My Hard/Classic run of Fire Emblem: Awakening

So, this time, I decide to play the game a bit more seriously, to give me more challenge since my Hard/Casual run was just me making my Streetpass team and destroying the final boss so bad that he was the only enemy left on the entire map.

So, my Hard/Classic run rules are that I cannot use DLC to grind my characters, and no using Renown awards that I've accumulated from my first three save files. Also, I'm playing as a Female Avatar again, with the plan to marry Chrom this time to get a great Lucina and Morgan.

Oh, and no Reeking Box grinding, but random skirmishes that appear on the map are allowed.

With this run, I plan not to get all the children characters. Since I might wanna use an alternate Streetpass team this time, I have decided that I would only recruit a few children characters. So, like my second run of the game (which also uses a Female Avatar), I'm using a team of only first generation characters.

My avatar is named Langley (after Asuka Langley from Evangelion), and after just one skirmish I was able to make her more powerful than Frederick (she's a Level 18 Tactician right now) by Chapter 6. I had to sit her out for Chapter 6 and 7, and Paralogue 2 just to make it more challenging.

I was really unlucky at Chapter 6 (in one of my runs). After careful planning on how to defeat the boss, Sumia died because the boss landed a critical hit, that had a 5% chance of triggering. Just..... wow......

Anyways, doing fine at the moment. A bit not used to the fact that I have little money though (even though I should be since I've played FE 7, 8, and 9).

That's all I've done so far on my Hard/Classic run.

Oh, another bit of unlucky event.
On Rogues and Redeemers 3 on my Hard/Casual run, Jaffar triggered Lethality TWICE in ONE TURN (due to Galeforce). Needless to say, I restarted the level.

Fire Emblem Streetpass Team Update 2.0

With Limit Breaker released last week, I was training some of my Streetpass team a bit to reach max stat cap with the little time I have due to homework.

The second person I gave Limit Breaker to was Nah. My initial plan was to make her a Dark Knight. But then I realised that mounted units have worse stat cap than a normal one. And not only that. Since Donnel's her dad, the stat cap he pass on to Nah may not be as impressive as others (or so they say).

In the end, I've wasted passing down Tomefaire from Nowi to Nah. I have decided that after getting the Lifetaker skill as a Dark Knight, she will reclass to her original class - the Manakete.

Holy shit, she is a beast.

The final skill set I'm giving her is Limit Breaker (for the +10 stat cap), Sol (for healing), Lifetaker (for healing too, in case of defeating an enemy who deals a powerful blow), Counter (to deal with the Wyvermslayer weapon when it hits), and Quick Burn (which can be replaced by Galeforce, since I dunno what to put on her).

She is my first character to get all stat capped (has a rating of around 401 with Dragonstone+ equipped). She could also take on Rogues and Redeemers 3 alone with just Dragonstones.

Really, really powerful.

Anyway, that's one complete member of my team. So I have a few more to train.

Another hectic week in uni. Also, Fire Emblem Update!

So, I won't be playing much Fire Emblem for these few days due to having several stuff due next week (gotta finish them this week and not be a slouch).

Another Streetpass Team update for Fire Emblem.

With Rougues and Redeemers out last week, I got my hands on the Limit Breaker skill, which raises a character's max stat cap by 10. The first person I used it on was Lucina, and my skill build for her is complete.

She has Aegis, Pavise, Aether, Rightful King, and Galeforce. With her skill stat maxed out, she have more than a 1/3 chance in activating Aether (58/2 + 10% from Rightful King), and a 2/3 chance of activating Aegis and Pavise (58 + 10% from Rightful King), so she's kind of like a semi-tank. Awesome isn't it?

Also, my Streetpass save file has already reached the Endgame chapter, but I've yet to complete it. I'm actually waiting for the final Spotpass unit to arrive, then only I complete the game, and I can transfer my Renown onto a new save file where I play my fourth playhrough of the game. This time, it's Hard/Classic with a Female My Unit and no DLC grinding/ Reeking Box grinding. Skirmishes are allowed.

Anyways, that's all for now.

Wow, a lot of news about the next gen console wars.

With the WiiU released last year and not doing as well as expected in terms of sales, a lot of people are debating whether will Nintendo survive the next generation of console war or will the PS4 or 720 be the eventual winner.

I guess you can say this is my current opinion of the console wars.

To me, I think Nintendo will survive the coming console war, whether they win or not. While there's been news by developers, or publishers, or just douchebags and dickheads saying Nintendo should drop out of the console war, I beg to differ, and to those people, get your head out of your ass.

Nintendo has done really well in the previous war, with the Wii being a runway success. Not to mention, the Nintendo DS fared really well against the PSP. They do have enough money to survive the next war. But I think what Nintendo is planning something.

There's been news about the WiiU being outsold by consoles older than it (PS3 and 360). While you might think 'Wow, that's embarrassing, being outsold by 7 year old consoles.', think of it this way, The new Xbox and PS4 should be out either end of this year, or maybe next year (probably this year for the holidays). Think of it this way...

Do you think the recent buyers of the PS3 and 360 will go out and get the next gen console so soon? I don't think so.

By then, if Nintendo did a price cut on the WiiU like they did on the 3DS, then it sales may actually be better. And since the next gen consoles are gonna be quite pricey and most likely have a limited library on a release date, what would a buyer choose, the PS4 of NextBox with only 1-2 games, or a cheaper WiiU with 3-5 games at the same price or less?

Now to Sony. I think the winner of the next console war will be either Sony or Nintendo. If done properly, the PS4 may be a success. But again, there isn't anything unique about the PS4 at the moment. I mean, consoles like 360 and PS3 are just like boxed up PCs, except PCs can be upgraded and run better games at greater quality. In the end, the PS4 might be ousted by the PC in terms of graphics and everything. But based on the press conference so far, it might be the winner if they don't screw up.

Btw the Vita is not doing as well as the 3DS. My main point being not enough AAA titles for it. Not to be biased on the 3DS, but it has tons of AAA titles coming out this year. My feeling is that this year will be dominated by the 3DS in the handheld wars, similarly to how the DS dominated the PSP.

As for Nextbox, Always Online, that is all. Seriously, this is a huge turn-off for most gamers. Cuz sometimes, we don't wanna go online, we wanna just play our games with no interactions from the outside world. Telling us to go online just to play an Offline-Only game is just fucking nuts. By the looks of things, the NexBox seem like its gonna be like a media center of sorts, and doing so might alienate a lot of gamers just to tap into the casual market and beat Apple I suppose. But doing so will most likely cost them the console wars.

Anyways, that's just my two cents. If you have another opinion (and not just saying 'OMG you sucks! PS4 4EVA!'), let me know. I'm open for discussion.

Gaming update!

So, I might not play Fire Emblem: Awakening as much as I used to for a while now. Mostly because of two things:

Resident Evil: Revelations and Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D.

I bought these games second hand, and saved a total of RM 100 (around 33 USD).

The only reason why I bought them second hand is that these games aren't on my top priority of must own games unlike Fire Emblem and the upcoming Ace Attorney games and Pokemon X & Y.

So yeah. I tried both games yesterday. Snake Eater is quite fun. I've never played a Metal Gear Solid game, but I've always wanted to. Also Revelations is gorgeous. I mean, the graphics in this game (for a 3DS game) is really really good. Also, this is my first Resident Evil game since I was too much of a pansy to play other games. But I found myself laughing and smiling at all the places that the zombies(?) appearing. Nothing particularly scary at the moment.

However, being not so good at shooters (except for Time Crisis), my aiming and targeting in both games really suck despite both games having similar control schemes for aiming and firing. While both games are compatible with the Circlepad Pro, I do not own it, but I think it's alright, since it didn't really give me such a horrible experience when I was playing it (at least, for now).

That's all for now.

Mid-semester break

You know what's funny about this mid-semester break that I'm having? I've only just started my uni for four weeks (out of the 12 weeks of learning I'm suppose to have), and this 'mid-sem' break is comes in between the forth and the fifth week, which isn't the middle of the semester.

But I don't really mind, cuz I have plenty of assignments to do. To me, this isn't called 'mid-semester break'. It's more like 'Finish all your homework week'.

I have like a few lab reports, essays, and a group assignment to do. So yeah, uni life has been pretty terrible for me lately due to all the assignments that I have in one go, and piling up like a mountain that you have to climb to reach its peak but never had the chance to because it kept growing taller (some sort of analogy I have there).

And the worst part? I still wanna play my video games. I still want to continue my Fire Emblem games, and I actually plan to meet up with someone to buy his copy of Resident Evil: Revelations and Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D for the 3DS.

Oh well, I'll have to find a way to do both of these during this 11 day break I guess.

Finally defeated the most powerful Streetpass team that was sent to my 3DS!

If you actually follow this blog, a month back I got my first Streetpass tag in a shopping mall, and this guy happens to play Fire Emblem: Awakening like I do, and so his Streetpass team got sent over to my game. However, his team was quite powerful and I was unable to defeat him at that current time.

Not anymore.

As of this blog post, I was able to defeat his team of 8-9 characters with my team of only 4 characters.

Here's how I did it.

The save file where his Streetpass team appeared in was my first save file, a file that I hardly touch other than using it to play the DLC maps for fun, and play the Spotpass Paralogues. So my characters didn't really received much training at all.

But today, I played Paralogue 21 (Yen'Fay's Paralogue), and then I kept playing this save file. Then I saw the Streetpass team, standing there, mocking me as I could not defeat him. Then, I got an idea, a really bold one, but I still went on anyway.

Two of my most powerful members in my team are Lucina and Female Morgan. Lucina is a Falcon Knight who is very close to getting Lancefaire after changing class from a max level Dark Flier, whereas Morgan is a Swordmaster trying to get Astra, after getting Lethality as an Assassin, and as a max level Dark Knight earlier.

My plan was to use just these two to face his team. I was gonna pair Lucina with her husband (aka My Unit), and as for Morgan, I didn't have any idea who to pair her with, but for some reason, I felt like the Spotpass Black Knight was a good pair with Morgan, even if he received zero training from me after I recruited him.

So I went to forge Brave Lances for Black Knight and Lucina, and Brave Swords for Morgan and My Unit. Then I give the Black Knight 4 Elixers, and one each for the others.

Entered the battle preparations menu, used Gaius' and Kris' Confect to raise all their stats for the battle.

Then the battle, Morgan paired with Black Knight, and Lucina paired with My Unit.

I can't believe what I saw. It was really intense, but I was able to destroy his team. No elixirs were even used in the battle. My main worry (his My Unit and Morgan) were defeated in a turn, to my relief. And I was finally able to recruit him.

Whew! The most intense curbstomp battle I ever faced because prior to the battle, I had no idea whether my plan will work or not. It worked better than I expected in the end because I did not even soft reset at all. All it took was one attempt (with this plan).

Anyway, I'll be continuing my Hard-Casual save file soon.