#after upgrading my shitty weapon to “now it only takes two hits to kill a mushroom”

[drastrochris]

"Use the shell thing!" The shell thing is fucking useless. What's the point of having a shield if LITERALLY ANYTHING THAT TOUCHES IT breaks it? Plus that interrupts my healing, so instead of being a sitting duck while trying to heal, I get to be frustrated that the shell doesn't fucking help.

[moczothe1st]

Let’s Play Fire Emblem IV: Genealogy of the Holy War, Part 16: The World’s Last Hope, Maybe, Sorta

Part 15

Welcome back to Fire Emblem IV, as we begin the second generation in earnest. Unlike in real life, this new generation may actually succeed in making the world a better place, though in fairness that’s partially because the last one left it in such a state there’s nowhere to go but up.

When we signed off, we had just met a pair of idiots and I allowed you to choose between them, because I’m a great guy like that.  You picked Johan, unanimously, for reasons varying from his superior speed growths, to his greater range of movement, to just hating Johalvier’s stupid face. All valid reasons!  So I’ll be picking him up ASAP, to prevent him from accidentally getting his dumb ass killed.  But first, as our turn begins, we have a new arrival to the battlefield…

And she’s blue, so I like her already. 

(A green-haired pegasus knight whose mount is named after Erin’s sister. I wonder who her mom is.)

(Arthur is a little less obvious since weird white hair is pretty common in this game, as Julia reminded us last week, but he’s Taillte and Lewyn’s son.)

Arthur: Er, right. Sorry about that. Say, Fee, I don’t have too far to go. If you want, I can just walk from here.

Fee: Where are you off to, anyway?

Arthur: Oh, just Alster.

Fee: A-Alster?! Geez, you’re dumber than I thought! Alster’s waaaay south of here. There’s an entire sea in the way, for crying out loud! I dunno what you’re thinking, but you haven’t a hope in heck of walking the rest of the way there!

Arthur: Eh, it’s fine. I’m hardly in a hurry.  

Fee: So, er, why do you need to go to Alster?

Arthur: Oh, see, I’ve got a sister I haven’t seen in years who might be there.

(… And yet, not in a hurry.)

Arthur: She and my mom were taken away when I was just a kid. I was sort of left alone in some far corner of Silesse or another.  I just heard a rumor, but at this point even a rumor’s enough if it means I might find her.  

Fee: Huh, really? You know, I know just what that’s like. My big brother’s been missing for ages.

Arthur:  Did you get separated from him as well?

Fee: Oh, no, nothing that bad. We’ve always lived together in Silesse, but awhile back he ran off to try and find our dad.  

Arthur: Your father, huh?

Fee: Yeah, he’s been missing for years. Mom spent the rest of her life waiting for him to come back, but he never did…

Arthur: What happened to her?

(Was the use of ‘the rest of her life’ too subtle for you, Captain Tact?)

Fee: She… she’s dead. Illness…

Arthur: Oh… sorry about that. I shouldn’t have brought it up…

Fee: It’s okay! I mean, you’ve already brought up lots of things that you shouldn’t have.

(I think Fee and I will get along just fine.)

Fee: … Heh, kidding. You’re actually not that bad.

Arthur: Heh heh, thanks. And thanks for giving me a chance and letting me come along with you.

Fee: No problem! So was the sister thing real? Is that actually why you’re travelling?

Arthur: Yeah, it’s real. But what about you? What’s your deal?

Fee: Actually, I kinda want to join that Isaachian rebel army.  

(And I want more flying units, so we’re both in a good place. Welcome to the team, Fee!  Don’t stand too close to Larcei if you don’t want to get coated in the blood of her victims.)  

Fee: When I was little, mom told me stories about the paladin Sigurd and his brave allies, and those have always meant a lot to me. Lately I’ve been hearing about how Sigurd’s son is somewhere in Isaach, raising a revolution. And it all just sort of clicked, y’know? I knew that’s where I need to be, s oI just ran right out of home to try and find him.

Arthur: Wow… that’s pretty great of you. Y’know, I think I’ll help you out here for a while. It’s the least I can do for you putting up with me.

Fee: Okay! Partners it is, then. Good luck out there… partner!

Arthur: Heh! Upbeat as ever, aren’t you?

And with that, we round out our team for the second generation’s first chapter, except for Johan, who isn’t recruited yet and also doesn’t count.  Let’s take a look at what we got.  

First, Julia, the mysterious priestess whose identity could be anyone. She might be a random person from anywhere in the entire world. There’s no way to tell who she is.  It’s a total, unabashed, impossible mystery to sol-

Oh, she has Major Naga and Minor Vala Holy Blood, so she’s Deirdre and Arvis’s kid.  Yeah, honestly, it’s kind of like the developers forgot you can just look at the stat screens to find out a general idea of these character’s parents.  They really try to play up Julia’s identity as a mystery, but there’s literally only one person she could be.  Notice, however, that she doesn’t have Loptyr blood. Now there’s a mystery for ya…

In terms of her utility as a character, meanwhile, Julia is excellent. Blows her mom out of the water, thanks to inheriting Adept and Pursuit from her shitty father and having a generally better base stats and superior growths; in particular, thanks to her two Holy Bloods adding to her already naturally huge Magic growth from Deirdre, she actually comes to a magic growth of 100%.  She will always get a magic point when leveling up, so by the end of the game she will be a goddamn magic cannon. Her weak points will be her Defense and Speed, the former of which is partially offset by the fact she actually has a remarkably high HP growth as well.  

However, none of this matters right now because she starts off without any weapons.  Don’t worry, that will change soon enough.  Oh, and while we’re here…  

Lana: You know, Lord Seliph’s actually really been worrying about you.  

(PLATONICALLY!  He has been PLATONICALLY worrying about his HALF-SISTER.)

Lana: If there’s anything I can do to help you, just let me know and I’ll get right on it.  

Julia: Mm. Thank you…

Lana: Oh, and I’ve got a little something for you.

Julia: This is… a Mend staff?

Lana: You can use these, right?

Julia: For me? Thank you, Lana. With this… I know I can help everyone.

Lana: You’re welcome, Julia. Let’s give this our all, together!

D’aaaaaaaaaw. Shame this game was released like twenty years before it was socially acceptable to admit lesbians existed, because I ship Lana/Julia now.  And not just because I want to make absolutely sure the latter cannot ever accidentally marry her brother.

Next up, Fee.  

Like her mom before her, Fee is just generally solid.  Her base stats mark her as a speedster, but her defense, resistance, and strength are all set at 8 when she’s only level 2, so she isn’t fragile or weak by any means; if she follows in Erin’s footsteps and gets lucky on the Defense growths, only archers will ever really be a threat to her. My hope is that by giving her Azel as a dad means she’ll also get a solid Magic growth (+30% from his Minor Vala Blood!) and will become sort of a flying artillery piece wielding all our magic swords to rain death on the enemy from above.  This is kind of experimental, I admit. But on the plus side, even if that doesn’t work out, just ‘a second Erin’ is still plenty fine by me. Erin was cool beans.

And finally, Arthur.  

Hehehehehe…

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…                                      

HAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…

*deep breath*

Arthur is invincible. He has Forseti and he’s invincible.  I mean his growths and all that shit are great too, he’s essentially Lewyn 2.0 with all the latest upgrade software, but really, that’s the summary. He’s got Forseti, and for the purposes of this map he is invincible. It’s going to be two more chapters before we fight anything that can lay a finger on him while he’s wielding that monster.

This isn’t the only reason I married Lewyn and Taillte. But it certainly is a big one.

Now then. Like a moron, I accidentally moved Lana and Julia too far forward to have them chat with each other. They’re in the range of Johan’s army. So I have the rest of the team form a perimeter while Larcei and Seliph run their butts off to join in.  Arthur starts moving toward the castle to remove the current owner, and Fee moves to the village nearest her starting point to take a swing at the bandit there…

Did you just get hit on a 21% chance? And I was just talking up how good you are! *sigh* End turn. Johan’s army takes their swing at us…

…. That was pathetic!  Only Ulster dodged any of that, and not nearly enough for my tastes considering he almost died anyway.  What happened, kids?! You were rocking last week! Sigh. Okay. Okay. Let’s try and salvage this…

…. Yes, that’s a good start.

FEE! WHAT THE SHIT, LADY?!

Oh, that doesn’t count, Arthur. You’re holding a universal cheat code.

Now, I have the remaining characters form a line that will force Johan’s axe men to take a long, weird path to get to anyone who can’t fight back. With luck this means nobody will get attacked more than once.  Honestly, at this point, I’m mostly afraid Johan will hit someone who can really fight back and get his dumb ass killed; that would be embarrassing to get a reset over someone who technically isn’t even my ally. Larcei is in his range, though… hopefully he will talk to her, rather than try to axe her. End turn…

Oh, and Johalvier’s douches have been moving toward us too, because I can’t have nice things .

Oifey can’t actually one-shot these guys normally. He procced Critical on this one because he’s a killstealing old bastard.

…. Why have you people decided to stop dodging…?

This may… go badly.

… And of course we’re in a situation where I need Oifey to both dodge (it’s only a 30% chance to hit but he hasn’t been performing lately) and not hit back too hard. Fucking grand.

OIFEY YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD, I LOVE YOU.

Now. NOW.  First, Julia heals Oifey and I send him a space up to let Larcei run in.

(No, he’s just an idiot.)

Johan: Larcei… oh Larcei! Your words are as the sweetest birdsong! Your eyes are as the most brilliant stars! Oh, without you at my side, what purpose is there in life? What joy could possibly be?

Larcei: Stop it! How revolting! This is a battlefield! Are you out of your mind?!

Johan: I can deny my heart no longer, Larcei. Believe me when I say I’ve tried! Alas, love is a maddening beast at times…. What else can I do but be at your side? Men, we are joining the liberation army! From this day on, we are men of honor! Fight on in the name of justice, love, and Larcei!

Well. At least he’s enthusiastic.

At this, Johan joins the army and his units all become neutral, friendly to us and hostile to Johalvier’s army.  They’re also all heavily wounded, so they’re mostly just going to die, but at least they’ll take some fire off us for one turn.  

(… Did he, though?)

Johalvier: Bet he’s gone and sided with her army ,too. That weak-willed fool…

(Okay, that he definitely did.)

Johalvier: Hmph… fine by me! Men, attack! Johan’s unit is now the enemy!

And seeing this declaration of war by his brother and rival, Johan runs away to Lana for healing so he doesn’t get totally destroyed.  

End turn!

(I’m actually going for the other one, thanks.)

*sniff* Oh, milord Seliph, you are truly on the path to surpass your father. Seriously. I don’t think he got a level that good in his entire half of the game, and it’s like your third so far in just your first map.  I’ve never seen Seliph get off to a start this strong, and if he keeps it up he’ll be a walking nuclear war when he promotes.  

I’m a little nervous now. What if he’s building me up so he can let me down later?  I’ve been hurt before.

Dannan: Schmidt! Get out there! Take back my castles, now!

Schmidt: Yes, sir! You can depend on me!

(“No way I’m just a one-chapter flunky boss! No way, not ol’ Schmidty!  Schmidt, that’s the name of a Big Bad right there! I bet I’m really Super-Loptyr in disguise!”)

Anyhow, when Johan joined his castle became neutral to us, and Schmidt is gonna go take it.  That’s actually a very good thing, so I’m going to let him do that while we finish off Johalvier’s goons.  

… Or they finish us off. 4% chance to hit and he popped ya one right in the jaw, Larcei? Seriously? You’re lucky I have two healers now.

And of course, what’s life without a little bit of killing your brother?

That’s the end of the interesting; Arthur is still walking toward a village, and Fee takes a distance shot at a bandit with her Bolt Sword but doesn’t kill him.  End turn.

I should be happy that Johan dodged on an 87% chance to be hit, but frankly I’m just more angry at the others now.  

Awesome. With that, there’s only one member of the Sophara army left. First, I have Fee and Arthur clear out the villages they’re near;

And Fee liberates hers.

Neat. Now it’s just a matter of wiping out the last of Johalvier’s soldiers:

And the army begins to move south. There’s one more village to clear out, and we have to be ready to take back Isaach after Schmidt takes it.  

Again: We want this to happen. There are two castles, and we want Isaach.  You want Isaach to fall so you can take it back, or you want to recruit Johalvier so it’s hostile from the start. You do not want to take Sophara. DO NOT.  

I’m not joking.

This is super important.

Pick it up, you losers.  

The team just spends another turn moving south, while Arthur liberates a village.

Isn’t This the Same Guy From the Last Village: Well, those imperial sods won’t stand a chance at all! Every last one of them will be run right out of our great land!

Sure thing. End turn!

*sigh* They all have hand axes, so this is actually going to take them awhile. It’s okay, that gives us time to set up a defensive line. Lester, meanwhile, clears and liberates a village.

Best Girl: I bet we’d all have a much better time with him on the throne if that were true, huh? Here, take this here skill ring. Go on, do your best! We’re all behind you!

Sweet. Bows are one of the more inaccurate weapons in the game, so more skill for Lester is quite welcome. Plus, Fee gets close enough to chat with Seliph finally.

Fee: Call me Fee! I’m from Silesse.

Seliph: Silesse, you say? Are you a pegasus knight, then?

(She’s literally riding a pegasus and holding a sword, man.)

Fee: Er, not just yet. I’m kinda still in training. My mom was one, though! Actually, in the big war years ago, she helped Lord Sigurd out in his army.

Seliph: Is that so? She has my utmost gratitude on my father’s behalf. Now, what brings you here, Fee?

Fee: See, what happened was I was looking for my brother, who ran away ages ago. But then I heard about you, sir, and how you’re taking on the Empire! And I just knew I had to be here too. Can I join your army, sir? Please?

Seliph: Certainly! Thank you. What of your brother, though?

Fee: It’s silly, sir, but I have this feeling we’ll run into him somewhere down the line.

(“Foreshadowing, sir.”)

Not much to show other than that. Arthur starts slooooowly moving toward the rest of the team, and Julia gains her first level from healing.

…. Remember when I said Deirdre wasn’t very good and then she got a bunch of great levels to spite me? I’m kind of scared Julia’s decided to do the opposite as some teenage rebellion against her mom’s legacy.

To the south, the Schmidtmeister finally takes Isaach, and his army starts moving north toward us, which suits me just fine.  I ain’t in no rush, yo. In fact, I’ll just wait a few turns in my fine defensive formation while Arthur runs toward us. Come at us when you’re ready, losers.  

Four turns later, the first of them arrives, alone, and misses.

Fear the wrath of the Schmidtritter.

Now, these guys totally suck with one exception. Schmidt himself is fairly badass, and there’s a reason for that:

BITCH HAS LEX’S BRAVE AXE! Remember when I said the items from people who didn’t pass them on to kids will show up later? Well, it’s later.  I think we can all agree this cannot stand, out of honor to Lex and also I want that axe back.  But, of course, that means killing him with an axe dude. And we only have one of those. So for Johan to not disappoint us, I think we need to soften him up first.  Lester?

(Well, looks like somebody thinks he’s hot Schmidt.)

Hm. Okay performance, and an average level. At least it was better than his first level.  But seriously, man, your dad was beating you out by this point. That’s sad. And I’m not entirely sure Schmidt will die to a single hit from Johan, so I send in another helper to soften him up further.

Not bad! Defense is definitely great for her, and her Luck is pretty abysmal too, so combined I’m not displeased with this showing.  Johan?

…. Oh hey, Johan missed on an 80% chance to hit, and died to the counterattack.

If I hadn’t promised to do a no-death run I would leave his corpse rotting in the sunny plains of Isaach.  Reset.

Luckily this was the start of our turn, so I can screw around the RNG a little by moving people in different orders.  This even has the benefit of changing the levels we gain:

And hey, not terrible. Fee’s is actually unambiguously better, and Lester’s is  about equal.  And I also, because I’m not a total moron, remember to park Dermott near the front lines where his Charisma skill can amp up Johan’s accuracy.  Okay, big guy, care to give it another go?

Much better. The Brave Axe alone turns him from the worst unit in the army to the like, second or third worst. And now, with the enemy exposed and bereft of their leader, His Lordship takes the front lines.

… Okay, I mean, not very dramatic, woulda been cooler if you’d slain your enemy, but you didn’t get hit. I’ll take it. End turn!

Fortunately, Hand Axes are not super accurate.  And in this chokepoint, most of them can’t even reach us. A few errant swings later, we are up to bat again.

You know, it’s kind of telling that they’re all getting levels I would have been perfectly happy to see in their parents, and yet I’m still somehow disappointed. We’ve barely started this generation and I’m already spoiled.

End turn. I suppose. The enemy… erm…

Well, they all go after Oifey, and they cannot hit him.  Note their chance to hit. It’s zero.  So… I’m not sure what’s up there. Let’s… let’s just finish this up.

See? You can do it if you try, Lester! Now, the map is basically over. I basically just hang out awhile, letting Arthur finally catch up for his own talk with Seliph.  

Arthur: The name’s Arthur. I came here from Silesse.

Seliph: Wait, so you are that Arthur fellow? I’ve heard of how you have been aiding us so far. Thank you so much!

(“I heard you defeated two enemies and then spent the rest of the map slowly walking. My deepest gratitude!”)

Arthur: Eh, it was no big deal.

Seliph: You are capable of wielding magic, yes? That’s truly impressive. I’m almost envious!

Arthur: My mother was a talented war-mage…but I’ve still got a lot to learn, myself.  

Seliph: We all do, do we not? So long as we all fight together, though, perhaps we still truly can change our world. After all, that’s what brought us here today.

Arthur: Yeah… you’re right. My power’s at your disposal, sir. I’ll give my all to aid the cause. I’m glad we could finally meet, Lord Seliph.  

And then have Seliph finally run up and re-take Isaach.  

Info Master: Indeed, and ecstatic to see you to boot! Thanks to you, Lord Seliphk we know that at long last, Isaach shall have its freedom!

Seliph: Thank you, sir, but the effort isn’t mine along. I could never have come so far without the support of the common man.  

(If you call them ‘the common man’, you may be a bit of a classist. Maybe try to work on that, Selly.)

Seliph: You’ve all supported me from the beginning. I likely wouldn’t be here if not for you!

Info Master: Fate is a funny thing, isn’t it, sir? Just twenty years ago, our late king had the utmost trust in your grandfather’s wisdom. Then your father came to protect Prince Shanan, and now the prince has guided you to adulthood. Perhaps fate has bound Isaach and Chalphy as one…

Seliph: Isaach is the only home I’ve ever known, and Prince Shanan is like a brother to me.  I pray our friendship lasts the rest of our lives.

Info Master: Lord Seliph, you are the rightful heir to House Belhalla and the throne of Grannvale.  Not a soul alive in Isaach, nor in the rest of the world, can doubt this. We beg of you! Raise the banner of justice high, march on Belhalla, and reclaim your true throne!

(“Well, sort of. I don’t think you actually have the right magic blood. But it’s not like you’re going to run into any waifs who should be doing the job instead!”)

Now. You may be wondering why I was so adamant we take Isaach when there was another castle off to the west we could have been going after.  And the answer is: Julia can now have a conversation with Seliph. Let’s see that.

Seliph: Actually, I have something for you. I found this in Isaach castle.

Julia: What is…?

Seliph: It’s a light magic tome called Nosferatu.  You can wield these, yes?

Julia: Yes… I’m able to use light magic.

Seliph: Excellent! Hopefully you’ll now have an easier time protecting yourself in combat.

Julia: Thank you, Lord Seliph… thank you so much…

And with that, Julia gets a weapon! The only one she will ever need, even! See (and of course the game doesn’t tell you this), which castle you take alters what weapon she gets. If you take Johalvier’s castle, Sophara, you get her Deirdre’s old Aura tome. You might remember Aura as being very powerful, but also very heavy and largely useless.  As for Nosferatu, it isn’t as strong, but it’s considerably lighter and with Julia’s excellent magic and (unlike Deirdre) access to Pursuit for double attacking, she’ll still be doing enough damage to take out most anything she fights.

Oh, and any damage it does to an enemy, she absorbs to heal herself. 

That’s right: the mysterious waif just became a tank.  

Now, all that’s left to do is kill Dannan. And he, like Chagall before him, forgot to bring a ranged weapon to the party. So I take a little time, liberate a village, and wait to feed him to the suddenly unstoppable Julia. Village?

Grim Gritty Girl: Thanks to you lot, Isaach’s free from the Empire at last, but the rest of the world’s still in a very dark place… all across Jugdral, they’re waiting for you to rise up and defeat the Empire! Please, I’m begging you… you’ve gotta make it to Grannvale soon!

Neat. Lana gains a level, too!

Well, not up to her mom’s exacting standards, but she’s already gotten more magic than Ethlyn ever did. I’ll allow it. And now, time for Julia’s first murder and the end of the map.

(Bitch, she’s your princess. The game hasn’t said it yet, but we know she is. Show some respect.)

And in one round of combat, she almost completely destroys him (she did proc Adept, so she hit him three times instead of two), and gains a big-person level. So far, so good. One more turn should do it!

Welcome to the team, Julia. You’re not really one of us until you’ve killed a sentient being.  (I know that Lana hasn’t killed anyone on screen, but we all know what she gets up to at night.) Seliph drops in on Rivough Castle, and we’re all set.

(You can go home, Lewyn. We have your book, and that’s all we need from you.)

Lewyn: Yeah… I only just got back now. Look, Seliph, are you aware that right now, the world’s at a critical turning point?

Seliph: Hm? No… I’m afraid not.  

(Teenagers don’t follow the news, Lewyn.)

Lewyn: It’s been fifteen years since Arvis conquered Jugdral and united it as the Grannvale Empire. Honestly, for awhile at first it wasn’t all that bad. In the empire’s dawn, Emperor Arvis sought to bind his nation using only the strictures of law. It was strict and constraining, but we got a few good years of peace out of it. But obviously he changed his mind. A few years back, as if by magic, the Empire turned into that oppressive force we all know and love today. Even worse… the ancient heretics of the Loptyr Order have arisen from the shadows once more and raised influence across the land. Their murderous rituals have returned with them, and all across Jugdral they abduct children to sacrifice in droves to resurrect their fell god. All attempts to resist are crushed and met with brutal executions or enslavement. It couldn’t be more plain that they seek to return Jugdral to the days of that ancient abomination, the Loptyr Empire.

Seliph: This cannot be happening! I’ve heard rumors saying the same, but… never did I think they could be more than mere rumor…

Lewyn: By the look of it, Isaach hasn’t had it quite as bad as most. Dannan’s two sons, at least, refused to follow through on the child hunts. And of course there’s been people trying to rebel against the Empire left, right, and center, but they were all scattered and disorganized.  Before you, none have ever posed a proper threat. They were all swiftly crushed before they could so much as blink. Jugdral needs a savior. It needs a man to unite behind. And I’m sure that man is you, Seliph. You’re the only one who stands a chance.

Seliph: Hold on a moment! Are you sure of this? A savior would require power that I sorely lack…

Lewyn: Chalk it up to duty, Seliph. You’re the eldest child of Empress Deirdre. That makes you the elder brother to Crown Prince Julius.

(“And the fact that the prince is named Julius should not suggest in any way that Julia is connected to the royal family. Er, you haven’t checked her stat screens, right?”)

Lewyn: You’re the one true heir to Saint Heim. Your destiny is to unite the power of the Crusaders of this era and free the world from evil’s grip.

Seliph: But I...

Lewyn: Trust me, you really do have what it takes. Your true power and potential sleeps within you. That is, the sacred blood of the Crusader Baldur. Once you get your holy blade, Tyrfing, not even the heavens will be able to stand in your way!

Seliph: But I-

Lewyn: Sorry, Seliph, but that’s how the gods will it.

(I hate to take Lewyn’s side on this, Seliph, but if you really didn’t want to free the world, you shouldn’t have let him talk over you so much.)

Lewyn: You’re Sigurd’s son. The son of a man who fate led to a brutal end. The fulfillment of his dying wishes and his final quest falls to you.

(Pretty sure his final wish was to just not be burned to death.)

Lewyn: You can’t afford to doubt yourself now. You understand, Seliph?

Seliph: Y-yes… yes. I do. If this is fate and the will of the gods, then so be it. I will do my duty.

Lewyn: There actually isn’t a single absolute fate, nor is there just one person it all hinges upon.

(THEN WHY’D YOU GO ON ABOUT IT FOR TWENTY MINUTES JUST NOW?!)

Lewyn: As obtuse as that sounds, trust me, one day it’ll make sense.

(LIAR.)

Lewyn: Sigurd left behind so much to help you on your quest.

(“Though not the really good sword.”)

Lewyn: Most importantly, the many friendships he forged in his life. Me, for instance.

(GO AWAY.)

Lewyn: Brave youths from all over are already lining up to join your cause, all guided by Sigurd’s kindness.

Seliph: My father won the love and trust of so many people, from all walks of life. I can only pray that in time I’ll prove worthy of his legacy.

Lewyn: You’ll be fine. Anyway, to business. Our immediate goal is to reach Leonster. The son of Quan, your father’s closest friend, raised his own rebellion only to suffer severe losses. He’s in pretty urgent need of backup. I know you’ve had no time to rest, but we need to get going as soon as possible.

(Wait, weren’t you just there? You… you didn’t help? You ran down, explicitly didn’t help, and then ran back here to make me do it for you? Dick.)

Lewyn: For now, at least, we can leave Isaach in the care of its citizens. Odds are we’ll run into Prince Shanan on our way.

(Wait, I thought Shanan was off in the middle of the Yied Desert…… fuck it’s going to be a sand map, isn’t it. We’re going to a sand map.)

Seliph: Understood!

And that’s that. First map done, and now we’re off to Leonster to meet Quan’s son Leif (you may recall him being mentioned by name a few times back when he was an infant. He’s beefed up somewhat since then, thankfully) for what is definitely going to feel like an eternity.

See you next week in… *sigh* in the Yied Desert. Again. 

Resets: Up to an even 20. Johan’s intro to our army has not been the best.

Part 17

[beeupsidedown]

Down The Rabbit Hole |4|

Part 4: Six Impossible Things

“What in the hell is that?”

Chelsea placed the case of beers in Steve’s trunk, her hand immediately reaching for what had caught her attention. Steve cringed as he watched her pull out his bat, the bat. The one with nails sticking out and still covered in demogorgon blood.

“Should I be concerned?” Chelsea asked as she examined the weapon. What had once been simple sporting equipment had obviously been upgraded into something much more menacing. “Is this real blood?”

“Give me that,” Steve quickly pried it from her hands, throwing it back into the trunk and shutting it. Chelsea raised an eyebrow at his reaction.

“Did you kill someone?” she asked in all seriousness. He rolled his eyes, slightly concerned at how calmly she reacted at the sight of a bloody bat.

“No, I didn’t kill anyone,” he replied as he pushed her towards the passenger seat, urging her to get in. “I killed something. An animal that was attacking here a few months back.”

“An animal?” Chelsea pried, unconvinced at the way he was desperate to dodge her questions.

“Yes, an animal. Let’s drop it, ok?” Steve begged as he placed his hands on her shoulders. Her lips pressed together in a tight line. “Come on, Chels. You beauty. The apple of my eye because you know I love the hell out of you. Let’s go get drunk and dance? Won’t you dance with me?”

“Fine,” she finally replied, a broad smile on her lips as his hands stroked her cheek. “I’ll dance with you.”

“Great!” he exclaimed, letting her go and running to the driver’s side. “We could use a distraction.”

------------

Billy Hargrove was the king of parties. They were his scene- he’d show up, cause a commotion around the keg and then later find himself in an empty bedroom with a pretty pair of legs beneath him. This was the norm for him. Drink, party, have sex. Repeat.

It had been a dry couple of months in terms of festivities and this would be the first in a while. He was looking forward to it, lord knew he needed the distraction more than anyone else. But his thoughts were occupied on one person as he stepped out of his car, being “keg king” the last thing on his mind tonight.

The scowl on his face was immediate the moment he caught sight of her. Chelsea was already there, something he knew would happen as he purposely showed up as late as possible. The party was in full swing with drunk teenagers dancing and laughing, the music blaring loud enough to drown out your own thoughts. He watched as his favorite little brunette danced around with a drink in her hands, her smile directed at someone who Billy wasn’t exactly a fan of.

Of course she was with Steve. The pair had become inseparable over the past few months. Although Billy had her to himself in class, Steve had her everywhere else. While Billy didn’t have the privilege of seeing her after school, it was simply a given with Steve. And it bothered him.

Chelsea smiled when she caught sight of Billy in the corner, brooding over the party with a beer in his hands. She quickly said something to Steve which he nodded to before she danced her way over to him, exaggerating her moves as she got closer. Billy fought the smile that threatened to spread onto his face as her dancing got more ridiculous with every step.

“There we go!” she exclaimed as she finally landed in front of him. “No point of coming to a party with that look on your face.”

“Chelsea, always a pleasure,” Billy greeted with a nod of his head. He surveyed the room, noticing how Steve had simply moved on to dance with another friend. “Leave your boyfriend behind?”

The roll of her eyes was enough to let him know she was over that particular joke. She reached behind him, grabbing a single beer and turning to face the crowd.

“You know I don’t have a boyfriend,” she replied as she took a sip. “And quite frankly, I’m not sure anyone here is worthy of me.”

“I’m so sorry Hawkins’ best isn’t enough for you, my queen,” Billy joked as he mockingly bowed, earning a hard slap to his shoulder from her.

“Shut up,” she laughed. “I never knew this was Hawkins’s best,” she gestured to the ongoing party scene.

“I was only talking about me,” he replied with a wide grin.

She smiled brightly, her amusement at his joke undoubtedly magnified by the amount of alcohol in her system. Billy dared to throw an arm around her, positioning her in front of him as his arms wrapped around her from behind. His head lowered, resting on her shoulder as he breathed on her neck.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” he murmured, desperately wanting to leave the suffocating scene surrounding them. She hummed, leaning back into his body and surprising him.

“I am bored of this,” she replied as her head turned, her lips mere inches from his own. “But you take me somewhere good or you take me nowhere at all, got it?”

Billy’s smug smirk caught the attention of nearly everyone in the room as they watched the two interact. The entire school population knew Billy pined after Chelsea but could never have her, and the way he led her out the door was sure to spark rumors the next day.

“This...is nice,” Chelsea commented as she sat on the hood of Billy’s camaro. She could see the small town out in the distance, just a few lights and flickers. The sound of the people was nonexistent as they enjoyed the nature that surrounded them. The wind that rustled the leaves of the trees sent a chill down her spine, something that Billy noticed. Without hesitance he shrugged his leather jacket off and draped it on her shoulders, earning a small thank you as she continued to take it all in.

“It’s my favorite place here,” he shared, taking a long drag from his cigarette. He exhaled slowly, the smoke barely visible now that he had turned the headlights of his car off. “It’s nice to get away from all of the noise.”

“You’re just full of surprises,” Chelsea said softly as she tugged his jacket closer. It was warm and comforting, something she suddenly felt she needed. She found that sitting here with Billy made her homesick. She missed the hikes with the warm California sun on her back. She missed the sound of the waves and the smell of salt in the water. Everything that has once brought her comfort was so out of reach now.

“Do you miss California?” she asked, turning to look at him as a gust of wind blew by. He raised an eyebrow at the question, wondering why her eyes looked so sad when moments before she had seemed so full of life.

“Yeah. This place kind of sucks compared to it, don’t you think?” he replied with a shrug. She turned her gaze back to the landscape in front of her, the moonlight illuminating her sharp features.

“It’s not that bad.” Her reply was soft, as if she had come to the conclusion after much thought. Billy tossed his cigarette to the floor and turned to look at her, unsure of what to make of her demeanor.

“Why’d you move?” he finally asked. He’d asked Max and gotten no real answer as even the girl didn’t know. Chelsea seemed to avoid the conversation with anyone who tried by expertly diverting to another subject.

“My mom died,” she replied simply. It was the first time she voiced it out loud since the funeral. Billy felt a pang in his chest as he recognized the distance in her voice.

“Chels, I’m so so-“

“My father didn’t want to be responsible for me without her,” she continued. “So he sold our house, gave me a shitload of money because you know, guilt. And then shipped me off to the only family I had left.”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Billy apologized, feeling guilty for asking.The thought of something that awful being the reason for her move had never occurred to him. She was always so happy that he never thought she could be grieving.

“It’s fine, Billy.” She laughed, shaking her head at the whole situation. “Who wants a shitty father anyways? I’d rather be here with people who care about me.”

Billy nodded. I’m California he’d had friends, friends who he thought cared about him. But none of them ever called or even wrote and he’d been left slightly bitter about it. In Hawkins his friends were just people to surround himself with, people he knew held no real substance to his life. But the girl sitting next to him was different.

“I care about you,” he spoke looking directly ahead, afraid of what her reaction would be. “You might only see me as a kid in class but I think you’re pretty great.”

The silence that followed had him cursing inside, calling himself stupid for admitting anything like that out loud. Of course she wouldn’t see him as anything more than a classmate even after all these months. He had been stupid to think otherwise.

“I care about you too,” the words were followed by an embrace to his sides and he looked down to see she had moved closer and wrapped herself around his torso. “Us fucked up California kids gotta stick together.”

Billy chuckled as his own arm brought her closer, rubbing her arm in a surprisingly sweet gesture. Now he understood Max’s need to give the girl hugs whenever she left. They were nice, kind of like a sense of home.

“What do you miss most about California? Shitty parents aside,” Billy questioned in genuine interest.

“The beach.” she replied honestly. “I miss sitting on the pier in one of those old metal benches that have been oxidized over the years and watching the water hit the shore.”

“That all?”

“I miss the sound of the waves. And the cotton candy from the small vendors.”

Billy pictured it. Chelsea in a simple tank top and shorts, enjoying a pink ball of sugar as she watched the waves. Her legs would probably be outstretched, taking advantage of the sun as it kissed her skin. It certainly seemed like the place she belonged.

“I’ll tell you what,” Billy started as he sat up, his hand pushing back her hair as she looked up at him. “One day we’ll get out of Hawkins and I’ll take you back to the beach.”

“Really?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. A small smile tugged on her lips. “Are you a man of your word?”

“You’ve just gotta trust me.”

-----------

“I can’t believe we’re doing this now,” Chelsea said as she held the hood of her car up. Billy looked up at her with a raised eyebrow, his hands busy disconnecting the jumper cables from his car to hers.

“Did you want to leave your car here all weekend?” he asked as he finished. She sighed knowing he was right.

“I just never thought I’d be at the school parking lot when I was supposed to be at a party.”

“You said you were bored at the party.”

“I was. That’s why I said take me somewhere, which you did. But then you took me here.”

“Someone’s gotta be responsible, princess. I can’t be picking you up for school while your car sits here.”

“Ok. I see your point,” she paused, her gaze on him as he walked to his car. “You know, I think I like you like this. Nice. Not the douchebag of the school.”

Billy thought back to Max’s advice. She had been right after all.

“Don’t get used to it,” he replied with a wolfish grin. “My reputation precedes me.”

[elkian]

whats up you memeloving fucks it’s time for more TLP

ch 20: Battle in Blaine

I feel I should point out that in Blastinus’ LP, this is one of the few -if not only- chapters where they had to do separate Plot and Gameplay posts.

I’d also like to mention that Writing is not Blazer’s strongest point.

This is legit part of the first opening lines:

“I assure you the information I have to tell you is important for you to know.” “Although I've already heard this, I feel I should be here to discuss it. This discussion affects all of us, after all.”

riveting

The first segment has, as I roughly estimated, around 1,000 words of dialogue. Then there’s a scene change to the antagonists. Then like four more scene changes. Keep in mind that this is all across dialogue boxes that can hold roughly two lines of 10 total words at a time.

tldr (can’t blame you): I skip the shit out of this part and go straight to play

The map is largely Wyvern Riders, Cavaliers, and Knights, with a few Wyvern Lords and Generals and a Physic Bishop too far removed from the meat of the map to really contribute.

Also, this. The Bloody Rifle is an upgrade to Blazer’s Rifle Bow, basically a Killer Longbow I guess? The problem is that, if you recall, no one in my army has any fucking Skill.

Blastinus’ helpful map. We left a word slog for a literal slog.

Here’s something neat: Halberdiers were introduced officially in FE9, meaning someone took the time to make this exceptionally nice class portrait. Their sprites are pretty obvious, especially in combat, but not bad - just not quite Intsys-like.

Hey, I just realized it skipped over 19x even though I have Rex in my party. Is my game just bugged?

The map is not kind to sword units, and I almost bring Shuuda, but there’s a buttload of Vuleraries and Elixirs for the stealin’

Our ultimate team. Remember Levion’s Dragon Axe way back in our first Kelik chapter? Yeah, it’s Mark’s now.

It says a lot that my Knight is more useful on this godawful slog that a Wyvern Rider is. Karina’s here to decide her benching or not.

this is Yue, almost certainly a Cardcaptor Sakura reference and also responsible for like a third of the 6,000-something words in the pre-chapter. He decides he needs to not only introduce himself fully but also explain why he is introducing himself. Not a great way to enter my good grace, bucko.

Howard, who we (barely) kicked the shit out of two chapters ago, only has two lines of dialogue before finally letting us fight. Also, considering how shitty my cavaliers not named Eduardo are, he’s probably gonna be a staple for a bit.

At the very least, I get a hyper-strong Paladin and an okay Shaman on a long, Wyvern-heavy map. They can make themselves useful, unlike, say, a level 1 shaman and an incredibly shitty Valkyrie on a desert map

Also this dude was in the starting village. (he has 7 Def and 4 Res, pretty okay for a level 8 Fighter.) He comes with a Dragon Axe (and C Support with Mark), too.

Zach hops into the Ballista

also here’s Yue’s stats

Lastly, he has this Amulet, which gives the holder +10 Hit/Avoid. Blastinus doesn’t think it’s worth taking up 20% of a unit’s inventory, but Blastinus isn’t completely Skill-screwed. Seriously, the Shaman has better Skill than like four or five of the units I’m fielding.

please note that if not for the Weapon Triangle, Ed would being doing as much damage with a Sword as these fools are with Lances (and have like +30 on their hit). I love Ed.

not entirely sure about that lime green lining on the bottom, but Yue’s sprite is pretty decent

So. Uh. If that second Wyvern had hit, Ed would be dead. -_-’’’’

this is the start of turn 2, and we’ve killed like two wyverns. You CANNOT rush this chapter - the Wyverns are just strong enough to overwhelm a unit if they pile on.

Kevin: Still awesome.

While everyone else is getting like 15-20 EXP from a kill, Rex is in the 40s. Not bad.

Mark gets our first level of the map, and it’s gorgeous.

does skill even matter when Ed can hit on a 68 but i have consistent misses on 80+?

I don’t think I really looked at Howard’s battle sprite before. It’s not bad, though part of the recolor on the horse’s tail is done wrong and looks off.

I piled like 3 units on this damn Paladin who kept dodging at 1 HP, but Yue, of all people, brings us home. (this is especially surprising because I stupidly sacrificed him trying to make a Nosferatu hit on the guy one loadstate ago)

Emma patches Karina up for a totally acceptable level.

good thing that was the last enemy in range

Anakin Motivates Zach to disappoint me.

Mark revisits his old friend Effective Damage.

So here is a fucking quandry. No one in range of this Wyvern Rider can OHKO them. Karina might be able to with the Killer lance, on a 75% hit chance, but if she fails she dies.

After some agonizing, she trades Zach for his Elixir (and to equip him with the Short Bow) and doesn’t attack. Everyone else in range can take a hit and most can counterattack, so worst case, they’ll go for Althares, who’s sitting at full HP on a fort (and wielding a Lancereaver).

I so want to do this but she would be murdered by all the upcoming enemies.

Howard is a great Panic Button for this mission - he’s not indestructible, but he can be alone for a turn or two without dying.

Oh Fuck(TM) 

fortunately, between Zach’s lightning Speed and the weight of a Steel Lance, he doubles in return, but this was an unpleasant surprise. I’m glad the Wyvern Rider I was worrying about flew off to heal before this.

Zach and Karina double-team the Wyvern Lord (who Zach can double even with a Steel Bow). Karina apparently fears the bench.

So here’s something fun:

Emma, at technically the same level, has more Defense than Howard., Hell, aside from HP/Con/Attack Stat (and, for some reason, luck), She’s better than him in every way. What the hell.

I was gonna Motivate Zach to retreat towards heals before remembering that Anakin could do that. His Magic is so high that just a Heal staff is enough, too.

This rude-ass motherfucker whacks Mark, so Mark procs a goddamn 26 (before True Hit!) to nearly murder him in response.

FUCK

We make this happen again.

but not this :(

rude

Acceptable

I know Ace is on Forest, but look at that hit rate! It’s hilarious!

A GOOD LEVEL

I was trying to soften the Cav up for Lirin but Mark decided to proc both hits for an okay level. He’s getting a lot of mileage on this map - and I have an Animate Seal (basically Master Seal for non-Lord-likes) but I know there’s an Ocean Seal coming up.

I wasn’t expecting Lirin to dodge, so this is already going better than my pre-loadstate (>>)

I’d complain, but Defense. On a Peg Knight.

We put Sai to the test, and he works out rather nicely, landing both adn dodging the counter. I’m ambivalent about his spritework.

I had to reload several times trying to push this segment before finally going the patient route.

Sweet Jesus, that was close.

Sai apparently lives to impress.

So glad i put her on Forest. Cia’s Speed is nearly as hilarious as Ace’s, so she’s a great dodge tank if you place her right.

Even moreso now. What a great level.

That’s adorable

Sadly Sai is not strong enough to one-shot a Wyvern, but give him time.

We all pile on to the Wyvern Rider, with Zach surprisingly hitting on the first Rifle shot to finish it.

We’ve been taking potshots at this Physic Bishop for a while - to the point that he ran off to drink vulneraries instead of use Physic for like three turns - and Inanna finally puts him out of his misery.

I’m glad later FE games thought that Falcoknights should get Staves and Wyvern Rides->Lords Axes->Axes and Lances, cause the whole Sword thing just seems silly to me.

Goddammit Zach

Emma patches Keving up for a nice level. Aside from her frankly terrible luck, Emma is basically untouchable.

hey hey! Ace and Ed can support again! Since Eduardo is only second to Kevin in my physical-units heart, this is fine.

Like so. Ace’s Avoid should only be 45 ((17x2)+11) with the weight of the Javelin, Eduardo’s ((11x2) +12) 34, so both of them are gett +15% Avoid at B-rank. Not to mention Hit, crit, and Dodge

Ow.

Why is this random Knight so fucking strong

I feed Yue the kill for an acceptable level.

Not bad! Love to see some speed, but I’ll take this.

...speaking of strong randos, this cav- which is one of the weakest enemy types in this map - is meeting Sai’s damage despite WTD

Lirin chips at ‘em for a pretty great level, though that Speed is scaring me.

also there was a Secret Shop right above the village, so Inanna’s going shopping

except we can’t afford the one thing I wanted. oh well.

Anakin throws some Motivation at Althares for a pretty great level. Keep on truckin up that Avoid, bro.

lol

oh.

Sai unexpectedly procs a crit for his first level. Not bad for a Fighter, especially since he hasn’t doubled anything on this map.

Karina pokes this (weirdly healthy) Soldier, careful to stay out of Bloody Rifle range.

So Sai can Support with Mark but Mark can’t do the same - I’m guessing that Talk options fall under this menu.

considering my options. That bow weighs in at a whopping 12, so the Sniper can’t actually double Kevin. They can, however, crit him exactly to death.

Ed’s faster but has lower Con and Def, but higher HP and Luck. But that Defense difference means a crit will also kill him.

My best bet is probably luring over the other nearby enemies, then swooping in with high-Move and Motivated units and trying to one-round the bastard.

A Cav was pestering Sai, so I tried to chip em down only for Zach to crit on the first Rifle shot. And apparently he’s realized his precarious position.

----

So I went though.... a LOT of reloads before deciding that maybe I should actually act on that plan to draw out the Sniper’s buddies. They’re surrounded by Wyvern Lords with high-class gear, and I just kept losing Althares and Lirin to focus fire.

It’s kind of funny, because the object of my caution - the sniper with the Bloody Rifle - was NEVER the actual source of a game over.

It may be due to the support with Mark I just grabbed, but I like that Sai has a better hit chance despite the weapon types and WTD. He also dodges.

You know, I totally forgot about his Dragon Axe?

The fucker doubles Lirin with her Javelin disadvantage and misses twice. This particular Wyvern Lord was the source of at least four resets because they kept double-killing Lirin with that fucking sword. I don’t know whether to be pleased or pissed here.

Karina FINALLY proccing a Killer Lance crit almost soothes the pain of her getting no level.

oh, and also this. She has this now.

How did you MISS

Inanna cleans up for a- sigh.

Yue joins the miss club.

A big theme of this map is piling multiple units onto one enemy in order to kill them in one turn, lest they murder a weaker unit. Having such low Skill all around is part of the problem.

Lirin finishes this fucker off for a good level. Maybe now not everything on the map will double her.

So here’s Anakin’s base Avoid stats.

And here he is with the Amulet, in range of Ace, on Forest terrain.

In range of the Bloody Rifle Sniper.

This is the funniest fucking thing

How’s that 21-Damage 12-Crit working for ya

Ed didn’t ACTUALLY need to crit that Wyvern Lord, but he did anyways, because he’s awesome. I love you, Eduardo.

Ace finishes the Sniper for a pretty excellent level

Anakin gets hit on some amazingly low odds and decides it shouldn’t happen again.

can you imagine how sadlarious it would have been if that had hit

And now that it’s our turn again...

Aw yisssss. Look at those stat gains! 3 con! He can use Javelins without his ridiculous Speed going down.

A refreshed Sai brings down a Cav for a mediocre level. I’d like some Skill or Speed in the future, buddy.

good thing we fed Cia all those Robes way back when

you know, this is the second thing we’ve stolen with Althares all map? There’s just too many enemies and too little space to work him.

Zach somehow hits twice and finishes an enemy Halberdier. I wish I could show off the animations; they’re pretty good.

sure

Karina definitely fears the bench.

Sai gets what would be his second Hand Axe crit for... you know, I’m okay with this. He’s actually doubling people now.

Lirin chips at an enemy halberdier for this phenomenal level

Rex does the same, but better. Also, he has more Speed than the Peg Knight, at a lower level. We also grab his and Kevin’s C Rank Support.

Anakin Motivates Yue to actually do something useful, like get a good level. Goddamn.

Also, he still has more Skill than Ace

We’re finally down to the last enemies and the boss. The General has a Spear, and this Bishop actually has a tome, so we’re treading lightly STILL.

Sai borrows Mark’s Hammer.

aw sick

Sai is actually in the Bishop’s range, but not to worry - I park Lirin two spaces above him, blocking him off. Hilariously, Lirin (and Inanna) will only take 1 damage from that Bishop.

Said Bishop couldn’t even double Sai before this level. This Bishop is clearly a healbot.

Zach finishes the job for a decidedly defensive level. Not bad, but look at that fucking Skill! He has more Defense than Skill!

btw, here’s Lirin and Inanna’s stats.

If Lirin promoted right now, she would outdo her sister in everything except Speed and HP, and remember that we gave Inanna like 10 points in HP with stat boosters.

On the other hand, Lirin’s Speed and Con are so abysmal that I’m not sure I should be using her...

the boss, of course, hits like a fucking truck and has a unique 1-2 range weapon.

....and then Sai fucking OHKOs him with a Dragon Axe crit

I... yeah, okay.

Thank you, Sai, for putting this chapter to rest finally.

[demshootangames-blog]

Ghost recon wildlands

Boy, some game. My beta impressions of the game were hilarious. The game was an incredible mess and still is, but now mostly by design. Or rather the lack of good design. Many issues have been patched, but you can’t patch out poor game design choices! It’s a half decent operators operating kind of a open world game. Where you go about in a weird version of Bolivia, dismantling the operations of a huge drug cartel as well as give the corrupted military/police/whatever a good kicking on the side. The game features a huge map where you can choose freely where to go, when to go and clear any area of the map at your on pace, in any order. You essentially go to a zone, gather intel, do story missions and then take down a leader in that zone, move on to the next until bigger guys notice you and then you go after them. Its open ended in every way, you can do full stealth or go in boom boom bang bang if you so wish, but the more loud option is sometimes the harder option, especially when going against unidad (the military types) since they can call in some pretty dangerous helicopters and such if the fight draws out to be a long one. Though to the games credit, escaping unidad can lead to some hilarious moments here and there. All this sounds fun on paper, right? Well, honestly. It kind of is sometimes. To my surprise. Though mostly fun in co-op with a friend or two. The AI is not only worthless (makes sense balance wise), but their presence is so weird. They can teleport to your car if you drive past them and don’t pick them up, they barely ever die and it seems like that they can conveniently teleport to your location if you get downed so they can revive you. They are like literal ghosts. The biggest issue with the AI however is their “banter”. Its so fucking bad. It tries to be this “cool&edgy” grizzled military talk with some pretty cringy, poorly used operator jargon thrown in here and there. It’s all so poorly delivered and the voice actors are just...not good honestly. One of them especially sounds so fucking irritating. They make awful jokes that are not funny in any way and none of them have any character to them. Their voices are mixed so stupidly in there too. Just adding some reverb when indoors could have helped. This dialogue is carried over even to co-op, but its slightly less present there. I was mostly playing with one friend, we had markers off (of course the game has that irritating thing where you can see spotted enemies through walls, but you could turn it off, thank god), played on a harder difficulty and I have to say that when you get into the roleplaying mode, the game becomes fun after you get used to its shitty parts. Still, there is some dialogue there during missions and such and so many times we both went “hooly fuck SHUT UP! YOU ARE RUINING THE MOOD!”. The open ended nature of the game was to its detriment sometimes. The map is huge and it has many good different areas in it. There are desert areas, a salt flat area, jungles, a marsh, forests, coastal areas. A wide variety of places which was nice. But since the game has this system where you can find the guns and attachments in different regions after you gather intel in those areas, the first 10 hours of the game was “oh, FAMAS is in that zone, lets go there!” and we traveled from one zone to another, just picking up weapons and not doing any of the missions. We could have just...not done that, but there was always some weapon than I or my friend wanted and we just couldn’t control ourselves. The game also has no structure and the story gets drowned underneath a chaos of random information about the bosses in the areas and such. When you enter a new zone, you get a new video briefing for the boss of that area and it wont go away until you fucking watch it. It all got in the way. Most of the bosses/leaders were honestly pretty interestingly made character wise, but taking them down felt like taking down any other trivial enemy in most cases aside from few exceptions. One leader we took out accidentally during their main mission. We didn’t realize that the target was there until one of us had accidentally shot her. Not good!

There is a bunch of weapons in the game and most of them handle okay after you get used to them. Most of them are not really useful on paper, but I never get bothered by that. I’ll use guns that I like based on their looks, sometimes I didn’t attach any scopes on them, no lasers most of the time just to make the guns look neat. I like that. Having options on that stuff is always great. The character customization was alright too, but it could have been a bit more extensive. More actual military gear would have been neat.

There is lots of optional stuff that has a purpose. Like gather resources/skillpoints to allow you to get all kinds of perks and new equipment. I liked that, it could have been better, but most of the options there were meaningful. Like more resistance to bullets, getting an EMP or an explosive charge on your drone, a grenade launcher, a parachute for base jumping/jumping from planes etc. There were some pointless ones, but I like how squishy you start out as and you can upgrade yourself to live at least a moment longer in firefights. Allows for some more fun later on. You can gather resources by tagging stuff in towns, small and large enemy camps, military bases etc. You can also stop enemy convoys that were always pretty hard, but it was actually fun. Some drive by action that always seemed to go south. Chasing a convoy, people firing back and forth wildly, unidad car driving randomly by, getting hit and then they are added to the mix. Sometimes a fuel truck we were supposed to stop and tag ended up exploding due to it, but it was still fun. Then there are some building clearing missions, some infuriating “drive to this place before time runs out” stuffs and so on. The main missions did have a good amount of variety to them. Some forced stealth missions, tailing missions, interrogations and personnel extractions, some simple ones like blow up drug caches. The ones where you need to grab some guy from a base were the most fun ones. Sometimes we did them mostly by stealth, by it always went to shit towards the end. It almost always ended up in everything exploding, my friend stealing a shitty car from somewhere, we would throw the guy we need into the trunk and drive away. Good stuff.

The stealth system is a bit so so. You can sneak fairly well and as long as you sync up shots and go for close range/melee kills, you can stay undetected pretty well. The is a cover system, but the character sticks to  cover automatically. Its fairly smooth, but I sometimes wished that I could have just locked myself into a cover without accidentally jumping out of cover. The enemies are fairly perceptive (atleast on the harder difficulties, I hear they are braindead on normal and apparently rarely notice dead bodies) and they actually flank and investigate areas well. For some time we played without the minimap too and we had to use mines if we chose to be sniping far away. Few times they surprised us by coming from a weird direction in great numbers and gunned us down before we could say SHIT.

Firefights themselves play out fine. It took a while to learn to aim in the shoulder view without the crosshair, but it wasn’t too hard. There is an actual aim down sights mode that is sometimes a bit awkward, but works fine for medium/long ranges. Actual close quarters firefights were almost always incredibly awkward. Many of the indoor areas are so cramped and the third person view was to the games detriment there. Sometimes I died when playing solo because the camera would not co-operate with me and I couldn’t see some areas as well as I would have in first person shooters. In Co-op it wasn’t that much a problem since we cleared houses and such at the same time. I really wish there were more larger indoors areas. There were factories that you could enter, a few mansions, a casino and so on. But they were criminally underused. At least the military bases and cities had a good amount of buildings you could enter. Sniping was fine balance wise, but the bullet drop was pretty ridiculous. DMR’s for example completely worthless when not in stealth as in stealth enemies have less health. When they are in combat mode, their body armor magically becomes effective. It’s fine honestly, but feels a bit odd how a fucking DMR turns into a worthless piece of junk. Only bolt action snipers were worth it, but I don’t really like sniper rifles so I rarely used those. I mostly ran with an SMG and LMG setup. Sometimes an AR and a shotgun. When playing with a friend, he did most of the sniping. I would spot targets for him or just go sneak around in some objective area and he watched my back from the distance. It was honestly pretty fun like that. We mostly drove/flew to places and tried to avoid fast travel, but goddamnit the cars are fucking horrible. They have no weight to them. They are like balloons that have tires glued to them. They slide all over the place, they can climb any surface and any terrain. A sports car has no trouble climbing a steep mountain in the middle of the jungle. The biggest issue really is the lack of weight with them. They feel so weird. Car chases and stopping convoys was still fun when on asphalt roads, but when it went to the dirt roads, it all became nightmarish.

The people saying the game is okay in co-op were right. I’ll give them that. It can be fun when playing with someone you get along with, but overall the open world plague, the lack of refinement and lack of structure really bring this potentially great game down. I oddly enough enjoyed my time with it and I can see myself dropping back in from time to time if need be. But if you want to operate like an operator operates, just play rainbow six siege. The game ended up being better than I imagined it would, but its still not great. Its not for everyone and you have to be able to overlook a huge amount of irritations and issues. Most of which you get used to overtime. One reason why I can look at it so positively is the fact that I didn’t buy this game myself. My friend bought it to me since I refused to drop 60eurodoubloons on this game. So my view on its actual value is a bit all over the place due to this. If you are not tired of the open world genre, you might actually enjoy this far more than I did. 6/10 worth getting from a sale, grab a friend with you and you can have a surprisingly good time. Avoid cars, disable HUD elements and increase the difficulty. Take your time and try to clear areas in order and you might make some sense of the overall story.

[moczothe1st]

Let’s Play Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War - Part 3 : Isn’t it Ayronic?

Part 2

Welcome back to Let’s Play Fire Emblem IV: The Name is Very Long.  When we left off, we were in Evans Castle, preparing to fight back a terribly dangerous and exciting attack on our way of life!  So you know what that means… time to learn about new gameplay mechanics whoo!

Welcome to the castle screen, wherein you start every chapter except the first one.  In here we can have characters visit the local town, wait to heal up, assign them to guard the castle, and obviously decide who will be in the army you sortie for each map. There’s no character limit, so you can send everyone; and unless they end up totally shitty and useless (ALEC AND NOISH) you might as well, honestly.  

Let’s start off by visiting the village.  

As you can see, there are six options when in the castle town, and you’ll be needing about four of them.

Blacksmith: Repairs your weapons and staves for money. The better the weapon, the more it costs, but characters with good weapons have the easiest time making money because…

Arena: Fight in gladiator matches to earn experience points and money. Only characters that can fight, obviously; those who don’t have an offensive weapon to bring in need not apply.  There are seven fights to go through in each chapter, each harder than the one before it, and honestly there are some characters who simply cannot make it through them all, period (ALEC AND NOISH). But you should always try to get everyone as far as they can for the extra EXP and the sweet, sweet money.  

Also, it can be save scummed. See, Genealogy is super huge, so it lets you save the game at the start of every turn, as long as none of your characters have spent their turn. Using the arena does not count as using a turn.  So there’s nothing stopping you from saving and reloading after victories until you get favorable RNG in terms of winning battles and gaining levels. But that would be morally wrong.  Bwhahahaha.

Pawnbroker: Buys and sells weapons/items. Because characters cannot trade weapons to each other, because this game was designed by the Devil, the only way to move an item from one character to another is to have them sell it to the Pawnbroker and then buy it back with a different person.  

Augury: Look up what units are approaching a Romance with each other, and how many kills a unit has. Interesting, but not super useful since your control over Romances are fairly limited (if two characters are showing up as ready to romance here, then you have to be very lucky to stop it), and knowing how many kills they’ve gotten is neat but doesn’t actually help anything.

Supply: Store items you don’t have room for. Really aren’t enough items in the game to bother with this, because if a character doesn’t have room to hold something, they should probably sell it to someone who can put it to use.  

Armory: Sells a limited supply of new weapons for better prices than the pawn shop, but you can’t sell your own things to them and their supply is limited.  Restocks occasionally throughout the campaign, so check it every chapter. To start:

Nothing great, but I have Finn buy the Javelin to give him a distance option, upgrade Lex to a Steel Axe (but do not sell his Iron Axe! It’s important later, seriously!) and have Arden buy the Slim Sword to help his accuracy a little. I also go to the Pawnshop, and sell Sigurd’s Steel Sword to let Alec buy it.  Now it’s time to cheese the shit out of properly and politely face the Arena. It’s super tedious to both do and watch, so I’ll do the basics first and then proceed to do it off-screen with everyone.

Step 1: Enter the arena and pick a weapon to use.  

Step 2: Be told who your enemy will be, so if they’re not a good match for the weapon you picked you might as well just quit, go back, and pick a different one if you can.  

Step 3: Kick ass. All battles in the arena are to the finish; units will just keep attacking like in normal battles until one is defeated. Don’t worry if you lose; you don’t die, it will just leave your unit back in the castle with 1HP.  Conversely, if they win, they’re healed to full.  

Step 4: Get money! Each tier gives you a 500 more than the tier before it, so winning all of them is a pretty hefty payday.  

Now, let’s do this. See you in sixty years.  

Sigurd:  7 wins, gained two levels. +2 HP, +1 Skill, +1 Strength, +1 Speed, +1 Luck

Quan:  7 Wins, gained three levels. +2 HP, +1 Skill, +1 Strength,  + 1 Luck, +2 Defense

Arden: 5 wins, gained one level.  +1 HP +1 Speed

Noish: 3 wins, gained one level. +1 Speed +1 Defense

Lex: Five wins, gained three levels.  +2 HP, +2 Luck, +3 Defense

Azel: 3 wins, gained one level. +1 HP, +1 Skill, +1 Speed, +1 Magic, +1 Luck

Ethlyn: 3 wins, gained one level. +1 Skill, +1 Strength, +1 Luck, +1 Defense

Alec: 3 wins, gained one level. +1 HP, +1 Resistance

Finn: 4 Wins, gained one level. +1 HP, +1 Skill, +1 Speed

Midir: 5 wins, gained two crappy levels. +2 HP, +1 Skill

Not… great. I was hoping more people would be able to win, but tier four is a super fast sword guy that tripped a lot of people up, and tier six is a stupid fast wind mage that tended to crush the people who made it past him. Only Sigurd and Quan were badass enough to finish the whole thing. I’ll try again with some of them near the end of the chapter, after they’ve gained some levels in the field.

That done, let’s head right on out, and meet the Verdane invasion. I assume they’re still coming, even though we spent ten million years in the arena.

So here we go. Three enemy castles, one neutral castle at Nordion, and our home base in Evans. There are also three villages; one directly south of Evans, one to the south-central portion of the map near the second enemy castle, Marpha, and one directly to the west of that. All of them just give out money and lore info, so if you miss one it isn’t a huge loss, but we’ll try to get them all anyway. And of course, before we do anything else, checking the menu screen…

Shows Quan and Finn have a conversation to have.  We send them out of the castle to chat.

Quan: Thank you, Finn.

Finn: Even so, I am but a page… It honors me to have your confidence, but I doubt I’ll be much use to you.  

Quan: Is that so? In that case, what better time than now for a spot of hands-on training? Draw, Finn!

Finn: Yes, sir!

This conversation gives Finn a permanent +1 to Strength, Skill, and Defense, and now you start to see why he is better than Alec and Noish. This is not the last time Quan or Ethlyn just randomly gives him an awesome present; apparently the Lenster Royal Family are great bosses.   We deploy the rest of the army, move them as far toward Genoa as they can travel, and end our turn. No enemies are close enough to reach us or to reach any of the villages, so the enemy phase goes by quickly, and…

(Oh, hey, story is happening. You might remember Prince Jamke from the chapter start cutscene. He is handsome, young, and not smirking like a jackass, so you probably guessed he was the good prince. Well, you weren’t wrong.)

Jamke: You need to get as far away as you can before Gandolf finds out!

Aideen: Pardon me, Prince Jamke, but are you not joining us?

Jamke: No. I won’t stand for my brothers’ vile ways, but I won’t just betray my father, either. I’m going back to the capital. I’m going to try, one more time, to convince my father.

Aideen: You’re right… we must do all we can to end this war as soon as possible. Prince Jamke, I would sooner not burden you alone, but you are our only hope to persuade King Batur to end this.

(Oh good, the obnoxious child character is joining the cast. I really love how everything needs to have one of those.)

(Jamke, you’re okay in my book.)

Jamke: If Aideen hadn’t insisted on letting you go too, you’d still be sitting in chains. Now, what did you promise to do?

Dew: I know, I know. I promised Aideen too. I’m washin’ my hands of thievin’ from now on. Can I go now?

Jamke: I’ll take your word for it. Now, go already!

(Jamke heads back to Verdane Castle, and we zoom in to Marpha to see Bandana Rapist learning his life has gone wrong.)

Gandolf: Gah! Damn my rat of a brother! Boys! We’re taking the wench and the brat back! If they put up a fight, kill ‘em if you have to!

Well, on the down side, we got an entire second army heading our way now. That’s not ideal. But hey, two new characters! Let’s check ‘em out.

First, Aideen, the team’s first Priest. Her class can’t fight at all until they promote, and she has no abilities at all, so she’s not gonna be super good for dealing with this army that’s right next to her. But hey, she’ll be wonderful when we get her home, because she’s a much better healer than Ethlyn. Her magic is higher, and her Mend staff is better than Ethlyn’s Heal staff on top of that; I might have them trade out later, but for now they can stick where they are.  In addition, her speed, luck, and resistance are all solid, so she can do a very good job of tanking against mage units when we run into some.  She does have Minor Ullur Blood, but can’t get the greatest benefit from it because the weapon it empowers is Bows, which can’t use. It does improve her HP Growths by +20% and her Luck growths by +30%. She can also have a conversation with Ethlyn that will get her a gift. They did grow up next door to each other, after all.  

And… then there’s Dew. He’s… I just hate him so much.  As you can see, he is a melee unit despite having Strength and Defense that are total garbage.  His Speed and Luck are excellent, so he’ll dodge well, and he’s level 1 so he’ll grow quickly, but at this point in the game he will break like cheap glass under any attack at all.  

That said, he’s not worthless, and in fact is very useful if leveled up.  He comes with three abilities that are all quite excellent: Steal, which lets him take the gold from any enemy he lands a hit on; Sol, which has a chance of causing any damage he causes to heal him; and Bargain, which cuts the prices in half for him when shopping at stores.  Plus, as a Thief, he is the only class that can give his gold to any other unit, where most units can only give gold to their own Lover.  So you see, his primary role in the army for the foreseeable future will be to rob the shit out of axe dudes who can’t hit him, and then give that money to people who are useful.  Then, with luck, he will gain a few levels while doing this and his reasonably good growths will give him the stats to actually contribute to the army.

TL;DR, I hate Dew but I’mma use him anyway because he’s actually not a bad unit, despite having a very slow start. I just hate him anyway because I’m a miserable child-hating bastard. 

I have Aideen run away, and have Dew camp out on the village nearby. He basically can’t be hit by the axe units of Verdane as long as he’s standing on a defensive terrain of some sort, and while he won’t kill anything, he can at least chip away and steal some gold.  

Back to the main army, we move south to start the attack on Kinbaith’s army. He himself isn’t anything special, and his army is mostly crap despite his two Leadership Stars buffing them, but he’s a pain in the ass for one specific reason:

Note that little bag icon next to his Hand Axe? That symbolizes an item which will drop when the enemy is killed, ending up in the inventory of whoever kills them. Now since units cannot trade items because of the dark influence of Satan Who Is the Devil, this means you preferably want any unit with a drop item to be killed by someone who can put it to good use right away. This is annoying from the very get go and never stops being annoying.  This is actually one of the less terrible ones; the only person who can use the Hand Axe at all is Lex, so we want Lex to kill Kinbaith if at all possible. At least Lex can fight, so that ain’t too bad. Time to rock!  

First, the unit going for the nearby village gets to meet Sigurd.  

I don’t think he enjoyed the meeting. It’s okay, neither did I, that level was pretty crap.  Everyone else has been put onto a forest to let Kinbaith’s idiot squad crash against us like waves upon the sand. Let’s watch.  

I would like to thank my kids for their expert dodging.  Don’t know how Noish pulled it off, since he has been playing the game like he has a magnet in his face, but hey. Only one person took a hit, and two kills. And Dew is so guaranteed to dodge the enemy didn’t even take a swing at him. Wimps. I start off my turn by having Aideen run away, and letting him take a shot of his own.  

God, look at that shit damage. Everything about you is bad, Dew. Thanks for the money, though. Other characters take their shots at the units Noish weakened in his bout of random matrix dodging. Azel, Quan, Noish, and Sigurd all get kills of weakened enemies, but only one person gains a level on this turn…  

And he’s starting to scare me. Just… who is this guy. I’ve never had Finn turn out this good, never. He’s going from ‘pretty okay’ to ‘endgame tier’ with surprising speed.  I’m not complaining, exactly, but I’m starting to worry if he’s sucking the power out of everyone else to fuel his demonic rise.  

Um… end turn, I guess. We broke the back of Kinbaith’s army and the rest are set to charge a giant wall of metal once again. That should be funny.

… Unless Alec ruins this for me. Don’t ruin this for me, Alec.

… Why would he go after Midir? The one person who could counter him?

Guys. There’s a whole other army of people who can’t fight back against you.

I shouldn’t be having to give you tactical advice!

… You know, I mean, I shouldn’t complain, this was pretty great for me. But it’s almost frustrating to see it happening.  

The enemy phase ends when the little army near Dew takes on swing at him; the commander has a small shot to connect, and tries. It doesn’t work.

This may take awhile. I have him attack and rob another random axe dude, and then go back up to the main army and rock shit out.  Arden! Kill!

I’m almost relieved that wasn’t amazing. It feels more normal. FINN! KILL!

BEHOLD MY POWER! NOISH! FAIL ME!

We’ve grown so amazing that even Noish can’t fail us anymore! Bwhahahahahaahahha… BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  SIGURD, TEACH KINBAITH TO FEAR ME!

LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEXXXXXX!

HAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *cough cough* I’m… sorry. I mean. I’m not used to things lining up so beautifully on this run, so I went a little mad with power. That was just… that was goddamn textbook. And Lex even gained a perfect level to cap it off and… what’s happening. Is this joy? I’m feeling joy.  *sigh* It’s nice. It won’t last, but it’s nice.  

Two enemies left. Azel walks up and eats the archer….

*sniff* I may cry. One guy left and three people to four people to hit him with.  Just to be safe, I run Ethlyn in to heal Alec, then feed the last kill to him and Midir.

Midir takes a hit, just to make me unhappy after his perfect performance, but he gets the kill. I’ll allow it. End. Turn.

… Yeah, before we do anything with Ayra, we need to get people down there to help Dew. He has a 6% chance to die and I don’t trust those odds.  Ethlyn heals up Midir, and then takes the nearby village.  

(Well, I have good news for you, then.)

Woman who wasn’t paying attention: Barely a month goes by without him settin’ his army on us. It’s terrifyin’! King Batur, his father, used to do such a fine job of keeping him check. I can hardly imagine what’s goin’ on… anyway, glad you stopped by!

Great conversationalist, that one.  Run, run, run to the southwest, my minions!  Go and save the annoying child character!

Who is, to be fair, not doing super bad. Would have liked some strength there, but I can live with more speed. Lower that 6% chance to die until I can get some friends your way.

Back with the main army, Aideen has finally reached the team. I have her and Midir chat setting them up to one day have beautiful romance.

Midir: I’m so sorry I failed to protect you. Please, forgive me…

Aideen: The important part is that you’re safe as well, Midir. Please, don’t worry about it. You gave your all to protect me, and I couldn’t thank you enough for that, even if you didn’t succeed. For now, I’d like you to remain with Sigurd. He could use your strength.

(Ordinarily I would challenge that assumption, but in this case she’s actually not wrong. Midir has been rocking out this run.)

Midir: Certainly, Milady. He’s done so much for me, for you, and for all of Jungby. I’ll do all I can to return his kindness.

That done, we have Aideen heal his ouchies and move the army down another run toward Dew. We’re coming, little dude! Slowly are we coming!

Right after we have more conversations!

Aideen: Please accept my apologies. I’ve put the people of Chalphy through nothing but danger…

Sigurd: Don’t worry about it. Everyone will be glad to know you’re safe. You’ve nothing to worry about anymore. The road back to Jungby is secure for you, when you’re ready.

Aideen: No, I wish to remain here. Injuries are inevitable in war. As a humble servant of the gods, it is my duty to stay here and aid the wounded.

Sigurd: Say… Aideen, as I recall, you declined to pursue a knighthood and instead joined the clergy. Am I right? I shouldn’t be surprised, knowing how easily people warm to you, and you them. I’d do well to learn from your example!

Aideen: Thank you, Lord Sigurd, but that isn’t entirely true. Initially, I sought priesthood in a bid to help me find my sister. Even now, I still believe this is the answer I seek.

Sigurd: You mean Bridget… I’d heard she went missing as a child. So all this time, Aideen, you’ve been praying for her sake, haven’t you?

Aideen: Yes. I know we’ll meet someday. No matter what happens, I must give her this: her sacred birthright, the bow Yewfelle!

… … … I am suddenly very much looking forward to meeting Bridget, oh yes.  The army moves southwest again, Quan and Alec stopping in range of Verdane’s second army, and Ethlyn stopping next to Aideen. One more conversation to have…

Aideen: It’s difficult to convey my thanks, but please, take this staff. I think you’ll have more use for it than me.

Ethlyn: Is this… a Return staff?! Oh, thank you, Aideen! I’ll put it to good use to help us all.

Yes, thank you, Aideen! The Return staff let’s Ethlyn warp a unit back to our home base from anywhere on the map, which is very helpful if unexpected enemies appear or you just want to get a new unit home to run the Arena.  Even better, it gives Ethlyn roughly triple the experience of healing someone, so it helps her levels shoot up much faster. All in all, a great new toy.  

With that, we move Alec and Quan into range of the enemy, and end our turn. Let’s see how this goes.

… Not great. Alec dodges, but Quan takes two hits despite being parked on a forest. My own dumb fault, I forgot to unequip his Javelin.  Luckily, nobody else can get to him, and the rest of the team is near enough to help on our next turn. Rest of the team! Help!

Well… Lex helps, anyway. Alec reminds us he’s here to disappoint, taking a shot that puts his health in the danger zone. I have him run back to Aideen, and move Quan to save himself, as he was always destined to do.

With that out of the way, he runs back to his wife for a kiss and hot cocoa, while Sigurd runs forward to assassinate the enemy commander.

… Almost. Dew lightly pokes another gentleman, and… *sigh*… I might have screwed up. They have 0% chance to hit Dew, so... End turn…

Yeah, picture this exact scene six times as Sigurd steals all the experience for himself. Dammit, did not think this through.

…. I mean… I totally planned this. Yeah. All part of my master scheme.

The only exceptions to the remorseless one-sided slaughter are one guy who goes up to hit Lex… and misses… and the Commander, who takes another shot at Dew… and misses. When my turn comes around again, I have Midir execute Lex’s attacker. He levels…

And you know, forget Aideen, I want to marry Midir at this point.  Finn runs down to Javelin the second-to-last soldier, who is attacking the village Dew was sheltering in. Ethlyn runs down to join them, giving the commander another target; I’d like Dew to get the kill, but on the way there I want him to have 100% perfect health just to be safe. She levels up from healing the little bastard.

… What is with you this run, honey? You’re letting your husband and brother down. Still, we have things mostly under control, so…

Well fuck you too, buddy. And worse, the commander I wanted Dew to kill foils my scheme and takes a shot at Finn instead.  

So Finn is wounded, badly. Reinforcements are coming. Time to run! Ethlyn heals Finn and they both make a break for it. I leave just Dew, sitting on a tree, as a distraction. Without that commander, nothing can hit him, so he’ll be a perfect roadblock as long as he stays on defensive terrain. It’s time for the rest of the team to go… *twitch*… go… try to recruit Ayra.  You might think with Kinbaith dead she’d be friendly. This is not true. And getting near her is incredibly risky for one. Big. Reason.

Astra is a venerable Fire Emblem special ability, and Ayra is (unless I’m mistaken) the first user of it, back when it was really broken. Later versions have those five strikes do half damage, but Ayra’s is just five normally-powered strikes in a row. If she hits you with that, pretty much any unit will die. And if they don’t die, they might kill her, because she’s not very durable. So I need someone she can’t Astra and who definitely won’t be able to kill her, to act as a distraction…. Huh…

Hahahaha, no. Maybe if you hadn’t spent this whole game being a sack of garbage and had gotten some good levels, but as you are now she won’t even need Astra to kick your ass. Get back in the corner, Alec. We will be using Finn, who will run from her when she gets close. Run like a coward. End turn!

I realize it doesn’t look like it, but I’m totally winning this map.

Finn gets close enough to Ayra to set her off. The idea is to have her run after him around the forest while Sigurd runs in, kills all her little buddies, and takes the castle. Once Shanan is free, then she can be reasoned with. Sigurd is ready, Finn is close enough… I think… and a few helpful units are near enough to draw a little pressure off Dew while we work. End turn…

Shit her little handaxe bros came out after us first!  This could go badly. This… this could be bad. Please don’t be bad, game, please…

…………. I mean… I planned this. Yeah.

Did not plan that though. Azel is supposed to be support but he could die here and ruin my happy accident cunning plan with Finn if he gets attacked and hit again.  

Oh God bless you, you beautiful caped madman.  

…. Here she comes. I heal Azel, move the rest of the army away from Ayra, and… and pray, mostly. Go after Finn. Go after Finn you evil bitch. Please. Please, he set you off.

Meanwhile, Verdane’s army pulls some stupid stuff. Most of them go after Lex, who levels from it, but Azel gets a few as well and also gains.  

Tolerable, if not the raw perfection I’m used to this chapter. Noish gets some ‘love’ and levels up too, but I didn’t screencap that because he got literally nothing. No points. In anything. I hate him so much.  

On my turn, we’re in a very precarious situation. Ayra is in a position where she could chase Finn, Quan, or Sigurd, and I can’t be sure who she’ll go for.  Meanwhile, the army itself is outnumbered by Verdane. This is turning into a shitshow, so my first priority even above Ayra is to thin the enemy’s numbers. Alec and Azel start by getting kills and…

… Huh. It finally happened. Even Alec doesn’t want to be associated with Noish anymore. Damn.  Dew plinks away at the enemy yet again, gaining his second level.

Maybe Noish’s role in the army is to inspire everyone else to not be like him? I know it sounds like I’m joking, but everyone else on the team scores a kill without being damaged.

Meanwhile, Quan, Finn, and Sigurd are all still in Ayra’s range. Two are parked on forests with spears to give them weapon advantage. One is not. This will be… ugly.

Please, game. Show some mercy.

The enemy phase goes perfectly fine for most of it. Nobody levels, but nobody dies and that’s a fair damn trade in my book.

And then Ayra goes for Finn.

Come on Finn…

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF, FINN…

*sigh* Astra.

Reset! I figured I’d lose at least one to her, but still. Frustration. 

Restarting from the beginning of the turn, things proceed identically up to that point. Dew gets a slightly different level because I send him a different unit, changing the RNG of his level; a point of Speed instead of a point of Defense, not really a fair trade for him, but otherwise it’s the same.

This time, with Sigurd and co, I have them not kill Ayra’s buddies, and instead have them run like terrified children. Sigurd toward the castle, Quan and Finn away.  Maybe this will work.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!  Okay. For now, we just need to have Quan and Finn up there stay out of her range at all costs, while Sigurd goes and besieges the castle by himself. That is much more realistic than fighting Ayra. Trust me.

Game is saved, and I win. Eventually. I start my turn with Aideen healing, and unlike Ethlyn she knows how we do here.

Welcome to the team, Ms. Of Jungby.  I’m very pleased to see you here. From here, I have the team rush out to meet Verdane head on, kicking ass, taking names, and nobody levels up except Alec.

Eh, still better than Noish!

Now, this was super risky and I might very well regret it. But, unless I’m wrong there’s just not enough of them left to really kill anyone; pretty much everyone is full health and they’re guarding each other’s back in a big way. Hopefully I’m not wrong.

If I am wrong, well, I did just save. Two resets is not bad.

Quan and Finn run away like frightened children, and Sigurd goes to storm the castle.   Nothing much happens, though; the castle guard has tons of health, but can’t hit Sigurd because hand-axes are inaccurate against swords. Then he immediately kills himself rushing against Siggy again on the enemy phase. Now all we need is for the main army to live!

… Ethlyn, if you fuck this up for me, I swear.

Thankfully, the others all go for Dew and miss him, so we’re pretty set. All that’s left of Verdane’s army on the map is two archers, two axe dudes, and Ayra. And soon, not even that.  Sigurd wrecks axe-dude number one, levels,

I’ll take it. And while we’re on the subject, I will also take the castle! 

Sigurd: What’s the matter? Why are you silent? I want to know why you were held here.

Shanan: You’re not one of Kinbaith’s lot… are you?

Sigurd: We’ve dealt with Kinbaith. There’s nothing to be afraid of anymore.

Shanan: Oh! So Ayra doesn’t have to keep fighting! My Aunt Ayra was forced to fight ‘cause Kinbaith had me! Please! You’ve got to help her!

Sigurd: That swordswoman. Huh. I thought there was something amiss about her… Very well! I’ll let her know that you’re safe. Now, what’s your name?

Shanan: Shanan. I’m Shanan, the prince of Isaach…

(OH. Um. Well. Awkward.)

Sigurd: Isaach’s prince, you say… I can barely begin to imagine what you’ve been through, Shanan. For now, though, you’re welcome to stay with our army. Don’t worry. One day, you’ll make it home. I’ll do all I can to ensure that.

(Awwwwwwwwwww, Sigurd, you big old softie.)

Oifey: Pardon me, sire, but we’re currently at war with Isaach. If we’re going to harbor its prince, shouldn’t we inform the king?

Sigurd: He’s a child, Oifey. That war has nothing to do with him. I’ll find a way to get him home safely, but for now, we need to look after him.

Oifey: Understood, sire. … Just as I thought. Lord Sigurd really is such a kind man…

Well, we got the castle, and with that the worst part of the map is over, so I believe it’s time to call this update.  Next week, we chat with Ayra, finally get to feed Gandolf his own bandana, experience some delicious plot development, and see perhaps the most pathetic romance in gaming.  Look forward to it!  

Total Resets: 1.  Better than I was expecting, honestly!