is a bad idea. I have done it solo before but it's never been worth it to me to try to do it more than once. On NG difficulty you can kinda cheese the fight by stacking elemental resistance buffs and practically become invincible, but that stops working from NG+ onward.

Anyway the vid title is because the fight is sort of obviously inspired by the well-known Ornstein & Smough fight from Dark Souls 1. The difference here though and what what makes it more difficult than that fight ever was is how Cannoneer (the Smough in this case) has access to a variety of ranged attacks, making it difficult to not have to deal with both of them at the same time, even with a companion. Individually they're both pretty easy, but together ends up being a whole other story.

Spoiler:

Shortly after the BB&C fight is the next one. He's the kind of boss that's not terribly difficult to do in theory--stay close to him, dodge sword swings, then counterattack--but the execution is since said sword swings cover a lot of space, including partially behind him, as well as the erratic nature of the length of his combos. though maybe I'm just getting slow and impatient these days. So after a bunch of failed runs, I tried to utilize blocking again and I guess it worked a bit better. I do block sometimes in this game, it's just that I've always been hesitant to use it as much as I do in Dark Souls since here few weapons can reach 100% block and you move super slowly while blocking. But idk maybe blocking in Code Vein is better than I give it credit for.

Spoiler:

Would've beaten him on the first try but then a mistimed roll resulted in death. Feel like I should've gotten hit by that swing 9 seconds in, but either there's a bit of a hitbox/active frames issue on that one, or it's the tightest fucking hitbox ever and it just barely not touching my head actually mattered.

Spoiler:

This is my favorite boss in the game, shame that there's no easily repeatable way to re-fight him without going down the game's bad ending route. I like how the fight gradually changes throughout the whole thing, and it just feels really fair, every single time I die to this boss (which was about 6 times this run) it doesn't feel like it was for bullshit reasons and doesn't make you feel bad.

You don't get to see it in this video because I took out the rest of his health in his final phase just as it started with that last strike, but at low health his swings start having big energy blades attached to them and also create explosions along the trails . It gets a little wild really.

Spoiler:

Died the first time because I for whatever reason tried to deal with the spike storm by sitting in the middle of the arena instead of going to the edge, but got it on the 2nd attempt. The boss has a tendency to, at a specific distance, always do the arm swipes, so it's easy to just remember to always roll at a certain point and get close to it. It's kind of annoying how it takes significantly reduced damage if you don't hit the head (the DLC bosses are the only other ones where this happens), but at least after doing the spike storm in phase 2 leaves it vulnerable for a while.

For my next playthrough I'll probably just do my other file that I keep on NG difficulty for a chill run, but after that on my main file I might just start bringing a companion along much more than I have in my several playthroughs of this game. I've beaten the game multiple times on NG+2 solo, I don't really feel the need to continue to bother doing that. Might even finally get around to bumping it up to NG+3, we'll see what happens.

 

[Nah]

Finished Persona 5 Strikers today. As it turns out, what I had heard about how the 6th Jail is the last and the 7th is a post-game thing was not true, the final Jail is part of the main story. Stuff wasn't hard, but that was because I bumped down the difficulty to Easy. Partway through the 6th Jail I just got so tired of the slog that is the bosses and mini-bosses that I was just like fuck it.

I think I still like Persona 5 better for the most part, but it was still really nice to have a direct sequel to P5 and have the Phantom Thieves get back together for a bit and all that, they're a fun bunch.

now I just gotta figure out what games to pick next for this thing

 

[Nah]

I've kinda been on a Dark Souls binge lately so I'll add the new Dark Souls 2 playthrough I started today to this+the event. No videos since it's PS3 and that don't have a built-in capture function, but idk if I'd have felt like doing that anyway lol.

Made a fresh file, started in the Swordsman/Wanderer class. Did that more for the look of the starting armor for that class more than anything really lol, might just use it or most of it for the whole game. Has the bonus of being pretty light anyway, which is useful since one of my favorite oversized slabs of metal (the UGS with the simplistic but also slightly odd name of "Greatsword") weighs a fucking ton. Intending for a quality build with Longsword/Greatsword/Dragonrider's Halberd being my main weapons (the 3rd one being a weapon I've never used before and I have almost no halberd experience in the series), with a bow for when I need it. Little to no spells.

Today went fairly well considering that I haven't played this particular souls game in years. Got from the start through the first 4 bosses so far. Died like 6-9 times, but not to any of the bosses. Which, they're obviously not the hardest ones in the game, but it was nice to see my fight against The Pursuer go as well as it did, I vaguely remember that one being not fun for me on my previous playthroughs. It was also nice to see how recent experience against DS3 Cathedral of the Deep giants made Last Giant a cakewalk, fought it basically the same way as those. I just hope that this holds to some degree.

majula theme is the shit, fuck firelink shrine

 

[Nah]

Made some progress, have two of the four great souls needed to enter Drangleic Castle. Finally died to bosses today, to the Scorpioness and the Smelter Demon. Shaded Woods was not a great time, but when is it ever? Did beat Old Iron King on the first try though, so I guess it's still not going too bad.

Had the souls to buy enough titanite to make big upgrades to my equipment, which was nice. Next up is going through Door of Pharros to Brightstone Cave to get the 3rd great soul. I want to leave The Gutter and Black Gulch for last, really never liked going through those areas.

 

[Nah]

I'm at the point where I can go do the final boss now. It's probably gonna be a while before I do that though, as I still have the DLC areas and a few other optional bosses to do and I want to do those.

Also got distracted for a bit by re-working what I thought was my hexer build into a hexer build. Like I think the original intent was to go hexer but then somewhere along the way it turned into a sorcerer build. Got that one ready to go after respecing and some grinding, then initiated the next game cycle, will probably play through that after the current NG file.

 

[Nah]

did this today:



You can find better runs of people doing the same thing, but it was nice to win the fight without using the sword in the boss room (Storm Ruler) to easy mode it, even if using Storm Ruler is kind of the intended way to do it.