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Alright, let's do this. I'll be playing Fire Emblem 9: Path of Radiance, using Jespoke's FE9 Character Editor and Randomizer.
The Tellius games are my favourites in the series by far, but there's no randomizer for FE10 that I know of. If there is, please tell me; in that case I'll transfer my clear data of this run into that for a follow-up campaign.
I'll be skimming right past the story. Fedule did a screenshot Let's Play which is in the Archive; if you're new to Tellius, I suggest you check that out. I'm here for the mechanical chaos.
Being a more complex game than the GBA ones, FE9 is harder to randomize and you can do less with it. You can only reassign classes, growths, bases, and skills to characters; you can't change item stats or how skills function. You also can't affect generic enemies, so only my side of the board will be altered.
That said, there's still plenty of room for insanity.
I'm playing Hard mode to get the true ending and because randomizers tend to make the player stronger, since you can discard bad units and keep the ones with overpowered synergies.
Naturally, the opening cutscene is unchanged...
...but once we load in properly, we start to see the differences.
You'll probably have noticed Ike's new figurine, but look up top next to Greil. Mist has been replaced with a silhouette of the Ranger figurine, which means her new class is enemy-only and doesn't have a player-army figurine. I...I think I'm nervous about that.
Greil and Boyd, being enemies on this map, are unchanged.
Our Ike is a Bow Knight! This is actually fantastic because the invisible Protagonist skill which lets him Seize, Escape, and wield Ragnell still applies, and we can promote him into a sword-wielding Paladin. That's great!
This Ike is also phenomenally blessed: +3 Strength, +1 Speed, +4 Defence, +1 Resistance, +2 HP. His losses are -1 Skill and -2 Luck. Hopefully that goes some way to making up for him not being able to use melee until promotion.
This comes from a mix of randomized personal base stats and the fixed base stats that every class contributes. Bow Knights probably have higher bases than Ike's default Ranger class, which is giving him a lot of bulk on top of whatever the randomizer did to his personal bases. (This is great for me, because it means Generals will always have at least some Defence, etcetera.)
But enough talk. We take our first pot-shot at Boyd - unsportingly enough, from outside his range...
...and use Ike's new re-move ability to back off further.
Boyd charges us...
...and pays for it.
So far so relatively normal.
Shadow Mist (WHAT IS HER CLASS, I WANT TO KNOW) gives us a Vulnerary...
...and Greil takes the field. This is going to be easy.
Especially since we can actually escape his movement range after taking our shot.
Second hit takes him out. He never put a scratch on us.
By the way, we're using an Iron Bow. The randomizer gives every character a valid iron weapon, regardless of their usual starting inventory. I think this means we've been feathering Greil and Boyd with live arrows.
...sorry?
For attempting to murder his friend and dad, Ike gains an outstanding level! I don't know what his new growths are, so I can't tell if this is good luck in a little-picture sense or a big-picture sense quite yet.
Since the tutorial battle wasn't very engaging, let's bundle in our first real mission: Saving the fishing village of Caldea from Obligatory Fire Emblem Bandits.
The randomizer tends to break these downtime scenes, since almost everyone's unarmed, non-combat figurine is likely to be broken. I don't know if that's even the real Shinon, or if someone else rolled his Sniper class.
The party arrives in Caldea, and I start to realize what I've signed up for.
"Manage your Transform Gauge wisely, look out for ballistae..."
"For the last time, nobody needs your advice."
Titania is, if anything, even better now than she was before. -5 HP, +6 STR, +3 MAG, +4 SKL, -3 SPD, +1 LCK, -1 DEF, +4 RES. I'd rather have the Speed to be honest, but Wyvern Lord is way better than Paladin.
Wow. I'll take Deadeye over Counter any day, even if it doesn't actually increase damage in this game.
Only characters who start with innate skills have them randomized, so Ike still has no skills.
Our Oscar is a Cleric. He still has his Paladin Band, which will do very little to help him with his -7 HP, -1 STR, +1 MAG, -4 SPD, -1 LCK, -6 DEF, +1 RES, and -1 Ability to Fight at All, Ever.
No innate skills, of course.
But the main event is Boyd. Yes, he's a Heron, and yes, that works. (Laguz get a free Laguz Stone to make up for the fact that all their transform gauges start at 4.)
I'll be passing that Fighter Band to Ike.
Boyd has the heron's Chant skill as well, so he actually functions as intended.
For those keeping score: Yes, we just have Ike and Titania to clear this map. Which will be absolutely trivial, even if Ike solos.
See? And with Boyd's help, he can do this twice.
But I have a better idea.
I will never understand how wyvern units' axe animations cleared QA. They just bash their own mounts in the brainstem from 20 feet back. It works.
I've always wondered what would happen if we killed this Bandit.
The answer: Spontaneous combustion.
See, this scene isn't done in-engine. The house doesn't act like a destroyable object (and you can't Visit it either - I tried), meaning the Bandit isn't using his Destroy skill. He just walks over, attacks northward, and the house burns. If the Bandit is dead, his moves are just skipped and the house explodes all on its own.
Bummer, but at least it wasn't a softlock or crash.
Titania vents her frustration on the nearby Myrmidon, scoring the first crit of the campaign.
A normal axe swing would have been plenty. Titania with +6 STR is unholy.
Ike takes a beating from the welcome wagon.
And with Boyd's help, delivers a bigger one in return.
Oscar heals him up for next turn, since he's positioned to draw in that Myrmidon.
It works.
Okay, two things here. Ike's growths seem pretty solid, since he's now gotten two excellent levels in a row, and do you see that +2 LCK? That means Ike's Luck growth is over 100, meaning he's guaranteed to gain one level of Luck per level and has a chance of gaining two. This means he's guaranteed to cap Luck.
Boyd steps into the danger zone to sing for Ike, who kills this Bandit...
...and takes this seemingly-wrong position.
That carves a gap in the Bandit's attack range for Oscar to step in...
...and punt Boyd to safety.
I gotta say, having a Heron around does a bit to make up for Ike's inability to counter-attack on Enemy Phase. He can basically delete one unit per Player Phase for free as long as Boyd has nothing better to do.
After some housekeeping, we hit Turn 5...
...and demonstrate that Boyd's transformations work as intended too.
Ike takes some shots at Zawana...
...and everyone forms up to show off Boyd's four-way chants.
That's a wrap on Chapter 1, folks!
Luckily, as I mentioned before Seizing is tied to Ike himself (specifically, his invisible Protagonist skill) and not the Ranger/Lord class tree. We're totally fine.
Next Time: An Actual Challenge, Because...
...yeah. Pity me.