Part 16: Chapter XV: Journey to the South

Chapter XV: Journey to the South

"There is a fortress nearby called Poyang."

"To reach Poyang, you must use the tunnel under the mountains."

To make up for the lack of dungeons so far, we are rewarded with under passes left, right and centre from here on.



In the well, we find Zhuge Liang's claim to fame, his greatest invention ever, the crossbow.



It might not be as revolutionary as when the bow was first sold, but it's still a good weapon to have until the party gets all their ultimate weapons.

"Many villagers claim to have seen something glowing in the tunnel."





Lemme guess, it will be an awesome sword named Ragnarok that is guarded by a crystal looking dragon who can OHKO the team in one hit? Whoops, wrong game.

"I'm Lu Meng of Wu. If you invade, you will fail. Leave at once!"

Until Wu inevitably falls, this guy will be everywhere we go, and proceed to frown at us in the background, telling us to leave. He's pretty awesome like that.









Sun Quan don't need no strategists, nor naval commanders to win, he's Sun Quan!



This is a really exciting tunnel.



Unlike Dragon Warrior, which deepens the dungeon tune by one note each time you go deeper into the dungeon, this game just switches the wall colours.



As you go deeper into the dungeon, it surprisingly gets branchy, but the good side is that most branches are short, and the long ones usually lead to treasure like this one, which just so happens to be the strongest helmet in the game.



This late into the game, we're also introduced to damage tiles, which are quite minuscule in the grand scale of things.





One dungeon later, and two warlord battles, and the enemies shoot up 5,000 soldiers.



Did I even mention healing items yet? Well, if you don't have Kongming's healing tactic, these are pretty cool.



Wu designed this tunnel for tourist purposes apparently.

"Ahead something is glowing. There is a sudden chill, as if from an evil presence. Upon examination, you find a sword, glowing eerily like a forsaken spirit. Zhang Bao got a sword."



I guess the Yellow Scarves were too spooked at the concept of glowing swords, so they just decided to throw them into treasure boxes in inconvenient places along the way.





So yeah, you can keep your Mythril, Orichalcum, Cleria, Ether coated divine weapons stolen from Lord Odin himself, or whatever you kids use to make strong weapons now these days, I'm fine with just plain (possibly radioactive) iron.



I can see why Wu is so naval adept, crossing all these tunnels must suck when trying to invade with the army.



The good side is that one tunnel/vast cavern is done.



The bad side is that one really has to preserve strength, as there is a shittonne of warlord fights ahead.

"I am Ding Feng. Let's fight."



Warlords now begin to reflect commander fights soldier-wise, although I greatly respect Capcom for cutting the player some slack and making these next two fights easy after having to crawl under a big mountain.



Best part is he doesn't know Ji Mian and is alone, making this fight into who can trivialize him the fastest.

"Prepare to fight Cheng Pu."



Although the next fight can have its moments.





This innocent looking man is a man to fear; Wan Fu and Ji Mian, ugh.



If you can't tell, this is probably going to be a tactical war. So it's time to break Destiny of an Emperor forever by:



(Apparently timing my shots wrong)

Using Ce Mian! As if to exist (exactly to exist) solely to counter Ji Mian, Ce Mian has a 100% chance of sealing enemy tactics, meaning if the enemy inputs a tactic, they'll do nothing on that turn. Best part is that the enemy AI is pretty stupid and will continue to use tactics. While it does wear off randomly, it does so on your turn, meaning you can just cast it again, thus SPD and Red Hare suddenly some of the most important aspects in the game. Looking at the enemy's STR stat, this fight goes pretty quickly if one saves TP for this fight, and has a fast enough unit to maintain Ce Mian.

The final boss, and most of his cohorts are all tactics specialists. Imagine how that's going to turn out.

"Zhang Bao. I'm Lu Meng. Do you fail to comprehend my warning? Stay out of Wu!"

Better not randomly appear when Zhang Bao is taking a crap in a bush or something, or there will be real trouble.



God bless Capcom.

"Sun Quan was here but he went back to Jianye with Lu Sun."



Zhang Bao is also catching up to the enemies soldier wise, which is a good thing.



This battle will turn out to be a "Sorry but Sun Quan is in another castle". Sorry to completely spoil the game for you.

What treasures will await us upon conquering this city? Read on.