Andaron Saga - Chapter 17 - Normal Mode

#andaronsaga
Alright I think I get where Mangs is coming from when he said he made Normal and Hard too hard.
So, this honestly might have...writing. This is the point in the game where they bend over backwards to tell you that Clan Skadi is not tustworthy. With the previous chapter's talk about them being Voidtouched alongside the fact that Lightbringer's hate them, and the fact that they have ways to enter Helheim (seemingly on the regular), WITH Skylla's phrasing on "being skilled at delivering babies"...yeah, game, can you stop giving us hints that Aylanda is not safe with them?
Anyways, we get a new unit for our troubles of going to the closest thing we have to hell.
Helga: She's the best flier in the game, no joke. She comes equipped with almost perfect equipment for this chapter, she has Lifetaker for Player-Phase recovery (no it doesn't make her get Nosferatu's enemy phase potential), she needs no leave time or Master Seal, and her growth rates are some of the most efficient, with her having better defensive growths than all other Viking-land natives while still having both Skill and Speed. And she has enough Con to use alot of Dark tomes without issue. AND SHE CAN GET GALE-FORCE IN THIS MAP! This is almost literally the perfect candidate for your team if your Emilia, Elmer or Shom aren't keeping up with the rest of the team. It's almost like the game wants you to use her while she's available...nah.
So anyways I dislike this map. It's just you trying to destroy rifts for gold while you deal with reskinned Terrors. And if you want to get Galeforce, well tough shit you need Jahiera or Shay promoted and ready for combat or else you're not destroying enough rifts. So ig the game punishes you for sending Jahiera away to Tendaris? Plus, you kind of get alot of stuff to help you disregard the difficulty it has? If you've been dilligent with weaponary you should have 1 of each Holy Weapon (including Divine), along with a 2nd Holy Axe if you visited a specific village while holding an Antitoxin. So...if you're well prepared and have multiple Fliers, I guess this is an easy map? But it's also quite reliant on having the right gear for the occasion, which just...hurts it alot.
Also, most of the story you get once you finish battle preps is just...gone until Chapter 19. You don't get any new stuff or concepts, you don't get any character revelations, no nothing until you speedrun Tyronar's death. You can make that work, but only if you try to make certain war arcs that are just a single battle stretched into mutiple chapters, or if you want to make smaller chapters that follow near directly from eachother (that's something FE8 was much better at imo). And also, the option to make a deal with Asmodeus suffers from the same problem as whether you take the Dawncaller. The game promises major consequences, but you end up only affecting some dialogue and trading characters and maybe the ending. The Dawncaller suffered from only really affecting the recruited Ancient Lightbringer you get, the Asmo-deal-us only affects whether Jakka gets to steamroll all but one chapter from now on. It's just...boring and smells of broken promises.