Part 7: Ep 7: Full Metal Pirate

Chapter 3: Lionheart Eldigan Part 1



When we last left off, most of Sigurd's army had promoted, and we were ready to get on to the chapter proper.



Chapter 3 is another large map with a lot of backtracking, although the time limits are a little bit more lax, as the villages are easy to save, and Ferry can always go help Briggid and friends. The difficulty here will be to deal with the improved weaponry of most enemies here, as well as the bosses and mini-bosses scattered all around the map.

And just you wait until Eldigan pops up...



For now, we're going to be spliting our forces. Ethlyn and Quan should be able to easily take care of the Lance Knights to the west.



Holyn and Aira can have their conversation here, which will reward Aira with her fantastic Brave Sword. Well, at least it was fantastic in regular FE4. Here, it's less powerful, less accurate, and heavier. But it still has its uses, especially when Aira is low on health and needs to avoid counter-attacks.

The two of Holyn and Aira are close to promotion, so they'll go for the center to grab those last points of experience.



Interestingly enough, if you have Lex talk to Aira instead, he will give her something different: the King Sword. Just like in Thracia 776, it has good offensive power, some critical and gives the ever-useful Charisma skill when equipped. It doesn't have the Brave effect anymore, though.

Both weapons are pretty great, and none should really influence your choice of pairings as the one you didn't pick will be obtainable later on in gen 2. The King Sword might end up seeing more use, just because you don't need to swing it for it to be useful, but if memory serves, you get the King Sword earlier in gen 2 than the Brave Sword.



Azel and Jamke are going to charge through the forest to take care of the mages stationned north...



Then Ferry is going to the northwest to save some villages, while Ethlyn and Quan wait for the Lance Knights brigade at the edge of the forest.



Finally, Beowolf, Adean and Midayle are going to head east to take care of those armors. Midayle is extremely close to promotion, so I feed him the kills there.



In vanilla FE4, all enemies in these separate squads were pretty generic, and all had Steel weaponry. In Binary, all the brigade leaders have some leadership stars and the Adept skill, and half of their troops have Killer weapons.



One turn later, Beowolf activated a ton of Adepts and Charges against the General, so Midayle can get his 20th level...



Purely defensive. Not bad, though it's offense he's more lacking in.



Some of the northern armor have started charging at us. I want to get some money and experience for Dew, this chapter, so he should be taking part in a lot more fights.



All the eastern armors suicided on Beowolf after their leader died. He and Adean will take good care of the norteastern villages while Midayle goes back to the castle.



In the west, everything is fine as well. Binary replaced the Duke Knight leader with an Iron Knight, for variety. It really doesn't change much, though.



And in the center, we outnumber these guys 10 to 9. More if we count Sylvia's dancing. Thanks to all those promoted units, that shouldn't be too bad.



Great level. She's still a bit low in the Skill department, so I'm starting to get a bit worried about Delmud and Nanna later on, since their father will be Lex.



Yoink. Gimme all your money!



And that's probably the grossest overkill critical I've seen in awhile.



Not a very good level, but I'm pretty sure she's capped a few stats already.



Also, did you forget about our Triangle Attack? Because having Arden mounted sure helps to set those up, now. And any critical from his Iron Blade hurts.



I'm a bit surprised that Binary didn't give that poor mini-boss a sword, or something. I mean, he's an archer, he really needs it.



Once that's cleared, our forest team prepares to lure the mage squad in. Sigurd is going to be here mostly to help with the Hit% against the female Mage Fighter in the middle, who's got a Fire Sword, an Elfire, and whole lot of evade.

Originally, she was a Fire Mage, flanked by two mages, who both got genderbent in Binary and use Wind magic now.



Oh, speaking of Mages, the ones up there near the fort have Meteor and can move. Not like they're very sharp, if they believe Lewyn is a good target.

Some of their squadmates were also replaced: two Bow Armors are now legitimate Archers, and two of the Lance Armors are now Free Fighters with Steel Swords and Hand Axes.



The good thing about these Mages is that as soon as we enter their range, the rest of the army will be recklessly rushing at us on the road, away from the range of their precious ballistae. Even the Fortify Bishop charges along. I guess it was a good intention to give his a new Elfire tome to defend himself, but that was forgetting how the FE AI throws away everything about "safety first" once it gets a weapon in its hands.



And in the forest, we have a rare sight of Azel not only kicking ass in battle, but also looking stylish while doing so. And all it took was a different promotion path.



The same goes for Ethlyn, who went on a critical spree on the enemy's turn, leaving only the Iron Knight mini-boss, barely alive.



And now, she has equal Strength and Magic. Sweet.



Oh right, I almost forgot about you. Midayle is back at the castle and finally ready to promote.



His default choice is to become a Bow Knight, with pretty basic stats boosts, one more rank in both Swords and Bows and one more movement. It's pretty much more of the same, and it fits his stats pretty well.

His armor also received a bit of a paint job in Binary, going from white to green. I guess the author really wanted color-coordinated knights.



Just like Beowolf, Midayle's second promotion choice involves ditching his horse and becoming a Sniper. He gains much better stats in Skill and Speed, a +5 crit boost and the Pursuit skill that he already had. He also gets a boost in Bows, but cannot use Swords anymore and loses one movement point. He also looks identical to Jamke, if not for the green hair.

Since we already have a perfectly fine Sniper and Midayle is really more meant to be a mounted knight, I'll stay with the first option.



Speaking of Snipers, let's see if Jamke can hopefully hit that lady once of twice for Azel to finish her... those Hit odds really don't look that great.



Ooooor he could crit her right off the bat. I take back all those hurtful things I said about your skill with a bow, Jamke.



Adean quickly delivers divine punishment on the nearest Pirate, uncovering Lord Fiat's secret vacation spot. He shoos her away by throwing a Restore staff at her.



Quan quickly finishes off his Iron Knight mini-boss and spends a bit of quality time with his wife. He's a bit low on levels, but he won't be able to see any enemies until Eldigan arrives.



And with the Lady Sword and a timely crit, Ferry can make the life of these pirates a whole lot crappier. She's still a bit low on money, so I might as well give her that village as a reward.



Speaking of timely crits... I really love the Lord/Princess/Knight critical animation. Sure, it looks frantic and confusing, but if you look close enough, it has sooo many different frames of animation.



And a few more fights later, the Bishop is exposed. First, Dew will jack all his bling.



Yes, I value that money more than Dew's life, considering those odds.



But hey, what doesn't kill him makes him stronger! Well... sturdier, at least.



Can't really say the same for Holyn. But hey, at least he's ready for promotion now. However, he still needs to grab a little something up north before getting returned to the home castle.



Only one guy left, with some of my guys pretty weak and in range of the ballistae. Who will that armor choose to attack...?



He chose poorly.



And Lewyn figures that if everyone is so intent on attacking him, he might as well become a bit sturdier, just in case.



As for the ballistae, they all went for Sigurd. I never noticed how the projectiles they fire are different depending on the type of ballista. The one on the left is an Iron one, and the one on the right a Killer one.



One more village to rescue...



... and one level closer to Raquesis's promotion.



After taking down all the remaining mages, Azel turned his eyes on saving the village just west of Madino. I wonder how close he is to capping that Magic?



Sylvia certainly is far from it, that's for sure.



And now, to take down the ballistae. They seem to be the only notable enemy units so far to have changed locations. They used to be bunched up behind the castle, but are now more spread out, with the two Iron ones blocking the bridges to the Killer ballista.



They're still pretty easy to clear out with the cavalry. Now all that's left is the boss. And our FE3 cameo mini-boss from earlier.



I do like the way they positionned those ballistae. It forces units into Jacoban's range, who still yells his sword's name at people apparently.



He's received minor 1~2 stat boosts, a Leadership star, and a much-needed Magic Ring so his weapon wouldn't be completely useless at range. He's also got Luna, a most popular skill among Mercenaries it seems. Lewyn should be able to soften him up for Aira to take the kill, and the sword.



Now, as for our cameo buddy Gomes...



He certainly has better stats and weaponry than in FE3. He's got the Brave Axe he stole from Lex, as well as the most dangerous Pugi, from Thracia 776. He's also got Critical to screw you over, and the goddamn Steal skill. Good luck trying to dodge 2 Brave Axe blows...



The only one who could dodge the Pugi consistently was our master chipper Lewyn. Holyn goes in for the kill.



And wow, not only does he have his own palette, he also has a death quote. Come on, Google, show we what you can do!

quote:

Messing around!
Or dropped balls!
Who fuck old man is ze... that contains the spirit still...

*sigh*

Kidding aside, those quotes are actually all pronounced by Sergeant Hartman in the japanese Full Metal Jacket movie. The quotes in particular would be: "Bullshit! Sound off like you got a pair. You climb obstacles like old people fuck... Why..."

Well I... certainly wasn't expecting that kind of reference from this hack. _{Besides, Holyn can climb cliffs like a pro, so I don't see what all this fuss was about.}

Out of curiosity, I went back to the Lex event conversation to see if it had anything else of the sort, and it doesn't. Their conversation (very roughly) played out as:

quote:

"Damn! I dropped my axe!!"
"Hey, you dropped this Devil Axe, so take it back!"
"No, I would never use such a dreadful thing..."
"Well, there's no argument here! You dropped that Devil Axe so it's yours... So long."
"!?... Wait a minute! Get back here..."
"Fuahahaha, somethingsomethingsomething."

Anyways, Brave Axe. Just like the Brave Sword, it's a bit weaker and heavier, but still a great weapon to use. Lex will get his own weapon a bit later, so this one will stay on Holyn to improve his offense a little bit.



Aira needs a new toy too, so she finishes the boss and steals his Thunder Sword. It's got identitical stats to all other magic swords, except it doesn't have any special effectiveness like the Wind one.



And now, to retreat the cavalry back down before Eldigan's Cross Knights start going for Agusty.



Adean casts demonic pentagrams on our two swordies back to the main castle for promotion.



And gets one more level from it... more Strength, wow.



Our other foot soldiers will remain in the north to meet the Orgahil pirates later on. The item and conversation in this village seem to have been changed and the latter includes the visitor answering something... there's a bunch of kanjis in there that I can's quite figure out, but we do get our own Meteor spell for it. It's not really fantastic, but having repairable long-range spells is always nifty.



Sigurd seizes Madino, and I really should have given myself one more turn to prepare.



Claud and Tailto stop to have a little chat with Sigurd before heading to the Blaggi Tower. Nothing really new there.



And now it's time for Deirdre to get abducted. Aira, Holyn? While you're in the base castle, maybe you could have escorted her?



Anybody reacting? No? Fine then, have it your way, game.



We end our turn: Chagall somehow ran undetected through our lines, while in full armor, and deploys all his troops. Some of his Armors were upgraded to Generals, but overall, they're nothing special.



Just a sneak peek of Chagall. Other than his boosted stats, remember his inventory: an undroppable Silver Blade and a Bolganone.



Now, we do have these two to promote before the end of this update. Let's start with the easy one: Holyn.



Holyn's default promotion choice is to become a Mercenary. He gets one more sword and axe rank, making him equally potent with both weapons, just like the Mercs in FE5. He gets some pretty well-spread boosts, a +5 crit bonus, as well as Pursuit and 1 more move.

And he still can't hold his sword properly.



His alternate choice mirrors Beowolf's and lets him grow a horse out of nowhere to become a Forrest Knight. He gains much less Strength, but much more Skill. He only gets a rank in swords which he already had maxed, but gets Adept and 3 more move.

I'll admit that the latter promotion choice is quite very tempting, considering the lack of Strength is no big deal when using a Brave Axe. Still, Beowolf needed it more, and I dislike having multiple units with the same map sprites running around if I can avoid it, so Mercenary it is.



As for Aira, her default promotion is still the incredibly overpowered Swordmaster class. The boost to Strength was reduced from +5 to +1, and the class has a lower Str cap, but Aira still gets great Skl/Spd boosts, +10 Crit, Pursuit, Continue, and 1 more move.



Her second choice is to become a Female Mercenary. She will gain very balanced boosts in every stat, an A rank in Axes, +5 Crit, the Pursuit skill, and 1 more move. If you dislike the Swormaster's reduced Strength and like seeing chicks flinging axes around, I guess it's an option.



The third promotion choice that Aira gets is rather odd. The map sprite is identical to that of Mercenaries, and the battle sprite is the same too, if not for the different palette. This class is a "Yuusha", aka a Hero. Their promotion gains are a sort of compromise between Mercenaries and Swordmasters, sacrificing one point of Str for one point in Skl and Spd. With their ability to use B ranked bows, they are a nod to Fire Emblem Gaiden, where Heroes used that kind of weapon. Or you could say they're Blade Lords, like Lyn. Just like Mercs, they get +5 Crit, Pursuit, and one more move.

I doubt there's any need for me to say that Swordmaster is the best choice here. A lack of Strength is of no consequence when you have high skill and speed, Astra and Continue. However, only Aira and Larcei have access to that promotion, and we'll need the daughter's brokenness pushed to its full extent in gen 2. So for this gen, Aira will become a Hero, even though I doubt I'll ever have a spare bow to give her.



Well, now that it's out of the way, out swordies join the main force, and I prepare for the clash with Eldigan's Cross Knights. Hopefully they won't be too hard...