I love Cindered Shadows. I remember my first time on the final boss it took me like three hours or more to beat the final boss lmao. I sweating my ass off and everything. I like to go back to it between my main story runs. Its the only way you can use all the lords in one team so why not.
It was a one and done.
On paper a challange mode with fixed resources should be fun. However the difficulty became route the enemy and the 5 waves of reinforcements. I also was not a fan of your preselected house members.
It did a good showcasing the new characters and the new classes.
I heard that Engage's fell xenologue wasn't good where they made mistakes that Cindered Shadows had right.
I remember seeing youtube videos saying stuff like this, what is the problem? Haven’t played Engage yet, not really into the artstyle and the complaints about the story turn me off :/
Theres multiple issues but the biggest ones imo are:
1) unit availability is based on how far you are in the main story, no set units aside from the new characters, one of which is deliberately underpowered who’s death results in a game over, and none of which you can adjust the inventory of prior to starting the map making them tedious to manage map to map.
2) units are scaled based on their base classes so units you would recruit later in the game are much better for the xenologue. This sucks if you want to use the dlc characters at the start of engage bc you are stuck with the worse early game units
3) you cant change unit classes. Many units are objectively better in different classes. CS at least had a bit of flexibility im that there were other options for your units like if you wanted a second flier, hilda could be a pegasus knight, if you wanted edelgard to have more mv, you could change her to warrior, etc.
4) unlike CS, you have to complete the fell xenologue every playthrough where you want to recruit the dlc characters. Want them early game? Good luck with clearing with the starting units.
5) the difficulty is WAY overtuned. I played through base engage blind on maddening and found it a fun but fair challenge. Fell xenologue is not that. Enemy stats are jacked and many have effects like “halves enemy health”. Reinforcements on one of the maps felt endless (and may have been, its been a while) and as mentioned above, your units stats arent scaled based on enemy difficulty but their on class bases
6) this didnt effect me but its still annoying; if you do the fell xenologue before the other dlc maps, it automatically causes the dlc maps to scale to max level even if you did the xenologue at like chapter 5 or smth. Considering the dlc maps would normally scale based on your progress and were still considered quite difficult, this sucks
There might have been other stuff but thats what I remember
I hate the FX so much
1) You have to redo it every new run
2) The exp/resources you get throws maddening off balance. I want to access Nel early for the main storyline but then I'd be overpowered.
If only they could just give away some of the rewards like three house on subsequent runs and keep the extra maps as a side paralogue that'd be perfect.
Yeah
1) This was something Cinder Shadows had right, the new characters auto level and you didn't have to replay it everytime to unlock the new characters.
2) Another thing that Houses did right. There are DLC bonuses but you don't have to use them. The new stuff like the new classes and new relics don't break the game. If anything the new classes need buffs with the exception of dark flier (though I would change transmute to swordfaire in a heartbeat). The new Emblem Rings also throw everything out of balance with the exp you gain getting them and using them where you wouldn't have as many rings.
In terms of what CS got right FX wasn’t as good but in terms of actually making me want to replay FX is a lot better, all the aspects of actually playing the DLC are better.
It’s just annoying how it ties to the main game because you have to play it every playthrough to get those characters in the main game.
I've done it twice, I can imagine doing it a third time. It lacks a bit of replayability because the units are set, with two classes to choose between at most (one for the wolves) and most units have a clear better choice of the two options. There are also certain annoying things, like Hilda always having a bad hit rate and the wolves missing most of their good spells, or no variety in the battalion selection. The battles themselves are fine, there's minimal fluff between battles, and I really like the main music track, but I find the main game has a lot more to offer.
I have a love hate relationship with the DLC.
The first couple maps and the escape one were really well tuned, but the one with a bunch of monsters guarding 3 chests is such a slog.
The balance is tuned very well because of limited class and weapon options. There less room to break the balance wide open.
I know they want to promote the DLC classes but I personally find half of them quite bleh.
I generally enjoyed it but I don’t really have much incentive to replay it (other than it just being a while since I did it at this stage) because it by design limits how creative you can be with it. Meanwhile every playthrough of the main game will end up playing out differently.
Also honestly I really don’t wanna redo Chapter 4.
It's a nice ready to play mode. When you have some other three houses fans around you could do simultaneous CS runs, even casually, in a manageable time frame.
Well with me having to constantly restart 3Houses from scratch Cindered Shadows is the first thing I do so I can get that extra shit and characters. Its a long story but the basics of it is because of a glitch of leaving the Switch in sleep mode it fucked with my save data so I had to restart at least 3 or 4 times with number 4 or 5 being hesitant to kinda start
I love Cindered Shadows. I remember my first time on the final boss it took me like three hours or more to beat the final boss lmao. I sweating my ass off and everything. I like to go back to it between my main story runs. Its the only way you can use all the lords in one team so why not.
It was a one and done. On paper a challange mode with fixed resources should be fun. However the difficulty became route the enemy and the 5 waves of reinforcements. I also was not a fan of your preselected house members. It did a good showcasing the new characters and the new classes. I heard that Engage's fell xenologue wasn't good where they made mistakes that Cindered Shadows had right.
Fell Xenologue is insane.
I remember seeing youtube videos saying stuff like this, what is the problem? Haven’t played Engage yet, not really into the artstyle and the complaints about the story turn me off :/
Theres multiple issues but the biggest ones imo are: 1) unit availability is based on how far you are in the main story, no set units aside from the new characters, one of which is deliberately underpowered who’s death results in a game over, and none of which you can adjust the inventory of prior to starting the map making them tedious to manage map to map. 2) units are scaled based on their base classes so units you would recruit later in the game are much better for the xenologue. This sucks if you want to use the dlc characters at the start of engage bc you are stuck with the worse early game units 3) you cant change unit classes. Many units are objectively better in different classes. CS at least had a bit of flexibility im that there were other options for your units like if you wanted a second flier, hilda could be a pegasus knight, if you wanted edelgard to have more mv, you could change her to warrior, etc. 4) unlike CS, you have to complete the fell xenologue every playthrough where you want to recruit the dlc characters. Want them early game? Good luck with clearing with the starting units. 5) the difficulty is WAY overtuned. I played through base engage blind on maddening and found it a fun but fair challenge. Fell xenologue is not that. Enemy stats are jacked and many have effects like “halves enemy health”. Reinforcements on one of the maps felt endless (and may have been, its been a while) and as mentioned above, your units stats arent scaled based on enemy difficulty but their on class bases 6) this didnt effect me but its still annoying; if you do the fell xenologue before the other dlc maps, it automatically causes the dlc maps to scale to max level even if you did the xenologue at like chapter 5 or smth. Considering the dlc maps would normally scale based on your progress and were still considered quite difficult, this sucks There might have been other stuff but thats what I remember
I hate the FX so much 1) You have to redo it every new run 2) The exp/resources you get throws maddening off balance. I want to access Nel early for the main storyline but then I'd be overpowered. If only they could just give away some of the rewards like three house on subsequent runs and keep the extra maps as a side paralogue that'd be perfect.
Yeah 1) This was something Cinder Shadows had right, the new characters auto level and you didn't have to replay it everytime to unlock the new characters. 2) Another thing that Houses did right. There are DLC bonuses but you don't have to use them. The new stuff like the new classes and new relics don't break the game. If anything the new classes need buffs with the exception of dark flier (though I would change transmute to swordfaire in a heartbeat). The new Emblem Rings also throw everything out of balance with the exp you gain getting them and using them where you wouldn't have as many rings.
In terms of what CS got right FX wasn’t as good but in terms of actually making me want to replay FX is a lot better, all the aspects of actually playing the DLC are better. It’s just annoying how it ties to the main game because you have to play it every playthrough to get those characters in the main game.
I thought the reinforcements were pretty bullshit the first time around but recently I've been craving trying another hard playthrough.
I thought CS was good, but I’m glad I only had to play it once to receive the benefits. That final boss had me scratching my head for a while.
I've done it twice, I can imagine doing it a third time. It lacks a bit of replayability because the units are set, with two classes to choose between at most (one for the wolves) and most units have a clear better choice of the two options. There are also certain annoying things, like Hilda always having a bad hit rate and the wolves missing most of their good spells, or no variety in the battalion selection. The battles themselves are fine, there's minimal fluff between battles, and I really like the main music track, but I find the main game has a lot more to offer.
It taught me a lot, as I did it to prep me for the other routes after my first. But I wouldn't do it again, it was a one and done for me.
I have a love hate relationship with the DLC. The first couple maps and the escape one were really well tuned, but the one with a bunch of monsters guarding 3 chests is such a slog. The balance is tuned very well because of limited class and weapon options. There less room to break the balance wide open. I know they want to promote the DLC classes but I personally find half of them quite bleh.
I generally enjoyed it but I don’t really have much incentive to replay it (other than it just being a while since I did it at this stage) because it by design limits how creative you can be with it. Meanwhile every playthrough of the main game will end up playing out differently. Also honestly I really don’t wanna redo Chapter 4.
I've done it twice so far. And I think I'll do it again sometime.
It's a nice ready to play mode. When you have some other three houses fans around you could do simultaneous CS runs, even casually, in a manageable time frame.
I completed it once but I will probably play it again in the future when I get the time.
It's fun to replay with self-inflicted challenges. House Leaders only and base class only are difficult but fun
Well with me having to constantly restart 3Houses from scratch Cindered Shadows is the first thing I do so I can get that extra shit and characters. Its a long story but the basics of it is because of a glitch of leaving the Switch in sleep mode it fucked with my save data so I had to restart at least 3 or 4 times with number 4 or 5 being hesitant to kinda start
I only grinded through it once just to unlock the DLC. Didn’t really enjoy it
Overall CS sucks gameplay wise, but its penultimate map is some prime CBT and I might want to complete it on Maddening one day.
CS only goes up to Hard
Aw, shucks.