Released on October 17, 2005, this is the first Fire Emblem to be released on a console in almost 6 years. The continent of Tellius has been engulfed in war ever since Ashnard, king of Daein, invaded the land of Crimea. Elinicia, princess of Crimea, managed to escape her country and has hired Ike, the son of a mercenary band's leader, to help restore peace to the land.
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2:30:01 by Stephen Kiazyk, done in 46 segments.
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Author's comments:
I'd also like to thank the staff of speeddemosarchive.com, I absolutely love the site, keep up the great work!
This is my first recorded and submitted run to SDA, I hope it is satisfactory. The run was done on normal difficulty, on a new game file, which means there was no choice between random and fixed stat growths, and no stat bands. RNG abuse is not possible in this game; everything is random.
Here are the main aspects to this run:
First off, combat animations in this game are very, very slow. As a result I was forced to take a very pacifistic approach to the game in order to achieve a good time. I'll try to explain where my choices are based on this aspect.
Second, character choices are very important in any Fire Emblem game, this is no exception. My choices are quite limited; I only actively train two units, and I make heavy use of this game's Jeigan as well as the Laguz (which are, in a way, a steady supply of Jeigan characters throughout the game). Here's a brief list of the most important players:
Third, equipment forging is a very useful aspect to this game; it really helps to bolster Marcia's low Str. Only one weapon can be forged per chapter, but I take advantage of this almost every time possible. The most forged weapon: Javelin, without a doubt.
Last, bonus experience allows me to very easily train Ike and Marcia, and allows me to have pretty good control over their stat-ups (since I don't need to train them in battle). Generally, these segments are separated from the rest of the run, and are generally done in groups of 5 levels, just to keep my sanity intact.
Onto the run:
I won't bother going into too much detail, the run should speak for itself after all. I also won't bother mentioning any small mistakes; they're pretty obvious.
It's pretty straightforward; I don't think anything needs explaining.
This is part of what I mean when I say limiting combat. I really made an effort to minimize the number of enemies I fight, in this case, by staying out of enemy movement ranges.
The goal in this chapter is rout, so I have to kill everything anyways. Titania comes too late to be of any real use, plus Ike needs the levels so he ends up doing most of the killing. Close call on the boss, I'm glad I used the vulnerary.
No idea why I bothered getting the elixir here; technically I never even needed it. I have to get Ike to speak with Marcia so that she shows up in chapter 9, and while he's at it, he might as well gain a few levels. Another close call on the boss, and some of the stat-ups could have been better.
Wow! This took some planning. The trick is to finish this in 2 turns, so I need to get Ike out in the open to finish off the boss. I could re-try it until Titania gets a crit on the boss, but I like my way better, plus it gains Ike another level, and it ends up being slightly faster too.
The idea here was that Shinnon's provoke skill causes the archers to go primarily for him, which clog up the front row, then I hope that the back row fills up with ranged attackers. This helps limit the number of fights per turn, but there really isn't much else that I can do.
Possibly the riskiest chapter in the run. Titiania should be in the circus; she performs the entire thing with Ike on her back. A made a small error with Oscar's position, but I just wanted the pain to end.
Another rout chapter, everybody plays a part. Pretty straightforward Jeigan abuse, an interesting note, the position I move Oscar to on the first turn causes Shinnon, Gatrie, and the boss to arrive after only one turn. I'm not sure if it speeds thing up, but it saves a turn or two.
I bring Ike's level right up to 20 with the help of the bonus experience. He turns out pretty strong, which is good, since he needs it for next segment.
The newly powered-up Ike cannot be defeated. All he does is stand there without a weapon, he barely even gets hit.
Titania and the Laguz do most of the dirty work, as Ike must hang back to recruit Marcia.
I recruit Volke, as I need a thief, and Sothe takes longer to recruit. Otherwise, this is the most boring chapter of the run, I don't even fight anything.
In retrospect, I should have focussed more on her Luk stat, especially for chapter 15, oh well.
The newly promoted Marcia is put to great use in this chapter, killing anything that dares stand in her path. Titania will slowly lose her usefulness, but she can still give a good kick in here and there.
A simple 3 turn rout. I have no need for Jill, thus I do not bother to wait for her.
Possibly the most complex strategy of the run. Oddly enough, this chapter actually goes faster if you just kill everything since then the 'other' units don't waste time fighting futile battles, and the crows leave you alone. Thus, virtually everybody has a small but essential part to play.
Grabbing the spirit dust from the house takes about the same amount as time as letting the pirate burn it down, and this way I net more bonus exp. I only fight two battles here, so it's pretty boring.
I power-leveled Marcia a little more, and gave Ike all the power-ups she won't be needing. I also set up chapter 15, as I need a good chunk of luck abuse, and hence many restarts.
In order to execute most of my later game strategies, I need to have Marcia get the boots on her first turn. I have no idea why I killed the raven right there, I think it was because he'd transform next turn anyways.
I make sure to grab the full guard (and the dracoshield while I'm at it) with Volke, but if anyone every gets around to improving this run, that might be the first thing to jettison, as I'm doubtful I really needed either. Otherwise a straightforward seize.
I could have done 17 all in one segment, but I figured this run is broken up already; a little more wouldn't hurt it.
I only use Ike and Marcia; no need for anyone else. With the boots, this is just a quick 2 turn rout
A negligibly defended arrive square = easy win
I try and duplicate the same idea that I used in chapter 5 with mages this time, it basically worked
Who thought this one up' This is the stupidest map design ever. 2 turns and its all over.
I also include Ike's promotion at the end of this segment, to avoid having to watch it over and over again in the next few.
In an act of foolishness, I saved over the wrong file after 28, so that was the Marcia I was stuck with, unless I wanted to re-do 17 part 4. All things told though, she was fine. Ike gets some levels too, and he's shaping up pretty nice
I give Ike the arms scroll so he can start wielding forged silver swords, and I also give him his godly master skill, Aether. The chapter itself is pretty straightforward. I move Lethe and Mordecai to those particular positions to prevent reinforcements from arriving after Marcia finishes of the crows.
Much the same idea as chapter 14 really; nothing too special to see here. I obviously skip Volke's promotion; it's just a waste of time.
I need him to be at his best for the boss in 20
The boss here is kind of hellish, what with his elixir that he uses. Thankfully Ike can take him down no sweat, which means that it only takes 3 turns. I got Callil in the info screen before the fight, as I need her for chapter 22.
By now, he's already maxed everything that he needs to, so there's not much to see.
This was a relatively hard chapter to plan for. Both Reyson and Tanith make their first appearances, and they really help. Taureono's help basically consists of a single shove, but hey, whatever helps. Ena's miracle thankfully didn't activate, which was probably the biggest problem.
I just prepare for chapter 22, as its based entirely on luck, however, as it would happen, I got 22 to work on my first try anyways.
This 1 turn strategy was supplied by somebody on the forums, to whom I extend my gracious thanks. I'm not sure if this is the fastest way to get things done, what with recruiting Callil and all, but it definitely gets points for style.
Marcia leaves all enemies in her dust by charging headlong down the bridge while carrying Ike. This chapter is obviously supposed to discourage flyers with all the ballistae; I obviously don't care. Thankfully I manage to beat it before the retarded Crimean reinforcements arrive, which saves a lot of time.
The final power-level segment; this is the greatest Ike I've ever had! Just goes to show you how random these games can be (except, of course, on fixed growths).
I make sure to grab the saviour scroll, as it's unbelievably necessary for the final four chapters. The 'other' characters are retarded as usual, I can't really help that.
Wasn't there another chapter awhile back with the same name' Odd. Anyways, Marcia makes good use of the Brave Lance and Spear to clear out the upper level. Reyson was a huge help on this chapter, things really got going once I started including him. Taureono, Muriam and Tanith help out in the slaughterfest; this is the final 'rout' chapter of the run.
Mordecai is needed to get Marcia just far enough to drop Ike off, then get out of range. Elincia is required in this chapter for some reason; in order to keep her alive, I give her the full guard then hide her in the trees. She ends up dodging the second attack anyways, so it was a moot poitn anyways.
I ran into some problems with the enemies' random stats, on a few recordings, this time was fine, but Ike failed to pull off the Aether needed to clear out the boss, not a big deal though. I run away from the Black Knight obviously, not that I couldn't beat him with Ike's stats.
I specifically give Marcia a weapon that's about to break, so that she'll stop retaliating in order to save time. This was the best I could come up with for this chapter; I'm not sure what else I could do...
I just get everything I need set up. This was worth it since the final chapter is based almost entirely on how lucky Ike can get with his attacks.
So many enemies! Seriously, the designers went overboard with this one. Anyways, I should probably explain myself with Ena. Normally, it takes much longer to kill Ashnard, and at that point, she has transformed, and a whole bunch of enemies are surrounding her, which wastes enormous amounts of time. The only way to stop this to throw her at the left side dragon, which kills her. Reyson was also meant to die as well, but then Ike was not sucking as much as usual, and managed to get the 2 Aethers I needed. But let me tell you, you wouldn't believe how loudly and profanely I swore when Ike missed the first half of his second Aether, nor how much I rejoiced when the Luna half hit and somehow did just enough damage to finish him off. That was the only time that he was beaten so quickly, and I'm not going to wait up for it to happen again.
So there you have it. The time can probably be improved by a few minutes (less mistakes, better precision, some better strategies in a few chapters) using my strategies, I'd say the lower limit using them would be 2:20ish. If somebody was ambitious enough, they could try doing the run in a single-segment on easy using fixed growths, which might be interesting.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the run took 158 turns.
If you have any more questions regarding the run, or perhaps if they want to beat my time, or you just want to talk to me for whatever sick reason you might have, send me a PM on the SDA forums, alias: SMK. I'll try to be of help.
2:44:13 by Wesley Corron, done in 46 segments (part 47 is the records file).
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Anyway, on to the actual comments. For those who might not know, I started a topic for this game back in 2005. I ended up making super lame attempts at running this game and dropped it from my queue because I thought it was too long (or something like that I think). Later on, I seemed to have picked it back up, but as I know now, it's best to stick to one project at a time. Needless to say, that run died...at Chapter 6 I believe.
January 3rd comes, and enter Spine Shark. For quite some time, we discussed strategies and he even did a run on Normal in 3:56:06. Sadly, one of the VHS tapes that the run was recorded on was ruined before submission, so Radiance was left without a run for a while longer.
Over time, people discussed trying the run themselves, but no published run came of it. But, behold, SMK came to the rescue with a topic and, later, a run for all to view! When this topic came up, it seemed to have set me on the warpath in a way. Here's a small sample of what I said:
"LameImitation: I'll ask Mike whether my recordings are good enough for another run (just in case), and then do Radiance myself.
schzzl: O_O
schzzl: still want me to send that stuff?
LameImitation: It's hit the point where the game must die.
LameImitation: This is the third topic already... >_<"
I also decided to do this run on Hard, probably because I felt it would earn more respect from viewers. Whatever inflates the ego, I suppose.
Anyway, it turns out that Hard is pretty manageable, even with the little roadblocks that get thrown in the way. I'll cover these issues in my segment comments, which I'll begin now:
About this chapter, Tanith/Marcia go to the right and land at a very important location beside that tree. This way, I can avoid counters and still keep a clear path to Shiharam. Janaff heads up and grabs the Smite scroll before the end and the others stay out of attack ranges. It's interesting to note that Oscar literally stopped on the 1 safe tile in that area.
Shiharam died to Marcia's 21% critical, which took longer to achieve than you might think. I even saw him use Stun on me once, before I ever got the critical I wanted. Anyway, Tanith flies to the magic square after Shiharam's death.
As a side note, there should be a waiting period on Pure Water usage in the beginning. Slow load times + scratched disc I guess.
Anyway, Smite/Shove Reyson/Tanith and Marcia grabs Ike and gets a second move. After that, things should be fairly self-explanatory. Ike dodged a Sleep staff at the end though, which isn't exactly a sure thing with his low resistance.
Anyway, Ike kills the super Cat (who often wouldn't die) and gains a level. Gaining resistance is actually a bad thing at this point, because it makes it harder for the Rexaura Bishop to put Ike in Resolve status. Marcia grabs Ike and a lot of Shove/Smite work goes on for Reyson. I spaced it out just at the right spot, avoiding an extra battle.
After Reyson is in place, he moves 1 space above Marcia and Chants. Marcia then drops Ike in a spot you may find surprising, but it works wonderfully. Ashnard comes out and commits suicide on a very angry Ike (Resolve/Wrath) and enemies try to kill Marcia. Next turn comes, and I play it safe instead of using the faster "attack Ashnard and hope to dodge a 60% - 80% attack" strategy, which likely costs me about 10+ seconds.
The safer method (which I use) is to have Ike move above Ashnard (out of Bryce's Daunt range, so I only deal with 1 Daunt) and use an Elixir, before ending my turn. Ashnard seems to hate Ike and moves first, which leads to a second suicide on his part. Goodbye Toxic Crusader, I hardly knew ye.
I left out the ending, because it's long and slow. If you thought Nergal's (Rekka) "Mwa ha ha! You killed Ninian, you stupid dork!" crap was slow, prepare yourself for something even worse (much longer).
Anyway, it's good to finally have Radiance done, after letting it rot for so long. I've basically adopted a policy of never announcing a run that I won't finish from now on, but don't bug me about anything in the past I may have said.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send me a private message (Molotov, obviously) on the SDA forum or post in one of the Radiance topics. Enjoy the run.