Part 15: Episode XI: In Which Flying Seems OP. Please Nerf

Episode XI: In Which Flying Seems OP. Please Nerf



Verse 3: Reign of Fire

Following the party's brief road trip through the outskirts of Four's Fortress for what seems like took forever, we finally arrive at our next hitlist victim's base of operations. I'm not sure why this mission wasn't part of the previous stage. It's literally five minutes tops. Counting cutscenes. Maybe nine if you count load times between selecting and ending the mission. Have I mentioned how shit the load times in this game tend to be? They're preeeeetty bad, let me tell ya.



Here. Hop on! I'll work double hard, okay?
Maybe if you didn't smell double-bad, I'd--



There sure are dragon. You'll notice there's just a handful of archers among about twice as many fools just making a go with it using a shield the size of a doorway. I'm not sure what exactly the latter enemy units are hoping to accomplish there.

New Music: Companthem ~ Battleground





For you see this rather spacious courtyard of Four's Fort is the entire stage. And for the duration of the mission Zero will be mounting Mikhail for an aerial assault on the ground troops. New to Mikhail's arsenal is his ground based Stamina attack of just belching a wall of fire in front of his path like a traditional dragon. Fire breath is straight up a stun locking instant kill to almost every type of standard human soldier in the game.



Four! Get your ass out here now!
Death to the demon and her dragon! Victory to Lady Four!
I'll show you victory, you asshat!
But how?! We can't win! There's no way!
We must! For Lady Four!



Mikhail is tasked with barbecuing any 20 soldiers out of the around fifty frantically running around. The game is not picky about archers or just idiots hiding behind shields or even the poor bastards just flailing their swords at the air in impotent rage as soon as Mikhail lifts off the ground.

In addition to smoking his choice of 20 tin cans, Mikhail also has to take down Four's grand artillery defenses of a whole five cannons lazily scattered about the inner courtyard. One would think a mountain top castle with the only threat against it being a lunatic and her flying lizard would beef up the aerial defenses slight more than what we've seen. An entire mountain range and there's a whole... what ten cannons spanning it? That's nearly as shit defenses as Five's navy of one ship. I feel like the Intoner administration really needs to take another look at its department of homeland defense budget.



Hey, Zero's got good points too! Lots of good points!
Such as?
Such as... Uhhh... Well, she's violent? And... kinda mean?
You call those "good" points?
Well... I mean...
Hey! I can hear you, you know!

Zero? Zero!
I told you to stop repeating yourself!
You're the only Intoner I'm sensing right now. Are you sure Four is even here?





Hold that thought, dragon. We have a Hyper Cannon to deal with. Which appears to be a akin to a World War 2 railway gun. And for tactically unclear reasons, Four's troops have the thing pointed toward the center of the structure they're defending. I feel like at this rate by the time we get down to the last couple of nations they'll just start setting off Fantasy Nukes on their own doorsteps to defend against the enemy.

...

Wait this is the Proto-Empire from Drakengard 1. They did end up doing that, didn't they...?



Excellent! Now silence the demon!
Son of a...
Death to the traitorous Intoner!
Zero! Did you hear that, Zero?
Sounds like Four caught us with our pants down.
Yeah. Definitely not our finest hour...





The Hyper Cannon itself is essentially just a standard cannon with better tracking and the ability to fire three shots in rapid succession instead of just a single at a time. It also sports thick armor plating only suitable to be damaged by bashing our thick headed dragon buddy's skull into it repeatedly. We really ought to invest in some headgear for Mikhail with all the abuse he's getting. But I'm not purchasing DLC to stick a replica of Tokyo Tower on his head. Too soon, Drakengard 3. Too soon...





Following the destruction of the phallic spitfire, Four's troops employ their final line of defenses: A fearsome trio of Gigas creatures. You know, the Gigas fellows that are entirely melee based bruisers with absolutely no long range capabilities or really any defense against a flame spewing dragon beyond shaking their fists angrily at the sky and throwing a tantrum with their clubs.



What a crock of shit. You bastards think you're smart, huh?
Zero! Four isn't even here! You don't have to--
Quiet! They put me through this shit, and now they're gonna pay!
Jeez, Z. You sure can be scary sometimes.
Our ranks are crumbling.
Get back in formation! The longer we hold out the farther Lady Four can flee.
Lady Four? Is Lady Four safe?!
Watch out for the dragon's fire! Waaaaaah! I'm a goner
Hee hee hee hah hah hah! Oh man, this is great... I love watching these fools suffer!
That's mean, Dito!
Heh. I hardly expect a dumb beast like you to understand.
That's mean too!







Picking on helpless hillbilly giants is also likely a mean action. But eh. You gotta do what you gotta do. By the way, the plural of Gigas is Gigantes according to Drakengard 3. Well, suppose we aren't far from Not-Spain after all.

After the last of Four's castle defenses are wiped out...





Dragons don't have families, and even we know they're important.
Not to me, they're not. Ugh... I'm going to need a new plan...



She says that like there was ever a plan beyond taking a murder road trip and hoping for the best. Eh, I'm sure it'll be fine. After all we're half way through the chapter now. And it says right here in the script: Chapter End. Intoner Sister gets murdered by Zero. At least the pages of the script I can read. It looks like someone spilled some coffee all over the back pages. Not sure what that's all about... I'm sure it's fine.

What's the worse that could go wrong in the back half of a Taro Yoko joint...?







Video: Chapter 2 Verse 3 Highlight Reel



Archer Concept Art - Don't ask me why they're vaping.