SS Supports: Chapter 17

Today's Supports:

• Tana/Syrene C
• Vanessa/Syrene C
• Gilliam/Syrene C
• Saleh/Myrrh C
• Syrene/Moulder C
• Syrene/Kyle C
• Innes/L'Arachel B
  
• Duessel/Knoll B
• Natasha/Knoll B
  
• Dozla/Rennac B
• Lute/Knoll B
  
• Colm/Rennac B
• Neimi/Amelia A
• Tethys/Marisa A
  
• Innes/Vanessa A
  
• Eirika/Seth A
• Eirika/Innes A
• Joshua/Innes A
• Ephraim/Forde A
• Garcia/Dozla A
• Ross/Gerik A
• Artur/Tethys A
• Saleh/Ewan A
• Forde/Kyle A
• Lute/Kyle A
• Moulder/Colm A
  

SS Chapter 17 Ephraim: Prince of Dark Magic

Ephraim doesn't have anything of note on the map. Let's get going.

Same overly dramatic opening narration.

SS Chapter 17 Eirika: Dark Magic's Prince

With Renais liberated, a path has opened up to Mulan, making four routes from the Grado/Jehanna half of the map to the Frelia/Valni half. You shouldn't be trapped on one side no matter where the monsters spawn. Our next destination is past Jehanna.

Caer Pelyn is having a dog attack, apparently.

We really want you to know that, apparently.

...You defined it as vaguely as "evil would seek". Whoever's narrating this has gone too introspective.

This part, at least, is relevant.

We're going to be fighting near a river, and there may be some regrets, but the two facts have nothing to do with each other. I'd almost call the next map a more "regretful" one, but it wouldn't sound as nice if it wasn't a "river" of regrets.

SS Chapter 16 Supports

Today's Supports:

• Ephraim/Myrrh C
• Dozla/Myrrh C
• Eirika/L'Arachel B
• Eirika/Ephraim B
  
• Ephraim/Duessel B
• L'Arachel/Dozla B
• Ewan/Tethys B
  
• Ewan/Dozla B
• Ewan/Amelia B
• Eirika/Saleh B
• Seth/Cormag B
  
• Colm/Kyle B
  
• Ephraim/Tana A
• Duessel/Amelia A
• Duessel/Cormag A
  
• Franz/Amelia A
  
• Seth/Natasha A
• Franz/Natasha A
• Ephraim/Kyle A
• Franz/Forde A
  

SS Chapter 16 Ephraim: Darling Renais

Ephraim route is now fully identical to Eirika map-wise. After this mission, the only real mechanical clue is Ephraim taking the leading position.

...Screw Taizel in particular today, I guess. Normally they spawn on different routes, at least.

Look at all these Knight's Crests I don't need. Did you notice this run is using none of them? Same is technically true of Orion's Bolt, but there's only one of those.

Interesting thing about Wyvern Knights only needing one weapon is that they have more "spare" room for the Fili Shield. Falcos and Wyvern Lords need lances and swords (well, "need" is a strong word...), so a spot for bow protection is harder to justify.

...What do you mean, Jehanna Hall now sells Barrier staves? If you can justify waiting this long, this is a decent time to grind up healers now that they can be bought at half price.

Knoll, the man who has seen his boss sell his soul, gets a "Maturity" increase. He needs the help with his shaky growths.

Yeah, Tethys gets the Swiftsole again. Meanwhile, Eirika could use the extra Speed from not being weighed down by her swords.

...Wow, Colm. Somebody get this kid an Ocean Seal. Pity Ross is hogging the free one. I didn't buy one in Chapter 14, so Colm will have to go without.

Shouldn't be too much here.

I'm fairly sure the cavalier brigade is also there in Eirika route, they just hadn't filed in yet when I took Eirika's screenshot.

SS Chapter 16 Eirika: Renais's Darling

Our next objective is Castle Renais, in the middle of the map. It'll be good to be home.

The routes have well and truly converged now, and the game quietly adds Ephraim's route through Grado to Eirika route, and vice versa. You can play on some of the maps if monsters spawn, and you can also buy from their shops, but there is no other benefit. Well, it also adds another route to make sure you can reach as many shops as possible unmolested despite the increase in enemy spawns.

Time to sell anything I don't plan on using.

So long, Dark magic. There's a glitch to let any unit use Dark magic, which I'll be explaining when it becomes relevant, but I was not confident enough to pull it off, and I felt I should keep my experience pretty vanilla. Besides, I wasn't sure who was getting it- probably Natasha, but Natasha has... issues.

Unlike the rest of the stat-boosters, which I am hoarding like a dragon, the Swiftsole and Body Ring boost stats that will never go up by any other means, so you should use them as soon as you get them. The Swiftsole goes straight onto Tethys, because Dancer Boots is always the good way to go, while Lute gets the Body Ring. This will allow her to wield Thunder tomes without penalty.

Resupply of Iron Swords, go!

In other news, Tana has been getting a lot of EXP to herself, and also she has capped her Strength. 23 Strength cap is kinda crippling on Tana, but she still hits hard enough to make her enemies think twice.

Right, Metis's Tome. Like the Swiftsoles and Body Ring, this also is the only way to boost what it does, except even moreso: You want to use it as early as possible in a unit's lifespan, so they can reap the greatest benefits from an extra +5% growths. The ideal candidate for the tome is someone who is low in level and has shaky growths that could do with a little extra confidence: As tempting as it is to wait until now to grind L'Arachel up, L'Arachel can cap everything but HP/Skill/Def just fine on her own.

I picked Neimi, although Eirika herself wasn't a bad choice.

Tee hee, "maturity increased". One of these days I'll care enough to figure out why it's called that.

The twins have not been in Renais since... well, since it got conquered. Eirika visited briefly in Chapters 2-4, at least, but otherwise, our twins have been pretty hands-off when it comes to how they're handling their home country. Now, was it a smart choice? Probably, but tell that to our people.

Renais's steward, in a rare moment of sanity, is a person from Renais!

Although he's not acting in Renais's interest.

Orson also hasn't been doing a good job, but we'll talk about that more when we see it.

This is a really good title. Just my favourite kind: It's obvious what it means on first reading, but once you finish the chapter, it turns out it's talking about something else.

Sacred Stones Act 2: Divergence

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.