Unlike Act 1, which definitely ends at Chapter 8 with Renvall, the question of where Act 2 ends differs from person to person, although it always falls somewhere within the range of Chapter 14-16. I have chosen to end it with Scorched Sands for two reasons: The divergence in the story of Eirika and Ephraim ends with their reunion, and the way the characters talk up the drama of Chapter 15 feels different to the way they talk up laying siege to Jehanna Hall, Grado Keep or Renais Castle. Plus, Caellach and Valter tag-teaming is a more impressive boss than Carlyle, Vigarde, or Renais's steward.
Eirika's story is the one the player is incentivised to see first, and I feel that shows in the way the plot is paced. There's the drama of Carcino's antagonism, followed by the reveal of who L'Arachel is and what the Sacred Stones are in sequential chapters. And then the story returns to the Grado side, with Valter using cunning in the way he defeats Glen and sending Cormag our way, alongside Caellach's cutthroat approach to Hamill Canyon and seizing Jehanna Hall with the help of a traitor. The story culminating with a dramatic match with Caellach and Valter follows on contiguously, and Ephraim shows up in a timely manner to pick up the most interesting thread of the story in the aftermath: What's Lyon's deal, and why was he here in Jehanna?
Ephraim's story, as the one the player will usually see after finishing Eirika's story, suffers in some respects from the fact that the game is expecting the player to already have some crucial information. It makes a big deal out of how Ephraim confronted Duessel and Selena, but the glue holding the story together is bound far less tightly, with a number of confrontations more interested in matching the length of Eirika's story than feeling like they all belong in Ephraim's. Chapter 9's sole contribution was introducing Gheb (which probably knocks this game a few points), while Chapter 12 has Caellach show up out of nowhere to set a trap that someone who's supposed to be in Grado probably could've done instead. The Dark Stone is set up early, with the prisoner in 9 and Duessel in 10, but it's not until 14 where it's paid off, in a scene matching Eirika's confrontation with Lyon, but far darker. Chapter 14, as well, makes far more sense if you know what Lyon's deal is (which you will by the end of Eirika route, but we haven't done so yet), and I'm not sure if the game skimming over explaining itself is trying to make Ephraim route have a standalone mystery or just assuming you already know the deal. In addition, the dramatic moment with Cormag and Valter loses a lot of steam because all the setup was over in Eirika route- here, they're just two powerful generals, and why they're even attacking Eirika in a tag-team is skimmed in the setup. The game knows what it wants to do with the route split, and things it's less interested in just fall to the wayside.
While the route split tries its best to have minimal impact on the mechanical side- although Ephraim route loses Tethys for three chapters, switches up Gerik and Cormag's viability and kneecaps poor Tana- the game does get to play a neat trick narratively. Joshua and Cormag have life-changing upheavals in their life during the course of Act 2, and the game does something cool in that it only tells one route's version about the details. Eirika route Joshua and Cormag are forced to grapple with the deaths of Ismaire and Glen respectively, while their Ephraim route counterparts are allowed to be more mellow. The drawback, since the Support system is so relatively primitive, is that the payoff can only exist in the boss conversations with Caellach and Valter. Had this game been given the level of care Three Houses received, at least one of Joshua and Cormag's chains, if not multiple, would either have alternate dialogue based on route or outright locking Supports behind seeing their dramatic reveals. Sacred Stones puts the mechanics of Supports first, so Joshua and Cormag must remain route-agnostic (and thus biased to the mellow Ephraim route versions, since Eirika route can fake those better than vice versa). An excellent idea hamstrung by the weaknesses of the system.
This leg of the game is where things get into full swing- you start recruiting a host of characters to make the lineup feel your own, as opposed to the very small squad you got in Act 1, the game's story stops being so cookie-cutter and starts opening all the cans of worms that make the game so lovable, you get L'Arachel, and you get to start engaging in the game's branched promotion system that would eventually become the full class diversity encouraged by FE11 and beyond. If you didn't like the game in Act 1, I feel Act 2 works as redemption. Assuming you're willing to make it this far. Although the game is no longer going to have wildly different maps, the route split will continue into Act 3, where we get to start chipping away at the enigma that is Prince Lyon.
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