FIRE EMBLEM 4: Genealogy of the Holy War Retrospective - ShaneBrained

[Music] [Music] the fourth fire emblem subtitled genealogy of the holy war is certainly well known amongst the fire emblem community but like the other japan-only entries in this series the exact specifics of its legacy are not that well known to the greater gaming public ever since I announced this retrospective series there has been one comet which I have seen constantly appearing Fire Emblem 4 is going to blow you away you can say that it was with great anticipation that I play through the earlier entries of the series in order to get here whenever I went online or was reading the comments it was with great trepidation to keep myself from seeing a spoiler or even that much detail about this game's mechanics and systems surprising to me my efforts were successful and by the time I started up genealogy of the holy war I knew next to nothing about the game so it was with only my experiences with the previous three games to prepare me for the fourth that I started my journey into children like with dark dragon a Gaiden and mystery of the emblem genealogy has received a full English fan translation with the newest and most complete being project Naga meaning no offense to the prior games fan translations the work done here by project Naga is on a completely different level thanks to this very complete fan translation anyone can play and enjoy this entry without compromise and I'm very appreciative of their work so with all that said I think it's about time we actually get to it let's examine genealogy of the holy war and really understand the direction that intelligent systems took the Fire Emblem franchise with this let's see it started of all the games in this series thus far it's easy to say that genealogy of the holy war had the most turbulent development after the release of mystery of the emblem in early 1994 production on the next game began at the helm was of course the big three of early fire emblem history Shozo kaga as the director designer and scenario writer Yuka sue gioco as composer and gunpei Yokoi as producer I've been primarily mentioning these three for their large impact in launching the series but it's also worth bringing up the work of Kazuyoshi kuya who handled the character designs of both genealogy of the holy war and mystery of the emblem before it compared to the prior game development on genealogy was far more chaotic as staff within intelligence systems moved teams at the same time as mini production team members moved offices on top of this the changes which were planned for this game were so drastic that it began to be moved away from the fire emblem brand potentially donning the names a holy sword emblem Kaiser or simply sword emblem this game could have been the birth of a new franchise for its developer as within its development time it teetered between being a squad based status strategy game or actually being closer to a typical JRPG with an even higher reliance on role-playing mechanics but eventually it balanced out in more of a typical Fire Emblem direction and was given the series moniker once more on May 14 1996 just short of 10 years after the founding of intelligent systems the fourth game and the Fire Emblem series was released in Japan only even though at the end of the day genealogy of the holy war did not exceed a mystery of the emblem sales many of its gameplay innovations and systems have gone on to influence the overall franchise and more so than any other entry oh and of course this game has consistently been rereleased on the various Japanese virtual consoles well it's time to dive into the epic story that shows o cago wanted to tell with this entry but first I'm going to speak very directly genealogy of the holy wars story is absolutely best experienced on your own blind I feel it's obligatory to give spoiler warnings and time codes in any video like this but I want to really stress how important it is for this specific sorry to spoil a bit of my own analysis later but I feel that genealogy of the holy war not only has the best story yet in any Fire Emblem game that I've best played but it actually contains some of the most powerful moments I have ever experienced in any game period in many ways though positively motivated the Fire Emblem community's air of reverence around this game can make it seem more intimidating than it actually is to get into it and if you're watching this video simply to get a primer on this game without having to play it then please pause the video and seriously consider if you want to watch through this story segment or not have you gone into this one completely blind I can tell you that just jumping in and figuring out things as you go is really not so bad even if you play poorly your main unit and the first part of the game will get just about any player of any skill level to the juiciest stuff and I also want to give a special thank you to the fans who made sure that I had an untainted experience getting there myself so if you were in one of my blind streams and kept spoilers to yourself or moderated others who were about to spoil things as I was playing then I just want to give you a very special thank you alright it's your last chance to avoid spoilers the time stamp on the screen will take you to the later gameplay discussions where I'm also going to avoid showing footage of any of the big spoiler moments oh and I'm going to do as best I can with pronunciations but a lot of these names have norse origins that i'm sure i'm not going to say anywhere near perfectly i'm obviously going with project Nagas translation but that doesn't mean that i'm going to get all these right so just be understanding oh and i'm going to be splitting this story recap into two parts it's very very long so strap in okay here we go three two one [Music] our story begins in a brand-new setting the continent of jug drop which is divided into multiple lands the kingdom of Grand veil in the center the kingdom of Verdun to the southwest August Rhea to the northwest the kingdom of Celeste to the north the kingdom of Isaac to the Northeast the ye desert the throstle peninsula to the southeast which is split between the monster district and the kingdom of Thoreau seea and finally the millet OS district to the south our story opens with the continent divided as such but in the past all of jugged rule was united under one massive dark empire at the head of this Empire was a man known as Gaul who made a pact with an evil earth dragon named Loftus granting him in Mints dark power in response to this man and the evil dragons power which he wielded a separate God the famous Nagas along with eleven other gods bestowed their powers onto twelve rebels who would later be known as the twelve Crusaders together these heroes brought an end to the lop der Empire and in the aftermath seven Crusaders banded together to create the kingdom of Granville while the five others went their separate ways to form the end Obinna kingdom surrounding about one hundred years after these events a war between Granville and the northeastern ISA had broken out with almost all of Granville soldiers going northeast for the invasion they were led by Granville's Prince Kurth the current prince in line for the throne of all of Granville in the capital city of Bell hawa with most of the Grand Valley an army absent the neighboring land of Verdun invades from the West with the eldest son of King batter of Verdun Prince Gandalf yes Gandalf leading the charge on to Castle Jumby fighting through its meager defenders the lady of the castle I Dean was seized and taken which is where our hero for this adventure Sigurd takes the stage Sigurd is the prince of the duchy of the nearby castle Cioffi a powerful knight who is a descendant of the Crusader Balder the lady eye Dean and him had been friends since childhood and so he set off to free her from the clutches of Gandalf by mustering up as many willing souls to help him as he could Sigurd along with his young friend FA who served as his advisor were assisted by some of the most notable fighters at the time who were available including asel a descendent of the Crusader Fowler and his friend Lex who was the youngest Prince of dozle and descendant of near also showing up was one of Sigrid's closest friends Kwan who was also joined by ethnic Sigrid sister who was married to Quan Quan is the Crown Prince of Leon stir the capital of the eastern master district on the thracian Peninsula the loyal Finn a knight in training advanced er also joined Kwan and ethyle ined these fighters amongst many others vowed to help Sigurd in his journey and even the powerful mage Arvest who was a zoals older brother temporarily showed up to assist Sigrid by giving him a powerful sword on behalf of Prince Kurth with their powerful weapons and allies Sigrid and the others were able to clear the verdant nights out of Granville but he was sad to learn that the lady idean had already been spirited across the border and thus he prepared for an invasion of the Barbarian Kingdom for Don to get her back at the border he met his old friend at the agust rien Knights leader L Dagon who was a descendant of the crusader hazel - which Sigurd stated that his only intentions in Verdun were to get lady idean back and to stop this conflict - which held again permitted and agreed to help keep August Rhea neutral in the conflict between the two countries just after Sigurd launched his invasion into pradhan the youngest of the road Ani and Princess jam-free that lady ID'd himself urging her to escape out of the clutches of his vile brothers while he went back to his father at the castle to convince him to end this fighting after reuniting with idean and seizing the castle Genoa Sigrid discovered a captured young boy named Shannon who was actually the captured young prince of the kingdom of Izaak even though their two countries were technically at war Sigurd believed that the young and innocent whether they belonged to the current enemy or not were blameless in such a conflict and so he agreed to shelter and protect the prince until he was able to return him back to his country which was an act which gained him the loyalty of Shannon's aunt the incredibly wild and dangerous sword master IRA marching even further into Verdun sigur to cut through the VAIO Prince Gandalf and seized his castle of Marfa where he had yet another unexpected meeting this time with a mysterious and beautiful woman after their brief conversation and her departing he learns from another man in the town her name was Deirdre and that she was a maiden of the Spirit forest nearby legend said that she was forbidden from ever marrying as calamity would befall the world should that ever happen ignoring these warnings as Sigurd moved on as the last step in his mission in Verdun was to get to the capital where jamp had failed to convince his father to stop the fighting King batura of Verdun had been deceived by the sorceress and Imam who had convinced them that he needed to attack Granville in order to ensure his country's future as jam kkul was ordered to go out and stop Sigurd by his father sandi ma then secretly murdered the king and his absence seizing the ver dhania army for himself by simply claiming that the king had fallen ill before reaching castle bird on secret and his army had to march the spirit forest that he had heard of which is where he ran into Dierdre yet again Sigurd who was in love at first sight with her was very happy to see her again and faithfully she had decided to join them in order to help them stop sanema using her powerful magic after admitting his love for her Deirdre joined up with them and using her silencing magic sandy mo was made helpless as Sigrid's army moved him and slayed him discovering too late the dying King in the seized castle returning back to Castle Evans on the northern border Sigurd was given orders to govern the region from Grandville and at the coming months while he was stationed there he married a Deirdre due to Sigrid's unexpectedly elongated stay in the region the Lords of the neighboring country of Augusta began to grow restless while the previous king of Augusta was a pacifist he had suffered a mysterious death and was soon replaced by his son Prince chakal who immediately ordered his Lords to invade Verdun to get rid of Sigurd elde again who had always sworn to backup and support Sigurd road to speak with his king trying his best to convince him to stop this invasion to which the king responded to by immediately having him in prison calling him a traitor elegans castle of nordian was then targeted by the other lords of Augusta with only Eldin and sister Lady requests in charge of its defence knowing that they will soon be coming for her the lady requests requested aid from Sigurd in order to bring everything in the country back to order Sigurd who felt indebted to elde again and his family not only out of friendship but also due to l Diggins direct protection of his backline in the previous battle our hero agreed to march out once again moving into august rien territory he first rescued princess will crisis at nordian castle and then followed this up by seizing castles hair hein and anthony in the northwest which is where he also happened to meet up with the world travelling Lewin who was actually secretly the Prince of the kingdom of Celeste of the North who had disguised himself as a common Bard Lewin was also joined by his friend Silvia a dancer and in the conflict with some of the cell swords in the region Sigrid and his army were able to recruit the legendary mercenary named Beowulf while heading to the eastern castles of McKinley in August II Lewin met up with the Silesian Pegasus Knight Aaron who had been searching for him and with her and cigarettes help they were able to arrive right on King chuckles doorstep and take him down the King was only spared his life at the request of Eldon who had suddenly been set free shortly before cigarettes arrival this was a suggestion given the king to Gaul at the request of a mysterious man named man Troy man Froy who was the leader of a sect of dark priests had been the one behind san dimas actions in Pradhan unbeknownst to Sigurd and it was at this time that the news that Prince Kurth had been successfully assassinated while and Isaac reached him with man froy's plots still hidden Elda goons stopped Sigurd from proceeding further into agust area with him getting him to agree to return the rule of August Rhea to Prince chakal after a year's time with the current conflict settled once more Sigurd now also governed August Rhea while allowing King djegal to be sheltered in the north in which time Deirdre gave birth to their son named ass Elif six months into this tepid peace King djegal broke their agreement and sent out the remaining soldiers of August Rhea to try and oust ziggurat after successfully captured manteno castle in the north of blunting much of the Augustan attack Sigurd I ran into father Claude the descendant of the Crusader froggie and his bodyguard Tilt who informed him that the lead suspect in Prince Kurt's murder was actually Sigrid's own father Lord Byron and before he left him again Claude told him that he was going to the nearby Tower of froggy to pray and find out the truth of the princes death through his divine connection after Claude left Deirdre then wished to see him once more and that leaving selleth and Shannon's care she headed out of the castle in order to find him not far outside of the castle however the mysterious man voice suddenly appeared claiming that he had found the daughter of a woman named Sigyn at last using his magic to sedate her man-boy then took and disappeared with her completely under the noses of everyone enraged by the failures of his Auguste rien troops King djegal then ordered Elle daguan himself to lead his legendary cross Knights against Sigurd and being loyal to his country to the very end L Deegan rode out against his best friend it seemed like a horrible clash was about to take place until L began was convinced by his beloved sister requests to turn back and try speaking to the king just one more time however when L de ghen returned yet again to try and convince chakal of something he didn't want to do check all this time had him immediately seized and then in front of everyone beheaded arriving soon after this act Sigurd finally put down the Mad King discovering the body of L de Gong on the floor regretful of how it had all turned out and filled with concern for his now missing wife Sigrid's and new holdings in August RIA were then immediately assaulted by a gang of pirates who had long resided in the islands to the north following a revolt against their former leader Brigid who was a descendant of the Crusader Lear and the long-lost sister of Lady idean Sigurd and his crew next marched north saving the besieged former captain and reuniting with father Claude father Claude had finished his prayer and discovered that Prince Kurth had been killed through the actions of the Dukes Reptar and Ling bolt the leaders of the Grand Valley and duchies a freeze and dozle respectively and of course these two had then used the assassinated Prince's death to frame a Sigrid's father this information was too little too late unfortunately as just after stopping these pirate hordes and reuniting with everyone august rhea was invaded from the south by Granville armies looking to capture Sigurd based on his connection to his framed father escaped being captured by them thanks only to the sudden intervention of several pegasus knights who arrived from the country of celeste Sigrid and his crew were spirited away to luhan's homeland to the north where they were then sheltered by the Queen without Granville's support Sigurd was massively weakened and so Quan along with his wife and their night fen decided to head back to master in order to bring their own army two secrets ate while they were away a sudden civil war arose and Celeste when luhan's uncle's being unhappy with the princes return decided to quickly take the country over themselves though Sigrid and Lewin headed out to stop them they were unable to prevent the capital in the south from being seized following a wholesale slaughter of the country's Pegasus Knights including Aaron sister Manya even though they were too late to prevent this slaughter secret was able to take back the southern lands for the Queen and finally accepting his duty as the Prince Lewin was presented with the tone for SETI the weapon which was used by his ancestor the Crusader said staying safely in Celeste for a bit longer Sigurd then decided to take a bold action and march directly on Belle Halle in order to settle things at the same time Sigrid's father Lord Byron who had been mortally wounded by Duke Lang vault charged through the fields towards his son in order to pass down their holy blade tearing seeing his son for one last time and passing on the heirloom shortly before his death using this powerful weapon Sigurd then charged through Duke Lang bolts army and slayed him seizing the castle of Lubeck in the process having arrived on the border of the Yi desert and Izaak Sigurd then lived up to his word and allowed the Prince jinan to return to his homeland before letting him go however Sigurd entrusted his young son selleth to his care and then sent away his friend OFA to go with them to ensure his son's safety as Sigrid began to move closer to Valhalla across the entire yi desert to the south quad and etholon arrived with a small army in tow as well as their young daughter al tena Ann Deathlands arms having left their other child Leif in the care of the ever reliable Finn intending to reinforce Sigurd they began to march through the desert with their army when suddenly a pack of Thracian dragon knights arrived led by the king of thrush iya himself trivanti being completely out of their element in the desert and unable to escape this hopeless situation all of the Knights which were led by Kwan were picked off one by one which was then followed by the murder of both Kwan and esslyn finding their child all tena who drove on knew would later be able to wield Kwan legendary Crusader weapon the tricky King took her and then returned back to throw Xie as the rest of the Dragon Knights assaulted Sigrid from the south after Sigrid's army fought them off and secured the desert castle of fedora our heroes sadly learned of his best friend and sisters untimely demise 'as suffering yet another horrible tragedy regardless he was forced to continue on towards his goal with only Duke Reptar in the castle of veldt homer between him and Valhalla Sigurd marched through the desert yet again when Duke Reptar headed out to face Sigrid head-on in front of his castle Arvest who was awaiting singer din bahala had his secret agent Ida betray Raptor from behind and use her squads magic to help Sigrid secure victory over him with both the traitors who had been responsible for Prince Kurth and his father's death taken care of Arvest gave him a royal welcome surrounded on all sides by the magnificent soldiers and mages of Valhalla finally seeing him again Arvest congratulated Sigrid on his long journey just before revealing his ruse all of this had been a trap and Sigrid had just delivered himself and all of his friends right into it revealing that he wielded power in the city due to his marriage to Prince Kurt's secret daughter princess Dierdre he brought his new beloved wife out to present herself to cigarette Deirdre had had her memories completely removed by man Freud all in order to set up her union with artists realizing that Dierdre could no longer recognize him Sigrid had now lost absolutely everything before being allowed to speak with her further Deirdre was taken back into the castle by our vyses guards as a new massacre began Arvest used his legendary spell vol flame to incinerate cigarette himself bringing an end to the conflicts which had ravaged jugged rule over the previous years everything had worked out exactly according to plan in the east isaac had already been weakened through the war but the actions of Sigurd though well-intentioned had also severely weakened the lands of Verdun August Rhea Celeste and Master in the years that follow Arvest used the momentum he gained to once again United the entire land under one Empire with him as its new emperor [Music] amazingly we are now only at the halfway point of our tale but fortunately from here things tend to move a lot faster picking up 17 years after the slaughter of Sigurd in what came to be called the Battle of Valhalla we start in the land of a zach we're in the isolated village of terre nog selleth had been raised to be as much a hero as his father and had come to be known by the people as the scion of light though Dierdre had had two children by Arvest in the meantime cell if was the oldest of her children and therefore he was the rightful heir to the Grand Valley and Empire still dreams of him reclaiming the land from Arvest and his son Prince Julius were very far away as on this day the Empire had finally discovered his location and the local Imperial commander denaun sent his troops after the young selleth whomever self is joined by at this point is largely dependent on if the women in Sigrid's army had children during the previous events but regardless of who joins him selleth heads out onto the battlefield accompanied by the now adult of' a meeting the Imperial forces head on selleth first secures the castle of gana Shire to the northeast where he is met by a familiar face Prince Lewin having survived and somehow escaped the Battle of Belle Halle Prince Lewin had despaired and gone on to hide from the Empire while also supporting celos eventual rise together they discuss about how Prince Chinon had gone off to find the Crusader weapon of his family tree Bal moon which had been hidden in a shrine in a ye desert and next they discuss about a girl which Lewin had discovered in Valhalla years ago who had been horribly injured in whom he had been sheltering ever since this mysterious girl who had lost her memory was named a Julia and leaving her in the care of selleth lewin leaves a having business to attend to elsewhere selleth now leads his troops to fight two more armies to the south possibly recruiting one of the two sons of Danann for both in love with one of Seles companions before arriving and liberating the imperial headquarters in the region rivo from the evil denaun having so quickly achieved the liberation of one major region of Jarrell selleth moves on from this to try and meet up with Prince lief monster who is Quan and Ethel and son who had been leading a revolution of his own all over the thracian Peninsula on his way to find leaf selleth met up with Prince Shannon who had successfully retrieved his family sword and together the next witnessed the efforts of a mercenary named Aerys outside of the city of dharna Aerys who was the son of El Dagon wielded his father's Crusader sword mistltein and at first he was furious to meet selleth believing that sigrid was elde against killer before selleth calmed him down and convinced him to join in their fight the Liberation Army arrived just in time to rescue Prince Lee who had been protected by the loyal Knight Finn all this time ever since his parents demise and together selleth and lief combined their armies and goals and became an even fiercer rebellious force and next salif's group readies it to head into the kingdom of Thracia to the south they clash with the mighty Ishtar who also happens to be the beloved of Prince Julius and although they defeat her in the field she's able to be spirited away by Julius before she loses her life as these two groups were fighting King trivanti had been watching and he orders the girl he stole and raised as a daughter The Lost sibling of lief Altena to slaughter every last man woman and child and master all tena who has a kind heart refuses to follow out such an order however the other Dragon Knight commanders around her have no such compunction and so they head north to attempt to wipe master clean salif's army is able to greet them head-on and along the way they merge with another rebellious group calling themselves the Magi which empowers the Liberation Army even further after the three shin fliers are warded off the group next heads deep into Thracian territory and seizes the castle of cappadocia from this castle right in the middle of the kingdom the full weight of Thracia is thrown against selleth fighting desperately the Thracians send countless Dragon Knights against them but each wave one by one is taken down at by selfs group eventually all tena goes after them herself however Prince lief is able to convince her of their connection and her theft as a child by trevone and after confirming this back home she too decides to join with the liberators although it causes everyone involved great selleth leaf al tena and all of the others continue to wade through the Thracian defenders and eventually Trayvon's cruel actions catch up to him even the loyal Thracian general Hannibal is recruited to sell aside as his company is able to free his adopted son whom trivanti had been using as a hostage when everything is said and done all of the commanders including tavant are wiped off the battlefield forever with ratio now under control all of East jug drill has now been taken in the name of selleth and much like his father he decides to stop delaying the inevitable and head right for Grandville in order to finish this his route there takes him through the last section of our map of mulatos where the harsh life for those under the Empire's rule truly comes delight in millet oats as well as other parts of the Empire child hunts had regularly been being performed in recent years and any children who had been captured were to be delivered to Bell hala where they were changed in some way as silla fought his way through millet oats they encountered Prince Julius and Ishtar again and discovered that Julius was nigh invincible managing to outwit them and to bore the pompous prince they next finally cross over into the mainland and land at Granville where Emperor Arvest had stationed himself as a last defense at the city of Chaffey however this isn't the victorious proud Emperor you might be expecting the artists that we meet here late in his life is a thoroughly broken failure of a ruler this man who had so mercilessly plotted to you Sigurd as well as many others before disposing of them for his own Imperial ascension by this point had realized that he himself was nothing more than a pawn in a different game man Froy the mysterious leader of the dark priests was actually in charge of the cult of locked ER and had been planning everything from the start in order to bring back their lost God lopped us who had seemingly been vanquished by the 12 Crusaders a new inheritor of the dark God's blood was required which is why the last two genetic holders of the loftus blood the two children of a woman named sicken who carried it had to be brought together and reunite if you get me yes the two children of sicken who were born two different fathers were Arvest and Deirdre and everything that had happened in the previous generation including stealing away Deirdre wiping her memory in orchestrating an event where Arvest would find and fall in love with her had all been to make a child who would inherit the full blood of Leptis early in his life Julius was a sweet and caring brother however at the age of 10 he was presented with the lobbyist whom by man Freud and at that point his life was effectively over he became nothing more than a vessel for the dark God just as gall had been over 100 years prior one of Julius's first actions as Loftus was to attempt to kill his sister Julia due to her blood allowing her to use the Book of Naga which he would be extremely weak to the Empress Deirdre attempted to defend her daughter and used her magic to warp Julia to safety just before Julius murdered her after this event emperor rviz who had truly loved his wife was completely heartbroken and to top it off he could now not oppose his son's twisted impenetrable power from that moment on he was merely a puppet Emperor but at the very least he did do all he could to hide away the children who were being brought to Valhalla so that they couldn't be changed by the lobner order when Arvest saw salif's army approaching from millet oats he made one of his last acts which was to entrust Sigrid's family blade tearing to a priest named paul mark who he ordered to flee the castle in order to help sell if retrieve the sword he next entrusted Julia whom man Freud had captured just slf began his march from three chef's with a circlet that her mother had always worn although he tried to keep her with him Giulio was taken away to meet Julius again in Valhalla and so Arvest resigned himself to see what his final fate would be within the castle of Chalfie unknowingly due to the Emperor's actions selleth is able to retrieve tear fig and with great pity for the thoroughly defeated man they strike down Emperor Arvest for good meanwhile Julia had been taken to Valhalla and although she was about to be murdered by her brother Julius was then convinced by the priest man Foy to let her live instead so that her incredible magical powers could be used against the liberation army a move which would actually seal the fate of every player in the holy war after fighting through the remaining dukedoms of Granville a control Julia was sent against the Liberation Army but evading her on the battlefield and bypassing Valhalla altogether selleth and his army discovered and kill man Froy the master manipulator which effectively freed Julia from his control although they looked all over man Freud's lair for the book of Nagas which is the one weapon which could equally oppose julius's book of Loftus they eventually discovered that the key to where the book was stored was hidden within the circlet that emperor Arvest had just given to Julia and this is what gave the Liberation Army exactly the weapon that they needed to take down the possessed emperor in the final showdown Julia's power of Naga thundered against Julius is Loftus whilst selleth to come on using his bloodlines mighty blade and at long last the scion of darkness was defeated as the dragon lopped us faded away celephaïs rightfully claimed the capital marking the beginning of a long and prosperous reign as peace once again returned to the land [Music] it's hard to find the right words for just how much a leap for this game story was in its complexity both in its character depth and the overall events which led to the actions of everyone involved as the sheer runtime of that story recap might have told you this is one beast of a game there are so many characters countries cities cultures and backstories to get through that nailing it all in the entry that first introduces us to them all seems outrageous and yet somehow they did it as I spoiled earlier this section is going to be filled with praise but let me just get the obvious one out of the way first Sigrid's tale in generation 1 and all the other characters in his groups or in the periphery completely outshine their generation 2 counterparts to be fair though how could they not Sigurd navigates through a complicated mess of shifting political allegiances through his actions fighting back at only the initial symptoms of the mess that the Lockyer cult is about to enact upon the world while I would say that Sigurd is one of the best Fire Emblem characters I have thus seen it's really not due to his personality just like young Marth home slash Celica and then older Marth he's brave and just and would do anything to protect his friends like a young knight would be he's honest and romantic and this actually makes him rather naive which is what ultimately leads to his downfall he's really not unlike Ned Stark from a game of Thrones which is fitting because both of these works actually came out in the same year there's a lot to dig into when it comes to analyzing cigarette in the world that he finds himself in selleth on the other hand well stop me if this sounds familiar but an inexperienced boy of prophecy it takes up arms in order to get vengeance on the Empire that killed his parents yes this is just Marth story yet again and just like the story of the star-lord Martha selleth mainly just travels from place to place winning every single battle he'll Sullivan does one better than his predecessor by skipping conquering the entire world before just jumping right to the end and finishing off the entire evil regime which had held the entire continent in a stranglehold for the last 17 years compared to the struggles and tragedies seen in generation 1 selleth win so easily that it kind of seems like everything that he through was just set up for him to win and oh hey wait a minute that's exactly what happens we find out throughout the course of generation two that besides being the rightful heir to the Empire selleth actually did have multiple people who were working to prop him up with two extremely important ones being Prince Lewin and Emperor Arvest selleth is absolutely set up to win and even though he definitely does accomplish a lot on his own at the end of the day his struggle feels a lot more artificial than his father's or even to those around him Arvest in particular whose arise and generation one and fall and generation two makes him one of the most fascinating character studies in any RPG that I've ever played after tricking and roasting the entire generation one group you think that this character would be completely irredeemable for the rest of the game Arvest takes drastic action in an unforgiving world in order to take his power it's true and although his rival Sigrid is the one to die first Arvest is actually punished worse by being forced to live through the crumbling of his own dreams and Empire it turns out that even though Arvest is willing to do anything to achieve his dreams of peace he ends up being the victim of those who would do even more due to most of generation twos best moments actually happening in the background and not to our protagonist even great tragedies like the decline of Arvest don't hit home in quite the same way as some of the key moments in generation 1 yeah they're gonna kill Ethel ins baby as well hold tight I'll Tina I'll protect you no matter what yeah come on goodbye then I am trust a leaf to you huh I'm sad now you guys I really liked Kwan and his wife I don't think it's a good idea if she's an Arab Naga she gonna do nothing about it oh damn you harvest [Music] [Music] ha ha ha and thus comes the end of an era well many heroes lost their lives on this path Quan the Prince of Leon sir oh yeah now Quan I'll begin and secret are all dead [Music] ha ha it's safe to say that nothing in generation 2 hit me as hard as any of those and that seems to be the case for most of the players that I've heard from still even though the story strengths and weaknesses are extremely lopsided the scope and impact that it had as a whole are really on a different scale compared to the previous three games Shozo cago was able to deliver on a new narrative in a new setting with an even bigger scale and accepting its few flaws it's no challenge at all for me to call this one of the greatest plots I've ever seen I really can't give enough thanks to the people who recommended that I went in blind to this one and also a big thanks to the people in my chat during my streams to make sure that I stayed that way even though we have just spent a massive amount of time tackling the story of this game we're actually only getting started in our analysis on top of this unprecedented tale when it came to its gameplay intelligent systems also delivered their most diverse and different entry yet and we have a lot to tackle in the sections to come [Music] in some ways genealogy of the holy war is like an alternate version of Fire Emblem Gaiden the final product at the end of the day was unmistakeably a Fire Emblem game but the core concepts and interpretations of its elements were so fundamentally different that it's kind of not at the same time there are so many new or tweat systems in this game that I'm actually going to be breaking down my gameplay discussion into three chapters just to keep my system's discussions focused and somewhat understandable I hope let's start at the beginning shall we almost every battle in this game will begin in a castle which fundamentally change a whole lot of things about this game first of all in a way this is your deployment screen any units that you don't want to send out can just remain right inside here and while they're inside if they were able to go into the town which includes a lot of options such as the blacksmith the pawnbroker the supply arena augury and armory outside of this town when they're just in the castle castle there are a few other mechanics such as this now being the place where you promote your units who no longer need to use an item to do so and can also only promote when they hit level 20 because this game now uses a raised level cap of 30 and that doesn't reset when you get promoted you'll just be going from 20 to 30 while in your new class a lot of things in this castle fundamentally change the way the game is played and in Prior entries of this retrospective series specifically the very first one I lamented about the actual mechanics of doing things like on map inventory management about how trading and shopping just uses up turns upon turns upon turns something which is especially aggravating at the end of battles when all enemies are gone and you just want to get things organized and move on well imagine my surprise to find out that this system fixes absolutely all of that utilizing any of the town services including most interestingly the arena does not use up your units action right at the start or later on in the battles for all units who go back to their home castle you can do all of this management without needing to cycle through endless endless turns while for some of these such as accessing the supply or augury doesn't really have an effect on gameplay three of these in particular do have an enormous Packt on how this game is played and those three are the blacksmith the pawnbroker and the arena let's start with a blacksmith any and all weapons that you own can be repaired back to full use using your units gold which is actually a big departure from running through disposable weapons and prior entries instead here your weapons are a lot more permanent while this can mean that yes your crappy iron swords and spears are never going to fully break as long as you remember to take them back to the shop this also means that your legendary weapons which really tilt the battles in your favor are only restricted in usage by your gold supply by the way that gold supply plays very heavily into the next game-changer here which is the pawnbroker you see units in this game it can no longer trade directly with each other the only way to transfer weapons or items from one unit to another is to have one go to the pawn shop sell the desired item to the pawn broker for half its worth and then have your other unit go to the pawn shop and buy it back at its full price this can seem like a bit of an arbitrary system but it becomes a lot more complicated when you add in the fact that all units in this game have their own individual gold supply that's right there's no more sharing your Army's gold into one collective pot every one of your soldiers has their own unique wallet and other than the one thief that is available in each generation who can actually give their gold to anyone as well as between units which have become lovers who can also trade their gold between each other there's no other way of getting your gold around it might sound a little bit bizarre but really at the end of the day this is all just a complicated way of saying that transferring items between your units in this game comes with a literal cost and it also means that managing your units wallets can be just as important to strategize when you're out on the field after all there are only a few ways for units to make money in this game you can use thieves to attack enemies and mug all the gold off of them which is risky you could also have your unit be the one who rescues villages on maps which definitely requires planning or you can get a kind of salary at the start of each chapter which requires you to finish entire missions in order to get but actually the most reliable way of making money is the last thing on our list and that is participating in winning at the arena to be quite honest I am very torn on the mechanics of using the arena in this game let's start off with the basics in each mission when you go to the arena your units are able to go against seven challengers with each win getting them successively more gold and experience once they have beaten all seven challengers during the mission that unit can no longer access the arena until you start the next mission this all seems reasonable so far but here's the thing for the first time ever losing in the arena does not end in death for your character they'll simply have their health reduced won but other than that no penalty for some units who actually fight better at low health getting them through their arena challenges can be a matter of simply retrying over and over again even with just one health so that you could stumble into the RNG that Nets them a better fight until they just win keep in mind that you don't have to wager any money to use the arena in this entry and also your unit isn't losing any turns by making their attempts in fact the only negative expenditure at the arena is losing the durability of your weapons which in almost all cases can be easily repaired at the blacksmith back to full quality just from a minor pittance of your arena profits oh and I should also add in that if your character does win then your unit will instantly be healed back to full health for free which is convenient because it does make them ready to take on the next Challenger but it can also allow for some really absurd strategies such as retreating a heavily injured unit into a castle which does use up their action yes but on the following turn you can have them fight an easy arena battle for the free healing and then send them back out into the field without using a pattern to get that win so that they can fight anew once more it's all a bit strange how this functions but where it gets a bit insidious is when you can start to feel that putting everyone through this arena grind is a bit of a necessity for not just taking on the later missions bigger challenges but also in getting each unit the kind of gold that they'll need to make more than just the most basic item transfers for me the start of each mission always began with a bit of a grind fest one that paid off and golden experience a bit too well to be ignored honestly I'm of multiple mines when it comes to these home castle mechanics I definitely definitely love the ability to access the supply armor and blacksmith with multiple units without having to burn through turns like I actually find the pawnbroker system completely inoffensive it's actually an interesting enough way to force you to plan out not just managing your strategies but also managing your expenses but to me the arena is a bit too well I don't know exactly how to phrase this but overly reliable ignoring the arena is basically just ignoring free money and free experience every single mission even if your character can't beat all of the seven fighters not giving the first couple a try is the same as just leaving money and experience on the floor like I say it's just a bit strange how it all functions it's certainly an interesting direction to take but I'm not really sure that it's a very sustainable one for future games anyways I think that's enough of the home castle already because we're going to be analyzing something just a little bit more exciting next going outside and dating [Music] the support system of genealogy of the holy war might be the most influential addition to the series from this game something which is kind of amusing when you understand that it was a bit of a last minute inclusion by kaga as romance systems happen to be in in gaming around that time note that the first Harvest Moon game which was also well known for allowing you to romance and marry various town girls on top of your already busy life came out in the same year as genealogy of the holy war when it comes to blooming love on a battlefield the actual ways that the romance works is vastly underwhelming when compared to the complexity of the actual results there is a lot to go into here so we're going to start off with the most confusing topics what is holy blood and how does it function thankfully because this game does menus very very well there is actually an option on every character stat sheet which can show you if they are the inheritors of any of the Crusaders Holy Blood its biggest effect comes into play by allowing characters with major holy blood to wield some of the most powerful weapons in the game on top of receiving a lot more stat growth when leveling up characters with minor holy blooded don't get the special weapons and also only get half of the special stat growths still quite an upgrade compared to your non holy units as for how that works with a support system I'm going to use the character lumen as an example lewin is met in chapter 2 of this game and he carries the holy blood of said the Crusader who's famous weapon was the extremely powerful force set to you wind tome it is possible to have lumen romance and marry any of the single female characters in your army but in this game the children born are predetermined by the mother for some of luhan's pairings his wife will give birth to a son or daughter mage who will inherit the ability to use for SETI but for other pairings his children will have no magical aptitude and the Crusader weapon will essentially be unusable by his second generation the way that Holy Blood can transfer down and how it can allow or block your usage of the available Crusader weapons is remarkably complicated but this isn't the only inheritance which finally brings me to another big addition in this game skills the skills system of genealogy like the support system would go on to be another extremely important addition that would go far far into the series essentially there are 18 possible skills that each unit can have 16 if you want to take out the steel and dance skills which are basically additional actions for certain classes so these 16 other passive skills basically turn what used to be complete RNG such as the likelihood of landing critical attacks into something more of a controllable aspect for your characters some of these skills are gained by promoting your units such as the pavese damage blocking skill gained when an armor Knight upgrades to a general however most of these are just part of your character starting stat sheet let's compare the game's obligatory starting cavaliers noise and alack noise has high strength and the critical skill which can allow him to hit big but infrequent criticals whereas aleck has low strength but the pursuit skill which allows him to very reliably hit double attacks albeit with less damage for each one personally I really love how the skill system is able to differentiate your fighters even when the same classes like this but where this moves into utter brilliance is exactly what this chapter is about inheritance just like how you can plan out your holy blood combinations with a bit of foresight or experience both the mother and father's that you choose will pass down all of those skills to their children which can naturally lead to some combinations which are simply way better than others like I said the possibilities here are enormous and I haven't even got into how inventory items are handed down based on both parent and gender I'm just going to say that personally I almost never go for the optimal routes and games I usually just ship my characters based on my personal headcanons or who I thought would make a cute pair and somehow I still wound up with great units in the second half the game so powerful are these skills that it's almost impossible to end up with a complete bunch of losers so with a vague idea of all these inheritance rules and with all of these possibilities let's talk about how your units even fall in love essentially all of your single units have a secret love stat for each potential partner in the game and when that love stat goes over a certain number they're in love the first sign of this that you may notice is that they're now able to transfer money out on the field or that when you go into the same home castle is each other they will have an adorable little exchange at the door upon seeing each other after their status change there are many different ways to affect this love stat with some dialog options between certain units leading to massive unseen boosts to their affection ratings with certain characters and fortunately the game also smartly raises the love rating for units which join later in the story so that you won't accidentally get a pairing you're unhappy with due to certain units simply having a longer exposure to each other that being said it is very easy to suddenly find that two units you didn't even know we're interest in each other are suddenly married it just happens sometimes though there are some of these special cases the most reliable way to raise two units affections with each other is to simply have them wait next to each other similar to the arena system this unfortunately also is a little bit too easily gained although each omission smartly stops all love growth after the first 50 turns which prevents you from pairing two units up who may have literally just met the same day even though that's exactly the story of what a certain a character does in this game simply not using your first 50 turns to grind out your desired pairings love points is the same as just leaving the love points on the floor in some of the calmer battles here using your time wisely to game this system becomes a bit of a routine you're likely just going to use the first couple turns to get everyone through the arena and then use all of your turns up until the fiftieth one to get your supports closer and closer to marrying after that's all done just play the map like a normal fire in game so once again this is another very bold and influential change that is just not perfectly done the first time around I'll be excited to see how they manage love and relationships in the games going forward from here [Music] combat in genealogy of the holy war is in many ways the most complex yet seen in the series something that might be expected for the next sequel but I want to really stress how much more complicated it became with this entry especially because this was the game that debuted the series very well-known weapon triangle system this of course is referring to the classic sword beats ax ax beat spear and spear beat sword system which is just a series mainstay by now but also included in this entry was a magic triangle system with wind beating thunder thunder beating fire and fire beating wind meanwhile light and dark magic beat all three at this point in the series using the right weapon for the job didn't add any extra damage but it did add a considerable boost to your accuracy and to your void but even though this was yet another series staple introduced in this game that's actually not what this chapter is about this chapter is about the elephant in the room the big big elephant to the room yes that's right we're getting right down to it we're gonna be talking about two things that this game is most infamous for its map size and its horses let's set things up a little bit Fire Emblem 1 set the stage for what a baseline Fire Emblem experience was and actually the later entries stuck remarkably close to that not this one in a typical Fire Emblem game setup you take your army from battle to battle and although each battle map could vary in shape when measured out they would probably range between 30 by 30 squares and that was if it was particularly large the number of turns that it takes to complete a map of about this size would heavily depend on a player's skill and the speed at which they enjoy playing strategy games like this I would personally estimate that a very fast player could beat a map like this in seven to ten turns whereas a slower player might take around twenty-five to thirty-five but of course this can bloat even more so if they're really taking their time for a fast player that's probably about 10 to 15 minutes on a map but for a slower player that's probably 40 minutes to an hour for me I guess I'm kind of in-between but that's not what this is about let's compare this map to a Fire Emblem floor map Byam we're looking at about 64 by 64 squares here and although not all parts of this map are actually relevant to play in still this is pretty typical of the amount of area that you're going to see each battle if we take these two maps and figure out the area by multiplying them we're looking at about 700 squares here and 4,000 here I hope that establishes a little bit of an idea for just how big the difference actually is and strap yourselves in everyone because I'm about to tell you why it doesn't really matter that much comparing these two maps like they're apples to apples completely fails to take into account some really important factors such as this map and all others in this game being split in two very distinct parts you see you're going to be starting out at this castle and your first real objective is to get down south and take this one this map is actually kind of rare in that it is possible to go to the western castle if you want to but the intended design is that you take this castle first which Nets you a very powerful unit which you can then train up against the enemies to the west and that's the second part of this fight after you take the Western castle the way to the last castle which had been blocked off finally opens up and the battle becomes about navigating the forest and then besieging a castle which runs right up next to it all while you're bombarded with spells and arrows in reality as far as I'm concerned this map is actually the same as three one two and three this is just an early map so let's look at another one real fast this map has one of the most unconventional designs in the game however it still follows the mission to mission formula mission one mission to mission 3 mission for something that makes this map drag a little bit longer is that you will be defending with your characters over here in the east but still this mass progression is clearly delineated into these distinct sections so if a typical Fire Emblem game according to the first and third ones has about 25 to 40 missions we can take genealogies 12 maps and divide them by castle section to see about how many missions it really has according to my math and it might slightly differ for you we have about two missions and then 3 4 3 3 3 3 4 3 3 4 and 4 doing the math for you that's 39 missions both the layout of the maps and from my own playtime reflect that this game is actually right on par for a Fire Emblem experience but but but but but but but but but that's not the end of the story even though this game's length and map structure does fall in line with the other ones I can't understate what a big deal it is that all of your units are going to be deployed in the same place for the entire time you're in one of these massive fields in a different Fire Emblem game beating the map means that you will go directly to the next mission where all of your units are redeployed together again meaning that everyone will be involved in the next early skirmishes for sure that's not the case in Fire Emblem four where the next mission opens up on the exact same map without altering the location of any of your units for it what this means is that your characters with lower movement capabilities are at a massive disadvantage when compared to their mounted counterparts not when it comes to stats in fact most of the ground only units have the better skills and stats by far but that means little to nothing when they are constantly behind at the mounted units and not actually getting to take part in most of the action on a smaller Fire Emblem map this isn't really that big of a problem a typical ground unit only has about one to two less movement than a mounted one which means that over the course of five turns if you're marching strictly in one direction they're only going to be about five to ten squares behind something which means that if a fight breaks out they could probably still participate however it's not until this effect gets dragged over the course of 50 to 100 plus turns that it can start to get really really noticeable while you can avoid this problem by just having your mounted units go forward and then wait for your ground infantry to catch up it's undeniable that this is going to feel like an anchor for some and can make it easy to understand why this becomes a source of frustration for so many players even bringing up all of this I haven't even begun mentioning the cancer mechanic which is another huge huge introduction added to this game is the ability for all mounted units to continue to use their movement after taking their action what this means is if a mounted unit who has a movement of eight moves four squares to attack an enemy after attacking they can then move again with the remaining four in the past I've gone over the importance of positioning and about how proper positioning allows you to force the enemy into a bad formation or to ensure that one of your units can only be attacked a set number of times that you predict they'll be able to handle this system of positioning was something that I really loved and Kanter absolutely changes all of this both in positive and negative ways on the negative side at this method of body blocking no longer means anything when you're facing up against an army of mounted units they can attack a single unit in your army as many times as they want until it's dead and it doesn't matter if you made any kind of formation the only way to avoid this kind of situation is to lure in mounted units at the very last square of their movement capabilities and then converge on them all at once and just hope to win before the next turn comes and they probably kill one of your units no one in this game is gonna be able to survive twelve attacks in a row on the following turn unless their name is Sigurd in the previous Fire Emblem game force dismounting of your mounted units was an added mechanic something which is completely missing here in that video I was surprised to see a few people saying that they thought that this dismounting mechanic was a very important nerf to the cavalry units who they felt always had an unfair advantage in the series up until this game they didn't cavalry units could not canter and although they had good movement they had pretty mediocre stats that made them crumple pretty quickly if they weren't being backed up by your tougher infantry units who could better hold the ground at the time I didn't understand how anyone could say that the cavalry units who were already pretty weak needed some kind of nerf but having played this entry now I think I get it I fully believe that the perception of mounted units being overpowered stems right here without a doubt even though you're mounted units still have generally lower stats and weaker skills than their rounded counterparts the ability to canter does change everything and always makes them the superior choice there are some very fun but completely outrageous strategies that are possible now that can be used in every single battle that infantry units just can't do here are some examples for flying units like Pegasus or Dragon Knights you can now attack from unreachable terrain and then counter them back to safety meaning that you risk absolutely nothing by deep positioning them if an archer is walking anywhere close to a mountain he's pretty much a dead man in other situations you can use your infantry or tough units as a strong frontline and then have a unit from the back attack out and then canter back behind your strong defensive line also risking absolutely nothing perhaps the most devastating thing that's added to this game which definitely benefits from canter are the new mechanics that the dancer class has we're now instead of only being able to rejuvenate and give a turn back to one unit at a time she is now able to give it to all four units that surround her which means you can set up perfect runs of four units who attack cancer back into a formation and then give them all four turns again this system changes so much about combat in this game to be honest I was pretty giddy and a bit in shock when I discovered its inclusion early into one of those blind streams and it shows the experience numbers okay what's this what you can use your extra movement after you move Wow I like that well I kind of wanted them right here okay I'm not gonna say that it isn't fun to play with a broken mechanic like this in single-player games that perfect balance isn't always the goal but I do think that its inclusion does make it harder for players to resist from using and abusing it I do like the Kanter system and I think it's a brilliant way to power up the cavalry units however I don't think it's gonna be very shocking to say that this is buffing gone way way too far and it's definitely easy to see why the dismounting system works better post geneology than before it I suppose I'm just gonna have to find out how it's going to be handled in later entries because having said just about everything that I want to say it's about time that we finish this game off [Music] it is extremely difficult to put everything that Fire Emblem genealogy of the holy war accomplished into one tiny little conclusion because much like this video even if you attempt to shorten everything that it accomplished describing the sheer volume of it all eventually just makes things run on and on and on but still I'm going to give my best shot at it without this entry Fire Emblem as a series would look completely unrecognizable to anybody who knows it today introducing such massive inclusions such as a fully fleshed-out support system and weapon triangle this game stepped even further out of formula and took even bigger risks than fire in love Gaiden and despite its rushed chaotic development and last-minute system implementations it would be almost impossible to call this one the black sheep today just because later Fire Emblem is so deeply built off of this entry for sure some of them very maligned aspects like the massive maps and overpowered cavalry units certainly needed to be tweaked but still much like other famous diversions my favorite being Majora's Mask it gives this game a lot of its personality and is something that I'm still glad that they went with at least for this one entry it is easy to get lost just talking about all of the gameplay inclusions here but I really can't give enough credit to the extremely powerful and effective storyline which actually managed to achieve kagaz dream of both introducing a new setting and somehow making it into one of the most emotional and complex tales in anything in gaming as far as I'm concerned for fans of RPGs strategy games and later Fire Emblem games or just great games in general genealogy of the holy war is a must play the many commenters on my videos were not wrong this game is something special and I am so glad to have made it to this point in the series to finally have the chance to experience for myself this game deserves to be recognized for its many achievements and very importantly it deserves to have not sat hidden by its limited release options for so long like many others I am now extremely hopeful that intelligent systems does decide to give this one a remake because not only what I like to see some of its minor mistakes rebalanced I would really like just to see it make its way into the hands of millions of more players still we can't say for certain right now if a remake is coming or not and so I just have to plead for anyone whose press has been piqued don't wait to experience this game genealogy of the holy war is a truly incredible game and is one of the most memorable experiences I've ever had in my entire lifetime of gaming don't wait just do what you have to do and play this game having experienced the epic war for jug drills freedom spanning an entire continents worth of battles I think it's about time that we slow things down a bit and get intimate focusing entirely on the story of prince leaf and the fate of the Thracian Peninsula our next stop in this Fire Emblem retrospective takes us to the most infamous game in this series history the brutal and beloved three Xie 776 thank you very much for watching me everyone and if you want to get to see these videos a week early as well as help support the channel please head over to my patreon page and give as little as $1 each month to make sure that this retrospective series it can go on you can find more information from the link in the description anyways thank you again everybody and until next time I hope you take care [Music]

Channel: ShaneBrained

Views: 76,601

Keywords: Fire Emblem, Fire Emblem Awakening, Fire Emblem Three Houses, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Games, Series: Fire Emblem, Retrospective, Marth, Arvis, Fire Emblem Mystery of the Emblem, Fire Emblem Warriors

Id: sFC69gKJRis

Length: 64min 27sec (3867 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 24 2019