Tyranogre Posted August 22, 2019 Share Posted August 22, 2019 (edited) https://ninfora.com/forums/index.php?/topic/3166-ty-plays-fe4-the-downs-syndrome-run/&do=findComment&comment=124448 Quote However, don't think that this is the end! Yes, that's right! After a four-year hiatus, I've decided to return to Let's Playing for a blind playthrough of Thracia 776! I plan to start working on it sometime after I get home from Anime Expo. Technically, I wasn't lying. A month and a half is still "sometime". Twenty years ago, as the N64 entered its final days, some genius named Shouzou Kaga decided that it would be a good idea to develop a game for the SNES. However, with the GameCube due to come out a year later, nobody wanted to buy a game that was effectively two console generations behind. Sales were so poor, that Nintendo fired Kaga. Enraged by their sudden betrayal, Kaga declared, "Fuck you guys, I'm gonna start my own studio and make my own Fire Emblem game for the PS1!" And then he proceeded to do just that. Humbled by this, Nintendo decided to gift Kaga with a big fat juicy lawsuit. As the Fire Emblem series continued to find success on the GBA, almost died off on the GameCube and Wii, and eventually became an A-List franchise on the 3DS, Kaga's final installment became lost to the sands of time. Even as the Western fanbase discovered the pre-GBA games and translated them into English, nobody ever bothered to translate this one... ...until now. Before we get started, just a couple of notes: *Unlike FE3 (which I had played the DS remakes) and FE4 (which I was familiar enough with to attempt a challenge run by intentionally sabotaging the gene pool), this is going to be a completely blind playthrough. While I will be following a guide, I'm otherwise completely unprepared for any sudden shenanigans that may happen. *I will be attempting to get all of the gaiden chapters, as well as recruit as many characters as I can. However, if a character proves to be too much of a hassle to recruit, I reserve the right to leave them behind. *Save-states will be used, but I will try to limit them so that things aren't completely boring. *In the four years it's been since the last time I did this, I have gotten a full-time job. As such, the era of multiple episodes per day is long gone. Depending on work, stress, and other factors, there may very well be some days where there are no updates. Rest assured, however, that unless something really fucking stupid happens (i.e. corruption of save data, hard drive wipe, etc.), I will see this through to the end. So, will Kaga's career at Nintendo go out with a bang? Or will Leif be forever overshadowed by his uncle and cousin? Let's find out! --- Table of Contents: *Chapter 1: A Weismann Once Said *Chapter 2: The Bucks Stops Here *Chapter 2x: Can't See Shit, Captain *Chapter 3: The Kids Are All Right *Chapter 4: Don't Drop the Soap *Chapter 4x: Fuck You Ced *Chapter 5: Tags: Mind Break, Guro, Oyakodon, Petrification, Inseki, NTR, Ugly Bastard *Chapter 6: Karin's Delivery Service *Chapter 7: Hannibal Rising *Chapter 8: Callion, Callion, 'Cause Nothing Really Matters *Chapter 8x: Dagdar's Mansion: Dark Moon *Chapter 9: Family Reunion *Chapter 10: Clash on the Small Bridges *Chapter 11: Kempf's Trap (In America) *Chapter 11x: Another God Damned Fog of War Chapter *Chapter 12: Fuck, I Should've Used That Title For This One *Chapter 12x: Pan's Labyrinth *Chapter 13: The Biggest Loser *Chapter 14: Ten Turns in Five Days *Chapter 14x: Do the People Have to be Freedom Beef? *Chapter 15: The Choice is Yours, and Yours Alone *Chapter 16A: Revenge of the Stupid Bitch *Chapter 17A: Who Needs Warp-Skipping When You've Got Arena Abuse? *Chapter 16B: Hot MIL(le)F(euille) Gets Pounded By Huge (Rine)Cock *Chapter 17B: You've Seen One, You've Seen Amalda *Chapter 18: Untitled Gustav Game *Chapter 19: The Empire Strikes Back *Chapter 20: Bharat: Cultural Learnings of Leonster for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Friege *Chapter 21: The Virgin Leif VS The Chad Seliph *Chapter 21x: No Political Commentary Here, No Sir *Chapter 22: Magic is Everything! *Chapter 23: No, Seriously, Fuck You Ced *Chapter 24: My First Girlfriend is a Galzus *Chapter 24x: Beyond Good and Eyvel *Endgame: Most Pathetic Final Boss in Fire Emblem History Edited October 22, 2019 by Tyranogre Quote Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted August 22, 2019 Author Share Posted August 22, 2019 Fucking hell, I haven't even started the game yet and I've already fucked up the formatting. April 1 Quote Link to comment
Stephen 776 Posted August 22, 2019 Share Posted August 22, 2019 19 minutes ago, Tyranogre said: *I will be attempting to get all of the gaiden chapters, as well as recruit as many characters as I can. However, if a character proves to be too much of a hassle to recruit, I reserve the right to leave them behind. xavier is already dead Quote Link to comment
April Posted August 22, 2019 Share Posted August 22, 2019 it's not blind if you're following a guide what heck Quote Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted August 22, 2019 Author Share Posted August 22, 2019 After spending the entirety of my free time from getting home from work to getting ready for bed, I’m currently up to turn 3. No, not Chapter 3. Turn 3. Of Chapter 1. First episode will hopefully be out by this time tomorrow night. April 1 Quote Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted August 23, 2019 Author Share Posted August 23, 2019 Chapter 1: A Weismann Once Said Worth noting is that aside from a few changed names, this is exactly how the text appeared in the Japanese version. The entire opening cutscene was already in English. Who the fuck is King Calf, and why was he not mentioned anywhere in the text of Genealogy? I'm sorry, infant grandson?! Leif looks like he's at least five years old! And this is supposed to be happening at the same time as the Yied Massacre, when Ethlyn was explicitly stated to have just given birth to him! From the title screen, there's actually something we want to do before we even start a new game. Instead of selecting an empty file, enter the following button combination: Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Right If done correctly, you should hear a chime. Now, if you return to the previous menu, you should see a new option: Paragon Mode! This is basically the same game, except that all EXP gains are doubled. While this may seem like easy mode, it's actually balanced out by the fact that it makes it harder to take advantage of the Crusader Scrolls (which will be coming up much later). I will be playing with this mode enabled since it's my first time. Please be gentle, senpai! "Under Finn's care". Riiiight... Yes, the map really did move all that way just to display two words. "Swordswoman". Riiiight... "With a sword." Riiiiiight... As you may have noticed, Thracia has the same problem as FE3 where characters' text boxes will remain on screen even when they're not currently talking, which makes a screenshot LP look rather redundant. After that conversation is over, the purple-armored Baron will take Nanna and Hmph away, while a group of soldiers will appear and scatter throughout the map. "Let 'em all go? But Maaaaaaaars!" All right, let's take a look at what we're working with here! This is Leif, son of Quan and Ethlyn, cousin of Seliph, and nephew of ZIGLUDO-CHAN-SAN-SAMA-SENPAI-SAN-SAMA-SAN-SENPAI-CHAN. While he may look weak now, he will eventually promote into a Master Knight, an amazing class with the ability to wield almost every weapon type in the game! ...that is what he promotes to, right? Riiiiiiiiiight? This is Finn, his loyal retainer. Regardless of whether you promoted him during the first half of Genealogy, here he starts off as an unpromoted Lance Knight. However, despite being Nanna's father according to this game, he gets to keep his Brave Lance, which would normally be replaced with a generic Iron one if he got married in Genealogy. And this is Eyvel, a pre-promoted Swordmaster who is most definitely not an amnesiac Briggid. Despite being an obvious Jagen, she does have one thing going for her that I'll get into at a later date. This guy has been through a number of name changes. Back in the old days, he was known as Othin, the namesake of one of my good friends from NS2's old Fire Emblem board. But then Awakening came out and named his personal axe "Orsin's Hatchet", which is the name you see here. Finally, Heroes ran that Choose Your Legend poll that changed his name to "Osian". But since he hasn't actually appeared in that game yet, let's just call him Orsin. And this is Halvan. Nobody gives a shit about him. Starting off, the first thing we wanna do is move Orsin toward this little house toward the bottom of the map. Next, we'll move Finn and Halvan up to that little two-tile gap in the fence to lure out some of the Soldiers. Finally, we'll move Leif and Eyvel right behind them. To my dismay, I discover that this game does not have an auto-end function. This means that after you're done moving your units, you must manually select "End" every single time. Starting off the enemy's turn, Halvan draws first blood with an awesome aerial jump to take that Soldier's head clean off! Is this Vantage? Followed by the other Soldier trying and failing to throw a Javelin at Finn. Back on our turn, Orsin makes the first player-phase attack, almost, but not quite, killing the Soldier blocking the house. All right, Finn, let's see what that newfangled "Capture" command is all about. Doesn't seem any different from a regular kill. Let's just move him back a bit with Canto, and... Wait, what's this? There's a little red icon on Finn's sprite! Whatever could that mean? Whatever it is, it'll have to wait until next turn. For now, let's move Eyvel into the attack range of these Archers. During the enemy's turn, Orsin kills the soldier guarding the house in self-defense, netting the first level-up of the LP! Unfortunately, it's not a very good one. All he got was a single point of CON. Oh right, I forgot to mention: In this game, CON is a stat that can randomly level up, just like STR, SPD, and the rest. But before Orsin can visit the house... ...we gain control of three new units! This is Dagdar, the games other Jagen. Don't expect me to use him beyond the first few chapters. Since Thracia is well-known for it's Wyvern Knights, an Archer might be useful to have around. We'll see if Tanya can fit that bill. Marty here holds the distinctive honor of being the first playable Brigand in the entire series, predating THE GREAT GONZALES by a whole game. Since this is a blind LP, I don't know which units not to use because they suck. I do, however, know this about Marty: Don't use him, he sucks. And now, the moment we've all been waiting for... What's that, Vaike? Think you're the first Fighter to have the running gag of forgetting his axe? Sorry, but Thracia did it first! Remember when I said that nobody gives a shit about Halvan? Well, that's because of this axe, exclusive to Orsin: More commonly known as the Pugi, this is one of the most broken weapons in the game. Naturally, this means that I will use it sparingly out of fear of breaking it. The only downside is that Orsin had to take such a long detour to visit this house that now he'll have to spend several turns walking back to the rest of the group. Hmm? What's going on with Finn's menu? "Trade"? Who's he going to trade with? There's nobody next to him! Manster? He's going to trade with an entire Dukedom? Is he a politician now? Ahh, now I see! He can trade items with the Manster Soldier that he just captured! I'll just be taking that Javelin, thank you. All right, Leif, you're the Lord, so let's get you some combat practice! *sigh* This might take a while... Let's see if Halvan can capture that Archer... Indeed he can! Not only does he score a critical hit, but he also gains a level-up! Much like FE4, the numbers only stay on screen for a split second before disappearing, but by comparing his base stats to these, I can tell that he gained HP and Luck. I didn't manage to capture it in a screenshot, but after I moved Eyvel to this spot, a little music note appeared above her sprite, and now all of a sudden she can move again?! What is going on here?! Ooh, can Tanya trade with that Archer that Halvan captured? Yes she can! Hello, free Shortbow! Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a Prison that I can send captured enemies to persuade them to join me, so instead I guess I'll have Dagdar take him off Halvan's hands and let him go. While I could move Eyvel again (no idea why), it would be better to keep her where she is right now to bait some more Archers. So, I'll just have her "wait", and... OwO What's this?! Nothing much. Just a conversation between Eyvel and Dagdar. All the enemy did during their next turn was to move this Soldier a bit closer to Eyvel. While Orsin begins his painfully-slow trek back to the rest of the group, Eyvel will hide in this tree. Tanya hasn't had any action yet, so let's see if Halvan can weaken that Soldier enough to feed her the kill... Whoops! He double-attacked and killed him. Sorry, Tanya. Ooh, I know what we can do! Leif, you beat up this Archer for a while. Finn, Dagdar, you can move here. Enemy's turn: A soldier attacks Finn, only to get a Brave Lance to the jugular for his troubles... ...while Eyvel and Dagdar dodge and tank an attack from two Archers, respectively. All right, Halvan, let's try this again. Can you please weaken this Soldier so that Tanya can get the kill? ...no you can't. Not only did you steal the kill, but you also wasted the level-up on a single point of STR. This is the exact opposite of what I wanted you to do. Oh well, might as well have Finn visit this house. Why do we have to capture them alive? Can't we just loot the stuff off of their dead bodies? Excuse me, sir. You seem to have made a mistake. Finn is a Lance Knight. He has no use for Swords whatsoever. There's no other weapon type that he'd rather wield, especially not while going for a nice horseback ride. In fact, I think he'd much prefer to stay on horseback at all times. Fighting on foot is sooo overrated. Now, if you've seen any of my previous LPs, you know that there's one thing that I love to do, and that's grinding! So, let's spend a few turns sitting right here until Leif kills that Archer. Looking a little banged up, Halvan. Let's move you out of harm's way for now. Ah, here we go! A Soldier with a Short Lance! Since he can't counterattack from long range, he'll be perfect practice for Tanya! Way to go, Tanya! Double-attack for 30 EXP! Here, Finn, you can capture this guy and take another Javelin. Aww, shit! That Archer had a Vulnerary! You know what that means, right? MORE free EXP for Leif! While dodging a thrown Javelin, Finn levels-up, gaining Speed and Luck. Next turn, Orsin finally rejoins the group. Hopefully soon we'll get to see Bhuj in action. Tanya kills the Soldier with an unnecessary crit, but in return, gets the best level-up so far! HP, Strength, Skill, Speed, and Luck! Now THAT'S how you make a first impression! Speaking of level-ups, here's Leif's first. All he got was Skill. All right, Orsin, let's what this Bhuj business is all about... Killing the Soldier in one hit with a critical? Yeah, I can get behind that. I was going to have Tanya grind for a bit against this Soldier, but she accidentally crat him to death and almost got another level-up. Yes, I'm going to use "crat" as the past-tense verb for "crit". Victory is near! But we've still got some stuff to do before we fight the boss. First, let's visit this house. Does that mean it disappears after use? We'll worry about that later. Next is a house for Halvan to visit (and yes, it has to be Halvan). For you uneducated plebians, this is a reference to the lady in FE4 who gives Lex the Brave Axe. Unlike Bhuj, however, the Brave Axe is not a personal weapon. Anyone can wield it. Speaking of, let's conserve Bhuj and have Orsin use his vanilla Iron Axe to take out this guy. He doubles, and gets a level-up that I'm too lazy to remember. Meanwhile, Finn and Dagdar have this Archer trapped. Leif will take care of him once he's done killing his buddy. Let's see what the Vendor has for sale... What the fuck? What kind of piece of shit establishment is this? Fuck off and let me be! (Raise your hand if you get that reference!) Another level-up for Leif. HP, Skill, and Speed. And yet another: HP and Speed. Now to repeat the process against this other Archer. What the fuck?! It happened again! A little music note and an extra turn! With the last of his henchmen down, all that's left is to take out Weismann himself. All he has is a single-range Longsword. And it just so happens that Leif's personal weapon can attack at range. Despite the Light Brand's cool attack animation, Weismann manages to dodge. But for the second time in a row, Leif is blessed by the mysterious music note and given an extra turn! But we can't just let Leif have all the fun! Let's see if Orsin can wield Dagdar's Hammer! Sadly, he can't. Bah, who needs a stupid Hammer when you've got Bhuj! Come on, Orsin, let's bag us a Longsword! Well, shit. That wasn't a very good idea. It's all up to you, Tanya! Orsin's life is in your hands! I'm not exactly sure what happened here. Tanya's first attack did 0 damage, but then her second attack crat and killed him? How does that even work? Critical hits deal triple damage, correct? And 0 times 3 is still 0! The only logical explanation is that Tanya is so awesome that she's immune to math! But whatever. How can I say no to a level-up like this? ...and also a few others that Leif got before Tanya's physics-breaking accomplishment. Next time: The search for Nanna and Hmph! ...whew. That was exhausting. No way in hell am I going to be able to update this during the work week. Expect Chapter 2 sometime over the weekend when I can sit at my computer for more than three hours a day. Quote Link to comment
Stephen 776 Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 (edited) Few things. That little music note? Look at character's status screen and you'll see movement stars. The more stars a character has, the higher probability they'll have to move again. crits work differently in jugdral games. I'll need to look it up, but iirc it doubles your attack stat, whereas Elibe and later triples your damage. Despite dracokninghts being a thing, archers are actually kind of terrible. Not in principle, just the first four you get are awful and fifth bow user joins late (but actually isn't bad). Edited August 23, 2019 by Ares Tyranogre 1 Quote Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted August 24, 2019 Author Share Posted August 24, 2019 Chapter 2: The Bucks Stops Here Oh, hey! We're going to that Falcom series that @Ares likes! Some fairly short plot stuff. FUCK, I already missed the gaiden chapter! Joking aside, our objective to get the gaiden chapter is to visit all of the villages before they get destroyed by Pirates. Presumably this excludes the one that was destroyed during the cutscene. Since we're acting on a timer, this means that Eyvel, Dagdar, and Marty will actually see some active use. Instead of trying to memorize level-ups, I've decided to try a different approach: At the start of each chapter, I'll take a screenshot of each unit's status screen that I plan on using for that map, followed by another screenshot at the beginning of the next chapter. This way, any level-ups can easily be tracked simply by comparing the characters' stats between chapters. Starting off, we'll have Finn wait on this house to block the Pirates, but not actually visit it. His inventory is full, so we'll want to have the others take some stuff off his hands before he does any visiting or capturing. Due to her low Con, Eyvel isn't thicc enough to capture anybody, so she can kill this guy instead. Dagdar, on the other hand, has no problems whatsoever. The rest of our turn consists of moving everybody else up. Those Pirates on the water can only move one square at a time, so we don't have to worry about them just yet. Leif will start the next turn by taking both of Finn's Iron Swords to free up some of the latter's inventory space, along with a Vulnerary. Followed by Halvan taking an Iron Axe from the Pirate that Dagdar captured last turn. To my pleasant surprise, I discover that trading does not automatically end your turn in this game, allowing Halvan to take out that other Pirate. Normally I'd try to conserve his Brave Axe, but since we're on a timer I can't take any chances. All Eyvel had to do was kill that Hunter to clear a path across the bridge for Finn, but instead she decided to go the extra mile by pulling off an awesome-looking crit animation. Followed by yet another crit, courtesy of the little music note. Being our only Cavalry, Finn's main objective is to cover as much distance as he can to reach that house before the Pirates get to it. Eh, why not. Let's give this house to Orsin. Just a Vulnerary. Nothing special. Tanya and Marty will finish off this turn by moving up toward that house to the north. What the fuck was I worried about? It's taken this long for just one of the Pirates to reach the shore. We've got plenty of time. Let's see what this house has to offer... Oooh, a Speed Ring! We'll give that to one of our Axe Fighters later. Nothing else to do this turn except move everybody up. During the enemy's turn, a few Pirates spawn from the bottom-right corner of the map, but it's too late for them. We've already saved all but two of the villages. ...make that all but one of the villages. In this era of controversy over representation of minorities in video games, we should give praise to Kaga for including Ronan, an almost-never seen example of a transclass person! His best growth rate is his Magic stat, which he sadly cannot take advantage of due to being trapped in an Archer's body. If only this game had Second Seals, then Ronan would be able to undergo surgery to become the Mage that he always wanted to be. But as it stands, don't use him, he sucks. He does, however, spawn right within the attack range of these Hunters. So, let's have him swap places with Tanya. ...Okay, it's later. Like I said before, these Pirates don't pose any threat because we've already saved all but one of the villages. But who am I to turn down free EXP? Leif, Orsin, get your asses down there! Halvan, you go up there to intercept those guys. Marty accidentally draws aggro from one of the Hunters next to the boss, but he's bulky enough to survive without much of a problem. Tanya aggros the other one and gets a level-up. Enemy's turn! Finn kills the Pirate with a critical counterattack, earning his first level-up! Followed by a mutual-miss from the next Pirate. Oh shit, I forgot to unequip the Bhuj form Orsin! Poor guy never stood a chance. Eyvel doing what she does best. Let's see if Dagdar can capture this Hunter. We don't really need any more Bows, but maybe we can sell them. D'oh, I missed! That ended up working out in my favor, because now he's trapped! Here, Halvan, why don't you show Dagdar how it's done? Back at the bottom of the map, Leif does some more practice. He still hits like a wet paper towel, but at least now he can double. You're not looking too good, Orsin. Here, let somebody with a weapon triangle advantage take care of those Pirates. Aside from a few more reinforcements, yet another uneventful enemy phase of dodging and countering. Now, let's have Tanya visit the last village... Oh wait, it's not a village, it's a Vendor! A vendor that sells nothing but Vulneraries. Missed again. I can do this all day, you know. Ooh, this guy had another Vulnerary! I'll be taking that, thank you. Sadly, while the "Trade" command may not automatically end a unit's turn, the "Release" command does. Another kill for Leif. He's got a lot of work to do if he wants to be as good as his bootleg counterpart. Noticing that Orsin has a Vulnerary, I send him toward Finn and the Pirates, and--wait a minute, heals all HP?! That can't be right, can it? Vulnerary OP pls nerf. Well, there goes one durability point on the Brave Axe that I'm never going to see again... Shit, that's actually bad. I've gotta do something! Of course! The Light Brand! It has a built-in Nosferatu effect! With this, Leif can restore his health, and... ...miss. Third time's the charm, right? Wrong! Getting real tired of your shit, Dagdar. Oooh, Orsin's weapon rank increased! Unlike Genealogy, where weapon levels are set in stone and can only be changed through promotion or inheritance, this game uses the more traditional system where you become more proficient with a weapon type the more you use it. In fact, I think it might have invented that system. Mystery did that stupid thing where Weapon Level was a stat that could randomly increase with a level-up, and more powerful weapons required a higher Weapon Level stat in order to wield them. Finn, you gotta do something! Leif needs your help! Look, I love grinding as much as the next guy, but if Leif dies, I'll lose everything I've gained so far! Do you think you could knock it off with the reinforcements for just a minute? ...guess not. Welp, this is it. Time for a soft-re... ...set?! Leif lives! And gains a level-up! And so does Halvan! Ahhh... I haven't felt this relieved since I had my catheter removed! Now that's more like it, Dagdar! You even got a level-up out of it (albeit a really shitty one)! Ooh, a Hand Axe! You can never have too many of those! So close, and yet so far... Another enemy phase of dodging and counterattacking. Finn accidentally kills the Pirate with a Javelin. Sorry, Orsin. No Hand Axe for you! As much as I'd love to stay here and grind, I'm almost at 200 images here, so let's start packing up and heading for the boss. Dagdar takes the contents of the Hunter's inventory, and trades it to Eyvel, who proceeds to sell the Iron Bow for 1025 Gold. Halvan captures one of the remaining Pirates to rob him of his Hand Axe. During the enemy's turn, he manages to kill the last Pirate even while carrying the other Pirate on his shoulders. Let's see... how do I want to do this... Unlike Weismann's Longsword, Bucks doesn't have anything interesting that we don't already have plenty of, so capturing him wouldn't really be worth it. Maybe Orsin can kill him? Nope. Maybe Halvan? Nope. And now I have to take him out fast or else he'll kill Halvan on the next turn. As much as I hate to feed the boss kill to a Jagen, looks like I have no choice but to use Eyvel. ...or not! I know I haven't had the best of luck with using the Light Brand at long-range, but this is my only option left. It's all up to you, Leif! Way to go, Leif! He kills Bucks, and gets a level-up! Before seizing the gate, I'll have Halvan give one of his Iron Axes to Orsin. Ys is a very niche series. It needs all the sales it can get! We can't let the Pirates get to it! Next time: the debut of a much-hated game mechanic! Chapter 2x may or may not be out tomorrow. We'll see. Quote Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted August 25, 2019 Author Share Posted August 25, 2019 Chapter 2x: Can't See Shit, Captain Plot stuff speaks for itself. Welcome to the first Fog of War map in the entire series! Our starting stats for this chapter. In retrospect, perhaps I should've sold some of those Iron Axes... As you can see, our starting position doesn't give us much in the visibility department. So, let's move Dagdar forward a bit, and then very carefully move everyone else together as a group. Dagdar dodging this arrow is literally the only thing that happens during the enemy's turn. You can't see it because of the fog, but there are actually two paths that lead forward. What we want to do is to split our party in half, with each side taking one Jagen. Keyword: "what we want to do". The sand and wasteland tiles keep fucking up everyone's movement. Before the enemy's next turn, we get some more plot stuff. Eyvel and Dagdar dodging and countering. Not much else to it. See that fort three tiles south of Dagdar? That's where we want to send Eyvel. Tanya attacks a Pirate. Orsin crits a Hunter with an Iron Axe! What if the Bhuj was inside him all along? Dagdar slowly making his way forward. Cool, I don't think I've seen Dagdar do a crit before. Fuck, that guy had a Steel Axe! We could've stolen that! Marty dodges a Hand Axe and gets a level-up. Eyvel moves around the corner and claims her prize: a Torch! We'll want to hold onto this for later. Halvan takes out a Pirate with an Iron Axe. He could've captured him to steal his Hand Axe, but he already had one. I try to move Dagdar down far enough to find the bridge to the next island, but accidentally overshoot it. Everyone else can just chill right here for a turn. Inside the inventory of this Warrior is another Torch! We definitely want to capture him! Unfortunately, Orsin isn't so lucky. On the bright side, Dagdar finally found the bridge. Tanya weakens this Pirate so that Marty can attempt to capture him and steal his Vulnerary. Unfortunately, he misses, so I end up just killing him with Leif instead. Enemy's turn: Halvan counters, kills, and dodges, almost getting a level-up, but not quite. Steal this guy's Torch, attempt number 2... Nope! Attempt number 3... Negatory! This Hunter has some nice goodies we can steal, but his standing on a Fort. So, we'll have Finn capture him... ...and use Canto to move onto the Fort, nabbing another Torch! Leif will relieve the Hunter of his belongings... Halvan will move forward a little bit... ...and Tanya will take the Steel Bow that she can't use yet. Dagdar gets a level-up from dodging an arrow from that Warrior that we've been trying to capture. You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders -- the most famous is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" -- but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never get backed into a corner when you're equipped with a bow!" Aha-ha-hahaha-ha-ha! Aha-ha-hahaha-haha! Aha-ha-ha! Attempt number 4! Nada! This time I'll try using the Hand Axe instead of the Hammer so that way he can counterattack the Hunter. Attempt number 5... miss. Everyone else slowly making their way to regroup. During the enemy's turn, the Warrior attacks Orsin with a Steel Axe, only to get crat to death in self-defense. Thus rendering all our attempts to steal his Torch completely pointless. On the bright side, Orsin got a level-up. Equipping Dagdar's Hand Axe was a smart move, as now the coast is clear to cross the bridge to the next island. But before we do that, let's wait a few turns to catch everybody up. Once we're ready, let's move Dagdar out first since he's the toughest. Yaaaay, more terrain-related fuckery. Eventually, we manage to aggro some of the Pirates hiding in the fog, netting a level-up for Halvan. Finn takes out a Pirate with a Javelin... ...and Eyvel accidentally discovers a spawn point for some more Pirates. Things are about to end extremely painfully... for the Pirates. Orsin's running low on HP, so let's have him chug a Vulnerary. All right, Dagdar, let's see what's up there... Good, we're almost at the last island! The enemy's turn doesn't provide any interesting battles, but it does reveal a Warrior and two Myrmidons coming down from the north. Eyvel can stay here for now. The Pirates can't touch her. Marty captures a Pirate... ...while Finn heads up north to assist Dagdar with the Myrmidons. Dagdar uses his turn to take the Pirate off Marty's hands, swipe his inventory, and attack the Hunter with a Hand Axe. This enables Orsin to finish him off and get a level-up. Halvan can chug another Vulnerary. Cutting it a little close there, Dagdar. Well, fuck. And I didn't save-state, either. *sigh* While playing my way back to where Dagdar died, I discover a conversation that I missed the first time around. This provides a helpful hint to what we should do once we restore the timeline. This isn't exactly where we were last time, but it's close enough. Against my better judgment, I send Ronan to attack one of the Myrmidons to the north. He is then blessed by a little music note, allowing him to attack again. This enables Tanya to finish him off... ...or at least it would have if she didn't miss. Finn attacks the other Myrmidon and almost gets a level-up. Tanya, Halvan, and Ronan dodging attacks. Tanya takes out one Myrmidon, earning a level-up. Leif tries to take out the other, but fucks it up. Finn uses his Brave Lance to kill the Myrmidon below the Warrior, earning a level-up. Dagdar waits in front of the Warrior on the bridge, but does not attack. We're trying to bait him backwards (if that makes any sense). Orsin takes out the last Myrmidon... ...while Eyvel parks on the southern bridge to take out some Pirates during the enemy's turn. *unzips katana* *teleports behind u* psssssh... nothin personnel kid. Since the Warrior has a Bow equipped, that means it's safe to send Finn up to deal with him, gaining another level-up in the process. Finally, we'll move Dagdar up onto the final island and chug another Vulnerary. In the process, he discovers two bosses! First up is Shiva, this game's Navarre archetype. The guide I'm following says not to kill him, but maybe I can capture him, steal his Killing Edge, and then seize the gate without releasing him. No I'm not. This could end badly... Next up is Lithis, an unarmed Thief. Let's have Dagdar capture him, and... Well, that was anti-climatic. Didn't even have a boss quote. Our party grows! ...whew. I was thinking about maybe doing Chapter 3 today as well, but after Dagdar's little mishap, that doesn't seem very likely. Sometime in the week, but not tomorrow. Quote Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted August 27, 2019 Author Share Posted August 27, 2019 (edited) Chapter 3: The Kids Are All Right *sob* Why...? Our starting stats for this chapter. Say hello to our new pals, Lithis and Safiya. Our main objective is to rescue these children from their prison cell and bring them back to these four houses. There's no gaiden chapter or anything, but we can get some cool stuff if we can save them all. One of these children should prove quite familiar to those of you who've played Genealogy (or not, depending on whether you killed Silvia off to get her substitute children instead). Another child shares his name with this waste of a Guiding Ring from FE3/12, but is otherwise unremarkable. First thing's first, let's have Leif give Lithis one of his Iron Swords so he can actually fight. I haven't decided what to do with the Hezul Scroll just yet, but for now, it can stay on Leif. Second thing's second, Orsin will take out this Soldier with a critical Bhuj. *sigh* Let's get this over with. Finn can have his Iron Sword back. He's actually going to need it later. See that little tree diagonal from Safiya? I'm going to leave Eyvel parked there so she can take out any Brigands that might come after the houses. During the Enemy's turn, Orsin takes out a Soldier and an Archer in self-defense, earning a level-up and a half. Now, I'm going to attempt something really stupid. I'll have Finn Rescue Halvan and drop him on that tree to bait the Soldier. ...or at least I try to. As it turns out, it's not a tree, it's a thicket. As such, I can't drop him there. However, the Soldier was still successfully baited, allowing Marty to capture him. Tanya weakens another Soldier for Leif to kill, but Leif just barely falls short of Hezul-fueled level-up. With nothing better to do, Ronan swipes the belongings of the Soldier that Marty captured, nabbing a Short Lance for Finn, and more importantly, a Door Key. Finn kills an enemy-phase unit, earning yet another level-up. Dagdar serves as our guinea pig to show off the cool-looking Magic animation. These two Archers have left themselves wide open to being captured. Not that we need any more Bows, but we haven't earned any money since Chapter 2. Unfortunately, both Finn and Dagdar miss. Let's have Halvan attack that Mage with his Hand Axe... He, too, misses, but gets a level-up as a consolation prize. Through the magic of the music note, Lithis is able to move up and steal this Mage's tome! He's so fast that I couldn't even screencap the EXP he got from it. Even more impressively, he somehow manages to steal it while the Mage still has it equipped! He gets hit by a stray arrow during the enemy's turn, but other than that, I'm impressed! Halvan successfully captures one of the remaining Archers... ...while Dagdar fails to capture the other, but gets a level-up in exchange. Lithis attempts to steal the Archer's Shortbow, but for some reason he can't? Why not? He could steal the Mage's Tome just fine. Whatever, he can just attack him instead. Dagdar captures the Bow Armor with his trusty Hammer... ...while Leif gets an extremely embarrassing level-up by failing to kill an unarmed Mage. The remaining Archer is successfully captured by Orsin. With all of the enemies outside the fortress either unarmed or captured, the coast is now clear for Safiya to move up and heal our wounded. Even though Ronan has the Door Key and enough movement range to reach the gate, we don't want to do that just yet. First, we need to move everyone up and *shudder* have Finn dismount. Our next turn is spent looting the belongings of our prisoners... ...as well as finally putting the unarmed Mage out of his misery. Once we're ready, Ronan opens the gate, and Dagdar makes a mad dash to capture the Sword Armor. Tanya gets a level-up from weakening another Soldier. Even without his horse, Finn is able to chain together his actions to strip the Door Key from the Sword Armor, unlock the door, and release the kids. Lithis gets a level-up by failing to finish off the Soldier that Tanya weakened. Tanya resigns herself to the fact that if you want something done around here, sometimes you have to do it yourself. While that's going on, Orsin, Finn, Ronan, and Leif break into the prison to grab the kids... ...while Lithis makes a brief detour outside to get healed. I end my turn by parking Halvan in the attack range of that Soldier and Sword Armor off to the left of the prison cell. Come enemy phase, he wastes no time in decapitating them, earning a level-up. See this Bishop hiding in the upper-right corner? Before we take the kids home, we need to do something about him, or else he's gonna steal those treasure chests behind the throne. We'll start by having Halvan clear the left path by taking out one of the Soldiers. Uh-oh, he opened the door! He's onto us! Lithis, get the door! Halvan, kill that Soldier! Safiya, heal Halvan (and get your first level-up)! A few Brigand reinforcements show up, but that's exactly why I left Eyvel behind. Fuck, he's got the Meteor Tome! Wait a minute, Tanya's got a Door Key! That changes everything! Dagdar, you sit on that treasure chest and don't move! Eyvel, after those Brigands! FUCK, an Armor Knight reinforcement spawned right in front of Lithis! SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT Take that level-up, Lithis. You have earned it. Despite being swift enough to dodge an Elfire, Dagdar fails to capture the Bishop. Even his level-up is disappointed, granting him absolutely nothing. Following that, Tanya uses Marty as a carrier pigeon to send Lithis a much-needed Vulnerary. Lithis is on a roll tonight, dodging not only the Sword Armor, but also a giant meteor! To my irritation, I discover that Lithis can only steal one item per turn. So, that means it's up to Dagdar to capture the Bishop if we want to save that last treasure chest. Ooof, he just barely missed it! It's all up to you now, Marty! You're our last hope! Can he do it?! ...yes he can! And he gets a well-deserved level-up on top of it! A Soldier reinforcement will spawn in the opposite corner, but he's no match for Halvan. Meanwhile, back at the village outskirts, Eyvel gets her first level-up, gaining absolutely nothing. As Lithis robs the little pain in the ass of all his belongings, Dagdar takes out the Sword Armor. Now comes the boring part: carrying the kids aaaaaallll the way back to their houses. I'll skip ahead to the part where we drop them off. First off is Cairpre's babysitter (ugh, it's going to take a while for me to get used to calling him that instead of Corpul). Followed by Luccia's grandma, who'll reward us with the Baldur Scroll! Next up is Romeo's grandma, who gives us a Shield Ring. Finally, Jubel's onee-san will inform us of a potential ally that might be willing to join us now that we've rescued him. Borrowing a Chest Key from Lithis, Tanya nabs the final treasure chest: an Armorslayer! After dropping off Luccia, we'll have Leif lend Eyvel a hand. She broke her Iron Blade while fending off so many Brigands. Speaking of Eyvel, a little birdie told me that it's a good idea to empty her pockets before clearing this chapter, so I'll have Ronan do just that. Back in the fortress, Lithis unlocks the door to the first Vendor in the game that sells something other than Vulneraries. However, we don't want to sell any of his stuff just yet. On the other side, Lithis unlocks the door leading to a mechanic that hasn't been seen since FE1: the Supply tent! For now, we'll have him deposit all the Tomes he stole. They might come in handy later. The next several turns consist of a giant clusterfuck of trading, selling, and other inventory-related fuckery. However, the important thing is that Leif and Lithis have a lot of swords in their inventory. I don't have 15 of them sadly. Before taking on the boss, I temporarily move Leif's items around and have him use the three stat-boosting items we've collected so far. Other than Eyvel, I don't know what the plot is planning to do to my army, so I figure I might as well invest in the one unit that's guaranteed to always be there. Okay, seriously, what's the criteria for whether or not Lithis can steal shit? Is it his Speed? The enemy's level? What gives? Lobos is pretty tough. Not even a crit from Bhuj is enough to take him out in one turn. Just for lulz... Awww. Contrary to similar magic weapons from later in the series, the Light Brand only targets the enemy's RES stat if used from two spaces away. At melee range, it doesn't even scratch him. However, it can still crit and pull off that trick that Tanya did in Chapter 1. Lobos's death nets Leif a level-up fueled by two Crusader Scrolls. Just to be on the safe side, I create a save state in a different slot before seizing the throne, so that way if something fucky happens, I can re-load and change people's inventories accordingly. For some reason Tanya, Marty, Ronan, and Lithis don't have their own quote for when Leif lets himself get captured. I lied. Did most of the chapter sans the boss last night. Next one will be up either tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on length. Edited August 27, 2019 by Tyranogre Quote Link to comment
Stephen 776 Posted August 27, 2019 Share Posted August 27, 2019 only scanned latest chapter (to make sure you prepared for what's next), but the criteria for stealing is that the unit's constitution is less than the item's weight. Little thief cannot steal big fucking sword. Tyranogre 1 Quote Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted August 29, 2019 Author Share Posted August 29, 2019 There’s been a slight change of plan. No update tonight, but it will be out by the end of the week. Quote Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted August 30, 2019 Author Share Posted August 30, 2019 (edited) Chapter 4: Don't Drop the Soap Ah, fuck. We're fighting that annoying boss from Skyward Sword. Ah, I see Raydrik is a man of culture as well. Yes, that last screenshot was completely necessary. Eyvel is trying to channel the spirit of Bootleg Leif in the hopes that she'll be able to assist the real Leif. Brighton and Lara re-iterate the stealing tutorial that @Ares just explained. Our starting stats for this chapt--hang on, our items are missing! Well then, what the fuck was the point of giving them so many swords, then?! Inside Leif's cell are these two complete strangers, who also have no items. Over here are some more complete strangers, except this time they actually have stuff in their inventory. Lithis also has three Brigand cellmates, whom Raydrik must have forgotten to disarm. Starting off, let's see if Lara can steal anything from this Soldier... Just a Vulnerary. Nice, but not worth wasting her turn over, so I hit B to cancel. Brighton attempts to capture him, but fucks it up. Even though he quite clearly has an axe in his inventory, he refuses to wield it indoors because Kaga hates me. To make matters worse, Macha's movement range is exactly one tile too small to be able to assist him. All I can do is measure the movement range of this other Soldier, and position Lara just outside of it. None of my other units can do anything because they're all in prison. Before the enemy can make any moves during their phase, a cutscene happens. Macha activates Vantage and takes a bite out of the Soldier's health. After the completely empty "NPC Phase", we get some backstory stuff that explains what happened to Silesse following the BBQ party. *insert Dorcas joke here* THERE WE GO! LEIF FINALLY SAID THE THING! All right, now the chapter really starts! There are six civilians locked in these two cells, and if they all manage to escape, we get a gaiden chapter. However, it's far too dangerous to release them now. Fuck capturing for now, there'll be plenty of time for that later. We've got more important things to do, like opening the door to this treasure room. Although Macha has a Chest Key in her inventory, I'm going to have her wait here instead of go after the chests. That way, Lara only has to dodge attacks from one soldier instead of two. Fortunately, Lara can dodge without much trouble. She can't damage the Soldiers, though. Followed by another pointless cutscene. Inside chest number one... ...a Flame Sword! And inside chest number 2... A broken Iron Blade...? Ah, I get it now! These chests must contain all of the items that were in Leif and Lithis's inventories before I seized the throne last chapter! That means that there isn't anything new to steal, so I'll save them for later. Next, I'll park Brighton in this little doorway to protect Macha and Lara from the Soldiers. On enemy phase, he kills one of them with a crit and gets a level-up. I attempt to have Macha attack from a distance by trading her the Flame Sword, but it looks like she can't wield it yet. So instead, she can attack this guy to butter him up for Brighton to capture. And by "capture", I mean "wavedash toward the Soldier, uppercut into a backflip, and somehow still keep him alive enough to swipe his items". Are you sure Brighton's supposed to be an Axe Knight and not a Myrmidon? Karin might want that Short Lance later. Macha has a bad habit of always missing her first attack, but hitting on her follow-up. Of course, as soon as I say that, she double-attacks on enemy phase, lands both hits, kills the Soldier, and gets her first level-up. These two Armor Knights refuse to move from their spot, so what we're going to do is sneak past them to have Lara unlock the door to Leif's cell, making a brief detour to unlock another treasure room. If only things were that simple. We just can't have a prison escape map without enemy reinforcements. Fortunately, there's only one of them (for now). Macha take him out with a crit, allowing Lara to safely pass through. She should be set to release Leif on the next turn. ...what? Were you expecting another reinforcement to spawn and cause me rage at myself for jinxing it? Sorry, not this time. I don't know if this was in the original Japanese version, or if they added it for this translation patch, but either way, it tells us something very important about "escape" maps: If Leif escapes before the rest of your units, you're gonna have a bad time. Always make sure he escapes last. I believe this is the game poking fun at itself for how stupid the dismount mechanic is. Slowly but surely, Macha and Lara begin the cumbersome process of re-arming everyone. Brighton counter-attacks a reinforcement and doesn't quite get a level-up. Neither does Leif. Unlike Brighton and Karin, Fergus can actually use his primary weapon type even while dismounted. Lara opens the door to the next treasure room, giving Macha access to the goodies locked within. On the way to Lithis's cell, Lara dodges a Javelin from a reinforcement. We might want to steal that. By parking Leif and Brighton on these stairs, we can prevent reinforcements from spawning from that side. Macha has exactly enough inventory space to clear out the chests in this room, but will have to wait until next turn to get the last one. Once Lara opens the door to Lithis's cell... We now have two Thieves to nab treasure chests with! Too bad one of them had his Lockpick confiscated. Fergus attempts to soften up this Soldier for Brighton to capture later, but accidentally crits him to death instead. This time, we get two enemy reinforcements instead of just one. Followed by something I've never seen happen before: Fergus crits on his first attack, but misses on his follow-up. So, while he still teleported behind him, he took too long to unzip his katana. Finally, something actually happens during the "NPC phase"! Of course the last chest I got had Lithis's Lockpick in it. Of course it did. Oh well, might as well give Lara a head-start. Fergus gets his first level-up by dodging a Javelin. Well, fuck me sideways! The reason I saved Lithis's cell for last was because I was afraid the Brigands were going to slaughter the Soldiers and deprive me of EXP, but as it turns out, they're actually capturing them instead! Unfortunately, you can't trade with Green units, which makes their efforts completely pointless. Bah, I don't help from no stinkin' Brigands! Fergus, capture this guy! Aww, fuck. This is bad news bears. Chest number one this room. All I can do is have Macha trade Fergus her Vulnerary and hope for the best. Enemy phase, the Soldier decides to ignore Fergus and attack Lithis instead. He dodges, getting a level-up. But what doesn't make any sense is that we recruited Lithis in the first place by capturing him while he was unarmed. So why didn't the Soldier just do that? As if on cue, another Soldier proceeds to capture Lithis because he's unarmed (I failed to take the screenshot while the little blue icon was on the Soldier's sprite). But then, on NPC phase, one of our Brigand friends kills Lithis's captor, setting him free. Not wasting any time, I have Lithis take his stuff back, and Fergus heal himself up. Blessed by the music note, Fergus uses his extra turn to trade the Vulnerary back to Macha, allowing her to heal herself. Rounding out this turn, Lara recovers Leif's Light Brand. Things are starting to get a bit crowded in here. One of our Brigand friends falls in battle, but the gaiden chapter only cares about the Civilians. Still, though, that Brigand died an honorable death. His sacrifice was not in vain. If only the same could be said about this asshole, who ran away like a pussy and left his friends to die. While Lara continues to clear out this treasure room, we'll have Lithis move up to work on the one that we skipped. Since the Brigand had captured a Soldier when he died, that same Soldier is left with one HP left. If Fergus wanted to, he could just re-capture him, but there's no point in doing that because the Brigand stripped the Soldier of his belongings when he captured him. But in that case, the Brigand should have dropped the weapons that were originally owned by the Soldier, and--AAAARRRGH, MY BRAIN HURTS. Anyway, the one-HP Soldier is harmless now, so Fergus can attack his buddy instead. Great, more reinforcements. Y'know, you could release that Soldier now that you've stolen his weapons. In fact, it would make things a lot easier for you. C'mon, man, you've got a triangle advantage over these guys! You can't take advantage of it if you've got an unarmed Soldier weighing you down! Fergus tries to help our dimwitted friend out, but is now in a bit of a pickle. Lara and Lithis continue robbing the place and--HELLO! I don't remember having a Rapier in my inventory when I got captured! *sigh* I tried to warn you. Now we're out of Brigands. Fergus kills two Soldiers, gets a level-up, and barely holds on with one HP. Off in the corner, Karin gets captured by a reinforcement because even though she has a Short Lance in her inventory, the game still considers her to be unarmed because she's dismounted. As if I didn't hate this shitty-ass mechanic enough already. Welp, Fergus is dead, time to soft-re--hey, wait a minute! Why doesn't he have a death quote? Checking the Soldier's stats, it appears that he's merely been captured. Even though it looks like this run is FUBAR'd, I ultimately decide to keep moving forward. Not only out of a possibly-futile attempt to turn things around, but also because it will allow Lithis to continue his treasure hunt, so that way even if I end up re-doing the whole chapter, I'll be able to note which chests contain which items. That will allow me to more efficiently recover Leif and Lithis's belongings before I begin searching for new treasures. But enough about a hypothetical second run. If I'm to have any hope of salvaging this run, Leif and Brighton are going to have to move. This, unfortunately, leaves another staircase open for reinforcements to spawn from. On the opposite side, Macha frees Karin from the Soldier's grasp, but is unable to recover her Short Lance that got stolen. Sure enough, a reinforcement attacks Brighton from right behind him, granting a level-up that's likely going to be erased from existence soon. And another one for Leif. That's every chest on the map. Now I know where everything is for next time. Leif defeats one of the Soldiers blocking his path, but may be too late to save Fergus. One last pointless level-up. ...and, that's game. The Soldier got away. Fergus is gone. Welp, only one thing left to do now... Hey, Soldier! You want me?! Come get me! Yep, that's right. I'm intentionally letting Leif get captured. ...okay, I lied. THIS is the last pointless level-up for this run. Wait, what the fuck? The Soldier who captured Leif is just standing there by the exit! Why won't he leave? Damnit, Brighton, I'm trying to commit suicide here! Quit getting level-ups! Ah, there we go! Finally, the sweet release of death. Oh, how I wish he could've been there. But then again, he'd be useless because of the shitty dismounting mechanic. You may think you've won, game. And you'd be right! However, I have the power of MSPaint on my side! Re-loading an earlier save-state from turn 3, I completely change my strategy. First I have Macha take out one of the Soldiers... Then I have Lara release the prisoners! My downfall last time was that I was too cautious. I spent so much time trying to recover my stolen inventory that I allowed too many reinforcements to spawn. This time, I'm going in guns-blazing! No more capturing! All-out attacks! Another mistake I made was attempting to block off the spawn points for the reinforcements before releasing the prisoners. Now that I know that the Soldiers will merely attempt to capture them, all that will do is weigh them down to make them easier to kill. Of course, that's assuming they even get the chance to capture the Civilians before I tear their heads off. Lara took a hit for once, so she can borrow Macha's Vulnerary. Now that I know which chest contains Lithis's Lockpick, I can have Lara release him early and let him borrow hers while they move together toward the other prison cells. Look at that! The first batch of Civilians, almost free already! And instead of leaving us to die, the Brigands are actually going to fight those two Armor Knights for us! Two of the three Civilians successfully escape (the third one's movement range fell a bit short). By opening Leif's cell, I can allow him, Karin, and Fergus to borrow swords from Brighton and Macha. I now realize why they joined with extras. Just a few more turns of passing the Lockpick back-and-forth to go! Brigands vs Armor Knights, round 1! As Lara opens the door to the treasure room, Macha lends Lithis her Chest Key. This allows Lithis to finally reclaim what's rightfully his. Fergus borrows an Iron Sword from Brighton, leaving Karin as our only unit who's still unarmed. That will change soon. Meanwhile, our Brigand pals successfully take out one of the Armor Knights, and severely weaken the other. This Soldier spawned during Enemy Phase, but is way outnumbered. Karin takes the Chest Key from Lithis and gets an Iron Sword from the chest... Lithis uses his Lockpick to get another Iron Sword... ...and Macha doesn't quite kill the Soldier. Said Soldier drinks his Vulnerary on enemy phase, but he's pretty much done at this point. Our Brigand friends come this close to dying, but successfully eliminate the other Armor Knight. We're almost home free! Lara opens the next treasure room... ...while Brighton and Macha team up to kill the last Soldier. Macha gets a level-up, but it's pointless to show it since it doesn't stack with all the ones she got from my failed attempt. Lithis and Karin are going to leave that chest behind for now. They've got more important places to be. By moving Brighton and Macha onto the staircase, another spawn point is successfully blocked off. Lara opens the final prison cell. That gaiden chapter is as good as ours! I was worried for a second that I'd have to move Brighton or Macha to let the Civilians through and risk letting a reinforcement spawn, but thankfully, Green Units can move through Blue Units. ...aaaand, that's game. All three spawn points are blocked off! Which means Lara is now free to move about the map as she pleases, swiping treasure chests with no fear of repercussions whatsoever! See you guys in a few dozen turns when she finishes recovering everyone's inventory. Thanks for your help, Brigands. See you guys later! One blatant disregard for my tactics rank later, here's what we're looking like. The guide I'm following says that the reinforcements stop coming after turn 60, so I'm just gonna sit here and chill for 14 more turns before I make my next move. Now it's time to make our way up to the area behind where the Armor Knights were standing earlier (couldn't we just escape through one of the staircases?). Once we're ready, we open the door, and... Yow! It's an enemy ambush! However, if we brought Jubel back to his house in the last chapter... ...we can gain a new ally, Dalsin! He might not be very useful in the long-term, but for now, we finally have someone who can wield Axes indoors! And look at that Con! He'll make a great capture-bot! Now, why don't we take him for a test drive? Eh... he's not terrible... DAMN it feels good to have the Light Brand back! Some enemy phase level-ups. Leif tests out his shiny new Rapier... ...while Karin and Lithis split a Vulnerary. The Armor Knights in this room have balls for Skill, so they can't really hit anybody. Our main priority should be taking out these Mages. How the fuck is a book that heavy?! Whatever. Brighton can just kill you instead (and get a level-up). With both Mages down, we now face a different problem: the rest of the enemies are Armor Knights, but half of our units don't have enough Strength to penetrate them without critting. However, if we have Fergus, Macha, and Karin gang up on the Bow Armor who can't counter at melee range... ...then Leif can handle the others with his Rapier. Another enemy phase level-up for Lithis. Another Armor Knight down, courtesy of a crit from Leif. The gang aren't quite able to finish off the Bow Armor, but it doesn't matter because he's trapped now. Lara gets a level-up from dodging a Javelin. Whoops, spoke too soon. He moved behind the Priest to take a potshot at Lithis. Dalsin takes out another Armor Knight, earning his first level-up. Okay, NOW he's trapped! This one screenshot requires an explanation: After trapping the Bow Armor, he killed Fergus during enemy phase because Fergus was weighed down by the Cleric. So I re-loaded my save state to try again, but then Fergus accidentally crat the Bow Armor to death. Macha and Leif take out the last two Armor Knights... ...aaaannd, we're done! But there's just one more thing to do before we blow this popsicle stand. Utilizing a strategy coined by @Ares, Lithis is going to spend the next several dozen turns playing Hot Potato with this Priest's Heal Staff, gaining 10 EXP a pop. Eventually, he becomes our first unit to hit level 20! I could've done this with Lara, too, except for two things: 1. Due to the fatigue mechanic, Lithis will be forced to sit out the next chapter, and we're actually going to need to have a Thief handy. 2. The Heal Staff is too heavy for Lara to steal. So instead, I let Karin kill the Priest, getting a level-up. Each unit has a unique line of dialog for when they escape. Our turn-count for this chapter after my shenanigans. But right after Leif escapes... Worth noting is that despite only appearing in this cutscene, Manfroy, Ishtar, and Julius actually have battle data hidden within the game's code. Presumably they took them out because if the players somehow managed to kill them, it would create a time paradox. HOLY FUCK that took a long time. At least I have a three-day weekend coming up to make more progress. Edited August 30, 2019 by Tyranogre Quote Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted August 31, 2019 Author Share Posted August 31, 2019 Chapter 4x: Fuck You Ced We begin the chapter with some plot stuff between some old friends: Ced from Genealogy, and the deuteragonist of @Fire's LP of Reincarnation of Light and Dark: Assblaster Asvel! Except this time, they replaced the "v" in his name with a "b", so it rolls off the tongue a bit better. Much like the last two chapters, one of our objectives is to help these kids escape. Our starting stats for this chapter. Looks like I was wrong; Lithis is still good to go. Apparently, Green Units provide their own beacons in Fog of War maps. Personally I would've renamed these two children to Kliff and Boey as a shout-out to Gaiden, but that's just me. And it just so happens that our new friend Dalsin came with a Torch in his inventory. On a map this small, 10 tiles is quite a lot. Leif is the only person in our party who can reliably damage these Armor Knights, because he's the only one with a Sword Rank high enough to wield the only weapons that are super-effective against them. Also, have a cool crit animation. Taking out one of the Soldiers, Macha's Sword Rank increases! Maybe she can wield the Armorslayer now? Guess not... Well, now that I know that, I know not to bother leaving Lara in the attack range of the Armor Knight. Reset! In the new timeline, Leif single-handedly decimates all but one of the Armor Knights, earning a(n extremely shitty) level-up. And another one for Brighton. The Mages manage to land a hit on Leif and Lara, but soon we won't have to worry about them. Instead, we have to worry about Ced and Asbel killing all the Soldiers and stealing our EXP! Fergus and Brighton team up to capture one of the Mages... ...allowing Lara to run up and- -sorry, Lithis to run up and steal the Tome from another. Karin and Macha take out the Soldiers on opposite sides of the screen, netting a level-up for Macha. Once Dalsin takes care of the third Mage... ...the coast is clear for Lara to open one of the prison cells, releasing three of the children. She then gets the most perfectly-timed music note ever, and releases the rest of the children. Leif fails at both capturing the last Mage and getting a level-up. Lithis kills the last Armor Knight on enemy phase. On NPC phase, Ced and Asbel take out the last of our free EXP the Soldiers below the escape point, while the kids slowly waddle their way out of their cells. Instead of capturing the Mage, I have Lithis disarm him. Until more reinforcements spawn, this area is now completely safe. So, I decide to have Karin and Dalsin block off one of the escape routes so Lara can do some grinding against this unarmed Mage. Any level-up is a chance to increase her Con, which she desperately needs. Don't you just love it when the Green Units start out right next to the escape point? It makes life sooo much easier. We've still got some time before the reinforcements start spawning, so let's have Lithis open the door so Leif can talk to Asbel. What's that, Silas? You thought you were the first long-lost childhood friend to be reunited with the Lord after being separated as children? Sorry, but Thracia did it first! First thing we have him do is take the Tomes that Lithis stole from the Mages earlier. I try to give him a debut battle against the unarmed Mage, but he fucks it up. The unarmed Mages are getting away! After them! Fuck you, Ced. That actually worked out for the better, because Karin can now talk to him. Some more backstory stuff about the Silessian royal family. And more imprtantly, another Crusader Scroll! One last not-quite-level-up for Lara before Ced obliterates the unarmed Mage next turn. Macha and Brighton block off the other reinforcement spawn point. What exactly did the unarmed Mage try to do here that he "missed"? Whatever, he's dead now. As for the bottom spawn-point, believe it or not, it's actually in our best interest to leave one tile unoccupied. You'll see why soon. Just make sure that Lithis is the one doing the blocking. For now, we're just going to sit here and chill for a bit. Errrr... hello? Maybe I'm on the wrong tile...? Ah, there we go! Enemy Myrmidons will spawn from the bottom staircase, allowing Lithis to steal their Swords and distribute them to the rest of our par- -ty... fuck you Ced. But wait! This time there's two of them! And when Lithis counters, his Weapon Rank increases! Perhaps we'll have someone else capable of wielding the Armorslayer yet! You can kill-steal all you want, Ced, but not even you can do it more than once per turn! Depending on how often we get two Myrmidons instead of one, we might be here for a while. Soon, I encounter a different problem: Even when two Myrmidons spawn, the one that Ced doesn't kill instead gets killed by Lithis in self-defense before he can steal anything. To attempt to remedy this, I have Leif trade Lithis the broken Iron Blade and have him equip it. This, too, fails, because NPC Phase comes after Enemy Phase, so while one of the Myrmidons commits sudoku by attacking Ced, the other gets killed by Ced during his turn. Wait a minute! Of course! I can have Dalsin rescue Ced to stop him from kill-stealing! Lithis's death here proves to be a blessing in disguise, because now that I've figured out the right strategy, I won't have to waste turns trying things that don't work. See you guys back here in a little bit. This time, I'm not even going to open the door to where Ced and Asvel are until I'm ready. This will ensure that Lara is free to beat up both of the unarmed Mages. Come to think of it, I might not even need Dalsin. I'll just have Leif sit next to Lithis and have him grind for a bit. After stealing and grinding until the reinforcements stop spawning, here's what our weapon reserve is looking like, along with Lara's stats. Sadly, even after all that grinding, she didn't gain a single point of Con. Here's hoping that Body Rings are a thing that exist. Fuck you too, Ced (don't worry, I got the Crusader Scroll again off-screen). Dalsin's Torch has long since worn off, so we need to be extra careful as we move through these last few rooms. Lara nabs a Life Ring, but discovers some unexpected guests. Let's see if all that Speed and Luck will come in handy while we move Lithis in to steal their stuff. Karin and Macha chain together their turns to pass the Chest Key over to Leif, allowing him to snag an Iron Blade. Lara plays a minigame from Final Fantasy X. The Devil Axe is far too heavy for Lithis to steal, but we don't really want it anyway. That Thunder Tome is fair game, though. Despite critting, Asbel fails to kill the Armor Knight, so I feed him to Leif instead. This allows Macha to take the Chest Key from Leif and claim the last treasure: a Brave Sword! Lara gets another level-up by critting the unarmed Mage to death. Alas, still no Con. Victory is near! But as you can see, we've got some enemies to deal with on the other side of this door. Leif moves forward and doesn't quite kill the Armor Knight, but more importantly, reveals the location of an enemy Bishop! This Bishop is holding a very valuable item: ...a broken Physic Staff? What the fuck? Asbel tests out his Grafcalibur tome to finish off the Armor Knight, getting his first level-up. I didn't capture it on-screen, but a little window popped up that said "move increased". What does that mean? Is it different from the music note? Well, whatever it is, things are starting to get crowded. So, I have Macha rescue Asbel to pull him out of Javelin range, and move everyone else up to hopefully join Leif next turn. Leif gets a level-up by dodging a Javelin... ...only to promptly lose it. Re-load! This time, I send in Brighton to take out one of the soldiers (netting a level-up in the process), allowing Lithis to rush in and steal the Bishop's Elfire Tome! ...or not. Maybe Dalsin can sit in the doorway and tank? ...yes he can! The Soldiers accidentally block the Bishop from being able to attack Dalsin! This allows Dalsin to take out the first Soldier... ...Macha to weaken the second Soldier for Asbel to take out... ...and Asbel to fail to kill the Soldier, get hit by a Javelin, and die! Re-load! This time, I'm going to try something different. First, I'll move Leif into the attack range of the Armor Knight with the Hand Axe, and have him and Asbel chug Vulneraries. From my failed attempts, I know that there are two Hand Axe Armor Knights and a Soldier with a Javelin, so I'm going to try and take them out from the other side of the wall with ranged attacks. I'm not going to open the door until they're dead. Another level-up for Leif. Hopefully he'll get to keep it this time. Soon, the Bishop takes aim at Leif, but misses! Asbel dodges a Hand Axe, crits the Armor Knight, and gets two level-ups! Ah, so I'm not crazy! There really was a "move increased" window! I still don't know how it differs from the music note, though. It's now or never! Lara opens the door, Asbel takes aim at the Bishop, and... ...crits him to death, getting another level-up! I was actually trying to weaken him so we could capture him, but fuck it. What good is a broken Physic Staff, anyway? This allows Lithis to weaken one of the remaining Soldiers, get a music note, and steal the other Soldier's Vulnerary! Leif kills the Soldier that Lithis weakened. Only one Soldier left! Any last words? That wasn't very smart. You dead! I'll spare you guys the monotony of re-reading everyone's escape quotes from last time, but I'll at least show off Asbel's since he's our newest party member. ...and, that's it. Once Leif escapes, it just cuts straight to the save screen. No cutscene or anything. Next episode tonight or tomorrow. Quote Link to comment
Reilly Posted September 1, 2019 Share Posted September 1, 2019 On 8/26/2019 at 10:44 PM, Tyranogre said: I know why it does this, but now I'm just picturing Leif as a small child that has to ask, "Why?" after everything. Tyranogre 1 Quote Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted September 2, 2019 Author Share Posted September 2, 2019 Chapter 5: Tags: Mind Break, Guro, Oyakodon, Petrification, Inseki, NTR, Ugly Bastard This chapter is notorious among the fandom for being a translation patch killer. Prior to Project Exile, every attempt at translating this game ground to a screeching halt upon getting to Chapter 5. What dark secrets could this chapter hold that caused so many fan translators to flee in terror? Let's find out! Our starting stats for this chapter, for the units we've had for the past two chapters. Trapped inside the Arena, Eyvel re-joins us, alongside another familiar face from FE4, Nanna. And sitting in the spectator's seats are two late-game bosses: Raydrik and Veld. While I'm sure something lulzy would happen if you hacked the game to kill them now, I unfortunately don't have a Game Shark. So for now, what we need to do is make sure nobody ends their turn within Veld's attack range. Starting off, we'll have Macha trade the Chest Key to Karin, and have everyone else move forward toward the first batch of enemies. Nanna's movement range is exactly one tile too small to escape Veld's attack range, but luckily Eyvel can move right next to the edge of the circle and Rescue her. This also puts Eyvel out of the attack range of Raydrik's mooks. Enemy phase is preceded by a brief cutscene, accompanied by a remix of Manfroy's theme from FE4. The three gladiators will slowly inch their way towards Eyvel. Leif dodges an Armor Knight, but gets hit by a Mage. What are these Mages up to? Fuck if I know. Asbel takes out one of the Armor Knights and doesn't quite get a level-up. Lithis disarms one of the Mages... ...allowing Karin and Dalsin to beat him up for a level-up each. Leif sacrifices the last use of his Rapier to take out the other Armor Knight with a crit. I end my turn by having Eyvel drop Nanna off up against this door. Following a completely uneventful enemy phase, Fergus captures this Priest... ...and I somehow manage to get a screenshot of Lithis disarming the other Mage exactly one frame before the screen goes completely black. Seeing that Lithis is getting full, I take this opportunity to do some inventory management. Lara gets a level-up for beating up the unarmed Mage. Macha swipes the belongings of the Priest that Fergus captured. But as soon as Leif sets foot on this tile... ...we get yet another cutscene. Mareeta enters the ring, but she's far enough away from Eyvel and Nanna that we don't need to worry about her just yet. All that happens during the next enemy phase is that Eyvel lands a hit on one of the gladiators. Yes, I said "lands a hit on", not "kills". You know we're in trouble when our Jagen can't kill someone. Since none of the pitfighters have any ranged weapons, Leif or Asbel can help Eyvel out by taking potshots at them from the other side of the wall. Brighton doesn't quite get a level-up from killing the unarmed Mage. No much else we can do except move everyone up through this narrow corridor and have Nanna heal Eyvel. On enemy phase, Eyvel kills the Warrior, but fails to scratch the General. We also get another brief cutscene, but it doesn't seem to cause anything else to happen. Leif takes out one of these Soldiers and doesn't quite get a level-up... ...while Asbel attacks the General and does. Followed by pretty much a repeat of last turn. Nanna tries to heal Eyvel, but... misses?! And then she gets a follow-up heal?! ...Y'know what, fuck it. This game has so many weird mechanics already that I'm hardly surprised anymore. Enemy phase, Leif kills another Soldier with a counter-crit, getting a level-up... ...while Macha weakens another Soldier for someone else to finish off. And here come the Mages! Asbel gets another level-up by killing the General. This Bishop only has a Heal Staff, so while I could have Leif capture him, that would be a bad idea because with so many Mages heading our way, capturing would weigh him down too much. So instead, I'll have him leave the Armor Knight with one HP... ...allowing Fergus to finish him off (getting a level-up in the process)... ...and Dalsin to finish off one of the Soldiers. Macha is running a bit low on health, so she can borrow Lara's Vulnerary. This enables Lithis to swipe a Vulnerary from the remaining Soldier, while also ensuring that the only people left in the Soldier's attack range are the ones who are fast or bulky enough to dodge or tank his attacks. Nanna fails to heal Eyvel (again). Mareeta will attack Eyvel during enemy phase, but Eyvel is specifically programmed not to counterattack her. This should buy us some more time. Fergus counter-crits the Soldier and gets a level-up. At this point, he's more-or-less caught up with where he was at when he got captured in my failed attempt at chapter 4. Just for lulz, I make a separate save-state and see what happens if you kill Mareeta. Well, now we know what the "stone" status ailment actually does: reduces all of your stats to zero (except for Luck and Con). So, don't do that! Re-load! Lithis won't be able to disarm every Mage, but the ones that he doesn't can be taken out by our other party members. Like so! Since Mareeta is blocking the other pitfighters' access to Eyvel, this allows Asbel to grind for a bit by attacking them through the wall. Enemy phase, the Mages decide to go after Leif and Lara, despite units with much less Res (like Dalsin) being right next to them. Speaking of Dalsin, let's have him lighten Lithis's pockets, and use the rest of his turn to take out another Mage. Another level-up for Asbel. Fergus and Lithis do some more killing and stealing. Macha takes out another Mage with a crit, earning a level-up. While it may be tempting to have Lara open that door, we don't want to do that just yet due to the Archers right next to it. Instead, she can beat up this unarmed Mage. Alas, Asbel's shenanigans are no more. The AI has finally learned to stop parking themselves within his attack range. Next, I'll park Dalsin within range of the Archers. With the Mages gone, it's now safe to capture the Bishop. Nanna will want his Heal Staff later. Speaking of Nanna, she gets her first level-up by missing with her Heal Staff again. I'm getting real tired of your shit, game. Just as planned, the Archers all go after Dalsin, granting him a level-up and a half... ...and, more importantly, leaving themselves wide open to an assault from our melee units! Now would be a good time to open the door leading outside. Karin will have an errand to run pretty soon. Nanna actually hits for once. In the midst of all this chaos, Macha accidentally draws the attention of the Bow Armor, barely holding on for her life. But wait! That's not a Bow Armor! It's a General! And it's not just any General! It's the boss, Bandole! For one short, but oh-so-sweet second, Karin is finally free to mount her Pegasus. Next turn, she'll be able to take full advantage of her movement range. Despite being a boss, Bandole doesn't have a battle or death quote. He does, however, provide Asbel and Leif with level-ups. Not wanting to be left out, Fergus attacks an Archer, activates the music note, and kills him, getting a level-up of his own. Dalsin fails at both killing the Archer and getting a level-up... ...while Brighton does both. Only one Archer left to go before we're done with this part of the map! Karin gazes in awe at her movement range, only to discover that her Weapon Rank is too low to wield a Javelin. Once Lithis swipes a Vulnerary from the last Archer, said Archer is then taken out by a tag-team of Asbel, Lara, and Macha (netting a level-up for the latter). But we're not out of the woods just yet. The rest of my turn consists of moving toward the next group of enemies, and feeding Vulneraries to whoever needs them. Come enemy phase, Leif and Lithis have to dodge not only Armor Knights and Javelins, but also a giant Meteor from the Bishop! Dalsin takes out the Soldier with a crit (gaining a level-up in the process)... ...and more importantly, allowing Lithis to run over and steal the Bishop's Meteor Tome! ...or not. However, because Meteor is long-range-only, the Bishop is still considered "unarmed" for the purpose of Lithis capturing him! This allows Leif to swipe the Bishop's items, replace them with the now-useless broken Rapier, and then release him so he doesn't weigh him down on enemy phase. Asbel gets a level-up from killing the last Armor Knight... ...Fergus takes out another Soldier... ...and Brighton fails to kill the other Soldier, prompting him to use a Vulnerary. Asbel weakens the Soldier to feed Fergus a level-up... ...while Leif kills the last one. With a Door Key in her inventory, I move Macha backwards toward the door to the Arena. We're almost there. Eyvel gets a(n extremely shitty) level-up from dodging Mareeta. Followed by a player phase consisting of nothing but movement. Enemy phase, Mareeta activates Astra, leaving Eyvel with just a sliver of health left! And to make matters worse, she gets a music note during the enemy's turn! Lithis dodging more Thunderbolts. The Venus Sigil will be his in no time. While it may seem like Eyvel is in grave danger, she's actually not. Remember when I said there was something special about her? Well, as it turns out, she's basically invincible. She can still take damage, but she can't die. If an attack would kill her, the game will cheese the RNG to make her dodge instead. I can't help but feel sorry for Karin. She's been looking forward to being free from the dismount mechanic for so long, and yet when she finally gets a chance to mount her Pegasus, not only can she not even wield a Lance due to her low Weapon Rank, but the only thing she gets to do is grab a treasure chest before she has to go right back inside and dismount again. Poor girl just can't catch a break. Of course, since Eyvel can still take damage despite technically being immortal, this means that Nanna can still heal her, getting a level-up. Back on the other side, two mages are disarmed and killed by Lithis and Leif respectively, while the rest of the group slowly crawls over to catch up with them. Enemy phase, the unarmed Mage runs away like a pussy... ...allowing us to trap the Sniper in a human cage! This enables Brighton to capture this Priest and claim our prize: a Physic Staff! For the next few turns, I'm going to move Karin back to join the rest of the party, having Nanna heal Eyvel as necessary. I'm almost tempted to stay here until Eyvel hits level 20, but that would be pointless. Once Karin is back with us, I create another save-state and open this door. These Dark Mages are equipped with Jormungand, an extremely dangerous tome that can inflict Poison, which can only be cured by an Antidote or a Restore Staff, neither of which we have. Naturally, Jormungand is too heavy for Lithis to steal. Fergus takes out one Dark Mage with a crit, earning a level-up. The remaining Dark Mage is actually a Dark Bishop, and he has another Physic Staff for us to steal. Fuck. Re-load! This time, I'll have Asbel weaken the Dark Bishop so Fergus can finish him off with a capture. ...or not. Re-load! ...I said re-load! ...fuck, I hit "save state" instead of "load state", didn't I? *sigh* God damnit... About twenty minutes later (thank Naga for fast-forward), I'm more-or-less back where I was, level-ups notwithstanding. This time, instead of trapping the Sniper in a human cage, I just kill him. This ensures that I have my entire party available to rush into the room once the door is opened. Asbel, having gained a few more levels than last time, attempts to weaken the Dark Bishop, but accidentally crits him to death instead, getting yet another level-up. And another one for Leif by taking out the Dark Mage. This allows our Thieves to grab the last two treasures: a Skill Ring and a Lockpick (perfect timing on the latter, as Lara's was almost broken). But what's this? The escape tile is right there, but it's blocked off! We're trapped! If we have Macha open the door to the Arena... ...Leif will automatically walk aaaaalllll the way over and talk to Nanna. From this point, the cutscene plays out the exact same way as the alternate timeline where I killed Mareeta for the lulz, but with a few key differences. First, there's this extra line from Raydrik. Second, Veld will teleport Mareeta away (which I failed to screencap). Unfortunately, with Eyvel gone, there's now nothing standing between us and these two pitfighters. All we can do is move Leif and Nanna away, and pray that Macha can dodge on enemy phase. Back on the other side, one of the wall tiles will suddenly turn into a Mage. Said Mage is promptly taken out by Asbel and Dalsin, netting a level-up for the latter. Thus begins the long process of having everyone escape. And now, for the moment of truth: Can Macha dodge? Yes she can! As the last three units make a mad dash for the escape point, how's about some appropriate music for comedic chase scene? Wheeeeee! Wasn't that fun? As Nanna shows off her escape quote, Leif will end the chapter by briefly channeling the spirit of his bootleg counterpart. Next one should be out tomorrow, assuming I don't fuck anything up. Quote Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted September 2, 2019 Author Share Posted September 2, 2019 Chapter 6: Karin's Delivery Service This plot stuff is more than just exposition. It's also a reference to a scrapped idea from Genealogy: instead of getting killed off, Sigurd and his army would have merely been turned to stone, and there would have been a third generation based around rescuing them so they could reunite with their children. No idea if the dialog is any different if Karin is dead. Either way, a whole bunch of enemies appear right next to our starting position. Our starting stats for this chapter. We've got a lot of inventory management to do. Let's start off by dumping all of our stolen Heal Staffs into Nanna's inventory (along with a Physic Staff that she can't use yet). Karin is once again able to mount Hermes, but unfortunately, rescuing someone automatically ends her turn. Thus, there's not much we can do except scoot over toward that little gate. Enemy's turn: those two Soldiers walk four tiles to the right... and do nothing else. *sigh* This might take a while. Enemy phase, the Soldiers suddenly change their minds and walk four tiles back to the left. But after another uneventful turn of rescue-dropping... ...we get a short cutscene... ...while the Soldiers continue their strange mating dance. This little building here is a Supply Convoy. As Karin continues to rescue-drop people over the fence, I'll have them deposit any stat-boosters, broken weapons, or weapons with too high a Rank requirement for anyone to wield. Instead of the Supply Convoy, Karin drops off Lithis even further down to visit the Vendor. There, he sells a few stolen Thunder Tomes. Asbel has plenty of tomes already. He doesn't need them. And right next door to the Vendor is the Armory. Above all else, we want to buy an Iron Lance for Karin. Once that little errand is over, Lithis opens the door. The Soldier doesn't seem to notice this, instead continuing to walk back and forth in sync with his buddy. But just when you thought the coast was clear, a horde of Cavaliers spawn on both sides of the map. The ones on the right go after Fergus, granting him a level-up and three quarters, and increasing his Sword Rank. However, despite Augustus's warnings about being seen, the group of enemies in front of the castle don't seem to give a shit. Fergus chugs a Vulnerary, ends his turn, and gets another level-up. Uh-oh, spoke too soon. Here comes the neighborhood! That just means that it's pointless to avoid combat. Open the door! Get on the floor! Everybody walk the dinosaur! Karin isn't the only one released from the shackles of the dismount mechanic! Brighton and Nanna can mount their horses, too! But we're not safe by a long-shot. Another cutscene happens... ...and Raydrik will teleport this colossus into the fray! We don't stand a chance of fighting him, so our only choice is to run like hell! Not just from Galzus, but also from the rest of the pack! Without a moment to spare, Lara opens the gate, allowing Nanna to visit the house with the red roof. Since we rescued the children in chapter 4x, their relatives will have some nice goodies to reward us with... if we can manage to visit all the red-roofed houses before getting slaughtered, that is. It feels wonderful to finally have access to the Supply so I no longer have to worry about being forced to discard anything. Fergus is also able to mount, but it's slightly less cathartic for him since he can wield the same weapon type regardless of whether he's mounted or not. Enemy phase, Leif and Lithis take out the synchronized Soldiers. Galzus creeps his way into the town (he's the grayed-out sprite on the left, beneath the General and the Bishops). Finally, a chance to show off mounted Brighton in action! He kills two Cavaliers with crits, and gets a level-up! If we have Nanna visit this other house... ...we recruit another Axe Knight, Hicks! No idea how good he is compared to Brighton, but that Poleax will definitely come in handy. I try to have Leif soften up an Armor Knight, but he accidentally kills him. All right, let's take Hicks for a test-drive. That... wasn't a very good first impression. Brighton almost died against the horde, so he can borrow Asbel's Vulnerary. Karin flies down toward the house at the bottom. OH FUCK! Galzus activated the music note during enemy phase! And this time I actually managed to catch (the first frame of) it on-screen! Fergus gets another level-up, but it might all be for naught. Galzus uses his extra turn to... ...do absolutely nothing? Let's see what's in this house here... Just a Pure Water. Nothing special. Looks like there's no escape. Galzus has us trapped. All I can do is end my turn and pray that RNGesus is on my side. What is going on?! Why won't Galzus attack?! Whatever his reasons, that gives us some time to show off Karin's mounted attack animation. She misses, but gets a level-up for her troubles. Brighton does, too. Fergus is now capable of wielding the Flame Sword, but that would be pointless against these Mages. So instead, he gets a level-up from killing one with a crit. All right, Hicks. Maybe we just got off to a bad start. I'm more than willing to give you another chance. That's... better, but still not good. Here, let Leif show you how it's done. He is now one level away from hitting the cap. Dalsin levels-up by killing this Armor Knight... ...allowing Lara to visit the house. This kind old lady gives us a Master Seal, which can promote any class in the game! And we just so happen to know somebody at level 20 who can make use of it! Lithis, the deconstruction of the Julian archetype, who helps the Lena escape purely so he can take advantage of her, and remains a total sleazeball even after recruiting him? I can think of nobody else more deserving of this medal for "chivalry and knightly honor"! Immediately after promoting, he activates the music note, allowing him to move over and kill one of the soldiers blocking the gate! Then on enemy phase, he kills the other with a Vantage-fueled crit! Wait, what the fuck? I thought Galzus wasn't going to attack me?! What's with the sudden change of heart? *sigh* All right, let's see how far back we're re-loading to... ...wonderful. No more fucking around. The Cavaliers haven't spawned yet, so let's just open the gate and move everybody through. This time, I have Brighton get the Rapier instead of Nanna. His inventory isn't full, so instead of being forced to send it to the convoy, he can just trade it to Leif. This also happens to put us exactly one tile outside the range of one of the synchronized Soldiers. Brighton tries to kill the Soldier, but fucks it up. So does Macha. You guys are dumbasses. Leif kills the Soldier... ...Fergus recruits Hicks... ...and Hicks moves down here. Now we're more-or-less where we were when Galzus attacked us last time, except now he hasn't even entered the map yet. Enemy phase, the horde starts moving... ...Lithis kills the other Soldier... ...Fergus crits an Armor Knight, but just barely falls short of both killing him and getting a level-up... ...and Nanna kills another Armor Knight with a crit from her Earth Sword. We still have the horde to deal with, but unlike Galzus, we actually stand somewhat of a chance of beating them. This time, Karin gets the Master Seal, sends the Magic Ring to the convoy, and trades the Master Seal to Lithis so he can promote himself (again). Asbel kills the Armor Knight, allowing Fergus to retreat and get healed by Nanna, netting her a level-up. Nanna then Cantos toward the house to pick up the Pure Water later. Brighton attacks the other Armor Knight, but doesn't quite kill him. But that's okay, because it allows Hicks to finish him off. We end our turn in a pretty good spot, all things considered. The Armor Knights can't move worth shit, and the only units within the attack range of the Mage are Leif and Asbel, who are able to counterattack. The Cavaliers spawn during enemy phase, but we're in a much better position this time around. Dalsin can go sit here and tank the Cavaliers. Nanna sends the Pure Water to the convoy. Leif and Asbel take out two Armor Knights, gaining a level-up each. Brighton takes out one of the Soldiers blocking the gate... ...while Hicks severely weakens the other. All of a sudden, an old man opens the gate for us! That was nice of him. But we've still got a few more houses to visit before we escape. Another uneventful enemy phase of dodging and countering. Sorry, did I say "uneventful"? Because Dalsin getting crat by a Cavalier, leveling-up, and barely surviving by the skin of his teeth is pretty fucking eventful. But not quite as eventful as Leif dodging and killing enough Mages to hit the level cap! The Bishops will heal the horde with Physic Staffs, but we're in too much of a hurry to try to steal them. Besides, Nanna can't use them yet anyway. Lara steals a Vulnerary because we desperately need some. Fergus kills the Armor Knight that Lara just robbed... ...and Cantos backwards so he can hand over his Vulnerary to Leif. Asbel does the same for Dalsin. Brighton visits the second-to-last house... ...netting us another Crusader Scroll! Lithis helps out by activating the music note to take out one of the Mages. Karin gets the same level-up from my failed run by attacking another Mage, and then Cantos out of the attack range of those Bow Armors. ...or not. Even if Macha didn't kill that Mage, the important thing is that she blocked the Bow Armor from being able to target Karin. Nanna, you go over there and help out. Hicks, we don't really need you anymore, so you can go on ahead. Next enemy phase, the Galzus cutscene happens again. Lithis gets a level-up from countering. So does Dalsin. Dalsin gets crat by another Cavalier, only to retaliate with a crit of his own. Macha levels-up by dodging an arrow. Two level-ups in one enemy phase! Way to go, Lithis! Galzus is on the prowl again, but this time we're ready for him! Dalsin, chug a Vulnerary. Karin attacks a Mage, then Cantos away toward Dalsin and Asbel. She really needs to work on her Strength. Macha kills the Mage that Karin just weakened. Thanks to a conveniently-timed music note, Leif kills two Armor Knights. Nanna tops off Macha's HP. Fergus takes out a Cavalier with a crit... ...allowing Lithis to sneak around from behind and snatch this Mage's Elfire Tome. Brighton ends our turn by borrowing Lara's Vulnerary, then Cantoing right next to this Armor Knight. During enemy phase, neither the Armor Knight nor Brighton manage to land a hit on the other, but at least Brighton gets a level-up. Galzus is drawing closer! Lithis dodges another Meteor. Player phase, Asbel hides behind Dalsin and attacks a Cavalier... ...and Brighton visits the last house. This nets us the Paragon Manual, which teaches a skill that doubles EXP! And since we're already playing on Paragon Mode, that means that whoever we use this on will get quadruple EXP! All right, we've got everything we need from the houses, so fuck killing the rest of the enemies! Let's GTFO! Brighton's got the right idea, killing an Armor Knight with a crit. As our main battalion makes their escape, Dalsin and Asbel take out the last two Cavaliers, netting a level-up for the former. Now it's time for Karin to rescue-drop them off on the other side of the fence. Nanna's escape quote is different from the one she had last chapter. Galzus draws nearer! Maybe if Leif hides in this tree, he'll be able to avoid getting killed long enough for the other three to escape? In loving memory of Rapier II: Chapter 6-Chapter 6. May it rest in peace. That's one down! Finally, I manage to get a screenshot of the music note! If only it weren't when I was about to risk losing three hours of progress! *sigh* All right, all right, I'll load an earlier save-- --state...?! How in the fuck?! I did not deserve to survive that! Welp, here goes nothing... Wait, what's this? "Use"...? The Light Brand can be used like a Vulnerary? I didn't know that! This should buy us a bit more time! During the enemy's turn, the Bow Armor attacked Leif, but for some reason Galzus didn't?! Seriously, what the fuck is up with Galzus's AI?! Come on, Leif! Just one more turn! You can do it! ...aaaannnd, that's game! Raydrik will close out the chapter with some backstory stuff involving the royal family of Isaach (home of Ayra from FE4). Don't know if there'll be another one tonight. Quote Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted September 3, 2019 Author Share Posted September 3, 2019 (edited) Chapter 7: Hannibal Rising Hey, it's the world map! Haven't seen that in a while! Along with another familiar face that we haven't seen in a while! Our starting stats for this chapter. From our starting position, Karin has exactly enough movement range to fly over and visit this house. This nets us an Antitoxin, which will come in handy later. After we squeeze everyone in between these two mountains... ...we get a cutscene showcasing another familiar face from Genealogy, along with a mashup of Travant's Theme and the theme of one of the home castles. Immediately followed by the long-awaited return of two of our missing party members! Finn and Safiya start out quite a fair distance from the rest of our group. In the house directly beneath the Antitoxin... Presumably "Panzerritter" is a re-translation of one of the multiple squads of knights from FE4. Either way, we get another Master Seal! Nanna can store one of her surplus Heal Staffs. Now, believe it or not, we actually don't want to head south just yet. It's in our best interest to sit here and chill for a bit. Finn and Safiya will also stay put, lest they risk pissing off this Berserker. Instead, Karin will fly down towards them, making sure to stay out of the attack range of those Hunters. During enemy phase, another cutscene happens. Raydrik leaves, leaving Eisenhau behind to send a bunch of Cavaliers after us. Speaking of Eisenhau, he seems to be a bit of a running gag of naming bosses after former US Presidents. His name is obviously a play on "Eishenhower", while one of the bosses in the last chapter was named "Truman". We never got to fight Truman because he was among the horde that we were trying to avoid. Anyway, each of Eisenhau's mooks is carrying a Rapier! And they have a weight of only 3! Thus, Lithis has no problems at all stealing one... ...then activating the music note, stealing another, and getting a level-up! Asbel takes out one of the Cavaliers that Lithis robbed, not only getting a level-up, but also increasing his Weapon Rank! Brighton tries to weaken the last Cavalier for capture, but fucks it up. This seems to be a recurring theme for him. So instead, Leif attacks, leaving the Cavalier with one HP left. This allows Dalsin to walk up and... wait, what's this? Why the fuck can't Dalsin capture this guy?! He's got almost twice as much Con as him! What gives?! Bah, whatever. He can just kill him instead. As for Eisenhau, we just so happen to know somebody with a weapon that's super-effective against horses! So, let's send Hicks over to attack, and... ...shit. Well, now I know what not to do. Reset! This time, Fergus gets the Master Seal on turn 1 through a conveniently-timed music note. Everyone else moves backwards up toward Eisenhau's spawn point. Hey, look at that! Brighton is parked in a spot that's forcing Raydrik to talk to Eisenhau diagonally! Fuck, that was a little too close. Reset! This time, Brighton counter-kills one of the Rapier Cavaliers, getting a level-up. Assblaster Asbel obliterates Eisenhau with critical Grafcalibur, once again leveling-up and increasing his Weapon Rank (though I was unable to screenshot it this time). After swiping their Rapiers, the Cavaliers are severely weakened by the loss of Eisenhau's leadership stars, allowing Hicks and Brighton to finish them off (netting a level-up for the former). Nanna doesn't quite get a level-up from healing Lithis, but she does increase her Staff Rank (the second screenshot here was taken exactly one frame too late to get the rank increase on-screen). Unfortunately, she still can't use the Physic Staff yet. Anyway, once Eisenhau is assassinated, the Cavaliers will stop spawning, so it's now safe to continue south. While infinite Rapiers does sound enticing, I don't want to risk getting overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Enemy phase, most of the Myrmidons will head north to intercept us... ...with the lone exception of this guy. So, I'll move Finn toward him and mount... ...while Karin comes this close to completing her errand. See this Myrmidon here? Stay out of his attack range. Instead, move to intercept his buddies. Also, here's the level-up that Nanna missed last turn. Enemy phase, Fergus gets a level-up, and increases his Weapon Rank! Now he can wield the Flame Sword (again)! While that's going on, the lone Myrmidon slowly crawls toward Finn. Finally, Karin rescues Safiya and Cantos to the other side of the mountain range. With the exception of healing, the rest of this turn is spent doing absolutely nothing. Macha and Fergus gain level-ups from countering during enemy phase... ...and the lone Myrmidon commits sudoku by attacking Finn. Next turn, Karin carries Safiya further north toward the rest of the group... ...and once again, we do nothing. What I'm trying to do here is tank the Myrmidons while making sure Shiva doesn't attack us. But if one of the Myrmidons gets killed, that leaves a potential spot open for Shiva to attack us from. Macha kills one of them, but leaves another with one HP. Fergus gets hit, but doesn't kill anyone. Now, for the moment of truth: Karin drops Safiya off on this tile outside the Myrmidon's attack range. Not much else we can do but heal. There goes another Myrmidon and a half... nice level-up, Macha. And another one for Nanna. Wait a minute! I just had an idea! Macha, you go sit in the corner and let Lithis take your place. By having Lithis steal the Myrmidon's weapon, they won't be able to attack during enemy phase! Asbel is there to lighten Lithis's pockets so he has more space to steal stuff. My plan, however, has one fatal flaw: I failed to account for the possibility that the unarmed Myrmidon might choose to simply walk away, giving Shiva access to our weak spot. In the ensuing battle, Lithis crits, but Shiva activates Sol. Both combatants barely hold on with their lives. However, Lithis's Sword Rank goes up. Just what I was waiting for! Lithis swipes Shiva's Killing Edge, rendering him harmless! This allows Fergus to safely kill the remaining armed Myrmidon (getting a level-up in the process)... ...and then Canto to block the unarmed one's escape route, so Karin can beat him up for EXP! And more importantly, we can have Safiya talk to Shiva... ...we can recruit him to our side! I'll give him back his Killing Edge later. Whoops, I forgot about Finn! I'll have him dismount through the mountains and then ride back up to the rest of the group. The next several turns are spent healing up with Nanna and Safiya (especially Safiya, as not only does she need to catch up to Nanna level-wise, but she also needs to work on her Staff Rank). Hey, where do you think you're going, Mister?! That's right! No free EXP will escape on my watch! As Finn re-joins the party, Karin has one more errand to run before we continue south. First, she parks herself on this mountain tile, two squares away from that Thief. But first, Leif has a unique conversation with Finn. Nanna does, too. Now, Karin is going to attempt to capture that Thief (gaining a Weapon Rank in the process). If she fails, don't worry: She can just Canto back to Safiya to get healed. Ooh, she can throw Javelins now! That's even better! There we go... one more Javelin should do it... (also a level-up) Gotcha! Thief was caught! As Karin carries her prey back over the mountain, Lara offers up her broken weapons in exchange for the Thief's Lockpick. You can never have too many of those! Now it's finally time to continue heading south toward Hannibal's castle. Several turns later, we arrive at a small town. Let's see what's in this house... A Pure Water! How nice of him. Nothing interesting in the Vendor, so let's all head to the escape po-waaaaaaiiiiiit a minute! OOOOHHH FUCK! Ooh, yeah, baby! Fuck me harder! Mmmm, was it good for you too, baby? These Bandits have absolutely nothing of value compared to all the EXP and money we just got, so I'll leave them alone. Here are the escape quotes for our new recruits. What's that, Eirika? You think you're the first protagonist to adapt an obviously-fake alias? Sorry, but Thracia did it first! For rescuing Vergil all the way back in Chapter 3, we get a Warp Staff, and a new friend! That's all for today. Tune in sometime later in the week. Edited September 5, 2019 by Tyranogre Quote Link to comment
Reilly Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 Yes, a fake name. Can't go around shouting out— Guys, what the fuck do you think you're doing?! We gotta be discreet, or else— *phew* Looks like we're still in the clear... Tyranogre 1 Quote Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted September 5, 2019 Author Share Posted September 5, 2019 Chapter 8: Callion, Callion, 'Cause Nothing Really Matters Fun fact: In the original Japanese version, Mount Violdrake was known as the much-sillier-sounding "Purple Dragon Mountain". For the first time ever, the chapter does not automatically start after transitioning from the world map screen. We actually get to make battle preparations! Gone are the days of wasting time redistributing our stolen goods! From here on out, we can access the convoy freely at the start of every chapter, and even trade items amongst ourselves! There's also an Armory where we can buy simple Iron weapons, but not Fire Tomes or Heal Staffs as is normally the case. That's all fine and good, but how do I select which units we're bringing into this battle? All of the buttons that I have configured to my keyboard either bring up a unit's status screen, or return to the previous menu... Ah, now I see! We have to select "Deploy", and then we can pick! There is, however, a catch: This is the first chapter in the game where the "fatigue" mechanic is enforced. Every time a unit either initiates or receives an attack, they gain one point of fatigue. If their total fatigue becomes higher than their max HP, they will be unable to participate in the next chapter. And since my dumbass is addicted to Arena abuse, guess what that means for who we have available now? After going over the roster, things aren't quite as bad as they seem. The lack of healers is a huge bummer, but most of our cavalry is still good to go. Which is good, because this map has a turn limit to unlock the next gaiden chapter. GOD FUCKING DAMNIT, HALVAN AND RONAN! I might be thinking of someone else, but I believe it's mentioned in the designer's notes that Callion's father was one of the knights who accompanied Quan and Ethlyn during the Yied Massacre. Callion is unique among our horsemen so far in that he's not restricted to one weapon type while mounted. As a Cavalier, he can wield both swords and lances. Of course, during indoor maps, he's forced to dismount and stick to swords, but unlike Finn, Brighton, and Hicks, he can wield them on horseback, too. He starts off horribly under-leveled compared to the rest of our party, however. Another unfortunate downside to Callion is that since he doesn't join the party until after the opening cutscene, we can't fuck around with the unit selection menu to determine which tile he starts off on. He's locked to the middle of these trees, severely limiting his ability to go after those Bandits. With nothing else to do, I'll have him borrow an Iron Sword from Shiva. Both of them are under-leveled, so they can be training buddies. Whoops, I almost forgot: Our starting stats for this chapter (minus the Iron Sword that used to be in Shiva's inventory). We start things off by having Orsin and Asbel use the rings that I gave them during battle preparations. Then, we move everyone forward toward the Bandits. Before the enemy begins their phase, we get a brief cutscene. This is our hint that the guy who looks like Arthur (Elise's retainer; not Tailtiu's son) has other business to attend to, and will only stay put for a limited amount of time. Fergus weakens and kills a pair of Brigands respectively, but gets poisoned in the process. And with both of our healers on standby, this could prove to be a problem. And if you think you're a smartass for capturing the bandits wielding Venin weapons... ...think again: they instantly turn into ordinary Iron weapons the second they enter your inventory. Fortunately, Venin weapons are inaccurate as shit, so Callion can attack the Brigand without much need to worry. However, his follow-up attack missed, so I ended up feeding the kill to Fergus instead, netting a level-up. The Hunter is now trapped, so I'm going to have Asbel hide out in the trees next to the Armory to try to lure out the Brigand parked on the entryway... ...and have Orsin take out the Brigand with a critical Bhuj. God, I missed this weapon. Enemy phase, the Bandits do... absolutely nothing. So instead of baiting the one blocking the Armory, Asbel simply kills him instead, getting a level-up. Brighton tries to kill the Brigand blocking the Vendor, but fucks it up. In hindsight, maybe I should've given him the Skill Ring instead of Orsin... Unfortunately, with Karin gone, we're going to have to take the long way around to visit this house. An old friend of ours is now a red unit. To avoid accidentally killing him, I park Halvan on this tile and have him equip an Iron Axe. While we may not be able to visit that house yet, Orsin can still get rid of the Brigand standing on it by throwing the Bhuj over the roof. Finn throws a Javelin to kill the Brigand on the Vendor that Brighton failed to kill. We end our turn with our formation looking like this. Enemy phase, Finn gets a level-up from tanking a hit from a Brigand, but now he's poisoned, too. Marty attacks us, but thanks to Halvan not having his Brave Axe equipped, both survive. Orsin and Halvan have semi-unique conversations for recruiting Marty back to our side. Through the magic of save-states, I'm able to show off both. Shiva takes out another Brigand, but now he's poisoned, as well. However, the Vendor happens to sell Antitoxins. And as it turns out, one Antitoxin can be used exactly as many times as I currently have units who are poisoned. Meanwhile, I have Leif pick up a Hammer from the Armory. We've been fighting a lot of Generals lately. Assblaster Asbel takes out the Brigand on the other house... ...while Finn, Fergus, and Shiva begin passing the Antitoxin around. Fuck, Marty got poisoned! Now I have to buy another Antitoxin! However, since that Warrior has a bow, that means that Marty is free to butter him up to feed the kill to Callion! ...or not. Asbel takes him out instead, getting a level-up. A Brigand will spawn from the northwest, but we've pretty much got this in the bag. Next, we'll have Shiva fill up his inventory with Torches. You never know when they might come in handy. The house next door to the Armory will give us another Master Seal! Next time, we'll be able to promote one of our units who hit level 20 during last chapter's arena abuse! While we've still got plenty of time, now would be a good idea to attempt to capture the boss (yes, I said capture; not kill). Shit. This is bad. Since Finn missed, Rumaigh will attack him during enemy phase get himself killed! Oh egads, this run is ruined! But what if... I were to have Callion take Finn's Brave Lance and replace it with a weaker weapon? Ohohohoho, delightfully devilish, Ty! Asbel weakens Rumaigh with the last page of a Fire Tome... ...while Halvan gets rid of that Brigand so he won't distract us. Looks like I had nothing to worry about: even without missing, Finn's Brave Lance barely made a scratch against this guy. We'll have to weaken him a bit more. Meanwhile, Fergus visits the final house, netting us a Luck Ring. We'll worry about who to give this to later. What follows is a massive clusterfuck consisting of about half an hour's worth of save-stating, accidentally killing, re-loading, killing bandits, trying different weapons, and all other sorts of RNG-related fuckery, until eventually... ...Halvan successfully captures the little pain in the ass, taking a well-deserved level-up as his prize. Before we finish things off, be sure to swipe Rumaigh's belongings, including a Ridersbane, and another Master Seal! Just make sure you don't release him before seizing the gate. You SHOULD be sorry! I almost had to postpone this episode until tomorrow because of you! That was a refreshingly short chapter after the absolute chaos that was chapters 4 through 7. Quote Link to comment
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