Chapter 11x
I’m not the biggest fan of this map either. There’s only one approach to the boss and it’s a bit too simplistic for my taste. The map also doesn’t really disincentivize turtling. In fact, one could argue that it encourages the player to play more slowly. There’s the fact that you have to keep Olwen and the NPC kids out of the boss’s ballistic siege tome range and there’s the fact that the boss leaves on Turn 30. The only enemy reinforcements show up on Olwen and Fred’s side of the map too. The hallway of death at the beginning is pretty cool though.
Overall Rating: Fail
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Chapter 12
Chapter 12 is a map I’ve underrated in the past but a closer analysis reveals that it has more merit than I initially gave it credit for. You’ve got two houses that are threatened by bandits that you have to hurry up and save. The forest tiles make saving these houses more difficult. There’s a brigand that has a bridge key you could capture or steal which lets you unlock the bridge at the top. Or you could rescue ferry Leif over the water. This map is big enough to where rescue ferrying can augment rather than hurt the design. The gaiden chapter turn count requirement is also a bit too generous.
Salem is pretty annoying on this map since he can sleep staff your units from any part of the map. It’s a cool idea to have a boss with a status staff but the only real way to deal with him (besides using a restore staff) is to warp a unit over and capture the boss which in my opinion counts as a negative.
I should also point out that a large percentage of enemies have the Steal skill which makes the map annoying, but can also cause the player to think more carefully about their next moves.
Overall Rating: Decent
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Chapter 12x
Another gaiden chapter that I’ve never been a fan of. Like the previous chapter there’s an enemy with an infinite range staff that gives you really only two options to deal with: Warp or let her take your stuff from you. I’m not going to negatively rate the map for warp skipping, but it is fair to point out how it basically requires warp skipping as the only means of dealing with said Thief staff.
There’s only one approach to the boss and more importantly there’s a turtle incentive in the guise of dancers that show up on Turns 25 & 30. One of them has a Knight Proof while the other one shows up with a Warp Staff. You could argue that the thieves trying to get the treasures count as a turtle disincentive but they’re so close to them that you practically have to use warp anyway. Also, the Knight Proof treasure continues Thracia’s tradition of weirdly placed treasure.
Overall Rating: Fail
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Chapter 13
Alright another cool escape chapter! Like Chapter 9 the enemy army here qualifies as a turtle incentive since they threaten the Lenster army guarding the escape tile. This time around this army is even closer to the escape tile than the one in Chapter 9 so the player absolutely has to blitz over there. The mountain range and length of the map makes rescue ferrying once again augment the map but also difficult to accomplish due to the presence of the ballista.
Meanwhile the normal non-flier route has ballista to keep the player in check along with armor knights and cavaliers to make sure that reaching the escape tile is actually challenging. Interestingly enough defeating the boss before Turn 32 in this chapter actually results in having to deal with more enemy reinforcements. The chapter provides treasures that are in difficult spots to get too and they’re actually worth it.
Overall Rating: Excellent
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Chapter 14
Defense chapters are a funny thing in the Fire Emblem fandom. If you play them casually like I do they’re a ton of fun. They’re different, they usually have a pretty good atmosphere about them and they can require the player to play defensively. Hardcore LTC veterans generally don’t like them because of how easy they are to trivialize. So I feel like no matter what rating I give this map somebody’s going to take issue with it.
An easy way for me to downvote a map comes in the form of whether or not the map is easy to trivialize or not (the key word being easy). According to both Ronaldo and Dondon151 there is an easy way to trivialize this map. You can block off the armor knights and dodge the ballista until the end of the chapter. Sure there’s other things to take into consideration like Dean’s Dragon Lance, Homer’s recruitment and visiting enough houses to get to Chapter 14x but these don’t really make up for the fact that breaking this chapter can be done with relatively little effort. For the sake of fairness and consistency I’d have to say that that constitutes as a major downgrade in terms of rating it. That’s what I’d be doing if this were a map from a 3DS game so I won’t pull any punches for this map.
Overall Rating: Fail
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Chapter 14x
Another Fog of War gaiden chapter with issues. Boy this is getting repetitive. Enemies spawn from random areas which makes dealing with them more tedious than difficult especially when a good chunk of said enemies are Pegasus Knights that can move all over the map. Fog of War actually hurts this map since it prevents the player from seeing these enemies which makes planning around them more difficult than it needs to be.
NPCs show up and for each NPC that escapes the player gets a Stamina bag. I love the concept but the execution is a bit off. The problem I have is that the NPCs show up at the bottom of the map and can easily get captured by Pegasus Knights that show up out of nowhere. The more NPCs the player has to rescue the more reason the player has to play slowly. In other words, this map incentivizes turtling. Once again there’s only one route to the escape tile and there’s mountain tiles which slow the player down while getting bombarded by Pegasus Knights from all sides.
Overall Rating: Fail
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Chapter 15
Well there’s a super easy way to trivialize this map: Either Warp or ferry Leif to the church and you’ve beaten the map. Nothing else really matters.
Overall Rating: Fail
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Thracia’s Map Rating Score So Far:
Pass - 6
Pretty Good - 4
Decent - 4
Meh - 1
Below Average - 2
Fail - 5
Overall Thoughts: From a map design standpoint I’d say this is the weakest part of the game. The good news is that this is the exception and not the norm for Thracia 776 (which is more than what most other games can claim). These maps feature a lot of annoying elements that either require warp or they’re easy to trivialize. Apparently Kaga didn’t put as much effort into the gaiden chapters as he did into the regular ones. Based on what I’ve seen in the other games I’d say that there’s a trend of gaiden chapters being less well designed as the maps in the main campaign. The good news is that the two remaining sections should be less critical and more fun to talk about.
Since this will most likely be the most controversial part of the Thracia Map Design Analysis section I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on these maps.
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