Part 20: Chapter XIX: Sun Zi's Art of Dancing

Chapter XIX: Sun Zi's Art of Dancing



I like this scene, I think more dialogue should be delivered in the comfort of a bed.

"Where are we?"

"We witnessed Sima Yi's coup and he attacked us with thunder."

"But I don't remember anything after that."

Lightning with teleportation ability, or maybe Kongming carried the entire army home on his back? In either case, I'm sure Liu Bei will know what to do!

"Zhang Bao, are you all right? Guan Suo, son of Guan Yu, found you unconscious and brought you back here. You should go to Changsha Castle to thank him. You might even learn something about Sima Yi's magic."

Meh, at least Sima Yi was nice enough to leave the party alone as they were smouldering under a tree long enough for Guan Suo, on his Sunday walk through Wei to notice them and pick them all up then drop them off in the closest town.



Thankfully, both Changsha and Jianye are both places one can Gullwing to, making the journey much less tedious.



I always liked Guan Yu's sprite and its oversized scalpel, and mass of condensed purple and orange armour and muscle.

"Sima Yi's thunder tactic is one of the tactics in Sun Zi's book. I know the counter-spell. Up, up, down, down, left, right, up, down. Do this when he's calling the thunder and it will be negated."

So yes.. it turns out that the lightning strikes in particular patterns, and the only way to negate it is if Zhang Bao gets on the podium and has a dance off competition (possibly DDR style?), while dodging the lightning bolts. I better see fan art of this sometime soon.



Remember what I said last chapter about commander battles being tougher than general battles?..



Fortunately, Sima Yi puts all his confidence in his magic, so he doesn't rearm the forts, meaning we can march right into Runan without much conflict.

"Liu Bei's army. You can't stand against my thunder."

There is a break in the text, and the text flow stops altogether as this is where you input the hot dance moves, stunning Sima Yi, and impressing the Wei army tenfold.

"My thunder failed?! Then brute force will suffice."



Wow, rude, he also has 20,000 soldiers on us, but oh well.



The game also knows how to play itself properly, so who honestly cares if the big bad guy in the game only has 180 STR? He can outsmart half of the team, AND has 40,000 to offset his lowish strength, so 180 STR really means nothing. Also, if you don't silence the opposing team, he knows Wan Fu, and lemme tell you, it SUCKS when he is down to 2,000 soldiers, only for him to 100% heal himself, I know this from experience.



I like to imagine that this is what an older Kai from Gundam 0079 would look like as a Chinese Han Dynasty warlord.



And Dian Wei is as dumb, but muscular as he was before.



See? The problem with breaking the game is that all battles are basically exactly the same to present. The only real difference are the lengths of the battles, as Sima Yi has 40,000 soldiers, but that only really effects the player, and not the reader.

"You've penetrated further than I thought but it's not over yet!"

While it would no doubt be easy to make a submissive homosexual reference of some quantity here on Sima Yi's behalf, that would be too easy and cheap. Sima Yi isn't the kind of man who enjoys having his masculinity called out anyway. Instead we shall indubitably find solecist in the fact that Sima Yi just butchered a man to death last update, yet the team simply lets him slip off into the mountains. This is pitted with the fact there is really only one way into the mountains, yet the team didn't have the audacity to block off that path.

"That is Chin Castle but neither road nor pass that goes there."

"I remember an old story about a tunnel which leads to Chin Castle."

Well how else do you think Sima Yi was able to retreat to there, by chopper? Because boats sure as hell don't exist in this game.



I wonder where this secret path is?...



Before I reveal the secret path, everyone gets a helmet upgrade, which is very nice no doubt, as steel apparently exists in this era.



This is probably the first time I captured a screenshot correctly, at least I'm happy about this.



Being a tunnel, this is a rather linear journey, in which treasure litters the short branches along the way.



Getting a "Stick" in the final dungeon sort of speak.



Yay!



Aww...



In a way, I could get used to linear dungeons, I'm not a fan of playing some JRPG where every dungeon in it has the feeling of being lost in the stone mines under Paris.



In the few damage tiles this game has, it is always worth it to tread across them, as they always lead to goodies.









The strongest armour in the game may I add.



But that wasn't the reason we came over here, so rage averted. Although Wan Sheng is one of the five swords, it and Bo Ye both only have 190 A.P, where the other three swords have 240.



Mountain passes probably would have been easier economically than actually having to build two consecutive tunnels. This is also the final dungeon in the game, as we are approaching endgame.



The first floor is basically long, winding corridor with more-than-obvious forks in the road.



The second floor has two exits to the west (exit) and north (wondrous treasure), and easily obtained eye candy.



As in go west, then south, then east.











For such an easy path to treasure we are rewarded in kind. But hey, at least we can sell this junk! Not like we need the funds anyway.



This is a nice find, I guess.



On the path going out, there is a branch, which leads to this +240 A.P weapon.



But the path going north is the path you want to take, seeing as it leads to this.



In the end, real men don't need no glowing swords, they just need a spear with an axe on it to be the strongest warlord in China!



More treasure in the short branches.



The rest of the dungeon, well..



Better late than never, I suppose.



And so begins our assault against Sima Yi.

Who will prevail: Shu or Wei? Read on.