Fire Emblem 4: Binary Part #26 - Ep 25: Give Them Hel!

Part 26: Ep 25: Give Them Hel!

Chapter 10: Light and Dark Part 1

We're back to play FE4 Binary. There was a sign "Evil Mages Ahead!" on the Miletos border, but who cares? We've got the Silence staff, nothing magical can hurt us... right?

And the Anti Shaman Police strikes again! No white magic specialists allowed in the last chapters of a gen, that's the rule.

Look at all those beautiful new weapons. Mostly items we chose not to get during gen 1 pairings, but they're all quite good. The King Sword gives Charisma and goes to Seliph to complement his Leadership stars; the Master Bow goes to Lester so he can kill magic users without counter-attacks; the Rescue staff I give to Lana for more teleportation shenanigans.

I gave the Master Sword to Ulster on my first playthrough, but since he has the Balmung now, I give it to Altenna to vary her weaponry a little.

: Arena Completed, Gained 3 levels, +4 HP, +1 Mgc, +3 Res

Ah, there's that Resistance.

: Arena Completed, Gained 5 levels, +9 HP, +2 Lck, +2 Res

: Arena Completed, Gained 4 levels, +5 HP, +2 Lck, +2 Res

: Arena Completed, Gained 3 levels, +3 HP, +2 Skl, +1 Res

: Arena Completed, Gained 4 levels, +6 HP, +2 Mgc, +3 Skl, +1 Spd

She's going to cap everything, isn't she?

: Arena Completed, Gained 4 levels, +4 HP, +4 Lck

Well, Oifey sure knows what he wants.

: Arena Completed, Gained 4 levels, +6 HP, +1 Str, +2 Mgc, +3 Lck, +3 Def, +1 Res

: Arena Completed, Gained 3 levels (capped), +5 HP, +2 Skl, +2 Lck

: Arena Completed, Gained 1 level (capped), +1 HP, +1 Skl

: Arena Completed, Gained 4 levels (capped), +4 HP, +2 Str, +2 Lck, +1 Def, +1 Res

: Arena Completed, Gained 3 levels, +3 HP, +2 Str, +2 Lck, +1 Def

: Arena Completed, Gained 3 levels, +3 HP, +3 Mgc, +1 Skl, +3 Lck

: Arena Completed, Gained 4 levels, +3 HP, +2 Str, +3 Mgc, +2 Lck

: Arena Completed, Gained 2 levels, +1 HP, +1 Skl, +1 Lck

Johan capped Skill and gained a point of Luck? This must be my lucky chapter.

: Arena Completed, Gained 3 levels (capped), +2 HP, +3 Lck, +2 Def

: Arena Completed, Gained 3 levels, +5 HP, +3 Mgc, +1 Lck

: Arena Completed, Gained 5 levels, +5 HP, +2 Mgc, +2 Skl, +2 Spd, +1 Lck, +2 Def, +3 Res

: Arena Completed, Gained 4 levels, +8 HP, +4 Lck

Episode 2: Return of the HP, Lck. With even more HP!

: Arena Completed, Gained 3 levels, +4 HP, +1 Mgc, +1 Lck, +2 Def

: Arena Completed, Gained 3 levels (capped), +3 HP, +1 Skl, +1 Lck, +1 Def, +1 Res

Not even Defense capped. If it wasn't for his high magic, he'd almost be disappointing.

: Arena Completed, Gained 1 level (capped), +1 HP, +1 Lck

: Arena Completed, Gained 6 levels, +5 HP, +3 Str, +5 Mgc, +2 Skl, +2 Spd, +5 Lck, +2 Def

: Arena Completed, Gained 1 level, +1 Str, +1 Spd, +1 Res

Goodness, that Baron EXP coefficient really isn't working out for Hannibal.

Almost all the enemies in the arena were different this time. A male Forrest turned into a female Hero, a Great Knight into an axe-wielding Forrest Knight... As well as a Paladin into an Iron Knight, a Bow Knight into a General, a Dark Mage into an Iron Mage...

We also get to see some more rare types with a Valkyrie instead of a boring Wind Mage, a well as a rather dangerous Dark Bishop with a Luna tome.

Good thing Sylvia finally capped her levels. Some of those fights were starting to get ridiculously lengthy.

And yes, there's a random Queen in the arena. Yes, she was already there in vanilla FE4. No, I have no idea what she's doing here.

Ced's still behind on levels, so he's going to wear the Paragon Ring this chapter. I also traded some staves around, so Ced has a Live, Corpul the Restore, and Hannibal has a Libro.

On to the very last promotions. First off, Altenna.

Her regular promotion is to become a Dragon Master. Her caps are actually slightly lower than her male counterparts, but she's still pretty beefy. She doesn't gain any new weapon ranks from it, but obtains Pursuit and +1 Mov.

Alternatively, she can become a Falcon Knight, gaining a rather interesting golden palette in the process. It's a pretty big boost to Speed, Magic and Resistance (plus 10!), but she loses out on Str/Def, gains no movement, no skills (she naturally has Adept), and the ability to heal.

Both choices are pretty okay. The speed difference is mitigated by Pursuit and the additionnal Str. Less defense is bad, but on the other hand, there's going to be a lot of mages from now on. I'll go for Dragon Master, since it seems to fit her abilities a little bit more.

And finally, Corpul. He sure has grown a lot in the space of half a chapter.

Corpul's default promotion is still to become a High Priest. He get some pretty decent gains, especially in magic, a C Anima, and a B Light to use Nosferatu. Unfortunately, this class offers no skills and no move, which is a bit stupid if you ask me.

His alternate promotion is to take a few tips from his adoptive father, don an armor, and become that Iron Mage class we keep seeing everywhere. Less Skl/Spd/Mgc/Res, but more Str and holy crap look at that Defense! Light and Amina ranks are switched around, same movement as High Priest, but he gets Great Shield as a neat bonus.

Since it's not sacrifying movement for once, I'll be going for Iron Mage. The palette is surprisingly boring, but there's something charming about having a healer in full plate armor. Not to mention, Great Shield + Prayer + Renewal is basically the ultimate survival skillset.

Chapter 10, where the magic spam begins! Also easily the most uplifting map in Gen 2. The initial part has rather simple, agressive fighting, but we do need to hurry and save the villages along the coast. There are also two villages threatened north, outside of this map, so I can't just take a break right before conquering Chronos and Rados as I usually do.

Right to the south of Peruluke, we have a bunch of Evil Merry Men. Yotsmungand dark mages on the front, Sleep dark bishops in the back, Fenrir dark mages in the middle. Berserkers and Snipers for the sake of it...

We also have two dark mages with a Skill Ring and Hel, which has slightly different mechanics than usual. It still reduces to 1 HP, but:

In FE4, Hel cannot kill, even if it hits at 1 HP.
In FE5, Hel can only kill if it hits at 1 HP.
In Binary, Hel instantly kills if it hits at 25 HP or less.

Better keep those units at full health!

That about sums up the rest of our opposition. Pirates with Killer Axes, and Ridale's jolly band of cavaliers. Nothing new here aside from the two troubadours who promoted to Paladins. As before, they're going to be heading towards Chronos to kill children because "eh, orders are orders."

And here's our little time bomb. These recolors are always near far-away villages when it comes to forcing the player to hurry up.

All right, let's start the party! No capped skill for Lester, but with a Skill Ring he's still quite the amazing Sniper.

Leif and Altenna have a talk, as well as Shanan and Seliph. Moving on to the killing.

Corpul and Hannibal fighting together works surprisingly well. The son goes in to tank the magic, and the father snatches the kill. It's the happy armor family.

That Master Sword is also quite fantastic for Altenna. No mages will be a threat to her on player phase.

After the initial strike, we bust out the siege tomes. None of the Hel mages even had the opportunity to fire a shot. I guess we'll have to wait to see what it looks like.

Similarly to Cuvuli all the way back in Ch4, Zagam and his troops are only there to slow you down in the forest, and sometimes even kill units. Like most mini-bosses, he's received a +2~4 in all stats, as well as +11 Def (if you count the new Shield Ring). Luna, Fortify, and Renewal as a skill: it's pretty obvious that his main goal is to simply keep his troops alive for aslong as possible and not much else.

Even with his good survivability, he'd probably have needed at least Prayer to survive the first turn.

I'd say that was a pretty good start, except for the fact I forgot to take care of the two Snipers, who might down Altenna rather easily. Fortunately, that doesn't happen thanks to the FE4 AI still being the most random thing in the world.

Really, they're way beyond help at this point.

Here's what happens to the only attack on their turn that doesn't miss.

Back to player phase... we get more unsurpising levels. Johan's HP is actually fairly low for a Berserker. Ced is at a lower level and yet has more HP than him.

The Iron mage animations are probably the laziest ones of all the new classes in the game. Casting a spell? Just use the dodge animation. Critting? Same.

And there goes the final dark mage. On to the pirates.

The Master Sword is of course the answer. Altenna is going to be wearing a pointy green hat before the end of the update at this rate.

The power of incest takes care of the second one.

While moving towards Chronos, Corpul gets to demonstrate the healing animation for Iron Mages. It looks like he's clenching his abs, then punching forward to do the healing.

A few turns later, we're in range to fight Hilda. Stats-wise, she only gained 1 Skl/Def and 10 Lck, but her unique Queen class has been improved. It grants +5 critical boost, and can now use Light and Dark magic, apparently. Herself, she's got the Hellfire tome, boosting her attack to a whopping 50, and a Luna Manual just in case she can get a chance to do even more damage. Skills-wise, like all good Freegian bosses, she's got Adept and Vantage on top of her class skills.

I assume she's the one dropping the Luna Manual if you didn't inherit it. Fitting, considering Lamia was the one to drop it in Gen 1, and they have very similar portraits.

I love how Teeny always gets to have her battle conversations from a mile or two away. Her damage is quickly undone, though. We'll need something bigger to take down the super lady mage.

Not as classy as Larcei's somersaults but it still works pretty well.

And then she warps away. Ridale's cavaliers are close, so we set up a little line of defense and wait for them.

Most go after Oifey and Finn but none gets defeated on enemy phase.

What.

That was weird... Ridale himself decided to stay really far from the rest of his trops, making it rather easy to wreck them without taking a scratch.

I'll take every opportunity I can get to make unfair comparisons about Shanan. Lana has turned into such a beautiful girl.

And then there's these two. Keep that Magic coming, Ced!

That leaves only Ridale and his lieutenant. Also, Chronos is now conquered, where nothing of value happens.

They really should have given that guy a sword of some sort.

On to Ridale, who's actually not too bad of a mini-boss.

+1~3 to every stats, but he's also traded his Brave Sword for a Master Sword and Master Lance. Surprisingly enough, his Luck was always this high in the vanilla game, where most mini-bosses had it in the single-digits.

He was also a pretty exceptional mini-boss for his high Leadership and having an exclusive skillset of Pursuit+Critical. Binary thought that just wasn't enough and added Nihil and Sol to it.

Sending a guy with 8 Luck against a guy with 32 base crit wasn't exactly my most brilliant move, but Johan could have survived one crit thanks to the Prayer Ring.

And down he goes. Ridale used to have a pink armor and a white horse, but it seems they wanted to go for something less flashy here.

I guess she'll need the resistance, considering what's coming next.

While everyone is heading for Rados, Hannibal is going to stay behind and be a nice bearded grampa for the kids.

This is probably the only way he has to overcome the massive Baron EXP reducer.

Moving on, Oifey engages in a duel of Killer Axes with an unnamed Pirate and easily crushes him for another village saved.

Most of our army will be staying near the gates to the northern portion of the map. Only the mounted Charisma duo, Leaf, Finn, Seliph and Larcei will be going to take Rados.

Meanwhile, the armor family just keeps leveling up. I just can't get over the 20 Def and Great Shield on the small healer kid.

Obviously, you can't have a Dark Bishop sitting on a castle without giving him Fenrir. He gets a lucky hit on Nanna, but since all the dark mages around him have Hel and can't hit for shit, it's no big deal.

Morigan, other than sounding like a certain DarkStalkers character, doesn't have much anything special. He's got the usual boss boosted stats, a pretty high Defense and Great Shield, but that's really it. He's just kinda there to look tough and then die miserably. Also his portrait has got a different shade of green for some reason.

Leif takes care of the village with his shiny Silver Sword...

... and the dark mages get thoroughly crushed in one turn. Devil Axe crits have that tendancy to be very painful.

Seliph is just a few points away from capping his level, so I get him into a round of fighting before Larcei comes if for the coup de grâce.

That wasn't really what I was expecting of him but I'll take it. In vanilla FE4, Hel reused the intro graphics from the beginning of the game. I guess that explains why Binary has the FE5 Hel graphics as its intro...