SS Chapter 2: Fallen From Grace

Time to head to the world map. A new location has appeared- the flag will help to remind you which place you should be going, but you never have to backtrack to somewhere you've been before.

So here we are. To move around the map, you must click on a place and Eirika will head to it. There are branching paths later, and Eirika will take the smartest path if multiple are available. Not that changing your path matters that much.

If you click somewhere on the map that isn't a place, you get this menu. This is more or less the same menu we get during missions (with Save instead of End Turn), but what do Unit and Status do here?

The Unit menu is basically the same, just allowing you to put all your stat menus in one place. No Conv section, though. It... it can be useful?

This is the Status menu. There are worse things you could see on this screen. Still not exactly the most necessary of things, and honestly I never used it before this.

Click on a place you don't need to be, and you get to manage the items you hold.

For some reason, Seth is listed first. That won't actually get fixed until Chapter 4, when Eirika gets her first force deploy.

Our first new character! Vanessa is very Pegasus Knight in flavour- fast, but weak and frail. We'll have to work around that, especially in these upcoming maps.

Moulder is an all around swell guy with the misfortune of being a male unit on an All Girls run. He didn't make Ephraim route- in hindsight, I should've used him, but I had other plans. He wouldn't have got on the endgame team anyway.

If you click on the location you have to go to next, Eirika navigates over to it, and then the mission starts immediately.

The gameplay power of Moulder and Vanessa well and truly outclass their narrative power, but the plot clearly understands both.

So let's go see what Ephraim's up to. It'll be some time before we find him, but that's our goal.

I think Ide is still part of Renais, it's just less of a village now.

This is all one line, I'm showing off that Eirika's running to Ide during the dialogue. I wish she finished this after the textbox was done.

The idea is that "the protected" are the people of Renais. Not that they're all that protected right now.

...I'm sad now.

SS Chapter 1: Their Weight In Armour

We continue immediately to our next map. Sacred Stones has a break period between maps, but it won't introduce it yet.

Our next map is this one, fitting all on the one screen. Those soldiers might be the extent of the force, there might be an extra soldier sneaking in somewhere or something.

Say hello to Princess Tana of Frelia, the most badass character on this continent. The game does not agree with my assessment of her power level.

With that said, it's important to keep your limits in mind, and not having a defense or even a plan prepared is a valid reason to be concerned.

Most Frelians seem to like trying to stick Tana in Castle Frelia where she's safe. Where the enemies are safe, more like.

Tana's going to make sure Eirika gets out of this mess OK at all costs, even if she's one of them.

Now if only the enemy gave you the time to pick them up. I think the idea is that Tana holds out while this guy runs.

Don't worry, she'll be just fine.

Ah, Classic Fire Emblem! Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones

Attract cutscene here. (And possibly a flashing lights warning.)

Welcome back to Fire Emblem, this time on GBA! Sacred Stones is probably one of the stranger picks for a full go, but there's a lot of little stuff scattered about that I feel one can make a solid argument in its favour. This game is a wholly stand-alone title (ie no other FE games are set in this world), and it is arguably the first game in the series to include the route-based gameplay made famous by Fire Emblems Fates and Three Houses. Despite not being the most recent title when Awakening came out, it's often called the bridge between classic FE and modern FE, because of other player-friendly gameplay decisions that will come up.

We'll be starting out using the old standby condition All Girls- Sacred Stones Eirika route is quite possibly the best game in the series for an All Girls challenge. Other games often have stupidly hard challenges (FE7 has you solo with an archer for four chapters) or stupidly easy ones (Crimson Flower All Girls is arguably a viable casual strat). When showing Ephraim route, I'll have a less restrictive character list.

Very few people play Easy difficulty, and I feel like it goes unmentioned what it actually does- it's literally Normal Mode, but there's strict "move these characters to these positions and perform these actions" tutorials- if you've ever played FE7 Lyn Mode on Normal, imagine that and you know exactly what I'm talking about.

We'll be playing Eirika route on Normal Mode. There's a semi-famous glitch with the way Normal Mode handles enemies that I almost have to show.

Ephraim route, because of its looser character selection restrictions, will take Difficult mode. Unlike Tellius, Sacred Stones Difficult mode doesn't have new content, but the two difficulty modes play like night and day.

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age Compilation

Here's a medium reference list for Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age S!

Act 1: Road to Yggdrasil

• Cobblestone
• Heliodor
• Downtown Heliodor
• Emerald Coast
• Hotto
• Tickington
• Gallopolis - Celestial Sands
• Laguna di Gondolia - Gondolia
• Exploration: Inner Ocean
• Octagonia - Masked Martial Arts - Caverns Under Octagonia
• Dundrasil
• Exploration: Outer Ocean
• Lonalulu - Saikiki Beach
  
• L'Académie de Notre Maître des Médailles
• Phnom Nonh - Other Side
• Snaerfelt - Sniflheim
• Arboria - First Forest
• Act 1 Review
  
• Side Stories
• In Search of Hope - Part 2
  
• Jade Journeys Forth
• Erik's New Acquaintance
• Lord Robert and the Kingdom of Dreams
  

Act 2: The Lord of Shadows

• Last Bastion - Parting Place - Heliodor Castle
  
• Mount Pang Lai - Angri La
• L'Académie de Notre Maître des Médailles
• Phnom Nonh - Puerto Valor
  
• Exploration: Inner Ocean
• Zwaardsrust - Dundrasil
• Octagonia
• Sniflheim - Gyldenhal
• Exploration: Sidequests
• Arboria
• Cetacea
• Gallopolis
• Hotto - Mount Huji
  
• Wheel of Harma - Fortress of Fear - Lord of All Things
• Act 2 Review
  

Act 3: The Dark One

• World At Peace - Tower of Lost Time
• Setting Things Right - The King Returns
• Tickington 1 - Tickington 2
  
• Erdwin's Lantern
• Seedlings
  
• Exploration: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3
  
• The Trial of the Disciple
• Side Story: Twin Eagles
• Hearth and Home
• The Trial of the Sage
• The Trial of the Luminary
• Lifelong Companions
  
• Erdrea Cleanup
  
• Exploration: Tickington Part 1 - Part 2
  
• The Dark One
• Act 3 Review
  
• The End of Time - The Timewyrm

 

• Partner Analysis
   

DQXIS Partner Analysis

We've seen our partners in holy matrimony cohabitation, and now it's time to have a look at them as characters separately. Not everybody got created equally, but everyone deserves at least a little bit of a writeup.

DQXIS Act 3 Timewyrm: Reaching Your Limits

After leaving Tickington with the End of Time defeated, Cetacea pipes up to tell you the game has one last trick up its sleeve.

Fortunately, you can go to this whenever you feel like, Cetacea doesn't railroad you there.

The Crimson Catsuit finished off Serena's cosmetic armour. We're still not actually done with the whole set yet, though.

Kinda feel like these Accolades should be separate, but...

Anyway, I went and finished off Serena's level by running into things with Baumren. I was close enough to her final level and this was more fun.

Right, the real superboss of this game pulls no punches: Now is the time for everyone to pull out some inventory items. Also should probably have used the Seeds, but whatever.

There's something I need to mention about this fight: I've never beat it before. I didn't really think it was something you could do with just level 99, so I decided to set it to one side and satisfy myself with beating this game on Calasmos, or occasionally the End of Time (booting the game back up just to go back to Tickington when I don't enjoy the 2D combat mechanics is a poor sell). My plan for the blog was to try to beat the guy once, to show him off.

DQXIS Act 3 Altar of an Elusive Age: Paster Master

If you attempt to access a file that has just beaten Calasmos, you will spawn here in Cobblestone. The world has been reset to "just before you fought Calasmos", but as far as DQXIS is concerned, you have beat the guy. If Act 3 was debatably postgame, we are now very definitely in it.

...OK, I'll need to switch this back.

Yep, this is how you get the spectrum nectar. This is just... I have several problems with this. At least this isn't DQ7 and how dumb that postgame is.

This time, you give the spectrum nectar to Gwaelin.

That's Zamovska Tantegel solved.

I don't need to save my game.

Apparently, with a Pallium Regale. Is it too late to ask for something more useful, like some Yggdrasil Dew or...

...Or that works too. I... don't think it's anything worth writing home about. If it's even audibly delivered to the player at all.

I like how he just assumes the Hero is going to become King of Tantegel here. I'd probably have said "when he agrees to marry Gwaelin, I'll sing it at his wedding"- there's more cause-and-effect that this ceremony is going to happen.

If you do not recall, "Pallium Regale" is the ultimate armour of the DQ5 main character, reappearing in this game as cosmetic armour for Rab. We got this at the end of Act 2 and it is entirely outclassed by the Potentate's Pallium.

...No thanks.

The pleasure is all mine. I feel like I'm walking in history!

And that's the last Altar completed at last.