Part 15: Intermission: A Life Without Deirdre

Intermission: A Life Without Deirdre

First off, since I've used a rather unorthodox method to complete Chapter 5, here's what we missed:



Mage Knights Olwen and Olson in all their paletted glory.



As well as Amalda and Sage Reptor in all his... pants-ed glory.



If Aida does show up, she shows some pretty ridiculous stats. +7 levels, +8~10 in all stats, 7 Leadership stars, and enough skills to convince you that she's able to take on Reptor by herself.



Replacing her Prayer Sword is a semi-legendary tome: the Hellfire. No, really, that's its name. It's even got the same icon as an Elfire tome.

It's heavier than even Bolganone, but is more accurate and more powerful (Bolganone is 16, and Hellfire is 15 + 5 Mgc boost). Having a magic boosting weapon can be pretty handy with staves, but other than that, it's not as fancy as its Thunder/Wind equivalents.



If you try and go talk to her before Reptor is dead, she'll kindly tell Sigurd to turn around and go kill the monocle man for her.



And just to drive her point across, she'll try to fry him on the spot. How rude.

The visuals of Hellfire are the same as for Elfire. The sound is different, though, and resembles a sort of sped-up Elfire. It sounds a little weird, actually.



Fun fact: you can get Reptor to have a duel to the death with Aida if you manipulate him into standing in her Hellfire range. So that's two ways to get Aida killed. It's kind of an oversight in the AI for this chapter, and I do believe you can screw yourself over with it, even in the vanilla game.



The last thing for Chapter 5: Arvis's greeting committee is now composed of some of the highest classes around, when all we had in the vanilla game was a few Generals, Mage Knights, and then puny Fire Mages we could have easily plowed through.

Good thing about this hack: it has the courtesy of not downplaying the power of our army.



Now, for something a bit different. Remember what I mentioned back in Chapter 1 about Deirdre?

quote:

Deirdre's recruitment is also completely skippable, which leads to some pretty... interesting developments if you do so.

Well, that's exactly what I'm going to do: skip Deirdre's recruitment, and see how the game handles it. It's not like she's involved in a number of plot events, including Seliph's birth, or anything.



And since finishing gen 1 takes a lot of time, here's our new man for the task: Hyper Zigludo. He's found all 7 Chaos Emeralds, has infinite HP and can act several times before the enemy can move.



Do note that I'll make sure to trigger all story events, despite how I could just go and seize Verdane right away if I wanted to. For the sake of game SCIENCE , I want to make sure the only new parameter is Deirdre's lack of existence.



That's two castles down. On to the rest.



Surprisingly enough, Deirdre has a rather large trigger zone, and will appear even if Sigurd is on a tile he wasn't supposed to cross in the vanilla game.



So instead, I'll just cross farther to the west and seize.

There are a few other fun things I could have done in this chapter, though.



Like, sending Eliott crying back to mummy, just to see Eldigan's reaction.



Hi Eldigan.

Bye Eldigan.



It's also possible to recruit Deirdre before capturing Marpha, causing a clone Deirdre to run in the forest, right next to the real one.



But Hyper Zigludo cares about neither of the two, and begins Chapter 2 with an empty seat next to him.



And the game confirms that he is not in love with her either. All according to plan.



Interestingly enough, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to skip past this chapter, as there's a very redundant neutral zone around Agusty.



Fine by me.



I'll just do it the long way.



: Uhm... excuse me, Mister, but I think you've forgotten to recruit m-

: Sorry m'lady, I've got no time for this. Please stay away from here, it's dangerous.



No, seriously, what was that girl's deal?



And really, why is she a blue unit? I've never recruited her.



Uh oh... It only lasted for a frame, but that doesn't bode well for later.

That's all for gen 1, now let's see what Deirdre's momentary explosion caused in gen 2.



Well, so far, nothing out of the ordinary, it seems. Seliph is still there, probably born from a generic village girl, this time.



His stats are a bit all over the place (1 Luck but 16 Res, really?) and inheritance just didn't happen at all. I guess it did cause a problem.



And by "a problem", I meant "a lot of them". Damn. If not for his glitchiness, that skillset would probably make Seliph one of the best Lords in the series.



He even has hidden Skills, that little joker.



Aira went unpaired, so we have Radney and Roddlevan here... who apparently inherited the mighty Valflame and Mjölnir from their villager parents.



Well, at least Lana is normal. Let's restart the chapter, see if that fixes anything.



So far so...



... good? I guess Seliph had a sudden change or heart and joined the forces of evil.



He isn't affiliated to any castle, but at least he's got a weapon, now.



As well as freakin' Christmas lights for Holy Blood.



"Sleep effect". Well, nice to see Roddlevan brought his sleeping draught. Let's have him go and attack people with it!



Oh... oh dear, that is a very sad-looking menu. Maybe I should move someone else?



Too bad deselecting Roddlevan sent him flying off the map. Farewell, young adventurer!



Lana! You are the voice of reason in this twisted world. Do something!



Okay fine, don't do anything.



I have no idea what this thing is, and it has horrendous hit and range. But boy, did that thing kill a lot of people.



Let's just add a few more kills to that weapon, then!



The game itself appears to be Radney's very first victim. Restart!



This time, let's try and arm ourselves a bit better. Apparently, Roddlevan is able to enter the castle. Progress!



Sleeping potions are really expensive items, these days. Then again, 168 uses is enough to last half a year.



He grabs an Iron Sword and Blade and goes... uhm, somewhere. That sure is a very unique way to treat semi-transparent layers.



I have no idea if those are good chances or not, but let's give it a go. Time to defeat the Evil Lord!



When fighting Seliph, the game (in a last moment of ironic sanity) plays "From Enemy to Friend", the battle theme for recruitable characters. That is indeed, quite appropriate.



Lana also gets attacked but manages to hide behind a curtain of broken graphics.



Oh boy, here comes the cavalry. More weird things, please.



Tristan and Lester are surprisingly healthy, there.



Until you scroll down to their weapon ranks, that is.



Oh, you silly Oifey. You just had to go and forget your weapons again.



I'm trying to keep it serious and kill those enemies, but that poor game is fighting really hard against what I did to it.



I've also discovered that enemies can attack evil Seliph too. I didn't think it was even possible for red units to attack their own kind.



The two Seliphs I've shown are the most common ones I've gotten (simply resetting the chapter will generate a new one), but I think this rare one is my favorite. His Holy Blood wheel isn't quite as sparkly as the other ones, but he has an actually interesting skillset. With a good variety of colors, too



What else to do now but to finish off the poor error of nature that he is? He can't even move or attack us.



Well, even that doesn't work. No death quote means no trigger for a Game Over. I guess the new world will have to keep going without Seliph the Evil Lord.

That's the lesson for today, kids. Erasing important characters from the plot will cause the whole world to go to shit, and kids to go evil.

Next time, we start gen 2.



Crazy weapons. Crazy units. Crazy opponents. And probably a crazy hacker too. Welcome to madness, welcome to gen 2.