Welcome to another addition of Athena Plays Fire Emblem, a playthrough where readers pick and name my units and the points don't matter. This time, we'll be playing semi-blind Fire Emblem: Binding Blade, the 6th entries in the series that features everyone's favourite red-haired SSB fighter: Our Boy Roy! This game was never officially released outside of Japan, but there have been translation patches made by fans available for many years.
As typical for my playthroughs, you need no knowledge of the Fire Emblem series (or Binding Blade in particular) in order to read along, make suggestions, and enjoy. In fact, I only played Binding Blade myself once about 8 years ago so I hardly remember anything myself! Hence why this is considered a semi-blind run. Mechanical basics will be explained as necessary to make suggestions.
As typical for my playthroughs, you need no knowledge of the Fire Emblem series (or Binding Blade in particular) in order to read along, make suggestions, and enjoy. In fact, I only played Binding Blade myself once about 8 years ago so I hardly remember anything myself! Hence why this is considered a semi-blind run. Mechanical basics will be explained as necessary to make suggestions.
What's a Fire Emblem?
If you're not familiar with Fire Emblem, take a look in the spoiler for a quick overview about the series.
Fire Emblem is a turn-based strategy RPG made by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. It's been around since the days of the original NES back in Japan, though it was first brought over to the Western world with the 7th game which was released on the GBA. The games take place in many different worlds, but all of them are similar to fairly standard western fantasy worlds, with knights, kingdoms, and magic. Typically, there will be a main "Lord" character who is the Main Character for a given game, and the rest of the units comprise a small, personal army of his for achieving some purpose, usually a destruction of some kind of evil being.
Where Fire Emblem really shines as a series is its mechanics. The player (either as a complete 4th wall entity or via an in-game character avatar) must guide the Lord and his units to victory by achieving certain objectives. Different characters in the game have various classes, and therefore strengths and weaknesses, that can be used to maximum benefit. The main difference between FE and a more traditional JRPG is that the party size is much larger, and the game is broken up into chapters where each chapter is one large battle. Within the battle, there are many enemies on the field, and individual combats are more simplified, with a single character attacking a certain enemy at a given time. Often, characters who die in combat are permanently dead and may not join again in later chapters, so you really need to develop good tactics and keep your team alive!
If you'd like to learn more about Fire Emblem or discuss the series, we have a thread for that here in PokéBeach's Long Term Topics section.
Pick My Units!
Our team is confirmed!
Chosen Combat Units:
Roy - Green778
Lilina - Athena
Sophia - SilverSilent
Miledy - Skyleaf2000 (Berkely)
Niime - Professor Palutena
Zeiss - Icarus
Saul - Celever
Lugh - thegroyvlekid
Marcus - DNA
Rutger - Vom
Lance - Jabberwock
Gonzales - Brave Vesperia
Free/Support Units:
Lalum - Keeper
Fa - SM
Astore - bbninjas
NPCs:
Zephiel - Robin
Guinivere - Mora
Original section is in spoilers below.
Before I even begin the playthrough, I will need your help making a team!
Not all characters join at the beginning of the game, but we will be aiming for a permanent team of 12 combat characters. 3 of these characters are per-determined for the purposes of this playthrough: Roy, Lilina, and Sophia.
Roy - Lord
Our Boy Roy is the main Lord of the game. He's the son of Eliwood/NotJim (and in our story's canon, his mom is Ninian/SM). He's a forced character for our playthrough because, well, he's a forced character in the game, too. :U
Lilina - Mage
Lilina is the Princess of Ostia and the daughter of Hector/Green (and in our story's canon, her mom is Florina/Robin). She's a forced character in this playthrough because I like her, plain and simple. Best Mage Girl. She's not even that good of a character stat-wise compared to other mages sadly, but OH WELL.
Sophia - Shaman
Sophia is an interesting case. I really love her as a character, but she joins rather late and her stats/growths are god awful. However, the version of the game that I'll be playing is actually a slightly modified patch that specifically makes her actually usable. As such, I pretty much have to use her to get the most out of this path, so she's forced.
The remaining 9 combat characters will be chosen by you, my readers. Unfortunately, Binding Blade is notable for having... a lot of not very good characters, to put it mildly. Because there are so many characters, I'm actually just not even listing the ones that are godawful (thanks to @NotJim for helping me compile the crap list), or the ones we might not have access to because of route splits, though we still have 24 units to pick between.
Marcus - Paladin
The same old dude from FE7 is back, and now even older. Your standard Jeigan, good early game but gets outclassed easily.
Alen - Cavalier
The red cavalier archetype. Very strong. Hella useful. Cav/10.
Lance - Cavalier
The green cavalier archetype. Very fast. Hella useful. Cav/10. Slightly better than Alen due to early game speed.
Dieck - Mercenary
Scarred merc dude. He looks pretty cool. Pretty strong, average speed. I don't remember him at all, but he looks decently useful.
Thany - Pegasus Knight
The first available PK. High Skl/Spd but poor Str and awful Con. She's okay, better for utility than fighting.
Lugh - Mage
Cute Mage kid. Nino's son. Probably objectively better than Lilina, but less useful overall because we're already using Lilina I guess.
Clarine - Troubadour
Sassy troubadour girl. Probably one of the better healers, despite her kinda crappy Mag. Her and Rutger are my FE6 OTP.
Rutger - Myrmidon
3edgy5me. Despite being a myrm, he's probably the best sword-wielding unit in the game. He and Clarine are my FE6 OTP.
Saul - Priest
Healer/10. His stats are better than Clarine's, but he's on foot. Wields light magic on promotion.
Sue - Nomad
The daughter of Rath/Vom (and according to my playthrough's canon, the daughter of Lyn/BB). All of the Archers in FE6 are awful, so she's one of the few usable Bow-wielders, even though her Str is pretty awful.
Zelots - Paladin
Our first non-Jeigan prepromote, but he's still pretty Jeigan-y since his growths are crap. He's a good toss-in unit thanks to his nice bases and is very useful when he joins, but is easily outclassed.
Noah - Cavalier
He's the only sword-leaning cav in the game and has nice Con. He's probably not as good as the earlier available cavs, but still cavs are great.
Sin - Nomad
Since Archers are so awful in this game, Sin is one of only a very small number of useful Bow-wielders. Compared to Sue, he's stronger and more durable, but a bit slower. Stats wise, he's objectively better, though he does join later.
Gonzales - Brigand
He's a playable Brigand which is kind of hilarious in and of itself. He has really horrible accuracy thanks to being axe-locked and having crap Skl, but otherwise decent stats.
Klein - Sniper
He's an okay prepromote and one of our few available not-shitty Bow users. Not as useful as the Nomads (partially because no horse), but he can use Ballistae unlike them.
Tate - Pegasus Knight
Although she joins later than Thany, Tate is objectively the better of the two, with high Str and Spd. Her Skl and Res are a bit lower but eh.
Lalum - Dancer
Like Ninian/SM, Lalum can't actually fight but refreshes other units. Unlike Ninian/SM, she's not important to the plot in any way whatsoever. Dancers are useful and a lot of FE people like them, but I'm pretty meh about them myself.
Echidna - Hero
Echidna is notable for being a female Hero, which was incredibly rare before Awakening made Mercenary an available class to females. Her stats could be better, but she starts off with B Axes which is hella useful.
Miledy - Wyvern Rider
Miledy is a powerhouse with amazing stats and high Con for a female unit. Also, in case you didn't notice, she rides on a dragon. Everyone loves Miledy.
Perceval - Paladin
Probably the best Prepromote in the game. Comes with very nice bases and his growths aren't too shabby either. Also he comes with an A rank in both Swords and Lances and a C in Axes.
Cecilia - Valkyrie
Cecilia's not a bad toss-in prepromote. Her stats are meh (bases and growths both below average), but she comes with an A in Tomes and is a decent mounted healer, so she could be a lot worse.
Igrene - Sniper
Igrene is Hawkeye's daughter and basically a superior version of Klein since they start at the same level but her stats are higher. Her growths are meh at best, but bases help make up for it. She could be worse.
Zeiss - Wyvern Rider
He comes late at a low level, but has very nice growths, so he's kind of an Est. Compared to Milady, he has higher Str/Def, but is much slower.
Niime - Druid
Niime comes late as a very high level promoted unit. Her stats are decent, but her best thing is that she comes with an A rank in both Dark and Staves which makes her easy to toss in for any situation, though she's both frail and sadly slow.
Everyone is allowed to suggest up to 5 characters that they would like to see in play. I'm making this limit so that we don't have another case of people just listing the same characters as someone else over and over. You can provide names for all characters suggested, the Lords, and some other characters; please see the below section for more details.
If you're uncertain who to pick, I would aim more for characters towards the top. Characters are roughly listed in recruiting order, so the earlier a character appears, the more screentime they'll have.
As usual, characters with the most suggestions will be in. Any tie-breakers will be decided by me.
In addition to the 12 Combat Units, there are 2 other units that we will be using occasionally, mostly for utility: Astore and Fa. They won't be used as often as the 12, but they'll be around and in the storyline (especially Fa), so they're also listed here, and are available for member naming:
Astore - Thief
A thief and spy in the employ of House Ostia
Fa - Manakete
Awww it's a cute little dragon girl :3
Not all characters join at the beginning of the game, but we will be aiming for a permanent team of 12 combat characters. 3 of these characters are per-determined for the purposes of this playthrough: Roy, Lilina, and Sophia.
Our Boy Roy is the main Lord of the game. He's the son of Eliwood/NotJim (and in our story's canon, his mom is Ninian/SM). He's a forced character for our playthrough because, well, he's a forced character in the game, too. :U
Lilina is the Princess of Ostia and the daughter of Hector/Green (and in our story's canon, her mom is Florina/Robin). She's a forced character in this playthrough because I like her, plain and simple. Best Mage Girl. She's not even that good of a character stat-wise compared to other mages sadly, but OH WELL.
Sophia is an interesting case. I really love her as a character, but she joins rather late and her stats/growths are god awful. However, the version of the game that I'll be playing is actually a slightly modified patch that specifically makes her actually usable. As such, I pretty much have to use her to get the most out of this path, so she's forced.
The remaining 9 combat characters will be chosen by you, my readers. Unfortunately, Binding Blade is notable for having... a lot of not very good characters, to put it mildly. Because there are so many characters, I'm actually just not even listing the ones that are godawful (thanks to @NotJim for helping me compile the crap list), or the ones we might not have access to because of route splits, though we still have 24 units to pick between.
The same old dude from FE7 is back, and now even older. Your standard Jeigan, good early game but gets outclassed easily.
The red cavalier archetype. Very strong. Hella useful. Cav/10.
The green cavalier archetype. Very fast. Hella useful. Cav/10. Slightly better than Alen due to early game speed.
Scarred merc dude. He looks pretty cool. Pretty strong, average speed. I don't remember him at all, but he looks decently useful.
The first available PK. High Skl/Spd but poor Str and awful Con. She's okay, better for utility than fighting.
Cute Mage kid. Nino's son. Probably objectively better than Lilina, but less useful overall because we're already using Lilina I guess.
Sassy troubadour girl. Probably one of the better healers, despite her kinda crappy Mag. Her and Rutger are my FE6 OTP.
3edgy5me. Despite being a myrm, he's probably the best sword-wielding unit in the game. He and Clarine are my FE6 OTP.
Healer/10. His stats are better than Clarine's, but he's on foot. Wields light magic on promotion.
The daughter of Rath/Vom (and according to my playthrough's canon, the daughter of Lyn/BB). All of the Archers in FE6 are awful, so she's one of the few usable Bow-wielders, even though her Str is pretty awful.
Our first non-Jeigan prepromote, but he's still pretty Jeigan-y since his growths are crap. He's a good toss-in unit thanks to his nice bases and is very useful when he joins, but is easily outclassed.
He's the only sword-leaning cav in the game and has nice Con. He's probably not as good as the earlier available cavs, but still cavs are great.
Since Archers are so awful in this game, Sin is one of only a very small number of useful Bow-wielders. Compared to Sue, he's stronger and more durable, but a bit slower. Stats wise, he's objectively better, though he does join later.
He's a playable Brigand which is kind of hilarious in and of itself. He has really horrible accuracy thanks to being axe-locked and having crap Skl, but otherwise decent stats.
He's an okay prepromote and one of our few available not-shitty Bow users. Not as useful as the Nomads (partially because no horse), but he can use Ballistae unlike them.
Although she joins later than Thany, Tate is objectively the better of the two, with high Str and Spd. Her Skl and Res are a bit lower but eh.
Like Ninian/SM, Lalum can't actually fight but refreshes other units. Unlike Ninian/SM, she's not important to the plot in any way whatsoever. Dancers are useful and a lot of FE people like them, but I'm pretty meh about them myself.
Echidna is notable for being a female Hero, which was incredibly rare before Awakening made Mercenary an available class to females. Her stats could be better, but she starts off with B Axes which is hella useful.
Miledy is a powerhouse with amazing stats and high Con for a female unit. Also, in case you didn't notice, she rides on a dragon. Everyone loves Miledy.
Probably the best Prepromote in the game. Comes with very nice bases and his growths aren't too shabby either. Also he comes with an A rank in both Swords and Lances and a C in Axes.
Cecilia's not a bad toss-in prepromote. Her stats are meh (bases and growths both below average), but she comes with an A in Tomes and is a decent mounted healer, so she could be a lot worse.
Igrene is Hawkeye's daughter and basically a superior version of Klein since they start at the same level but her stats are higher. Her growths are meh at best, but bases help make up for it. She could be worse.
He comes late at a low level, but has very nice growths, so he's kind of an Est. Compared to Milady, he has higher Str/Def, but is much slower.
Niime comes late as a very high level promoted unit. Her stats are decent, but her best thing is that she comes with an A rank in both Dark and Staves which makes her easy to toss in for any situation, though she's both frail and sadly slow.
Everyone is allowed to suggest up to 5 characters that they would like to see in play. I'm making this limit so that we don't have another case of people just listing the same characters as someone else over and over. You can provide names for all characters suggested, the Lords, and some other characters; please see the below section for more details.
If you're uncertain who to pick, I would aim more for characters towards the top. Characters are roughly listed in recruiting order, so the earlier a character appears, the more screentime they'll have.
As usual, characters with the most suggestions will be in. Any tie-breakers will be decided by me.
In addition to the 12 Combat Units, there are 2 other units that we will be using occasionally, mostly for utility: Astore and Fa. They won't be used as often as the 12, but they'll be around and in the storyline (especially Fa), so they're also listed here, and are available for member naming:
A thief and spy in the employ of House Ostia
Awww it's a cute little dragon girl :3
Naming Units
Name have all been chosen! Scroll up to see. :3 Original section in spoilers below for posterity.
As usual, I would like to rename all of my units to PokéBeach Members. And since there's no Tactician in this game, I can be someone again, wooo~ \o/ The follow characters are all applicable for naming suggestions, listed in order of most important to least:
1) All 3 Forced Characters will need names: Roy, Lilina, and Sophia.
2) All characters you suggest to be included should also be given name suggestions.
3) Astore and Fa should get name suggestions.
4) You can also offer name suggestions to other characters even if you haven't chosen them, so long as it's made clear that these are separate from your actual unit suggestions.
5) There is also a couple of important villains and NPCs below who could use names, if so you choose. There are even more if you want, but these are the ones I think are most important.
Zephiel - The King of Bern
Guinevere - The Princess of Bern
So, all said and done, we're looking for about 16 total member names for characters. Feel free to suggest your friends, and then make them come suggest more characters and names, too.
1) All 3 Forced Characters will need names: Roy, Lilina, and Sophia.
2) All characters you suggest to be included should also be given name suggestions.
3) Astore and Fa should get name suggestions.
4) You can also offer name suggestions to other characters even if you haven't chosen them, so long as it's made clear that these are separate from your actual unit suggestions.
5) There is also a couple of important villains and NPCs below who could use names, if so you choose. There are even more if you want, but these are the ones I think are most important.
Zephiel - The King of Bern
Guinevere - The Princess of Bern
So, all said and done, we're looking for about 16 total member names for characters. Feel free to suggest your friends, and then make them come suggest more characters and names, too.
Supports
Here are our pairs!
Skyleaf/TGK
Silver/PP
DNA/Jabber
Green/Keeper
Athena/BV
Like Awakening, many characters have Support conversations with other characters. These Supports serve to make the character's closer and share more information about them and the world of FE6.
Unlike Awakening, none of the Supports change the canonical endings, except for Roy if he has an A Support ending with a female. Supports are almost much more limited since each character can only have 5 Support conversations in total. I'll probably make up my own endings, though.
I'll be opening up Support voting after characters have been assigned, since otherwise it's too much information for me to list for every single character. If you want a sneak peak at who supports with who before suggesting characters, you can take a look at this chart on Serenes Forest.
Unlike Awakening, none of the Supports change the canonical endings, except for Roy if he has an A Support ending with a female. Supports are almost much more limited since each character can only have 5 Support conversations in total. I'll probably make up my own endings, though.
I'll be opening up Support voting after characters have been assigned, since otherwise it's too much information for me to list for every single character. If you want a sneak peak at who supports with who before suggesting characters, you can take a look at this chart on Serenes Forest.
Game Info & Details
If you don't know what any of this stuff means, that's okay, don't worry about it.
- This playthrough will be played on Normal difficulty. This is mostly so I can focus on playing through the story and not have to worry about leveling or whatever, even if my team ends up shitty.
- I will not use any characters in battle besides the ones decided upon here, except for the chapters they appear if they're forced.
Feel free to ask if you have any questions! If those questions are spoilery, please either spoiler tag them or send them in via PM.
Chapters! \o/
Once the run starts, all chapters will be linked here.
Chapter 1: This game doesn't want any of your silly prologue nonsense
Chapter 2: The princess actually is in this castle
Chapter 3: Enter TGK, the shota mage
Chapter 4: Swordmaster Vom (this time with hair, and lots of it)
Chapter 5: Obligatory Bandit Chapter
Chapter 6: Let's trust this shady-looking Shaman dude for no raisin.
Chapter 7: ITC: Jabber makes us tonnes of gold
Chapter 8: Yay, I get to be in the game now! \o/
Chapter 8x: Bandits again? Really?
Chapter 9: I'm tired of all these ^*#$@(&ing bandits in this ^*#$@(&ing game
Chapter 10: Brave smashes his way to victory
Chapter 11: Swordmaster Vom is back! \o/
Chapter 12: Our first DRAGON BATTLE WOOO
Chapter 12x: Fancy Axe, get!
Chapter 13: A long battle interrupted by plot
Chapter 14: Welcome to Arcadia, home of sand and... more sand. Also dragons somewhere maybe.
Chapter 14x: Disappearing Platforms
Chapter 15: Saving the little dragon girl
Chapter 16: Icarus stabs his way to victory
Chapter 16x: Fire Emblem, get!
Chapter 17: Off to visit that girl from Twilight Princess
Chapter 18: Wow, Ilia is boring
Chapter 19: Ilia is still boring even if you can't see it
Chapter 20: Killing the final traitor
Chapter 20x: ITC: Palutena goes crazy
Chapter 21: BOOTS! \o/
Chapter 21x: What? Green is evolving?
Chapter 22: The King is dead. Long live the flashy glowy sword!
Chapter 23: ITC: Green kills everything
Chapter 24: Dragon Story Time!
Final Chapter: Everyone is friends
Chapter 2: The princess actually is in this castle
Chapter 3: Enter TGK, the shota mage
Chapter 4: Swordmaster Vom (this time with hair, and lots of it)
Chapter 5: Obligatory Bandit Chapter
Chapter 6: Let's trust this shady-looking Shaman dude for no raisin.
Chapter 7: ITC: Jabber makes us tonnes of gold
Chapter 8: Yay, I get to be in the game now! \o/
Chapter 8x: Bandits again? Really?
Chapter 9: I'm tired of all these ^*#$@(&ing bandits in this ^*#$@(&ing game
Chapter 10: Brave smashes his way to victory
Chapter 11: Swordmaster Vom is back! \o/
Chapter 12: Our first DRAGON BATTLE WOOO
Chapter 12x: Fancy Axe, get!
Chapter 13: A long battle interrupted by plot
Chapter 14: Welcome to Arcadia, home of sand and... more sand. Also dragons somewhere maybe.
Chapter 14x: Disappearing Platforms
Chapter 15: Saving the little dragon girl
Chapter 16: Icarus stabs his way to victory
Chapter 16x: Fire Emblem, get!
Chapter 17: Off to visit that girl from Twilight Princess
Chapter 18: Wow, Ilia is boring
Chapter 19: Ilia is still boring even if you can't see it
Chapter 20: Killing the final traitor
Chapter 20x: ITC: Palutena goes crazy
Chapter 21: BOOTS! \o/
Chapter 21x: What? Green is evolving?
Chapter 22: The King is dead. Long live the flashy glowy sword!
Chapter 23: ITC: Green kills everything
Chapter 24: Dragon Story Time!
Final Chapter: Everyone is friends
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