radiant dawn

The story:

My major take away is that it tries to do a lot of things, and did none of them right. It only really served to somehow link 70 playable units together so that they could all play anime chess.

Part 1:
	This really felt like it should have been it's own 30ish chapter game. They just kinda throw a bunch of characters at you and then spend half of the available chapters on pelleas and izuka who do nothing for the greater plot. There are 0 correct decisions made by anyone in Daein. I'd rather see things like micaiah's/sothe's life before radiant dawn be elaborated on, or how the dawn brigade forms.


Part 2 aka path of radiance 1.5:
	It was fun to see how Crimea is doing immedietly after. The rebellion made it personal by kidnapping lucia and cutting her hair. I loved the dramatic entrance the greil mercenaries make. I just wish that the units in this section weren't so fucked from lack of exp.

Part 3:
	I'm going to be honest I just don't care what happened in this part. A bunch of people decide to kill each other and then a spooky chocolate coin bursts into blue flame. The End.

Part 4 aka final fantasy emblem X: revelation
	The best part of this is probably how they wrapped up the black knight saga. It just felt satisfying because he's a major part of the story from path of radiance to radiant dawn.
	A big issue I found was how often the "bad guy" changes. For half of the game we're fighting begnion cause fuck begnion they're taking advantage of daein. But eventually we learn that begnion is fine, theres just this group of begnion people that aren't actually begnion they're just can control all of begnion anyway because lol. so we team up with sanaki to fight them but oh wait, daein is now siding with the totally not begnion people because Blood Pacts™. But then we forget all that because it's time to go kill a goddess! but oh wait, the one who was pulling the strings all along was sephiran?
	there's this whole thing about awakening yune to prevent ashera's judgement but it doesn't matter and she nukes everyone anyway so why bother? they coulda just streamlined the plot and made it less confusing.
	I dislike how they decided to throw every lore bomb ever at the end of the game, the pacing is whack. especially in the tower of guidance it feels like they're inventing a conflict that never happened just so they could pretend they wrote a story for this game. After sitting on it for a few weeks I think because of this my final verdict is that the plot is Bad.

misc thoughts:
the new game + story thing is bullshit

I liked supports being bare bones in order to write info conversations that felt like they actually had substance. I also went back and read a few por supports. some of them were really cool but they were locked behind dumb support mechanics and so i never got to see them. It's kinda neat how mist and jill become close and their b support lets mist recruit jill in both por and rd

rendered cinematics owned. inject zelgius' silky smooth voice straight into my veins.

a lot of the promoted outfits, especially miciah's look worse. idk maybe they just ran out of ideas and everyone needed 3 costumes but it was kind of a downer.

i don't like yune's true form. also they just kind of spring it on you at the very end of the game it feels very useless

sacrifice is useless and its only important to the plot in like chapter 2.

nihil is such an important skill and you would get completely bodied if you didn't have it in the tower, thats stupid
so many good items are just random drops in the ground, it feels like a dev back door. not to mention that many of the SS weapons can only be found in 1 spot in the entire game

tier 3 promotions are cool

game is really freaking hard just because of how much important stuff is hidden. it's not a good blind playthrough at all and I feel sorry for anyone who baits themselves into blind ironman permadeath.

hacked in widescreen mode is terrible

game gives you 72 units and its really cool how unique you can make a playthrough

it was enjoyable to spend 100 hours with all these characters and see them grow

crossbows are weird and jank but i like how scary they are. I just wish the game had like any sort of intelligent design to teach you that they're kinda custom made to kill flying units.

I guess my main problem with maps is theres only really 2 objectives:
1. go from point A to point B, usually kill a strong enemy there
2. don't die for x amount of turns

it doesn't really matter what they call the objectives, there isn't enough separating them and it makes the game feel super samey

but fwiw I really enjoyed the defend maps in this game. they didn't feel solved at all after turn 2 or whatever.

tower of guidance is exhausting and you could cut a lot of the fluff

the cover/ward tile gameplay felt very weird, it was so important here and nowhere else in the game

ashera fight:
	-did not feel satisfying at all
	-made anyone without nullify useless :(
	-aoe attacks are jank and theres no warning about them so you will get owned
	-you just fight this random woman in the middle of a platform, her model isn't even badass

while the game is kinda bullshit hard it made me think a lot more about how to play sucessfully
	-mix of working with not the same units the whole game
	-they're not all busted op so you gotta get creative
	-quad dancers are so much fun and helped me be a gamer

i appreciate all the comfy snow maps in part 3 and 4

half shift makes no sense
but the laguz diversity is cool, i like having 3 different herons

love snappy menus

the game feels pretty sloppy, like skills being translated wrong, muarim flow chart text, just straight up crashing with easy mode saves, widescreen mode, etc. for a game with this high of a budget it feels terrible.

maps that stood out to me after 100 hours of tellius:

por:
ch.11 blood runs red
	there are five important things going on while most of the other maps only have a single objective.
	there had only really been talk up to this point about laguz predjudice, but this map does a great job of showing this conflict through more than just exposition. stuff like how the events that start the battle, the vigilantes, and zihark's character.

ch.19 entrusted
	cause i fucked up, had to luck into a sol proc to keep titania alive, and then had to 3 turn the map before naesela killed everyone

ch.22 solo
	this map turned into a giant puzzle for me and I loved having to piece it together in my head and execute it

ch.27 moment of fate
	black knight fight owns and it's a really cool way to develop the conflict between him and ike.

radiant dawn:
1-1
	made me feel like I was playing a brand new game rather than path of radiance 1.5

1-8 glory unwanted
	celerity ilyana lol. i liked how they tied a lose condition with the prisoners, and the way the units are split up at the start is cool, and nailah is also p cool

2-1 winds of rebellion
	heather with pass is such a meme. it's a map dedicated just to heather and nephenee, how could i hate it? its kinda interesting playing a map with only 2 units

2-E elincia's gambit
	elincia's a badass and this map is like custom made for her to be a badass.
	turns out it's really fun to play aggressive on a defend map

3-1 laguz and beorc
	the map's small enough to where the fog of war isn't obnoxious, and i liked the dynamic with the semisolid wall in the middle and the thicket path. i remember it being kind of a struggle even with the greil mercenaries.

3-3 river crossing
	there's so much going on with burning the crates and the senators escaping and the horses. the battle scene changing as the map progresses is also a cool touch

3-5 retreat!
	where do i even begin? neph and gatrie defending against the armor knight conga line was hilarious, rolf got to see some action, and just because of the strat i threw together to get ilyana the boss kill, much to atomic's disappointment

3-10 the heart of crimea
	i just like the way the map ties into the story. elincia putting down her sword could have been boring but they tied it into the map cutscene and made you defend her afterwards which made it particularily memorable. theres also twice as many units on this map so it feels like a grand battle

3-13 blood contract
	i didn't know i wanted a defend map where capped strength and speed ike slowly closes in on the daein army. also what the fuck why is the archer so good?

3-14 from pain, awakening
	idk the maps boring but i found a completely random rescue staff so lmao. i just loved how it tied into the story with lehran's medallion i wish more maps felt like they mattered to the story like this one does. The counter was really cool once I realized what was happening.

4-3 distortions
	my playthrough of this map got so goofy, with 3 unrestricted move mage girls and boots celerity ilyana. and then haar got put to sleep and i had to shove micaiah across the map so she could physic 15 tiles away lmao.

4-4 revelations
	why are there so many reinforcements?

4-E3
	this felt like the final boss i wanted from this game. got to pull out mist the dragon slayer, and ilyana found her purpose in life. the play atomic and i came up with to kill dhiginsea was probably my most proud fire emblem gamer moment™