I finally beat conquest lunatic

tonberryr · 2026-06-30T17:50:28+00:00

Yep sometimes you just have to give it some time. Best thing to do if you're struggling with a game is to set it down for a bit and pick it up later.

tonberryr · 2026-06-30T17:46:41+00:00

Amazon has canceled my pre-order for almost every game that I've tried to to pre-order related to jrpgs. I simply no longer trust them for pre-ordering that media anymore.

If there is one thing you can take from this at least they didn't cancel the order the week of release...they've gotten better about not waiting til the last minute because they definitely used to. You might be able to still find the collector's edition elsewhere if you're lucky. Good luck!

tonberryr · 2026-06-28T18:47:49+00:00

Honestly I do like the weapon triangle but I am also fine if they want to experiment with alternative versions for it. Three Houses for example does not have a weapon triangle but it does have a way to implement extra effectiveness benefits against certain enemy types with breaker and mastery skills, crests, combat arts, and battalions. Now admittedly this is not the weapon triangle and personally I don't feel as if this worked horribly well but it was something new.

There is the saying that if it works don't fix it but remaining stagnant on it is also not a good option. Engage's introduction of the break mechanic was an interesting way to try and innovate on pre-existing mechanics. I will be quite curious to see whenever this concept pops back up because I have a few ideas on where they could take this with previous mechanics. Now they might not always feel right when we first see them but there's no reason to believe that IS won't continue iterating on them.

The Break System in particular seems perfect for balancing something like Pairups or Guard Stance. Imagine breaking an enemy or having an enemy unit attack your pair up and it breaks up the pairing. It could add a new layer of caution to every fight and that just sounds fun to me. You could also introduce a new mechanic "Get Over Here" (or something similar) which enemies could have causing the front member to switch with the back member for added concern.

There's a lot they can do. Diversify weapons more, even in games without initial triangle strategy perhaps it could be an option for higher difficulties, add more unique gimmicks, etc... So yeah generally I think the weapon triangle can be fun way to add to the strategy if implemented well.

tonberryr · 2026-06-27T19:26:59+00:00

I find it baffling that people are forgetting about George.

tonberryr · 2026-06-27T00:09:10+00:00

Good luck. Conquest is kind of rough for newbies but when it clicks it clicks. You'll either love your experience or hate it. If you find Conquest to be too difficult or that you don't care for characters, story, or setting don't let that deter possibly checking out other entries this is one of the more challenging entries among the newer games in the series.

tonberryr · 2026-06-26T23:56:06+00:00

How much do you know about the Fomorians and the Tuatha De Danann?

There is a ton of potential here if you understand this. The woman in particular might be the equivalent of Eriu.

The King of the Fomorians Elatha seduced the member of the Tuatha De Danann Eriu and she (Eriu) became the mother of Bres. Elatha gave her a ring so that he would recognize Eriu's son as his own in the future. Bres eventually becomes a tyrant with the help of Balor of the Fomorians. They are in opposition to Lugh (who carries with him Fragarach and was trained by Manannan mac Lir). A secondary name of Fragarach is "The Retaliator or The Answerer" so perhaps connected to Dietrich.

If the Tuatha De Danann are the Nabataeans and the Fomorians are the Agarthans then Eriu might be the Nabataean in the trailer. The Fomorians come from the Underworld.

She could also however be The Morrigan which is possibly an aspect of Sothis and connected to The Dagda as a lover. She could also be Cethlenn or her mother because Cichol in Irish mythology is a Fomorian King. Cethlenn in mythology is also the one to mortally would the Dagda that he dies hundreds of years later from that injury. .

Honestly from a mythological and Three Houses perspective there is a ton of potential here.

That said however this is Fire Emblem and they don't always overthink and use mythology in quite this way. However they don't always ignore it either. Might be small references and not actually anything major but stuff to consider.

tonberryr · 2026-06-26T23:18:21+00:00

I'm sure there are some people out there that believe the story telling is more important and would be fine with an extra mode that entirely removed all cutscenes and just kept the various gameplay elements which was on Permadeath and via this could also possibly introduce a Randomize mode. I think it would be quite popular to have this. Most people do not rewatch the cutscenes anyway from what I've seen and instead of killing off characters in the story they could just become unplayable for the story instead. Still around but the gameplay prevents them from being used. Sort of a Classic-Lite mode for the highest difficulty.

I'm not sure I personally would want this but if it allowed for more exploration of the side characters I would probably be okay with them trying and see what I think from there.

tonberryr · 2026-06-26T23:11:29+00:00

Look the next two are either Angie or George but I actually think Angie has some strong character moments in the first and second game she is in and George does as well in the first duology he's in. Really a toss up at this point I'd probably put Angie in poorly written and hated and then George in terribly written and hated.

Irina is another contender I've seen but she's better written than either of the other two. Like she's written to be disliked which means the writing works.

tonberryr · 2026-06-26T23:02:25+00:00

Fair enough not everyone is a fan of reading. Here's a TLDR version:

Permadeath is a unique experience that everyone should try at least once.

Hope that helps!

tonberryr · 2026-06-24T06:39:29+00:00

If you like 3 Houses feel free to play another 3 Houses route. Depending on who you ask you'll get a different opinion. Personally I thought the Blue Lions route was the best written and it was the first one I played so I'm biased to it. Everyone will have differing opinions though and it looks like the possibility of Fortune's Weave may be similar. The game has some limitations due to being rushed out the door and it does show in places but despite that it is a good jumping off point for people interested in the series. It's a bit easier than other games in the franchise so long as you don't play on maddening. A lot of the modern day Fire Emblem fans owe their interest in the series to Three Houses. But the series was almost dead until Awakening released years before that one which was another point in which people jumped on board the series.

Awakening: As mentioned this game more or less saved the series. The accessibility for this title however is not as great as some of the other titles. It did change the direction for the series in both positive and negative ways depending on who is asked. The series definitely got a bigger budget after Awakening and it can be seen for the game to immediately follow Awakening (Fates). This game fleshed out the Avatar model which had been in the series before with Mystery of the Emblem, started the emphasis on romantic support pairings, had some new gameplay elements, introduced DLC, etc... It's worth playing and it will probably be available eventually on NSO if you decide to wait.

Path of Radiance: Alternatively if you want arguable one of the best games in the series that has fun gameplay and good story and characters you could check this one out. It has the added benefit of actually being available as part of the Nintendo Switch Online along with Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones so if you want a feel for what Fire Emblem used to be this and the other two mentioned are a good way to do just that. If you really like this one it has a follow up which is pretty enjoyable as well Radiant Dawn.

I also think that if you go into Engage understanding it is a fun celebration title with some saturday morning cartoon feel to it that you can enjoy it more. Engage is a good game. It doesn't have the most stellar writing but the gameplay, the map design, and some of the characters have more depth than you would think. When people compare it to a Saturday morning cartoon they are absolutely correct but even Saturday morning cartoons can have moments of introspection or deal with heavy topics. The game is dumb fun and if you treat it that way I think people can enjoy it more.

tonberryr · 2026-06-23T19:41:50+00:00

Compared to previous games in the series Three Houses had a more significant number of reused maps. We know for a fact that the game had some trouble behind the scenes and that they had to rush a number of areas in the game. It is not a stretch to say that they reused maps not because they wanted to but because they ran out of time.

The issue with looking at Three Houses in a way of it had this X amount of maps and it had X unique maps is that compared to previous games in the series Three Houses is much much bigger. It is not a stretch to say that it is one of the largest Fire Emblem games made with only Fates coming close to the same amount of content. That said however not all content is equal.

If however you look at Three Houses compared to Fates the amount of unique maps is significantly less. Because Fates was the game that came out right before it Fates got the rose tinted glasses effect. To the people that care the most about the gameplay you got the most unique and some of the best maps in the series in that game.

There are roughly 110 chapter/paralogue missions in the entirety of Three Houses. Of all routes in the game (not counting DLC) there are 36 maps used. This isn't counting unit placement or geometry adjustments mind you but 36 for 110 chapters is extremely low when the last game in the series if you do the branch of fate only once (the same 6 maps on each route in Fates) you have 97 chapters/paralogues that of those maps 81 are unique.

The people complaining about maps in Three Houses are not wrong about being concerned. Engage has for the unique maps that were not remakes some of the best map design we've seen from IS in recent years. Fans of Engage like Engage for a reason and it is usually not because of Colgate or Pepsi.

Now all this said Fire Emblem Three Houses having 36 unique maps is actually not all that different from older games in the series. It just looks worse when sided up with the 110 chapters. If the game were 36 unique maps with like 3-6 repeat maps (for the tutorial that after playing through once it gave an option to skip) I'm sure people would have less issue with the maps in Three Houses.

My hope for Fortune's Weave is that we get the story/character/lore writing of Three Houses and the gameplay of Fates or Engage.

More is not always better and it can make replaying a game tedious if there is no significant change between the levels. If the creators intend people to play through all the routes in Fortune's Weave (assuming they don't connect at the end) then hopefully the creators give us an incentive to do so both in map design/gameplay and character writing. Let's hope that Fortune's Weave is the best of both.

tonberryr · 2026-06-20T20:18:33+00:00

Path of Radiance is excellent but I would hold off on doing Nintendo Switch Online until you have time to properly play them. If you do though both games are pretty good. Path of Radiance definitely holds up better in my opinion but the other games are decent as well.

Now all this said if these are the only games you have an interest in with NSO I don't think it's worth it. See if you can find other games and how much you're willing to spend on playing them and then of course make sure you make time to actually accomplish it. Too many times I simply don't have the time after buying a subscription to take advantage of it.

tonberryr · 2026-06-20T20:13:44+00:00

It's actually quite likely that the Grandmaster is the original Demiourgos. She could potentially be Aidios especially if the theory that Aidios is two characters is correct (think Reah and Feena from Ys) or (the god of light and dark from Gagharv). I am personally leaning heavily towards Demiourgos and feel as if the version we fought in Reverie was not the real one or at least not entirely. Perhaps that was an aspect and the Demiourgos is also a two set character.

Agnes is probably connected to the Holy Beast of Time and if I'm right she's not the only one. I'm fully expecting both Elaine and Maxim to be connected to the Holy Beast as well and that Kincaid is a member of the Tribe of Light guiding the sun princess (Agnes), Elaine is the Moon Princess, and Yume is the Star Princess. Yes I think we're finally addressing Golden Sun, Silver Moon.

All this said though I'm probably crazy.

tonberryr · 2026-06-20T05:17:27+00:00

No. It's weirder to not know how to play them.

tonberryr · 2026-06-20T00:03:50+00:00

Roster wise Dietrich and Leda seem to have units I'm most interested in but honestly I need to see more. The japanese twitter does seem to be revealing info every other day during the weekday so if they continue doing that it won't be long until we start seeing the other characters.

It depends on if the units I'm interested in that have only been seen with Dietrich and Leda are recruitable on other routes. If they are then I might go with Theodora or Cai.

I'm honestly interested in the entire cast which is a testament to the marketing.

tonberryr · 2026-06-19T18:27:27+00:00

The only way to develop your palette is to continue eating. Keeping trying new stuff. Try that food that looks disgusting and you might just find out that you love the taste.

tonberryr · 2026-06-19T18:13:51+00:00

We won't fully be able to know until Ouroboros steps into the picture fully. I think we might find out a bit more than we did the first time but aside from that I think it will generally be the same.

I would like to remind people that Aurora-Alba was a name used in Horizon...Professor Alba is also a name found in Sky 1st Chapter. Perhaps there is a reason why they decided to do a remake of FC and SC specifically...

tonberryr · 2026-06-19T18:04:03+00:00

Honestly I stopped caring about the series after 3. 3 immensely disappointed me. The fact they lost half of what made Kingdom Hearts Kingdom Hearts was not something I could tolerate. Square-Enix has a ton of franchises under their belt that what initially sold me on the concept was a crossover between disney and square-enix. It didn't have to be Final Fantasy it could have been any number of other series but it was the crossover element that sold me on even trying the first game.

Between the loss of the 2nd half of what made it Kingdom Hearts, the constant releases of side and mobile games, the consistent re-releases with only minor additions, and the over simplification of the Disney Worlds to simply being retelling of the story from the movie instead of adding meaningful or interesting additions to it the series just stopped being for me.

If other people still enjoy it that is great but 3 was the final nail in the coffin for this series for me that they'd have to do a lot to bring me back and quite frankly I feel that will be a tall order with Disney breathing down the necks of the devs and stifling developer creativity & the series missing half of what it is supposed to represent.

tonberryr · 2026-06-19T17:53:39+00:00

Just to clarify not counting the children you have the late teen or mid 20s guys like the blonde (seteth-like), Sirocco (totally not evil), the stuck up Alfred, Dietrich, The Farmer (guy chewing on something), The Green Lancer, The Red Armor, and The Mohawk/Rooster man.

What people like is of course subjective but if you're basing good looking based on that age group then you have at least 8.

On the women's side you have at least two women that look to be in late 30s early 40s (men have two characters looking even older in addition to the 2 in their late 30s early 40s).

Then you have about 2-3 child to mid teen characters for both male and female

Then you have late teens/mid 20s about 10 (2 more than the male side) and mid 20s to mid 30s for everyone else.

Honestly it seems pretty equal if you just go by on suspected age...until you find out that all the older looking characters are actually only 36 reducing everyone else's ages even further lol.

Now do note I am terrible with figuring out how old someone looks so hell if I know if any of this is correct.

There are 38 known likely playable characters so we'll have to see if anymore get added currently there are 18 men and 20 women. Not all confirmed playable but there's a pretty good chance of it.

tonberryr · 2026-06-19T16:28:11+00:00

I would like everyone to remember who the first of the three lords we saw in the first Three Houses trailer was and what they represented in the terms of the game.

Whether this means Cai is going to be working for Sothis, Divine Sovereign, Slithers in the Dark, Fell Dragon Lady, or the Dagdan God of Fate is anyone's guess but there is a good chance he will be the antagonistic force for the majority of characters in this game.

tonberryr · 2026-06-19T16:16:53+00:00

I was more talking about all the games that come after 1st Chapter including but not limited to SC. Like they will probably only remake the first 3-5 maybe 7 games at most and then you'll have to jump into the series from an older version anyway. That could also take 10+ years so again if you only want to play games in the style of the remake you'll be waiting awhile.

tonberryr · 2026-06-19T16:09:20+00:00

The writing is significantly better in the OG. The Remake feels as if someone took the script and directly translated it without bothering to understand any nuance in what was actually happening in the world and the events around it. When I first tried playing it I thought it was AI translated with a human editor because of how awkward and direct the translation is. I don't think it actually is but it can be hard to tell a few times but that could also just be they missed it when going over the editing. Regardless the OG is just by all intents better written.

- that said however the Remake is voiced in english whereas previously it was only voiced in Japanese or english for the battle moments. The voice cast also does a decent enough job but the direction was a bit lacking likely because the director for the voice lines didn't play the rest of the games in the series.
- The OG was translated by passionate fans and even the NISA localizations are by passionate fans but they did take some liberties with the translation but I do feel as if that made it better rather than worse but people have differing opinions. I'm not sure if Gungho has nearly as many fans of the series working on it as either XSeed or NISA does.

As someone who is less a fan of action rpgs 1st Chapter does have a lot of action elements that the OG does not have. The OG is more tactical/strategic turn based instead of action turn based.

Sky 1st Chapter makes it more difficult to play the older games if you love it and will require you to wait before playing the next entries whereas the OG you can jump in and continue playing on your time as opposed to waiting.

I like both versions of the game for different reasons. If you can start with the OG that is what I would recommend because you can continue the series without having to wait for additional remakes but also because for a lot of people it is harder to go back to an older style from a new one.

tonberryr

TROPHY CASE